Cover Cavalcade

 

OCTOBER IS LONE RANGER MONTH!

An awesome paperback cover from 1976, reprinting a novel first published in 1936. I couldn't find an artist credit.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 OCTOBER IS LONE RANGER MONTH!

The Lone Ranger: "Medicine and Ballots" 8/9/43

The Ranger uses a criminal's hypochondria to keep him from rigging an election.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Frankenstein Against the Phantom Planet

 

In response to my post from a couple of weeks ago reviewing a Frankenstein-inspired story by Clark Ashton Smith, someone recommended a couple of other stories inspired by Frankenstein. 

One of them was published in 2016--normally far too recent to be considered for mention on my blog. But this delightful story is both a tribute to the Creature Feature TV hosts of from my childhood; an effective horror story in its own right; a reminder that horror, fantasy and SF tales can teach us things about real life; and a reminder of just how COOL it was to watch an old monster movie on TV for the first time when you were a kid. "Frankenstein Against the Phantom Planet," by Orrin Grey, does all that. It's a modern story, but its a callback to an aspect of popular culture I celebrate on this blog.

The point-of-view character is an unnamed kid sitting down on a Saturday afternoon to watch whatever movie will be featured on his local Creature Feature. That he's unnamed is important. He's all of use--every nerdy kid who ever watched the local host introduce Frankenstein, King Kong or Godzilla as we watched it for the first time.

His local host is Baron Von Werewolf, who explains that today's movie was thought to be lost for years. It was made by a nearly forgotten stop motion animator in Mexico and disappeared soon after it was shown in just a few theaters. But Baron Von Werewolf has gotten hold of a copy. In fact, he's made a deal to be able to show it this afternoon.

What follows is a description of the movie Frankenstein Against the Phantom Planet. It's a movie that doesn't exist outside the pages of this short story, but--by golly--I wish it did. An indestructable and gigantic Frankenstein's monster is shot into space as the only way to protect Earth. He crashes on the Phantom Planet. He's lured into a pit by the alien overlords of that planet. He fights creepy subterranean monsters. He frees mushroom people who are enslaved by the overlords. He leads them in a rebellion, fighting a giant robot along the way. It's magnificent. I WANT THIS MOVIE TO EXIST!

The kid's TV watching ends when Baron Von Werewolf has to pay the price of obtaining this movie a little sooner than he thought. "Not in front of the kids!"

My plot summary doesn't really do justice to just how effective a tribute this story is to monster movies and monster movie hosts. If you have an Internet Archive account, you can read it for yourself HERE. 

A Horse to Rival Silver?

 

cover art by Ogden Whitney

This is Lone Ranger month and the Ranger, of course, wouldn't be the Ranger without his horse Silver. But many Western heroes had cool horses. The cover story for Two-Gun Kid #87 (May 1967) highlights just how cool HIS horse could be.

"The Sidewinders and the Stallion," written by Ron Whyte and drawn by Ogden Whitney, starts with a full page panel that effectively introduces us to Luke Wilson, a ruthless rustler who just killed a man to steal his cattle.

Matt Hawk is riding to visit the rancher and spots the outlaws. He charges forward, but Luke is a talented gunslinger as well as a rustler. Matt falls wounded. The outlaws capture his horse Thunder and ride off.

Despite his wounds, Matt (now in his Two-Gun Kid identity) trails them. He'd had the foresight of giving Thunder horseshoes with a distinctive pattern cut into them, making Thunder's prints easier to find.

The story is well-constructed, reminding us a couple of times (without ramming the information down our throats too overtly) that Two-Gun is in pain and not up to his usual strength. But, as he catches up with the outlaws, he limits his rest periods and pushes on.

He finds the outlaws forted up in a cannon, with Luke unsuccessfully trying to break Thunder. But Thunder only listens to one human. Two-Gun signals him with a sound that SOUNDS like a bird call. While the horse then stampedes the outlaws' own mounts, Two-Gun sets off some cartridges like firecrackers to give the impression he has help. He open fires on the bad guys, blasting pistols out of their hands.

Luke, though, manages to catch one of the stampeding horses and attempts a getaway. Two-Gun, mounted on Thunder, pursues. The two men end up in a fist fight, but Two-Gun's weakened condition allows Luke to get the drop on him. But Luke has forgotten about Thunder. And you don't want to be on Thunder's bad side.

The story is fun--a mostly by-the-numbers Western with a clever use of Thunder as an ally to Two-Gun rather than simply his mount. There is one break in story logic. Two-Gun shoots the pistols out of the other outlaws' hands before pursuing Luke. At the story's end, these outlaws are tied up along with Luke. After being disarmed, did they just wait quietly while Two-Gun fought Luke? Not one of them picked up his pistol again?

Oh, well. I still like it. In the final analysis, Silver is the coolest horse ever. But Thunder, along with Topper, Trigger, and Champion, were also pretty cool. 

Next week, we return to the Lonely War of Willy Schultz.

Cover Cavalcade

 OCTOBER IS LONE RANGER MONTH!

From 1958: A pretty cool photo cover featuring Clayton Moore.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 OCTOBER IS LONE RANGER MONTH!

Lone Ranger: "Blind Leader" 3/14/41

The commander of an army fort has an Indian uprising on his hands. His job is made more difficult by the fact that a battlefield wound left him blind. But with the help of the Ranger, Tonto and most especially Silver, he still might be able to lead his troops to victory.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Battle Ensign

 

A couple of years ago, I wrote about a novel set in the Second World War, recounting the adventures of a PT boat. It was written by Australian author and navy vet J.E. Macdonnell, who wrote something like a gazillion books about his country's navy during the war. As far as I know, the PT boat book and two others from that specific series were the only ones republished in the U.S. Perhaps Macdonnell deliberately featured an American protagonist to break into the U.S. market. 

His other books are hard to find in the States. Or at least they were. They are beginning to appear as ebooks. I recently read the first two--Stand by to Ram and Target Unidentified (both published in 1957)--and loved them. So I moved on to the third book--Battle Ensign.

The first two featured Commander Bruce Sainsbury as the protagonist. Sainsbury is the commander of the Australian destroyer Scimitar and he soon proves himself to be really, really good at his job. This job entails, at one point, ramming a much larger Japanese ship that was about to blow the Scimitar out of the water. 

Battle Ensign (1958) introduces a new protagonist, gunnery officer Peter Bentley. Newly arrived aboard the Scimitar, he soon clashes with the ship's new executive officer, but he soon realizes that Sainsbury is a highly skilled commander.

The Scimitar is assigned to an American fleet. On the way to join them, they are attacked by what they identify as a land-based Japanese bomber. But the Americans dismiss this. It must have been a carrier-based plane. After all, the only nearby islands are said to be deserted.

Well, a massive air attack by the Japanese sinks a couple of capital ships, so the American admiral changes his mind. The Scimitar volunteers to put search the islands, find the airfield and call in help to destroy it.

But Bentley, who will be accompaning the landing party, suggests that they might bring some TNT with them and perhaps do a little sabotage on their own if they find the airfield.  Bentley picks men he knows he can trust, but then the ship's exec--someone whose courage and competency Bentley has reason to doubt--is put in command of the mission. 

The chapter detailing the air attack on the American fleet is fantastic, but Scimitar's subsequent trip through a typhoon is even more intense. And then the mission on the island to locate and sabotage the airfield is even MORE intense that that. Aside from the great action, themes of courage, loyalty and redemption add to the strong emotions that run through the book's climax. 

Peter Bentley would continue on as protagonist of his own series, eventually getting command of his own destroyer. I'm looking forward to reading that series.

Hulk vs. Conan--well, sort of

 

cover art by Rich Buckler

The Incredible Hulk #200 ended with the Hulk, already shrunk down in size and inside the brain of Glenn Talbot (it makes sense in context) is shrunk further to prevent him from growing back to normal size while still inside Talbot's brain. (It really does make sense in context. Read my review.)

 Writer Len Wein and artists Sal Buscema and Joe Staton continue Hulk's microscopic odyssey in Hulk #201 (July 1976). He appears in a microscopic sword-and-sorcery world, where he's mistaken by a ragtag band of rebels to be the help they were trying to summon up to overthrow a despotic ruler.

Wein is having fun with another Marvel-owned character. A wizard briefs Hulk about the despot, who is called Kronak the Barbarian. His appearance and elements of his background mirror Conan. Essentially, he's an evil version of Robert E. Howard's character.

Like Conan, Kronak slew a king and took the throne, but he proves to be a despot. He also has possesson of a magic ruby. 

At first, Hulk isn't interested in helping. But when a little girl despairingly says that Kronak is too strong to ever be defeated, Hulk takes this as a personal affront. Seconds later, he's storming the castle.

Not surprisingly, he begins to curb-stomp the guards. But Kronak's personal wizard hits Hulk with a gas bomb, knocking him out and causing him to revert to Bruce Banner.

Kronak decides to have fun fighting the wimpy-looking Banner in the arena. This doesn't end well for him, as this causes Banner to change back into Hulk. Kronak's reaction to this in the above panels is wonderful to see.

Hulk swats Kronak aside, so the despot uses his magic ruby to call up a monster. The monster is a bit more challenging as an opponent, but when they grapple, Hulk gets angry. Which means he gets stronger. Which means the monster goes down.

Kronak's over-confident attempt to then personally punch out Hulk is yet another wonderfully realized moment. The story does a good job of quickly establishing Kronak as a bully, so it is fun and satisfying to watch him get his comeuppance.

By now, the rebels have also stormed the castle. They finish off Kronak and the guards, but then Hulk begins to shrink again, disappearing from this world to visit a yet-smaller microscopic world. 

And that will be one he's visited before.

This issue is great fun. The art is fantastic and Evil Conan is a great villain. This was published less than ten years after the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" first aired and is well before the Internet, so I suppose that the meme about evil versions of good characters having goatees probably wasn't out there yet. But it would have been kind of fun if Kronak had been sporting a goatee.

We'll rejoin the Hulk in three weeks. Next week, we'll head back to the Wild West for a visit with Two-Gun Kid.

Cover Cavalcade

 OCTOBER IS LONE RANGER MONTH!

Another 1937 cover by H.J. Ward

Friday's Favorite OTR

 OCTOBER IS LONE RANGER MONTH!

Lone Ranger: "Missouri Queen" 6/7/43

Outlaws plan to rob an army payroll being transported by a riverboat. The outlaw leader, though, is multi-tasking: he's also taken on the job of killing a woman passenger.

Click HERE to listen or download.