Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #14--Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6--"...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #14--Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6--"...:   An analysis of Chapter 6 of the 1912 novel "Tarzan of the Apes," in which the young Tarzan encounters a savage gorilla and... an...

Cover Cavalcade

Another wonderful Ace Double cover--this one from 1958.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Fort Laramie: "Old Enemy" 7/15/56

A trooper who has held a grudge against Captain Quince since the Civil War is assigned to the fort. He begins to subtly cause trouble among the enlisted men. The tense standoff between the two enemies at the climax is particularly well-done.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Old Enemies Teaming Up Against Nazis!

 

I hadn't seen Bedknobs and Broomsticks since it originally played in the theaters in 1971. I actually didn't remember a lot about it. It was mostly the finale that stuck in my mind--the images of magically animated suits of armor fighting Nazis. To my young mind, that was awesome.

Well, by golly, it's STILL awesome. In fact, as a grown-up, I realize it is awesome in many ways that hadn't originally occured to me as a child.

Angela decided one night recently that she wanted to watch it. So we rented it and did so. The plot is a lady learning to be a witch. She lives in a small town near the coast in England during World War II and has just been unwillingly saddled with three children who were evacuated from London during the Blitz. (There was a part of me that was hoping the Pevensie kids would have a cameo when the Bedknob kids are at the train station.)

The kids soon discover that Miss Price (Angela Lansbury) can do magic, though she's not very good at it. She's been taking a correspondence course on the subject.

But when she receives a letter telling her the course was cancelled before she receives the magic words for the final spell (a spell allowing her to bring inanimate objects to life), she uses a magical bedknob to travel (with the kids) to London to find Mr. Brown (David Tomlinson), who taught the course.

Tomlinson is a con artist and street merchant who had no idea the spells he was sending her actually work. But the book from which he was taking the spells is missing the last page. So they all end up trying to track down a source for the magic words--a quest which takes them to a land populated by talking animals. 

So far, it's all been great fun. The animated sequence involving a soccer game played by the animals involves some clever and funny slapstick action. An earlier musical number ("Portobello Road") works both as a lively number AND involves some subtle character development. The prissy Miss Price starts to liven up, while Mr. Brown (despite some shady aspects to his personality) turns out to have a healthy sense of both fun and community. That the two of them end up in love by the end of the film is predictable, but also surprisingly believable. 

But the really, really awesome part is the final act. A small force of German soldiers has landed in England from a U-Boat, intending to destroy British morale by showing they are vulnerable to a full-scale invasion any time. But by now, Miss Price has the words for that magic spell.

She also has access to a surprisingly large number of suits of armor and military uniforms in the local museum. 

The sequence is staged magnificently, with a seemingly endless line of animated armor--immune to bullets because no one is inside them--marching relentlessly towards the Germans and sending them running for the shore in panic. 

And, watching as an adult, I noticed something that got by me as a kid. Its something that isn't even overtly commented on in the movie, but it's there.

The armor and uniforms are from various periods in British history, including examples of those soldiers who would have once fought each other. Redcoats are fighting alongside Highlanders, while we see Roundheads marching towards the Nazies along side a Cavalier. 

They may have tried to kill each other during their time in history, but when the Germans set foot on British soil, all that is set aside. All that matters is kicking Nazi butt and scouring them from the English countryside!

It truly is awesome.

A Lamb Becomes a Wolf

cover art credited to Bob Kane

Head injuries in fiction are interesting things. In real life, getting knocked on the head will likely result in a concussion and is not something you shrug off easily after a few minutes. And, aside from possible short-term memory loss, you aren't likely to get amnesia or suddenly have another personality become dominant.

But in fiction, either you do shrug off a head injury OR you end up with some form of amnesia/personality change. 

For instance, a story in Batman #2 (summer 1940, written by Bill Finger and the art credited to Bob Kane) starts off by indroducing us to a mousy guy named Adam Lamb, who is custodian of a private museum and a lover of murder mysteries.

One night, Lamb takes a fall down a flight of stairs. He had been reading a book titled The Crime Master and, upon awakening, decides to become a crime master. He promptly murders some poor sap he randomly encounters on the street.

Changing his name from Lamb to Wolf, he spends his nights planning crimes and forming a rather large gang. Where a museum custodian, regardless of his personality change, finds criminals willing to join a gang is not explained. Heck, if I suddenly decided to form a criminal gang, I wouldn't have the slightest idea where to go to find recruits. I live a sheltered life,  I guess.

When Wolf wakes up in the mornings, he reverts into Lamb and has no memory of his other life.

Batman and Robin begin encountering the gang, but are initially unable to catch any of them. 

That brings us to one of the weaknesses of this otherwise very entertaining story. Batman doesn't have to do any actual detective work to eventually get a line on Wolf and his gang. By mere chance, he meets Lamb and that later notices a dent in Lamb's car that IDs that car as having been at the scene of one of the crimes. This story really is fun and, to be fair, it quite properly focuses on Lamb's shifting personality. But giving the Dark Knight some real detective work to do rather than eventually triumphing because of dumb luck would have made the tale that much stronger.

By following Lamb, Batman and Robin are able to find the gang at the docks. When Batman gets shot and falls into the water, we get a wonderful image of just how Medievel the Boy Wonder will go if he thinks you've killed his mentor.

And remember, this story was written before Alfred came into the picture, so Bruce has to later depend on a 12-year-old boy to perform surgery on him and remove the bullet--all while Bruce is conscious! 

Eventually, Batman realizes that Wolf is patterning his crimes after those in the Crime Master novel, which allows him to stop the madman from committing a murder in the nick of time. Badly hurt, Wolf reverts back to Lamb and, now remembering everything he did, confesses his crimes before dying. 

The finale hits just the right emotional notes, generating a real sense of tragedy when Lamb dies. 

So its a strong story, punctuated with several great action scenes and a genuinely tragic figure in Adam Lamb. Despite the script depending on an element of dumb luck in Batman's detective work, its one of my favorite Golden Age stories.

Next week, we'll return to Animal Comics #4 to find out what Little Dinky the kitten is up to. Of course, all cats are evil, so I'll probably be unable to review the story objectively, but I'll try.

 

Cover Cavalcade

A dynamic Gil Kane cover from 1973. How many superhero fights have taken place on suspension bridges? New York City could sell tickets and solve all its budget problems. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #13: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 5--"...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #13: Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 5--"...:   A discussion of the fifth chapter of the 1912 novel Tarzan of the Apes, in which the young Tarzan begins his life among his adopted family...

Friday's Favorite OTR

Great Gildersleeve: "Selling the Drugstore" 2/22/42

Gildy gives a lecture to Leroy about always telling the truth, but finds himself having a bit of trouble maintaining that same standard when it might cost him money.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The End of the Rull/Human War

 

Read/Watch 'em In Order #115

The last of the stories that A.E. Van Vogt later rewrote into the fix-up novel The War Against the Rull was one of three that was originally set in the Rull Universe and the second one that originally featured Professor Jamieson, who was made the protagonist of all the stories when they were changed for the novel.

"The Rull" was published in the May 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and begins with Jamieson surveying a planet that would make a strategically useful base for either the humans or the Rull. 

It turns out that Jamieson isn't the only one interested in the planet. A Rull ship shows up. Violent shenanigans ensue and both ships end up damaged. For several days, the Rull is stuck in his ship with a jammed hatch while he cuts an alternate exit. Jamieson is stuck in his ship for that time as well, recovering from an injured leg.

The opponents are both highly intelligent, though the Rull has a physical advantage in his ability to absorb damage, strength and keenness of his senses. So Jamieson realizes he's either going to outsmart the Rull or he (Jamieson) is going to die.

During the long Human-Rull War, both sides have learned a little about the other, though both individuals on both sides are conditioned to kill themselves if captured. All the same, the Rull have ways of playing on the human subconscious in deadly ways. Jamieson is aware of this, but it is still a difficult tactic for him to counter.

But the Rull aren't the only ones good at psychological warfare. Jamieson comes up with a plan involving Pavlovian conditioning that might not only allow him to survive, but also net a valuable prisoner. As it turns out, Jamieson realizes that he might concievably found a way to end the war.

Read in their original pulp versions, the Van Vogt stories I've been reading probably don't really qualify as Read 'em In Order entries, since only three of them were originally set in that universe. So it's possible I may soon be arrested and sent to "Bad Blogger" prison. But Van Vogt's stories are always worth reading. His prose is clear and straightforward, while his ideas are always clever and often (for the time they were written) innovative. A Van Vogt story will always leave you satisfied.

You can read "The Rull" online HERE. 

You know, I haven't done a movie series as part of the Read/Watch 'em In Order series for awhile. I have several DVDs of the Whistler movies, recorded off of Turner Classic Movies a few years ago. These are B-films from the 1940s based on the radio series. Though, like the radio show, the movies were an anthology series featuring different characters, I think it might be argued that they qualify as Read/Watch 'em In Order material. If not, then I'm just giving the Feds more evidence to get me on "Bad Blogger" charges. But sometimes, life must be lived dangerously. 

Project Pegasus--Part 4

cover art by George Perez

Though I thought the exposition-heavy Marvel Two-in-One #53 was a slow issue, #54 (August 1979) moves along at an exciting pace, giving us a great action and a strong story. Co-written by Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio, it is fun from start to finish.

The issue picks up right where the previous one left off, with Ben about to be ambushed by Deathlock. 

The unpleasantly-visaged cyborg came from the future, but had been brought back to our time by Ben in a previous Two-in-One issue. Sometime in the interim, though, he had been lobotomized, removing his human personality, and was now being used by as-yet unidentified bad guys to set up something called an "Nth Projector" in the lower levels of Project Pegasus.

But to do that, Deathlock has to get past Ben. Unfortunately for Ben, the cyborg carries a laser powerful enough to cut through even his rock-hard skin.

Losing blood, Ben weakens, though not before crushing Deathlock's laser gun and right hand. When Quasar and some security guards show up, Deathlock runs for it.

The story has a nice rhythm to it. The fight with Ben is followed by a breather in which Deathlock makes his way down to the lower levels of the Project, with Quasar in pursuit. There, we get another fight scene. The exposition we need is doled out without breaking the quick pace of the story, something the previous issue struggled with. 

Despite losing his laser, Deathlock is apparently still bristling with back-up weaponry, including gas capsules and yet another laser. Quasar, though, holds his own until Ben shows and and demonstrates you don't mess with the Thing even when he has one arm in a sling.

The art in this issue has John Byrne breakdowns, with Joe Sinnott doing the finished art and inking. The art is strong throughout, but I think Byrne and Sinnott really shine when showing us Deathlock's tragic finish, torn apart by laser blasts and with Quasar then pretty much forced to vaporize him to stop a self-destruct device. We've been reminded several times that Deathlock was once human, giving his gradual destruction a sincere emotional impact.

We get another break from the action with a brief and honestly funny interlude with Thundra, who is learning to be a professional wrestler and turning out to be really, really good at it. (Shouldn't a world in which superheroes exist have rules about using super-strength in atheletic competitions?) This is setting up events of an upcoming issue.

We also see that Bill Foster (aka Giant Man) is working at the Project, setting up Ben's co-star for the next issue.

And the issue end with Dr. Lightner, one of several supposedly-reformed evil scientists working at the Project, getting orders from the unknown bad guys to launch a back-up plan, since Deathlock didn't finish setting up the Nth Projector. So Lightner sets free a mindless, nuclear-powered monster called Nuklo. Gee whiz, Project Pegasus security really does stink!

We'll return to Project Pegasus soon. Next week, we'll look at one of Batman's early adventures, in which a lamb turns into a wolf. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #13--The Monster Men

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Episode #13--The Monster Men:   Tim, Jess and Scott discuss the 1913 novel The Monster Men, originally published as "Man Without a Soul."  Burroughs enters into...

Cover Cavalcade

A Gene Colan cover from 1950. Captain America's Weird Tales ran for two issues, replacing Captain America and retained the numbering. The first issue (#74) included Cap's last Golden Age story. This was the last issue, with Cap nowhere to be found other than having his name on the cover. It contained four horror stories. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "The Customers Like Murder" 3/23/43

This wonderful story, written by John Dickson Carr, starrs Roland Young as a grumpy mystery writer who, along with his long-suffering secretary--gets involved in a case involving kidnapping and the threat of brutal murder. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that the writer and his secretary didn't spin off into their own series.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Cellini Smith

Darn it! Here's another one. Yet another series of highly-regarded hardboiled P.I. stories from the Golden Age of Pulps that I haven't read and that haven't been properly anthologized!

The Cellini Smith stories were published from 1940 to 1945, mostly in Black Mask Magazine, with the series coming to an abrupt end when author Robert Reeves was killed during the war. 

They are reputed to be quite good, but they are a bit hard to find. The first Cellini Smith novel (which was originally serialized in Black Mask in 1940) did come back into print this year, but as an expensive trade paperback that's out of my price range. So, as of this writing, one must search through pulp magazines that have appeared online to find Smith's adventures. Not all of them are to be found that way. 

One of those that can be found is "Bail Bait," a novella that appeared in the January 1942 issue of Black Mask.

It's easy to see right away why the Smith stories are so well-regarded. The story starts off at a sprint, with a judge turning down a bribe to release a criminal, but then releasing him anyways because (as we soon learn) a man with a pistol is hiding under his bench, intending to shoot the judge if the criminal is not set free. 

The freed crook---a safe cracker named Jimmy Legg--is happy to be out of jail but has no idea how it happened. He calls Cellini Smith, intending to hire the P.I. to find out what's up. But Legg is murdered before Cellini can meet up with him.

In the best private eye tradition, Cellini's relationship with the homocide detective on the case is a tad adversarial. So, to keep from having Legg's murder pinned on him, Cellini has to find the real killer.

He soon finds a paying client, a beautiful woman with a connection to Legg. But she is paying him to find out why Legg was killed and has no desire to find out who the killer might be. 

Soon, Cellini learns that a number of people involved in the case have connections to the investment firm that Legg had been arrested for robbing. Also, Legg apparently stole something other than money from the firm, though Cellini has no idea at first what that might be.

The P.I. teams up with bookie and former safe cracker who has an interest in the case and the two of them soon find themselves dodging machine gun bullets. 

Cellini is persistant and smart. Soon, he begins to piece together what's going on.

It's a wonderful story, with a convoluted plot that is resolved satisfactorily, some fun action set pieces, and an engaging protagonist. I've found one other Cellini Smith story online-- a novel that was re-printed in Thrilling Mystery Novel Magazine in 1946. That one is apparently about a murdered hobo who has a treasure map. I intend to read it promptly and review it here, because it is impossible to read the sentence "murdered hobo who has a treasure map" and NOT read the story to which this refers. 

You can read "Bail Bait" HERE. 

Cave Girl--Story #4

Everyone falls in love with Cave Girl. It apparently can't be helped.

Over the course of the first three stories included in Cave Girl #11 (her debut issue despite the numbering), two men have fallen in love with the blonde Jungle Girl already. In fact, in this issue's final story (still written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Bob Powell), Luke and Alan haven't given up yet. They are attempting to cross the mountains that surround Cave Girl's home jungle, still determined to talk her into coming back to civilization and claiming her inheritence.

Both of them, though, have collapsed from the cold before we get past the first page of the story.

Cave Girl, in the meantime, has climbed these mountains as well as she helps a monkey mommy find her lost baby. But, predictably, she finds trouble instead. She is attacked by half-man, half-animal snowmen, who outnumber Cave Girl sufficiently to take her prisoner.

The snowmen find Luke and Alan unconscious in the snow and bring them along as well. In the most ill-timed conversation in the history of mankind, they explain that they want to take her back to the outside world while they are all being led to die horrible deaths at the hands of brutal animal-men. 

The leader of the snowmen is Gaa, who [drum roll, please] falls in love with Cave Girl. He orders Luke and Alan to fight to the death for her, with Luke winning and apparently killing Alan after a prolonged duel with spears. Gaa, though, rewards Luke by having him hung over a cliff to feed the buzzards.

As I've mentioned in earlier Cave Girl reviews, it doesn't take a literary genius to realize that Fox and Powell are having some fun with the genre, mixing in parody with the adventure. But Powell's engaging art and Fox's scripts work on both levels, as parody and adventure.  

Cave Girl--never a helpless Damsel in Distress--breaks free from Gaa , starts a fire to keep him away from her and makes a dangerous climb up a smoke-filled chimney. She rescues Luke with the help of Alan, who had faked his death earlier.

So Luke and Alan do okay in this story with their improvised plan to fake their death duel. But Cave Girl is still very much the Hero-in-Charge, improvising a tactic of her own that sends Gaa and a bunch of his fellow snowmen off a cliff. 

Still adament about staying in the jungle, she sends Alan and Luke home. Luke, at least, will pop back up as an occassional guest star in future stories, but Cave Girl has made her decision. She will always prefer the jungle over noisy, confusing civilization.

You can read this issue online HERE. 

That completes our look at the first issue of Cave Girl. We'll leave her be for the time being. If I keep reviewing her stories, then it is apparent that I will inevitably fall in love with her. I'm pretty sure my wife would get mad at me if that happens.

Next week, we'll return to Ben Grimm and Project Pegasus.

Cover Cavalcade

From 1938, with art by Creig Flessel. I'm not very familar with Flessel's work, but I do like this cover.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #12--Tarzan of the Apes--"The Apes"

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #12--Tarzan of the Apes--"The Apes":   We're up to Chapter 4 in our discussion of the 1912 novel "Tarzan of the Apes," in which we meet the apes of Kerchak and the...

Friday's Favorite OTR

Jeff Regan, Investigator: "Cain and Abel and the Santa Maria" 9/11/48

A case involving a stolen silver replica of Columbus' ship requires Regan to deal with a disfunctional family and--eventually--an attempted murder.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Sound

Read/Watch 'em In Order #114

The next-to-last story in A.E. Van Vogt's War Against the Rull, as it appeared in its original pulp magazine form, once again involved the shape-changing Yevd.

The Yevd were also the villains in the previous story we looked at and I refered to them as shape-changers at that time as well. But that's not really accurate. These aliens don't literally change shape, but control light so that they can appear to be human. Since they are at war with humanity, this ability gives them a major advantage in the spy & sabotage departments.

"The Sound," (published in the February 1950 issue of Astounding) involves a nine-year-old boy nicknamed Diddy, who (along with a number of other kids) is being raised on the Yards, where a gigantic spaceship is being constructed. This ship is so large and so complex that it is necessary to raise a generation of kids who are trained almost from birth to eventually become its crew.

It's time for Diddy to take a specific test. He and other kids about his age are left to wander about the Yards one night with the task of identifying the source of a rumbling sound that they have all heard all their lives. But Diddy is going to be stuck with a much more important and dangerous job that night.

He's asked by a couple of security men to help out with a methods of checking the anti-Yevd defenses that guard the innermost section of the Yards. Since Yevd are immune to electrical shocks and too tough-skinned for barbed wire to work, these defenses are biological in nature. 

Diddy has already tumbled to the fact that the security "men" are actually Yevd and are using him to give them access to the Yards' research facility. But his training has taught him to go along with Yevd if necessary and not give away that he's on to them. Soon, he realizes that other kids also gaining access to the research building are also Yevd, using him to get them in.

What's a nine-year-old to do? Diddy is smart and well-trained despite his youth, but he's in a situation where the military considers him expendable and where he seems to be the only real human around.

But the human security forces are there, using known Yevd weaknesses to communicate with the boy and eventually asking him to do more than a child should ever be expected to do to clean up the alien infiltration.

"The Sound" is a strong story, though the reveal about the source of that Sound is a bit anti-climatic. By switching the point-of-view between Diddy and his worried but helpless father, Van Vogt builds up a high degree of tension. 

As most of the other stories from the Rull cycle, Van Vogt re-wrote this when he compiled his fix-up novel The War of the Rull to fit it into that universe. The Yevd, though, are pretty interesting aliens in their own right and I've been enjoying these stories in their original form. 

You can read it online HERE.

Paper Balloons and The Efficacious Use of Pepper

Cover Artist Unknown

Uncle Wiggily Longears is an elderly rabbit who is partially lame from rheumatism, but is also quick-thinking and able to improvise himself and others out of danger when necessary. He was originally created in 1910 by Howard R. Garis, whose Uncle Wiggily books consist of short chapters--often ending on a cliffhanger--that were designed to be read to children at bedtime. Though how a kid could sleep when a chapter ends with Wiggly in danger is beyond me.

Dell's Animal Comics included more Uncle Wiggily adventures, which I believe are original rather than adaptations of the short stories (though please note that I could not find a reference confirming this one way or the other). These stories included a "by Howard R Garis" credit, but were usually written by the prolific Gaylord Du Bois. 

Animal Comics #4 (Aug-Sept. 1943) is a typically fun example of the good rabbit's comic book adventures, with Burlgar Fox attempting to ambush Wiggily's young niece and nephew (Susie and Sammie). Uncle Wiggily hustles the young one into their house, where they take refuge in the cellar. But this leaves Burglar Fox free to steal the kids' piggy banks!

The art, by the way, it tentatively credited to H.R. McBride. This art is a perfect fit for the story, bringing the silly characters to life and moving the story along at a rapid pace.

And events do indeed move quickly. Wiggily will NOT allow the vile theft to stand, so he gathers up a net and fills his valice with a roll of paper, he and the kids begin their pursuit of the Fox.  The kids, by the way, had been making paper chains when the story opened--thus explaining why a roll of paper happened to be lying around. Whether Wiggily already had an idea of what he was going to use it for or whether he grabbed it just in case it would be useful is not explained. And this really doesn't matter. In either case, Wiggily comes out looking pretty cool. 

 

The pursuit takes them to a cavern, where Wiggily uses some of the paper to make a paper lantern to light their way. Take a look at the detail in the panel below, most notably the shadows behind the rabbit. I love the attention to detail shown here by the artist. 

When Burglar Fox gets away on a boat, Wiggily's next step is to use the remaining paper and the candles they had brought to make a hot air balloon. Wiggily has the forethought to fill his valice with sand to act as ballast.

They catch up with Burglar Fox near the carnivore's home and snag him in the net (though Wiggily momentarily catches the kids in the net as well). This allows them to recover the piggy bank, but before they can start back home, two more villains arrive.

The wonderful character designs you see in the panel below are not creations of this issue's artist. They also appeared in the original short stories. But that doesn't make them any less of a visual delight.  Pipsisewah (the rhino) and Skeezicks (the crow) show up with young Jimmy Wibblewobble in tow, intending to cook him in Burglar Fox's pot.

Uncle Wiggily uses some pepper to give the villains sneezing fits, then he, Sammie, Susie and Jimmy make a break for it, using Burglar Fox's boat for their getaway. The villains attempt to follow in the balloon, but without the forethought to bring ballast with them (as Wiggily wisely did earlier). The bad guys end up floating helplessly to the roof of the cavern. Wiggily and the kids make their escape and stop for ice cream.

The original short stories are cute, but I think you can argue that it was at Dell Comics, with Du Bois' strong and witty scripts, along with magnificent art, that really brought Uncle Wiggily to life. 

In fact, Animal Comics was consistently full of delightful stories. Since our look at Cave Girl is coming to an end soon, I think we'll continue on through Animal Comics #4 and see what else that issue had to offer. 

It's available online HERE. 

Next week, we finish our journey through the first issue of Cave Girl.