Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #65: Journey to the Center of the Ear...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #65: Journey to the Center of the Ear...:   We conclude our examination of Jules Verne's 1864 novel. Click HERE for the audio version. email us at edgarsmailbag@gmail.com Please...

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Rocky Jordan: "Desert Betrayal" 5/29/49

Rocky finds a man stabbed and dying. Soon, he's knocked out, framed for murder, taken on a ride out into the desert and involved in gun smuggling and political coups.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Bretwalda, Part 5

 

cover art by Marshall Frantz

Read/Watch 'em In Order #138

Well, gee whiz, in the last Bretwalda story, the titular axe finally made it back to England--the nation it was destined to save--for the first time since the first story. But in "Delay at Antioch" (Argosy, June 10, 1939), we jump ahead three decades to 1098 AD and discover the current member of the Wilton family has schelped Bretwalda down to the Holy Land while participating in the First Crusade.

As the story opens, the Crusader army is camped outside Antioch, which needs to be captured to open the road to Jerusalem. This is the main problem, but Philip Ketchum continues to demonstrate his enormous skill as a storyteller by mixing in a number of other problems for Wilton, effectively introducing several plot elements very quickly and making all seem like natural extentions of the same tale.

Wilton makes an enemy of another Christian knight who is acting somewhat less than Christian. He falls in love with a Muslim girl--which might be the ultimate example of bad timing. And finally, he is tasked with sneaking into Antioch to arrange for a gate to be opened so the Crusaders can finally take the city.

I continue to be impressed with how good Ketchum is at so quickly giving his characters three-dimensional personalities and introducing potentially complex plot points, tactical situations and character motivations. For a short novella, there is a lot going on. But we are never in danger of losing track of the story, which progresses in a logical--if often unexpected--manner. 

Antioch is taken, but the Crusaders find the food supply low as they are besieged in turn by a large Muslim army. Wilton is recovering from a wound while being cared for by Shajar, the Muslim gal he's fallen for. But that knight Wilton has made an enemy of wants Shajar for himself.  And then there is that huge and apparently unbeatable Muslim army that needs to be dealt with. Desperate times, Wilton realizes, might just require desperate measures.

Whomever wields Bretwalda is destined to suffer a defeat and win a victory. For Wilton, his defeat will be heartrending and his victory will be unlikely.

"Delay at Antioch" is another winner in the Bretwalda saga. Great characters, a soundly-constructed plot and several epic battle scenes combine to give us yet another extraordinary story. You can find it online HERE. 

Has-Been Superman!

 

cover art by Neal Adams

The first page of World's Finest #178 (September 1968) features Batman speaking directly to the audience, telling us that the stroy we are about to read is "imaginary."

Of course, aren't they all? But that's the term used by DC Comics during the Silver and Bronze Ages to tell us this story does not take place within DC's regular continuity. Later, DC would adopt the term Elseworlds for such stories, while Marvel would call them What If?

It's a good way for Cary Bates (script) and Curt Swan (pencils) to begin the tale. It involves Superman losing his powers and, because the story is imaginary, we don't automatically expect him to regain those powers. When we are told the loss is permanent, we have no reason to disbelieve this.

The story starts in space. Several powerful bomb tests have opened up a portal to another dimension. After several space probes are lost while attempting to explore the portal, Superman is asked to investigate.

He pilots a spacecraft into the portal and discovers a giant cave floating in interdimensional space. Inside the cave, he finds the probes stuck in a white goop. After Superman is himself sprayed with the goop, he feels himself weakening and only just manages to fly back to Earth before losing consciousness.

Superman learns the power loss is permanent. He doesn't take this news well, freaking out for a minute or two before Batman shows up to calm him down. Batman does this by punching Supes in the jaw. 

Clark does calm down and try to deal with his new situation, but when he's unable to help Bruce take out a mugger, he doesn't feel good about it. But later, while watching Green Arrow and Speedy give an archery demonstration, he realizes there's a way to continue to fight crime despite having no powers. All he needs is a gimmick, like G.A.'s trick arrows. 

 His gimmick turns out to be a cape made of fabric that allows him to glide on wind currents--something given to him as a gift by Leonardo Da Vinci when Superman once time traveled back to the 15th Century. Despite a run-in with Batman, who takes him fairly easily in the inevitable fight, Clark feels he can still fight crime. All he needs is a little practice.

But when he does get in a fight with crooks, he's soon in trouble. He's so used to having super powers that his timing is off and he keeps instinctively pulling his punches. He's knocked out and captured, then taken to a crime boss named Mr. Socrates. This guy has a "master plan," but needs to get Batman out of the way before carrying out that plan. So perhaps he can use the Hero Formally Known as Superman to kill the Dark Knight.

The story ends on this cliffhanger. I like "Has-Been Superman" a lot. First, Swan's art is typically excellent. That interdimensional cave was pretty awesome. The design of "Nova"--Superman's new identity--is good. Also, Swan has some fun with unusual panel designs this time out.

And the script is strong. It does have Superman acting a little too impulsively. I think Kal-el would realize he needed time and training to adopt to a gimmick-hero with no inherent powers. But it's also fair to say that being suddenly deprived of his powers--and his usual means of helping people--might very well drive him to acting on impulse rather than with his usual wisdom. It's made perfectly clear from the start that Superman might be biting off more than he can chew, perhaps most notably through a line of dialogue from Robin, who says how difficult it was for him to get the hang of despite being a circus acrobat.

The detail of his cape being a gift from Leonardo is a minor detail and isn't really essential to the story, but it's an awesome idea that adds to the overall atmosphere.

And, finally, as I noted above, making this an imaginary story was the right decision. Will Superman adapt to his new life? Will he sacrifice himself to save Batman? Because we don't need to worry about continuity, we simply don't know.

The next issue would be an 80-page giant with all reprints, so we'll look at the rest of this tale with a review of World's Finest #180 next week.

Cover Cavalcade

 

April is Frank R. Paul month! This is the first appearance of the original Human Torch from 1939. 

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Weird Circle: "The Knightsbridge Mystery" 10/17/43

A man commits a murder and frames a mentally-handicapped servant for the crime. But the situation soon takes a bizarre twist.

Click HERE to listen or download. 

The Last Escape (1970)

 

Last week, I posted about acquiring and reading the paperback novelization of a movie I watched on TV when I was maybe 11 or 12 years old. In the course of tracking down the paperback, I found the movie on YouTube.

Usually, when revisiting books or movies I haven't seen since I was an angelic little one, I discover I had excellent taste. Whether it be a movie such as The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh or a Young Adult novel set during World War II, I had impeccible taste.

Well, The Last Escape (1970) is yet another discovery from my youth. The novelization I reviewed last week is close enough to the film so that it can largely cover the plot of the movie, though I will say that the book added a much more satisfying death for the S.S. officer who had been pursuing the escaping good guys.

I did enjoy watching The Last Escape again. It's got a good plot and Stuart Whitman is appropriately tough as lead protagonist--a professional soldier who is trying to get a difficult job done. The two scenes that I vividly remembered--having a particular emotional impact on 12-year-old me--were still pretty cool. These were the agent who yelled "Trap!" even though he knew he'd be killed by doing so and the Russian tank commander who gives up trying to stop the escaping scientist rather than fire on women and children. 

But as an adult, I was conscious of the movie's failings, most of which are brought about by the obviously low budget. The use of stock footage is a little too obvious and it stands out that both Allied agents and German soldiers invaribly used MP40 submachine guns (what the Allies inaccurately called a Schmeisser). I suspect that there were a relatively small number of prop guns available and that these were shared between extras depending on who what being filmed at any given moment. Several of the action scenes have a more epic feel in the novelization, because budget restrictions don't exist in prose fiction. 

But all the same, I enjoyed seeing The Last Escape again. It might not have turned out to be as awesome as some of the other stuff I've rediscovered as an adult, but it was worth watching one more time. 

I Wanna Go to Skyland!

 

I wanna go to Skyland! Of course, the place looks like it would be more absurdly dangerous than Jurassic Park and Westworld combined, but I wanna go anyways. It just looks so cool.

Skyland is a theme park that hovers over Gotham City on a platform that is actually a giant blimp. It has areas in it that simulate the conditions on other planets in our Solar System. Workers dress up as aliens native to those planets. There's a museum of space weapons that apparently all ACTUALLY WORK! And robot doubles of various monsters that come from those planets that can apparently be easily programmed to GO ON DEADLY RAMPAGES! You can also ride on "rocket horses" and rent flying belts. 

Who wouldn't want to go there? Bring your kids!

The story isn't clear on whether the various aliens/monsters are completely made up or if they accurately represent the denizens of Venus, Saturn, etc. Since this story is set in a Comic Book Universe during the Silver Age, we can probably assume they are indeed accurate.

Anyway, the story is "Murder in Skyland," written by Bill Finger and drawn by Sheldon Moldoff. Appearing in Detective Comics #303 (May 1962), it is a story dripping with wonderful Silver Age fun.

The owner of Skyland (whose name was Dodd) is murdered when someone tampers with his spacesuit while he's inspected the Pluto area of the park. Because the sub-zero conditions on Pluto are replicated exactly, he freezes to death when his suit fails. 

Batman and Robin are called in to investigate and soon discover that several of Dodd's business partners have motives. Batman also finds out that Dodd was investigating a series of accidents in the park and had hidden a film reel somewhere proving that these "accidents" are really sabotage.

Finding the film leads to an encounter with a bad guy on a Rocket Horse and those rampaging robot monsters I mentioned earlier. But the Dynamic Duo dodge the monsters and capture the bad guy, who proves to be a mob thug who had been trying to convince Dodd to pay protection.

But the thug can't be the murderer, since he's known to be color blind so wouldn't have been able to tamper with Dodd's color-coded suit. The killer is still loose and the Dynamic Duo is soon dodging a Martian Lightning Tank.

Batman tricks the killer into giving himself away, which leads to the killer--disguised in one of the alien costumes worn by the park workers--stealing Batman's Whirly-Bat, but getting caught when the heroes don flying belts and run him down. 

It's a fun story, with a mystery plot that more or less makes sense moving in tandem with the Skyland Park silliness. And, by golly, Skyland Park is cool. I feel about it much the way I do about Jurassic Park. I don't care if I might die. I really, really want to go there!

Next week--well, when I bought this issue of Detective Comics off my Comixology wish list, I first accidently clicked on an issue of World's Finest that was also on the wish list. So we'll stay in DC's Silver Age Universe for one more week as Batman shares another adventure with the Man of Steel. 

Paperback Fantastic

 

Paperback Fantastic Volume 1 includes a quartet of reviews written by me. You can order a copy HERE.

Cover Cavalcade

 

April is Frank R. Paul month! This issue is from 1939.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Sherlock Holmes: "The Ancient Queen" 11/14/48

An archeologist returns to London from Egypt with a newly discovered mummy. But this makes him the target of a fanatical cult. So he enlists the help of Sherlock Holmes. 

Click HERE to listen or download. 

Well, Obviously I HAD to Buy It!

 

Occasionally, Angela will make fun of my tendency to buy used paperbacks even though I have a shelf-full of them I haven't read yet. What she doesn't get is that there is sometimes no choice. There is literally no free will involved.

Old paperbacks sometimes sneak up on you unexpectedly. 

See if this doesn't make sense:

I was reading a history book about an armored division fighting near the end of WWII. That made me think of a movie I'd seen on TV years ago also set at the end of the war, in which Allied commanders rescue some rocket scientists from the Nazis and have to dodge both German and Russian soldiers while getting to safety.

I couldn't remember the title and spend 20 minutes googling different things, throwing off my search results because I mistakenly remembered Rod Taylor in the lead role rather than Stuart Whitman.

I finally find the Wikipedia entry for the movie, which tells me there was a novelization written by Michael Avallone, under the pen name Max Walker. Well, Avallone was a great writer who was often contracted to do novelizations or TV tie-in novels.

Naturally, I HAD to immediately track down and buy a used copy of this on Amazon. I think we can all agree that there was no choice in the matter. Why Angela doesn't understand this is beyond me.

Paperbacks. They get you no matter where you are and what you are doing. They're insidious. There is no escaping them.

Anyway, how was the book?

"The Last Escape" is, as I said, set near the end of World War 2. It involves an American O.S.S. agent and some British commandoes rescuing German rocket scientists from an S.S. facility, dodging both pursuing Germans and a determined Russian tank commander as they make their way to American lines. It's a neat premise and the story itself is well-executed, with some exciting (if not terribly realistic) action sequences peppered throughhout the tale. The commandos end up having to take the family of the scientists along with them, forcing them to use extra vehicles and raising the concerns of whether they have enough gasoline to take them to safety.

They also have to worry about a possible traitor in their midst, which adds to the tension.

There's a couple of scenes with appreciable emotional impact. One comes when an Allied agent gives his life by yelling "TRAP!" even though he knows he'll be killed. Another is the reaction of the Russian tank commander when he apparently has the escaping scientist trapped and makes a spur-of-the-moment decision based on simply humanity rather than military necessity.

The action scenes include: snatching the scientists from the Nazi base during an air raid; fighting their way out of an ambush when they try to contact Allied agents who turn out to have been captured; raiding a German supply cache for the gas they need; and the final chase to American lines, pursued by both the main bad guy (a cruel S.S. officer) and the Russians. All the action has a sort of "Rat Patrol" feel to them--fun and exciting without being plausible--but they are effective scenes within the context of the story being told. "The Last Escape" is meant to be a fun adventure story, filled with action and basic but sound characterizations. Neither the movie (which I found on YouTube) nor the book are classics. But both accomplish their goal in being entertaining.

There are two or three places in the book that had a "this is a first draft" feel to them with slightly awkward sentence construction. I suspect that Avallone wrote it under a short deadline. But overall, the book tells the story well and those few moments of awkardness aren't enough to spoil the experience. 

[I've learned that this was indeed a rush job. I've been told by author Stephen Mertz: 

Michael Avallone was an early mentor & a dear friend. I recall him once telling me that this was indeed a rush job; the contracted writer proved unable to deliver so Popular Library called in MA who in those days was known as "The Fastest Typewriter in the East."

Since the movie is indeed on YouTube, I guess I'm now obligated to review it in next week's post. 

Zorro's Secret Passage

 

The second and final story in Four Color #882 (February 1958) is--not surprisingly--an adaptation of the second episode of Disney's Zorro.

I mentioned last week that an Indexer Note on the Grand Comics Database said that, in addition to the art, Alex Toth did some unauthorized editing to the first story. There's no such note for this particular story, but I wonder if Toth had the same concerns about pacing and too much dialogue.

Because the first 4 pages of this 14 page story (29% of the entire tale) is given over to exposition, with Diego showing  Bernardo a hidden tunnel from his dad's house that leads to a huge cavern with a concealed second exit leading to the countryside. It's all necessary to setting up future stories and is enlivened by Toth's superb art. But it does slow the pacing down considerably.

The tale finally does get started. Captain Monastario stops by with a copy of Zorro's costume and a plan to have various vasqueros try it on. He's convinced he can identify Zorro by his bearing and his sword fighting style. Diego tries to convince him this plan is flawed, pointing out that he (Diego) would look like Zorro with the costume on. He then throws a sword fight with Monastario to prove he can't be Zorro. 

Monastario soon arrests some poor slob who fits into the costume and can't provide an alibi for Zorro's last appearance. This is because he won't admit he was with a girl and wants to protect her honor.

This obligates the real Zorro to make a standard nick-of-time appearance, show off enough brilliant swordsmanship to prove he is indeed the real thing, then use the the old "jump a crevasse with the only horse cool enough to do so" to escape pursuers. He ducks back home through the secret entrance and is ready to greet the soldiers as Diego, telling them he hasn't seen hide nor hair of that dastardly Zorro.

It's a good story and, as I already said, Toth's art is superb. There is an issue with pacing over the first few pages, but the story is short enough--and Toth's art fantastic enough--to get us past that and into the meat of the plot without us getting bored. Overall, Four Color #882 is a great adaptation of the TV series and a strong introduction to the character. 

Next week, Batman and Robin investigate a murder and fight robot monsters. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

April is Frank R. Paul month! This one is from 1930.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #64: Journey to the Center of the Ear...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: Mini-Podcast #64: Journey to the Center of the Ear...:   Part 2 of our look at Jules Verne's 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. Click HERE for the audio version. Please email us ...

She/He MADE Me!: Angela makes Tim Watch: Batman and Robin (1997)

She/He MADE Me!: Angela makes Tim Watch: Batman and Robin (1997):   Batman and Robin (1997), starring George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzennegger. Written by Akiva Goldsman. ...

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Escape: "Finger of Doom" 3/19/49

A man is out on a date with his girl. She excuses herself for a moment and enters an apartment building to deliver a package for her boss. She never comes back. In fact, when the man calls the cops, all the evidence points to her never existing in the first place!

Click HERE to listen or download. 

A Shakespearean Western

I recently grabbed the 1959 Western novel Catch and Saddle, by L.P. Holmes off the public library shelf pretty much at random. I knew Holmes' name as a Western writer, but really had no idea about him otherwise. I'd never read any of his stuff and I didn't immediately recall reading anything about him either.

But, gee whiz, was I impressed. The plot of the novel hits a common Western trope--small rancher clashing with the big land baron. Clay Hanford buys a track of land in Fandango Basin from someone who had been driven out by big-time rancher King Morgan. Hanford, who legally owns that small patch of land now, is determined to make a go as a ranch owner himself, regardless of any opposition he encounters.

We've seen variations of this before. But Holmes contructs a strong story out of the cliches, moves the story along rapidly and--most importantly--succeeds in giving both major and minor characters three-dimensional personalities. 

He also throws sincere moral dilemmas at us. For instance, after the buildings on Clay's land are burned by Morgan's men, he decides to strike back at a ranch owned by one of Morgan's toadies. He burns the buildings there. But he doesn't feel right about it. He figures its an "eye for an eye" situation and that--outnumbered as he is--he has to fight this way. But it rubs him the wrong way. 

"I never did a think like this before," he said soberly. "And I'm not proud of it... But some things seem to be thrust upon a man; he uses the weapons at hand or he loses the fight."

That scene also gives us an example of just how effectively Holmes sketches out even minor characters. When Hanford and an ally arrive at the ranch they intend to burn, there is only one guy (Pikey Stent) there. They let him take his few personal belongings and leave before setting fire to the buildings. Here's what we soon learn about him:

Uncertainty still gripped Pikey. Up to a very few minutes ago his world had been fairly stable. To be sure, it was a slovenly, uninspiring, meagrely frugal one. Yet it was a world which Pikey thoroughly understood and was satisfied with. Now it had come apart right before his eyes. Pikey hadn't been half a mile from this spot in the past six months. He was like a bird finding the door of its cage suddenly opened, and was fearful over leaving. But leave he did, finally, as flame broke through the roof of the feed shed and began to tower. There was a trail leading east and south. Pikey Stent took it.

Even a minor, almost unnoticed character like Pikey is given a personality. To use a Star Trek metaphor, there are no Red Shirts here. Good guy, bad guy or somewhere inbetween--everyone matters.

What makes this novel seem just a little bit Shakespearean to me is how Holmes uses the story as a sort of morality play. (In itself, not unusual in many Westerns.) Various characters are faced with pretty much the same choice throughout the novel. Either cave in to King Morgan and become his toadie or stand up to him. Though another rancher in the area tries to remain neutral, in the end, everyone has to make a clear moral choice.

And King himself is an interesting villain. We see him at a point where he's now driven by an uninhibited lust for power, but it's made clear there was a time when he was more fair-minded. He's chosen to set moral standards aside and has reached a point where he might not even understand the concept of morality anymore. The tragedy inherit in this is the influence he is having on his three adult children, whose individual character arcs are keyed on whether they can break free of him or knuckle under themselves.

If we look at the novel as a morality play, one thing we see Holmes pulling off is how he gives his characters dialogue in which they essentially pontificate on the morality of their situation. But this never seems contrived or stilted. Though we probably get a few more off-the-cuff speeches than we would be likely to hear in real life, Holmes' dialogue flows naturally, neatly fitting into the story and helping to build upon the action rather than slowing it down. Here's an example, from when the man who had been King Morgan's foreman for years explains why he has quit:

"King, a man has only so many really good years of life--the years when he gives of his strength and will to climb the mountain, the years before he passes the crest and begins coasting down the other side. Those are the rich years, when a man builds either for himself, or for someone else.

"Well, I built for someone else. I built for you. I gave those good years to [your ranch]. I ran your ranch for you, King--and I made it a good ranch. I was faithful to your every interest. I watched your kids grow up, and having none of my own, knew a fondness for them. Even when you began the big change, from a stern, but just man, into a power crazy unjust one, I still stayed faithful, hoping you'd come back to your senses. Instead, you got worse..."

I don't know if Holmes was deliberately trying to emulate the soliloquies of Shakespeare's characters, but I was reminded of the Bard several times when reading this novel. I supposed it really just shows the universality of good storytelling. No matter what the setting or the genre, a well-written story can really dig itself into a reader and leave its mark.

Catch and Saddle appears to be out of print at the time of this writing, but there is a copy to read on the Internet Archives. You can find it HERE. 

Zorro--the Beginning

 

Arguably, the most fondly remembered adaptation of Zorro is the 1957 TV series, a product of the Walt Disney Studios and starring Guy Williams as the swashbuckling hero. 

And, in the 1950s, pretty much all TV shows got comic book adaptations. This iteration of Zorro jumped to the pages of a comic book in Dell's Four Color #882 (February 1958). An unidentified writer and artist Alex Toth give us two stories based on the first two episodes of the series. We'll look at "Presenting Senior Zorro" this week and "Zorro's Secret Passage" next week.

Toth's art is breathtakingly good--lively, fun to look at and telling the story well. But Toth apparently did more than illustrate the script. He also decided to do a little editing. An Indexer Note in the Grand Comics Database tells us this:

Toth was very unhappy having to work from adaptations of the TV shows' scripts, which he felt had too much dialogue and not enough action. In order to tighten up the storytelling, he deleted unnecessary dialogue and cut redundant captions wherever possible, which did not go over well with the Editor.

I can understand Toth's unhappiness. The episode is a good one, effectively setting up the premise for the series and giving us a great action scene at the climax. But because so much exposition is required, it is a tale that doesn't necessarily translate well into a graphic storytelling medium. Even with the changes that Toth apparently made, the story is somewhat dialogue heavy.

But Toth is one of those artists who is incapable of drawing an uninteresting panel. His great figure work and a constantly shifting camera angle from panel to panel keeps us interested as Don de la Vega comes home from Spain and adopts his milqtoast persona so that he can operate against the tyrannical government as Zorro.

The end result works well. There is still an argument that the story is too dialogue-heavy, but the pacing is still fast, all the elements of the series' premise are clearly established, and the climatic action scene, in which Zorro springs an unjustly imprisoned land-owner from jail, is wonderful. Reading through this issue reminds me of just how great an artist Toth was.

My favorite Zorro will always be Tyrone Power, but that probably in part because the Guy Williams series wasn't rerun in my locality when I was growing up and I've never seem more than a smattering of episodes. So I have less of an attachment to it than other Zorro fans. All the same, I've seen enough of the series to know how much fun it was and how much skill Guy Williams brought to the role. I think this adaptation brings appropriate honor to that.

As I've said--next week, well look at the second Zorro story from this issue. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

April is Frank R. Paul month! This one is from 1927,

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: MIni-Podcast #63: Journey to the Center of the Ear...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Podcast: MIni-Podcast #63: Journey to the Center of the Ear...:   We begin a four-part look at the Jules Verne novel Journey to the Center of the Earth, first published in 1864 and a precurser to Burrough...

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Dragnet: "The Big Mailman" 5/24/51

Friday and Ramirez are working on the forgery squad, trying to run down a guy who is stealing checks out of mailboxes.

Click HERE to listen or download.