Cover Cavalcade

Jack Burnley cover from 1945. My guess would be Bruce was bought out by Scrooge McDuck.

Friday's Favorite OTR

The Saint: "The What Not What Got Hot" 3/4/51

Someone steals Simon's furniture. To the surprise of absolutely no one who is listening to this episode, tracking down the stolen furniture soon evolves into a murder investigation.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Daleks Changing History

The original version of Doctor Who ran for a quarter century. The quality of individual episodes during that time varied wildly, with episodes from late in the run featuring the Sixth and Seventh Doctors probably having the highest percentage of poor stories (though those incarnations of the Doctors themselves were excellent).

But the show was good more often than not, which adds up to an awful lot of well-told tales. So the nice thing about its long run is that there always seems to be yet one more four-part or six-part serial that I haven't yet gotten around to watching.

I've just watched "The Day of the Daleks," a four-parter from 1971 featuring John Pertwee as the Third Doctor. I wasn't unfamiliar with the story--as is the case with many of the classic series stories, I had read the novelization. But it was still nice to watch the original episodes.

At this point in the series, the Doctor was stuck on Earth--stranded there by the Time Lords with his Tardis out of order. He's working as the scientific advisor to UNIT, the military organization that's assigned to handle alien invasions, mad scientists and other dangers the regular military isn't generally equipped to handle. Since a lot of the threats they face are annoyingly immune to bullets, having the Doctor around to figure out how to beat the bad guys is advantageous.

This time around, the threat is an unusual one. International tensions are high; nuclear war is a real possibility; and the only person who seems to have a chance to negotiate a peace is a British diplomat named Sir Reginald Styles. So when Styles claims a ghost tried to shoot him, there is reason to be worried. The Doctor is sent to investigate.

What follows is a well-constructed science fiction tale with lots of action and a plot that makes clever use of time travel and time paradox. The would-be assassin comes from a future where Earth, devastated by centuries of war, had been conquered by the Daleks. 

Most humans (those few who survive and haven't sold out to the Daleks) are kept as slave labor, put to work stripping the Earth of its mineral resources. But a resistance group has formed, gathering arms and even stealing plans for a Dalek-designed time machine. 

Well, this gives the resistance an idea. According to their history, Sir Reginald Styles betrayed the other diplomats at a peace conference and blew them up. Though he accidentally blew himself up as well, the mass assassination ended any chance of peace, leaving the Earth easy pickings for the Daleks. So why not go back in time and kill Sir Reginald before he has a chance to put his own evil plan into effect? Won't that prevent war and, in turn, prevent the Daleks from ever taking over in the first place?

The trouble is that the time travel technology they are using is a little wonky, causing the first assassin to blink back to the future before he has a chance to shoot Sir Reginald. Also, the resistance's understanding of history may not be accurate, so killing Sir Reginald might not be a good idea. 

The Doctor and his current companion Jo (not my favorite companion--but you can't have everything) investigate. The Doctor, being the Doctor, soon has an inkling of what is happening. Jo, being Jo, accidentally teleports herself into the Dalek-ruled future. The Doctor ends up there himself before long, where he has to multi-task between escaping from the Daleks and their soldiers (brutal aliens called Ogrons) and convincing the resistance to help fix history properly. 

Various plot points and character arcs are neatly tied together by the end. As I mentioned above, this story is superbly constructed, merging various elements into a satisfying whole.

Special mention should to Aubrey Woods as the Controller, a human who supervises slave-operated factories for the Daleks. He's convinced that the Daleks can't ever be beaten, so helps them while trying to convince himself that he's also helping humanity in the only way possible. His interactions with the Doctor are fascinating and his eventual fate is simultaneously tragic and noble. 

I watched "Day of the Daleks" via a streaming service that shows a version with modernized CGI special effects, so the clip I'm posting below reflects this. I'm in the camp that feels as long as the original story is respected and left unchanged (I'm glaring at you, Mr. "Han no longer shoots first" Lucas), then improved special effects can be a nice addition. I feel the same way about the enhanced TOS Star Trek episodes that were released a few years ago. But an argument that the original special effects should be left intact is a fair one in its own right. I think you can make a case that the technological and budgetary limits on visual effects from that era forced viewers to fill in the gaps in visual realism with their own imagination. On the other hand, a cheesy visual effect might take you out of the story and detract from our enjoyment of it. It is actually a very personal thing that changes from one fan to another.  

Killer Skies (World War I Biplanes--Part 1)

"Ghost of the Killer Skies" (writer: Denny O'Neil; artist: Neal Adams) was first published in Detective Comics #404 (October 1970), but I first read it when it was reprinted  in a 1977 paperback:

It was in black-and-white, but Batman stories work well in that format. Of course, the panels were rearranged so that they could fit two or three to a page, but I hadn't read this story before, so I wasn't picky about the poor formating.

I've written before about how I feel the O'Neil/Adams era of Batman gave us the best-ever interpretation of the Dark Knight. There was a dark undertone to Batman and his tragic history, but this wasn't represented by making him a rude jerk. Also, the stories acknowledge all the various skills that make Batman exceptional--he was a Holmsian-level detective as well as a superb martial artist and escape artist.

"Ghost of the Killer Skies" highlights all this wonderfully. Bruce Wayne is in Spain, funding a movie about Hans von Hammer, the German pilot from the First World War who is commonly known as "Enemy Ace."

Why would Bruce Wayne become personally involved in producing a movie? The story has a perfectly reasonable explanation for this that also reminds us that Bruce looked for ways to do good even when he's not dressed up as a giant rodent. He wants to make a meaningful anti-war film and believes a biographical movie about Enemy Ace (an honorable and often reluctant warrior) is the best way to do this.

 But things are not going well on the set. Production is being sabotaged, culminating in the mid-air murder of a stunt pilot.

This sets of a truly excellent story, but I suppose you can nit-pick one part of it. A few pages in, we meet the guy who is charge of maintaining the WWI planes being used for the movie. He's a dead ringer for Enemy Ace and he's droning on about how it is not fated for the movie to be completed. Gee, do you think he might be the bad guy?

Actually, there are two sets of bad guys. A cameraman has been hired by a rival film company to sabotage production, but Batman manages to snag him and his allies when they attempt to dynamite the planes, figuring out how the mid-air murder was committed at the same time.

There's one part of this I love. Batman interrogates on of the saboteurs and scares him into talking. Then he just lets the guy go, telling him to turn himself and his partners into the cops--OR BATMAN WILL COME FIND HIM! The combination of O'Neil's skilled writing and Adams' art work completely convince us that Batman is indeed that scary when he needs to be.

After one more murder, Batman confront the Enemy Ace twin, who--not surprisingly--turns out to be a decendent of von Hammer. His motivation is simply that he views Enemy Ace as a god-like warrior, refusing to accept that he was capable of mercy or respect for his enemies. Thus, a movie depicting the Ace as an actual human being must be stopped.

The two end up in biplanes, fighting a duel. Batman "thought balloons" us the information that he has limited training with antique planes, but he seems to be flying with more skill than should possible for him. The implication, of course, is that the ghost of von Hammer is helping him. Since this is a Comic Book Universe, we can probably accept that idea at face value.

But the bad guy has a gun and Batman doesn't, so soon the Dark Knight is flying a plane that's leaking oil. Batman handles this situation by simply jumping aboard the enemy Fokker. Gee whiz, this story is full of cool-looking panels, isn't it? It's no wonder the story grabbed me even when chopped up to fit in a paperback.

In the ensuing struggle, the villain's scarf is caught in the Fokker's propellor, tearing him from the plane and sending him on a plummet to his death.

So Batman gets to be a great detective and a skilled martial artists AND he gets to fly a World War I biplane. Even in context of Batman's eventful life, that's a pretty cool day.

Next week, we continue with our World War I Biplane theme in a Man from U.N.C.L.E. story that tosses the Spirit of St. Louis into the mix as well.

Cover Cavalcade

Really nice cover art by Jose Delbo. From 1969.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "Pigeon in the Cage" 8/11/57

Lloyd Bridges plays a man who overhears a murder being planned and committed while he's stuck in an elevator. If the killers realize he's there, he may never get out.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Red Skelton and Buster Keaton

Actually, the title of today's post is a cruel joke of sorts. Buster Keaton and Red Skelton do not actually appear together in the 1950 comedy The Yellow Cab Man.  In fact, Keaton isn't in the film and doesn't appear in the credits.

But, according to the information I got from Ben Mankiewicz' nifty introduction to the film when it recently aired on TCM, Keaton was involved in the movie as an uncredited consultant. It's easy to believe this is true. The sight gags in the film come one after another at a rapid fire pace and every single one of them is hilarious. The climatic chase scene, which involves scrambling around a rotating house and taking to the air in hot air balloons, is comedy gold. Red Skelton was already a superb comedian. Add input from the funniest guy who ever lived and you are bound to end up with an incredibly funny movie.

Skelton plays Red Pirdy, the world's most accident-prone human being. In fact, he's gotten to expect to be periodically hit by a car or take a sudden fall down a flight of stairs. He even keeps his doctor's contact information printed on his undershirt.

When he accidentally walks in front of a Yellow Cab, he ends up meeting Ellen Goodrich (Gloria De Haven), an employee of the cab company. He also meets a sleezy, ambulance-chasing lawyer named Martin Creevy (Edward Arnold), but he decides he'd rather talk to the pretty girl.

Pirdy is also an inventor and Ellen arranges for him to demonstrate his unbreakable glass to the cab company's owner. The demonstration goes awry, but results in Pirdy working as a cab driver.

After a few minutes on the job, he's accidentally kidnapped a bratty little boy, inadvertently convinced a crowd of people that a bomb is ticking inside a mail box, and pretty much guarantees that a bride and groom are not going to make it to Union Station in time to catch their train. It's a scene that literally drips with Keaton-esque comedy.

In the meantime, Creevy and his cronies plot to steal Pirdy's formula for the unbreakable glass. One of his men, played by Walter Slezak, pretends to be a psychiatrist who eventually convinces Pirdy that he might be a murderer.

A more detailed description of the plot would almost be beside the point. There is a plot that progresses in a more-or-less logical manner, but the main purpose of the story is to give a structure on which the sight gags can be built. And that is exactly how it should be.

Back to 1942 (Again!)--Part 2

Cover art by Jack Kirby and John Romita

Last week, we looked at 1976's Marvel Two-in-One #1, in which Ben Grimm traveled back to 1942 to recover some time-lost Vibranium and thus prevent the Nazis from winning World War II.

In that issue, Ben didn't get a chance to punch many Nazis, with the Liberty Legion (made up of various relatively obscure Golden Age heroes) handling most of the action. But as the story spills over into Marvel Two-in-One #20 (October 1976), writer Roy Thomas and artist Sal Buscema toss Ben right into the middle of the action.

Using a flag pole as a catapult, Ben has boarded a giant flyng swastika that was attacking New York City. And may I just take a moment to say that I love being able to type that sentence. A Comic Book Universe is a wonderful thing.

The Liberty Legion had been fighting various Nazi super-villains that had been recently introduced in The Invaders. Roy Thomas continues this trend as Ben discovers the Nazi disembodied brain known as the Brain Drain (also part of the Invaders' Rogue's Gallery) is controlling the giant flying swastika.

I love that sentence as well. I have a good life.

Before the action really gets started, though, we are treated to a couple of pages recapping the events of the recent annual. This has been a chronic problem with this story arc--the FF Annual, Two-in-One Annual and this issue all get bogged down in relatively lengthy information dumps needed to bring the readers up to speed. There's also a painfully contrived moment in which the Nazi villain Skyshark publicly and nonsensically announces that he's carrying the Vibranium on his person. But, just as with the two annuals, the pacing eventually picks up and the story becomes enjoyable.

MTIO #20 is pretty much just a non-stop brawl. The swastika lands at a secret base and Brain Drain's allies put in an appearance, bringing together enough raw power between them to give Ben a pretty tough fight.

Sal Buscema knew how to effectively choreograph a superhero fight and we have a lot of fun watching Ben trade punches with the bad guys. Ben handles himself well and comes close to winning, but he's simply outnumbered. Fortunately, the Liberty Legion arrives.

The conclusion of the fight continues the fun, as the Liberty Legion uses their powers together in tactically interesting ways to finish off the villains. Brain Drain and Skyshark get away, but the remaining Nazis are captured, the Vibranium is recovered and New York City is saved. Ben returns to the present to find out that history has unfolded correctly.

I do wish that Ben's two-issue trip into the past had allowed him more time to directly team-up with the Liberty Legion members. Part of the fun of the FF Annual that kicked off this story arc was getting to see modern heroes interact with Golden Age heroes. Here, Ben is either on the sidelines or unconscious when the Liberty Legion is around.

But the story is a good one regardless, with Nazis getting beaten up and obscure heroes getting their moments in the sun.

Next week, Bruce Wayne produces a movie, solves a murder and gets into an aerial dogfight in what will be the first of three reviews of stories featuring World War I aircraft.

Cover Cavalcade

From 1963, with cover art by Sheldon Moldoff. Any comic book universe worth its salt is filled with Tarzan-inspired Jungle Men.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: "Frankie and Johnny" 2/3/57

Margaret Whiting plays Frankie, who eventually decides to murder her no-good, cheating boyfriend Johnny. What makes this particular episode fun is that Whiting sings a lot of the story in the form of a blues number. It's something Suspense had done a few years earlier in an episode staring Rosemary Clooney.

Click HERE to listen or download.