A to Z Comic and Pulp Cover list

P is for:

PLASTIC MAN

and

PLANET STORIES

 

Friday's Favorite OTR

Sam Spade: “The Fairley Bright Caper” 10/31/48


Sam is hired to do security at a swanky Halloween costume party in which twenty guests have been invited to come without costumes. Not surprisingly, someone gets murdered before the party is over.

The Adventures of Sam Spade was well-known for combining good storytelling with a tongue-in-cheek attitude and populating its episodes with quirky characters. This time around, I think writers Bob Tallman and Gil Doud really outdid themselves in quirkiness, making the episode pure fun from start to finish. Of course, Howard Duff’s rapid-fire characterization of Sam helps make it all fit together.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Prehistory of Geekdom--the Final Chapter

You can argue that the title "Father of Science Fiction" can be awarded to a number of different people for perfectly valid reasons, but good ol' Jules Verne is the man most commonly referred to as such. And, by golly, he deserves it.

It was Verne who really took the idea of reasonably extrapolating what technological advances might some day be possible, then building wonderful works of fiction around that idea. It was Verne who gave us great characters like Captain Nemo and Phileas Fogg. It was Verne who really did invent science fiction.

Not that his extrapolations were always accurate. If you ever decide to travel to the moon, do not do so by shooting yourself out of a giant cannon. It's just not a good idea.

A century and a half later, Verne's novels are still wonderful experiences. His enthusiasm and imagination literally drips from each page, making the reader yearn to join Nemo on his submarine or Fogg in his lightning fast trip around the world.

H.G. Wells, the other 19th Century "Father of Science Fiction," was less concerned with scientific accuracy (something Verne was critical of) and more concerned with hiding a little bit of social commentary in his works. The trouble was that his ideas were so cool that almost no one every notices the commentary. War of the Worlds, for instance, was meant in part to be a criticism of Western colonialism. But those really cool Martian tripods ended up being so much fun in their own right that the deeper meaning pretty much sailed over everyone's head.

But, heck, those tripods are worth the price of admission by themselves. The heck with all that deeper meaning.

Anyway, these two men pretty much guaranteed the continued existence of science fiction. Without them, we probably wouldn't have had Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury or John Campbell. We wouldn't have X-Wing fighters, Federation starships, or Colonial Space Marines getting caught by face huggers. We wouldn't have AT-AT walkers or Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon.

Welles and Verne provided the final and perhaps most important ingredient for creating the modern geek. Their work, combined with those writing detective fiction, horror, Westerns and adventure stories during the 19th Century--all of whom were building on themes and characters from myth and legend--created those of us who can rattle off the secret identities of the X-Men without even pausing or tell you exactly what episode Spock first used the Vulcan nerve pinch.

As I said when I originally started this series--all of history has culminated in the creation of the comic book/science fiction geek. We are the pinnacle of civilization. Bow before us. We will soon rule over you all.

History of the Marvel Universe: 1965 Annuals

FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3

Like most guys, when I’m forced to attend a wedding, I always end up wishing that I could sneak a book in with me to have something interesting to do while that whole wedding thing is going on. I appreciate a guy and a girl falling in love and committing themselves to one another for the rest of their lives. But, let’s face it. You’re all boring.

But, by golly, Reed and Sue’s wedding is actually interesting! Why? Because Doctor Doom uses an Emotion Charger ray to get pretty much all the villains in the Marvel Universe riled up to attack the Baxter Building just before the ceremony. And I don’t mean just the Fantastic Four’s usual enemies. I mean EVERYBODY. Even the Black Knight and the Human Top show up to cause trouble.

Fortunately, the wedding guests include the X-Men, Doctor Strange, the Avengers and Daredevil. And there are SHIELD agents running security.

A massive free-for-all ensues. There’s really not a lot of plot here—it’s all an excuse for Jack Kirby to show everybody fighting, well, everybody else. And it all looks more fun than a barrel of space monkeys.

Why can’t more wedding be like this? I wouldn’t mind going to one if we get to see Angel in a dogfight with the Black Knight or Ben Grimm stuffing an armful of Moloids back down their hole.

Oh, well. Reed spoils everything when the Watcher gives him a time distortion device that pretty much re-sets everything and makes Dr. Doom forget about his Emotion Charger. The wedding then proceeds normally. It was fun while it lasted, though.

SPIDER MAN ANNUAL #2

An evil magician named Xandu hypnotizes a couple of thugs, turning them into super-strong automaton. He then uses them in a surprise attack against Doctor Strange, stealing a mystic artifact that will make him all powerful.

Spider Man sees the thugs exiting Strange’s home and gets involved. This leads to him getting zapped into another dimension (a situation he accepts with remarkable aplomb—he doesn’t pause in his wisecracking for even a moment). Anyway, Spidey and Doctor Strange end up double-teaming Xandu and getting the artifact back.

Steve Ditko had proven to be the perfect artist for both Spider Man and Dr. Strange, despite the books being very different in their respective ambiances. So seeing him go to town in a story that tosses the two heroes together is quite a treat.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY ANNUAL #1

The FF annual was an excuse for a massive fight scene. The Thor annual is an excuse for a one-on-one fight scene, but it’s just as cool.

Thor is on patrol outside Asgard and gets into a tussle with a couple of storm giants. He gets knocked into a hidden tunnel that leads to Mount Olympus. He soon meets Hercules, who is crossing a narrow bridge in one direction while Thor is crossing the other way.

So who moves aside for whom? You can see where this is leading—the two gods spend eight or nine pages slugging it out before Zeus shows up and declares it a tie. It no longer matters, by the way, who crosses the bridge first, because the bridge got trashed in the fight.

One of Jack Kirby’s strength as an artist was giving a sense of real power whenever someone threw a punch. When Thor or Herc lets go with a haymaker, Kirby makes it look as if the blow really could tear the top off a mountain. So it’s not surprising that his Thor/Hercules fight is fun to watch. It’s just too bad there wasn’t a wedding going on in Olympus. It would have given all the poor guys attending something interesting to look at.

Anyway, this means we have now covered four full years of Marvel superhero action. At this moment, all the books are at least good and several of them (FF, Thor, Spider Man) are downright brilliant. Weak entries such as Giant Man have been replaced by stronger and more visual striking series such as the Sub-Mariner. Daredevil is probably the weakest book from 1965, but even he has his moments (such as the Daredevil/Namor fight in DD #7).

The Marvel Universe is getting quite large and complex. And it will be expanding even more soon. The FF is about to meet the Inhumans and Spider Man is on the verge of adding several very important supporting characters to his cast. The Galactus storyline in FF will be starting soon, while the God of Thunder is about to be dropped into some of his most cosmically cool adventures ever.

Next week, we’ll start looking at November 1965. The FF begin yet another superb multi-part adventure; Spider Man tracks down a cat burgler; Nick Fury gets captured; Dr. Strange finally meets Eternity; Thor continues to battle Absorbing Man, while Iron Man continues to battle Titanium Man; the Atlantians revolt against Krang; Hulk gets some good news and some bad news; the Avengers try to prove they're not a menace; and the X-Men have their first tussle against a certain type of giant robot.

By the way, starting with December 1965, both the X-Men and Daredevil become monthly books. That means I’ll probably be reorganizing the order in which I look at the books over the course of a month’s issues.

Last Friday's post

Sorry, I just realized I neglected to include a link to last Friday's OTR show. That's been corrected and the link is now active.

A to Z Comic and Pulp Cover list

O is for:

OUR ARMY AT WAR

and

OPERATOR #5

 

Friday's Favorite OTR

Molle Mystery Theater: “Two Men in a Furnished Room” 9/27/46


By the way, if anyone’s wondering why this episode introduces itself as a Mystery Playhouse episode, it’s because that show was an Armed Forces Radio Network anthology that did re-runs of various network shows. That’s the recording I happen to have of it. But it did originally air as an episode of the Molle Mystery Theater.

The plot involves one man urging his roommate to lie to help establish an alibi after a girl is murdered. That there will be a twist at the end is no surprise to anyone listening. What kept me interested was not just the skill with which the story was told, but also that I didn’t know exactly what the twist would be. It was equally likely that this could go in one of two directions, but I was guessing until the last moment which of those directions it would be.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Hopalong Cassidy, Superman, the Shadow and Robert Mitchum

A few months back, someone actually read my blog. He posted a comment, too, in which he mentioned a Hopalong Cassidy movie in which a young Robert Mitchum appeared.

I own a number of Hoppy DVDs, but I didn’t happen to have that particular film (Hoppy Serves a Writ from 1942), so I immediately Netflixed it. And, by golly, not only is Bob Mitchum in it, so is George Reeves and Victor Jory.

Jory played the Shadow (the toughest of pulp magazine tough guys) in a 1940 serial. Reeves, of course, played Superman (the toughest of comic book tough guys) on TV in the 1950s.

And Mitchum, of course, is one of the toughest of tough guy actors. Heck, he’s so tough he probably hung around the back lot between movies chewing on nails along with Richard Widmark, Lee Marvin and Charles Bronson.

In the Hoppy movie, Jory is the leader of a gang of rustlers and stage coach robbers. Reeves and Mitchum are members of his gang. Despite the fact that all three men are playing outlaws and thugs, it is by default the most manly gang of real men in the history of manliness.

There’s one scene in which one of Hoppy’s sidekicks is captured by the gang and knocked around in an attempt to get him to talk. To his credit, he doesn’t talk, despite the fact that the Shadow and Superman are taking turns punching him while Bob Mitchum holds him up.

The movie as a whole, by the way, is a typically good B-Western. William Boyd gives his usual boisterous and likable performance as Hoppy, there’s an effective use of outdoor locations and the plot is well-constructed. And there’s a great saloon brawl in which Hoppy beats the snot out of the Shadow. Now THAT’S tough.

My appreciation to the gentleman who left the comment that inspired me to catch up on another great black-and-white Western. I just wish the film had a better title. Hoppy Serves a Writ just isn’t tough enough. But I suppose Hoppy Beats the Snot Out of The Shadow wouldn’t have fit on the theater marquee.

History of the Marvel Universe: October 1965, part 3

TALES TO ASTONISH #72

Namor, still on his quest to find Neptune’s trident, manages to defeat the seaweed monster long enough to find the next clue—it turns out he must now travel to the Diamonds of Doom.

Meanwhile, Lady Dorma refuses to marry Krang and gets exiled to the realm of the Faceless Ones. What this means we aren’t yet told, but we are not given the impression that it’s a good thing.

Namor finds out about this--via fish telepathy—a power more commonly associated with Namor’s DC parallel Aquaman. Even though he’d been around for a few years now, Namor’s powers were still in flux. Stan Lee never seemed to remember what Namor could or could not do. Sometimes he could do fish telepathy, sometimes he couldn’t. In later years, he pretty much seemed not to have this power, though he could always summon up a few undersea monsters whenever the plot demanded it of him.

Anyways, Namor can’t take time to save Dorma because Krang will start a world-encompassing war unless he’s defeated. So it’s off to the Diamonds of Doom. The Doom part, he discovers, comes from their ability to suck out the life force of any living thing that comes close to them. Namor realizes this a little too late, giving us this issue’s cliffhanger.

Meanwhile, the Hulk has been teleported by the Leader to the villain’s secret base. Soon after, the army blows up Banner’s mountain lab (thinking the Hulk is still inside), destroying the equipment Banner needs to keep himself from turning human again. (Remember, the bullet in his skull kills him if he turns back into Banner.)

The Leader wants Hulk to work for him, but the two really can’t manage to play nice. To make matters worse, Hulk begins to slowly turn back into Banner while fighting the Leader’s Humanoids. Weakened by this, he falls to a barrage of energy weapons. If the weapons don’t kill him, turning human will.

AVENGERS #21

A mercenary who worked for the late Baron Zemo is still hanging around Zemo’s lab in South America. The Enchantress shows up and uses the same machine that turned Simon Williams into Wonder Man (back in issue #9) to turn the merc into Power Man.

Then she and her new ally begin using magically created illusions and a series of dirty tricks to make it look like the Avengers are destroying property and breaking laws. Eventually, the government issues a court order, forcing them to disband.

The idea of discrediting the Avengers is an old one. Count Neferia tried it just a few issues back. But Enchantress’ plan is a pretty clever one and the circumstances are used to highlight some of the strained relations within the Avengers (most notably between Cap and Hawkeye). That will really come to a head next issue.

DAREDEVIL #10

A criminal known as the Organizer, um, organizes a cadre of criminals respectively known as Cat Man, Frog Man, Bird Man and Ape Man. All have costumes and talents that mimic the animals they dress up as.

They are, to be frank, a pretty silly looking bunch. Only Wally Wood’s effective layouts save the story, in which the bad guys steal from or otherwise attack the political Reform Party (which has recruited Foggy Nelson as their candidate for D.A.). As the issue ends Cat Man has been captured, but the others are still loose and Daredevil has to rescue a kidnap victim who doesn’t really seem to be all that much of a victim. That the villain is secretly making the Reform Party look good to the public is obvious from the start and no surprise when this is revealed in the next issue.

That’s it for October. Before moving on to November, we’ll take a week next time to look at the 1965 annuals. Reed and Sue are goin’ to the chapel and gonna get married; Spider Man has a strange encounter with Dr. Strange; and Thor meets the official Marvel Universe version of Hercules.

A to Z Comic and Pulp Cover list

N is for:

NEW GODS

and

NICK CARTER MAGAZINE