Friday's Favorite OTR

Nick Carter, Master Detective: “The Case of the Little Old Ladies” 4/23/46

A law firm that keeps Nick on retainer has a boring and routine job of finding a witness. Nick assigns an operative to the task. Going door-to-door, the operative meets a pair of sweet little old ladies—WHO PULL GUNS ON HIM!!!

This odd twist soon has Nick looking into the case personally. But when the master detective ends up personally held hostage by two sweet little old ladies—well, that’s just plain embarrassing. 

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An Improbable Hero

Isaac Asimov was an important writer---an innovator who helped lead the maturation of the genre into producing respectable literature.

So there is no intended or implied criticism at all when I point out that his most important works—his Robot stories and the original Foundation trilogy—were concept-oriented rather than character-oriented. The characters in them were perfectly believable, but not necessarily memorable in their own rights. It’s the ideas—the ramifications of the Three Laws of Robotics and the work of the Foundation to subtly guide human history—that make his stories great.

But there are a few exceptions to that---a few stories in which the characterizations really stand out. One of these is “C-Chute,” a short story first published in Galaxy Magazine in 1951. It’s a story that centers around a very memorable character.

During an interstellar war, an Earth ship is captured by aliens. The surviving passengers are locked up. A prize crew of two aliens flood the rest of the ship with a chlorine atmosphere (natural to them) and begin to pilot it towards their home planet.

We quickly get to know the human prisoners and, boy, are they a bunch of jerks. One’s a self-centered cynic. One’s a pompous soldier who’s never seen any action. One’s obsessed with revenge against the aliens. And so one. They get on each other’s nerves and maybe even get on our nerves as we read about them.

Their situation seems hopeless. There does seem one possible method of retaking the ship, which involves sneaking outside the ship through a C-Chute (a casualty chute used for burials at space), then reentering through the “steam tubes,” which are basically the vessel’s control thrusters. Anyone who does this would then have to ambush and kill two armed aliens.

It’s dangerous and at first no one seems willing to give it a try. No one, that is, but Randolph Mullen, a 5’ 2” tall, quiet and apparently emotionless bookkeeper who seems as far from being a hero as one can get.  Everyone is surprised when he volunteers.

Asmiov then does an excellent job of building and maintaining suspense as Mullen begins the risky job of escaping from the ship, then sneaking back in. He skillfully interleaves this with the tension growing among the other humans and the shame they begin to feel over their own lack of courage.

And this all leaves up to great twist at the end, when we finally find out what motivated Mullen to put his life at such risk.

The creation of great characters was not Asimov’s strongest trait as a writer. In fact, I think his later novels (in which he tied his Robot, Empire and Foundation stories together into a single continuity) were badly flawed by some very awkward characterizations. During the height of his career in writing fiction, it was his concepts (often thought out in partnership with editor John Campbell) and his entertaining prose that made his stories great.

But he did understand how to create good characters and, every now and then, he’d create a great one.

History of the Marvel Universe: March 1968

FANTASTIC FOUR #72

Reed and Sue have left town, leaving Ben and Johnnie up in the air about how to carry on. Fortunately, the world is soon in danger again, giving the two of them something to do.

It seems the Silver Surfer, disgusted by all us violent, bigoted humans, has come up with the dumbest plan ever. He’ll go on a world-wide rampage, forcing all the nations on Earthy to join together to fight him.

The Watcher pops into the Baxter Building to warn them, then pops off to stop the train Reed and Sue are on, telling them about the threat as well. Reed insists Sue stay behind and allows the Watcher to zap him back to New York.

That, by the way, pretty much ends Reed’s plans to take a leave of absence. There’s going to be several big threats coming in quick succession over the next several issues. Though Sue quite understandably and appropriately will sit the dangerous stuff out while she’s pregnant, Reed is back on the team just like that.

Anyway, Ben and Johnnie tussle unsuccessfully with the Surfer. When the army launches a super-missile called the Sonic Shark at the Surfer, Reed announces that it might actually kill the Surfer. The FF acts quickly to save their opponent’s life, though he’s been weakened by the experience. That brings him back to his senses, so the threat is ended.

Though the issue is as visually awesome as the rest of Kirby’s work on the book, the story is a little unsatisfying. There’s two reasons for this:

1)      The last issue ended with a dramatic announcement that Reed and Sue were leaving the team. I think it would have been fun to watch Ben, Johnnie and Crystal deal with threats without the resident genius.

2)      Also, the Surfer’s plan really is dumb and his motivation (and his abrupt realization that he was wrong) come across as contrived.

It’s not a bad story at all. But, as I’ve noted before, stories from the Lee/Kirby era that are merely good stand out dramatically because they’re not great.

SPIDER MAN #58

Last issue ended with Spider Man getting dunked in the water and half-drowned. The shock of this cures him of his amnesia. Ka-Zar swings off to stop the cops from shooting Zabu and the amnesia story-line comes to an end.

By the way, we find out that if you’re a filthy-rich English lord like Ka-Zar, you pretty much have a free hand in destroying both public and private property. The cops will just shrug it off because they know you can afford to pay for it.

But there’s no rest for poor Spidey. Professor Smythe (who we met way back in issue #25) has built another remote control Spider Slayer robot. So the bulk of this issue pits Spider Man against the big robot in another fight to the death. Spidey uses both his superpowers AND his brains to destroy the robot.

In terms of pacing, this issue (despite a lot of action) is a breather between the Doc Ock arc that just ended and another long story arc featuring the Kingpin that will begin next issue. But it’s an entertaining breather and there are a couple of things about it worth pointing out.

First, there are several scenes featuring Peter’s friends at Aunt May’s sick bed, worrying about how long Pete’s been missing, as well as some moments centered around Captain Stacy and John Jameson. Stan Lee really had a knack for fitting these character bits into a story without slowing down the overall action. This issue is a particularly good example of this. 

Second, there’s the handling of J. Jonah Jameson. He’s at first eager to help Smythe in an attempt to capture Spider Man, but he’s horrified when he realizes the revenge-obsessed scientist is planning on simply killing the webslinger. Despite his hatred of Spidey, there’s a line Jameson won’t cross. It’s one of those occasional moments that lift him up from being comic relief or the resident pain-in-the-butt and present him as a more three-dimensional human being.

Finally, I love it that Spider Man finds out where Smythe’s lab is by looking him up in the phone book. That is a classic webhead moment.

THOR #150

Thor is apparently dead after his fight with the Wrecker, but it turns out he’s just mostly dead. Hela, goddess of death, shows up and Thor’s astral form leaves his body, but he declines to accompany her. He goes after the Wrecker, who is fighting an outmatched squad of police, but being invisible and incorporeal means he can’t do anything.

In the meantime, Balder and Sif pursue Loki to Karnilla’s realm. Balder has a really nifty fight against a gigantic warrior, but he’s soon captured along with Sif.

Karnilla pretends to befriend Sif, showing her that Thor has been defeated and is dying. Sif is quickly convinced that she must allow her life force to be put into the Destroyer armor.

It’s a neat plot twist, taking the story in an abrupt but satisfying new direction. The Destroyer takes down the Wrecker fairly easily. In the meantime, Thor has managed to reenter his own body, but he’s still weak. He sees the Destroyer and quite naturally thinks it’s even more of a threat than the Wrecker had been. The issue ends with Thor about to unknowingly attack the woman who loves him. This was what Karnilla and Loki planned all along, knowing that the violent nature of the Destroyer would make it fight back no matter whose life force is powering it.

As evil plans go, this one is really clever and seems worthy of the god of mischief.  I’ve been having a lot of fun with this story arc. Thor is a character that works best when he’s arrayed against cosmic-level threats like Ego, Pluto or Ulik. So, superficially, a story arc in which he’s been de-powered seems like a bad idea. But Stan and Jack have constructed a strong plot with great action and some truly emotional character moments.

And we get yet another example of good pacing within a story. The action switches smoothly back and forth from Earth to Karnilla’s realm without ever slowing down the plot.

That’s it for March. In April 1968, the FF fights a bunch of good guys; Spider Man saves Mary Jane for the first of many times; and Thor battles his girl friend without knowing it.

My NPR interview

I was interviewed a couple of weeks ago by Gary Shapiro on his excellent show "From the Book Shelf."  You can listen to it here:

FROM THE BOOK SHELF

Cover Cavalcade

Friday's Favorite OTR

Casey, Crime Photographer: “Tobacco Pouch” 9/18/47

A delusional shoplifter who thinks he’s a new Robin Hood and a tobacco pouch picked out of a pocket leads to Casey impersonating a hit man.  There’s a somewhat predictable but still nifty twist at the end of this one.

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Who Needs the Shadow?

Read/Watch ‘Em in Order: Entry #6

Watching The Invisible Agent (1942) made me think of a story about the old-time radio version of the Shadow. During World War II, the Mutual Broadcasting System used to get angry complaints from people, demanding to know why the invisible super hero wasn’t being used as a spy against the Axis forces.

But, heck, we didn’t need the Shadow. We had Frank Griffith, the grandson of the original invisible man, sneaking into Berlin to do some invisible espionage.

I enjoy this movie enormously, so I’ll get the things that bother me about it out of the way first, so we can get to the good stuff.

There’s a couple of continuity errors in regard to the earlier film—mostly inconsistencies with some of the problems and limitations of being invisible that seems to have been forgotten or ignored by the filmmakers this time around.

To be fair, though, I’m watching this just a week after having viewed the previous film, while audiences in 1942 had waited two years since the last installment. And it was by then nine years since the first film. So continuity errors probably weren’t as noticeable.

{For the record, here's the inconsistencies: There's no mention at all that the drug eventually drives its user insane, though to be fair, the hero is only invisible for a couple of days, so the side effect may not have had time to become a  danger. The invisible agent can eat without the undigested food being visible inside him and he can fight Nazis in a smoke-filled room without showing up like a bubble. Also, unless I mis-heard a line of dialogue, the original invisible man seems to have been given a different first name.}

But the movie is still fun regardless. Frank Griffith is running a print shop in New York under an assumed name. He has a run-in with German and Japanese agents who are after his grand-dad’s formula, but manages to get away. All the same, he also initially declines to let the U.S. have the dangerous formula either.

Pearl Harbor changes his mind, but he won’t let anyone besides himself to use the drug. So, before long, he’s parachuting while invisible into Germany.

He contacts a drop-dead gorgeous blonde spy who’s been vamping an SS officer for information. Soon, the Germans figure out he’s active in Berlin, but it’s hard to track down an invisible spy.  Frank goes after a list of German and Japanese agents in the United States, then learns of a plan to send a fleet of suicide bombers to New York City.

But a trap involving a fish net lined with hooks might just be more than even an invisible man can handle.

It’s enjoyable and fast-moving storytelling. John P. Fulton continued to do a fine job with the special effects, most notably a scene in which Frank turns invisible and undresses while descending to the ground on parachute.

And Curt Siodmak’s script is interesting on several levels. Aside from being a fun story, it also works as a heartfelt condemnation of tyranny. It’s also an effective character study about the sort of men who hold power in a totalitarian government. The movie portrays Nazi officers and Japanese spies who plot against each other as much as they plot against the Allies. Frank Griffith has some great dialogue when he confronts one of the villains about this:

One of your own gang pushed you off. Someone else will push him off. And that’s how you’ll all go, killing your own. Dog eating dog--until only the biggest and the hungriest are left. You were a little dog, Heiser, and they’re pretending you’re mad so they can shoot you tonight.

Peter Lorre is one of the bad guys, using the same subtle mannerisms and speech patterns he employed as Mr. Moto to portray a Japanese. Keye Luke (best known as Charlie Chan’s Number One son) has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it part as a doctor in Berlin’s Japanese embassy. Cedric Hardwicke and J. Edward Bromberg are the two main Nazi villains.

Bromberg, who played the bumbling but evil governor of Spanish California in The Mark of Zorro (1940), plays a bumbling but evil SS officer here. He strikes a perfect balance, providing some comic relief without ever losing track of the fact that his character is a man who has others brutally killed to further his own career.

Well, that covers three of the five  Invisible Man films. So far, we have two good guy invisible men and only one bad guy invisible man. We’ll have to see what the final score is after we watch The Invisible Man’s Revenge and the Abbot and Costello entry.

History of the Marvel Universe: February 1968

FANTASTIC FOUR # 71

As the cover promises, this is an big action issue. And it is wonderful action—with a fight that stands out even among Jack Kirby’s many other examples of perfectly paced fight choreography. It’s an example of how well both Stan and Jack understood the characters—both in terms of personality and in terms of how these now very experienced fighters would use their powers.

Sue faces off against the Thinker’s giant android alone, while the rest of the team is unconscious. Using her invisibility and force field powers intelligently—and making use of one of Reed’s devices—she protects herself and the others long enough for Ben to wake up.

Ben is back to normal after being hit by Reed’s Menta-Wave Bolt at the end of the last issue. (As those of us knew who paid attention in high school when they covered the properties of Menta-Wave Bolts in science class). He belts the android through a wall, but is attempting to comfort a fainting Sue when Reed wakes up.

In a great scene, Reed thinks Ben is still brainwashed and about to hurt his wife, which sets off Reed’s berserk button.

This gets worked out pretty quickly, but the android returns. Reed, Ben and Johnny all get some shots in, but the android seems to have countermeasures built in for just about everything they try. So Reed lures it into the Negative Zone, setting it adrift forever.

So four issues of breathless action finally comes to an end, wrapping up a storyline that can be favorably compared to the original Galactus story arc in terms of action, pacing and characterizations.

But the issue still manages to end in a surprise. Reed has decided that he won’t put his pregnant wife in danger again—he and Sue will be quitting the Fantastic Four.

Yeah, sure, Reed. Like that’s gonna last very long.

SPIDER MAN #57

Spider Man, still without a memory, is aimlessly webslinging around town. Aunt May literally worries herself sick over Peter’s disappearance and ends up in the hospital.

(You know, I like Aunt May—she’s a great character. But in retrospect, the “Aunt May is on her death bed!” schtick was sometimes overused.)

Harry Osborne is also worried about his missing roommate. He finds a Spider Tracer in Peter’s room and goes to the police with the news that Pete’s been kidnapped by Spider Man.

In other words, Peter Parker is having a really, really bad day. It gets worse when Lord Plunder—better known as Ka-Zar—visits New York to settle some legal affairs (bringing Zabu along with him, of course).

Jameson visits Ka-Zar and manages to talk him into stalking Spider Man. When the two heroes meet, they fight. Zabu joins in as well and the issue ends with Spider Man knocked unconscious.

Getting Ka-Zar into the story comes across as a little contrived—he instinctively distrusts JJJ and really doesn’t have a strong motive for getting involved. But since John Romita provides us with a really cool fight, we’ll forgive this.

Besides, another plus for this issue is a great scene in which Spider Man stops by the Daily Bugle, hoping a newspaper will have some information on who he is. Jameson comes within a second of conning the memory-impaired hero that he’s a friend and should take off his mask when Ka-Zar dives in through a window to attack the webslinger.

Ka-Zar: “You TOLD me to catch Spider Man!”

JJJ: “But I didn’t mean right now!”

A lot of the supporting characters—including Gwen and her dad—get some good moments in this issue. By now, John Romita has been doing the book for nearly two years. With absolutely no disrespect for Steve Ditko’s incredible work intended, I have to say that there was no drop in quality at all after he left.

Stan Lee is a great storyteller, but he was also enormously fortunate in the artists he worked with.

THOR #149

Thor and the Wrecker spend most of the issue going toe-to-toe (in yet another fight that just happens to take place near a condemned building). With Thor minus all his powers except his strength, he’s still at a disadvantage. But he’s Thor—so he fights on even when it seems he can’t win.

Well, it’s Jack Kirby art. So by definition it’s an awesome-looking fight. Yes, Stan really, really was fortunate in his artists.

Back in Asgard, Balder and Sif watch the fight via a mystic crystal. They go to Odin and convince him to take a look and see that Thor’s life is very much in danger. But when Odin gets to the crystal chamber, the crystal is gone.

Balder quickly deduces that Loki took it to keep Odin from realizing that Thor needs help. He also correctly deduces that Loki is now hiding out with the crystal in the dangerous Norn forest.

I’m not sure how Balder knew this last part. Loki seems to have all his powers back, so he presumably has all time and space in which to hide. Oh, well, I’m not an Asgardian god. Maybe Balder has some inside knowledge.

The issue ends with Thor defeated and presumably dead.

Which brings us to the end of February. In March 1968, the FF will tangle with the Power Cosmic; Spider Man will tangle with J. Jonah Jamison (in direct combat, no less); and Thor will tangle with the goddess of the afterlife.

Cover Cavalcade

That's the oddest designed robot I've ever seen. I WANT ONE!!!!

Friday's Favorite OTR

Suspense: “The Pasteboard Box” 1/17/46

A wonderful episode in which Joseph Cotton plays a guy who fakes a suicide, then murders and replaces his wealthy twin brother. He dismembers the body and manages to dispose of most of it. But getting rid of the head proves to be annoyingly hard.

I thought I had figured out the twist at the end, but the story manages to go in a different direction.

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