Friday's Favorite OTR

 Suspense: "Tell You Why I Shouldn't Die" 6/7/51

Richard Widmark plays a Coney Island pitch-man who has to make the greatest pitch of his life to convince someone not to murder him.

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The Last Adventure

 

cover art by A.L. Ripley

Read/Watch 'em In Order #181

We come to the last work of prose fiction in the January 10, 1926 issue of Adventure. This one is a novella titled "He Shall Have Best Who Can Keep," by Gordon MacCreath.

And it's a good one. I have a fondness for stories narrated in the first person as if being told the tale in a bar or club. In this case, an Amazon riverman named Theophile Da Costa is describing his recent adventures to the man to whom he's selling a cargo of ivory nuts. 

And it was quite an adventure. Theophile and his partner--a red-headed American nick-named Peloroxo--had a shipment of nuts hijacked along with the small steam-powered riverboat they were using to bring the nuts downriver. As they begin a chase that takes them many miles upriver, they are joined by Peloroxo's father. The dad wants to bring his son home to join the family business. But as the days-long pursuit continues, the father begins to appreciate his son's courage, intelligence and business acumen.

The good guys have friends among the Indians along the river, so soon have quite a few allies. The thieves, though outnumbered, have fortified the riverboat with firewood and manage to give their pursuers a slip on several occasions. The story maintains suspense, has several good action scenes and keeps events moving along at a brisk pace. And Theophile's casual narration adds enormously to the charm of the tale. I don't go to bars in real life, but I love a well-told bar story.

You can read the story yourself HERE.

Medieval Times Meets the Space Age

 

cover art by George Wilson

Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space #18 (October 1966) begins a four-issue story arc in which the Robinson family is accompanied by men and women from 12th Century Europe.

The script by Gaylord Du Bois gives us a strong and intelligent science fiction tale, with Dan Spiegle's excellent art bringing the story to life.

By the way, Gold Key's Space Family Robinson predates TV's Lost in Space by three years. Both series were based on the idea of moving The Swiss Family Robinson into space. Normally, Gold Key would have been the go-to company for a comic book adaptation of the TV series--they did comic adaptations of other Irwin Allen-produced series. But the existence of another Robinson family beating the Lost in Space crew into the cosmos prevented this. Instead, the comic book was renamed Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space starting with its 15th issue, but kept the comic book characters/continuity. 

The story we're looking at begins with the Robinson family's lost space station suffering from life support issues. They need to find a planet to land on to make repairs. The two kids, Tim and Tam, take the scout ship down to a planet with a breathable atmosphere. They find a city destroyed by nuclear war centuries ago, radiation levels down to acceptable levels, and a damaged space ship parked amidst it all.

As I said, Du Bois' script is intelligent. One thing he does is introduce new information, characters and plot information gradually, keeping our interest and building up suspense. The book is packed with a lost of nifty details, but its never overstuffed. It's really an excellent example of world-building.

 

My summary probably won't do justice to Du Bois' skill as a writer. Craig and June--the parents--eventually join the kids on the planet's surface. Dangerous and probably mutated animals are encountered. A search of the damaged space ship produces images of the giant crew. Then, hidden in the city, the Robinsons find suspended animation capsules. One of them contains one of the giant aliens. The others are humans dressed in 12th Century clothing. Helpful name tags (a little bit of a cheat--there's no logical reason for name tags--especially written in English) identifies one of the humans as Sir Thomas Maldane--an ancestor of June.

Sir Thomas is awakened. In another minor by acceptable cheat, he doesn't speak historically-accurate Middle English or Old French, but rather Elizabethan style English, so he and the Robinson's understand each other. He explains that the alien ship landed on Earth during a tournament. There was a flash of light and now--from Sir Thomas' point-of-view--he was suddenly somewhere else.

The alien also wakes up. His name is Kor and he's kind of a jerk. Having learned English, he explains that he plans to add the Robinson's to his collection of humans for scientific study.

He then gives the job of space janitors to Tim and Sir Thomas, cleaning out his spaceship. I love what happens next--the cloud of dust raised up while the two humans sweep gives Kor a sneezing fit, giving Tim a chance to grab his weapon.

The other humans are awakened and help deal with various dangerous animals. The issue ends with Kor and the Robinsons cutting a deal--the humans will help repair Kor's ship and he will help them get back to Earth.

As I said, Du Bois' script unfolds the story much more effectively than I do in my summary. Even taking the minor cheats about language into consideration, it really is good science fiction. 

We'll find out how helpful Kor is next week, when we look at the next issue. 

Cover Cavalcade

 MAY IS ADORABLE HARVEY COMICS COVERS MONTH!

From 1978. No artist is credited.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 Fort Laramie: "The Woman at Horse Creek" 2/12/56

Quince and a patrol find an isolated cabin. The woman living there is alone--her husband died painfully from a gangrenous leg. Their sympathies aroused, the troopers raise enough money to send her to her family back East. But then... Gee whiz, this is a brutal episode!

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Clic

52 Weeks 52 Sherlock Holmes Novels

 

I should preface my review by saying that I have four essays in this volume, discussing the books The Seven-Percent Solution, The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes,  A Study in Scarlet Women, and A Study in Charlotte and editor Paul Bishop was kind enough to allow me to co-host several episodes of his now-retired Six-Gun Justice podcast. But setting aside my own contributions, I can honestly say that this book is a ton of fun. A number of authors contributed excellent essays about Holmes pastiches, reviewing these novels, talking about how they influenced their own appreciation of Holmes and obviously having fun sharing their enthusiasm for the Great Detective. 

I've learned of a number of books I know pretty much HAVE to read and been reminded of a few I now want to re-read. One essay praised a Holmes pastiche that I read years ago and didn't care for, but the author's enthusiasm makes me reconsider my opinion and perhaps give that book another chance. 

There are several other superb essays in addition to those about the books--covering subjects such as collecting Holmesian memorabilia, publishing new Holmes stories and illustrating such stories. If you are a Holmes fan or are simply interested in finding out why Sherlock has such an enduring appeal, this is a must-read book. 

You can buy a copy HERE. 

Black Panther has a Sherlock Holmes Moment!

 

cover art by Ron Wilson

Avengers #126 (August 1974), written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Bob Brown, has moments throughout that deal with ongoing character arcs--most significantly Scarlet Witch's jealousy of Mantis (who has designs on Vision) and Captain America wondering if he should give up being Captain America. This, of course, is one of the appeals of an ongoing series--character change and character growth. (Though Wanda's decision to start a jealous argument with Vision AFTER they've been captured by villains is a bit awkward.)

For this review, though, I'm going to concentrate on the main plot, which I think is fun and well-constructed. The ambassador from the country of Rudyarda comes to Avengers Mansion. This country is essentially the Marvel Universe version of apartheid South Africa, where you can get arrested for being black. In fact, Black Panther had been jailed in that country once for precisely that crime.

The ambassador proves himself to be a jerk right away by refusing to shake T'Challa's hand--he finds the touch of a black man distasteful. But he also reports the mysterious death of the embassy gardener, who was burnt to a crisp, and death threats against other members of the embassy staff. The Avengers are obligated to help anyone who needs it, even if they are racist blowhards. Iron Man, Thor and Cap are in conference, so Panther, Wanda, Vision, Swordsman and Mantis head outside with the ambassador, intending to go to the Rudyardian Embassy.

They only make it as far as the Mansion's front yard before Klaw and Solarr trap them in a sound bubble. Bob Brown provides us with a really fun two-page spread here.

There's an equally fun narration box on the bottom of the page--inviting readers to suggest how Solarr and Klaw met and formed a partnership. If anyone knows who "won" this, let me know.

The sound bubble is impenetrable and also extends underground, while giant Klaw is just a projection. Klaw himself is somewhere else.

Klaw reveals that he has as much reason to hate Rudyarda as anyone. Normally, we might actually sympathize with him. But his desire for revenge involves forcing Black Panther to abdicate his Wakandan throne and appoint Klaw as dictator. (The Wakandan constitution really needs to work on its Balance of Powers issues.)

Solarr zaps the ambassador, apparently injuring him seriously. Wanda uses her hex powers to revive him, but Klaw gives Panther only an hour to abdicate before Solarr zaps one of the women.

Panther, who has the most experience fighting Klaw, figures he must be physically located within a 20-block radius. So Cap, Thor and Shellhead go hunting with sound detectors. They track down Klaw's apparent headquarters and fight some solid sound constructs of huge panthers (I love Comic Book Science). But Klaw is nowhere to be found.

That's when Black Panther has his Sherlock moment. He deduces that Klaw is actually the ambassador in disguise!

He punches out Klaw, the sound barrier and the bubble containing Solarr fade away and Solarr falls to the ground and gets knocked out. 

I love this ending, because Panther's explanation for how he deduced the ambassador was really Klaw is perfectly logical. If Holmes had battled super villains, this ending would have fit perfectly into the Holmsian Canon.

As I implied earlier, some of the ongoing character moments are sandwiched awkwardly into the action scenes. The heroes here are all experienced pros who should know to set that sort of stuff aside until the bad guys are taken care of. But, to be fair, you wouldn't want an issue in which the first half is all soap opera stuff and the action doesn't begin until halfway through the issues. Getting in the character moments without ruining the pacing of an issue is probably an ongoing issue for comic book writers.

  

But despite this, Englehart and Brown turn out a fun story with a great ending.

Next week, we will rocket into the cosmos to visit with the Space Family Robinson.

Cover Cavalcade

 MAY IS ADORABLE HARVEY COMICS COVERS MONTH!

From 1965. Once again, the artist is not credited.

Friday's Favorite OTR

 X Minus One: "Hallucination Orbit" 5/15/56

A man stranded alone on a planet begins to hallucinate beautiful women. He realizes they are hallucinations, though. So when a woman shows up to rescue him, how does he know SHE'S real?

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Hoss and his Pet... Mountain Lion?

 

The Whitman TV-tie in books from the 1960s are nearly always worth reading. The publisher hired excellent authors who faithfully captured the characters and settings of the various TV series, then told a great story that did not write down to the young target audience.

Killer Lion is a great example of this. The author, Steve Frazee, was a superb Western wordslinger who could always be depended upon to tell a good story. In this case, he begins the novel with Hoss Cartwright staying at a remote line cabin, waiting out the tail end of winter while he watches over a new herd of cattle his Pa recently purchased.

Hoss shoots a mountain lion, then finds the lion's cub nearby. The practical thing to do is to shoot the cub as well, but Hoss is the Cartwright brother who tends to bond with animals.

So, even though he knows its a bad idea in the long term, Hoss begins to care for the cub, naming it Rimrock. Rimrock begins to grow, but also gets used to being cared for and refuses to learn to hunt anything larger than mice. Eventually, Hoss takes Rimrock far away from the cabin and releases him, figuring the young mountain lion will learn to fend for himself if left with no choice. But Rimrock keeps finding his way back to the cabin.

The humor of the story is great--funny and natural to the situation and characters without being forced. But there are also effective moments of drama and danger, such as when Hoss's horse breaks a leg, forcing him to shoot the animal but leaving him lost in the snow with his eyesight fading because of snow blindness.

Later, the action shifts to the Ponderosa. Rimrock has followed Hoss home, forcing him to try to hide the lion from his father and brother. This plan fails spectacularly before long. Then things get serious again when a traveler is apparently killed by a mountain lion. A hunting party is formed, but Hoss thinks the death might have been deliberate murder made to look like a lion attack. The only way to save Rimrock is to find the real killer.

Hoss is the perfect Cartwright brother to take the lead in this story, because he's the one who would give in to (arguably misplaced) compassion and get himself into this situation. And Frazee expertly mixes comedy with drama, introducing real moments of danger and giving the novel an appropriate bittersweet ending.