The Wild Wild West Rides On

I have posted about it here in a while, but Jim Shelley and I are still working our way through The Wild Wild West (nearing the end of season 3!) over on his blog. Check it out here.

The Future in the Past

Star Trek: Designing the Final Frontier by Dan Chavkin and Brian McGuire came out this week. It catalogs the use of Mid-Century Modern and Brutalist artifacts (furniture, decorative elements, household items, and architecture) but informed and served as the building blocks of the future as presented in Star Trek the original series.

The authors go season by season, detailing the items of Mid-century design that appear on screen. Costuming is not covered really, presumably because there is already a book on the costume design of Star Trek. in between the season by season rundown, their are short chapters on various topics like architecture, matte paintings, and Brutalism.

The only flaw I find in the book is that it is all too short. A mere 166 pages!

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1980 (wk 1, pt 1)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of  August 14, 1980. 

Batman #329: The Two-Face story continues from last issue. He tries twice to kill Batman, first with a bomb, then with a fire, as the Dark Knight works to get the goods on Karoselle's murderer. Batman has figured out that the killer is Two-Face, but doesn't have the proof or motive yet. He enlists Gilda, Harvey Dent's ex, to trap her current boyfriend, who Batman now reveals to be Two-Face in disguise. It turns out Karoselle was really Moroni, the mobster responsible for Dent's disfigurement, with a new face. Two-Face thought he had killed him before, but Moroni escaped albeit now without the use of his legs. Batman disguises himself as Moroni to draw Two-Face out. He appeals to his former ally to turn himself in, but in the end, it's Gilda's appeal that gets Two-Face to surrender. A solid effort from Wolfman and Novick, but not memorable. 

The backup story features more of Barr's take on the Dynamic Duo, and the Rich Buckler art is welcome, but this story is nothing special. There's a mobster awaiting a heart transplant, but someone steals it. Batman and Robin recover it and find out it was the mobster's own daughter behind the theft. This story has continuity with the main feature with a subplot involving a doctor thinking Batman is too uncaring to visit his sometime informant who is in the hospital (since last issue), but it turns out he's wrong. 

DC Comics Presents #27: Starlin's back, this time with Wein, and we get the first appearance of Mongul. He wants Superman to get an artifact for him from a crypt on a distance world that turns out to be the new home world of the Martians. This leads to conflict with Martian Manhunter who's trying to specifically keep Mongul from getting the key to planet-sized, super weapon, the Death Star War World! Superman wins the fight, but plans to not to turn over the key once Mongul frees his friends. He fails to keep Mongul from it, and Martian Manhunter rightly takes the Man of Steel to task over his over-confidence. Superman vows to get back that key or die trying! Best story this week. The backup, though, is "Whatever Happened to...Congo Bill" by Rozakis and Tanghal where Congo Bill takes on... a guy in a gorilla suit. I feel like this feature is being under-used so far.

Flash #291: The Barry Allen lookalike gangster tries to kill Fiona again, but is foiled by her neighbor's kid who thinks the guy is Barry Allen, too. Allen has had about enough of this and calls in King Faraday to explain the truth. To his neighbor. Because that's what matters. There is a scene of the Flash running up a searchlight beam just before this that is the sort of stuff tiresome Marvel fanboys claim DC characters always do but doesn't really happen that often. Anyway, the mobster has allowed himself to be captured because while all this was going, as he tried to hit the international assassin Sabre-tooth from last issue and is scared. Sabre-Tooth escapes from prison for revenge. He's wearing a costume now like the Flintstone's version of Hobgoblin's outfit (all shaggy fur) except it has tusks. Barry Allen uses his resemblance to the mobster to draw Sabre-Tooth out, and the Flash quickly dispatches him, because he's the sort of guy that can run up beams of light, and what can a guy with a gun and a furry suit do against that?

The Firestorm backup by Conway, Perez and Smith, is mostly Raymond and Stein dealing with personal issues. Stein has a job interview and is trying to stay sober. Ronnie gets bullied by that nerd Carmichael, then has to go with his girlfriend to pick up her sister from the airport. She has had some sort of unspecified "sickness." We end on a cliffhanger with an attack by the Hyena. 

Ghosts #94: Holding steady with mediocrity from last month, I think. The first story by Mimai Kin and Win Mortimer is a cautionary tale about genealogical research. James Fitzroy discovers in old documents that his family's original name was Muldoon, and they were from Ballybrooke not Galway. He returns to the old sod and discovers his ancestor was a hanging judge and had a man executed that later proved innocent. A man whose new bride cursed the judge's family. Then, he meets up with a beautiful, spectral woman in a wedding dress. He's found dead the next day. In the next story by Wessler and Sparling, a blind man (who looks kind of like a young Joe Walsh) is caught in a shoot out between gangsters and his service dog is shot and killed. The dog's ghost continues to be the man's companion. The gangsters, not realizing the dog is dead already, plan to kill him so he, uh, can't pick them out of a line-up, I suppose. Anyway, the ghost dog has his revenge. 

In a yarn by Kashdan and Newton a surgeon in a Latin American country takes a bribe to murder a pro-democracy agitator on the operating table. The man's ghost haunts the operating room, and gets his revenge when the surgeon is brought in after being in serious car crash. The last story, again written by Kin with art by Barretto and Colletta, has a wrongdoer dying in perhaps the dumbest fashion. After killing a man for his poker winnings, Bailey plans to brick up his body behind a wall in an old mill. Before he's done the guy's ghost emerges, and they tussle. Bailey is knocked out, but when he comes to the ghost is gone. He just has to finish the wall, which he does. Only then does he realize he's now on the other side and can't get out!

G.I. Combat #223: I couldn't get ahold of this issue, so the cover is all I have to offer.

Jonah Hex #42: Scalphunter is absent from this issue, so the main story gets 8 more pages. Fleisher and Forton need them as they set up a 3-parter. Jonah Hex has been trying to take down the Sugar Wallace gang who has been stealing sheep and running homesteaders off their land. Eventually, Hex kills them all with some dynamite in his hotel room and a shoot out in the streets. What Hex doesn't know is that Wallace has been acting on the orders of the Mayor and a cabal of wealth businessmen in town who know a new railroad spur is to be built and want the sheepherders' land to profit from it. With Wallace done in, they contrive to get the law to take care of Hex, specifically Marshall Jeremiah Hart. Hart gets a fair among of "screentime" this issue, to set him up as the stalwart, traditional Western lawman, with a fast gun and sure aim. Meanwhile, Hex meets up again with Mei Ling who he wants to marry, but she'll only agree if he gives up his guns. The cabal of businessmen murder one of their number, then tell Hex it was one of Wallace's gang that did it, and tell Hart it was Hex, setting up the confrontation. I can't say Forton's art is stellar, but it will be interesting to see where the story is going.

Weird Revisited: Gnomes: Magical Mystery Tour

The original version of this post appeared in 2010, the first full year of this blog. It relates to the setting I briefly ran (and wrote about) prior to launching into the City and Weird Adventures. I late stole ideas from this setting for other stuff.

 

As mentioned before, there are two types of beings called "gnomes" in the world of Arn. One is a scholarly group akin to halflings, inhabiting and maintaining the Library of Tharkad-Keln. The other are ultraterrestrials--extraplanar beings--who have been characterized as an annoying group of pilgrims, or even less charitably, as an infection of the Prime Material Plane. It is this second type of gnome that will concern us here.

Gnomes usually appear as diminutive men with nut-brown skin and large, amber eyes. There are reports of green-skinned gnomes, and youthful females, but these are more rare. No one knows if these different forms reflect real differences within the gnomish race, or are only affectations.

Their demeanor is often perplexing, as well. They often project a knowing amusement in their interactions with other intelligent species, but can at times view even the simplest and commonplace things with child-like wonder. Unless directly threatened, they often seem blissfully unaware of dangerous situations.

No one knows on what plane the gnomes arose. Some hold that it was the elemental plane of earth itself, given their connection with that element. Others hold that they hail from an alternate material plane with a higher concentration of elemental earth. Wherever they came from, they're now a race of travelers--though the purpose of their travels is mysterious.

Gnomes go anywhere there is elemental earth. They somehow dwell within--and move and communicate through--something they refer to as "tesseract networks" within the elemental particles of earth (which as all natural philosophers know are cubic in nature). Gnomes occasionally invite other sapients into their "networks," but those who return are unable to give coherent descriptions of what they have seen.

Certain species of mushrooms represent "nodes" in the gnomish network, and are places from which gnomes emerge into our plane. Consumption of these mushrooms expands the consciousness in unpredictable ways--sometimes allowing experiences of the areas around other nodes in the gnomish network, perhaps in other time periods, or allowing direct mental communication with the intellects of the gnomes themselves. The minds of other species don't always recover from these experiences.

Despite their alien nature, gnomes are generally friendly toward other intelligent races. They will often trade gems or precious stones, though the items they desire in exchange can't be predicted. They are often skilled mages and have been known to join adventuring parties for a time, when they can find one willing to put up with their eccentricities. They go and come as they please with no explanation.  Mostly, they observe with interest, as if the world was a play put on for their amusement.

DC, October 1980 ( wk 2, pt 3)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This continues my look at the comics at newsstands around July 24, 1980.

Sgt. Rock #345: In the lead story, Kanigher and Frank Redondo almost make you feel sorry for the Iron Major. He's constantly losing to Rock (and presumably other Allied forces) and seems to keenly feel his men's deaths. At one point, Rock stops him from killing himself! It's an interesting tack to take, not because it strives to portray a German officer with some positive traits (that's not uncommon in Kanigher's war books that often focus on how bad war is for everyone), but that this supposed arch-nemesis of Sgt. Rock is portrayed as kind of a sad sack.

The next story is set in Korea and is written by its protagonist Sgt. Major Richard J. Bissette, who I assume is the father of the artist, Steve R. Bissette. Bissette's group is ordered to stay back and clear the way for a brigade to cross a bridge before it is blown. Bissette's team has to hold on until after the bridge is blown and swim the river. Pretty harrowing stuff! "The Bridge" (creators aren't credited) is the story of a selfless GI trying to get a group of Japanese civilians, including women and children, to surrender rather than commit suicide after the U.S. takes an island. He succeeds but only at the cost of his own life. In the last story (also uncredited, but maybe the same artist) a doughboy in the trenches of WWI thinks the pilots have it easy until he's forced to witness the mercy killing of one who is burning alive in his crashed plane. 

Super Friends #37: The main story has that comic book trope of the villain who is barely a match for one hero in a solo hero book becomes a challenge for an entire team in a team book. In this case, it's the Weather Wizard who's up to some nonsense, but the real story is about Supergirl being jealous that Linda Danver's students lavishing so much attention on the Justice League while Supergirl does most of the issue's heroics. It all works out in the end, of course. The backup story by Bridwell and Tanghal presents the origin of the Global Guardians member, Jack o' Lantern. It backs a lot of Irish cliches into one story.

Unexpected #203: The horror host Judge Gallows returns courtesy of Seeger and Patricio who offer up a penal theme horror story, which is unsettling in 2021 for reasons the author didn't intend. Murderer Joe Mundy gets his mother to plead for leniency at his trial, so he gets life in prison rather than the electric chair, which the guards assigned to him think is a complete travesty. So do the ghosts of his victims who torment him in his cell. The horrific part is the guards standby and watch him do this in response to unseen entities only thinking maybe they should intervene when it's too late. One of them quips upon finding that Mundy is indeed dead that maybe he was just "energy conscious" in avoiding the chair. 

The second story by Wessler and Patricio is a kind of Frankenstein movie riff only with the twist that the corpses are reanimated by clone tissue and there's a good one and a bad one. The final tale, also be Wessler, opens with a well-rendered scene by Malgapo where a Gadwin, about to be burned at the stake defends himself by claiming he's a sorcerer not a necromancer (he might have wanted to consult a lawyer there). Anyway, he burns, but not before cursing Joshua Xerxes Tabor, his accuser, and vowing to destroy his family 300 years from that day. Why he waits so long to enact his vengeance and allow generations of Tabor's to live and die in great wealth is beyond me, but eventually a Tabor is in line to be President, only the other baby, Lester Colt, saved from a fire in the hospital years ago and supported by the Tabor family is his challenger. When Colt seems to be winning the Tabor patriarch decides to shoot him. As he gets the electric chair, the ghost of Gadwin reveals that the man he shot and killed was his real son and the man about to win the presidency was the real Lester Colt. Revenge! This issue is a big step down from last month, I think.

Unknown Soldier #244: Haney and Ayers pit the Soldier against a Japanese "ghost sub" and throw in Captain Storm of The Losers as a guest star. The solution to this one is pretty convoluted: a German sub crew is pretending to be Americans and actually impersonating a Japanese sub. Haney's  approach to his book is very different from Kanigher's over at Sgt. Rock. We get to compare the two side by side, because the lead story is followed up by a Kanigher/Yeates story told from the point of view of an American bomber that flies on after it's crew is dead to crash into the intended target. The Dateline: Frontline feature by Burkett and Estrada continues to be not on the frontlines. Instead, this installment looks at the jobs women took over on the homefront for the war effort as the correspondent Clifford meets a woman mail carrier who wants to join the WAC.

Tolkien in Blacklight

It's well known that hippies were into Tolkien's work. Some of it's themes appealed to them, certainly, but like with Ditko's Dr. Strange comics, there was also the idea that the works might somehow be drug-influenced. That the author might be taking the same trip as them. This was, of course, a false belief, but it was one that existed.

I feel like this appreciation of Tolkien filtered through 60s countercultural and mixed with the prevalent cultural representations of fairytale fantasy led to a a subgenre or movement within fantasy, most prevalent in the late 70s and early 80s, before D&D derived fantasy came to ascendancy. While this subgenre likely finds expression in literature and music to a degree, I think it's most obvious and definable in visual media. It's evident in works like the Bakshi's film Wizards and the comic Weirdworld ( both in 1977), and in the Wizard World sequences (starting in 1979) of Mike Grell's Warlord. Elfquest (1978) shows the influence to a degree. Bodē's Cheech Wizard (1966) and Wally Wood's Wizard King (introduced 1968 but significantly presented in 1978) are either the oldest examples or it's direct progenitors.

Essentially, the subgenre eschews the serious world-building of LotR for a more drug-influenced riff on The Hobbit, often with greater use of anachronism, camp, and sexiness, and often with a degree of psychedelia. Beyond the Tolkien influence, these works tend to share a number of common features:  a "traditional" visualization of elves and dwarfs as "little people," arising in folklore and classic illustration, but coming more directly from Disney animation and the fairytale comics of Walt Kelly; the influence of Denslow's Oz illustrations or design aesthetic of The Wizard of Oz (1939); more unreal and visually alien settings informed by Sword & Sorcery comics rather than the historical or mythic sources of Tolkien.

Given they were contemporaries, why didn't D&D borrow more from this? I think in some of the less than serious aspects of classic D&D, it did. It may have influences some of the visuals as well. But as a game that arose from wargaming there was always a thread of verisimilitude or equipment fixation that runs counter to this freewheeling psychedelic adventure vibe.

Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1980 (wk 2 pt 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around July 24, 1980. Other obligations kept me from getting through all the comics by Wednesday, so look for a follow-up later in the week with the rest.

Legion of Super-Heroes #268: I like the Perez/Austin cover on this, but the story is rough. DeMatteis introduces perhaps one of the goofiest villains to ever appear in a comic, and I don't mean goofy-charming like sometimes happens. Having Ditko on art chores doesn't do the story any favors either; he's a poor fit for the LSH. Anyway, Dr. Mayavale appears as a handle-bar moustachioed guy with hair something like a white guy's afro, a cowboy hat, a "Like Ike" medallion, a chainmail skirt, and 6 extra, noodly, green arms. He's a bit like Marvel's Stranger, I suppose, but with worse fashion sense. And more arms. Anyway, he's an alien mystic who's aware of all his past lives, retaining the knowledge of them. After being virtuous for so long he decides to be evil for a bit. He bedevils the Legion members that fall into his grasp by sending then back to their supposed past lives including being Native Americans of the Great Plains and the assassins of Julius Caesar. He plans to sacrifice Dream Girl for, well, I don't really know what. It turns out all those "past lives" really aren't and the characters they meet are robots. The Legion prevails against them and Mayavale withdraws to contemplate his next move. Hopefully it takes him a long time. 

Mystery in Space #112: The first story by Barr and Sutton is that old standby: a tale of prejudice. The starship U.S.S. Liberty assumes the humanoid race on an alien world to be the virtuous defenders and the reptilians the aggressors--a perception the humanoids foster until they've had human help to eliminate their foes. Then they turn on the humans. In "Howl!" by DeMatteis and Wise, the United Earth ship Lenin rescues a young ensign, Luanna Helstrumm adrift in a lifeboat following an attack by alien warships. Captain Karamozova is uneasy about the Helstrumm, and gets even more so when her crew starts turning up dead. Helstrumm is revealed to be a vampire and Karamozova tries to kill her in a star, but has to settle for entombing her forever in a starship made of silver. It's a bit silly, I guess, but I feel like DeMatteis redeems himself (a bit) for that Legion story.

In the next story by Kasdan/von Eeden, an emblezzer injured in a spaceship crash gets rebuilt in the image of his stepson's reptilian toy by helpful aliens. The final story by Kashdan and Bingham sees a ham radio operator in a loveless marriage accidentally transporting a beautiful alien to earth in a radio beam. They develop a relationship over a number of nightly encounters. When his wife discovers them she attacks the alien only to to killed by an equally alien pet. The radio ham is arrested for her murder. When convicted he gets the electric chair, which transports him to the realm of his alien lover when he's shot full of electricity. Overall, this issue was a cut above what we previously got in Timewarp, I think.

New Adventures of Superboy #10: Superboy travels to the 52nd Century where he finds a replica of Smallville and an android ("humatron") version of himself in a futuristic theme park. He subs in for a malfunctioning humatron and gets nabbed by a rival of the park's owner who wants to improve his own alien replica androids. Superboy teaches the thief a lesson while never revealing he's the real article, then slips back to his own time. Bates' and Schaffenberger's story could reasonably be said to have "Silver Age charm," though it probably wouldn't have interested me in the 1980, and honestly isn't the sort of thing I would seek out now. The Rozakis, Calnan, and De Mulder backup is sort of a day in the life of Krypto and has a similar feel to the main story. The only break with Silver Age tradition is that this Bronze Age Krypto thinks in full sentences.

Warlord #38: Read more about it here. In the backup, Starlin's continuation of OMAC rolls on with the GPA destroyed and the U.S. now in the hands of corporations. We are told by the corporate representative Wiley Quixote that IC&C control's one half and Verner Bros. controls the other. Given the similarity of those names to the corporate owners of the Big Two at the time (Cadence Industries Corporation and Warner Bros.) I can't help but think Starlin was making doing some allegory for the comics industry here.