Who Can Save Us Now?

This is an anthology of stories about varying aspects of the superhero life.  Some stories are silly, some are serious, some are more "realistic" than others.  Here are a few of the ones I liked the best:

"The Quick Stop 5" by Sam Weller -- can you say "industrial accident"?
"Remains of the Night" by John McNally -- mash "creepy" and "depressing" and you get the idea
"The Meerkat" by Owen King -- I love the origin of the giant Russian Robot
"Man Oh Man -- It's Manna Man" by George Singleton -- what a great superpower!
"My Interview with the Avenger" by Tom Bissell -- if they had interviewed Big Daddy from Kick-Ass (the movie I mean), it might go like this
"Mr Big Deal" by Sean Doolittle -- to catch one, send one
"The Somewhat Super" by David Yoo -- check your local VFW chapter
"Bad Karma Girl Wins at Bingo" by Kelly Braffet -- and also meets her Dad

Some of the tales are OK, some are more "literary" or "serious" -- I confess that they weren't as rewarding to me, though.

All in all, this was a fun read.  With twenty-some stories, this book can probably entertain you.

Book Review: The Supergirls

The complete title of this fun book is The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines.
With chapter titles like "The Queen & the Princess" (Sheena & Wonder Woman that is), "Girls Together (Outrageously)," and "SUPERGIRL & The Ballad of American Youth," you can tell that the author has considered things, and gone farther than an organized list.

One of author Mike Madrid's many interesting observations seems obvious, but it is insightful.  It's simply the observation that male heroes are often *something*MAN, while most adult heroines are still GIRLS, like The Invisible Girl, or Power Girl.

While some might interpret such things as intentional oppression by a demonic patriarchy, Madrid makes the more commonsense observation that, considering who ran the industry -- mostly guys who were in their 40s or 50s -- and their target audience -- boys six to fourteen years old -- then, it's not surprising that this naming "phenomenon" worked out that way.

Personally, having bought and read both of the recent Fletcher Hanks anthologies, I was hoping for more than a mere mention of Fantomah, the autocratic avenger of the Jungle-Born.  But that's just me.

There are fine chapter-head illos by Madrid, who is also an accomplished illustrator and modelmaker.  But you'll want to SEE some of the comics scenes described in the book, so for that, go to the Supergirls Visual Guide, online at http://www.heaven4heroes.com/heaven4heroes/Heaven4Heroes_SUPERGIRLS_Visual_Guide.html .

This is an interesting read, and part of the reason I liked it is that although Madrid makes many points both positive and negative, he isn't snarky about it.  I learned a lot about comic-book gals from the 1930s and 1940s that I didn't know before, and enjoyed myself.

You should buy it, you'll like it!

PS If, on the Supergirls Visual Guide page, you click on the HOME tab at the top, you can see a lot more of Mr Madrid's artwork!

The Two Ghosts of Superman!

This was the cover story of Superman 186, cover-dated May, 1966.  The art was by Al Plastino (with touches by others), and the story was penned by Otto Binder. 

Interestingly enough, both the cover art and the splash-page art represent actual scenes in the story, unlike lots of stories from this era.

As you can guess from this brief glimpse of subject matter, the readers were expected to be familiar with the trappings of seances and crystal balls.

Indeed, the mid60s was a hotbed ofwonder when it came to consideration of the supernatural.  Psychic Jeanne Dixon was in her heyday, having made much "hey" (pardon the pun) over the coming-true of her very hazy "prediction" of JFK's 1963 death in a reading given before the 1960 election.

Space brothers, recently come down from on high to set our atomic policies aright, were all the rage, too, with George King founding the Aetherius society, the Unarians in California, and lots more wackiness.

So eight-to-ten-year-olds were familiar with the whole table-tipping concept when this story opened up with mug Flashy Fisher telling the Daily Planet staff the location of Cap'n Kidd's treasure, just waiting for Superman to dredge it up, "straight from the spirit's mouth, you might say!"

Sure enough, when a skeptical Superman "gets the message" from Clark Kent, he investigates and -- sure enough -- there the loot is!  Supes does the right thing and turns the treasure trove in, to the US Mint, which gives him a share as a finder's fee.  In turn, Supes give most of that dough to charity, with a small percentage going to Flashy for the original tip.

Clark's interest is piqued when  the hood "drops" a business card when leaving with his cut of the dough.  "Sir Seer," eh?  Maybe Superman should pay this guy a little visit.

Actually, it's a subterranean visit!  Aftger digging underground to the psychic's digs (get it?), the Man of Tomorrow super-spies on a seance, whose target spirit this time is Jesse James.

Boy, is Superman puzzled when he can't find a trace of trickery!  That's right -- no confederate dressed up in luminous paint -- no dummy on a wire.  As Cecil the Seasick Sea-Serpent would say, "What the HECK!?!?!"

Next, the nonplussed Man of Steel goes to the location indicated by the ghost, and finds gold!  He quickly melts the gold dust into bars and ferries it to a government vault, again cutting in the shady character from the seance with a share.

Well sir, Superman doesn't know up from down after that.  He calls a news conference and endorses Sir Seer's 100-per-cent track record.

Soon after, Sir Seer holds a seance for the press, attended by Lois, Clark, and Lana Lang for her job at WGBS-TV.  The guy takes requests!  So, in a trice, Queen Isabella of Spain appears, to tell the gathered folks that some of Columbus's treasure is hidden -- gusss where?

By now, we're thinking, "Give me a break!  How could there be loot in the Batcave?"

Read it and weep!

Ths bottom panels of this page let us in on what we susupected -- that somehow this whole psychic gig was a fraud.  But why?  What kind of crooks would give away most of a treasure to the government?  And don't forget that Superman himself was stumped.

But keep reading.  These guys are saying that SOME of the phenomena were faked, but NOT Queen Isabella!  Ol' Sir Seer must REALLY have some pull with the ghostly crowd, after all!  "I had genuine pychic powers all along, and didn;t know it!" -- Sheesh, bragging much?

So, it's back to the psychic we go with Lana and Lois, but his time with Superman, not Clark, playing the quizzical role.

And that's when the scene depicted in the tale's splash page comes true.  The spirit of Superman's father Jor-El appears, and warns Superman that he is doomed, doomed, DOOMED!  It turns out that Supes and Supergirl are scheduled to scheduled to test some nuclear weapons at his Fortress of Solitude.  Jor-El says nix on that, or else there will be a couple of more Kryptonians in The Great Beyond!

Nevertheless, our hero resolves to go on with the task, and -- as you can see above -- at the appointed time, either a huge explosion rocks the Earth, -- or -- Lois and Lana are rehearsing a new version of the Frug.

To make sure, the gals visit Sir Seer, who reaches into the etheric hat and pulls out TWO ghosts, not one!

Now, let's refer back to the beginning of this review, when I mentioned that the art was by Al Plastino, "with touches."  Look at the first panel on this page for an example of what I mean.  Do Lois and Lana's faces look like Plastino girls?  NO!  Do they look like Kurt Schaffenberger girls?  YES!

I have no proof of this speculation, but if DC would require Schaffenberger to supply "pretty girl" heads in Curt Swan art (viz. "Superman Red & Blue"), which we know DID happen -- then isn't it possible that the same thing happened here?

One thing we DO know is that the LAST panel on this page isn't from our pal Al; it is the same Curt Swan art as the cover.  Yes, they shrank down the same drawing!  While this DID happen in some other Superman tales, it by no means was a common occurrence.

Not only do the ghosts appear, they both confess that Clark and Superman were the same, then merge together!  The cat of the secret identity is out of the bag now, ladies!

Well, with the Man of Steel gone, crooks whoop it up in Metropolis.  We read several panels of "Crooks Gone Wild," until -- finally, as we knew he would -- Superman reappears and starts snapping up crooks left and right.

In the denouement, we learn the rest of the story ...

While he was originally bumfuzzled by the whole spiritual thing, eventually Superman tumbled to the trick.  I can tell you, a plot involving 3D projections bounced off of space satellites and then appearing in a darkened room, without a receiver for the image, is a little beyond even the theoretical pale for me.

Neveertheless, when our hero got wise, he himself came up with ways to fake Queen Isabella and Jor-El's appearances.  Super-magnified thumbnail tattoo, anyone?  The  Kidd and James treasures had been planted by crooks to "salt the mine," so to speak -- a fancy way of money-laundering, by forging old treasure through melting down recently stolen valuables.

Jor-El's message of doom laid the groundwork for the "disappearance" of Superman and the free rein of crime in Metropolis.  Superman had hijacked the gold-laundering plot to bring tons of crooks out of hiding and freshly incriminate themselves with this crime spree.

And the ground-twitching? what was the coust of that?  The good ol' SUPER-HEAD-BONK!

What good is a Silver Age comics tale without a good ol' Super-Head-Bonk once in a while?

Now, all that's left is a final panel where Clark explains to Lois how he and Superman cooked up the "Clark's-Ghost-Is-Superman's-Ghost" scene just to tease her and Lana about their Secret Identity suspicions.

Read that last line from Clark.  That's not the Superman I know and love, kids!  That's a sociopath!

CBS's "Psycho" Trend

Has anybody noticed CBS's penchant last week for referring to Alfred Hitchock's Psycho film?

On Wednesday night's Criminal Minds, that was the whole plot twist of the episode.  Robert Knepper is kidnaping, mutilating, and murdering girls to try and recaptured the beauty of his mother, faded film star May, played by Sally Kirkland.  There is a lot of give-and-take dialogue between Knepper's character, named "Rhett," and May.

When the police show up, Rhett and May surrender to the FBI and squad cars outside.  The sequence is shot from many alternating points-of-view.  One of these POVs is Rhett and May descending the front steps of their brownstone, like Gloria Swanson ready for her close-up.

It's only in one of these POVs that we get the clue that Mummy is -- er, a mummy.  Yep, May has been a silent partner all along while Rhett committed the murders.

Shrieking violins, anyone?

Now, on Friday, November 12, we saw a CSI:New York epsiode called "Scared Stiff."  A death in Central Park leads the investigators on a merrie chase which leads them to a closed-down funeral parlor.  As they wander through the basement where the processing rooms are, Detective Don Flack (Eddie Cahill) makes a comment like, "If we find a little-old-lady body in a black dress in a rocking chair, it's every man for himself."

Do you suppose this is a simple coincidence?   If, on  Sunday night's CSI:Miami, Horatio visits "Norman's Baits Shop," it's every man for himself!

Awkward Phrasing 101

Here we have a book by Michel Flynn, In the Country of the Blind, about conspiracy theories and secret societies and attempts to influence history by identifying key events and giving them a little nudge to provide the desired outcome.

Unfortunately, this interesting idea is handled competently, and no more.  At least in my opinion.

There are a few instances when the style of writing simply reaches out of the book and slaps you in the chops, really ruining the story experience.  A novel like this wants to involve you in its tale and characters.  It's a real detriment when something criminally clumsy reminds you that this is all a book that you can put down at any time.

Here is a very laughable, and truly pathetic example.  Here we have the situation of a creepy fellow who is being held at gunpoint by an equally creepy lady.  She is his superior in one of the several secret string-pulling conspiracies featured in this book.  She is also (like the guy) twisted in a sexual manner, too.  Having caught the guy betraying the company, she holds him at gunpoint and orders him to sexually service her.

Here is the deathless prose in its context on page 330:

Just when you figure out that Kennison has an erection, and that his female boss desires to avail herself of it, we find out that he "stiffened" when she points a gun at him.  I thought he was already stiff  ?!?

And the next sentence takes you from humor to sheer disgusted mourning for the sheer dopiness.  "She UNCOCKED the gun."

Well, now that I have given you a reason not to buy this book on Amazon for a penny, I'll leave you until Monday, when we will meet "The Two Ghosts of Superman!"

Soon I Will Be Invincible

This is a delightful read.

It's told in two first-person POVs.  The first is the tale of the greatest criminal genius of all time, whose first name was once Jonathan, but whose official moniker is Doctor Impossible.

The good Doctor gives us a fine insight into how obsession can become commonplace, how dedication to a certain idea can seem mad.  But it's only such madness that can lead to the power.  The power to move the Earth.  The power to build an island hideaway from which to laugh at the Earth's heroes.  The power to sneak into the Supers' own hideout, and laugh at them therefrom.

Ha ha, to LAUGH at them!

...Ahem.  The second POV is the tale told by Fatale, a robo-Bionic Woman kind of character, who honestly doesn't remember who she was before she woke up with -- er, augmentations -- after a terrible traffic accident.

Fatale's story and thoughts give us the other half of a world where Supers and their Nemeses are real.  We have the attempted government co-option of heroes, the effect of Magic on Heroes, the history and future of the world, invasions from space -- AND THOSE ARE JUST PART OF THE BACKSTORY,

Excessive capitalization aside, this is a fun book that will appeal to folks who like Watchmen or Mayer's Super-Folks, or who have just seen Megamind.

And, you've got to love the chapter titles, too.

Vulcan Doomed -- Film at Eleven

OKLAHOMA CITY (Disassociated Press) -- Once a fine polystyrene character from Ben Cooper, a once-proud Mr Spock mask disappeared into the garbage with bruised dignity this past Halloween 2010.

Once a proud celebrant of diversity and jigsaw-puzzle belt buckles, Spock mask took his final retirement with dignity and resignation.

"It is regrettable that my owner did not perform sufficient preservatory skills," were the final telepathic thoughts from the mask as it disappeared down the street in the garbage truck.

Still, we will always have this memory of the masks's final moments:

The Essential Superman Encyclopedia

This is a fine book with some rough edges.

It’s modeled on Michael Fleischer’s The Great Superman Book, first published in 1978. Here we have a cavalcade of entries, from J Wilbur Wolfingham and X-Plam to Adoria and Bizarro.

While in the introductions, authors Greenberger and Pasko apologize for not being 100% inclusive of EVERY super-fact, believe me this tome is exhaustive enough for most purposes.

The authors delight in giving references for every listing of things like suburbs of Metropolis or banks in Smallville, and other brain-bending facts. Of course, that’s the way we like it!

My main negative observation about the book is simply an inelegant writing style in some entries. Dozens of times – and I do mean DOZENS of times -- the phrase “wound up” is used to, er, “wind up” a description of a character. My most un-favorite example is somebody who “wound up shot.” That’s all; they just “wound up shot.”

I only came across one FACTUAL error. There may be more, but the only one this fanboy noticed is that the entry for Streaky the Supercat gets HIS gender wrong.

I don’t know if it is a case of not reading the sources or what, but as you can read and see, the book calls Streaky both “her” and “him” in the same entry. As you can further see from this comic panel (that I just scanned) from Action 261, Streaky is a tomcat, not a Thomasina.

The book has plenty of B&W illustrations and two color insert sections. My opinion on the color sections is simply that more of the art should have been from the first 30 or 40 years of Superman’s existence. And why does he look like a girly man on the cover?

The artists should have been credited, within the text, whenever possible. A simple numeric code or initials would have been great. Instead, there is simply a listing of the name of every artist whose work appears in the book.

Of course, there is neither any listing of the WRITERS of any of the stories that make up “the texts” or “the accounts” that the entries are based on. You wouldn’t really expect such a thing either, I suppose.

But – I was thrilled – indeed, laughed with joy, when I read the entry for Kurtiswana! I had forgotten this one. Other writers and artists may have been memorialized in the Superman canon by having streets or businesses named for them, but only my favorite Super-Artist, Curt Swan, had a COUNTRY named after him!

One sad attribute of this book is how hard it was for Greenberger & Pasko to even try to “tell the story” of some of these characters, given so many retro-continuity tangles and hand-wavings and ignoring of characters’ attributes in earlier appearances that have happened in comic books.

The authors have done a fine job, given the scrambled histories of characters such as Power Girl, and things like Pocket Universes, and the like.

So, if you care about the Man of Steel, get this book. Of course, I don’t know how many of you would simply sit down and read it, cover-to-cover, as I did. But it belongs on any Super-bookshelf.

After you’ve bought and read Fleischer’s book FIRST.

Happy 150th, Frankenstein - Readers Respond

Thanks for sharing Blog-o-Ween!

Happy Halloween from Frankenstein, Boris, and Me!

Bigfoot in Oklahoma Again

When I was a kid there was an area a few blocks west of a friend's house that was overgrown, muddy, and full of twisting trails made by the big kids who snuck around after dark to smoke or drink.

We called it "the Flats."  The whole area was maybe only a half-mile across at its widest point, but to us 11-year-olds, it seemed like an immense jungle.

Whenever I hear about a Bigfoot sighting in Oklahoma, I think of the critter crashing around in "the Flats," and I'm glad I didn't meet him there.

Strange Things Happen in This World . . .

Here's an article from 1996 about one of the later wrinkles in the story about "The Philadelphia Experiment."

The New Twilight Zone

I think that Twilight Zone '86 was a worthy successor to the original series.  In our slavish good-ole-days sense of nostalgia, let's not forget that Rod himself was capapble of turning out a few clinkers.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

This is a great book, and an "--ehhhh" film.

Here are some of the promotional items related to the movie.

Newspaper Monsters from 1990

Don't forget that headline!  "Horror plays role in social education."  It sure did for me!  From ages seven to about age 54, one of my dependable social contacts was with monster-lovers!

 We'd either talk about watching The Crawling Eye on Saturday Night Late Movies, or swap our tattered-but-memorized copies of Famous Monsters, or wonder about flying saucers -- why are they here? what do they want?