Blog 2.0

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

'Cowboys & Aliens' movie lifts graphic novel's high concept

Another comic-book concept makes its movie premiere July 29: Cowboys & Aliens. And therein hangs a tale.

Cowboys & Aliens debuted as a standalone graphic novel from Platinum Studios in 2006 by writers Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley, penciller Luciano Lima and a host of inkers. The story involved an expansionist alien species crash-landing in 1870s Arizona and annexing it while building a transmitter to contact their fleet to finish the job. Apache warriors, gunslingers and pioneer settlers joined forces to battle them, stealing alien equipment where they could to equal the odds.

While the thrust of the story was action, action, action, there was some social commentary too. One gunslinger remarked that the aliens had no right to conquer our turf just because they had better weapons, which resulted in a sheepish “Oh” after a stern look from the Native Americans. The “all men are brothers” theme was underscored by some cross-racial romance, as a gunslinger and a (female) alien science officer fell in love, as did a (white) female gunslinger and an Apache warrior.

None of which seems to apply to Cowboys & Aliens the movie. Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde, the film seems to take very little from the graphic novel except the name and the high concept.

But what a concept it is! It’s almost impossible to look at the GN cover, the movie posters or movie trailers and not have a thrill of anticipation. A cowboy shooting at a UFO with a sixgun? That begs the who, what, why and how response.

Which answers in part this question I hear a lot: How come Hollywood has come to rely so much on comic books as their source material? This is especially remarkable when you consider how comics were once fiercely snubbed by pop culture in general, especially the much-maligned superhero genre. For this 40-year comics reader, it’s a 180-degree turn from my youth, when I had to hide comics to avoid getting beaten up.

So what’s changed? A recent “Simpsons” episode depicted Bart explaining, “Hollywood has run dry of ideas.” While that may be partly true, I think some other things are going on here:

• Comics have really grown up. And I’m not just talking about more sophisticated themes in superhero comics (which are also on display in the X-Men and Spider-Man movies). What I mean are terrific non-superhero comics that have been turned into occasionally terrific movies like 300, Constantine, Kick-Ass, Ghost World, Hellboy, A History of Violence, The Mask, Priest, Men in Black, Red, Road to Perdition, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Sin City, V for Vendetta, Wanted and many more. Regardless of their medium of origin, these are just good stories.

• Movie F/X have caught up to comics. It used to be that if you wanted to see an exploding sun or a plausible space ship, you’d read a comic book (or a science fiction book and imagine it). Now the movies can do it – which means they can finally do comic books and science fiction right.

• Comics concepts come pre-vetted. If you’re writing a Batman movie, for example, you’re standing on the shoulders of giants. The Dark Knight has appeared in hundreds of thousands of stories over more than 70 years, and has had hundreds, if not thousands, of writers. That means all the mistakes have been made; those authors have found what works and what doesn’t, and have discarded the dross. They’ve already done the focus groups, involving millions of readers over decades. If a concept is still in a long-running comic book, that means it’s popular and it works and movie writers should use it. No thinking required.

• Comics are basically movie storyboards. Comics do all the work for a director. The pacing, camera angles and storytelling have all been thought out in advance.

Movies that ignore these lessons do so at their peril. When you compare a list of the worst comic-book movies with a list of comic-book movies where the writers jettisoned or fundamentally altered the existing mythos, many names appear on both. (See: Catwoman, Elektra, Jonah Hex, etc.)

That deviation from source material is happening with Cowboys & Aliens, but here we’re talking about a single graphic novel, one which was a a fairly pedestrian take on what is clearly a cool concept. This time, the movie-makers might be right to start over.

And, honestly: Cowboys shooting at UFOs! How can you go wrong?

 Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

Those of you who have been regular Deck Log followers have seen me discuss the mid-‘60’s phenomenon known as “Batmania” a few times.  It’s one of those things impossible to convey in the written word.  You had to experience it.  When the ABC network launched its new series Batman on 12 January 1966 . . . well, the phrase “overnight sensation” would not be an overstatement. 

Fads come and go, of course.  But normally they infect only a particular sub-set of society and that’s usually a segment of the younger generation.  Batmania was different.  It was one of those rare crazes that swept across the entire culture, regardless of age distinctions.  So, naturally, opportunists found a way to make a buck off of it.

Comics publishers weren’t the only folks to jump on board the super-hero gravy train inspired by the Bat-craze.  Television executives from rival broadcasters CBS and NBC set out to fashion their own super-hero spoofs and, hopefully, leech some of Batman’s ratings-smashing popularity to their own networks.

Comics enthusiasts occasionally discuss the coïncident timing which saw DC’s Doom Patrol and Marvel’s X-Men, two strikingly similar concepts, debut mere months apart in 1963.  And there were other curiously fortuitous instances of this kind, such as the Red Tornado/the Vision in 1968 and the Swamp Thing/the Man-Thing in 1971.

In the case of DC and Marvel, maybe it was happenstance, maybe it wasn’t.  But television has never been that coy about it.  Not only did CBS and NBC present the public with a pair of super-hero sitcoms featuring closely matching characters and premises, but they were introduced on the same night, 09 January 1967, and only a half-hour apart.  Like their spiritual progenitor, Batman, they were both mid-season replacement shows.  And that would not be the end to their parallels.

For those of you who, like me, were around then, this will bring back some memories.  Possibly, even fond ones.  For those of you who came in late, it should be an interesting glimpse of television’s own Silver Age of super-heroes.

A Scientist, Both Wise and Bold, Set Out to Cure the Common Cold;

Instead, He Found This Power Pill . . . .

The first of these Batman wanna-bes was shown on Monday nights, at eight p.m.  (I won’t go into what it says about my brain that I remembered the day of the week without having to consult a 1967 calendar.)  This was the CBS product and it was titled Mr. Terrific, and if you’re thinking that it was about the old DC hero, Terry Sloan, the Man of a Thousand Talents, you’re wrong.  It would probably have been a better show if it had been.

Of the two super-hero send-ups produced by CBS and NBC, this one was, technically, first---and not just because it aired a half-hour before NBC’s effort.  In the summer of 1966, the Tiffany Network had already turned its eye toward producing a Batman clone.  The result was a pilot starring Alan Young, coming off a successful run in Mr. Ed, as Stanley H. Beamish, a nebbishy department-store clerk.  As the plot relates, the efforts of a government laboratory have resulted in the creation of a pill which will bestow a human being with the basic array of Superman-like powers---super-strength, invulnerability, flight, super-speed, and X-ray vision.  Hilarity ensues when it’s discovered that the only person the pill will work on is Stanley Beamish.

As Beamish, Alan Young was clumsy and addle-brained, kind of a dumber version of Wilbur Post.  Young is a talented actor, as was Edward Andrews, who played the head of the government bureau in charge of the super-power pill.  But here, they both played their parts too broadly, and frankly, the script didn’t give them a whole lot to work with.  It was an embarrassment to all involved, and CBS wisely passed on it.

That would have been that for TV’s Mr. Terrific---except that a few months later, CBS got wind that NBC was busy producing its own super-hero satire and the buzz was that it was pretty good.  Not wanting to be left in the lurch, it locked some writers in a room and told them they couldn’t come out until they fixed Mr. Terrific.  The result was a revamp with about as much housecleaning as Julius Schwartz’ revival of the Flash.

The premise---that a “power pill” would give super-powers to only one man---was retained, as was the name of that fateful subject, Stanley Beamish.  Aside from that, everything else, including the cast, was changed.  Now, Stanley Beamish, played by Stephen Strimpell, was half-owner of a small-time garage and filling station.  Where Stanley is meek and mild, his partner and best friend, Hal Walters (Dick Gautier, best remembered as “Hymie the Robot”, from Get Smart), is self-confident and an inveterate skirt chaser.

When a government scientist invents the power pill---accidentally this time, instead of on purpose---the Bureau of Special Projects determines that the only subject in all the country that the pill will affect is Stanley Beamish.  Barton J. Reed (John McGiver), head of the Bureau, and his aide, Harley Trent (Paul Smith), seek out Stanley and recruit him into super-powered government service.  Stanley must keep his rôle as a super-hero secret from everyone, including Hal.

Instead of the ridiculous costume worn by Alan Young in the pilot, which resembled an old-fashioned deep-sea diver’s suit painted gold (and probably was), the new Mr. Terrific costume showed a bit more decorum:  a gold-lamé jacket, which reversed into a regular sport coat, so Stanley could hang it up in his locker at the garage; and an aviator’s scarf and goggles.

In his portrayal of Beamish, Stephen Strimpell was more subdued than Young.  Strimpell’s Beamish was impish and easy going, but didn’t come across as a total nimrod.  Clearly he was out of his depth performing espionage work for the government and often screwed up because of that, but it never devolved into the can’t-walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time level.

The same kind of restraint was shown in the characters of Reed and Trent.  While they occasionally displayed moments of childishness---generally, to accommodate the insertion of a joke---they usually came across as competent.  Or, at least, sitcom competent.

When assigned to a mission, Beamish would be provided with three power pills---one large white one, which rendered him super-powered for one hour; and two small, red pills, which were ten-minute “boosters”.  This was the “maximum dosage”, after which Stanley would have to wait an unspecified amount of time before taking any more power pills.

The need to take to pills to become super-powered and the imposed time-limits served as a major source of drama and comedy in the series.  Frequently, Stanley would drop one of the pills, or it would wear off, at the worst possible time.

The writers had generally done well in revising the series.  They had certainly moved it a notch or two up from the pilot.  There was just one problem . . . .

It wasn’t funny.  It was silly; it was whacky; it was lighthearted fluff, but it wasn’t funny.  And it sure didn’t drag in anywhere near the audience that Batman did.

Mr. Terrific’s competitor over at NBC wasn’t that funny either, which was astounding, considering its pedigree.

Look!  It’s the Man Who Flies Around Like an Eagle!

Look!  It’s the Enemy of All That’s Illegal!

As soon as the closing credits had rolled on the adventures of power-pill-popping Stanley Beamish, it was eight-thirty, and time to switch the channel to NBC and catch its super-hero spoof, about a mild-mannered man who gains super-powers by ingesting a chemical substance.  Only this one was different:  instead of swallowing a pill, he drinks a potion!

O.K., there were more differences than that, but not enough.

The Peacock Network’s foray into super-hero farce was called Captain Nice.  This was the show that spooked CBS into resurrecting Mr. Terrific.  And no wonder. It was created by and written by and executive produced by Buck Henry, one of the comic geniuses behind Get Smart.  And it was directed by Jay Sandrich, who also directed Get Smart and would go on to helm Mary Tyler Moore for most of its run and the first three seasons of The Cosby Show.

Unlike Mr. Terrific’s premiere episode, which began with the format already in place (relying on Paul Frees’s rhyming narration in the opening credit sequence to bring the viewers up to speed), Captain Nice kicked off with his origin. 

In the beginning, our hero is Carter Nash, police chemist for the Big Town Police Department and general all-around nerd.  Nash is played by William Daniels.  (Yes, that William Daniels.)  He lives in his parents’ house and under the thumb of his gently domineering mother (Alice Ghostly).  Though he owes his position on the police department to his uncle, the mayor of Big Town, the meek, socially awkward Nash is actually a quite capable chemist.

Through research and experimentation, Nash succeeds in his goal of developing a serum that imbues whomever drinks it with the usual set of super-powers---super-strength, invulnerability, flight.  (No super-vision, though.)  Unfortunately, this comes in the middle of a crisis---master criminal Omnus has escaped from prison and is loose in Big Town---and the mayor and the police chief have no time for Nash’s boring recitations.

Dejected, Carter returns to his lab and pockets the phial of “super-juice”.

In one of those situations that exists only in sitcoms, the meek Nash is the romantic interest of tall, willowy, attractive policewoman Sergeant Candy Kane (Ann Prentiss, sister of Paula).  She aggressively pursues the shy chemist, who is befuddled by her attentions.  She inveigles Carter into walking her home through the local park.  Unfortunately, they stumble across the fugitive Omnus and his gang.  The hoods overpower Nash and kidnap Candy.

With no other option, Carter drinks the sample of the formula he has with him.  It works, but the explosive release of power shreds his outer clothing, leaving him in tatters and his long johns.  He stumblingly rescues Candy and captures Omnus and his henchmen; “stumblingly” because he doesn’t know how to manage his newfound strength.  A park employee who witnessed his feats notes the “CN” monogram on Nash’s belt buckle and asks him what the initials stand for.

“Uh . . . Captain,” he replies.

“Captain what?”

“Captain . . . Nice.”

When Carter returns home, he tells his parents about the formula, deciding to destroy his notes so it won’t fall into the wrong hands.  Instead, his mother persuades (read: orders) him to fight crime as a super-hero.  Using old sheets and some curtain remnants, she redesigns his long johns into an ill-fitting costume and Captain Nice, hero of Big Town, is born!

Despite the difference in set-ups, Captain Nice was pretty much Mr. Terrific separated at birth.  Taking the super-juice did nothing to remedy Nash’s shyness or awkwardness.  As with Mr. Terrific, the Captain’s inability to hold his super-strength in check inadvertently resulted in more damage than would have been caused by the bad guys he caught.  Also like Terrific, Captain Nice had difficulty manuœvering himself in flight and his landings invariably smashed walls or gouged pavement.

In another echo of Mr. Terrific, the effects of the super-juice lasted for only an hour, so all too often, Captain Nice reverted back to his non-powered self at inopportune times.  On the other hand, one marked difference was, while the power pills worked only on Stanley Beamish, Nash’s formula would work on anybody.  A couple of episodes had Captain Nice dealing with someone else who had drunk the stuff.

Buck Henry’s fingerprints were all over the Captain Nice series.  His taste for quirky villains.  His overuse of catchphrases, some of which---the old “I asked you not to tell me that” gag, for example---were lifted straight out of Get Smart. 

And his reliance on running gags.  The most notable of these in Captain Nice was the fact that Carter Nash’s father was always shown reading a newspaper which concealed his face.  He spoke only rarely, but when he did, sharp-eared viewers could recognize the voice of long-time character actor Byron Foulger.

Curiously though, these things, which had helped make Get Smart such a hit, fell flat on Captain Nice.  The humor never quite seemed to gel.  If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say the reason for that was the fact that the character dynamics in Captain Nice were an inversion of those in Get Smart.

Maxwell Smart was arrogant, pompous, and completely unaware of his own ineptitude.  This made him both a foil for the madcap events around him and a source of them.  But Carter Nash, unlike most goofy characters on television, was self-conscious about his shortcomings.  His flaws might have been mildly humorous in and of themselves, but they also made Nash sympathetic.  He came across as a victim of the zaniness, rather than a part of it.  That made it hard to laugh at him.

That might have been one of the reasons that Captain Nice failed to attract an audience.  Like Mr. Terrific, the show limped along for half a season, then finished out the year in reruns.

What Went Wrong?

I wasn’t about to write this entry based only on recollexions that were forty-four years old.  Fortunately, the original Alan Young pilot for Mr. Terrific is available for viewing on line.  So are the first episodes of both series, along with excerpts of the others.  I watched all of these, not only to confirm my rote memories, but to be able to evaluate the shows from an adult perspective.

Here’s what I found.

There was nothing wrong with the acting, on either series.  The regular players in both shows delivered measured, competent performances.  Granted, there was no stretching or going against type.  We’re not talking Anthony Hopkins here.  The character actors stayed strictly within their established personas.  That’s not a criticism; they were matched to specific rôles and played them well.  There was no scenery chewing or over-the-top emoting.

The two leads---Stephen Strimpell, on Mr. Terrific, and William Daniels, on Captain Nice---approached their similar characters differently, but effectively.  Strimpell’s Stanley Beamish was whimsical, evoking a childlike sense of fun.  Daniels, as Carter Nash/Captain Nice, was adjusted to his shyness and social geekdom.  He brought a certain dignity to the character.  Neither of the two heroes was a buffoon.

The problem, as I saw it, lied in the writing.  I once stated the term “situation comedy” can be broken down in two ways:  “situation comedy”, in which the humour comes from the dialogue and the character interaction, with the situation being almost incidental; and “situation comedy”, in which the yuks are supposed to come from the whacky or outlandish situation and the characters’ response to it.

Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice both fell into the latter camp (though Captain Nice tried a little harder to bring in some of the elements of the first category, too).  Unfortunately, the situations presented in the two shows were tepid and predictable.  Captain Nice rips the door off the mayor’s office because he doesn’t know his own strength. Har har har.  Mr. Terrific misses the window of Bureau Chief Reed’s office and flies through the wall.  Ho ho ho.  Not only predictable, but repetitive, for these sort of things, with only minor variations, happened over and over.  The plots were little more than frameworks to move the hero from one of these set-pieces to the next.

As I mentioned earlier, the time limits on their super-powers was a convenient device to create situations where the hero’s powers suddenly fade away and he has to face his enemies as his normal inept self.  This quickly became a crutch for writers stuck for an amusing scene.  Few episodes failed to contain a sequence in which poor Stanley or poor Carter found himself powerless in front of a gang of bank robbers or a nest of hostile spies.  Or while in mid-air.  (Going by the shows, anyone watching would think that, in 1967, the United States was covered with haystacks.)

This sort of thing, especially if done right, can be funny once or twice.  But it wears out its welcome pretty fast after that.

It didn’t take long for me to develop an admiration for the actors’ professionalism.  They had been handed listless, carbon-copy scripts and they were doing the best they could to make them work.

No doubt the CBS and NBC folks were confounded as to why their super-hero spoofs weren’t rising to the popularity of Batman.  That was because their producers had completely missed the element that had made Batman such an effective satire.

The Batman television series simply took comic-book super-hero conventions and exaggerated them.  This was brilliant because it worked on two levels.  The kids enjoyed the show as a straight adventure, while the adults recognised the absurdity inherent in the super-hero concept.  They chuckled at the seemingly endless supply of gadgets that the Caped Crusader pulled out of his utility belt or his lectures to Robin on the importance of good citizenship while they were bat-climbing a wall.

Where Batman made super-heroes funny, Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice tried to make funny super-heroes.

The last culprit in the early demise of Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice was, I suspect, the fact that the suits at CBS and NBC didn’t want to devote more money or time than was necessary into developing their respective series.  They didn’t expect to have to.  They figured any programme that looked like Batman would be as popular as Batman.

They misjudged the timing, too.  Fads, by their very definition, have a short shelf life.  Batmania had peaked and was winding down.  By the time their super-hero spoofs hit the airwaves, it was “been there, done that” as far as the viewing public was concerned.

Both Mr. Terrific and Captain Nice ended, with their last rerun episodes, on the same day---28 August 1967.  Together at birth, together at death.

If it was any consolation, Batman---the series they had tried so hard to copy---would reach its end a mere seven months later.  And the Bat-craze would become a Bat-memory.

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

'First Avenger' lifts the best of comics' Captain America

Captain America: The First Avenger, premiering July 22, looks to be the best comics-to-film movie of the summer – which is saying a lot – but is also loaded with fun facts:

* This movie is the fifth appearance of the Living Legend of WWII on film, but the only one to be remotely accurate . . . or even good.

A 1944 Captain America serial was unlike the comic books of the time, as it depicted Cap with a red star(!) on his chest, no shield, no sidekick and he was, of all things, a stateside district attorney (instead of a U.S. Army private).  

Captain America and Captain America II: Death Too Soon aired on CBS in 1979, both starring Reb Brown and jettisoning the World War II connection completely. They were awful.

A 1990 Captain America starred Matt Salinger and, of all things, an Italian Red Skull. (He’s a Nazi. His name is Johann Schmidt. He was Hitler’s right-hand man. He’s German!) It was so bad it went straight to VHS.  

* Some recent Marvel movies have had oblique references to First Avenger. Partially-constructed shields appear in both Iron Man movies. The Incredible Hulk mentions the wartime Super-Soldier Formula, which is what creates the Star-Spangled Avenger.

* This movie returns the favor. The subtitle The First Avenger is a hint to where all these movies are heading: The Avengers in 2012. Also, Howard Stark – Tony Stark’s father, who was significant in Iron Man II – is part of the Super-Soldier science team in First Avenger.

* Incidentally, The First Avenger subtitle was added to become the whole title when the movie was distributed in areas where America isn’t particularly popular. But it turns out that even countries like France wanted the full title, because Captain America is such a well-known brand. Now the Captain America part will be dropped from the title in only three countries: Russia, Ukraine and, oddly, South Korea.

* In the comics, sidekick James “Bucky” Barnes was a teenager in the war (albeit a lethal, highly trained one). In the movie he appears to be old enough to volunteer for service. To my mind that’s an improvement, since the “child endangerment” aspect of Robin-like sidekicks always bugged me.

* Beginning in 1963, Marvel’s Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos told the tales of a fictional U.S. Ranger group in World War II. To explain how Nick Fury could remain active into the 21st century, Marvel has explained that his aging has been scientifically retarded. However, the movie version of Fury, played by Sam Jackson, will sidestep the aging question entirely by Fury not appearing in World War II in First Avenger, although the Howling Commandos will.

Speaking of the Howlers, it appears Captain America and Bucky will lead them. Of the comic-book squad, only two appear in the movie: Cpl. Timothy Aloysius “Dum Dum” Dugan, a huge Irishman, and Gabe Jones, an African-American trumpet player. The team is fleshed out by a Japanese-American, Jim Morita; an Englishman, Montgomery Falsworth; and a Frenchman, Jacques Dernier. All three have their roots in the comics as well.

Stan Lee created Morita and his Nisei (American-born Japanese) squad in a 1967 Sgt. Fury to recognize the efforts of patriotic Japanese-Americans in WWII. Falsworth was the wartime Union Jack, England’s answer to Captain America, created in a 1976 Invaders, another title set during the war. Dernier first appeared in a 1965 Sgt. Fury as the French Resistance liaison for the Howlers.

* Cap’s wartime sweetheart was French Resistance fighter Peggy Carter, who will be played by Hayley Atwell as a conflation of various female characters. Their bittersweet romance probably won’t leave a dry eye in the house.

* One surprise is Arnim Zola, a Skull henchman and Nazi scientist who eventually transfers his consciousness to a robot. Another is the appearance of a Cosmic Cube (hinted at in Thor), a weapon that didn’t exist in the comics until 1967. I suspect it will play a role in Avengers, too.

* Hydra, a nation-less terrorist organization, predated al-Qaida by decades with its first comic-book appearance in 1965. In the comics, Hydra was founded by surviving Axis players near the end of World War II, which makes their appearance in the movie in conjunction with the Red Skull entirely consistent. Their creed is eerily modern: “Hail Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off a limb, and two more shall take its place!”

Art above:

1. Chris Evans plays Captain America in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment. He is seen here in full combat regalia. Photo credit: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios © 2011 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2011 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

2. Dominic Cooper plays Howard Stark in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment. In both the comics and the movies, Howard Stark is based loosley on Howard Hughes and Walt Disney. Photo credit: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios © 2011 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2011 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

3. Chris Evans plays Steve Rogers (center) with the Howling Commandos, who are somewhat different from the comics version of the First Ranger Attack Squad. Bruno Ricci plays Jacques Dernier (third left from center), Kenneth Choi plays Jim Morita (second left from center), Neal McDonough plays Dum Dum Dugan (first right from center), Sebastian Stan plays James "Bucky" Barnes (second right from center), JJ Feild plays Montgomery Falsworth (third right from center), and Derek Luke plays Gabe Jones (fifth right from center) - in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment. Photo credit: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios © 2011 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2011 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

4. Hayley Atwell plays Peggy Carter, center, in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment. Peggy is a U.S. Army officer present at Captain America's birth and is, as they said in the 1940s, both a tomato and a tough broad. Photo credit: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios © 2011 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2011 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

Hugo Weaving plays Red Skull in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment. Photo credit: Courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Marvel Studios © 2011 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2011 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

Stanley Tucci plays Dr. Abraham Erskine in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment. In the comics, Erskine is a Jewish scientist smuggled out of Germany during the pogroms, and is based loosely on Albert Einstein. In fact, in the comics, his security codename is "Reinstein." Photo credit: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios © 2011 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2011 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

At left, Chris Evans plays Steve Rogers in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, from Paramount Pictures and Marvel Entertainment. In this scene, Evans poses in a position lifted straight from the comics. Photo credit: Jay Maidment / Marvel Studios © 2011 MVLFFLLC. ™ & © 2011 Marvel. All Rights Reserved. At right, Steve Rogers staring in disbelief at his new body is a familiar scene in such comics as "Tales of Suspense" #63. Courtesy Marvel Comics

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

July 17, 2011 -- Here are some thoughts rambling through my head that aren't worth a whole post by themselves:

1) Marvel is ribbing DC's relaunch in their most recent solicitations by bragging about their high issue numbers. You've probably seen "Uncanny X-Men -- still at #340!" or whatever. But I've noticed that Marvel is, in fact, relaunching a lot of their long-running series on the sly:

• They launched Hulk along with the long-running Incredible Hulk -- but now they're canceling Incredible Hulk (currently called Incredible Hulks), so the remaining major Hulk title is one with low numbers. Result: A Hulk relaunch.
• They turned the long-running Daredevil into Black Panther: Man Without Fear, and launched a new Daredevil #1. Result: A Daredevil relaunch.
• They've turned the long-running Fantastic Four into FF, starting over with #1. Result: A Fantastic Four relaunch.
• They're canceling the long-running Uncanny X-Men and relaunching with Uncanny X-Men #1. Result: An X-Men relaunch.
• They turned the long-running Thor back into Journey into Mystery, and gave the Thunder God a new title. Result: A Thor relaunch.
• They turned the long-running Captain America into Captain America and Bucky, and gave Cap a new title. Result: A Captain America relaunch.
• They flat-out relaunched The Punisher, canceling the old title and beginning a new one (with Castle's second title, Punisher MAX, only about a year old ).

Toss in the resurrections of Ghost Rider, Moon Knight and Alpha Flight, all with #1s, and that's at least 10 relaunches in recent months. It's not 52, but it's still too many to be bragging about how they've kept their old numbering.

2) I love having Legionnaires from around the world, offering unique insights and perspectives. And I'm frequently reminded of that by a peculiar difference between American English and UK English: verb-subject agreement. I first noticed it in sports (which the English refer to as "sport"), where Americans say St. Louis IS but the Cardinals ARE doing such-and-such, shifting from singular to possessive depending on the subject. But I hear on BBC radio UK speakers using the plural no matter what, so Manchester ARE doing such-and-so, which sounds weird to American ears. This also applies to "United States" as a subject; American says the United States IS doing such-and-such -- we actually fought a bloody war to establish that the USA is, indeed, a singular noun and not a collection of individual states that can secede at any time -- but UK speakers say "the United States are" -- which, again, sounds odd to American ears.

I may have some of the above mucked up -- I don't actually memorize how UK speakers talk, I only notice when a noun/subject "disagreement" sets off my copy editor sense -- but it also applies to Marvel and DC. American speakers generally use the two as singular nouns, whereas UK speakers generally use the two as plural nouns. Americans say "Marvel is ... " while UK speakers say "Marvel are ..."

The upshot is that every time I read "DC are run by boring guys in suits" or "Marvel are run by monkeys" I'm reminded how wide-spread the Legion of Superfluous Heroes is, how much diversity we have, how much cultural exchange is going on ... and it makes me smile.

3) Years ago, the Frito Bandito was officially and publicly banished by Frito-Lay as an offensive cultural stereotype. I haven't heard anything to corroborate this, but it appears the same is true of any heavily-accented Mexican character, from Jose Jimenez to Speedy Gonzales to Baba Louie (in Quick-Draw McGraw). Whereas other offensive cultural stereotypes, such as Pepe LePew, seem to still be around. Anybody know?

4) In the current Avengers cartoon, the three-part season ender had the Assemblers banished to the nine realms of Norse mythology, whereupon they had to battle back to Asgard to confront Loki.

It's interesting to note that Captain America was in Niffleheim or Muspelheim or Hel (I've forgotten which, but it was one of the lands of the dead) where he met the shades of deceased Howling Commandos -- including JACK Fury, the African-American commander of the squad. In the comics, of course, Jack Fury was a World War ONE veteran, and Caucasian, while Nick was the WWII Howler, and, of course, also Caucasian. Evidently the concept of Nick Fury as an African-American has now made a third leap in the culture, from the Ultimate universe to the movies and now to the cartoons (and Fury's WWII connection has been severed). The problem, of course, is that the U.S. armed forces weren't integrated in World War II, and the idea of a black man commanding white troops was, AFAIK, impossible. I like a black Nick Fury just fine -- and who doesn't love Samuel L. M-Fin' Jackson -- but I don't like history being messed with.  We need to be aware of our mistakes, so we don't repeat them, and anachronisms like this bury the mistakes of our past. And the way America has historically treated its black sons and daughters is a Very Big Mistake that should not be, ahem, whitewashed.

Another interesting bit is that Tony Stark was marooned in whichever world the trolls live in ... you know, the trolls who forged Thor's Mjolnir and Odin's Gungnir. So, naturally, Stark and the trolls forged Uru, Asgardian, Iron Man armor! That was pretty cool ... and now I read that this bit is being repeated (nine-fold!) in 'Fear Itself.' Coincidence? Cross-pollination? The tail wagging the dog? I don't know, but it's interesting.

Those are some of the thoughts rattling around in my head on a lazy, hot Sunday. Now to go watch the Japan-U.S. match in the women's World Cup final. GOOOOOOOOALLLL!

Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

July 12, 2011 -- In the early part of the twentieth century, the United States had the world’s most amazing and unique comic strips, a legacy of innovation and irresistible storytelling almost forgotten today. Which is just one of the reasons I’m grateful for The Comics: The Complete Collection (Abrams ComicArt, $40), by Brian Walker.

Walker, who previously released this book in two volumes, is a comic-strip expert who has worked in every aspect of the field. He is part of a team producing new strips (“Beetle Bailey,” “Hi & Lois”), has taught cartoon history at the School of Visual Arts, was director at the Museum of Cartoon Art, served as editor of Collector’s Showcase and has written both books and magazine articles on the subject.

Walker is such a scholar that, if there’s a flaw in the book, it is his relentless amassing of minutiae. Walker is so thorough, so methodical and so academic that this can be a formidable and forbidding tome to the newcomer.

But for those of with a love of the medium it’s virtually indispensible. In the first few chapters alone Walker demolished a host of myths about R.F. Outcault’s “The Yellow Kid” that I had taken as gospel for decades. From there Walker’s work is one discovery after another. Like which strips were owned by the syndicate and which by the artists (which often forced major artists elsewhere, like Roy Crane leaving “Captain Easy” to start “Buz Sawyer”). Like how the phrase “hot dog” got popularized (Tad Dorgan’s “Inside Sports”), or what katzenjammer means (German for “cats howling,” and a popular ‘20s euphemism for a hangover) and why a “Rube Goldberg device” is still a catchphrase.

Walker also brings an artist’s eye to how many amazing, uniquely American early strips got started and what effect they had, like the surreal “Krazy Kat” (George Herriman), the intricate “Little Nemo in Slumberland” (Winsor McCay) and the art Deco “Bringing up Father” (George McManus). He continues with the rise of strips through their heyday, and later fall, examining not only the strips themselves and giants like Milton Caniff (“Terry and the Pirates”), Al Capp (“Li’l Abner’) and Walt Kelly (“Pogo”), but the now-declining business of comic strips and even the marketing (think “Buster Brown shoes” plus radio, television and movie spinoffs).

Naturally, there are hundreds, if not thousands of actual comic strips included. Combine that with interviews and biographies of major American cartoonists, and Comics: The Complete Collection lives up to its name. This book is so comprehensive and full of valuable information that superlatives simply fail me.

Speaking of important comic strips, author Craig Yoe has contributed Krazy Kat and the Art of George Herriman: A Celebration (Abrams ComicArts, $29.95).

Most people are familiar with the strip’s basics, but almost nobody knows what it means. Ignatz Mouse hates the androgynous Krazy Kat, whom he routinely bops in the head with a brick, which the smitten feline interprets as a valentine, but Offissa Pupp regards as criminal behavior (especially since he is enamored of the cat) and routinely jails the surly mouse. All this occurs in a vaguely Southwestern U.S. landscape that morphs and/or moves from panel to panel.

Celebration collects rare essays by names big and small who interpret this strange triangle in a myriad of ways. Some note that Herriman was “Negro” on his birth certificate, but “Caucasian” on his death certificate, which is fascinating all on its own – but was racial uncertainty or insecurity a factor in “Krazy Kat”? And if so, for God’s sake, someone explain how!

Alas, Celebration does not end the mystery of “Krazy Kat,” but simply informs it. And, you know, that’s exactly how it should be.

If all this comics history arouses a taste for some seminal comic strips, look no further than Fantagraphics’ “Captain Easy” collections. This series (it’s up to volume two, $39 each) collects Roy Crane’s Sunday pages about the good-natured “soldier of fortune,” which were prequels to the dailies Crane was producing at the same time, which paired an older Easy with the strip’s original star, Wash Tubbs.

Collected in oversize hardbacks that present the pages at their original size, these beautiful books restore one of the original adventure heroes of the strips – the affable (albeit two-fisted) mercenary who was much more interested in excitement than money or women, which is what he was supposedly after. Easy moved through a more innocent – and largely unexplored – world, and there’s no better word for this adventure strip than “charming.”

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

Every so often, in order to put the subject of one of my Deck Log entries into perspective, I have to go back to before the beginning of the Silver Age.  Since I’ll be talking about that “Ninth Wonder of the World”, Congorilla, this is one of those times.  So let’s ratchet the dial of the Wayback Machine much farther back than usual, back to the dawn of the Golden Age.

 To More Fun Comics # 56 (Jun., 1940), to be precise.

 Anyone in the comics industry at the time---from the publisher down to the kid who sharpened the pencils and emptied out the dustbins---understood what the popularity of Superman meant to comics.  When comic books, in the format we recognise to-day, were introduced in 1934, publishers cast about for the type of material that would be most popular.  Funny animals.  “Bigfoot” cartoons.  Westerns.  Mysteries.   Detective stories.  Sea tales. You name it.  It wasn’t until National Comics (DC) introduced Superman in 1938, to an overwhelming response, that comics publishers knew how to set their course.

Super-hero series took over the four-colour pages.  Still, even after a couple of years, National wasn’t sure that “mystery-men”, as they were called, would prove to be anything more than a fad which would shortly run its course.  With the luxury of hindsight, we know better, but National was hedging its bets.  Many of its smaller, supporting series featured heroes who didn’t wear tights and capes.  For these, it drew from types that showed popularity in other media, such as the pulps and newspaper comic strips.  So, sandwiched between the super-hero headliners were plenty of stories about detectives and magicians and explorers, any genre that might prove to be the next wave.

That brings us to More Fun Comics # 56, which saw the debut of Congo Bill--- renowned hunter, explorer, and baldfaced swipe of Alex Raymond’s successful “Jungle Jim”.  Bill was sprung full-blown on the readers, already established as an experienced, knowledgeable, and tough-as-nails soldier of fortune.  He was never given an origin and the only detail mentioned about his background was that he had been a pilot during the first World War.  We were never even told his last name; he was “Congo Bill” to everybody.

As befitting a “two-fisted globetrotter”, the most remote places of the world were Congo Bill’s sandbox.  The locales ranged from that first adventure in the African interior to the Himalayan mountains to the South American tropics.  Egypt, Mexico, the East Indies, the Caribbean, the Yukon---all these and more were backdrops for a Congo Bill adventure.

Like many back-up series, Bill didn’t enjoy much of a supporting cast.  For about a year and a half, “noted botanist and archæologist” Professor Joe Kent accompanied Bill, who served as his guide.  Sometime later, he picked up a kinda-sorta girlfriend, Shiela Hanlen.  By this time, the series had jumped ship to Action Comics.  Apparently a lifestyle of snakes, bugs, hostile natives, and dysentery didn’t appeal to Shiela.   She was gone after Action Comics # 44 (Jan., 1942) and so was Professor Kent.

It really didn’t matter; Congo Bill steamed right along, leaving other second-stringers such as Pep Morgan, the Black Pirate, and Clip Carson (another Jungle Jim clone) in his wake.  The strength of series was its verisimilitude.  The premise of an adventurer with no ties opened the door to virtually any kind of plot.  In any given issue, Congo Bill could discover a lost city in Africa, encounter dinosaurs in a hidden prehistoric valley, investigate a haunted castle in Syria, battle smugglers along the Ivory Coast, get captured by a secret cult in India, or infiltrate an underwater Nazi U-boat base.  Occasionally, there would even be a fish-out-of-water tale set in New York or some other big city, showing how Bill’s wilderness skills would come in handy in modern civilisation.  The series could be moulded like clay, to fit any theme editor Whitney Ellsworth thought would sell comics.

In 1948, Congo Bill hit one of the benchmarks of a successful character when Colombia released the fifteen-chapter movie serial, Congo Bill, starring Don McGuire as the “famed hunter and animal trainer.”  The plot involved an infant lost in the Africa, following a plane crash, who grows up to become a fabled “white goddess” of the jungle.  Bill is hired to find her by the executors of her father’s multi-million-dollar estate and out to stop him is the fellow in line to inherit that wealth if the girl isn’t found.

The moderate success of the serial propelled the comic-book series along for a few more years.  A couple of changes came along the way.  Bill was given an official reason for his varied adventures by making him a troubleshooter for the World-wide Insurance Company.  Then, in Action Comics # 191 (Apr., 1954), Bill picked up a sidekick---Janu, a young boy who been brought up in the jungle after his father had been killed by a tiger.  Janu’s style of speaking came from the Superbaby-Zook-Bizarro school of English, but at least he gave Bill someone to talk to and provide exposition.

The arrival of Janu, the Jungle Boy, came just in time for the next development of the series:  graduating to its own title.

By the early 1950’s, the Golden-Age glow of super-heroes had finally dimmed, and DC, like other comics publishers, was looking for the next Big Thing.  In a scattershot approach, it produced Western series, series about big-city newspapers, supernatural and science-fiction anthologies, titles based on pirates, mediæval knights, firemen, frogmen, and anything else it could think of.

Seeing as how Congo Bill had hung on gamely for well over a decade, it seemed like a natural.  So, in the summer of 1954, Congo Bill # 1 (Aug.-Sep., 1954) hit the stands.  Bill’s series in Action Comics continued to run concurrently with his own magazine.  It was a good thing, since Congo Bill didn’t have the success that DC had expected.  It ran for seven issues, ending a year after it started.

The cover of that first issue of Congo Bill featured a golden gorilla.   That would prove to be prescient.

Meanwhile, in Action Comics, Congo Bill and Janu rolled right along, rescuing lost safaris and nabbing ivory poachers.  But comics were about to experience another sea change, and this time, it would have an effect on the way Bill did business.

Showcase # 4 (Sep.-Oct., 1956) saw the return of an old DC super-hero---the Flash!  But this wasn’t your father’s Scarlet Speedster.  He had been revised as a new character, upgraded for the times, under the auspice of editor Julius Schwartz.  The sales of Showcase # 4 soared.  To make sure it wasn’t a fluke, the Flash appeared in three more issues of Showcase, and each time, the sale figures were impressive.  It was official:  super-heroes were back in vogue.

DC followed up with revised versions of other old super-heroes, such as the Green Lantern and the Atom.  And some existing, non-super-hero series were nudged in that direction.  Over at Detective Comics, the Manhunter from Mars series featured a Martian posing on Earth as a human police detective, secretly using his otherworldly abilities to solve crimes.  Now the emphasis shifted to the Manhunter performing super-feats in his natural alien form, and by 1959, he was operating openly as a super-hero.

Plain, old Congo Bill, in his old-style pith helmet, jodhpurs, and sidearm, just wouldn’t do, decided Action Comics editor Mort Weisinger.

In Action Comics # 224 (Jan., 1957), Congo Bill encountered a gorilla with a golden pelt and seeming to exhibit a higher intellect than usual for such an animal.  Bill spent the rest of the story saving it from some determined hunters looking to mount the ape’s golden head on a wall.

There’s no way to know for sure, but either Weisinger or writer Robert Burnstein probably remembered this story and used it as a springboard for “The Amazing Congorilla”, which appeared in Action Comics # 248 (Jan., 1959).

This landmark tale begins with Congo Bill rescuing an old friend, Chief Kawolo.  The tribal witch doctor had accidentally fallen into a steep ravine, and though Bill is able to pull him to safety, Kawolo is mortally wounded.  That night, while he lays dying, Kawolo gives Bill a ring bearing the carved image of a gorilla.  It is a magic talisman, the witch doctor explains, that will allow Congo Bill to exchange identities with the legendary golden gorilla, sacred to his tribe.

Should Bill need the strength of the golden gorilla, says Kawolo, he has only to rub the ring.  Then, his mind and that of the great ape will exchange bodies, for a period of one hour.   Congo Bill dismisses this as superstition, but dons the ring, humouring his old friend in his final moments.

Weeks pass (in which, remarkably, Bill apparently resists the impulse to test the ring just to see what happens), then one day, while the famed jungle adventurer is exploring a deep cave, an earthquake causes a cave-in, sealing the entrance.  Trapped, Congo Bill remembers the ring and Kawolo’s words.  Not really expecting it to work, but with nothing to lose, Bill rubs the ring.  Instantly, his head begins to spin . . . .

Some distance away from the cave, the sacred golden gorilla is lumbering through the tall grass when his eyes suddenly flash with intellect.  To Congo Bill’s amazement, the magic ring has worked!  His mind now occupies the body of the golden ape.   He rushes back to the site of the cave-in and with the mighty strength of the gorilla, he clears the entrance.  Inside, he discovers his human body gibbering incoherently and beating his chest.

Bill realises that the gorilla wears a duplicate of the magic ring on one of its fingers, and when the hour elapses, he rubs it---and finds his mind back in his own body.

Following super-hero tradition, Congo Bill determines to use his newfound power to battle poachers, smugglers, and other jungle evil.   It doesn’t take long for stories of a golden gorilla with a man’s intelligence to spread through the continent, and the man-ape was given the name Congorilla.

Once the new format was established, there seemed to be a great deal of need for a gorilla with a man’s intelligence.  Congo Bill, as himself, was pushed more and more into the background.  Lost was the idea that the rugged adventurer had been quite capable of handling jungle crimes with only his tracking skills, his revolver, and a good right cross.  The scripts would tell us what a “famed hunter and explorer” he was, but we saw little evidence of it.

On the other hand, Congorilla made quite a name for himself.  Whenever Bill’s mind took over the golden ape’s body, he didn’t take too many pains to hide the fact.  Friends and foes alike were constantly amazed at the gorilla’s human feats---driving a jeep, piloting an aeroplane, administering medicines, communicating by morse code, and the like.  That seemed to be the hook.  Most stories contrived to put Congorilla in a situation of ape “imitating” man.

Only Janu was privy to the secret of Congo Bill’s magic ring.  Good thing, too, because the biggest drawback to the mind-switching routine was the fact that, when Bill’s mind inhabited Congorilla, the ape’s mind occupied his human body.  In order to keep his body from being imperiled whenever he made the switch, Bill would resort to protective measures, such as lashing himself to a tree, or taking sleeping pills to knock himself out, whenever the gorilla’s mind entered it.  Janu’s job was to stand guard over Bill’s body while Congorilla was in action.

Usually it was an easy enough assignment, but every once in a while, the gorilla-brained Bill would get loose.  Then Janu faced the knotty task of controlling the antics of a gorilla-in-a-man’s-body, as well as trying to cover up for Congo Bill’s apparently bizarre behaviour.  Generally, the jungle boy wasn’t too good at either.

And then there a few occasions when ring on the golden gorilla’s finger would become lost, meaning Bill could not transfer his mind back to his own body after the hour had elapsed.  It was fun having a gorilla’s body every once in a while, but the prospect of spending the rest of his life in it always spooked the bejesus out of him.

Another problem was the existence of the golden gorilla when he was just being a gorilla.  He may have been sacred to Chief Kawolo’s tribe, but to others, he was an inviting target.  Hunters wanted to bag him for a trophy; circus owners wanted to capture him for display as a unique attraction.  Bill spent quite a few stories babysitting the big gold simian.

The Congorilla series finally lost its long-time home in Action Comics early in 1960, when Mort Weisinger decided to devote more pages to the Supergirl back-up.  But Congo Bill, Janu, and the golden ape were still popular enough that it was moved over to Adventure Comics, beginning with issue # 270 (Mar., 1960).

Another indication that Weisinger intended to keep the concept alive was when, after twenty years, Congo Bill made his first appearance in another character’s series.  In “Jimmy’s Gorilla Identity”, from Jimmy Olsen # 49 (Dec., 1960), Bill approaches Jimmy because of the cub reporter’s friendship with Superman.

Bill needs the Man of Steel’s help.  As the hunter explains to Jimmy, the golden gorilla had been captured in Africa and shipped to some place in the vicinity of Metropolis.  Bill has checked all the local zoos and circuses, to no avail.  He’s hoping that Superman, with his telescopic vision, can locate the golden-pelted ape.  To impress upon Jimmy the urgency of the matter, Bill reveals the secret of his magic ring and how it enables him to become Congorilla.

Unfortunately, Superman is unavailable.  He’s undertaking a crucial mission at the Earth’s core.  Even Jimmy’s signal watch is of no help; heavy deposits of lead ore block the super-sonic signal from reaching the Man of Steel’s super-hearing.  Congo Bill opts to continue his search on his own, leaving his magic ring with Jimmy, to show Superman later.  Of course, Bill has no idea of what a bucket of worms he has just opened.

Because it's only an eleven-page story, it takes the Jimster less than a day to succeed where Bill failed.  The cub reporter finds the golden gorilla in the possession of the owner of a wild-animal farm.  Almost immediately, though, an emergency arises, and naturally, the impetuous Jimmy sees this as a job for Congorilla.  He rubs the magic ring and finds himself in control of the gorilla’s body.  Unfortunately, he does a piss-poor job of making sure his human body is safe while the ape’s mind occupies it.  Hijinx ensue.

It was a valiant effort, but over in Adventure Comics, Congo Bill’s series was finally running out of steam.  The last Congorilla tale appeared in issue # 283 (Apr., 1961), after which it was cancelled to make room for, of all things, “Tales of the Bizarro World”.

Whatever Congo Bill and Congorilla fans there were left hadn’t quite seen the last of them, yet.  Bill returned to his old Action Comics stomping grounds when Superman, Perry White, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen visited Africa in “Brainiac’s Super-Revenge”, from Action Comics # 280 (Sep., 1961).  The story begins when Brainiac is accidently freed from the ice-age prison where Superman had left him five issues previous.  Intent on revenge, the computer villain returns to the modern era and tracks down the Man of Steel and his friends while they are exploring the Congo.

After using a kryptonite bomb to neutralise Superman’s powers, Brainiac shrinks the lot of them down to doll size and imprisons them in a bottle.  Unfortunately for his revenge plot, a familiar golden gorilla is also shrunken with them.  When the simian begins to act intelligently, Superman and Jimmy catch on.  Still possessing his gorilla strength, Congorilla enables them to escape the bottle.  And when Brainiac is distracted by Congo Bill, growling and beating his chest like an ape, the Man of Steel is able to restore himself, his friends, and Congorilla to their normal sizes.  One tap of his super-strong hand later and Brainiac is under wraps.

That was it for Bill and the golden ape, until 1965, when four issues of World’s Finest Comics carried reprints of old Congorilla stories in the title’s “Surprise Feature” back-up slot.  These got enough positive reception for Mort Weisinger to test the waters for the character’s revival.   That came in “Jimmy Olsen, Ape Man”, from issue # 86 (Jul., 1965) of the cub reporter’s title.

Here, Jimmy receives a report from the African branch of his fan club; two strangers bound for the Kilimanjo mountains were overheard discussing something called “Project Kryptonite”.  With Superman away on one of those space missions he goes on whenever the plot needs him out of the way, Jimmy decides to check it out himself.  He heads for the Kilimanjo mountain country in Africa and seeks out Congo Bill’s help.  The famous jungle expert is laid up with a broken arm, however, so he loans Jimmy his magic ring. 

As it turns out, the golden gorilla is foraging in the same region, so the Jimster pulls the mind-switch.  In the body of Congorilla, it’s a snap for the cub reporter to ascend Kilimanjo.  At its snowy peak, he discovers the two men.  They’re renegade scientists who have constructed a “hyper-magnetron”, designed to draw kryptonite meteors from space, to use against Superman.  Jimmy has other ideas about that.

Actually, as Jimmy Olsen stories go, this one isn’t shameful at all, with little of the ludicrousness that usually makes Silver-Age fans squirm whenever the phrase “Jimmy Olsen story” is mentioned.  It’s a decent showing for Congorilla, even with Jimmy’s mind instead of Congo Bill’s.  With a little tinkering, it wouldn’t have been out of place in the original series.

Nevertheless, it was the last Silver-Age hurrah for Congo Bill and the great golden ape.  It would be another dozen years before fans became nostalgic enough for Congorilla to see him, again.

OK, it's not really a re-launch. I just said that to get you to read this. Did it work?

Anyway, a few months back I asked for suggestions for how to improve the site. A great many excellent suggestions were made, especially by Lumbering Jack, but only one really requires a lot of prep time. And that is: DEATH TO ALL GROUPS!

Well, not all of them. But the consensus was that Groups were superfluous, and split conversations into more than one place, and were confusing for newbies, and caused genital warts.

Now, not all Groups were unnecessary. Here are the ones I intend to keep:

WILD CARDS: This singular interest with almost zero overlap with comics really needs a "room" where Wild Carders can gather and do their thing. This is the one place I think Groups functions the way it's supposed to.

COMICS NEWS: Because otherwise all the press releases that I ... um, I mean, Newsboy posts would sorta overwhelm the front page teases.

THE TIMELINE GROUP: This Group was created by the Baron as a home for all of his Earth-44 stuff, which is so huge I would not dream of asking him to move it all. If I can, I'll rename it "Earth-44 Timeline Group" (but I'm not sure I can).

MODERATORS: Don't look over here. There's nothing over here. This is not the Group you're looking for. (Seriously, this is a private "room" for the Mods to discuss problems freely without worrying about hurt feelings. We need the room, because e-mail has proved too clumsy.)

And I propose to add a Group at some point, that will be ARCHIVES or FAQ or somesuch as a place where we can park things we will reference in future: Board rules, columns with lots of good information, FAQs, Moderator contacts, boilerplate legalese, stuff like that. If anyone can suggest a name to cover all that, I'm all ears!

Anyway, I intend to delete all the rest. Which means:

1) If there's a group you think has a compelling reason to exist that you want to convince me to keep, you'd better get to convincing, and

2) If there's a thread or a post in any group that you want to save, get to saving it. Cut and paste to another thread somewhere, or start a thread and paste it, or whatever. Because when I delete a given Group, I doubt I can resurrect anything.

And when will I delete this Groups? You fools! Why would I explain my master plan and give you time to stop it? I did it 20 minutes ago! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Just kidding -- I couldn't resist the Watchmen reference. Anyway, I thought a month would be enough time, so how about Aug. 1 for The Big Delete?

As ever, spout off, Legionnaires. This is your site, and I'm doing this to make it better. If I'm NOT gonna make it better, then let me know!

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

The Teetering Tower of Review Stuff is perilously high, so let’s bang through some of it:

* I usually enjoy DC’s “Vertigo Crime” line of mature-reader graphic novels, but the latest needed some tighter editing. Cowboys ($19.99) features two different levels of law enforcement infiltrating the same criminal organization, a street cop from the white-collar side down, and an FBI agent from the street-level side up. Neither is aware of the other, and lethal mistakes are inevitable. That’s a pretty good concept for a noir-ish crime mystery, but author Gary Phillips takes waaaay too long setting it up, and since both cops are wife-cheating, smart-mouth jerks, and all the supporting characters are equally venal and unlikeable, and the criminals are the worst kind of scum, it’s hard to care what happens to any of these people. Fortunately, the art by Brian Hurtt is no-frills, crystal-clear storytelling, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it.

* Archaia’s Okko is about a band of demon hunters in a fictional place very much like Edo-era Japan called “Pajan” where the supernatural is very real. It’s a sort of cross between a samurai epic and Dungeons & Dragons, with our little team consisting of a ronin swordmaster; a drunken, magic-using cleric; a mysterious, seven-foot warrior who never removes his demon mask; and the cleric’s teenage disciple, who serves as the reader’s POV, narrating the stories from his old age. In the latest collection (Okko Vol. 3: The Cycle of Air, $19.95), our glum little group fights another demon-hunter who is virtually unbeatable for reasons I won’t disclose. It’s inventive and fun, although writer/artist Hub could be a bit more forthcoming with exposition; for example, it took three volumes for me to figure out that the gang was fighting supernatural agents on purpose! Also, the artwork – while very intricate, plausible and faithful to the historical era, is over-colored and very, very dark. So dark that my over-50 eyes struggled with the immense amount of detail, and I have to take the word of other critics that it’s as good as they say it is.

* The “Hardy Boys: The New Case Files” series by Papercutz is meant for readers much younger than me, and yet I’m enjoying it probably more than I should. Full credit goes to author Gerry Conway, who has spent decades scribing comics and television. Conway’s as good as they come, and has a light touch that never lets the reader see the little man behind the curtain. The latest book, Break Up! ($6.99), is a case in point; friction between Joe and Frank has been skillfully foreshadowed, and you fully expect the boys to end their famous team. But Conway maintains suspense by keeping all his balls in the air, until the story seems to find an organic but unforeseen conclusion. I wish comics written for adults were this good.

* Abrams ComicArts’ Empire State ($17.95) is subtitled A Love Story (or Not), and that pretty much sums it up. It’s the story of a mismatched pair of friends in Oakland, Calif., who both journey, for different reasons, to New York City. First it’s the boy, an unsophisticated but good-hearted dimbulb who tries out for a Google job he is grossly underqualified for; then it’s the girl, a chubby, intelligent, prickly, Jewish girl who moves to “the modern Rome” because she fits in better there. The boy, deciding he’s in love with what had been his best friend, again travels to New York, where the yawning chasm between the pair’s intellect, ambitions and values is thrown in high relief. Drawn in a cartoony style by writer/artist Jason Shiga, the storytelling is excellent and easy to follow, although Shiga alternates coloring everything in shades of red or shades of blue for no reason I can figure out. Perhaps I just didn’t care to figure it out; the ending seemed telegraphed to me from the first, and I found the journey to that expected conclusion to be rather dull. I did find the art interesting, and I bet readers of a more romantic bent will really dig Empire State. It’s good work, just not my thing.

I’ve already reviewed the second volume of Vanguard’s Frank Frazetta library, but I just received the first, and it’s worth a mention. But only a mention, as poster Jeff Plackemeier said all that needs to be said about The Complete Johnny Comet ($49.95) on my website. Let me just direct you there.

Photos, from top:
1. Cowboys is the latest mature-readers graphic novel DC's "Vertigo Crime" series. Courtesy DC Comics
2. Okko Vol. 3: The Cycle of Air is the third collection of the series combining samurai epic with the supernatural. Courtesy Archaia
3. Hardy Boys: The New Case Files: Break-Up! is a clever little story keeping the title's meaning a mystery until the end. Courtesy Papercutz
4. Empire State features a would-be lover and a disinterested second party. Courtesy Abrams ComicArts
5. The Complete Johnny Comet" collects the failed newspaper strip by the legendary Frank Frazetta from the 1950s. Courtesy Vanguard Productions

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

Neal Adams changed how comic books were drawn in America.

I still remember the first time I saw his artwork. It was in the late 1960s, and I was familiar with the major artists at the bigger companies, the A-listers all the B-listers were copying. Jack Kirby was “The King,” and set the pace at Marvel Comics. Dan DeCarlo was the de facto house style at Archie Comics. DC Comics didn’t have a single house style, but several, split up by editorial office – Curt Swan on the Superman books, Joe Kubert on the war books, Carmine Infantino on the science fiction books, and so forth.

But those artists, while terrific, were basically cartoonists with excellent individual styles. Adams was something altogether different. He came from advertising, and was a master of the “photo-realism” school. His characters had weight and texture. Instead of “spotting blacks” where convenient, his people and objects threw shadows as you’d see in real life. And all his superheroes were anatomically accurate, bursting with the kind of power you see in professional weight-lifters.

For the first time, Batman truly became a creature of the night. For the first time, Superman really looked like he could bend steel in his bare hands.

Adams has reportedly said “if superheroes existed, they’d look like I draw them.” That may be apocryphal, but when I heard that remark as a boy, I could only nod in agreement. It wasn’t bragging; it was simply true.

Adams quickly moved from back-bench comics like Strange Adventures, where he drew Deadman, to big guns like Batman and Justice League of America. Where he didn’t have time to draw whole books – and Adams was notoriously slow – he did covers. He drew many books that remain famous today: the racism and drug abuse stories in Green Lantern/Green Arrow; the Kree/Skrull War in Avengers; the apocalyptic Sentinel story in X-Men. Everybody wanted to draw like Adams, and before long a lot of artists did.

But that was the 1970s. It’s been decades since Adams was a major player in comics, and other artists are the trend-setters now. But Adams isn’t really gone. When you look at work by superstars like Jim Lee (now co-publisher of DC Comics), you can see Adams. He’s still an influence, and will probably remain so for generations.

So it’s appropriate that Vanguard Productions has published The Art of Neal Adams ($24.95), an overview of Adams’ career. Written by Adams himself, the book has slick paper and high-quality printing to show the art to its best advantage.

Adams has done everything you can do with illustration: Advertising, comic strips (Ben Casey), every genre of comic books, an art studio, his own publishing firm (Continuity Comics), even movie posters. The Art of Neal Adams covers it chronologically, in Adams’ own words. If you want to understand why today’s comic-book artists draw the way they do, you need only glance through these pages.

Elsewhere:

Captain Britain was the first superhero created by Marvel UK – the British arm of Marvel Comics – back in 1976. Captain Britain Vol. 1: Birth of a Legend ($39.99) reprints roughly the first year of the character’s adventures, and it’s surprising how terrible they are.

Captain Britain was first written by Chris Claremont, who went on to fame in X-Men comics, but in these early days of his career basically strung together snippets of Stan Lee dialogue to poor effect. In the first story he gives Captain Britain a nonsensical origin and lame super-powers that amount to being kinda strong, kinda fast and carrying a stick.

The art was by Herb Trimpe, a second-stringer whose biggest claim to fame is a long run on Incredible Hulk in the ‘70s. And Captain Britain sported one of the ugliest costumes in a genre that’s seen a lot of horrendous haberdashery.

In short, early Captain Britain is just awful, a mish-mash of cliché, amateurism and worse. It gets marginally better when journeyman Gary Friedrich picks up the writing, and the art shifts to several other B-listers. But it’s still nothing to write home about.

Currently Captain Britain is a big player in the Marvel Universe, with A-list super-powers, an X-Men affiliation and a much spiffier outfit. But it’s easy to see why his earliest adventures weren’t included in the Captain Britain Omnibus that came out a couple of years ago, and why it’s taken 35 years for these stories to appear in the United States at all.

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com