Yeah, I could get back to Thor's Day today, but it's October 31st, so how about a musical interlude instead?
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
William Hootkins – The Kevin Bacon of Geekdom
I have
recently caught up on From Crisis To Crisis:
A Superman Podcast, and I’m catching up on Views From The
Longbox, and Michael Bailey has mentioned William Hootkins
a few times for playing roles in many of geekdom’s biggest franchises. Here’s a breakdown of them:
1977 – Star Wars
Porkins - The ill-fated Red 6 |
1980 – Flash Gordon
Munson - Zarkov's Assistant |
1981 – Raiders of the Lost Ark
Major Eaton - Confident in the country's "Top Men" |
1987
– Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Harry Howler – The guy that executes Luthor’s plans to create Nuclear Man |
1989 –
Batman
Lt. Eckhardt – The corrupt cop that gets what he deserves |
So what do we have here? George
Lucas’ biggest success story, a huge Spielberg/Lucas collaboration, a cult
classic (that my wife can’t stand for some reason), the movie that relaunched
one of DC’s iconic figures, and … well we’ll skip that last one, shall we? All of these movies have big names in them
and most of those cross over into other franchises. And we’re not even talking about some of the
voice or TV work the man did.
Labels:
Batman,
Flash Gordon,
Indiana Jones,
Star Wars,
Superman,
William Hootkins
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Did Earth 2 Aquaman Exist?
On the
latest Fire and Water
Podcast, there was a “Nerd Fight” between Rob and Shag over whether or not there was an Aquaman on Earth
2. I’m going to look at the evidence and
see what conclusions we can draw.
First some
background. Before 1985, DC Comics
existed in a Multiverse. Earth 1 was the
primary universe where the Justice League of America resided. Earth 2 was a slightly
different universe where the Justice Society of America existed. Earth 2 had many of the same, or similar,
heroes as Earth 1, but this was based in the Golden Age. For example, the Earth 1 Flash as Barry
Allen, a police scientist in Central City while the Earth 2 Flash, on the other
hand, was Jay Garrick, a research scientist in Keystone City. Another example is Superman of Earth 1 was
Kal-El while Superman of Earth 2 was Kal-L, but there were essentially the same
person. The first appearance of Earth 2
was in the famous 1961 story “The Flash of Two Worlds.” Prior to that, the Golden Age heroes were not
acknowledged by DC since its Silver Age reboot.
Let’s look
at the 5 heroes that were continuously published, not necessarily in their own
series, since the Golden Age:
Hero
|
Time Period
|
Origin
|
Group
Affiliations
|
Superman
|
Golden Age
|
Rocketed
to Earth from Krypton & raised by the Kents. Became Superman after their deaths.
|
Justice
Society,
All Star
Squadron
|
|
Silver Age
|
Rocketed
to Earth from Krypton & raised by the Kents. Became Superboy in his teens and Superman
in college.
|
Justice
League
|
Batman (or
Bat-Man)
|
Golden Age
|
Parents
killed by a mugger. Trained for years
to become a vigilante.
|
Justice
Society,
All Star
Squadron
|
|
Silver Age
|
Parents
killed by a mugger. Trained for years
to become a vigilante.
|
Justice
League
|
Wonder
Woman
|
Golden Age
|
Princess
of the Amazons, formed out of clay by her mother and granted life by the
gods.
|
Justice
Society,
All Star
Squadron
|
|
Silver Age
|
Princess
of the Amazons, formed out of clay by her mother and granted life by the
gods.
|
Justice
League
|
Green
Arrow
|
Golden Age
|
Grew up
next to an American Indian reservation & emulated their lifestyle,
including the use of the bow and arrow.
|
Justice
Society,
All Star
Squadron
|
|
Silver Age
|
Son of a
rich family. Stranded on an island and
had to learn to use a hand-made bow and arrow to survive.
|
Justice
League
|
Aquaman
|
Golden Age
|
Son of a
scientist who experimented on him to give him the ability to speak to fish
and breath underwater.
|
None
|
|
Silver Age
|
Son of the
Queen of Atlantis and a human lighthouse keeper.
|
Justice
League
|
As we can
see, Wonder Woman and Batman have pretty much the same origin in both the
Golden and Silver Ages. Superman, except
for when he started using his powers, is pretty much the same. Green Arrow and Aquaman, however, are quite
different between the two ages. This was
explained with Green Arrow, once the Earth 2 concept came about, to be because
they were actually two different people, but nothing was said regarding
Aquaman. In the Silver and Bronze Ages
there were a number of crossovers between the various Earths, the most famous
being the Justice League meeting up with the Justice Society for the Crisis du jour. Most of the counterparts were there, but not
Aquaman.
In fact,
there are only 5 comics that had the Earth 2 Aquaman. The first is Secret Origins #7
from 1974. While this issue has Aquaman
with green gloves, as opposed to the yellow gloves worn in the golden age, it
is a reprinting of his origin from More Fun Comics #73
from 1941, which is solidly in the Golden Age and Aquaman’s first appearance. The next two issues only feature Aquaman in
relation to other speaking about him. In
All-Star Squadron
#31 and All-Star
Squadron #53 it is explained that Aquaman is out at sea and can’t be
reached, which fits right in with all of his Golden Age adventures. In the Golden Age, or on Earth 2 if you wish,
Aquaman was primarily concerned with stopping modern day pirates and smugglers.
The last appearance
of the Earth 2 Aquaman is probably the most solid piece of evidence, and that would
be in All-Star
Squadron #59 and All-Star Squadron
#60 from 1986. In issue 59, Aquaman
finally makes it to the headquarters of the Squadron and makes a joke about his
lack of attendance. In issue 60, Aquaman
stands with Superman, Batman & Robin and Wonder Woman in the front of a
group picture of the Squadron, but as this is where the Crisis on Infinite
Earths took effect, he and the other duplicate heroes are wiped out of that
history, since all the Earths were merged into one timeline.
I am by no
means a comic book historian, and I’m sure that there will be some out there
who will refute the conclusion I have come to, but I think that all the
evidence points to there being an Earth 2 Aquaman, even if he didn’t show up in
the stories much. The amount of time is
spent in the pages of any Earth 2 based comic, or when those issues were
chronologically, don’t matter. What does
matter is that he was there, on Earth 2, in a book published by DC. Therefore, even though some may not like it,
I have to conclude that there was an Aquaman on Earth 2 that was separate and
distinct from the one on Earth 1.
Labels:
Aquaman,
DC Comics,
Earth 2,
Fire and Water Podcast
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Mishandling Clark Kent
Since the last issue was the end of the Beta Ray Bill story, we're taking a break from Thor this week to deal with one of my pet peeves with Superman, specifically live action adaptations. Especially after the Reeve movies, they treat Clark Kent as Superman with glasses. If that's the case, anyone who didn't see through it would be a complete idiot. "Lois Lane, how dumb was she?" I think Lois and Clark and Superman: The Animated Series were the worst offenders, at least that I can remember.
Here are some examples:
Lois and Clark - Someone finds out Clark's secret and Dean Cain doesn't do anything differently. No voice shift, stance shift, nothing.
Same thing here. The only difference is clothing, nothing else.
Now here are some examples of how the difference should be handled:
This one of the classic Fleischer cartoons shows Superman and Clark to be two different people, right down to the voice.
Of course the best example of this is the late, great Christopher Reeve. The way he played the part, it would be extremely difficult for anyone to even consider that Superman and Clark Kent were the same person. Different height, voice, mannerisms, everything.
Here are some examples:
Lois and Clark - Someone finds out Clark's secret and Dean Cain doesn't do anything differently. No voice shift, stance shift, nothing.
Same thing here. The only difference is clothing, nothing else.
Now here are some examples of how the difference should be handled:
This one of the classic Fleischer cartoons shows Superman and Clark to be two different people, right down to the voice.
Of course the best example of this is the late, great Christopher Reeve. The way he played the part, it would be extremely difficult for anyone to even consider that Superman and Clark Kent were the same person. Different height, voice, mannerisms, everything.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Thor’s Day – Thor #340
Today we’ll
be looking back at a classic comic from my collection.
Issue: 340
Title: “Though Hel Should Bar The Way”
Art & Story: Walter Simonson
Colors: George Roussos
Lettering: John
Workman, Jr.
Editing: Mark Gruenwald
Editor In Chief: Jim Shooter
Cover: Walter Simonson
Out in
space, Thor, Bill and Sif are flying down the line of ships where Bill’s people
lay in cold sleep. As they approach the
end of this line they see that the demons have overtaken the last ship and are
tearing it apart. Sif jumps out of the
chariot to defend the fleet and tells Thor and Bill to continue to the source
of the demons while she defends the fleet.
Knowing that she is right, they obey and find a giant construct over the
core of Bill’s galaxy. Thor and Bill are
attacked by the demons and we cut away.
The giant is
still forging a sword, and not it looks more like a sword, out of the
star. With each blow ringing “Doom”,
monsters are awaking on earth.
Sif is
fighting a losing battle as the number of demons attacking her continues to
increase. As a wave of them threatens to
overwhelm her, they are hit by a broadside from the now repaired
Skuttlebutt. Sif boards the ship and
they race away, trying to lead the demons away from the fleet and give Thor
& Bill time to finish their task.
Back in
Asgard we are treated to more of Balder’s story, as related by Volstagg to
Agnar. We are told of how Balder, once
Asgard’s mightiest warrior, saw Nidhogg consuming the souls of cowards. Among those souls are the warriors that
Balder had slain over the course of his many battles, which drove him to reject
his past life. Volstagg gets off of Agnar
and brushes him off, telling him that most of the Asgardians might forgive him
if something were to happen to Balder, but there is one who would not. Hogun the Grim “…would never forget … or
forgive.”
We then cut
to a penthouse overlooking Central Park in New York City. Lorelei and Loki are having a conversation
regarding how Lorelei will try and seduce Thor on his return to Earth. She asks the trickster what reward he will
get out of helping her. He responds, “It
will amuse me greatly.”
Back at
Asgard, the victorious warriors return to a cheering crowd. As Bill and Thor refresh themselves, Odin and
Sif have a private talk, where she reveals that Bill went through much more
than he told them. It turns out that
there was a contest held to determine who would be the guardian. Bill won out over thousands of others, then
he and the rest of those determined to be physically strongest went through
psychological examinations “…that left most of them dead or insane!” The remaining candidates were put through
tremendous pain when they were physically transformed into the hybrid
warrior. The only one to survive the
entire process, which is irreversible, was Bill. His new form was so hideous to his people
that they could hardly bear the sight of him.
However, he would do it all over again in order to protect his
people. Odin takes all this into
consideration.
At the feast
later, Odin calls Thor and Bill up to the high table. Odin makes a speech and asks them to cross
their hammers. He then performs an
incantation, after which he instructs Bill to strike Stormbreaker on the
ground. Bill does and is changed back
into his original form and Stormbreaker becomes a cane. Thor realizes what has happened and that his
ability to change into Donald Blake has been transferred to Bill. Bill returns to his people and Sif, who has
been restless, goes with him. Thor and
Odin discuss whether the original contest for Mjolnir was rigged, and Odin
dances around an answer.
Back on
Earth, a monster comes out of the sea and breaks an oil tanker in half. The beast swears vengeance on Odin, saying
“The life of your son is forfeit.”
Where it comes from: Let me get this
out of the way first. Walter Simonson,
THANK YOU for getting rid of Donald Blake.
I realize that the concept served a purpose, but I never liked how Thor,
mightiest warrior of Asgard, had such a huge restriction placed on him. It was even worse that Kryptonite,
really. If he didn't touch his hammer
within 60 second, he turned into a lame (and I mean the physical here)
mortal. How Blake wasn't killed in the
20+ years since his introduction I have no idea. Getting rid of that part of the comics lets
it get into some really sweeping storytelling that didn't require Thor to
return to Earth every X days in order to see his patients.
One of the problems
I have in this issue is with the use of Nidhogg. While I agree with his eating the souls of
cowards, I don’t agree with him being used to devour the souls of Balder’s
foes. If they were his foes in battle,
then they were only cowards if they ran, but the inference here is that Balder
killed them. They shouldn’t be anywhere
near Nidhogg, then, since they had an honorable death. I think this story is just trying to shoehorn
Hell into Hel. The Germanic afterlife is
not about bliss vs. torture, it is about continuing on after death and looking
after your family still living. Just
because a warrior opposed Balder doesn't mean they should be tortured. That is reserved for cowards and oath
breakers.
Something
else I’d like to get out of my system is the use of Midgard = Earth. I have written before
on how I read Midgard as being the dimension that contains Earth, not Earth
itself. The use in the comics, though,
is that Midgard is Earth and only Earth.
While this works for kids, such as me when I discovered Thor, it’s a
little too simplistic, and human-centric, for my Heathen sensibilities. I’m pretty sure that in a universe that is
known to have life on other planets, the Gods would have an interest in more
than one world. Earth may be where
Bifrost opens, hence it is more important, but it wouldn't be the only place
that Odin had his eye on.
Next time Thor
fights a dragon, gets a new secret identity and runs into a red and blue clad
boy scout.
Labels:
Comic Retrospectives,
Marvel Comics,
Thor,
Walt Simonson
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