tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56219959825033870782024-03-17T22:04:15.811-05:00THE ARCHETYPAL ARCHIVEGene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.comBlogger2374125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-16941499182581411652024-03-14T20:35:00.004-05:002024-03-14T20:42:22.755-05:00MYTHCOMICS: "DEATH BY WITCHCRAFT" (WITCHES TALES #4, 1951)<p><span style="font-size: large;"> Once more it's March, so it's time for another "Women's History Month" post-- though that doesn't necessarily mean finding only stories that would please feminists. Myths about negative aspects of femininity are as vital as those about positive aspects. As it happens, the horror story featured here accentuates the negative for both of the sexes.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2pLiTW7guhTET905geirhdk_w_1tgDqf6nf7s06KkTHUWMESOJx8m3UBLH8qWLidDmzHuwrSt2mqYMG4do5vM25XGefIARV2UHqda13LndbCx-yhWtMyHnU6bsH6FgO_7UJv7cGxZ3L0Y7y9G4Gs6nNMa83eSAOBv9JaKYP_9w4VrbRuKuRln3aCi/s1431/WIT1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1431" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2pLiTW7guhTET905geirhdk_w_1tgDqf6nf7s06KkTHUWMESOJx8m3UBLH8qWLidDmzHuwrSt2mqYMG4do5vM25XGefIARV2UHqda13LndbCx-yhWtMyHnU6bsH6FgO_7UJv7cGxZ3L0Y7y9G4Gs6nNMa83eSAOBv9JaKYP_9w4VrbRuKuRln3aCi/w436-h640/WIT1.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As if so often the case with anthology horror stories of the Golden Age of Comics, there's no writer-attribution, though the artist has been identified as Rudy Palais, who was known in his time for an above-average ability to convey a creepy mood.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioY4gHUFR2zh_usETAB1QkNAeFMNFar1wOCV8tcZhP2rf6iWdbJPIqiu_Y3dQLdBZNzZ30kpTrEJFxhGVX84qRLH0cD-_Mjl2Bgwib7VtK566z92UdHpHSnPOlKKi4CwGrFujc0wA4BSi66B5DN1Mmp1megTvi1nd7VztZVAKx_xncTqseGF0k2ked/s1429/wit2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1429" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioY4gHUFR2zh_usETAB1QkNAeFMNFar1wOCV8tcZhP2rf6iWdbJPIqiu_Y3dQLdBZNzZ30kpTrEJFxhGVX84qRLH0cD-_Mjl2Bgwib7VtK566z92UdHpHSnPOlKKi4CwGrFujc0wA4BSi66B5DN1Mmp1megTvi1nd7VztZVAKx_xncTqseGF0k2ked/w436-h640/wit2.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZvpWHusEj3Cd4nM7dOKtomJWfGgZIreQO8BExqSP58JdLky616fRk79fJTk3WWlPtrppC0UqjEUmTJWezbsRp7P3AkspoBvWriJhIshFxb4vqWb3bs3ccwmvg4auwiDeTMQVHIKxuHx8trF2kqDY_Ex2Xuv4v2ibFAy1ZeItd8Uo4HDPzwARxDT4P/s1428/wit3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1428" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZvpWHusEj3Cd4nM7dOKtomJWfGgZIreQO8BExqSP58JdLky616fRk79fJTk3WWlPtrppC0UqjEUmTJWezbsRp7P3AkspoBvWriJhIshFxb4vqWb3bs3ccwmvg4auwiDeTMQVHIKxuHx8trF2kqDY_Ex2Xuv4v2ibFAy1ZeItd8Uo4HDPzwARxDT4P/w436-h640/wit3.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The story of Dora Mayberry, by her own account scarred with the lines and wrinkles of age, is book-ended on both sides by her relating her tale to an "inner circle" of evildoers made up of one traditional-looking witch, an equally traditional black cat, and several ghoulish-looking males. After showing her listeners the beauty she once possessed, she begins the story in what looks like the 1920s at latest. Dora receives visits from high-class Arnold Cavendish, but Dora's only interested in Arnold because he's rich-- or, more precisely, in the line to become rich when his sick, rich uncle goes to meet his maker. In fact, Arnold's just as greedy to get his inheritance as Dora is, and when the old boy has a heart attack, Arnold makes sure his uncle doesn't get a chance to recover.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">However, once Arnold has all the money he'll ever need, he shows his true colors. He wants to live it up with every woman in town, and he refuses to marry Dora as promised. Dora alludes to the possibility of revealing some "secret" they hold in common, but once she's been well and truly spurned, the idea of revealing the secret never comes up again. Instead, Dora decides to sell her soul to Satan for the power to redress her injury, telling her tutor, "Some say women are weak-- but we CAN do evil!"</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-NBkSk7ES4K4XiZuAWiS8xb9ezMtIRGAbdhJtFM-1SdpZ3swo_H9zwlhi_HLn2HTI8dicM_0N-c6l5wc4jyIQF54CQPsF8fXUUhf89Bm8kzerg9xtZ6ef2KdlteT4fKzp_zLxbSx5-FcuhoylwB0o5N6oL06tkWWgF0rJIcrK5osW4Mbp-Cw0UEh/s1436/wit5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1436" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4-NBkSk7ES4K4XiZuAWiS8xb9ezMtIRGAbdhJtFM-1SdpZ3swo_H9zwlhi_HLn2HTI8dicM_0N-c6l5wc4jyIQF54CQPsF8fXUUhf89Bm8kzerg9xtZ6ef2KdlteT4fKzp_zLxbSx5-FcuhoylwB0o5N6oL06tkWWgF0rJIcrK5osW4Mbp-Cw0UEh/w434-h640/wit5.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Up to this point the story has followed a fairly predictable course. However, the unknown writer takes a new turn by revealing that Arnold has a neurotic fear of growing old like his late uncle. He's so deranged on the subject that he makes a contract with two killers, saying that if they kill him painlessly in twenty years, he'll leave them a sum of money in his will. Clearly, Arnold wants to feel like he can burn the candle at both ends and then trust to someone else to keep him from getting old. (The possibility of self-execution apparently never occurs to him.)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5A1qNWBcVEr7dwyfzntbytazI3g3imcqRc7UK-3_1den90hRPDS1KtGzf0o6wsPXMTGRSwEdzOlIsGCW8NwfS9V5eLxvQiXk4u6OC_8IMjxdC56_msn075yUrNhOxqlPvAYxecbZb6S33DzqjybGwhU8EKRPgHiA6eSRxGLskAaFsQN1DWsGWcHsr/s1425/wit6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1425" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5A1qNWBcVEr7dwyfzntbytazI3g3imcqRc7UK-3_1den90hRPDS1KtGzf0o6wsPXMTGRSwEdzOlIsGCW8NwfS9V5eLxvQiXk4u6OC_8IMjxdC56_msn075yUrNhOxqlPvAYxecbZb6S33DzqjybGwhU8EKRPgHiA6eSRxGLskAaFsQN1DWsGWcHsr/w438-h640/wit6.jpg" width="438" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Dora then studies the black arts for "long days and nights," which erode both her youth and her good looks. But she hasn't got in mind some mundane death-curse, as the story's title would suggest; she wants to use Arnold's own fears as the means of his undoing. Seven years later, she approaches Arnold, representing herself as his new housekeeper, and since she's no longer beautiful Arnold doesn't recognize her. The rich narcissist has lost none of his mania, complaining that elderly beggars are "people squeezed dry by time." (One might guess that he conflates advanced age with penury, since implicitly he wants to waste the family fortune and then perish before he has to live with the consequences of being a high-living grasshopper.)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqgRFVPMOEipG1_H76TEbTx_KWiQWauHIJByD3DoVerZzqaKknRPkzS3_layV1o9a1VUeB-7tM6G46Xs-LFvSpBeVdYmUxdRwEAe3VyjukgHM9WYUzP6_mSL3PEblX-RolxuaP7kdV5URWJwHxw_0aAuEcLeaXn4djapxKj_2ZhihXTfFApcOQpKTb/s1434/wit7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1434" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqgRFVPMOEipG1_H76TEbTx_KWiQWauHIJByD3DoVerZzqaKknRPkzS3_layV1o9a1VUeB-7tM6G46Xs-LFvSpBeVdYmUxdRwEAe3VyjukgHM9WYUzP6_mSL3PEblX-RolxuaP7kdV5URWJwHxw_0aAuEcLeaXn4djapxKj_2ZhihXTfFApcOQpKTb/w436-h640/wit7.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAC_ouTrcAlNlg2oVTBG2ZI3PanGZPMDvEQGI-5a9ezna7KrBqWyGOtM0STpb761t7fmo4a1Tf-1PeyV7IzFGQHPIeyyX_OutC_MyL9IMFs1h5otf0cQPdVrPM7m6kpYPjrRpjL6F41JPwBAHf_rUo99rpOdmD70YRaaIgwSgc7ITbc1wcWloqy0b/s1445/wi78.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1445" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAC_ouTrcAlNlg2oVTBG2ZI3PanGZPMDvEQGI-5a9ezna7KrBqWyGOtM0STpb761t7fmo4a1Tf-1PeyV7IzFGQHPIeyyX_OutC_MyL9IMFs1h5otf0cQPdVrPM7m6kpYPjrRpjL6F41JPwBAHf_rUo99rpOdmD70YRaaIgwSgc7ITbc1wcWloqy0b/w432-h640/wi78.jpg" width="432" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5npAfv0XaN6MRikYeM0CvyPWJaofr5tZPcFsDFE9K1gjRrn37m5lb98KIC7PMp0tSZi_oNnWMaCgOyOZ-CXply1P1K1-8ApY1pG1HRMqVQqfjh6cvCulx6yGZNp2iZFzw5RK2DXMfDwwAaJNmYk3dBYjCGaP5IQBo_8Vf6dVWhI_zb3ImjbPxd7J/s1417/wit9.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1417" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho5npAfv0XaN6MRikYeM0CvyPWJaofr5tZPcFsDFE9K1gjRrn37m5lb98KIC7PMp0tSZi_oNnWMaCgOyOZ-CXply1P1K1-8ApY1pG1HRMqVQqfjh6cvCulx6yGZNp2iZFzw5RK2DXMfDwwAaJNmYk3dBYjCGaP5IQBo_8Vf6dVWhI_zb3ImjbPxd7J/w440-h640/wit9.jpg" width="440" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Dora's gambit is to spook Arnold with the possibility that the thugs he hired are going to come early for their payoff and so deprive the rich wastrel of twenty years of self-indulgence. To sell Arnold on this possibility, Dora not only sends her victim minatory dreams, she seeks out the two thugs, arranges their deaths, and then turns them into her spectral henchmen. Not only does she panic the fool into committing suicide, she cons him into signing over all his wealth to his faithful housekeeper. Dora ends up becoming a rich old crone who then abets other wronged women into choosing a dark path to vengeance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Arnold and Dora are practically living symbols of masculine and feminine negativity. Though horror stories harbor any number of male warlocks or magicians who use mystic powers for vengeance, there is in my opinion there is something uniquely feminine about the idea of a "sisterhood" of malefic witches (even though, as I admitted, most of the ghouls at the convocation are male). And although actual sex is not mentioned in "Death," the writer strongly implies that what Arnold wants, once he has money, is a life of "love 'em and leave 'em." Ironically, both of them would have been well suited to each other in terms of selfish greed, and Dora probably would have been an adequate match for Arnold if he didn't have his mania about "hoping he dies before he gets old," to misquote the song.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One half of Dora Mayberry's name sustains some symbolic interest. "Dora" is just a standard wish-fulfillment cognomen, usually translated as "God's gift." However, "mayberry" is one of many names attributed to the plant known as the "common hawthorn" (a specification necessary because various other plants are also called hawthorns). Hawthorn has strong witchy associations, being both used by actual witches in their rituals and employed by ordinary people to avert witchery.</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-46145409362653911932024-03-12T16:11:00.009-05:002024-03-12T16:14:43.379-05:00CROSSING T'S, DOTTING I'S<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Yet the weakness of weak propositions is also their strength, for readers inevitably seek to justify their appreciation of favored artists via abstract propositions.-- <a href="https://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2018/04/strong-and-weak-propositions-pt-2.html">STRONG AND WEAK PROPOSITIONS PT. 2.</a></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div><span style="font-size: large;">In <a href="https://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2023/11/stalking-two-perfect-terms.html">STALKING TWO PERFECT TERMS</a>, I announced that I would retire the barely used term "postulate" in term of "proposition." But my saying this means that I must transfer everything I said about the two forms of postulates, especially in <a href="http://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2023/09/formal-and-informal-excellence-pt-2.html">FORMAL AND INFORMAL EXCELLENCE PT. 2</a>, to a "formal proposition" that represents the didactic form of vertical meaning, and to "informal proposition," that represents the mythopoeic form of vertical meaning.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The one potential problem with these determinations is that way back in 2018's three-essay series STRONG AND WEAK PROPOSITIONS, I stated that I considered both the lateral and vertical meanings of a given work were propositional in nature.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">But the solution is easily solved by a quick visit to Schopenhauer. In his principal work THE WORLD AS WILL AND REPRESENTATION, the gloomy philosopher created a lot of dualisms, but one of the simplest is to contrast "the concrete" of our physical experience and "the abstract" of our mental experience. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">So, since I've already assigned (as in the quote above) abstractions to the world of vertical meaning, then by default (as well as the PROPOSITIONS series) the world of lateral meaning is aligned with the concrete, because the lateral is also the "literal" record of what happens to characters in the narrative and how they feel about it. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">So, to apply full symmetry to the formulations of FORMAL AND INFORMAL EXCELLENCE, all four potentialities line up like so:</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">THE KINETIC-- informal propositions based on fictional phenomena meant to generate concrete excitations </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">THE DRAMATIC-- formal propositions based on fictional phenomena meant to generate concrete emotions</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">THE MYTHOPOEIC-- informal propositions based on fictional phenomena meant to generate abstract correlations</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">THE DIDACTIC-- formal propositions based on fictional phenomena meant to generate abstract cogitations</span></div>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-40974549407600166162024-03-02T17:18:00.007-06:002024-03-02T17:31:50.691-06:00THE READING RHEUM: "CARMILLA" (1872)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrfRhOA-_miOQepdBXkm9ixuyFGtRtUyLjHoKTi6s4Wks3zpDACvRlR5TFoj8ZMnLvc7pP7b8SeemM5jR6iwuIH9KS2DVy5SWCmY_pLkAgmjEHSC0olrJEXBjbhxVCLURCRNRR3suhxVW5nhYir2BEqSpy9mfEl4ObBlRfpAyteudww-dVBsahMmY/s400/carm.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="250" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIrfRhOA-_miOQepdBXkm9ixuyFGtRtUyLjHoKTi6s4Wks3zpDACvRlR5TFoj8ZMnLvc7pP7b8SeemM5jR6iwuIH9KS2DVy5SWCmY_pLkAgmjEHSC0olrJEXBjbhxVCLURCRNRR3suhxVW5nhYir2BEqSpy9mfEl4ObBlRfpAyteudww-dVBsahMmY/w400-h640/carm.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"> The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction cannot so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges; hence the conclusion of such a narration is apt to be less finished than an architectural finial.--Herman Melville, BILLY BUDD.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After not having read Sheridan Le Fanu's CARMILLA in many years, I gave it a shot again last year, and found the novella underwhelming. Its status as "the first major lesbian vampire story" seemed dubious, though there's no doubt that exploitative film adaptations pursued that angle. In the story proper, though, the relationship between the vampiress and her victim Laura is strictly one-way. Laura doesn't even know what to make of Carmilla's weird claims of some shared destiny between the two of them. The closest the young woman comes to acknowledging some erotic fixation on Carmilla's part is that she briefly thinks about book-romances (possibly Byron's DON JUAN?) in which a "boyish lover" pretends to be female to gain access to a beloved. Yet Laura quickly dismisses that possibility, rationalizing that Carmilla's constant "languor" is "quite incompatible with a masculine system." Laura can hardly be a consenting partner in a lesbian affair if she can't even conceive of the possibility of girl-on-girl love. At most CARMILLA might rank as the first vampire story about lesbian rape.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">However, on a more recent re-reading. I found myself interpreting the novella along lines similar to Melville's cited quote about "unfinished narration." In marked contrast to the more melodramatic vampire-novels, ranging from the 1847 VARNEY THE VAMPIRE to the 1897 DRACULA, CARMILLA feels very like a 20th-century modernist work, in love with ambiguity and "ragged edges."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One great ambiguity in the novella is that Carmilla seems to be a member of some strange network that has insinuated itself into human circles. This stands in contrast to both Varney and Dracula, who operate alone except for a few minions. But one never knows the nature of the vampire network. Numerous clues lead the reader to the discovery that Carmilla, languorous guest of Laura and her unnamed father, is Mircalla Karnstein, who has existed as an unholy bloodsucker since her death a hundred years earlier. But what about the other unnamed associates? One, the "Comtesse" who claims to be the mother of Carmilla in her various incarnations, may be a vampire herself, and may also be one of the vanished Karnsteins, whose castle stands in ruins at the start of the novella. Whoever the Comtesse is, she has resources enough to arrange the carriage that brings Carmilla to the estate where Laura lives. But who is the "hideous black man" in a turban whom Laura's governess sees inside the carriage? Similarly, when General Spielsdorf narrates the story as to how he lost his precious ward to the girlish-looking vampire-- at that time, using the name "Millarca"-- he mentions a "deathly pale" carriage driver working for the Comtesse. The later example of DRACULA invites the idea of human servants to a clutch of vampires. Yet Le Fanu proffers none of the copious explanations seen in Stoker.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How does Carmilla operate as an undead spirit? She first appears in Laura's bedroom when the latter is a girl of six. Little Laura sees the full-grown Carmilla, and feels something pierce her breast, though no wound eventuates. Then apparently Carmilla makes some chimerical decision not to trouble Laura again until the latter turns sixteen. Near the novella's conclusion, Baron Vordenburg-- Le Fanu's anticipation of Doctor Van Helsing-- claims that though vampires usually exsanguinate their victims right away, sometimes they make continued visits to a victim, as with "the gradual approaches of an artful courtship." All of the victims who are quickly slain by the vampiress are described as female. So was Le Fanu implying, very covertly, that Carmilla was a lesbian who only liked female prey? That would be a logical conclusion. But Le Fanu's characters never comment on the apparent preference, and Carmilla herself doesn't make even a passing comment on the male of the species. To be sure, Laura, living in a pre-lapsarian isolation from society, makes no comments on masculine charms either, aside from displaying a basic knowledge as to how men usually differ from women. But though Laura escapes either losing her life or becoming an undead herself, the novella certainly does not end with any ringing endorsement of the Daughters of Lesbos, and one never knows what Le Fanu thinks about the subject.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are a lot of other "ragged edges" in CARMILLA, but I'll wind up with the matter of Carmilla's powers, contrasting Le Fanu's approach to Stoker's. DRACULA's opening chapters make the vampire's powers seem endless, but roughly halfway through the book, Van Helsing codifies all of the things vampires can and cannot do. The explications in the last couple of chapters of CARMILLA leave most questions unanswered. Why, when preying on Laura and on Spielsdorf's ward, does Carmilla manifests as a "sooty black thing," and yet as herself as well? Why does Laura manifest a wound from Carmilla's attentions when she's sixteen, but not when she's six? Carmilla is seen in her grave at the Karnstein ruins at the novel's end, but how did she get there? When Laura and her father leave their home, the father makes an excuse to Carmilla that they plan to go an errand. and he invites Carmilla to join them later for a picnic "in the ruined castle." The reader doesn't know how much the father knows at that point-- only that he's held some unreported conversations with the local doctor-- but one would think that any mention of the Karnstein ruins would keep Carmilla away from there. Instead, she makes a flagrant appearance there, before the eyes of Laura, her father and Spielsdorf. She easily thwarts Spielsdorf when he attacks her with an axe, but then, instead of attacking the three people capable of killing her, she simply vanishes. Does she take refuge in her grave because she thinks they can't find her there? Or-- is it possible that she practices bilocation? Perhaps the Carmilla at Laura's home is a magical double of the body that's confined to the grave, and only the spirit can leave, not the actual body-- which might one reason the non-physical form morphs into a shadow-creature.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So my verdict is that as a lesbian novel, CARMILLA is no great shakes. But as a horror story devoted to the utter unknowability of the twilight domain beyond the world of the living, it outstrips most if not all other vampire novels.</span></p><p>\\\ </p><p></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-17459747583441618032024-03-01T15:14:00.006-06:002024-03-02T17:36:32.137-06:00TOWER OF SCREAMING FREUDIANS<blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: large;">The KINETIC is a potentiality that describes the relationships of excitation-quanta.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: large;">The DRAMATIC is a potentiality that describes the relationships of emotion-quanta.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: large;">The DIDACTIC (formerly "thematic") is a potentiality that describes the relationships of correlation-quanta.</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><span style="font-size: large;">The MYTHOPOEIC is a potentiality that describes the relationships of cogitation-quanta.</span></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"> --<a href="http://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2023/04/stalking-perfect-terms-four.html">STALKING THE PERFECT TERMS: THE FOUR POTENTIALITIES</a></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I've just finished reviewing the 1968 French thriller <a href="https://nummtheory.blogspot.com/2024/03/tower-of-screaming-virgins-1968.html">TOWER OF SCREAMING VIRGINS,</a>only to find that the movie's diegesis contained more material than I could fit into a film-review. It's a shame I'm not a Freudian, because the film is really a treasure trove of Freudian tropes, for all that the narrative was based on a story written some twenty years before Freud was born. I judged that the film has only "fair" mythicity because it was not as interested in what I have called "correlation-quanta" as on "emotion-quanta." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Here's the setup material I wrote the review.</span></p><p></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">This English-dubbed French thriller, despite its exploitative title, boasts a distinguished lineage. The source material is partly from a legend from French history: that, in the 14th century, Margaret of Burgundy, wife to King Louis X, committed adultery within a Parisian guard-tower, the Tower of Nesle, for which offense the unhappy French queen was imprisoned for the remainder of her life. A writer named Frederic Gaillardet dramatized the incident, though Alexander Dumas rewrote the play, possibly because he'd become famous for a stage-success in 1829, prior to his later fame as a novelist. However, the Gaillardet-Dumas story only takes various names and places from the historical account, concocting a wild hybrid story I'm tempted to call a "psycho-swashbuckler." I have not read any version of the prose source material. But I theorize that one of the authors borrowed a folklore-tale about Cleopatra, which asserted that the Egyptian queen had the habit of taking male lovers into her boudoir for one night of passion, only to have them executed afterward. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">TOWER, like the play on which it's based, spins out the idea that Queen Margaret-- who, according to the story's dynamics, ought to be in her middle thirties-- uses the deserted Tower of Nesle for a series of one-night stands with young Frenchmen, whether they are or aren't "virgins" like the title says . In fact, there are usually three such encounters each night, since Margaret (Teri Tordai) sets up liaisons for her two handmaidens as well. Then comes the "screaming," as Margaret's main henchman Orsini and various hooded thugs slay the male victims and toss them into the Seine River. I don't know why any of the henchmen, or Margaret and her ladies for that matter, affect any sort of masks, since they expect all to be killing off any and all visitors. The attempts at secrecy don't keep the locals from getting the sense that nasty things are happening at the "Tower of Sin," as they call it.</span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;">Like a lot of psycho-dramas, TOWER depends on a crapload of big revelations about things that happened prior to the film's diegesis. So for purpose of deeper analysis, I'm citing the actual events of the film in order that they are said to have happened, to get a handle on the psychological constructs the adapters used, which may or may not all be in the original play, or any book adaptation thereof.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">1) Some time before Margaret of Burgundy becomes Queen of 14th-century France by marrying Louis X, she's just a young noblewoman living with her father. Margaret has some conflict with her father that will lead her to plot his murder. She then has intimate relations with two young pages, hypothetically when she's in her teens or twenties, though there's no testimony as to how old the pages were. One of the pages, Orsini, she gets to poison her father, which may help her rise to power in some way. But by the other page, who later goes by the name Bouridan, plants a bun in her oven. That bun results in two non-identical twin boys, and either Margaret or Orsini gives the order to have the incriminating children killed. This apparently happens without the knowledge of Bouridan, though it's not clear what he knew and when. But the henchman (or huntsman?) in charge of the killing leaves the two infants with a church, and they're raised to manhood. They both look about twenty when they arrive in Paris, which would make Margaret at least 35 by that time (though actress Teri Tordai was in her twenties). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">2) Bouridan presumably has various adventures before he becomes celebrated for military valor in the service of Louis X, and he too should be at least in his middle thirties, though the actor playing Bouridan was in his forties. He's first seen on his way to Paris, but he takes time to chat up Blanche, who's both implicitly in her innocent twenties and played by an actress of the same age.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">3) Bouridan encounters the twins, Philippe and Gautier, in Paris. He thinks it's odd because they both have old scars on their forearms, which reminds of a similar scar on the arm of his former lover, though he does not say as much. Both Bouridan and Philippe get invited to party at The Tower, and though Bouridan seems to be familiar with the place's bad rep, he doesn't try to talk Philippe out of going.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">4) Bouridan is set up to have sex with one of the Queen's handmaidens and then be killed, but he avoids both fates and escapes the Tower. Philippe has sex with the Queen, all the Oedipal innocent who doesn't know he's shagging his mom. Margaret, who's sacrificed numerous victims to her lust and that of her two handmaidens, feels a little tender about Philippe and almost spares him. But the enthralled young man tries to see the face under her mask, and Margaret has Orsini kill him and dispose of the body.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">5) Around the same time, Orsini-- also played by an actor in his forties-- takes a fancy to Blanche when she arrives at court. He strongarms her into becoming a handmaiden to Margaret. Later he gets her alone and tries to rape her, but he's interrupted and Blanche gets away.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">6) Bouridan seems to nurture an old rivalry with Orsini, since his main concern is to blackmail the Queen, threatening to reveal her ilicit activities to King Louis X, newly returned from a foreign campaign-- though later in the film it's implied that the King suspects Margaret's doing something not quite right. However, Bouridan gets a chance to question one of Orsini's henchmen, whom they both knew from their time as pages. The henchman reveals that he spared the lives of the twins and marked them with scars, though he doesn't say why. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">7) So now Bouridan knows that the two children he sired with Margaret lived, even though Philippe died after getting sexed up by his mother. The captain doesn't seem too broken up by this revelation, and he's still more interested in forcing Margaret into giving him a special position at court, even going to the extent of confronting her with the dead body of Philippe. Bouridan also doesn't seek out his surviving son Gautier, though Gautier tries to kill the older man, thanks to Orsini telling the young fellow that Bouridan killed Philippe. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">8) Bouridan does not reveal his filial relationship to Gautier, but somehow talks him into helping Bouridan assault on the Tower while the Queen intends to have one of her orgies. The end result is that Gautier is killed by the Queen's men, though she's belatedly horrified to see her other son slain (though apparently it was okay when they were infants). Bouridan duels Orsini but it's Margaret who stabs Orsini, her former favorite, to death. Then, since the Tower has conveniently caught on fire, she consigns herself to the flames. The King, summoned by Blanche's efforts, shows up mostly to give Bouridan the commission he wants, and the hero cleaves to his (much younger) beloved.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So none of these Freud-tropes are brought together in the service of either a didactic or mythopoeic discourse, only to exploit an array of emotional responses. The Oedipal drama of a son accidentally sleeping with his mother isn't even the main focus here, though. If anything, the main plot resembles Freud's scenario from TOTEM AND TABOO, in which a male tries to keep all the nubile women to himself. Obviously, in his youth Bouridan is not able to do this, because Margaret forms an alliance with his rival Orsini. Still, she later says that she felt a deeper relationship to Bouridan than anyone else, so there's a strong implication that he was such a good lover that for years Margaret's been trying to satisfy herself with lesser (read: younger) peccadillos. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Bouridan, though, doesn't display any longing for Margaret; he doesn't even try to kiss her at any time. The implication I take from this series of tropes is that he was betrayed by her taking up with his rival Orsini. He doesn't really care about his two sons any more than he does about Margaret. He's dominated by a "will to power," and he prospers as a result of infiltrating Margaret's murderous operation. Also of Oedipal interest is that he ends up with a woman young enough to be his daughter, though to be sure actor Jean Piat did not look to be in his forties for this role. It's also interesting that both Bouridan and Orsini desire Blanche, just as they presumably both desired Margaret as well. I might even theorize that, to Bouridan's ego, both of his sons can be easily sacrificed in his quest for power, and for sex with a younger woman. I'd call it a double standard, but of course Margaret is still the greater sinner, since she kills for her thrills.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Interestingly, I did some additional writing on another film with strong age-inappropriate clansgression. In <a href="https://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2024/02/tutelary-spirits.html">TUTELARY SPIRITS</a> I mostly addressed the question as to which characters were the superordinate icons of the schlock-film MOTHER GOOSE A GO GO. There the writer showed little attentiveness to anything like emotional tenor. But he did succeed in using fairytales as a means of creating a mythic discourse around a quaternity of taboos concerning age and blood-- and no such discourse appeared in TOWER OF SCREAMING FREUDIANS.</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-26707399948097618702024-02-29T21:44:00.007-06:002024-03-11T12:16:34.206-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 12<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZUc2B9fm1zPig_QfiHWtoXpORplM8ABrQlS4ACijgDSBXcKF_sg7ZA211d_4cq37oCBuo7sjFEnZ_StwqQhmEbHz52QPd58OfyvQ2F0Fr7Rw-9u9DM3G_qO89Nr7nu-N1oWSf9cqlqAGMrKYvFEHNzKhSqurSh82HhVWjVlqXkNvwbwDrBSbZpVAS/s1180/twion.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1180" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZUc2B9fm1zPig_QfiHWtoXpORplM8ABrQlS4ACijgDSBXcKF_sg7ZA211d_4cq37oCBuo7sjFEnZ_StwqQhmEbHz52QPd58OfyvQ2F0Fr7Rw-9u9DM3G_qO89Nr7nu-N1oWSf9cqlqAGMrKYvFEHNzKhSqurSh82HhVWjVlqXkNvwbwDrBSbZpVAS/w434-h640/twion.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And so DC's first (but far from last) rendition of PLASTIC MAN ends with a bangless whimper, though at least Drake managed a few okay gags this time.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKFzbkxfYW6tHSonMDWLnpLuNHj18WI4pXbQ15LFn3HkzK7ZXmsIn4Z59KLa-a01rdSYwzKPhofi035tmK3J4VnS1ZGZ3t61BWqYC29j8jT69KOykAvFuW6OfwfwY5q0lpxvqrxsSCxMd7DmV5jBsWgBb5mBWdVa2T9AQ872d5-s5_hlzdPqxx25TH/s1190/doll.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1190" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKFzbkxfYW6tHSonMDWLnpLuNHj18WI4pXbQ15LFn3HkzK7ZXmsIn4Z59KLa-a01rdSYwzKPhofi035tmK3J4VnS1ZGZ3t61BWqYC29j8jT69KOykAvFuW6OfwfwY5q0lpxvqrxsSCxMd7DmV5jBsWgBb5mBWdVa2T9AQ872d5-s5_hlzdPqxx25TH/w430-h640/doll.jpg" width="430" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0nSHzt4-RGmQKw85q3sbKWpLKb8HSw1oTT3jgWkYUkSjKnzr39WT0FAseOZeaFwRX9BRdxGYu3If-Ir3pAWQ40rYQKmxhZW5p0KutO01Pn1ftlZqZdna8rY4-da0WtxA_kRF2u4CtGSEym8tu5syZPNsj8g6ny0WQFoqv-3hpmbmwi-F0igXlNhf/s1190/power.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1190" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX0nSHzt4-RGmQKw85q3sbKWpLKb8HSw1oTT3jgWkYUkSjKnzr39WT0FAseOZeaFwRX9BRdxGYu3If-Ir3pAWQ40rYQKmxhZW5p0KutO01Pn1ftlZqZdna8rY4-da0WtxA_kRF2u4CtGSEym8tu5syZPNsj8g6ny0WQFoqv-3hpmbmwi-F0igXlNhf/w430-h640/power.jpg" width="430" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This time the hoary plot is "sidekick gets the main hero's powers." While Plas and Gordon participate in a parade, they're attacked by murderous doll-sized humans. Plas repels the attack but in the ruckus Gordon is injured. He needs a blood transfusion right away, so Plas donates his chemically-altered corpuscles, and Gordon gets stretch-talents.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKr0Ft0JryXjP07o_BxCfPc5xgOQsVnrt8mSAWw3UeWPG0JnVqAEgyZxIMSxm8B6c6HyuNC3gaMjQoZQaTFtr5ps0ktQnDIp9-J5KgqN8owuji05SDrTWRTiV22b83EIs3GozbWjaTbpM-hY45M03tGbm75j3H8wBk7ieTs8-cY4WFHlKF6LUG54SJ/s1282/crook.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1282" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKr0Ft0JryXjP07o_BxCfPc5xgOQsVnrt8mSAWw3UeWPG0JnVqAEgyZxIMSxm8B6c6HyuNC3gaMjQoZQaTFtr5ps0ktQnDIp9-J5KgqN8owuji05SDrTWRTiV22b83EIs3GozbWjaTbpM-hY45M03tGbm75j3H8wBk7ieTs8-cY4WFHlKF6LUG54SJ/w400-h640/crook.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinnwTJz_RVQ_OkSU_E1Vyw1suJ2deMdALejE4v4btGjl0HZFEm2rpZHYOtCbrdtR0BF0hK4wy-zZKKa3bzojOddpM1I0M7mhYBHkFVYvHKiQxiAt7_Gcijj_tBLW5HZ0bKN5xg9pi5E3WVTI5QF1KAIoom9odjZDnHXeUqco-x15-tYnNUWv1YSBkl/s1179/fonmish.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1179" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinnwTJz_RVQ_OkSU_E1Vyw1suJ2deMdALejE4v4btGjl0HZFEm2rpZHYOtCbrdtR0BF0hK4wy-zZKKa3bzojOddpM1I0M7mhYBHkFVYvHKiQxiAt7_Gcijj_tBLW5HZ0bKN5xg9pi5E3WVTI5QF1KAIoom9odjZDnHXeUqco-x15-tYnNUWv1YSBkl/w434-h640/fonmish.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Being a straight-arrow, the former sidekick presumably grows a Plastic Man costume out of his own skin and decides he'll show Plas how a proper superhero conducts himself. Naturally, he bungles all of his efforts, though at least this yields a peppy new version of the "Mabel, Mabel" song. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEkwNsijASDZH34_PrW1Ao9bZxhdO2UbMPDgV55hrA_vnf9AoL9jHNANmAmdQfOupDgB0YppHoa52rW88X0igBkFkwcdMxGq3SDolije-_k96MRSQhpt7DV5Af4Dkt2IoFpxhVVbrIRrWb2qe9sIe6uPNaEqBeqaUGbCrcQRF5JkhjpljU6uxZbVLc/s1181/berg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1181" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEkwNsijASDZH34_PrW1Ao9bZxhdO2UbMPDgV55hrA_vnf9AoL9jHNANmAmdQfOupDgB0YppHoa52rW88X0igBkFkwcdMxGq3SDolije-_k96MRSQhpt7DV5Af4Dkt2IoFpxhVVbrIRrWb2qe9sIe6uPNaEqBeqaUGbCrcQRF5JkhjpljU6uxZbVLc/w434-h640/berg.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile Master Mannequin, the mad genius behind the doll-men, unleashes his shrunken pawns upon a party thrown by Miss DeLute.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1z7hQU763JZTXUpD7PUVw-v6LMiBK2K_aRVv7WeP0ntzdjZ3Sxd59c9xtsIg8mbVni1OnbxMRPQpl0Bz4lDWrxxTgMIp0BEJY6LN26eCIj8FjnJAxtP05jCC8bB-vKzqsp1VLe-8Dc1DaWjEf6K4sZ605wZb0ASBGQBGJOf_BxkXt9Lf4nbNZ0e-D/s1183/shrink.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1183" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1z7hQU763JZTXUpD7PUVw-v6LMiBK2K_aRVv7WeP0ntzdjZ3Sxd59c9xtsIg8mbVni1OnbxMRPQpl0Bz4lDWrxxTgMIp0BEJY6LN26eCIj8FjnJAxtP05jCC8bB-vKzqsp1VLe-8Dc1DaWjEf6K4sZ605wZb0ASBGQBGJOf_BxkXt9Lf4nbNZ0e-D/w432-h640/shrink.jpg" width="432" /></span></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfBacUJyCvuJT0CvU2iJJZQJlWUbFsFxbRzEYfLzOpgUmjKItxZ8E-3etMCylFIHdk4BuNXmjDJ2iTGAV6tuO7_uLc0vL4pVfABecacmscW5qUrsQ0yrkODq4RdsToekKzMUpM1Q0rQPuT0-UvVSMWs1cJmQik6Z_vhZnKKLfsXOJxA5pt2YH1iu7F/s1287/neat.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1287" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfBacUJyCvuJT0CvU2iJJZQJlWUbFsFxbRzEYfLzOpgUmjKItxZ8E-3etMCylFIHdk4BuNXmjDJ2iTGAV6tuO7_uLc0vL4pVfABecacmscW5qUrsQ0yrkODq4RdsToekKzMUpM1Q0rQPuT0-UvVSMWs1cJmQik6Z_vhZnKKLfsXOJxA5pt2YH1iu7F/w398-h640/neat.jpg" width="398" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><span style="font-size: large;">Plastic Man shows up late to the party. He's almost stymied by a doll-man who takes Micheline hostage, but Gordon's inadvertent entrance distracts the crook, and so Plas is able to overcome both the dolls and their master. The hero also gets the last words of the series, "So who needs neat?" There's more poetry than truth in this statement, for the Drake PLASTIC MAN is kind of a mess. But every once in a while, he worked a few good jokes into the chaos.</span><p></p><p><br /></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-38976232280659510332024-02-29T21:21:00.005-06:002024-03-11T12:16:50.955-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 11<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43mpq6UiQrzG_6pC0VSFgNIeIsiK0ll41SLadjtO_43MBGoXPUECiHguIQ4SN1m0UnqUJk1LDMpN2OHaQXFqobogVsu2rPvvBu6fy0aUMF35kzHNF0D8_aITwGXkmpr0jUzAvVMGQ4cbhVYbJ-hTfA8EjEyy_Q8JFmGVZ9Yku6bRnNFOcEVbwi8UT/s1532/nomb.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1532" data-original-width="1018" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43mpq6UiQrzG_6pC0VSFgNIeIsiK0ll41SLadjtO_43MBGoXPUECiHguIQ4SN1m0UnqUJk1LDMpN2OHaQXFqobogVsu2rPvvBu6fy0aUMF35kzHNF0D8_aITwGXkmpr0jUzAvVMGQ4cbhVYbJ-hTfA8EjEyy_Q8JFmGVZ9Yku6bRnNFOcEVbwi8UT/w426-h640/nomb.JPG" width="426" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Here's the weakest of the three Sparling covers.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgszgPLSjTq_SgJ2FolvwZpitkqNKi7ZREFY69rgrHMKYgr1CBbTZMBCIxGcInXLnxA8KltHA7wk4KM8kpoz-Sc-27HHq-I7KnQFIscLpocYuKMiEKEETP2lB2JZSzO_NF-z6b3l8Pksew2o_bHIdj-fv2iPK39lGo-ztkCRsFYc9Z2Nia35Ym4KKp-/s1504/mother.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgszgPLSjTq_SgJ2FolvwZpitkqNKi7ZREFY69rgrHMKYgr1CBbTZMBCIxGcInXLnxA8KltHA7wk4KM8kpoz-Sc-27HHq-I7KnQFIscLpocYuKMiEKEETP2lB2JZSzO_NF-z6b3l8Pksew2o_bHIdj-fv2iPK39lGo-ztkCRsFYc9Z2Nia35Ym4KKp-/w436-h640/mother.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlLzsv8VpaQgU12Ew7OO4ayceXFY07WShvY8TZ-mtYGDvk5u4nMntD6ItbTQTHkwfusQsia907eojcFkxnuAAV0OrH3KYGXzXt0lypW-QU6gTJZykiew_Tq1ofZw6TvYMjXjw5v3dL9cDZte7S-MMgzXyt-NYMKLtSF8Y7G69jCvBpTogcX_2ZQoh/s1504/zdftg.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJlLzsv8VpaQgU12Ew7OO4ayceXFY07WShvY8TZ-mtYGDvk5u4nMntD6ItbTQTHkwfusQsia907eojcFkxnuAAV0OrH3KYGXzXt0lypW-QU6gTJZykiew_Tq1ofZw6TvYMjXjw5v3dL9cDZte7S-MMgzXyt-NYMKLtSF8Y7G69jCvBpTogcX_2ZQoh/w436-h640/zdftg.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's also another weak Drake plot. Plastic Man prevents an assassination, and that honks off Thisbey, head of a cartel that arranges professional killings. Thisbey summons Killer Joe, the world's most artistic assassin, and Joe accepts the contract, under certain stipulations. Sparling not only manages to insert a "Mutt and Jeff" pair of identical molls, but a secretary named "Miss Zeftig." Such a in-joke, veiled by a foreign-language expression, is probably the only way the editors at Sixties DC would let even an indirect reference to female boobs be printed.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MWPo8abqcKatQec3ZD64TiFDVg3MhV4R5CIfG72T9iJH3vKEge7p4YCWdSup8BWaBVDNNl4OJHv1OrqwdhEYTtkIyGtHK5MmrC5WEYkHwFmzsznoWnQEa_zZmFWr1AqpqTxHyf5zlNcm-fcrwtpTbXe3zgmwAy_8s83KWD1pgzfZ-Cscxe4mqpub/s1493/gent.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1493" data-original-width="994" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-MWPo8abqcKatQec3ZD64TiFDVg3MhV4R5CIfG72T9iJH3vKEge7p4YCWdSup8BWaBVDNNl4OJHv1OrqwdhEYTtkIyGtHK5MmrC5WEYkHwFmzsznoWnQEa_zZmFWr1AqpqTxHyf5zlNcm-fcrwtpTbXe3zgmwAy_8s83KWD1pgzfZ-Cscxe4mqpub/w426-h640/gent.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Joe traps Plas with ridiculous ease. But while setting the hero up for a murder-- so that the state will execute the innocent crusader-- Plas cleverly escapes imprisonment and finds a way to prove he was nowhere near the murder scene. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyeRtmENYh8Ecl3kC_c5pdeILMOGXvtZT78GWugCrK9I16xwRVyiW7G1d0-StnwgHvDsjYYTGg9ixtDR3Xr2vyiFVANzj_Tc2oIZEL88Em3cL-kHa4UvRWBeEHunkBQB3KmVYpvgI_Ptkk6hP4q3DMHqQVVrXqCzvuFfPoYQgCzoj1a_GeRIQy0dI/s1504/bads.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjyeRtmENYh8Ecl3kC_c5pdeILMOGXvtZT78GWugCrK9I16xwRVyiW7G1d0-StnwgHvDsjYYTGg9ixtDR3Xr2vyiFVANzj_Tc2oIZEL88Em3cL-kHa4UvRWBeEHunkBQB3KmVYpvgI_Ptkk6hP4q3DMHqQVVrXqCzvuFfPoYQgCzoj1a_GeRIQy0dI/w436-h640/bads.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zbKOhCoInGAe4kw6EKHF9ATzdk0mb0eIvHl8HoyP2KMCVry1zbgU0i4-OO9TfvgeffbXm9Pz3C6z9D0fPO2tuLdBvIbIqBDdRGLieBzow8Ol0kzAZQtKYp151K-U-_-7fXCgNo34y06PINAeYNoijRsxvXUt4VIbUNWIExnjWpJ8BzGBLLgnws5n/s1504/coram.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1zbKOhCoInGAe4kw6EKHF9ATzdk0mb0eIvHl8HoyP2KMCVry1zbgU0i4-OO9TfvgeffbXm9Pz3C6z9D0fPO2tuLdBvIbIqBDdRGLieBzow8Ol0kzAZQtKYp151K-U-_-7fXCgNo34y06PINAeYNoijRsxvXUt4VIbUNWIExnjWpJ8BzGBLLgnws5n/w436-h640/coram.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-size: large;">Joe then sets a minor trap to lull the hero's suspicions, and then hypnotizes Gordon into becoming a super-strong murder-machine. The spell wears off, and this forces Joe to make a frontal assault. Ironically, Plas easily defeats Joe but is almost cancelled by Thisbey. But inevitably both malefactors end up in jail, while the reader ends up with a story with a shortage of clever gags.</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-63922953973651499882024-02-29T20:56:00.003-06:002024-03-11T12:17:06.189-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 10<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSST9cYfMmpt0_4biyVoUUxczJjyfN_khS8FJF1n3ImIC0X3OAeToBsvnGCKzbInBk40k0XM4c8GwcpMclac2oFvcdYDbUgkSlc7d-n7DOd9impPX-VtqT9q5uOqc3jUxMp9Sfh8ZDpI2HaM0wHXOgOatHeVcfe56WjX98RI9RZjDEo9amWAp42bf/s1623/spar.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1623" data-original-width="1031" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSST9cYfMmpt0_4biyVoUUxczJjyfN_khS8FJF1n3ImIC0X3OAeToBsvnGCKzbInBk40k0XM4c8GwcpMclac2oFvcdYDbUgkSlc7d-n7DOd9impPX-VtqT9q5uOqc3jUxMp9Sfh8ZDpI2HaM0wHXOgOatHeVcfe56WjX98RI9RZjDEo9amWAp42bf/w406-h640/spar.JPG" width="406" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">For the last three issues of the doomed title, Jack Sparling furnished both covers and interior art. His rather scratchy art was an odd match but some of the stretch-feats are closer to Cole's model.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLBRP7W0fZN64rwJKf8dDMw9zdBFO3MwaK21xMu60a4TQ3WvaiifQG3_d02j_htRiuG29TGif8HUB-7aM_7adZBMTVgve2XXpi39JFf1_7w2DfnVkDvL3oosqRDtW4IjWF4JSCmAD3mV_BgJ_aUkEBxA0fgbY7hhyphenhyphenBsb10xHp1UK-5hc77Borub4b/s1496/save.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1496" data-original-width="1008" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYLBRP7W0fZN64rwJKf8dDMw9zdBFO3MwaK21xMu60a4TQ3WvaiifQG3_d02j_htRiuG29TGif8HUB-7aM_7adZBMTVgve2XXpi39JFf1_7w2DfnVkDvL3oosqRDtW4IjWF4JSCmAD3mV_BgJ_aUkEBxA0fgbY7hhyphenhyphenBsb10xHp1UK-5hc77Borub4b/w432-h640/save.jpg" width="432" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This time it's the old amnesia-trope. While Plas is speaking before a stadium full of people honoring his heroism, one of the grandstands collapses. Plas holds up the structure until all the innocent girl scouts get clear, but then it buries him.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd67OQ4Nb67ilKJGUMYUHDKsw-UCMJLost1a0iCUloYFjAyOEtT9MJGFNO_VOyQYP2D1y8u2zsvim9-XOU45JIyYxJgs3_Eo-N3-YQkt_v-IhaY2dA3gx6Ez3HnrA0eSCxAdqQFwi4r5XnubDpXspoTNBpfbxTgqb-oQob0KNysNhTo61Qp-n2Le_B/s1490/chief1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1490" data-original-width="1002" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd67OQ4Nb67ilKJGUMYUHDKsw-UCMJLost1a0iCUloYFjAyOEtT9MJGFNO_VOyQYP2D1y8u2zsvim9-XOU45JIyYxJgs3_Eo-N3-YQkt_v-IhaY2dA3gx6Ez3HnrA0eSCxAdqQFwi4r5XnubDpXspoTNBpfbxTgqb-oQob0KNysNhTo61Qp-n2Le_B/w430-h640/chief1.jpg" width="430" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7CTEAhsFeFnyfg3aKXW5qDSy2_87OiLU_yTEqkqknL0zq9eH38i9gR85Qd2OSBwhkpG0_c88ghdCrCzlQ3Y9XvVrpW9FzzJPwPXn9-gzfM3qdAFw8QItEhQ9eaZ1FFGnhS9JRO4MptqQVjOe0jxmaw3QhXWCC-XJBO3W0XXP6-_bvunfn5nwY0T_O/s1501/chief2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1501" data-original-width="986" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7CTEAhsFeFnyfg3aKXW5qDSy2_87OiLU_yTEqkqknL0zq9eH38i9gR85Qd2OSBwhkpG0_c88ghdCrCzlQ3Y9XvVrpW9FzzJPwPXn9-gzfM3qdAFw8QItEhQ9eaZ1FFGnhS9JRO4MptqQVjOe0jxmaw3QhXWCC-XJBO3W0XXP6-_bvunfn5nwY0T_O/w420-h640/chief2.jpg" width="420" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The hero comes to, but not only has he lost his memory, he's absorbed the personalities of three different people he encountered. This unique diagnosis is provided by none other than Niles Caulder, the Chief of the Doom Patrol, which Drake had been writing for most of its history, and which would conclude later the same year. After the Chief delivers his diagnosis, Gordon pegs his true identity, and Caulder steps out of character to wield his wheelchair like a bludgeon.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_KnX21LmvYmRRSYoJ1DN3x3b6hCtj1E7xZ73Rs6yi1Fjd88FCqv5TJXbfpFMNUCe13tbSqzp7ZOXwRfOJy7JHOAibfJqK9KSogcsYbIV-8NwCCpstXLwSLWw1mOPZj5hEXs3jC0OFgb3cN2SZaIu1FCsYkc_zJdXH5PdWCScVvgGv1afujUpjXn3P/s1490/weasa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1490" data-original-width="994" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_KnX21LmvYmRRSYoJ1DN3x3b6hCtj1E7xZ73Rs6yi1Fjd88FCqv5TJXbfpFMNUCe13tbSqzp7ZOXwRfOJy7JHOAibfJqK9KSogcsYbIV-8NwCCpstXLwSLWw1mOPZj5hEXs3jC0OFgb3cN2SZaIu1FCsYkc_zJdXH5PdWCScVvgGv1afujUpjXn3P/w426-h640/weasa.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuajU1v8HY3RkiU8ylbrJCNC89l508waVx9NmqqZV_nNNrZYO5B421glS2owbVtw6ouXyssFAWx6qCQzAqKMKgsO_gPGL14CY0GQiPIqhwG4taDOUM283MuPkbaj4IydPymnrr5HdC3K-ZNnHd9TT1MPeQ9iS-xzXtYO3RG98MjF89pRBiv3AkOcS7/s1476/mike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1476" data-original-width="983" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuajU1v8HY3RkiU8ylbrJCNC89l508waVx9NmqqZV_nNNrZYO5B421glS2owbVtw6ouXyssFAWx6qCQzAqKMKgsO_gPGL14CY0GQiPIqhwG4taDOUM283MuPkbaj4IydPymnrr5HdC3K-ZNnHd9TT1MPeQ9iS-xzXtYO3RG98MjF89pRBiv3AkOcS7/w426-h640/mike.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, this sequence-- IMO the funniest one in all ten issues-- is succeeded by the tired plot of a villain roping the amnesiac crusader into committing crimes. The one cute idea is that Micheline is intrigued by the thought of a crooked lover-boy, and wants to be the Bonnie to his Clyde. Disgusted when she learns he's not a real criminal, she accidentally clonks him, brings back his memory, and-- you can write the rest. Sparling does draw the hottest women in all ten issues, though.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-57675987711470824472024-02-29T20:31:00.006-06:002024-03-11T12:17:19.669-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 9<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzE-wtZ8c10MfuAzLy9yXaWOVroDQseofpEPnjyyOEPK0K0vJnc3VSi4q93DWjzdoR9sSndG4wNYeQKJskGNbMgTFmzeucKz6Ekff9mN7IlC8NwrasgR-NTZoRCJgNDToNVlJp6VlntinG0wWjfkV7iQP-hsk-pnCyYeGC8-90cdq_tK6wUpVaPvDS/s1509/ape.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1509" data-original-width="1011" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzE-wtZ8c10MfuAzLy9yXaWOVroDQseofpEPnjyyOEPK0K0vJnc3VSi4q93DWjzdoR9sSndG4wNYeQKJskGNbMgTFmzeucKz6Ekff9mN7IlC8NwrasgR-NTZoRCJgNDToNVlJp6VlntinG0wWjfkV7iQP-hsk-pnCyYeGC8-90cdq_tK6wUpVaPvDS/w428-h640/ape.jpg" width="428" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You know sales must have been getting bad when Carmine Infantino's cover depicts the hero fighting a gorilla, and there's not so much as a chimpanzee inside.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8UJ3UXzxLdHAYPXkMuwhV-NgpkyCpPLUi-vNRV_OyCtT55LkNTlHes9x1vXlPjqkIbYNOFRyTAd4H3ks8KJKNCU_i65OMjzmleTuvOu_Bd9OLQEJ9ooNzgH8Okj1BpSTfDZ2BMhWqZFMuPHf1_cQ8x0MOXDMRYpGWNI380i5iLwpTOzncrMlVkPW/s1410/oriing.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="954" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8UJ3UXzxLdHAYPXkMuwhV-NgpkyCpPLUi-vNRV_OyCtT55LkNTlHes9x1vXlPjqkIbYNOFRyTAd4H3ks8KJKNCU_i65OMjzmleTuvOu_Bd9OLQEJ9ooNzgH8Okj1BpSTfDZ2BMhWqZFMuPHf1_cQ8x0MOXDMRYpGWNI380i5iLwpTOzncrMlVkPW/w434-h640/oriing.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Three thieves dressed like playing cards are routed by a plastic guy and his sidekick-- but it's not Plas and Gordy. Rather, Plas's father, the original hero from the forties, has strayed off the old people's reservation. This revelation results in a partial retelling of the Jack Cole origin and the "true origin" of the New Plas.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigBeeGXTwvY7arfmsvZggn5J4kCDv_DGrkKzgGEk0UbLrbGTqabJsufb95-rxWTKnVpSuHhlXmQpqJRWdqTUTX3P4uuGeWemH1C752lhnQdpfVs7YIaNTk2hsjy60y5DSXTJIi8Y-kaEYuO0s0_nqG6t7vQSY3waXHb4MzDcUCULKXIIhFNIQwuh_A/s1410/juno.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="969" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigBeeGXTwvY7arfmsvZggn5J4kCDv_DGrkKzgGEk0UbLrbGTqabJsufb95-rxWTKnVpSuHhlXmQpqJRWdqTUTX3P4uuGeWemH1C752lhnQdpfVs7YIaNTk2hsjy60y5DSXTJIi8Y-kaEYuO0s0_nqG6t7vQSY3waXHb4MzDcUCULKXIIhFNIQwuh_A/w440-h640/juno.jpg" width="440" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plas and Gordon seek out Big Daddy at his place of business: a popular old folks' retreat. Plas soon finds out the real reason for its popularity: Woozy Winks spikes the local sulphur spring. In addition, Big Daddy was trying to get the goods on the leader of the playing-card gang because the crime-lord threatens Big Daddy's ownership of the spa. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBya74Tc3sVDWJ5UfXiGULNcaE4jnpdWXtogt_mGj4GspQVnmiayFAO5mknYOstgCdb9Tr4Obf1tb0qr6n7mn6G6fcpeqqth8bmHUMvbdkFjRp32bvAT2k_xOBw72-hb6zIwYPsRVngs5zTI7AP7pTvg9mhn1s3mgBv95R9IKW7tVu4HIMGpdJjEQO/s1410/vill.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1410" data-original-width="969" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBya74Tc3sVDWJ5UfXiGULNcaE4jnpdWXtogt_mGj4GspQVnmiayFAO5mknYOstgCdb9Tr4Obf1tb0qr6n7mn6G6fcpeqqth8bmHUMvbdkFjRp32bvAT2k_xOBw72-hb6zIwYPsRVngs5zTI7AP7pTvg9mhn1s3mgBv95R9IKW7tVu4HIMGpdJjEQO/w440-h640/vill.jpg" width="440" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plas plots to trap the crooks in a burglary attempt, but that goes south. Ironically, Woozy's alcoholic spring works out for the good guys. The gang gets drunk on the "waters" and they voluntarily confess a bunch of earlier crimes, so that their plan to take over the resort is doomed. This tale, the last contribution of Win Mortimer, doesn't boast a great plot, but I enjoyed Drake's version of Woozy Winks, even if Drake makes the character less of a doofus and more of a conman.</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-26213367718962305942024-02-29T20:13:00.005-06:002024-03-11T12:17:35.655-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 8<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVpzWGqVcBwSJQJAz9GFOvs7U58sqXANm9-Vg6mRdB3ObhKPv1RZNnqXpfT-V4Tt0rD0A5TpPmILBy71o9zJygVyqrZAtEEUlwMsJyB9wktP1iW39G-qo5WQbOBQuzzN-4gwirqUKt4P18pcbBUU2OfkqdaWKaRAJrrnHFDMQHHMHChV2k0ITLs6A/s1542/cioverrr.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1542" data-original-width="1008" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVpzWGqVcBwSJQJAz9GFOvs7U58sqXANm9-Vg6mRdB3ObhKPv1RZNnqXpfT-V4Tt0rD0A5TpPmILBy71o9zJygVyqrZAtEEUlwMsJyB9wktP1iW39G-qo5WQbOBQuzzN-4gwirqUKt4P18pcbBUU2OfkqdaWKaRAJrrnHFDMQHHMHChV2k0ITLs6A/w418-h640/cioverrr.JPG" width="418" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A Carmine Infantino cover is no help this time, as the visual situation is overly busy and the gag, if it's Drake's, is one of his worst.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKk30_0v6V65T-ALmN-GbX1niIjKWLMoohYZafjfkDHiH4lGwJe9amXCmZhI-FMWyfRlB3QJFr1p6f3HaHlohn3ILnfgbOre6_NX73ru3A6ePVGG9jtcyJsCTO6HZ0iOvvJN2Hn8O1Z_F2yI2egJNbeELmR5sXHHs3i6QgFRBZyvly5b9V9Ha3vbY7/s1512/dome11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1028" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKk30_0v6V65T-ALmN-GbX1niIjKWLMoohYZafjfkDHiH4lGwJe9amXCmZhI-FMWyfRlB3QJFr1p6f3HaHlohn3ILnfgbOre6_NX73ru3A6ePVGG9jtcyJsCTO6HZ0iOvvJN2Hn8O1Z_F2yI2egJNbeELmR5sXHHs3i6QgFRBZyvly5b9V9Ha3vbY7/w436-h640/dome11.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaYw0rjZ2F4bAMFCwPJtif8uLCsXEkk8nVy2kjJu7wZQsJ8BPmaqvCr3zFkjQJNVudFG6vrbHcK0qSojKebUNdUcjOJnFAmH7WltWiE6oR3H9UG1Sn_Mg14dfiTRTmph8Df4zzRad8T-IZGsMN4IITLFJU06QOs1FZApU9ugpT9OVCpPB6G77qL54/s1512/sphinx.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1028" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaYw0rjZ2F4bAMFCwPJtif8uLCsXEkk8nVy2kjJu7wZQsJ8BPmaqvCr3zFkjQJNVudFG6vrbHcK0qSojKebUNdUcjOJnFAmH7WltWiE6oR3H9UG1Sn_Mg14dfiTRTmph8Df4zzRad8T-IZGsMN4IITLFJU06QOs1FZApU9ugpT9OVCpPB6G77qL54/w436-h640/sphinx.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">For the only time in the ten-issue run, an issue is split between two stories. In the first, Plas is visiting his girlfriend at a DeLute hotel. Doctor Dome shows up, intent on robbing the richies. But before the hero makes the scene, Dome and his thugs are clobbered by a new killer in town, the super-powerful Sphinx. Dome flees, and when Plas shows up, he gets distracted by that old stratagem, Tossing the Baby.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqV588sQzNUr-unGWVl3C8SUBq4TxGgmkgXjJdERsHPOIO2MjvMQv6HDIJ3KE8IsYEqwWvub4piVKK_ATOnawLcIX-ShPP-b462VqrRyCB8rkux5v6M5NTtRXL8d7U8Bff0jVcyFxfzocsKvpFFCEdXv1KRpn3H4oobsJ9MjwUyhfXSuFipySAbGcI/s1512/sands.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1028" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqV588sQzNUr-unGWVl3C8SUBq4TxGgmkgXjJdERsHPOIO2MjvMQv6HDIJ3KE8IsYEqwWvub4piVKK_ATOnawLcIX-ShPP-b462VqrRyCB8rkux5v6M5NTtRXL8d7U8Bff0jVcyFxfzocsKvpFFCEdXv1KRpn3H4oobsJ9MjwUyhfXSuFipySAbGcI/w436-h640/sands.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span><br /><br /></span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPusfpEMQdskTqy1YaCZztAvVBPpKMdHSZvuYu7-4px_q0BqKjWKxIYfEJ6uZNDkfUBp5phrnQBy3dAytG6mlm99F59U-Ahoe6lob4zwWTkut19cCJ4NeGu4zlDtJVsICMXskOzCnbP8VKt9xQfWrIp-gkpiNH843-hu7lGfGHWG5aMeYPdS6oIJq2/s1612/prop.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1612" data-original-width="1028" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPusfpEMQdskTqy1YaCZztAvVBPpKMdHSZvuYu7-4px_q0BqKjWKxIYfEJ6uZNDkfUBp5phrnQBy3dAytG6mlm99F59U-Ahoe6lob4zwWTkut19cCJ4NeGu4zlDtJVsICMXskOzCnbP8VKt9xQfWrIp-gkpiNH843-hu7lGfGHWG5aMeYPdS6oIJq2/w408-h640/prop.jpg" width="408" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Dome then complains to daughter Lynx that three other crimes he planned were blocked by the Egyptian evildoer. He talks about some great plan he's devised, which may be offering Plas a truce until the Sphinx is defeated. The truce accomplishes its end, the Sphinx is corralled, and the long-term enemies return to their enmity-- though it's also the last outing for Dome and his devilish daughter. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTin4zLzBK1FIJAtYyxLCFs-_XOr614aHH35tY4Vo7bDkSZ5pwTCHeGCQLY9sfXn2Vmu2tlelK5Erp2yYFAaQBV-7nlkCTky2Y-MsbEt5IixTW7sCSI1lZaL9l90U323vJv2JEZcy6tJbRFEEaRTPLasHt0OvLR1iuyTR0gazewMg34wQeNgwXFajz/s1512/zing.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1028" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTin4zLzBK1FIJAtYyxLCFs-_XOr614aHH35tY4Vo7bDkSZ5pwTCHeGCQLY9sfXn2Vmu2tlelK5Erp2yYFAaQBV-7nlkCTky2Y-MsbEt5IixTW7sCSI1lZaL9l90U323vJv2JEZcy6tJbRFEEaRTPLasHt0OvLR1iuyTR0gazewMg34wQeNgwXFajz/w436-h640/zing.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQrWJWZukTa6lp1agqMfn-88d9BrkLDSyZGoDbI96tho-xJLJhrGztjQuJ-iMC5xW8YIdJOZu4FswLsT5txelVFEfDfiNSTkIe1ZaMu6ku8kJVPRuLT6OkICnylvBn5A8UGMZrbVrQxODRRvDrZXJviU5Fg7pauleRyxpDzZNFdGeVlLMA-loWfiX/s1512/zing2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1028" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggQrWJWZukTa6lp1agqMfn-88d9BrkLDSyZGoDbI96tho-xJLJhrGztjQuJ-iMC5xW8YIdJOZu4FswLsT5txelVFEfDfiNSTkIe1ZaMu6ku8kJVPRuLT6OkICnylvBn5A8UGMZrbVrQxODRRvDrZXJviU5Fg7pauleRyxpDzZNFdGeVlLMA-loWfiX/w436-h640/zing2.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxgNisVf19CFBbhzfLOOt53UcJRfD91l590213S7d7NkLofo6JXdiWF0QrAm_VovgWAM6Q09Nd9UGIou8zkqPV7ggCriX9xeUCKqPn9qo4TpSDXKHdAUCppi4N_QLXpKap3tK1d6R4xxQIvV-eFB_2aeJOrgZJHcKXE-jW6CQCs_0fJVQeqN6Lyb25/s1512/empt.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1512" data-original-width="1028" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxgNisVf19CFBbhzfLOOt53UcJRfD91l590213S7d7NkLofo6JXdiWF0QrAm_VovgWAM6Q09Nd9UGIou8zkqPV7ggCriX9xeUCKqPn9qo4TpSDXKHdAUCppi4N_QLXpKap3tK1d6R4xxQIvV-eFB_2aeJOrgZJHcKXE-jW6CQCs_0fJVQeqN6Lyb25/w436-h640/empt.jpg" width="436" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span><br /></span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Ordinary as the Sphinx story is, it's not quite as humor-free as the other tale. In it, Plas faces a thief who can rip people off using a "gold magnet," so of course his name is "Goldzinger." Plas catches him, Miss DeLute sets the crook free with some idea of using the villain to knock off the "putty person," and Goldzinger rips her off. The rest of the story is just Plas assuming different shapes to overtake the fleeing heist artist. Naturally, there's no discussion of the possibility of charging Micheline's nawsty mothah with suborning murder.<br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-68125778133319219312024-02-29T19:38:00.004-06:002024-03-11T12:17:53.109-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 7<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTHLKOcoofbhhVd6yk7izU1kga717DXReEcTsDl0iJIwe7ItpQbnU-WAXW_BMvc0H8kQhQyDo74ic113nuDSKu2uhOZcI5vQNDZ4aSAIoumLBqwW3NqRghcygsmnVeA5s3C08e3k4JWZFFoQbahcBrymW3m-nkKO_D5YKn007_7Qh1v6Xy8GJHwIEx/s1529/fiv1.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1529" data-original-width="999" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTHLKOcoofbhhVd6yk7izU1kga717DXReEcTsDl0iJIwe7ItpQbnU-WAXW_BMvc0H8kQhQyDo74ic113nuDSKu2uhOZcI5vQNDZ4aSAIoumLBqwW3NqRghcygsmnVeA5s3C08e3k4JWZFFoQbahcBrymW3m-nkKO_D5YKn007_7Qh1v6Xy8GJHwIEx/w418-h640/fiv1.JPG" width="418" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjijKaTKQPtB1i9bXGFLDwwwoLp-IHbQfWBC4HK8CWEZIaV8PEhkG6Xd2CjeeMQQgz9tjGZb_JpZSviLfzn093Xes2K3pShDp4lhxrgEw5guOho4bYH84vJfSG72Pz8iMNMsQsKmd3tou9ubFKMWLgAFUuE1Y7AocI8Y_CUnr5SPoC7KOAOnV0onYH/s1529/bott.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1529" data-original-width="983" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjijKaTKQPtB1i9bXGFLDwwwoLp-IHbQfWBC4HK8CWEZIaV8PEhkG6Xd2CjeeMQQgz9tjGZb_JpZSviLfzn093Xes2K3pShDp4lhxrgEw5guOho4bYH84vJfSG72Pz8iMNMsQsKmd3tou9ubFKMWLgAFUuE1Y7AocI8Y_CUnr5SPoC7KOAOnV0onYH/w412-h640/bott.JPG" width="412" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I suppose I like this one partly it was the first Drake PLASTIC MAN I bought, purchased in a secondhand store. In addition, #5 pits Plas against an international cabal of crooks, which may have inspired Drake to craft a wider variety of silly jokes.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRpgI4TuLqZBcWys34TdxefgMH07tU8DZef_aTsNm28vpn2ILeKVAgGOrrXM7wchMDTsAaVRn0_iuGnXs5Jq9T7q_GRduobqGxDMsVnUdfbQp-XGTGSMUNg08-LKa8BLUbwoiiRnBcZyIJnyQ5YoUQS_-vId4sUvNuaEnag7eKmKpya4CCkT-HwjQC/s1519/russ.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1519" data-original-width="986" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRpgI4TuLqZBcWys34TdxefgMH07tU8DZef_aTsNm28vpn2ILeKVAgGOrrXM7wchMDTsAaVRn0_iuGnXs5Jq9T7q_GRduobqGxDMsVnUdfbQp-XGTGSMUNg08-LKa8BLUbwoiiRnBcZyIJnyQ5YoUQS_-vId4sUvNuaEnag7eKmKpya4CCkT-HwjQC/w416-h640/russ.JPG" width="416" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My favorite, for example, is the name of a Russian rogue named Ivan Byturnozov. For years, I mentally pronounced the surname wrongly, until I belatedly realized the reason why parts of the name sound like "bite" and "nose."</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYZwBY7lSjb-UIWJsOGJwn0E0IBp6h4sCGGqts_UkyZBqtbR5k9nw7DYn1kJmrWew7B-4VC4Q3s5vXxSoBl6f1p1CD0ylV4Kd_HcJmWM9W6a0YN7IruX_bswOy1jwd4Twqc4OingQOTVojuSlazsZfoCRCr-ycLUgCxI6M0tQHWOMKFgTba6sExhk9/s1503/ass.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="999" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYZwBY7lSjb-UIWJsOGJwn0E0IBp6h4sCGGqts_UkyZBqtbR5k9nw7DYn1kJmrWew7B-4VC4Q3s5vXxSoBl6f1p1CD0ylV4Kd_HcJmWM9W6a0YN7IruX_bswOy1jwd4Twqc4OingQOTVojuSlazsZfoCRCr-ycLUgCxI6M0tQHWOMKFgTba6sExhk9/w426-h640/ass.JPG" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhtYvavINZPXJdnTdz-P2zJYVrmyutnF4vrNtVUgELG0mqeUfbGFSGxNuNEOfFaOpCrUWYXbBFn2dfQr6xkV_SYdguKiMqYomrqO-FkpOqD0PrmWFBz5XZBE0yW6lHJS7VCDXQfesfNdY2lf0X3MUeI7lol2l4JIi6eMXeF8ZSTeay_7CQXgjEf2gY/s1513/trick.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1513" data-original-width="976" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhtYvavINZPXJdnTdz-P2zJYVrmyutnF4vrNtVUgELG0mqeUfbGFSGxNuNEOfFaOpCrUWYXbBFn2dfQr6xkV_SYdguKiMqYomrqO-FkpOqD0PrmWFBz5XZBE0yW6lHJS7VCDXQfesfNdY2lf0X3MUeI7lol2l4JIi6eMXeF8ZSTeay_7CQXgjEf2gY/w412-h640/trick.JPG" width="412" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPLgwpb-Sa4CNqhU1akWyIBr7anxSI9ikHDlsjqXq-ZIiMzxUIhucsK3g_mQdObtmV2HG2JPIsDyR-aV0DEDQIVrcGBhp3OK1g4g1rnBsa06PKumcHh2xf5rIkiOvPfUig7bfW0X-Tr2sCIreTeijldLjwugicIWGn1BfL3NlWzDwsARkT8zghpMkz/s1516/made.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1516" data-original-width="995" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPLgwpb-Sa4CNqhU1akWyIBr7anxSI9ikHDlsjqXq-ZIiMzxUIhucsK3g_mQdObtmV2HG2JPIsDyR-aV0DEDQIVrcGBhp3OK1g4g1rnBsa06PKumcHh2xf5rIkiOvPfUig7bfW0X-Tr2sCIreTeijldLjwugicIWGn1BfL3NlWzDwsARkT8zghpMkz/w420-h640/made.JPG" width="420" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Russian rogue, a British bounder and a French fiend all make attempts on Plas's life, with predictable failures. But when the international crime-cabal is at its collective wit's-end, a hulking goofball, The Assassin, claims that he can do the job. After trouncing some of the crooks to show his power, the helmeted horror appears to complete the mission. But no, it's Plas in disguise, hoaxing the ne'er-do-wells. Yet the trick turns against the trickster, when the authentic Assassin shows up.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhifHYTBbKBKFaBOhWfpwo1q5CDXa1CS_sP1_vZO1TGEREYNIUsWsgdqsR4SIvt6Lr5JlFrp26ZRXUSTszPwImwuzlTrtKWy80JFjleninsgMZ3_tpM7njlnZe9cjT0qzTRJluP1MpO1LXGu2PQM1qXJ4-w9FYc-rKOxjMrADdf8CXoC96xlpDFXslD/s1503/cjop.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="986" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhifHYTBbKBKFaBOhWfpwo1q5CDXa1CS_sP1_vZO1TGEREYNIUsWsgdqsR4SIvt6Lr5JlFrp26ZRXUSTszPwImwuzlTrtKWy80JFjleninsgMZ3_tpM7njlnZe9cjT0qzTRJluP1MpO1LXGu2PQM1qXJ4-w9FYc-rKOxjMrADdf8CXoC96xlpDFXslD/w420-h640/cjop.JPG" width="420" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsL0b0Jt2B2aC0w3G40QALlzPzBwbMvsRP_QC6-3-DfljlZeKfH1vjLoUFyl7PFaHzpaDz41NjF4kuu1O2M5QQRLCVMpCVz_Oq8LW9ny69TlN9nwUaVOjGsha-XBYd07MH6U-PnOsvm4oea9RLXLArsQuhLRdoUe9dxTGf39wgTfswfWTH5G6Y2ea/s1503/skin.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="989" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmsL0b0Jt2B2aC0w3G40QALlzPzBwbMvsRP_QC6-3-DfljlZeKfH1vjLoUFyl7PFaHzpaDz41NjF4kuu1O2M5QQRLCVMpCVz_Oq8LW9ny69TlN9nwUaVOjGsha-XBYd07MH6U-PnOsvm4oea9RLXLArsQuhLRdoUe9dxTGf39wgTfswfWTH5G6Y2ea/w422-h640/skin.JPG" width="422" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The two Assassins fight, and inevitably Plas's pliable nature is exposed. He does get neutralized by a fink with a paralysis beam, but Gordon comes to his rescue, after which Plas returns the favor. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've sometimes asserted that Arnold Drake was the only gag-writer in comic books who could touch Stan Lee for sheer quantity of funny lines, and the Assassin story, more than any other issue, shows the writer at the top of his game in that regard.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-16846141710629521482024-02-29T19:16:00.006-06:002024-03-11T12:18:09.336-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 6<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMOsD2tFweE5H3B-3RrEwYY8VPsWBFSY_B9EtbbWRKd5rnmT-gpP6X-jsxU1qCj5pX3gj67hXLSDTFYYmMxbWewptBJZdtjOwOq_TbHWxeBufQXUF_PqohZUT6fB26M_otcGYaElWZt8r7xdPM8FkgX9uG4pVpN2CSUTWXZgYLaC0brBsD3ST4Vsz/s1932/big.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1932" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitMOsD2tFweE5H3B-3RrEwYY8VPsWBFSY_B9EtbbWRKd5rnmT-gpP6X-jsxU1qCj5pX3gj67hXLSDTFYYmMxbWewptBJZdtjOwOq_TbHWxeBufQXUF_PqohZUT6fB26M_otcGYaElWZt8r7xdPM8FkgX9uG4pVpN2CSUTWXZgYLaC0brBsD3ST4Vsz/w424-h640/big.jpg" width="424" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A Carmine Infantino cover, the first of four, enlivens issue #4, which is the next to the last hurrah of Dull Doctor Dome.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX-efTgnuR_x-jgN5_1-PbZOON4Y_TVRU3X4ApJ3s577h_aPP10vy30xVVq9igjtCu7JqONmUE2ZBdwbdwzkY3fbzZRhqSGuvn9utiMQDi4ktk0YcCeDRkjB5wrTeO5E-HoRlvAWkHBdwN2nWfH-z1lebGl_lKG0qooTP-vnKRzfKaezAB1EnJaTro/s1923/four1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1923" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX-efTgnuR_x-jgN5_1-PbZOON4Y_TVRU3X4ApJ3s577h_aPP10vy30xVVq9igjtCu7JqONmUE2ZBdwbdwzkY3fbzZRhqSGuvn9utiMQDi4ktk0YcCeDRkjB5wrTeO5E-HoRlvAWkHBdwN2nWfH-z1lebGl_lKG0qooTP-vnKRzfKaezAB1EnJaTro/w426-h640/four1.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This time Doctor Dome enlists one-shot villainess Madame Merciless, who promises that she can brainwash the Playful Play-dough Man so that he will serve Dome's evil purposes.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX0Ew-suv-4lq56ZQ3RlVpZeShDte2nVLd3FpdpWq_1e1A8Rr4WPhKrz-yFicE2CXeqtvwhTIMuk5xbfh4slyZR3rMO64UCDndRHcf9nnLoJwyWS4ENsiEj02Si64Cp1EXFkYUC4K59fkjKudFMJl1c_l0zRpX1iXj1xCUI9LjlFVbsfHHhu00-pXM/s1917/opfur3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1917" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX0Ew-suv-4lq56ZQ3RlVpZeShDte2nVLd3FpdpWq_1e1A8Rr4WPhKrz-yFicE2CXeqtvwhTIMuk5xbfh4slyZR3rMO64UCDndRHcf9nnLoJwyWS4ENsiEj02Si64Cp1EXFkYUC4K59fkjKudFMJl1c_l0zRpX1iXj1xCUI9LjlFVbsfHHhu00-pXM/w428-h640/opfur3.jpg" width="428" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All unsuspecting, Plas attends a gala costume party with his girlfriend Micheline. Madame Merciless, never seen without her domino mask, uses the occasion as a pretext to get close to the hero.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipmL_LVHXRUJ6bK5lsojKJVs4ySMEmVba1luRd6652IwS_SD63S-9xGxZiuS6zUfBNJeBQ7OzATY8zI3u6BzVuFjJWlSk38bBytHg_g3qzSu4lse37G55wiBQiumzQyhzfwBQyZXAXWFaz-jLtipmmt9Ne0Q1rwBktEV2oEyoYt5mjX5tdtBzz-pQ_/s1922/slave.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1922" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipmL_LVHXRUJ6bK5lsojKJVs4ySMEmVba1luRd6652IwS_SD63S-9xGxZiuS6zUfBNJeBQ7OzATY8zI3u6BzVuFjJWlSk38bBytHg_g3qzSu4lse37G55wiBQiumzQyhzfwBQyZXAXWFaz-jLtipmmt9Ne0Q1rwBktEV2oEyoYt5mjX5tdtBzz-pQ_/w426-h640/slave.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plas leaves the party with the Madame, but the truth is that he's able to resist the scheming woman's hypnotic control, but fakes subservience to suss out what she's doing. But little does Merciless know that she has competition in the hero-domination game: whip-happy Lynx, who has a nice line, "That nasty witch isn't going to get her dirty hands on him-- not before I get my dirty hands on him." So Lynx cons her daddy into letting her test Plastic Man's loyalty on a criminal enterprise.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyamQPN5BeRzSPqtPSRpvmG8NYMV5ECZSe-Vxe8wSjoloY-Y2oUb1Oz9MfYkfgHYeKhnXhm6eQs8Xq9V7_xznGbPg5T_13Nywco3tBMM-46aDKXUSmBTv806UnNAA0JSGi4rvJEMxsT7B2B9ovozWiBkfRDhnGKRNYH4PZGz7gv7D2-WT5aOczQ834/s1927/luter.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1927" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyamQPN5BeRzSPqtPSRpvmG8NYMV5ECZSe-Vxe8wSjoloY-Y2oUb1Oz9MfYkfgHYeKhnXhm6eQs8Xq9V7_xznGbPg5T_13Nywco3tBMM-46aDKXUSmBTv806UnNAA0JSGi4rvJEMxsT7B2B9ovozWiBkfRDhnGKRNYH4PZGz7gv7D2-WT5aOczQ834/w426-h640/luter.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBACGUD6LuWuAdMrjrjgEccWvARrcxwMykDLeDf8hCK1NtaOC2orVyrim6MVqDre9ZYhuScRQCD-NF1wEndY7og68LrgAAHBS79LSyo2bP6B0pnMpwRl521gadoN0vPJmWkv0F1_ql2Qi-jtqi4OXcd5Jlaz9exeSmNMXvUu0DAaYQGZ9UANwbTzNM/s1905/prete.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1905" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBACGUD6LuWuAdMrjrjgEccWvARrcxwMykDLeDf8hCK1NtaOC2orVyrim6MVqDre9ZYhuScRQCD-NF1wEndY7og68LrgAAHBS79LSyo2bP6B0pnMpwRl521gadoN0vPJmWkv0F1_ql2Qi-jtqi4OXcd5Jlaz9exeSmNMXvUu0DAaYQGZ9UANwbTzNM/w430-h640/prete.jpg" width="430" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plas fakes going along with a theft, but Micheline and Gordon are searching for the hero since his disappearance, and they chance across the crime in progress. When the rich girl messes with the bitch girl, Lynx belts Micheline into the path of an oncoming car. Plas is forced to show his true colors, but Merciless is watching nearby, and after some complications, she manages to enslave her quarry for real.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_hpO1LP2HSXmKR3o3BSs2a3P_y2ItHcHtpkaYgt6tUsPHxIzDOzbaCtpL-XYgiP68anpEFByLO_XeusT2KolHM7MFe-vUoiBhhBX0YhQ3qxysmc1F-TLdKPPtWwz9BH6KaSQg5YtvsHxaVJsjROhPd8ZEOi74cnIEz-7dVdyFRT7PeACjFQzaxQmq/s1904/dome.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1904" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_hpO1LP2HSXmKR3o3BSs2a3P_y2ItHcHtpkaYgt6tUsPHxIzDOzbaCtpL-XYgiP68anpEFByLO_XeusT2KolHM7MFe-vUoiBhhBX0YhQ3qxysmc1F-TLdKPPtWwz9BH6KaSQg5YtvsHxaVJsjROhPd8ZEOi74cnIEz-7dVdyFRT7PeACjFQzaxQmq/w430-h640/dome.jpg" width="430" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plas begins obeying Dome's criminal commands. But then Merciless fails to pay her hoodoo-henchmen properly, and they remotely cancel the spell on the crusader.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAI_GyB6-yt-6Ck-rDSVKjtwa_QSmGEokp5yjiejcgqxXP7S5p8b1MlP6TsZf-IwWVxALiJnW7WoJiPGMrKLIJhCVpkcNhYASNylRQzx3YStDfqUtaNU3vYSeQWQj4mn3BjiuWPdlvHBB-op6HWx0J2cW-9Mxnh80EyBZp5kziPH1rONwQt_v8_NdB/s2033/threeww.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2033" data-original-width="1280" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAI_GyB6-yt-6Ck-rDSVKjtwa_QSmGEokp5yjiejcgqxXP7S5p8b1MlP6TsZf-IwWVxALiJnW7WoJiPGMrKLIJhCVpkcNhYASNylRQzx3YStDfqUtaNU3vYSeQWQj4mn3BjiuWPdlvHBB-op6HWx0J2cW-9Mxnh80EyBZp5kziPH1rONwQt_v8_NdB/w402-h640/threeww.jpg" width="402" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Recovering his senses, Plas finds himself stuck atop a high telephone wire, so of course he simply makes himself into a spring and bounces down. Ah, no, Drake kind of forgets that this stretchy fellow can't possibly be injured in a simple fall, so that he can have all three females vie for the honor of "saving" him. Doctor Dome is arrested, though apparently Lynx gets away-- which is only fair, since of the two she was a slightly better breed of malcontent. </span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-89866632384504142142024-02-29T18:06:00.003-06:002024-03-11T12:18:23.895-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 5<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7j8fJV14pJxT78w6aX4r6FSmOBtm6R7YDa9BFtti5Y82NfFeO__88LgfbEjxp-AWFQbFFlZGQI5oE2hlBK8mhTvVzG-zrT3rNuaYkSd4lIjeJXeUioXJ3GjpkiTzBTv-RXNu7As-x4dhbQLdMNdpuBbnmP4JfL4ePGTMSP_kLWBBg6_-iKxwWj_3/s1499/three1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1499" data-original-width="1017" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7j8fJV14pJxT78w6aX4r6FSmOBtm6R7YDa9BFtti5Y82NfFeO__88LgfbEjxp-AWFQbFFlZGQI5oE2hlBK8mhTvVzG-zrT3rNuaYkSd4lIjeJXeUioXJ3GjpkiTzBTv-RXNu7As-x4dhbQLdMNdpuBbnmP4JfL4ePGTMSP_kLWBBg6_-iKxwWj_3/w434-h640/three1.jpg" width="434" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's Doctor Dome's third appearance, and already it feels like his three hundredth, despite a Joe Orlando cover that's better than average.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwk-o1IHZ34Gw0OrJRmqzbIDTQBT6-zbtP0bayeTT-NRZj50ElWLm035osoNduHPxyjnkgsaVr82AumxqMcAuhN-RKnvoH6LBhi5jflVCFxE8CaXilptiNmv-T1TLjmtakWVfKzeKRwpOnauFKZxKLbtq6OYCGNn0XZvnVG-ZHhul40OAl3agaHHn_/s1471/wheel.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1471" data-original-width="993" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwk-o1IHZ34Gw0OrJRmqzbIDTQBT6-zbtP0bayeTT-NRZj50ElWLm035osoNduHPxyjnkgsaVr82AumxqMcAuhN-RKnvoH6LBhi5jflVCFxE8CaXilptiNmv-T1TLjmtakWVfKzeKRwpOnauFKZxKLbtq6OYCGNn0XZvnVG-ZHhul40OAl3agaHHn_/w432-h640/wheel.jpg" width="432" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This is another lame gimmick issue, said gimmick being that a guy called The Duke of Wheelington claims to hold a patent on all the wheels in the world. Since the cover informs us of Doctor Dome's presence within, most readers probably figured out the Duke's ID pretty easily.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN08QeqdVS0x-ZnEdS6uoKpAHAptTgHPS5TBSvp00sgnWcaLFBXj7-78i-hHA55CeL6xV9BH_3VcwsrythdJssOLUzJC5xEMKyRT079JrOaUr-2y85kF97LLhYAeCuLhsjU5rFSb7VsywCxXDdgsHLDC5qt1TocAi1E7ALv6YjjGSgt3LDyFzCbYnN/s1475/three3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1475" data-original-width="1001" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN08QeqdVS0x-ZnEdS6uoKpAHAptTgHPS5TBSvp00sgnWcaLFBXj7-78i-hHA55CeL6xV9BH_3VcwsrythdJssOLUzJC5xEMKyRT079JrOaUr-2y85kF97LLhYAeCuLhsjU5rFSb7VsywCxXDdgsHLDC5qt1TocAi1E7ALv6YjjGSgt3LDyFzCbYnN/w434-h640/three3.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plastic Man tries to get the goods on the Duke's dirty deal, but his efforts backfire, and the world turns against him for antagonizing the Duke and boosting his "wheel tax." Micheline's nawsty mothah seems to sympathize with her daughter, but it's just a scam to con the young woman into marrying the powerful wheel-magnate.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDuucIMP6FqRdS6x_81J440ZymLB3N0gZOAMRHd_y90-pipYyl9Xc7l6GHol_X9AKSYDC5Dq0Wl6Iwol-mxIWRluEq63htm6pAxisbcFk7o8GZFveManUJbXx2b36bn0RfOhIOBs0a4dD_A6cf0M3z-Uic8UpISA4B-cqKFEJKAmVchLTrar8P4Su/s1487/ladd.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1487" data-original-width="1005" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJDuucIMP6FqRdS6x_81J440ZymLB3N0gZOAMRHd_y90-pipYyl9Xc7l6GHol_X9AKSYDC5Dq0Wl6Iwol-mxIWRluEq63htm6pAxisbcFk7o8GZFveManUJbXx2b36bn0RfOhIOBs0a4dD_A6cf0M3z-Uic8UpISA4B-cqKFEJKAmVchLTrar8P4Su/w432-h640/ladd.jpg" width="432" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwKG5HWwGT33ZpiqHk79geQ3RV0P3Ai2h4ojZV31uOPEG0tPoQvVCLSSUiJt5J8pFnT8y3KKI6Oto5fec4_RQlXQ2PVh__CTtYClHDhxHbR0VboQODQkFm4WB8_Oc0_tnqzjKe_7Y52cFdaSAuDtptAhLqUqvTUKMjaVnMoOLOVcZX0W5BgZYHLRg/s1483/ladd2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1483" data-original-width="1005" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTwKG5HWwGT33ZpiqHk79geQ3RV0P3Ai2h4ojZV31uOPEG0tPoQvVCLSSUiJt5J8pFnT8y3KKI6Oto5fec4_RQlXQ2PVh__CTtYClHDhxHbR0VboQODQkFm4WB8_Oc0_tnqzjKe_7Y52cFdaSAuDtptAhLqUqvTUKMjaVnMoOLOVcZX0W5BgZYHLRg/w434-h640/ladd2.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plastic Man finally trumps the Duke's hoax with one of his own, and then exposes the villain as-- guess who. The cover scene is faithfully replicated, for whatever that's worth, resulting in a very blah conclusion, both in writing and art.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This issue debuts the book's letter column, and one of the correspondents (assuming it's a real missive) says he likes the book but misses Woozy Winks. The editor responds that he was retired to the Old Heroes' Home.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-67425583066505147652024-02-29T16:24:00.009-06:002024-02-29T17:47:17.838-06:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 4<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWxbhxmNv6j2uxbLHS_zPeRi2fTw2lp44a4GpOJSDOlAvoXAzVAaYV5AKNOCPNbuFdSzD1jGB7u4B_A225iFeY6_9odDcPTvz63GT7CQobWpBGJwEdFY7MdhDcfvejyd2TCht3XNapJZAs5VX3ZbO3LSYD0ljL0JFp_mqJ3Tke4N9yMDTYbbxbR2qh/s1620/two1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1620" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWxbhxmNv6j2uxbLHS_zPeRi2fTw2lp44a4GpOJSDOlAvoXAzVAaYV5AKNOCPNbuFdSzD1jGB7u4B_A225iFeY6_9odDcPTvz63GT7CQobWpBGJwEdFY7MdhDcfvejyd2TCht3XNapJZAs5VX3ZbO3LSYD0ljL0JFp_mqJ3Tke4N9yMDTYbbxbR2qh/w396-h640/two1.jpg" width="396" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Drake's next collaborator on the PLASTIC MAN title was the not overly exciting Win Mortimer, though to be sure he had his moments. And since the writer had already launched the feature with no hero's origin, for issue #2 he gave his readers three tastes in one.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuGjk76KDayC322QdEvEkuGOZiXpAttszrNKr-VU9FK5u5FDDxmyB3Aa5MmiRdO0TWuFoaZSBmegETHy8NrAmeorx3jvHR84k6iMi3Ym745Pn_L6aMAZWnTe_rjiTLDcE8BYRWeNiQ6wQnca0vmTZHTwqzL0lSJrcjMSmXAqgmaGXcApoYF0n9nY7W/s1607/two2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1607" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuGjk76KDayC322QdEvEkuGOZiXpAttszrNKr-VU9FK5u5FDDxmyB3Aa5MmiRdO0TWuFoaZSBmegETHy8NrAmeorx3jvHR84k6iMi3Ym745Pn_L6aMAZWnTe_rjiTLDcE8BYRWeNiQ6wQnca0vmTZHTwqzL0lSJrcjMSmXAqgmaGXcApoYF0n9nY7W/w398-h640/two2.jpg" width="398" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">First there are four pages in which Drake once more sets up Plas' main support-characters Gordon Trueblood and Micheline DeLute, and his main villain Doctor Dome, who makes another attempt on the contorting champion's life.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGPVe24rExAST86kLYgd8paP9BhY2y0ENw7SzpjOdMCfc4mdJzpjGXq2Nah9TuhxfI1WDqks0W9vTGhHDPav2NaLZKcN4rAcyi2Vb28SlpZWlj8V63rANnFUeAzlb4gWG4syGVuGRVYp49a1fAQCOslnGiYyNfXDAvMmvxIl9-XVl-TXGd54zrvdhB/s1491/two3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1491" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGPVe24rExAST86kLYgd8paP9BhY2y0ENw7SzpjOdMCfc4mdJzpjGXq2Nah9TuhxfI1WDqks0W9vTGhHDPav2NaLZKcN4rAcyi2Vb28SlpZWlj8V63rANnFUeAzlb4gWG4syGVuGRVYp49a1fAQCOslnGiYyNfXDAvMmvxIl9-XVl-TXGd54zrvdhB/w430-h640/two3.jpg" width="430" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-5mvCsf3axPh9wzKOVaIk33cDLhiSN43GxrNwS4M5WJjqZVWAjRB2nbhfK8XHWHjJnsDAq_Q1qNVGY_Qu8fLHwPfNpfDQC7UEc2dpYmK6xj1hLsyZ-lCeAqJYIZb0td-6JRZG5wTzOI3FaFM2m0bZdFfrVCBPpToKXCx3Ej5Xf40dfPKWrXUGIn21/s1503/two4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-5mvCsf3axPh9wzKOVaIk33cDLhiSN43GxrNwS4M5WJjqZVWAjRB2nbhfK8XHWHjJnsDAq_Q1qNVGY_Qu8fLHwPfNpfDQC7UEc2dpYmK6xj1hLsyZ-lCeAqJYIZb0td-6JRZG5wTzOI3FaFM2m0bZdFfrVCBPpToKXCx3Ej5Xf40dfPKWrXUGIn21/w426-h640/two4.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After the attempt flops, Dome's daughter Lynx commiserates with him. Then Dome gets a brilliant idea: go back in time and kill Plas when he's a child. He doesn't actually know who Plas was, so he decides to have his daughter wheedle the info out of the three persons rumored to know the hero's true nature. So he splits her in three so she can glean info from all three witnesses in jig-time. (The decision to make one of Lynx's incarnations a full-grown woman dressed like a little girl is, uh, rather odd.)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrgaV9DpsIBgKAN18OHfijQjOMEw3ipxFWf71Os1XO03U1RYxfTiYSWQAF9ZnTRvBWzw11CxnL85i7bv08rapljy1fjLMRP_3KDTAPfAqFk53ifOn2i749ONeV0zgNkTRYIIN6sgVQw0-dAERqoSo9wqWb6q7Zt2YQKrs8mSdoL4brr25utA1YKIs/s1513/two5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1513" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMrgaV9DpsIBgKAN18OHfijQjOMEw3ipxFWf71Os1XO03U1RYxfTiYSWQAF9ZnTRvBWzw11CxnL85i7bv08rapljy1fjLMRP_3KDTAPfAqFk53ifOn2i749ONeV0zgNkTRYIIN6sgVQw0-dAERqoSo9wqWb6q7Zt2YQKrs8mSdoL4brr25utA1YKIs/w424-h640/two5.jpg" width="424" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I doubt any 1967 readers were surprised to learn that this was going to be a "Blind Men and the Elephant" schtick, where three different people narrate origins for Plastic Man, none of which are true. First, the police chief tells Lynx One that he once met a crook named "Eel" who helped the chief capture a crook named "The Spider." During the fracas, the supposed crook got transformed into a stretchable superhero.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKzyJtH572obfG_IBQktanY9DhjomA1ij8bMoQh5ymid6xCG71vWtCPvULu_8KqaoQ_GJYLEXwXGcAA95tOkfYwnHvXe1mXnVHOMqLtQx4tuNMIiouu_ieu-NEM40oE0M8WLtADEw7Qo1gBqVUzl9T5J_ZeM2PEqaupinQYpjTNwq4DAZIPUl0uCwh/s1499/bee.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1499" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKzyJtH572obfG_IBQktanY9DhjomA1ij8bMoQh5ymid6xCG71vWtCPvULu_8KqaoQ_GJYLEXwXGcAA95tOkfYwnHvXe1mXnVHOMqLtQx4tuNMIiouu_ieu-NEM40oE0M8WLtADEw7Qo1gBqVUzl9T5J_ZeM2PEqaupinQYpjTNwq4DAZIPUl0uCwh/w426-h640/bee.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then Micheline's nawsty mothah tells Lynx Two that an undercover cop posing as a gypsy fiddler helped her against a reincarnation of WII propaganda, The Japanese Beetle. Again, weird chemicals are at the root of the transformation.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWsn2KieYAzTqF_OW35GCosXSh8-buiMQhvR2xvtHaOm9EKk_efDAor3GD1qnuf9SxplfAh4A8eRDuVpo4yI3pz2Nl_O20OH8B_wHAzBCda7Fqbhi3JMMP4TH5heAGmcz4dSZxVgeq_-tIpUWKtZixj8wFvH436_qCICHowgfYKbdQf1d6_aED9-cA/s1502/fro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1502" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWsn2KieYAzTqF_OW35GCosXSh8-buiMQhvR2xvtHaOm9EKk_efDAor3GD1qnuf9SxplfAh4A8eRDuVpo4yI3pz2Nl_O20OH8B_wHAzBCda7Fqbhi3JMMP4TH5heAGmcz4dSZxVgeq_-tIpUWKtZixj8wFvH436_qCICHowgfYKbdQf1d6_aED9-cA/w426-h640/fro.jpg" width="426" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then Gordon tells Lynx Three that as a small child he encountered a guy who rescued Gordon's scout troop from a felon named The Frog, who seems to have popped out of one of DC's funny animal books. Another chemical catalyst is the source of the change, this time involving contaminated yogurt (!)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwaRKsZkBXhgrwgv_hO3wQ4cf3Tn3KrcQEFO_gyGp60xTRGAlZDIAmAANpjeS640zJ74TM0MI5AKylaAx7Hg3p-2hWK3knp8W0ne7GYyb3mmqIDDkvS1oOVlAqjYT27UgdidSxFmkxs9OHKvxm4KLgMGUdicU9OkZdLcIcM4t36vbHR_I_pexgJNgf/s1471/tv.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1471" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwaRKsZkBXhgrwgv_hO3wQ4cf3Tn3KrcQEFO_gyGp60xTRGAlZDIAmAANpjeS640zJ74TM0MI5AKylaAx7Hg3p-2hWK3knp8W0ne7GYyb3mmqIDDkvS1oOVlAqjYT27UgdidSxFmkxs9OHKvxm4KLgMGUdicU9OkZdLcIcM4t36vbHR_I_pexgJNgf/w436-h640/tv.jpg" width="436" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Drake doesn't really come up with any sterling lines this time out, and then the whole things winds down with the dopey revelation that Dome actually was afraid that Plas was going to downgrade his villain status-- which the hero does. All told, a pretty lousy sophomore effort after the interesting first issue. (And why is Lynx still wearing the kiddie-outfit after finishing her assignment?)</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-47809488651065968372024-02-29T15:50:00.007-06:002024-02-29T21:59:09.902-06:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 3<p><span style="font-size: large;">So when I started collecting comics in the mid-sixties, I knew nothing about Plastic Man's history. Aside from the old comics, which I did not encounter, the only other item I might have seen would have Mad Magazine's parody, "Plastic Sam," but I probably did not see the paperback reprint of that tale until I'd already become acquainted with DC Comics first Silver Age adaptation of the former Quality property. There were references to the Golden Age version in DC's title. But even when Woozy Winks made a guest appearance, that didn't really give me a sense of what made Golden Age readers respond to the concept. Only the scattered reprints of the seventies gave me a degree of insight.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So, in a sense, the PLASTIC MAN written by Arnold Drake and drawn by three different DC regulars was "my" Plastic Man. I knew it wasn't anything great, but it was mildly entertaining, so I liked it. So, even though I know that the Drake PLAS is not excellent in any department, I'm devoting a post to each of its ten issues.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLBjrvYQTeXbg995taGaQrkWa7xUcokx__KKytJdGL3jpP7S0GNW9jPtz2gKitI1Vu-m6EGfDekFKy-BhrlkoaSbC7b_apyoTkgRHGYaBgF_LKUrtU4pdQQgN4KXw8MCdh0EdzTGsUi0b0FWlLKgseVfLFP62m2kT0W10JhwgPFRVMFuoJi6MuSCQA/s1511/one1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1511" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLBjrvYQTeXbg995taGaQrkWa7xUcokx__KKytJdGL3jpP7S0GNW9jPtz2gKitI1Vu-m6EGfDekFKy-BhrlkoaSbC7b_apyoTkgRHGYaBgF_LKUrtU4pdQQgN4KXw8MCdh0EdzTGsUi0b0FWlLKgseVfLFP62m2kT0W10JhwgPFRVMFuoJi6MuSCQA/w424-h640/one1.jpg" width="424" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Issue #1 is the only one to be drawn by Gil Kane, who seemed to be emulating Will Elder's MAD contributions more than the example of Jack Cole. The three individuals with whom he shares space on the cover are, from right to left, (1) a one-shot foe named Professor X, (2) the manic Doctor Dome, whose name spoofs you-know-who, and (3) Lynx, the Doctor's curvaceous daughter.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtT3b6yL9PI6HJjIywHsB8zE3AzPpPoustMgKE8zS8U6CkUqFVPu2HHzojIQiPZ-m1iqaFaOxMB-cJB8kQDJzApssoSXP-vx2NbaFG_ebIA-klAOPo2sWehHUARCyiuRCLAVY5bqqQorDH6VaME_ZVnib89KC3yYNWAl688QHGywfvemUm-vi4b50P/s1603/one2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1603" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtT3b6yL9PI6HJjIywHsB8zE3AzPpPoustMgKE8zS8U6CkUqFVPu2HHzojIQiPZ-m1iqaFaOxMB-cJB8kQDJzApssoSXP-vx2NbaFG_ebIA-klAOPo2sWehHUARCyiuRCLAVY5bqqQorDH6VaME_ZVnib89KC3yYNWAl688QHGywfvemUm-vi4b50P/w400-h640/one2.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After Drake's script devotes a couple of pages to Plas doing something heroic, the readers meet his associate, Gordon Trueblood. Whereas Cole partnered his straight-arrow shapeshifter with the reprobate Woozy Winks, Drake makes the straight-arrow the sidekick and the hero a guy whose heroic qualities are leavened by a goofy sense of humor.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs3fsKv1ZrB_C7C71s_mZrMAUMZz0kGFEsFgeLHfD3453N_jQNqAK6uWtjeP1dImQAZXlO3kpQlUR3Yk-QTG_1yify05BmYJpWG3IUqox1MDcYBmpvQatIej-nMoWGwLMExB1GV9u7KyZeJcW-vknz-qYmt1_KNped55MV5MbPcNGBwJKAV2R8KV73/s1503/ibe3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs3fsKv1ZrB_C7C71s_mZrMAUMZz0kGFEsFgeLHfD3453N_jQNqAK6uWtjeP1dImQAZXlO3kpQlUR3Yk-QTG_1yify05BmYJpWG3IUqox1MDcYBmpvQatIej-nMoWGwLMExB1GV9u7KyZeJcW-vknz-qYmt1_KNped55MV5MbPcNGBwJKAV2R8KV73/w426-h640/ibe3.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Meanwhile Plas's recurring foe (appearing here for the first time) enlists his associate Professor X to make a major assault on Plastic Man with a series of super weapons.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiwtjWnKkwUB3wOesvicV0dmsjNj_vN5bL2bmmAJC4_qDADFPSQUAPRNUD076ampeKn4CkQGRF_q0gtAZujxr1_rS_j2nSuE9zLR5T9n5vKPXDTlxTTDg0e74m2LfOxJmFOJ0w8bWYW670L6T4aDmjhUvYNUQ7Yx8ksFOuD43mTLrWFigx5hpQA5V/s1503/one4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1503" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiwtjWnKkwUB3wOesvicV0dmsjNj_vN5bL2bmmAJC4_qDADFPSQUAPRNUD076ampeKn4CkQGRF_q0gtAZujxr1_rS_j2nSuE9zLR5T9n5vKPXDTlxTTDg0e74m2LfOxJmFOJ0w8bWYW670L6T4aDmjhUvYNUQ7Yx8ksFOuD43mTLrWFigx5hpQA5V/w426-h640/one4.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plas repels X's first attack, but the villain escapes. Then the reader learns that unlike the Cole Plas, who lived a nearly monastic existence (strange, given his creator's penchant for girlie cartoons), this ductile do-gooder has a regular girlfriend, jet-setting Micheline DeLute III. Their discussion of the word "gauche" is one of Drake's cuter bits of verbal humor.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTLJFSpQzKDmexCsj04Wi9jtveFbruZiqYE9lNZGV4m8huy5biO-iidEBG_IYGFy6BGgQ8dT9wYcAaDsBOnNX5p2_DRY9BMznTb5BN-b4PepZpJaV5C2nbsuS3fbegoIUvMI9_H6DmczxYpyVaeB5b_6nci_xQv2tjtcieJWtaKoFR9CfsYEa0XdfJ/s1608/one5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1608" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTLJFSpQzKDmexCsj04Wi9jtveFbruZiqYE9lNZGV4m8huy5biO-iidEBG_IYGFy6BGgQ8dT9wYcAaDsBOnNX5p2_DRY9BMznTb5BN-b4PepZpJaV5C2nbsuS3fbegoIUvMI9_H6DmczxYpyVaeB5b_6nci_xQv2tjtcieJWtaKoFR9CfsYEa0XdfJ/w398-h640/one5.jpg" width="398" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0YDwkNcSfU8a_fD82MYscUFh0gOMG-HCWwrknLNcbdmiDU6YgPdmrhMzspDZRfB0DmAq5INPTzQ8StJJaj4K4rghSM_VJohPShscssI-r74rrTXq5x0ZvFEQ0MatPixSyEjBjZdApedihQaZ_nB-n9Z_zulC20ae9mCrBDKnvcWLeQ58lvNSOe53w/s1504/one6.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1504" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0YDwkNcSfU8a_fD82MYscUFh0gOMG-HCWwrknLNcbdmiDU6YgPdmrhMzspDZRfB0DmAq5INPTzQ8StJJaj4K4rghSM_VJohPShscssI-r74rrTXq5x0ZvFEQ0MatPixSyEjBjZdApedihQaZ_nB-n9Z_zulC20ae9mCrBDKnvcWLeQ58lvNSOe53w/w426-h640/one6.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After assorted hijinks, Professor X makes a second assault with a second super weapon. However, Dome's daughter deals herself in, and she actually comes closer to knocking off the hero than the main villains.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnA_4fqrwNJDSRhzwh-YI3x_JmzQQ0pV4CSDI8LHyaXduYQ7YjOzhtJJgm7WI2O_kS9MTX8nKu_DslL9zZEu96yilc97OAkiwO74cBn0bVag4nowMakQzdg1PtY99undleS8xhdv9A_O8YTGBUjuY4qFTzi4AQMP0xYiGJEFFrYuq8CFujhQDkaYH4/s1495/one7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1495" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnA_4fqrwNJDSRhzwh-YI3x_JmzQQ0pV4CSDI8LHyaXduYQ7YjOzhtJJgm7WI2O_kS9MTX8nKu_DslL9zZEu96yilc97OAkiwO74cBn0bVag4nowMakQzdg1PtY99undleS8xhdv9A_O8YTGBUjuY4qFTzi4AQMP0xYiGJEFFrYuq8CFujhQDkaYH4/w268-h400/one7.jpg" width="268" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Plas survives and again faces off against Professor X. The evil scientist unleashes his third super-weapon, but of course the hero defeats his foe, and the adventure ends with Plas jauntily referring to all of the people who'd like to destroy him, both villains and simple dipsticks. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In the first RAPT IN PLASTIC essay, I called Cole's hero "Sadean," albeit with some qualifications. Drake's Plastic Man has no real grotesquerie in his background, but Lynx's last line merits some attention. At first glance, one might assume she's one among hundreds of similar temptresses, always attracted to the manly hero even when she's forced to plot his death. Yet, while most shady ladies become too besotted with the hero's charms to really turn the hero into worm food, Lynx's dialogue establishes that (a) she's genuinely turned on by Plas, and (b) she takes an erotic pleasure at the prospect of killing him. Hence Lynx's final line "I'll beat him to death with my eyelashes" is really quite good in capturing the Sadean equivalence of love and death. (And that's without my even referencing the villainess's penchant for cracking a whip every once in a while.) The line, though, is just another vaudeville-style joke, so its Sadean potential is pretty much wasted. </span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-87485333493507943842024-02-29T14:34:00.010-06:002024-03-11T12:18:45.389-05:00RAPT IN PLASTIC PT. 2<p><span style="font-size: large;">I recently did a quick scan-read of DC's hoary BOB HOPE title just to take stock of the writer's use of Classic Monster characters to goose up the aging franchise. During that same period there appears a superhero whom I don't believe even the most desperate raconteur ever bothered to revive: "Super-Hip." In the character's mundane identity he was a priggish intellectual who frequently got bullied, and one day his resentments transformed him into a Magical Guy who could go and beat up his oppressors. There's nothing noteworthy about Super-Hip except that he could transform into anything, and this was an interesting coincidence because a year after Super-Hip's creation, his creator Arnold Drake got an assignment to script comics' first important shapeshifting hero, Plastic Man.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A second coincidence: on the Classic Horror Film Board I just happened to get into a convo about the exigencies of how DC Comics got ahold of several Quality heroes. I said in part:</span></p><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"></div><blockquote><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black;">DOLL MAN ceased publication in 1953, three years before Quality Comics closed its doors. We know that DC made some sort of deal to purchase Quality properties, but fans can be only sure about three of them. DC continued publishing two Quality titles right away, BLACKHAWK and GI COMBAT. Almost ten years later a rival comics publisher attempted to use the name "Plastic Man" in his faux "CAPTAIN MARVEL" title, and the story goes that this galvanized DC Legal to check things and realize, Hey we own the rights to Plastic Man!</span> <br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="color: white;">To be sure, another company had tried publishing Plastic Man in 1963, and some sources say DC shut it down. But if they knew they owned PM back then, why were they in such a rush to exert their ownership in 1966? Why not back in 1963? So DC quickly worked Plas into a May 1966 issue of DIAL H FOR HERO-- dated a month after the publication of CAPTAIN MARVEL #1 by Myron Fass-- and then launched its own Plas series in late 1966.</span><br /></span></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black;">After that, DC made no more attempts to do any new projects with Quality characters, but they begin reprinting a few strips of BLACKHAWK, THE RAY and DOLL MAN in their reprint books, which was a tacit assertion of ownership. Finally they explicitly laid claim to six Quality characters by featuring them in a 1973 JLA story and then spinning them off into their own title, THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS. So from then on DC had maintained, when asked about the matter, that they own all Quality characters.</span><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; font-size: large;"><span style="color: white;">But do they? Naturally no one but DC Legal is privy to whatever deal the company made with Quality. They've revived a handful of other Quality characters for features, but not Doll Man. If the language of the 1956 contract doesn't explicitly say, "DC now owns Doll Man," would the company be able to sue the Full Moon moviemakers?</span><br /></span></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;">Of course, their claim may be fully veracious, and they've just never gone to war over the DOLLMAN property because they think it's small change-- which it kind of is.<br /></span></div><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="background-color: black;"><span style="color: white; font-size: large;"></span></span></p><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;">Oh, and the Eisner estate never owned DOLL MAN at all, any more than other features he co-created for Quality's comics line. Aside from THE SPIRIT, Eisner apparently kept copyright on nothing but a couple of co-features in THE SPIRIT SECTION, like "Lady Luck" and "Mister Mystic," since a few of these saw reprint in a Will Eisner magazine in, I believe, the eighties.</span></div></blockquote><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And later:</span></p><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"></div><blockquote><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white;">Though I like the idea of DC just forgetting they owned Plastic Man, it's also possible that someone highly placed at DC discouraged any ideas of reviving Plas when they bought him in the fifties. The hero probably wasn't even selling all that well in his last years, and to enjoy good sales Plas required an art approach inimical to the sort of clean, simple representations DC preferred. Blackhawk was easier; DC just dumped all the political stuff and made the Hawks into guys who battled lots of aliens and costumed villains. By 1960, the year Elongated Man showed up, DC was probably more consumed with the potential of tapping the glories of their earlier years, rather than exploiting things another company originated. </span><br /></span></div><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div style="font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"><span style="background-color: black; color: white; font-size: large;">I can well believe that if anyone even remembered the Plastic Man purchase they didn't inform John Broome, but that was all to the good IMO. Plastic Man didn't belong in The Flash's straight-arrow world, for all that the original Cole adventures weren't just rollicking comedy all the time. I may be one of the few people who liked Arnold Drake's PLASTIC MAN, and I kind of regret not mentioning that opinion to Drake when I talked to him a little at a Comicon in the early 2000s.</span></div></blockquote><div style="color: #333333; font-family: "google sans", sans-serif, Roboto;"></div><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And so all that made me a little more interested in what exactly Arnold Drake did in the Silver Age PLASTIC MAN, for which purpose I revived the title of a 2010 essay, <a href="http://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2010/07/rapt-in-plastic.html">RAPT IN PLASTIC</a>, because it was too good a title not to use again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Part 3 to follow.</span></p><p><br /></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-55247381164041535392024-02-28T17:00:00.006-06:002024-02-28T17:09:20.124-06:00THE READING RHEUM: THE STEALER OF SOULS (1967)<p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZrouzalS5BWQhO-pSNLkLOEVm4fPSvNaEYRz4sVfxbW_uvSpWH4GlZGdA2hI7hzIO_-xYHVn0BOJ1aRfR_tdHrxsgq4frEjNNQloELeDo23-OJyBpN8DqEBU0wpHfOR69i5ipRwcj20EJYHNYSvDT79z4knHcvPUByiYdRtwvCJiyDYRzVqakJNNq/s1000/moor.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="608" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZrouzalS5BWQhO-pSNLkLOEVm4fPSvNaEYRz4sVfxbW_uvSpWH4GlZGdA2hI7hzIO_-xYHVn0BOJ1aRfR_tdHrxsgq4frEjNNQloELeDo23-OJyBpN8DqEBU0wpHfOR69i5ipRwcj20EJYHNYSvDT79z4knHcvPUByiYdRtwvCJiyDYRzVqakJNNq/w390-h640/moor.jpg" width="390" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The earliest stories of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone appeared during the years 1961-62 in a British magazine, SCIENCE FANTASY, and five of those stories were reprinted in an American paperback in 1967 under the title THE STEALER OF SOULS. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">By 1967 I had become a Fantasy-Zombie of the First Order, having splurged my disposable income into both superhero comics and science fiction paperbacks. I don't remember seeing any of the sword-and-sorcery books of the time, though I'm sure was aware of the comparable "science fantasy" books of Edgar Rice Burroughs. So I bought almost exclusively SF because that's what I found on the secondhand shelves, including an obscure Moorcock title, THE FIRECLOWN. (I may have bought that one because the figure on the cover reminded me of The Joker.)</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQxzDxj5TVOpO2ghTrCSB9P_c3ubyW4DWQ7r40jrIjgPvKCodZDMsI0wenlSJOzO5kcPvK-q0fMH9LAOT56CNnHLUMkQ6cm4SQP1ci0OCQx5J7A6uGe6SBaFnClBagL2oZ7pjibyms1Ig4a1ek2_MVKk7RCj1qVd5u2iRd-_A55aZHr60ugiiDcc5/s620/elric.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="420" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXQxzDxj5TVOpO2ghTrCSB9P_c3ubyW4DWQ7r40jrIjgPvKCodZDMsI0wenlSJOzO5kcPvK-q0fMH9LAOT56CNnHLUMkQ6cm4SQP1ci0OCQx5J7A6uGe6SBaFnClBagL2oZ7pjibyms1Ig4a1ek2_MVKk7RCj1qVd5u2iRd-_A55aZHr60ugiiDcc5/w434-h640/elric.jpg" width="434" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But by the early seventies I became much more invested in the magical fantasy genre, partly because of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy books, designed to piggyback on the success of Tolkien, and partly because of Marvel's 1970 adaptation of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories. And two years into that epochal period, Roy Thomas collaborated with Michael Moorcock on a two-part story in CONAN #14-15, in which Howard's burly barbarian crossed paths, and swords, with Moorcock's spindly albino. Not long after, I purchased a fair number of Moorcock's Elric books, as well as his related fantasies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though I greatly liked the Elric I'd first seen in CONAN, I'm not sure I was ever quite as enthralled by the original prose version. The original set of short stories and novellas concluded with the hero's death by his own cursed blade, and after that, for the remainder of Moorcock's life he kept returning to the character to write prequels and interstitial stories about the doomed swordsman. Obviously, countless fans became invested enough in Elric to sort out all the stories in their proper time-frames, but I can't say that I was ever moved to do so. I think I enjoyed the stories I did read well enough, but few of them really stood out. Similarly, I find now that the five stories in STEALER are at best uneven, and even the best ones don't grab me the way Elric did guest-starring with Conan.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"The Dreaming City"-- a title Moorcock later used for a prequel book-- describes how Elric begins his spiral into darkness. He's the king of the empire of Melnibone, which is peopled by a race of humanoids who are somehow not related to actual humans, a younger race that shares the same planet with them. Melnibone once ruled the world with an effete sort of cruelty, but their empire has fallen into decline. Elric starts his first story as a dethroned monarch, cast out from the capital city Imryrr by the usurper Yyrkoon. Complicating Elric's situation is that he's in love with Cymoril, sister of said usurper, and that Yyrkoon has consigned Cymoril to a mystic sleep. Elric makes alliances with human generals to mount an attack on Imryrr, but before the attack begins, Elric infiltrates the city alone, as if a part of him wants to play Douglas Fairbanks and spirit the damsel away. Yet Yyrkoon's defenses are too good, and Elric must resort to betraying his own people to human beings. And it's all for nothing, because during the hero's duel with his enemy, his beloved is slain as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The story is effective melodrama, but reading it this time out, I found it a little too stage-managed. Not does Elric betray his people and lose his lover, he and the humans are later attacked by avengers from the sacked city-- and sure enough, Elric betrays his human allies for his own survival. And not only is he mystically bound to a sword that eats the souls of those it slays, he calls upon dark gods to empower him by promising them "blood and souls." I can understand why an author writing in the 1960s might want to get away from the simon-pure archetype of many fantasy-heroes, But Moorcock saddles his hero with so much adversity that all the hero's torments begin to feel contrived. Elric is a lot like Shelley's Victor Frankenstein. No matter what good he tries to do, it always turns out badly, and most of his life is spent wallowing in misery while being unable to save anyone.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The second story, "While the Gods Laugh," is the only other one I would rate with high mythicity. Elric, roving from place to place, is hired as a bodyguard by a beautiful woman, Sharilla, who wants to find a magical book owned by the dead gods of their world. Elric agrees to the mission, stating that he wants to know if there exists any divine forgiveness for a sinner such as he. On the way to collect the book, the two are joined by a sardonic fellow named Moonglum, who in many stories will become Elric's sidekick, providing a degree of humor impossible for the gloomy albino. I'll skip past the various perils the trio encounter, though it's worth mentioning that Elric and Sharilla sleep together on the way. The denouement is almost identical to that of "City," in that Elric feels utterly alienated at being unable to discover some "surcease of sorrow." The solipsistic hero will win no prizes for the way he ignores Sharilla's possible feelings for him, though she sees his lack of reciprocation and remains silent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The other three stories are more like standard sword-and-sorcery perils, with various incidents of moping and grousing. In "Stealer of Souls," Elric accepts a commission from avaricious merchants seeking to destroy a noble enemy, but only because the latter is in league with a wizard with whom Elric shares an enmity. All of the characters are depressingly paper-thin here. In "Kings of Darkness," Elric and Moonglum accept the job of escorting beauteous Queen Zarozina to her kingdom, but the trio gets waylaid in another realm, whose rulers struggle with sibling rivalry and a "curse of the undead." In "The Flame Bringers," Elric's totally gotten over the loss of Cymoril and is shacked up with Zarozina, but her kingdom is threatened by a barbarian tribe with command over an enslaved wizard and his fire demons.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The lesser stories are about on the level of your average D&D scenario. Given Moorcock's reputation, I'm rather depressed to see so few characters with even enough depth for good melodrama. Though Robert E Howard wrote his share of bad stories, even the crummy tales show a passion for vivid if simple characterizations. Moorcock's attitude toward heroic fiction seems like that of Alan Moore. Both creators became emotionally invested in heroic characters in their younger years, but later became intellectually embarrassed by the bad repute of adventure-fiction. Thus both wrote many tales in which traditional heroic figures were downgraded in some way, whether for satire or in the name of a vague "anti-heroism." While admitting Moorcock's breakthrough achievement, I feel like he never tapped the full potential of his own concept, and thus I'm not sure I'll read any more soul-stealing stories in the near future. </span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-80984937566357598352024-02-27T20:26:00.003-06:002024-02-29T09:41:11.890-06:00THE READING RHEUM: "THE UNNAMEABLE" (1923/1925)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCpkMBmIV6YufsBKYTM5cTw22tHfebXK77ejkobo5R_vmdwoWPKH68FIVWbgyYUnK1mgYajFpuX7jVICFOkyDbI6eok0LgZNFk5FmX3KBJdhfLBPRapL9brPh_vNPkSguE7hslUPKKE_qeAT4gbAOdUP10mlvQjfsBUUeLI2rImvw5oer9dAHCsbpJ/s600/name.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCpkMBmIV6YufsBKYTM5cTw22tHfebXK77ejkobo5R_vmdwoWPKH68FIVWbgyYUnK1mgYajFpuX7jVICFOkyDbI6eok0LgZNFk5FmX3KBJdhfLBPRapL9brPh_vNPkSguE7hslUPKKE_qeAT4gbAOdUP10mlvQjfsBUUeLI2rImvw5oer9dAHCsbpJ/w640-h640/name.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've heard various HPL stories described as being "his most Poe-like." Though it's true that Poe is probably HPL's greatest influence, Poe had many aspects to his work, so it makes a difference as to what aspect one thinks HPL was imitating.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"The Unnameable" is HPL emulating Poe's penchant for oddball philosophical pieces disguised as fiction. I've argued elsewhere that Poe's "Morella" is the author's take on the Aristotelian "A is A" argument, in that the narrator's daughter suffers when he first addresses his daughter by her mother's name. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"The Unnameable" is a hard-to-follow colloquy between two characters, Carter and Manton, that takes place near an abandoned house. Conveniently enough, their argument is settled when they are attacked by an unnameable something or other, though for a change, both potential victims survive. There are no "Mythos" associations in this brief tale-- I for one don't consider this "Carter" in any way related to the "Randolph Carter" who appears in a few Mythos-stories-- and I imagine that the two movie "adaptations" had to make up anything resembling a conventional story.</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-61350070580689119072024-02-25T14:56:00.003-06:002024-02-25T14:57:39.297-06:00TUTELARY SPIRITS<p><span style="font-size: large;">In <a href="https://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2024/01/donwgrading-or-degrading-on-curve.html">DOWNGRADING (OR DEGRADING) ON A CURVE</a>, I discussed the dynamics of the BEWITCHED teleseries. I stated that even though the characters of Samantha and Darrin were the superordinate icons of the ongoing narrative, the subordinate character of Endora was the one most often used to generate stories, often by her desire to "teach Darrin a lesson," whether her reasoning was good or bad.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though on this blog I've mostly discussed accomodation narratives featuring romantic ensembles, another frequently seen trope is that of two characters linked by some tutelary activity. These may be entirely distanced from anything resembling romantic pairing, as seenin both GOOD WILL HUNTING and the more recent HOLDOVERS, where the give-and-take relationship of a teacher and a student makes them both superordinate characters. Another variation appears in the 1956 TEA AND SYMPATHY play-adaptation. In this story, an older woman, not a teacher but connected to a school through her husband, perceives a young man's confusion about his sexuality and dispels his fears by initiating him into manhood. Somewhat related are narratives focusing upon a psychologist and his patient, such as Peter Schaffer's EQUUS, wherein the former must play detective to comprehend the latter's malady, and in so doing experiences some insight about himself.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So, after all those examples of highbrow theater and cinema, my main illustration of a tutleary superordinate ensemble in this essay will be-- the completely lowbrow hijinks of Jack H. Harris' <a href="http://nummtheory.blogspot.com/2023/04/mother-goose-go-go-1966.html">MOTHER GOOSE A GO GO.</a></span></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP3KnsCZ1xpdPHBD2EGYt5wBZK7QLrJ_47B_j3aYDOFFdMLqbpry7acuU8bylpDB5ZnxMROZi57ooapel7LCYBd8TiAieRGxW2ShYUHLZno_Tggy9zBjps6bJJKaSRlsxHHaA3_mWAiU1OenzWjIEldo3bqds588S2FmqaGgVxgA3utKFQuub6hBUQ/s386/chil.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="301" data-original-width="386" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP3KnsCZ1xpdPHBD2EGYt5wBZK7QLrJ_47B_j3aYDOFFdMLqbpry7acuU8bylpDB5ZnxMROZi57ooapel7LCYBd8TiAieRGxW2ShYUHLZno_Tggy9zBjps6bJJKaSRlsxHHaA3_mWAiU1OenzWjIEldo3bqds588S2FmqaGgVxgA3utKFQuub6hBUQ/w640-h500/chil.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though Darrin Stevens never learns any lessons, Tom Hastings of MOTHER desperately wants to find out what's causing him to freeze up when he tried to have marital relations with his newlywed bride. But I wondered, "Is that enough to make him the main character?" He's a mystery to be solved, but his neglected wife certainly does not function in the narrative as the Samantha to his Darrin. Rather, only psychotherapist Marilyn Richards can unlock the secrets of Ted's impotence and its goofy association with Mother Goose imagery.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Now, whereas both EQUUS and TEA AND SYMPATHY seek to produce reasonable, rational propositions about human behavior, all of MOTHER's propositions are, to use an earlier phrase, "informal." Writer Harris wasn't concerned with probability: he wanted a smarmy sex-comedy. So the script has Marilyn's sexy professional woman, whom I term a "mother-imago," ends up liberating Ted from a subconsciously prohibition accidentally laid upon him by his real mother. Indeed, though Marilyn doesn't make any overt moves on Ted in the film's early section as she does toward the end, Harris's second fairytale-dream has Ted imagine Marilyn as the Evil Queen in "Snow White," who seeks to keep Snow, "played" by Ted's wife, from uniting with Kirk's Prince Charming. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv4PU0ryH-oMB0anSW1rF2UC1mU9gc8riJzWOvj0rd4uzMN80Cg2fShHhmvXwm8TXW3WQud4Sqa2k2S-SiqU5fQXafwtRxMd9KptmALTRcJ5kRMNpYkWJmfrjm7eAbuq736hiC86UcUV-pWc2vS9m8283B-Mtx12HwNKsPjOaHiz9nOVhZcGqxpju7/s360/dann.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="360" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv4PU0ryH-oMB0anSW1rF2UC1mU9gc8riJzWOvj0rd4uzMN80Cg2fShHhmvXwm8TXW3WQud4Sqa2k2S-SiqU5fQXafwtRxMd9KptmALTRcJ5kRMNpYkWJmfrjm7eAbuq736hiC86UcUV-pWc2vS9m8283B-Mtx12HwNKsPjOaHiz9nOVhZcGqxpju7/w640-h478/dann.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">At the climax, when Marilyn has managed to call forth the nature of Ted's prohibition from his buried memories. she does discourage him from seeking out his wife, claiming that he ought to use her as a test-case for his restored virility. Then the script has Marilyn change her mind for no good reason and fend him off, probably because Harris knew that whatever audience he aimed at wouldn't like seeing the male lead cheat on his loving wife. So even though Marilyn and Ted don't end up in bed together, they provide a fascinating example of a tutelary ensemble with a strange mother-and-son dynamic, though it stops short of a TEA AND SYMPATHY resolution.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-17698900977308719802024-02-22T17:54:00.006-06:002024-02-24T21:46:29.892-06:00NEAR-MYTHS: ACTION COMICS #1-18 (2011-2013)<p><span style="font-size: large;">Back in 2011 I read a few issues of the "New 52" revision of Superman's myth in ACTION COMICS, executed by writer Grant Morrison and artist Rags Morales. However, despite my general respect for Morrison's contribution to DC Comics generally and to the Superman myth specifically (particularly in his strongest <a href="https://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2017/10/mythcomics-being-bizarro-all-star.html">ALL-STAR SUPERMAN story</a>). I didn't keep reading. Now I've read all eighteen collected issues, which includes some non-Morrison backup strips as well.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Morrison's self-described writing-pattern of using free association has provided a valuable counterpoint to the prevalent Marvel Comics trope of "heroes with soap opera problems." However, the downside of free association is that at times Morrison's scripts can become overly scattershot, losing the coherence that appears in his better works. Even ALL STAR SUPERMAN, which did a fine job of updating the appeal of Silver Age Superman comics, resorted to the old chestnut of "the hero's impending death" to provide a tenuous unity between the diverse stories. Morrison's ACTION run, however, doesn't manage to be anything but a bunch of loosely contiguous stories-- though once again, the writer works in a possible "hero's death" here as well.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq9s8yuPE_exL2yD-DGW-6irZvNVFPjeIg9_rkilUE-MdTFwVhV7ssr3NVCCt4rN8oOtmcae7xnVz90kHh0AhaC7dEvMULjT86TfJM2ymipt_35b9uRLToQlT9E_j808HnticqSM7A1s4NfPWIiyoeO9my3eEQuv19A3SAAcT35-bLjjajPDZDtEr-/s1000/one.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="689" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq9s8yuPE_exL2yD-DGW-6irZvNVFPjeIg9_rkilUE-MdTFwVhV7ssr3NVCCt4rN8oOtmcae7xnVz90kHh0AhaC7dEvMULjT86TfJM2ymipt_35b9uRLToQlT9E_j808HnticqSM7A1s4NfPWIiyoeO9my3eEQuv19A3SAAcT35-bLjjajPDZDtEr-/w440-h640/one.jpg" width="440" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">SUPERMAN AND THE MEN OF STEEL proves the best of the three collections, for all that there really aren't more than two such "men," the Metropolis Marvel and his fellow crusader Steel. There are a bunch of robots unleashed by Brainiac, but they obviously aren't "men" as such.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The early issues were promoted at the time as giving an alternate take on Superman as patterned on certain early Golden Age stories by Jerry Siegel. I've heard some fans lament that these "social justice" stories didn't become the main focus of the developing SUPERMAN corpus. Of course, with a hero as powerful as this one, a certain monotony would have set in, since there would have been no challenge to Superman regularly duking it out with wife-beaters and dangerous drivers (to name a couple of Siegel's targets during his social-justice phase). Golden Age Superman tales thus became dominated mostly by tricks-- villains trying to trick the Man of Steel, or vice versa. But I'm sure Morrison knew that modern readers wouldn't accept that alternative, and so the social-justice stories soon default to spectacular action-scenes between super-beings. Morales does a nice if not exceptional job of rendering the hero's first encounters with the super-weapons of Lex Luthor and the robot hordes of Brainiac. The first plotline is reasonably coherent but toward the end of the collection Morrison spins out a fevered crossover of Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes that makes little sense.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv7X-X0GVDTx0NNnju0Kg_zD0Kxc3T-bpWhxT4MN19rmb3tA-lEfR1ZTIksQJsg9XihH8xbYT_Ckn1294oMCrHfQOAVmJ-Y4W7NHxeXa6eSraF9mZ7L7l8d1KermRV-ll2KsvljR6YzyjzFc-xKRcRQezm7ffhO5uzjsTzxbRWm6yDoUZp-ehHUSMF/s225/bu.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv7X-X0GVDTx0NNnju0Kg_zD0Kxc3T-bpWhxT4MN19rmb3tA-lEfR1ZTIksQJsg9XihH8xbYT_Ckn1294oMCrHfQOAVmJ-Y4W7NHxeXa6eSraF9mZ7L7l8d1KermRV-ll2KsvljR6YzyjzFc-xKRcRQezm7ffhO5uzjsTzxbRWm6yDoUZp-ehHUSMF/w640-h640/bu.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The second collection, subtitled BULLETPROOF, is even more chaotic. There's a boring sequence in which the hero meets an updated version of the fifties DC hero Captain Comet, and the return of a minor Siegel creation, Lois Lane's grade-school niece Susie Tompkins. Slightly better is one in which a wife-beater whom Superman punishes in Volume One becomes the new Kryptonite Man.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKjfs_-DQcfBJMVerHKgHz__xy5PlVA4ljl9kDcPyQOfV94uwfnDALe17SvR9eVB6_zZlLcdzqRmU3tHUNVnPYBET71308ffPNnDpYzMDj5p9GC5FMWPH9HNz8R8yzd6ie9h_ZmLKuea8qBXj2Q4p5j2MFS4A-mL35TFx1E4b6AaFMqMoZ9c9Aisfb/s1000/end.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="644" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKjfs_-DQcfBJMVerHKgHz__xy5PlVA4ljl9kDcPyQOfV94uwfnDALe17SvR9eVB6_zZlLcdzqRmU3tHUNVnPYBET71308ffPNnDpYzMDj5p9GC5FMWPH9HNz8R8yzd6ie9h_ZmLKuea8qBXj2Q4p5j2MFS4A-mL35TFx1E4b6AaFMqMoZ9c9Aisfb/w412-h640/end.jpg" width="412" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The final collection, AT THE END OF DAYS, goes off the rails with a lot of stuff about Superman's impending death-- supposedly his second death after his fate at the hands of Doomsday-- but it comes to little. Morrison challenges Superman with a small coterie of new villains-- the revised K-Man, Nimrod the Hunter, The Evolver-- and also squeezes in a few whose identities he doesn't bother to delineate. The Legion gets involved in some of this folderol as well. The strongest trope involves a plot about Superman facing off, not against his pest-enemy Mister Mxyzptlk, but a more deadly enemy of Mxyzptlk's. (To be sure, this character appears throughout the run in the guise of a strange little man who offers Faustian bargains to various characters.) One of the oddest things about this sequence is that Morrison takes pains to resurrect one of the hero's most obscure foes, Ferlin Nxyly, whom he apparently wanted to work into his Mxyzptlk cosmology because of the name similarity. But this revival, like the Captain Comet one, seems forced and sterile-- not something I normally find in even the lesser Morrison works.</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-56489377566855633462024-02-19T16:34:00.008-06:002024-02-19T16:47:42.812-06:00MYTHCOMICS: "DON'T DO THAT VOODOO YOU DO SO WELL" (MSH SPRING SPECIAL #1, 1990)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEGwbpDLZP6L6yJOzYFWGD-F8AtONj8oDguDSeBSd6wuenkF6BgiIM20HPCL-HCCHIKATTzf4JSLPkpPDqf_uBCg1cFk_peyLkpMkKb68hF9HQ_I1iCx2RR8QR0Qb1PiY1cajdWTBcTsmNqYLxN2xzQcfFrDJk9yEWwCM_cZBMtenDMSDh4ZjQXcF1/s615/cover.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="615" data-original-width="400" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEGwbpDLZP6L6yJOzYFWGD-F8AtONj8oDguDSeBSd6wuenkF6BgiIM20HPCL-HCCHIKATTzf4JSLPkpPDqf_uBCg1cFk_peyLkpMkKb68hF9HQ_I1iCx2RR8QR0Qb1PiY1cajdWTBcTsmNqYLxN2xzQcfFrDJk9yEWwCM_cZBMtenDMSDh4ZjQXcF1/w416-h640/cover.jpg" width="416" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A few years back I played around with using "Black History Month" as a theme for February, though I was pretty loose in my criteria, often mixing racial myths as I pleased. I wasn't really thinking about following the theme this year, but I chanced upon a one-shot story in one of Marvel's many inventory-filled publications, which is like finding the proverbial diamond in the garbage.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And it seems even more improbable, given that the star of this story is Brother Voodoo. This Haitian hero was launched by Marvel in 1973 around the same time as a similarly-themed title, TALES OF THE ZOMBIE, both of which showed a peculiar obsession Marvel Editorial formed at the time for the linked subjects of voodoo and zombies. Neither feature was successful, and in fan-circles Brother Voodoo has often seen as a lame character, particularly thanks to humor-artist Fred Hembeck. I don't recall if Hembeck's mockeries of the hero predate or postdate this 1990 story, in which he himself adopted a more "straight" style to illustrate this one-off tale with writer Scott Lobdell. Absent further information, I will assume that Lobdell submitted this VOODOO script in his tryout period, and that it was assigned to Hembeck after the fact.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Intentionally or not, VOODOO utilizes a trope I think appeared with some frequency in Chris Claremont's work of the seventies and eighties; a trope I'll call "good man gives in to bad desires." Despite the story's punny title it's entirely serious in tone, and one reason I may like it is because the original hero in his short-lived seventies series was so good as to be thoroughly bland.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4vseMbfqKa4JKXh_S-DJILMpLP1t_V_q8O_4jVrnOe_VAWFXMzCb4g3m1s3Sn3sOkIS-_9N9w5Y5ZL0VU9rE4_SDUJAx-Ov3TFU-Kdfk1c6FgY-OFWQKU071oQwPZLwqasCr90Mqt2YyjtHHXzTq5ruVb1r5cjgv8JDMt8GJ4am9SN1l6AHguKds/s1600/voo1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1064" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV4vseMbfqKa4JKXh_S-DJILMpLP1t_V_q8O_4jVrnOe_VAWFXMzCb4g3m1s3Sn3sOkIS-_9N9w5Y5ZL0VU9rE4_SDUJAx-Ov3TFU-Kdfk1c6FgY-OFWQKU071oQwPZLwqasCr90Mqt2YyjtHHXzTq5ruVb1r5cjgv8JDMt8GJ4am9SN1l6AHguKds/w426-h640/voo1.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The hero narrates his own story, and his first line foregrounds his fallibility: "It was never my intention to become Brother Voodoo." In the course of the narrative he references the basics of his origin. Born Jericho Drumm of Haiti, he studied psychology in the U.S. but returned to his native land to support his brother Daniel. Daniel, a priest of voodoo, was slain by a rival, and Jericho mastered the Haitian mystic arts in order to avenge him. His most notable power was that Jericho had somehow merged with the spirit of his dead brother, and could send Daniel Drumm's spirit into the bodies of enemies, possessing them to do Jericho's will a la the DC hero Deadman. FWIW, the Daniel-spirit never seems to have any personality, as if it was just a raw magical force instead of the ghost of a once living human.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuINkqtDv512fZY8LIqDWiKCEunVhHeSvoh4bZVjM88B0PwEfPTUcr6pQ7JmEdPkwouHwaZDt19_Vfq3gDo_BajfyTjeELhyF0qKyfPqMK08OZc3BtYi2DC3qPvt3q_PD4XMrTolxgJcT9m7ihL5MngQeUBDAU1JdTj7Isg_vbrNSq7rCpBlZeyCT4/s1600/voodoo1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1053" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuINkqtDv512fZY8LIqDWiKCEunVhHeSvoh4bZVjM88B0PwEfPTUcr6pQ7JmEdPkwouHwaZDt19_Vfq3gDo_BajfyTjeELhyF0qKyfPqMK08OZc3BtYi2DC3qPvt3q_PD4XMrTolxgJcT9m7ihL5MngQeUBDAU1JdTj7Isg_vbrNSq7rCpBlZeyCT4/w422-h640/voodoo1.jpg" width="422" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">On the second page Jericho, who has said that "voodoo is all about belief," illustrates this credo by rescuing a boat on a storm-swept sea, seeming to become a giant, though this may be only in the minds of those being rescued. The reader meets Jericho's girlfriend Loralee Tate, a nurse seeking to cure an immunological crisis among the Haitian people. She mentions that she's glad she didn't leave for the States as she planned earlier, but Jericho's guilty thoughts make clear that he had something to do with both her change of mind and the medical crisis. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk4X0JYREQH4tfx3ineEXVayF7EHQUs06LS4bJxPgKEZYOEeDZZuNvSBXBS9B_taCSIDnQsg4P5IYZtFB4bWIuFrsNZo0mAOvnvRI2sltLJH_5vNpPqINO3u0VXSnB9FHIS0aoX-AgdAMWt6nNZB-g6D09K4slOeapq0XadbKp6MGtKEkorQnAFf06/s1600/five.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1055" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk4X0JYREQH4tfx3ineEXVayF7EHQUs06LS4bJxPgKEZYOEeDZZuNvSBXBS9B_taCSIDnQsg4P5IYZtFB4bWIuFrsNZo0mAOvnvRI2sltLJH_5vNpPqINO3u0VXSnB9FHIS0aoX-AgdAMWt6nNZB-g6D09K4slOeapq0XadbKp6MGtKEkorQnAFf06/w422-h640/five.jpg" width="422" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Page four sets down the cause of that guilt. Upon being informed of Loralee's plan to go home, he confesses, "I was afraid of losing her, so I used my brother's spirit to possess her, to insure our love-- to destroy our love." Though the script does not specify everything that followed, it's logical to presume that Jericho had sex with Loralee while she was under his control, or he wouldn't be nearly this guilty. The caption about his having "removed the lie" proves confusing, given that she still seems to be under his mental dominion back on page 2.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdLcNgomYXYN1tPrNYLGFhocELvVPGmBS5lgNnK5oW_Rv4QmHKq3Ox5i-uYnvalE6YhXl5278PYHBYGrdenfKAvehe_FjpxJbUMJFBeTX0PgnOM-FUOt4SQYPpnBYC7-Z9_6-mJu8kiP13yd3s63TOAAxLEq-KJhSoJEdwqMBzVWWmSNgkFjrGTzY7/s1600/spirits.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1077" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdLcNgomYXYN1tPrNYLGFhocELvVPGmBS5lgNnK5oW_Rv4QmHKq3Ox5i-uYnvalE6YhXl5278PYHBYGrdenfKAvehe_FjpxJbUMJFBeTX0PgnOM-FUOt4SQYPpnBYC7-Z9_6-mJu8kiP13yd3s63TOAAxLEq-KJhSoJEdwqMBzVWWmSNgkFjrGTzY7/w430-h640/spirits.jpg" width="430" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In any case, precisely because of Jericho's bond with nature through his voodoo mastery, the nature spirits of Haiti have brought about the immunological breakdown. He pleads with the spirits for forgiveness, but they only state that "forgiveness must come from you, and one other."</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh9L8nY7I18iwx5j43mKUYL-szIrJnAs7ii-XoFuhLC0l1UASSZM16N7lAcouoMJ5fXQxzDp_e0gGgTKrQ_WMufLv08rvSluOpXXjtfnjj3dVEd8U1uX57-gQH40VNFsoHG28DpGL6ZxaMhzBBmcw50J053d56P8jzodQxUS4WnRVLeLlftMgW6D6P/s1600/monthjs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1078" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh9L8nY7I18iwx5j43mKUYL-szIrJnAs7ii-XoFuhLC0l1UASSZM16N7lAcouoMJ5fXQxzDp_e0gGgTKrQ_WMufLv08rvSluOpXXjtfnjj3dVEd8U1uX57-gQH40VNFsoHG28DpGL6ZxaMhzBBmcw50J053d56P8jzodQxUS4WnRVLeLlftMgW6D6P/w432-h640/monthjs.jpg" width="432" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQjk3-YYRw8QgRBX9qly1WXvmA5vQRwb9Y_4AD6LjYJ02c3CJRTbjntB3ZC0Lmkt_XV_WnzVshlBTHoQY7bgxuN8Fbd9eNp90NQyzB-bef6Xb_8zwk5QzX-UClyM1xdJFYVUw5iYFtpPr_VRoxMxuzl_6mZ3q0GdWam5pnadhStAATMPZ7uj6iiVsb/s1600/belief.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQjk3-YYRw8QgRBX9qly1WXvmA5vQRwb9Y_4AD6LjYJ02c3CJRTbjntB3ZC0Lmkt_XV_WnzVshlBTHoQY7bgxuN8Fbd9eNp90NQyzB-bef6Xb_8zwk5QzX-UClyM1xdJFYVUw5iYFtpPr_VRoxMxuzl_6mZ3q0GdWam5pnadhStAATMPZ7uj6iiVsb/w426-h640/belief.jpg" width="426" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> Due to the limited page count, Lobdell doesn't actually show the Haitian people being freed from the "penance" inflicted upon them by Jericho's sinful misuse of his power. Since on page seven Loralee is shown leaving Haiti as she originally planned, the most logical conclusion is that Jericho finally released her from his thrall, and that she realized what he had done. Loralee echoes Jericho's own intuition that his sin was a failure of belief in their love, strongly implying that because of this sin, he's lost out on any chance with her. She's clearly the "one other" that the spirits say must forgive him, and page eight wraps up with Jericho realizing that he must at least conditionally forgive himself in order to do better, to become the hero he meant to be.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've seen only one online commentary on the story. Predictably enough, the speaker seemed to think that Lobdell was indulging in a rape-fantasy via mind-manipulation. But literary rape-fantasies are usually predicated on the enjoyment of superior power, and they don't show the rapists wallowing in guilt for what they've done. (Jack Hill's 1966 <a href="https://nummtheory.blogspot.com/2023/08/mondo-keyhole-1966.html">MONDO KEYHOLE</a> provides a good shorthand example.) Current gender politics imply that a male can never transgress against a female without deserving eternal perdition, while female transgressions against males are not even conceptually possible. All I can say is that I think the ethic of forgiveness applies to this particular fictional situation, and for situations taking place in real life, each one must be evaluated individually as well. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A last point on the subject of Forgotten Continuity: though the "Haitian plague" is original to Lobdell's story, Loralee Tate did debut in the last three BROTHER VOODOO stories-- where she was still a registered nurse, but was also Black, unlike the one in Lobdell's VOODOO. Black Loralee may have been intended as a potential romantic partner for Jericho, but if so there are no indications in her only appearances. White Loralee, possibly occupying one of those many "alternate Marvel Earths," does not seem to have appeared again. And that's probably for the best given the ideological climate at the current Marvel Comics.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">BTW, I belatedly found a page where Hembeck explained his involvement in the "Brother Voodoo is So Lame" schtick, which he admits that he continued but did not originate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">http://www.hembeck.com/More/Voodog/Why.htm</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-9879406395794778582024-02-19T12:19:00.004-06:002024-02-19T12:22:05.181-06:00ADDENDUM TO SAVING TIME IN A BRAIN<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyBSsWACat74Yp2RMJQkS6WdTUGTiiovFmaQcaZWh08Zg0iJtD9CvMck5vhiU_UJtCPbTcuS4h65XhMP14hf2HSpGteO1gxdZq7jl3pJDsuPPa5qV43x1RCJRzdVc5yw95sQJVmhVgdQ5rSBSDdR0nAk-8G7Uhy9q9JYkjjZUyucxibwUzySEUw9bW/s225/adu.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="152" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyBSsWACat74Yp2RMJQkS6WdTUGTiiovFmaQcaZWh08Zg0iJtD9CvMck5vhiU_UJtCPbTcuS4h65XhMP14hf2HSpGteO1gxdZq7jl3pJDsuPPa5qV43x1RCJRzdVc5yw95sQJVmhVgdQ5rSBSDdR0nAk-8G7Uhy9q9JYkjjZUyucxibwUzySEUw9bW/w432-h640/adu.jpg" width="432" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> </span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In the preceding essay, I forgot that AMAZING ADVENTURES wasn't just dropped, but that it was converted into Stan Lee's experimental all-Ditko book AMAZING ADULT FANTASY, which in its final-issue form (with the "adult" ironically knocked from the title) had at least as much consequence for Marvel as FANTASTIC FOUR #1. I'm sure I read of the title changeover many times but it just got filed in the "not significant" pile of memory engrams.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The switch from AA to AAF is also more significant than I'd thought, now that I've read all the AA issues online. Though there's some Ditko mixed in to AA, the six issues are heavily Kirby-dominated. Kirby's SF/monster books had evidently been selling OK for Atlas/Marvel even during DC's big superhero push around 1958. But AA must not have sold well, possibly indicating a sea-change in reader preferences. (It would take a little longer for all of DC's SF-anthology titles to become saturated with continuing-character features.) So the transition to AAF shows Stan Lee trying to aim a little higher than the usual Atlas/Marvel fare, building up Steve Ditko's aesthetic. I've never seen any commentary on AAF by either Lee or Ditko, so I have to accept the reigning fan-theory, that Lee hoped to emulate the model of TV's successful TWILIGHT ZONE anthology. I doubt he was counting on that as a long-term strategy for success, given the fate of EC Comics about six years previous; he probably just hoped for decent sales while enjoying seeing his stories brought to life by Ditko's burgeoning talent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Most of the Kirby stuff in AA is pretty ordinary fare, by the way. I need to do a writeup of the "Doctor Droom" stories some time, because they definitely don't feel like "New Marvel."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-593979769163385232024-02-18T18:45:00.011-06:002024-02-18T19:03:59.938-06:00SAVING TIME IN A BRAIN<p><span style="font-size: large;"> First, a pair of juxtaposed quotes:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.</span></blockquote><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">Why couldn't the past, present and future all be occurring at the same time-- but in different dimensions?</span></blockquote><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ2IwO9wIFhZ0UpjgxRulG-gsBw92SDqxTklupul9x4_koU2J7ya1-8nHY_RzXT7iycj-jICyBn8oVWV6VGIRFfTkE32jlSMO9CyppTsyGCVAxufUrXNblyt-EMzRUAG4_-aQ0tloAoGJAgGnVoWFPLxnHyC4DKjWchWke2GmSAJNVkc-QQBGVitEa/s1537/des.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1537" data-original-width="1000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ2IwO9wIFhZ0UpjgxRulG-gsBw92SDqxTklupul9x4_koU2J7ya1-8nHY_RzXT7iycj-jICyBn8oVWV6VGIRFfTkE32jlSMO9CyppTsyGCVAxufUrXNblyt-EMzRUAG4_-aQ0tloAoGJAgGnVoWFPLxnHyC4DKjWchWke2GmSAJNVkc-QQBGVitEa/w416-h640/des.jpg" width="416" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The first quote comes from one of the most famous graphic novels of all time, the 1986-87 Moore/Gibbons WATCHMEN, and the sentiment expressed, about the relativity of time, is "intricately structured" as one of the narrative's main themes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVo5k2_9d6mOOWmmwexH0raX74v6UBj7D5xZJmElTPzCdOHM8VP-KlZLBcow6zrqsBp0oss8et4qvzJDshXNjoANjHR6RJbBb67CYPKMh1gCYm_qKDfxDHjjNTyJUeqQ2Wn9fxIbJRFv5uId9WX7TVL0Y8OH8Ht47_xgCoVWDO2OkFrUditzrgHL1/s1500/dimen.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="988" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQVo5k2_9d6mOOWmmwexH0raX74v6UBj7D5xZJmElTPzCdOHM8VP-KlZLBcow6zrqsBp0oss8et4qvzJDshXNjoANjHR6RJbBb67CYPKMh1gCYm_qKDfxDHjjNTyJUeqQ2Wn9fxIbJRFv5uId9WX7TVL0Y8OH8Ht47_xgCoVWDO2OkFrUditzrgHL1/w422-h640/dimen.jpg" width="422" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The second comes from a very obscure Lee-Kirby story in AMAZING ADVENTURES #3 (1961), "We Were Trapped in the Twilight World." It wasn't reprinted until the twenty-first century and I doubt that even its creators remembered it after they tossed it out within the pages of a title that was finished in three more issues.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Not only was"Twilight" probably tossed off to fill space, the idea of the simultaneity of past, present and future isn't even important to the story's plot. Shortly after the handsome young theorist expresses his time-theory, he drives away with his girlfriend. A mysterious, never-explained mist transports them both back into Earth's prehistoric past. While the two of them flee various menaces, the scientist theorizes that entities from the past sometimes entered the mist and showed up in modern times, so that ape-like cavemen generated the story of the Abominable Snowmen. Grand Comics Database believes that "Twilight" is one of many SF-stories plotted by Stan Lee but dialogued by his brother Larry Leiber, so, failing the discovery of original Kirby art, there's no ascertaining which of the three creators involved generated the line.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In both stories, the simultaneity of all times has one common function: to cast a light on the limits of human perception. But is there any truth in it?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In the sense of the bodies we occupy, not really. Our common experience as human beings is that our bodies are totally enslaved by the unstoppable progress of the future, remorselessly eating away the present the way age eats away at our bodily integrity. And yet, one organ in the body defies future's tyranny and that's the brain.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Only in the brain are past, present and future truly unified-- though one may question if Moore's correct about how "intricate" the structure is, even assuming that the paradigm applies only to fully functioning human brains. And time is only unified in terms of a given subject's own memories. I don't necessarily dismiss such things as "memories of a past life" that are usually cited in support of reincarnation. But those type of memories are not universal enough to draw any conclusions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My ability to "time-travel" in my memories is similarly limited. I can summon a quasi-memory of being on a family vacation and finding MARVEL TALES #11 at an out-of-town pharmacy. That comic book would have been on sale in 1967, probably a few months prior to its November cover-date. I *think* this was probably the first SPIDER-MAN comic I bought, but my memories of reading the comic for the first time aren't that specific. Since I didn't get into buying superhero comics until the debut of the BATMAN teleseries in early 1966. That show would have finished its second season in March 1967, at which time I might have felt venturesome enough to sample a superhero I'd never heard of. Now, for me to be correct on that score, I would have to have bought MARVEL TALES before the 1967 SPIDER-MAN cartoon debuted that September, since it's also my memory that I watched that TV show when it first aired. But can I be *absolutely* sure that I didn't see the cartoon before buying the comic book? Not in the least. I *seem* to remember that I'd bought enough back issues of SPIDER-MAN or MARVEL TALES that when the cartoon debuted, I recognized how some of the cartoon-stories had been adapted from the originals. But that memory is not reliable.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In the WATCHMEN chapter referenced, Doctor Manhattan can foresee future events as accurately as he can memories of the past-- or at least, whatever past experiences are important to Moore's narrative. And in "Twilight," the protagonists live through the past so as to clarify events in their present. But total narrative clarity is denied real people. However, what our functioning memories do preserve are not just every single experience we have, but the IMPORTANT experiences. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Humans can travel in time from SIGNIFICANT THING #1 to SIGNIFICANT THING #4566 via chains of mental association. Some of these associations might be subconscious. I once noticed that Robert E. Howard's barbarian hero Kull first appeared in print in the August 1929 issue of WEIRD TALES, about three or four years before Siegel and Shuster collaborated on their landmark hero Superman. We know that Siegel named Superman's dad after himself, making "Jor-L" out of the first syllable of the author's first name and the last syllable of his last name. But whence comes "Kal-L?" Did it come from... "Kul-L?" Even assuming that Siegel read the Kull story, there's no way of knowing if he consciously remembered reading it. But IF he read it, maybe something about the hero's name appealed to Siegel, and he simply recycled that appeal when it came time to name his own hero.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We do not know if anything survives the demise of our physical forms. But while we are alive, it's entirely logical to build up our stores of significant memories, whether we can take them with us or not. To borrow from the title of an old English poem, those memories provide us with our only "triumph over time."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One last Significant Thing: the last issue of Marvel magazine AMAZING ADVENTURES was cover-dated November 1961, the same date assigned to FANTASTIC FOUR #1. So that arbitrary date becomes something of a threshold between the Old Marvel Way of doing things, and the New Approach, which would, as I've argued elsewhere, saved the medium of comic books from extinction.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-61316325375971281662024-02-16T11:50:00.006-06:002024-02-28T11:23:51.976-06:00MYTHCOMICS: ["DAUGHTER OF SATAN"] (FEATURE COMICS #61, 1942)<p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtjE6COA5pQVShyAxjKmglhB7sOQ7zkqpfX_mubHhd0D2o5O5lm1It-dlvp-vr_OkiyV4bnH1XWAthP1dO9Y1NzxCbEqal8YuZ7T6dtZP81ynS9t5wo3WL-83hP9Es050i_xINJyflH88B7YWBlmIkP1IUbFwKnCE-KR7SeJur9sR2XuurakFkvRjO/s1316/yevette.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1316" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtjE6COA5pQVShyAxjKmglhB7sOQ7zkqpfX_mubHhd0D2o5O5lm1It-dlvp-vr_OkiyV4bnH1XWAthP1dO9Y1NzxCbEqal8YuZ7T6dtZP81ynS9t5wo3WL-83hP9Es050i_xINJyflH88B7YWBlmIkP1IUbFwKnCE-KR7SeJur9sR2XuurakFkvRjO/w474-h640/yevette.jpg" width="474" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /> </span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8aEl-uTGuL_n48k9ZQjKtwM7ddNddRGCk_9lw_EHgRBL-PZn0bkQHYskQyfkMQPPmYqKGhl0yfEkww-VLyb5K4hTsWJ346U6znHipHsQTQlvhnMrvcjS_x0uA6nH4E1Bocsr3Pzl4Jjpg9tUh22Fed3y50SKtRcLO6RjTkZpJ8o0T2MzCpj4DVPI1/s1316/secrets.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1316" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8aEl-uTGuL_n48k9ZQjKtwM7ddNddRGCk_9lw_EHgRBL-PZn0bkQHYskQyfkMQPPmYqKGhl0yfEkww-VLyb5K4hTsWJ346U6znHipHsQTQlvhnMrvcjS_x0uA6nH4E1Bocsr3Pzl4Jjpg9tUh22Fed3y50SKtRcLO6RjTkZpJ8o0T2MzCpj4DVPI1/w474-h640/secrets.jpg" width="474" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Quality Comics' DOLL MAN was one of the Golden Age's most long-lived features, lasting from almost the beginning of the Age to 1956, when the publishing company dissolved. The premise was simple: scientist Darrel Dane discovers a method by which he can shrink himself to a height of six inches, at which height he possesses his normal-sized strength as well as somehow being able to manifest a colorful costume. (Gil Kane, being an admirer of the Quality feature, explicitly based various aspects of the Silver Age Atom on the doll-sized crimefighter.) The story I'll examine is given an extremely dull title in GCD, so this time I'll choose a phrase from the opening caption of the splash page. That phrase proves relevant because in the course of the story it become problematic as to who the real "daughter of Satan" is. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Following the splash, which has a "Tom Thumb" feel as Doll Man is seen riding a frog into a fetid swamp full of death-symbols, the story's apparent villain, Yvette deMortier, makes her first appearance. (The story's unknown writer presumably did not know that in French "mortier" means "mortar;" he probably just wanted to play upon "mort," the French word for "dead.") Yvette, a "renowned physicist," gives a demonstration of a new device to a hall full of other scientists, including Doctor Roberts, father of Darrel Dane's girlfriend Martha. The scientists are refreshingly unprejudiced against a lady scientist, who's rather uncharacteristic of scientists in comic books, but it probably helps that Yvette is gorgeous. However, Yvette's ray-device turns all the scientists into babbling goofballs, after which Yvette has her henchmen write down all the secrets falling from their "loose lips." Doctor Roberts wanders home, where Darrel jokes that he's "gone on a geometric spree with the lovely DeMortire." Darrel and Martha soon learn that the other scientists have lost their reasoning minds, but since Yvette was not among them, Darrel investigates her in his Doll Man persona. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_6kvILhmR3eFjd7hPI7HoEtpa0Mv-IjZ30ocYYX2acSEfhQFT4n5BRWdVuQobGLR6WitLCguRpuNKjzz-QMGczf8stRXjZ_ohwdKGxrMq3JVCCeSBjdZXGBF7HJdweeJWpC1ltbthrA6wR-ruG0mTBZ_qYVs5Fy7ivobEDa8bMWA2i3LwoXxKZRiG/s1320/swamp.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_6kvILhmR3eFjd7hPI7HoEtpa0Mv-IjZ30ocYYX2acSEfhQFT4n5BRWdVuQobGLR6WitLCguRpuNKjzz-QMGczf8stRXjZ_ohwdKGxrMq3JVCCeSBjdZXGBF7HJdweeJWpC1ltbthrA6wR-ruG0mTBZ_qYVs5Fy7ivobEDa8bMWA2i3LwoXxKZRiG/w472-h640/swamp.jpg" width="472" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiluDMufIFtV4RC5A5dPuC7lmGHm6fVRR9qPsAN_YIledvz5btH8jnnHTqjwMEkc0ztTB5R1GrtZAQDJdALt4-MVUBY3cjXSmZojBhnMsWSfo8X6Xwk8HzCnP-xKe58-YfDDp9msEOzON4n3a-OfY6Jk07Dr5m3jiI4q9IAML1Q-Ft2cN2S6Ii9o_v7/s1311/moon.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1311" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiluDMufIFtV4RC5A5dPuC7lmGHm6fVRR9qPsAN_YIledvz5btH8jnnHTqjwMEkc0ztTB5R1GrtZAQDJdALt4-MVUBY3cjXSmZojBhnMsWSfo8X6Xwk8HzCnP-xKe58-YfDDp9msEOzON4n3a-OfY6Jk07Dr5m3jiI4q9IAML1Q-Ft2cN2S6Ii9o_v7/w476-h640/moon.jpg" width="476" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The hero finds clues (including an unidentified dead man) that will lead him to a swamp referenced as a "weird setting of silence, mystery, and death." The reader sees the villainess in repose, but though at first she gloats over the power she'll gain from all the secrets she's gleaned, she becomes angry when one of her subordinates tries to profess his love to her. She curses men as "the scourge of civilization" and compares herself to "the cold, bright lady moon." At that very time, Doll Man ventures into the swamp, observing that it's more a place of death than usual, since its mistress has poisoned the waters. The hero finds his way to Yvette's sanctum, and happens to enter through a skylight with a telescope, and so he becomes a small but intrusive male presence in Yvette's lunar domain.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicgyBAC1nM18gQcB608b6JFcwZzERw-QUfjwDZol1_EXVM7RhsskbWpYahkBe_upxS6E5C0rWwRGQpUtqGELz_XzK88y82QEmyyJ8YBicsm39-E4sGjT_eq_s2W6qnY08NVZkMMNbsfzoRqjHbrMTF3qgYS9z4KD_mhyHHUkVKHzUX7LtfBWwPbIhG/s1318/witch.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1318" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicgyBAC1nM18gQcB608b6JFcwZzERw-QUfjwDZol1_EXVM7RhsskbWpYahkBe_upxS6E5C0rWwRGQpUtqGELz_XzK88y82QEmyyJ8YBicsm39-E4sGjT_eq_s2W6qnY08NVZkMMNbsfzoRqjHbrMTF3qgYS9z4KD_mhyHHUkVKHzUX7LtfBWwPbIhG/w474-h640/witch.jpg" width="474" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In addition, Doll Man has brought along one of the clues he found: a locket holding the pictures of both Yvette and some unknown young man, and when Yvette sees the latter photo, she calls out the name "Stephan." She faints, and into the room comes the true "daughter of Satan," Yvette's unnamed sister. Artist Reed Crandall clearly gives the standard countenance of an aged medieval witch (and with what horn-headed gentleman did witches consort, hmm?) Madame DeMortier shoots at Doll Man while ranting about having killed "the memory of Stephan." Doll Man trips the witch up, but she just happens to have a can of rubber cement lying around in this private observatory, and manages to catch the diminutive crusader therein.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSK4lKtKKO5DbBccbh0HPthkV0ETucehbR1a9ehi73h86R9Lz7_DLerhTe4pxxu3KfIcOqPfZhzLHfYdt0dgDWPBNUOzIfSgCZlQ6VuMMPD-lTFdkwXAonj0uwYUJ4Uc7g-yyGcxbHgSskPPcZVCAsKYp7-RucnPmMaxvG6KGDYlnlRAztho9NB9Ja/s1268/boy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1268" data-original-width="883" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSK4lKtKKO5DbBccbh0HPthkV0ETucehbR1a9ehi73h86R9Lz7_DLerhTe4pxxu3KfIcOqPfZhzLHfYdt0dgDWPBNUOzIfSgCZlQ6VuMMPD-lTFdkwXAonj0uwYUJ4Uc7g-yyGcxbHgSskPPcZVCAsKYp7-RucnPmMaxvG6KGDYlnlRAztho9NB9Ja/w446-h640/boy.jpg" width="446" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Doll Man rather easily escapes the cement, while the old woman, revealed to be Yvette's sister, drags Yvette into a room containing a printing press. (It's vaguely suggested that Yvette's henchmen are turning all the purloined science-secrets into pamphlets, though I have no idea how that would aid anyone in conquering the world.) Doll Man luckily happens to be nearby when Yvette's unnamed, would-be lover conveniently mentions that, contrary to the sister's rants, he knows Stephan died while fighting tse-tse disease in Africa and that the sister deceived Yvette to better manipulate Yvette;s scientific reputation. Doll Man and Henchman Guy work together so that Older DeMortier's hair gets caught in a printing press. It's a little hard to believe, in a more or less "realistic" superhero yarn, that her head gets crushed thereby, but she's not seen on the final page at all.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1-sjOLhoEcwFiPRxpeb0cW2D7PyH5uKqjZAQKPG5qK0W4dYxt4cRaCsGiy_7aDYWNru3EIwX0rNVhlDPqK8fYcmYYUHn9bHSVYYNJvG7qQ9lAZcqvllP_PB78KH3Fq8s3c93cs2I8NDxsmxYlkHAr1POrZBJVMH_4s-HvKF5ne0svK8hyfGcjKRG2/s1344/empt.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1344" data-original-width="975" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1-sjOLhoEcwFiPRxpeb0cW2D7PyH5uKqjZAQKPG5qK0W4dYxt4cRaCsGiy_7aDYWNru3EIwX0rNVhlDPqK8fYcmYYUHn9bHSVYYNJvG7qQ9lAZcqvllP_PB78KH3Fq8s3c93cs2I8NDxsmxYlkHAr1POrZBJVMH_4s-HvKF5ne0svK8hyfGcjKRG2/w464-h640/empt.jpg" width="464" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So with the witch at least symbolically dead, Yvette can renounce her flirtation with super-villainy (no trial needed, clearly). She not only restores the memories of the scientists, she somehow drains the poison from the swamp, thus trying up almost all the loose ends. (I've no idea as to the identity of the dead man on page three, though I would assume the true "daughter of Satan" killed him.) Then Yvette is united with her new love and ends her not very justified "hatred of men," while Martha conceives a new animosity for the wandering nature of the male gaze.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though as a straight story "Daughter" is a mess, there is a clear development of Yvette as a femme fatale, associated with quasi-negative feminine symbols like the swamp and the moon, shown "draining" men of their intelligence-- which most femmes fatales bring about using sex, not memory-rays. Then for the sake of a happy ending-- not always a hallmark of DOLL MAN stories-- all of the negativity is channeled upon Madame DeMortier, a witch-like monster of ugliness and envy and thus the true avatar of Death. I also like the way Doll Man performs the archetypal crusade of the male hero, penetrating the morass of the swamp in order to bring a little male light into the lunar darkness. Given that most DOLL MAN stories are very simple fare, the extra layer of mythicity here shows the raconteurs stepping up their game for the sake of evoking some entertaining folktale motifs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">ADDENDUM: In the above review I jumped to the conclusion that the author of the story made up the name "Mortier," but it is a real French surname. I would still hazard that the writer chose that name because it sounds like the French word for death.</span></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-60723059075540419052024-02-16T10:07:00.003-06:002024-02-16T10:07:34.669-06:00THE READING RHEUM: SNOW, GLASS, APPLES (2019)<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYtcufL2SWdCFMfIzU-tGwdOivm9jTCO2R2ptaFlFDBqEVx1pIcfmt4g21uWMgRJJxm6Ssihvnft5OjMytbYhadC3VCIdF9baqDf7o7-MUQTmNJHRy45MepzItBVaGHFBsOdiIjNFlwIktTwZNr96AriKRCzIj8sLZ6G2nF6PyhKoPWTpMBp8hIYhd/s1000/snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="634" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYtcufL2SWdCFMfIzU-tGwdOivm9jTCO2R2ptaFlFDBqEVx1pIcfmt4g21uWMgRJJxm6Ssihvnft5OjMytbYhadC3VCIdF9baqDf7o7-MUQTmNJHRy45MepzItBVaGHFBsOdiIjNFlwIktTwZNr96AriKRCzIj8sLZ6G2nF6PyhKoPWTpMBp8hIYhd/w406-h640/snow.jpg" width="406" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>I was about to write up SNOW, GLASS, APPLES, a collaboration between writer Neil Gaiman and artist Colleen Doran, as a major mythcomic. But then I learned that Gaiman first wrote "Snow" as a 1994 short prose story. That means it's not a work original to the comics medium. I made an exception for <a href="http://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2023/06/mythcomics-song-of-red-sonja-conan.html">the Thomas-Smith "Song of Red Sonja"</a> because the adapters took a prose story by Robert E Howard and not only tweaked the original narrative, they incorporated the tale into a more extensive narrative as well.</span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">But though I've not read the original Gaiman prose story, I see no indications that SNOW is anything but a straight adaptation. So it can't be a mythcomic, though it's now going to be the first time I've labeled a review as "high-mythicity fiction" without its also being a "prose fiction review."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">SNOW is a reversal of current culture's popular understanding of a famous folktale, starting from the proposition that the Queen with the magic mirror was entirely virtuous and the snow-white heroine is actually a monster. For that reason, I'm not going to do the usual plot breakdown, but instead, I'll focus upon the three symbols of Gaiman's title.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT_2xImo-K4RSkKB82uTQj7rzAqh1f0ymA0U_-_dJOeg9G6EkA-twq3Vh2GoTBW4Z5pExINPYkdJH7liDmV_q5TA8H5W_N9uKb3uNqwsrM0uja7HMXi_RSTBn_J4smZjJ3TsWLPQn9ftEWOZ6PLJQHFkQNPff0x3lxqKC_pAWlAq2uvhqgtDZ2pYCZ/s540/vamp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="351" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT_2xImo-K4RSkKB82uTQj7rzAqh1f0ymA0U_-_dJOeg9G6EkA-twq3Vh2GoTBW4Z5pExINPYkdJH7liDmV_q5TA8H5W_N9uKb3uNqwsrM0uja7HMXi_RSTBn_J4smZjJ3TsWLPQn9ftEWOZ6PLJQHFkQNPff0x3lxqKC_pAWlAq2uvhqgtDZ2pYCZ/w416-h640/vamp.jpg" width="416" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">SNOW-- There is no character named Snow White in Gaiman, and all of the other characters are similarly nameless, to emphasize being totally defined by their roles in the story. In the original folktale, the whiteness of Snow White's skin seems to connote fundamental innocence, while the redness of her lips is there mostly as contrast. But in Gaiman the Snow White analogue, whom I will call The Princess, has snow-white skin because she's undead, and her red lips connote her dependence on drinking blood.</span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhUur7DVKdcKsIw1Yyo7XMA2yWNI-II0_bPTyL9jnICNHW_id8hoOpPDF1E1KSh4aac2o0wmsrQN808OlwWwywP1SzZcDDxCEmRwAIr4oEZr04tWLNj3mpHBpaDgfUM35qdPxvlvjK3lB6IzNteghXy-327o-Koq30b50PQIZgVG45sukw_DOjGwg/s1000/king.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="711" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhUur7DVKdcKsIw1Yyo7XMA2yWNI-II0_bPTyL9jnICNHW_id8hoOpPDF1E1KSh4aac2o0wmsrQN808OlwWwywP1SzZcDDxCEmRwAIr4oEZr04tWLNj3mpHBpaDgfUM35qdPxvlvjK3lB6IzNteghXy-327o-Koq30b50PQIZgVG45sukw_DOjGwg/w456-h640/king.jpg" width="456" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">GLASS-- In the original story, the magic mirror of the nameless evil queen is an "all-seeing-eye" through which she ascertains herself to be the fairest in the land. Glass is thus the medium through which an older female seeks to remain her position as the Foremost Beauty, and through which she seeks to eliminate all rivals. There's no Oedipal struggle between a younger and older female in the best known versions of the folktale. But Gaiman includes one, in which the undead Princess not only causes the death of her mortal father, but also co-opts the Prince whom the Virtuous Queen prizes, causing the Prince to betray the Queen. Whereas the magic mirror of the folktale causes that queen to obsess about her supremacy, the mirrors commanded by the Queen give her only minimal aid, and cannot prevent her doom by her nemesis. Indeed, the Princess proves that even in death she has a superior command of the Power of Glass, since it's through her transparent coffin that she beguiles the liberating influence of the Prince.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz3n6VlPNKQO9IWrw0_z1l5PfA3juRENkGyJ6wPk3Wsmm_S23ll1SDuR6BP_zx0OGvTvIGO8nUc46vWpAVec1shFvk_KvvzrWq7d-VY4-ZHYL2B3k9qDjEeJXHQFGDrdIc7y7EXeUAXWO3pOWh5HYDkG1_oEnluDQj-ublwXsBAzl2SLwUd1Bjlmwb/s1649/apples.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1649" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz3n6VlPNKQO9IWrw0_z1l5PfA3juRENkGyJ6wPk3Wsmm_S23ll1SDuR6BP_zx0OGvTvIGO8nUc46vWpAVec1shFvk_KvvzrWq7d-VY4-ZHYL2B3k9qDjEeJXHQFGDrdIc7y7EXeUAXWO3pOWh5HYDkG1_oEnluDQj-ublwXsBAzl2SLwUd1Bjlmwb/w414-h640/apples.jpg" width="414" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">APPLES-- In the folktale, the apple is not a fruit that fosters life, but an agent of death, possibly with some distant inspiration from the fatal fruit from the Garden of Eden. But in the early sections of the story, the Queen offers a dried apple to the Princess before the Queen knows what she is, and the Princess' choice of another red substance establishes her monstrosity. Later, The Queen does deceive the Princess into taking the fatal bite, but because the monster is undead, her immortal beauty allows her to survive. The Queen then meets a fate usually doled out to a certain barnyard animal when served up on a platter-- though in Gaiman's description, the whole "roast beast" is stuffed with dried apples, not just one in the mouth.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Colleen Doran has a follow-up text piece in which she discusses her influences and the intensive work behind the adaptation. As far as I can tell, SNOW seems to be her magnum opus. I don't envy her trying to top it.</span></div>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5621995982503387078.post-4235883856355112152024-02-14T16:44:00.005-06:002024-02-14T16:48:06.051-06:00THE READING RHEUM: NADA THE LILY (1892)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAwLfS2rrCiNq9qbvp2Tj-UjE5RGbdN27qkZyWJcbN9yGWkoxcTef-75JcHmD3COL0MSIWBlE0H6if7IHdbLT7t9b-jdspVXVboKJSh0o25nv8_7Fq27hWnvNU_qrEPgvZB0lHl9qMistZZJyfG7OfMx0ZFeKsv7KADV5HUoEUlXcqqbCFigeco_b/s420/nada.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="276" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheAwLfS2rrCiNq9qbvp2Tj-UjE5RGbdN27qkZyWJcbN9yGWkoxcTef-75JcHmD3COL0MSIWBlE0H6if7IHdbLT7t9b-jdspVXVboKJSh0o25nv8_7Fq27hWnvNU_qrEPgvZB0lHl9qMistZZJyfG7OfMx0ZFeKsv7KADV5HUoEUlXcqqbCFigeco_b/w420-h640/nada.jpg" width="420" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I was growing up, I occasionally saw cartoons make short jokes about "The Vanishing American," usually showing a Native American slowly fading out of existence. I knew that this was some arcane adult reference, and eventually I learned that the phrase was the title of a 1922 serialized novel by Zane Grey about the vicissitudes of a Navajo tribe, and of a 1925 silent film adapting said novel. Whereas the novel and the film depicted Native Americans being victimized by White Christians who were either condescending or avaricious, the phrase by itself took on the implication that Native Americans were doomed by their own primitivism, a verdict also articulated much earlier in Fenimore Cooper's 1826 LAST OF THE MOHICANS.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In 1892 H. Rider Haggard gave the English speaking world NADA THE LILY, which might be said to be his version of "The Vanishing African." Haggard had lived and worked in Africa for several years, and thus knew enough about the terrain and the customs of the African people to lend verisimilitude to his two best known novels, KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1885) and SHE (1886). The star of SOLOMON'S MINES, big game hunter Allan Quatermain, became the subject of seventeen other works-- and the one sequel, ALLAN QUATERMAIN (1887), is also widely regarded as the first novel to feature a "lost civilization." That novel also introduced the mighty, axe-wielding Zulu warrior Umslopogass as a boon friend to Quatermain, though both heroes die at the end of the book.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">However, the death of his characters didn't keep Haggard from writing prequel-novels, and just as he wrote several for Quartermain, Haggard also wrote an "origin story" for Umslopogass, of which he is the sole star.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">To be sure, his story is told by an interlocutor: Mopo, a witch doctor with apparently real divinatory skills. Mopo's life becomes intertwined by the formidable warlord Chaka during the latter's reign ot terror in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Chaka marries Mopo's sister, but the warlord is ferociously paranoid about being overthrown by kindred, and he regularly slays any of his male progeny. Mopo and his sister arrange a deception by which Chaka thinks his son has been executed, when in fact he is raised as the son of Mopo and Mopo's wife. Umslopogass grows up believing that couple to be his real parents, and that their real daughter Nada the Lily is his sister (when she is in truth his cousin).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Umslopogass and Nada fall in love despite believing themselves siblings, but assorted circumstances keep them apart until their tragic ending (inevitable in terms of continuity, since Nada doesn't exist in the future life of the Zulu hero). Despite being unaware of his royal lineage, Umslopogass pursues a heroic destiny. He journeys to a rival tribe to undergo a ritual combat, in which he wins his formidable axe from the tribe's chief. In his one ambigously supernatural adventure, he encounters a pack of wolves that may or may not be evil human spirits reincarnated as jungle predators. He also befriends a weird "witch man" known as Ghazali, who is an ally to the wolves but also becomes the Zulu's companion. Umslopogass does not get to contend with his wicked father Chaka, who is assassinated more or less in keeping with historical record. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are no named White characters in the novel until Quatermain is mentioned at the very end. However, various references make clear that the Zulu way of life is doomed due to colonial encroachment and the superior firepower of Europeans. Nada, who is not especially mythic except as a support-character to the main hero, is also said to have some distant White ancestry. I'm not sure Haggard included this detail in support of his theory of "The Vanishing Zulu," or because he didn't think his readers would buy into the narrative of Nada's incredible beauty if those readers thought she looked like the average Black African woman. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'm sure Haggard's work, and his association with European colonial rule, would win him no fans with many modern readers, though it's a vivid tale of love and war in a vanished culture. Nevertheless, to the best of my knowledge NADA is the first prose novel to focus entirely upon the actions of a Black African hero-- who, given his one encounter with the supernatural, might also be rated "the first Black superhero," or "superhero-adjacent," should one prefer a less general term. </span></p><p><br /></p>Gene Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11495562795211277146noreply@blogger.com0