Bradda Bradda Bradda WHOOOSH

Friday Night Fights!

Jay Garrick's speed bag. The heroic glint on Jay's helmet. The package pride stance. That George Perez-rendered smirk.

All these things are designed to prove the point: Jay Garrick is the Mack.

http://www.spacebooger.com/

will remind you of what blood tastes like.

Pulp Hero(es): AGENTS OF ATLAS!

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3D Man sez: "Oooh, no. You're not going to get me on that kick. Yeah, somebody decided to dig up the 1950s Avengers team, which had yours truly the 3D Man prominent front and center, rename it AGENTS OF ATLAS and send all those fine folks on a grand adventure and found success without me. I mean, does it get any more insulting?"

Don't worry, sir. One of these days I'm going to fix that by writing a good solid 3D Man comic everyone will love. I promise.

3D Man: "We got a deal. Because I'm not lettin' Them get away with that."

Shake.

Despite this egregious oversight, and I'm not even beginning to be smug with that statement, the AGENTS OF ATLAS mini-series by Jeff Parker and artist Leonard Kirk is a rock solid hunk of fun Pulp with a real sense of humor and massive dynamic battle scenes. It also sports the greatest single panel ever produced...prepare yourself...

That's right, folks, that is a talking gorilla being hoisted by a super-robot while firing machine guns with his hands and feet.



You'd think the above panel would be untoppable, and a bad thing to essentially start your new series with. And you'd be right, it is untoppable, but it sets the tone for the whole series. No, the series couldn't top gorilla/robot totem strafing action, but it comes close a whole bunch of times.

All the characters are from the "Golden Age" period of Marvel Comics, when it was known as Timely Comics. Jimmy Woo is an Asian secret agent working for SHIELD, Marvel's high-tech CIA; as presented in an imaginary story in the 1970s, Woo assembled a group of "Avengers" during the 1950s. This group was designed to battle a menace no ordinary authority could handle. They were a one-and-done deal and soon forgotten, except for the occasional appearance in comics post-1970s.


The characters were staples of Marvel's 1940s-50s, but none of them had been seen in a long long time before Roy Thomas and Alan Kupperberg ressurrected them thus:

There's a power in the archetypes here, an odd charm that I would have missed completely as a kid. This is one of those concepts that works so much better with readers who have a sense of the ideology behind the characters: a real goddess who is the living embodiment of sensual pleasure, an Earth boy raised on the planet Uranus, a super-strong Namor-level Atlantean princess, a 1950s-style Gort-like robot, and a mercenary cursed to be an intelligent gorilla forever. And that's discounting the 3D Man, who were two brothers fused together in a freak accident, with one living inside his brother's eyeglasses. If that doesn't get you excited, lightning sure won't.


Recently there's been talk of a new ongoing series of AGENTS OF ATLAS. I don't know what the shelf life is on the concept, and "team books" are a dime a dozen, but I'm all over this thing when it happens, especially if Parker and Kirk are involved.

But whatever happens, I know AoA will forever be flawed.

I love you most of all, 3D Man!


3D Man: "Whatever."

Year Grinding to a Close

Around this time of year, folks wonder about things that are wrong with themselves or their governments or humanity. Well, I know the answers to those questions but they're too boring to talk about.

No, my focus often falls on comics these days. If you follow comics, particularly the two major exporters of the form, then you know that Hollywood got ahold of comics and throttled all the imagination, originality, and dynamism from them.

I won't rehash the downfall of one of the truly American art forms, except to say there are exceptional comics being produced today. You can count on anything Mike "Hellboy" Mignola-related to be well above-average, for instance. Eric Powell's THE GOON with its mysterious neanderthal crime lord, who pretends to be Just Another Goon. Ed Brubaker's work. Darwyn Cooke. Marcos Martin. Paul Pelletier. Anything they touch gets a line of frosty sensory-heightening addiction up its fiery nostrils.

The problem is, comics have become another kind of animal than they were in 1977, or 1988. They've become a creature of habit, and not good habits, ill-formed and -executed, pointless and shallow. They reflect their culture better than anything I know of.

I continue to imagine the world through the characters, even if I can't stomach the comics produced about them. The Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Superman, these should be archetypes of grand adventure standing firm against the changing tides. Throw in Spider-Man and Batman, but I was never a big fan of those guys. The point is, accessibility to this four-color medium begins and ends with a connection to these icons, for most readers. What's lost in current times is the sense of grandeur associated with the characters, that they truly are larger than our mundane world would have them be. Their initial power stems from that fact: we need these character to be specifically "out-of-reach" of our trivial, vapid experience. They battle menaces to an idealized way of life, of living, for all people, for most all people fundamentally wish to protect that which is most precious to them. Since the menace at hand, whether a giant amoeba or alien invaders or a Nazi-esque regime complete with cyclopian robots, is too much for the idealized human being to deal with, here comes a big green bruiser to set them straight. Even if by proxy, in our imaginations only, these icons protect us from horrors of reality...in a world where someone created Superman, how could genocide occur?

Understanding whether or not a bunch of hubris-engulfed Hollywood hacks have ruined your favorite character on paper or in movies for everyone to see, the fact is we've lost the characters, the icons, for the generalized heroic presence they provided in our lives and, generationally, our children. And that's a crime, folks.

Just Breaking In Your Coffin: Ghost Zero!

Over at http://ghostzero.com/ , Dave Flora has decided to splash nightmare fluid all over your brain and light it with a gold Zippo adorned with an engraved Death's Head Moth.

Woosh!

STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES: "A Sense of Obligation" Issue 184

Michelinie and Talaoc's second issue begins with a six panel grid with three panels detailing the history of two men, paralleling each other. On the left, Heinrich Staub in Germany raised to love his country and people, becoming a soldier, and eventually a Kommando. On the right, a boy in Kansas grows to join the Army after Pearl Harbor and has a grenade explode in his face.

We are given the formula beginning narration by the Soldier himself, that Kansas boy who has transformed himself into what he calls a "soulless killing machine." While performing dojo training, the bandaged Soldier is briefed on his mission by a man whose own face is in shadow, a point not to be taken lightly as both men are involved in the "dirty business" end of the War effort. As with almost every issue of Michelinie's run, the Soldier performs some interesting visual Something during briefing, almost as a small rebellion against his superiors. But make no mistake, the Soldier misses nothing.

With Hitler taking over France, a Fleet of warships at Toulon remained in French hands via agreement, but Hitler is about to send his Kommandos to take the Fleet, rendering the Allies' North African campaign severely compromised. The Soldier's duty is to infiltrate the Kommandos and sabotage their mission.

Taking on the identity of a new recruit to the Nazi commando unit named Karl Greff, the Soldier soon meets another reassigned man, Heinrich Staub. Greff and Staub become friends, as the Soldier attempts to find out details of the takeover mission. No one but the "brass" knows however, and the Soldier must play out his role further. Meanwhile Staub reveals disgust at the hanging of French villagers, and how he truly hates the Nazis but is loyal to Germany. Staub turns out to be a man of high integrity, impressing "Greff."

A final exercise of the Kommando unit finds them assaulting a hidden Resistence HQ in Toulon, which begins as a mass slaughter with Greff helpless to do anything for the discovered French. However, one of the villagers snaps some dynamite in the Kommandos direction, blowing the hell out of the building and trapping Greff beneath debris. Worse, Greff's life-like mask has been lost, just out of his reach, and his scarred death's head is revealed. Heinrich Staub discovers the trapped Greff and saves him. Staub gives back the confused Greff's mask, saying "...This war has left scars on us all! It's just that yours are more prominent than most!"

Staub believes his friend Greff is a scarred war veteran, and promises to keep his "secret."

Meanwhile, the Kommandos learn the Resistence will sink the Fleet to prevent it falling into Nazi hands. Thus the unit will take over the Fleet ahead of schedule and preserve them from the French fighters. The Soldier sends along this information as he prepares to accompany the Kommandos' mission.

Once aboard, Greff sets an explosive charge aboard one of the ships after the Kommandos have secured it. At that moment, the Resistence arrives on their mission to find themselves at the mercy of the Nazis. The Soldier's explosive goes off, killing most of the Kommandos and sinking the vessel. After that, the Resistence detonates the rest of the ships.

"Greff" is escaping with his mission accomplished when he's stopped by a wounded Heinrich Staub, who now knows of the betrayal and the Soldier's espionage. Staub has the drop on the Soldier with his rifle, and intends to hold him for the Nazis. The Soldier turns away, with the intention of parting from this proud German on equal terms. Staub, however, even weakened, attempts to shoot the Soldier. He has a duty to fulfill. He misses with his first two shots while the Soldier politely reminds Staub of their friendship. Staub refuses to listen and the Soldier executes him.

This story is strong and efficient. Talaoc's art is still "loose" but getting stronger. Michelinie doesn't soft-soap the impact of war on these men, and their connection is reinforced at the end in a poignant way.

Three out of Five 3D Men

Bring Back the Man

Opine du 3D Man: "In a world where men get more feminized every year, it's important to realize what it means to be a man. The womenfolk scoff, and the intellectuals rail, but a fact is a fact: everything cool after 1945 was made for men, by men. At this point in time, a whole entertainment culture is still soaking up the profits from those iconic characters we associate with being a Man. The culture is trying hard as they can to feminize manly fiction and movies, you know. It isn't bad enough to run the maleness in the ground with Oprah as moral barometer, but men and women alike have forgotten what true masculinity means. Here's a hint: acting tough and being a man are completely different aspects. The PC culture has twisted the idea of a Man into something wrong, claiming Men are a buffoon without a clue. I for one am sick of it.

"There's a lot of assholes who are Men, by the way, in positions of authority where they abused and neglected what needed to be done to be a man. But those weren't guys like Buzz Aldrin and Matthew Henson, much less Ernest Hemingway or Oliver Reed. Nobody who got their balls blown off during Vietnam or the Gulf will deny war doesn't so much make a man as break a man. The point is, it doesn't take a man to either suffer or commit atrocity against/from his fellow man, woman, or child. We're talking about having personal integrity and decency, while still enjoying adventure, fist-fighting, and stunning femme fatales in manly entertainment. It's what's missing in this current culture. Without a place to go to be men, and live up to expectations of being a Man, the culture itself has lost the cool factor it once had. Blame the 1980s, blame a reward for tenth-place in a foot-race, blame Dr. Spock or skim milk, somewhere along the line men got lost.

"The fiction and movies of the early 1960s through the mid-1970s produced the apex of manly pursuits. Vice aside, secret agents and professional heist men and boxers and macks and ex-pro football players and karate fighters never came off better in books, film, or comics. You had to go a long way to find a woman who was sickened by the idea of James Bond's hairy chest against their lips. It's almost impossible today to imagine women feeling secure in the knowledge that a swank-tough handsome man who keeps to himself doesn't need to be changed...he just needs a reason to protect what's his.

"So, with that in mind, a visual education is always best, since real men really are visual. I refer you to AGENT X9 starring Corrigan, with help from Rip Kirby, in this series of covers from overseas, interspersed with a little Modesty Blaise. In some perfect world, the union of Blaise and Corrigan/Kirby begat an Earth where men retained their creative allure, probing the unknown with the conviction of cool only found in men's fiction. What it comes down to, us men had something to live up to back when, and I for one think we need it back."

Come On Folks...Where's the Shadow Movie TWO

It's time for the Shadow to invade the public consciousness once again.






One of the greatest literary creations ever, right up there with your Tarzan and your Sherlock Holmes, the Shadow hasn't been heard from much in recent years. His copyright owners are probably mostly responsible, as Street and Smith keep a tight rein on who gets to produce Shadow work, from movies to books to comics.






The shame of it all seems to me that no one has written a "contemporary" Shadow novel. Novelists Joe R. Lansdale and Philip Jose Farmer both received permission from the Edgar Rice Burroughs estateover the last twenty years to produce one Tarzan novel each. Farmer wrote one original Doc Savage novel some years ago.









But not many have dabbled in the Shadow. Certainly entertainment media have been slow to realize the potential.





Of course, we have had a fairly well-made Shadow movie, in 1994 and starring Alec Baldwin. Every time I sit down to watch it, I've forgotten almost everything about it except the actual Shadow himself (nice make-up and glittery eye effects.) I watch it and immediately forget what I've seen once more. The worst thing to say about the movie was that it wasn't bad, but it's dated already by its time frame, and not in a good 1970s kind of way.





So THE SHADOW movie was unremarkable, but not bad by any stretch. Acceptable might be another word, but not mediocre.







The last I'd heard, Sam Raimi had designs on making a Shadow film...it could be argued he already has, to a degree, with DARKMAN. If you took the Shadow and mashed him together with Frankenstein's Monster, you'd have Darkman. Love the movie, even though there's flaws...DARKMAN is one of the best neo-Pulp movies out there, made four years before THE SHADOW and not suffering from "gotta be a hit"-itis. DARKMAN gets a point across while THE SHADOW pinpointed the BATMAN crowd like a voodoo doll.




I'm not saying Raimi's the best man. The old joke is, two young people are about to get married. The preacher asks the groom, "Who's your best man?" The groom's buddy steps forward. The preacher says, "Is this the best man you could find?"







Sam Raimi's kind of like that. At least he grasps the concept of what the Shadow could be, and is, if DARKMAN is an indication. What you fear with any Hollywood product is, well, the movie being a Hollywood product.












I think the Shadow would work spectacularly better as a series, one of those HBO type things like "Dexter." The problem with television is a lower budget, and that means losing the 1930s era in which the Shadow operated, as "period" stuff is much harder to replicate and sell.


























From a personal standpoint, I don't think the Shadow has to be "period." I find something strangely alluring about the Shadow appearing anytime between the 1930s and the turn of the century. His anachronistic obsession with justice, his views on what constitutes evil from a time when Hitler threatened to take over the world, might clash interestingly with today's "shades of gray" society. The Shadow is an "A is A" kind of guy.









Pretty much everything I'm saying to repeated ad nauseum anytime a character like the Shadow or some superhero thing pops up in movie talks. The idea of television allows the Shadow to operate more as he should, a prevading presence in the lives of criminals and agents. In a modern context, think of Keyser Soze in USUAL SUSPECTS...Soze dominates the running time without physically appearing more than three total minutes the entire film.






My view is that the Shadow should be riding the cresting wave of Pulp Hero interest which has arrived in recent times. Comics (always the forerunners on thematic trends these days) have come around to the idea of Pulp as genre, evidenced by Hellboy's popularity, spawning the Goon by Eric Powell, referencing the Phantom published by Moonstone Comics, and circling to Atomic Robo by Red5 Comics, coursing bloodily through JONAH HEX at DC Comics and insinuating itself in Ed Brubaker's work at Marvel, particularly CAPTAIN AMERICA and the idiosyncratic SLEEPER from a few years ago.





If comics trigger the interest of the buying public, surely the Pulp wave will come next once the superhero "craze" has died down. At some point, American culture always returns to the dark side of heroics, the obsessed fistfighters and bullet dancers of Pulp. Indiana Jones followed SUPERMAN THE MOVIE into the consciousness of our society...BATMAN begat DARKMAN and THE SHADOW and THE PHANTOM movies. What's coming then, in the darkening surf after the superhero waves have passed?
















Is that a Shadow of something?




All artwork by spectacular contemporary artists Chris Samnee http://www.chrissamnee.com/2008_11_01_archive.html, John Cassaday, Gary Gianni http://www.garygianni.com/, Francesco Francavilla at http://pulpsunday.blogspot.com/, and the inimitable Jim Steranko on those classic novel covers of the 1970s.