Eerie Presents Hunter!

"Son of a mutant general and a human mother, Hunter is a half-breed warrior who fights for survival on a weird, irradiated alternate Earth. Cursed to remain apart from humanity, Hunter still protects the defenseless with the hope that mankind will someday rise from barbarism and rule again! A perfect synthesis of fantasy and science-fiction storytelling."

That's the blurb that advertises Dark Horse's Eerie Presents Hunter which gathers together all the Hunter and Hunter II and Hunter III stories from the magazine. 

I really enjoyed that period when Warren's vintage hero series like Hunter, Hunter II, and Schreck appeared with regularity in the magazine. Eerie seemed to specialize in these types of characters. Dark Horse began to reprint some of these, beginning with Hunter and later El Cid. I'd have loved to see other collections of other such series.  Most of these stories by Rich Margopoulos and Budd Lewis with Bill Dubay lending a hand. All of the stories were drawn by Brit Paul Neary, who displays a real energy and zest in the stories of this series. Alex Nino adds a story in a later stage of the character. The covers featuring the hero by Sanjulian and Ken Kelly are outstanding. 

Hunter's post-Apocalyptic battles with snake-skinned mutants have a real grim and gritty taste when such things were relatively rare and fresh. Hunter is a half-breed, his mother raped by a Demon. He seeks vengeance for his mother and his own redemption. He is a man who is an outsider everywhere he treads. There's a real melancholy to the Hunter I stories, a true sense of impending doom. Hunter is a hard character who might actually find solace in death. There are other humans of course, but these are desperate communities for the most part. So, when Hunter sacrifices himself, we are not really sad, as he's at last found some measure of peace. 

A generation later a young man named Karas is given Hunter's helmet. It has been repainted and a winged symbol is supposed to indicate the hero's rise like a Phoenix from the ashes. Where Damien Hunter had been a capable warrior, Karas is a novice and only survives when he encounters the robotic Exterminator. These two are able allies and the Exterminator becomes a mentor to the up-and-coming hero, who in truth is still confounded by his mission. 

Karas battles Goblins instead of Demons, but they're pretty the same breed of critter. There's a lot of blather about time bubbles and such like, but really it all boils down to matter of fundamental trust. We follow Karas and the Exterminator to the end of their saga. Then we are treated to a parody of the two Hunter yarns in a story by Jim Stenstrum with lustrous art by Alex Nino. Hunter III is just a kid and the offbeat story is hoot. Budd Lewis and artis Moreno Casares bring back Hunter II in a story of a time long after his original saga. Sadly, this one is more confusing than entertaining. Hunter I is revived by magic at the hands of Darklon the Mystic in a story by Rich Margopulos and artist Al Sanchez. This story read more like a stunt than anything else. 

Below are the covers on which the Hunter characters appeared. 

There was a real tragedy to the original Hunter saga. Hunter II lacked some of that focus, but replaced it with a real camaraderie between Hunter and the Exterminator. Hunter III was always a joke. The other revivals were regrettable in that they undermined the endings of the original sagas. Some stories are told and that should be the end of them. 

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Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser - Book Four!

Swords Against Wizardry has some of the best Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories every written. It also features the one yarn starring the duo written mostly by their co-creator Otto Fischer. Fischer was a close friend of Fritz Leiber's and the two of them created Fafhrd and the Mouser in a series of letters between buddies.

"In the Witch's Tent" (1968, first publication)

Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser consult a witch to get some insight into their future, but their session is interrupted. They get limit info.

"Stardock" (novelette 1965 Fantastic)

This is wonderful adventure which takes our two heroes mountain climbing. It's the highest peak in all Newhon and one that Fafhrd's father, a mountain climber of repute did not master.

Fafhrd, Mouser and their Snowcat make the brutal, painful ascent pursued by enemies. What find at the top of the mountain is at once weird and strange and wonderful. It's also very dangerous. Some of Leiber's best. 

"The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" (1968 Fantastic) 

Our duo seek out the two best fences in all Lankhmar and find that their attempts to reap the benefits of their robberies is made more difficult when they don't know all the secrets.

The Lords of Quarmall (novella 1964 Fantastic), with Harry Otto Fischer

This one is an epic of sorts, a story written in part by Fafhrd and Mouser's co-creator. They two find themselves in a distant city-state of Quarmall, a weird internal territory, a city with many levels on which different rules are in play.

Quarmall is a city about to undergo a transition as its leader is dying and his two sons vie for control. They seek constantly to kill one another to achieve mastery over all levels of the city. Mouser and Fafhrd are hired out to the contesting sons, one to each and eventually find their service to odious.

It's a winding and complicated yarn with lots of magic and sorcery as the two heroes try desperately to find a way to save themselves, a few others and perhaps even make a profit in the balance. 

More Swords to come.

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Labyrinth!

The Jim Henson operation was riding high in 1986 when Labyrinth hit the big screens. This was actually their second big fantasy film (if you don't count The Muppets), following the critical acclaim of The Dark Crystal. This time Jim Henson wanted to blend puppets and people in a believable way in an unbelievable story. We have a modern fairy tale with many of the classic elements, a story about a young woman coming into her adulthood and resisting the rigors of that adulthood. That friction creates stress in her home and eventually danger for her baby half-brother, a child she loves yet also resents. 

The young woman is portrayed by Jennifer Connelly in a very early role. The late and great David Bowie is the star of this vehicle, lending his peculiar talents to a role as the Goblin King. Other than the baby brother played by artists Brian Froud's young son, the rest of the cast are puppets of various and sundry kind. I like much if not most of the movie a great deal, but it gets too cute by half in places. 

The Labyrinth is a failed opportunity. That failure was due to the fact that movies like this need to make money and to do that they need a happy ending. While one could have logically given Labyrinth a satisfying ending, it wasn't what one might have deemed necessarily happy. The young girl has an exotic experience in which she must learn to put away her childhood and grasp the powers and responsibilities of adulthood. She has been resistant for a host of reasons, not the least of which is unresolved grief for her mother, and jealousy of her little brother. She feels shoved out of the warm tidy nest and wants to stay. But that cannot be, and through trial and tribulation she learns better. 

That's a pretty good solution to a fairy tale narrative, but it doesn't ring with huzzahs. To get that Henson sticks on an abominable ending which to some degree undermines the hard-won lessons of the film. He wanted everyone to smile as they left the theater, and he should have trusted his work to simply fulfill them. Because of this last-minute lack of confidence in his narrative and in his audience, he allows the story to feel incomplete. 

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The Dark Crystal!

The Dark Crystal from 1982 is a darn good fantasy movie from the folks who gave us The Muppets. That technology is used for good to tell the story of a strange world which has been dominated for a millennia by an evil species called the "Skekis" and an equally good species called the "Mystics". A great crystal powers the system and now it's time for a great convergence in the heavens and things are about to change. The agent of that change will be a "Gelfling" named Jen who along with his love Kira quest to find the "Shard", a broken off piece of the titular crystal. The movie then is a quest with our little heroes trying to live long enough in a very strange world to keep it from ending. 

My impression is that Jim Henson wanted to do something a bit edgier after more than a few years of The Muppet Show and well over a decade on Sesame Street. You can't be scary in those places, only gleeful and hopeful. This is a darker story with a potentially less happy ending. To get the look he wanted, Henson turned to Brian Froud, a British artist who was very comfortable with fantasy of a darker sort. Henson both performed and directed this movie, sharing duties with Frank Oz who did likewise. 

If the movie can be faulted on any front, it's that it's a bit spare on story. Jen is given his mission at the very beginning, finds the Shard almost immediately, meets Kira pretty soon thereafter and then it's just waiting for the finale. A few more red herrings might've beefed it up a bit, but I guess for a movie like this, such diversions were extremely labor intensive. One fun character in the movie is Aughra, a crone who monitors the heavens and has possession of the Shard. Things really pop when she shows up, the characterization of her by Frank Oz is delightful. 

The movie did well enough in the marketplace and is fondly remembered. It didn't generate a sequel though talk of such has been ongoing for decades. A prequel was eventually produced for NexFlix. There have been novels and comics, so The Dark Crystal hasn't been forgotten. In fact, it might be said it struck a chord. But Henson and company were not done with fantasy films, but that would have to wait a few more years with a little project called Labyrinth. More on that tomorrow. 

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Fafhrd And The Gray Mouser - Book Three!

This volume offers up some of the best of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser canon, mature stories rich with the distinctive characters we identify with Leiber's creations.

The Cloud of Hate" (1963 Fantastic)

This is spiffy yarn which has a cult of Lankhmar send out a miasmic mist which enshrouds various and sundry folks of a violent nature (or not) and compels them to murder, sometimes very specific ones. The duo confront some of these thralls and battle their way through.
 

"Lean Times in Lankhmar" (1959 Fantastic)

This just might be the very best story of the whole lot. Fafhrd and Mouser split up and the former finds religion and the latter finds excess. Both really we see fall head over heels into new pursuits, compulsions which are not good for anyone. Fahrd's faith is really zealotry and Mouser's dissolution with food and drink demolishes his skills. Eventually they are of course drawn back together in what is arguably the funniest finale in all of sword and sorcery storytelling. 

"Their Mistress, the Sea" (1968 first publication)

After the former story they go to sea to find renew themselves as proper heroes and whatnot. 

"When the Sea-King's Away" (1960 Fantastic and Swords and Sorcery, ed. L. Sprague DeCamp and The Mighty Barbarians)

The duo find weird romance beneath the waves in a strange and dangerous lair beneath the waves. This is a stunner as they peculiar and compelling women they encounter are nearly the death of our heroes. Truly a memorable romp. 

"The Wrong Branch" (1968 first publication)

Our heroes lose their way in a cave and end up on Earth. Newhon is nowhere to be found.

Adept's Gambit (1947 Night's Black Agents collection)

One of the truly oddball Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories is set on Earth in the past around the city of Tyre. This story was in actuality an attempt by Leiber to fit Fafhrd and Mouse into the Lovecraftian cycle as a recent rediscovery of the the original text amply demonstrates. After adjusting to the world and details of Newhon to find our heroes on the historical Earth with associated references is very weird, almost jarring. But traveling to other dimensions is well within their wheelhouse. The story sets our heroes on a proper quest after magical objects. It's a strange one indeed.

From this collection it's clear that the canon of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser came together with some effort. Fitting in all the various aspects was a chore, especially the famous "Adpet's Gambit". The stories went a different direction after than one and trying to make it fit in after the fact without substantial revision seems noble but ultimately, I'm not sure it comes off as it ought. Part of me wishes Leiber had revised it as a more straightforward Newhonian adventure.

More Swords to come.

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Den - Muvovem!

Rich Corben heads back to the weird and wild territory of Neverwhere in this second volume of Den from Dark Horse. The actual title of the book is Den Volume 2 - Muvovem, referring to another land which is adjacent to Neverwhere. The story opens with Den and Kath fully dressed and looking wildly out of place. In many ways their nudity was a key feature and because Kath has grown a bit weary of wandering around naked all the time and being treated like a sex object, she's hankering to return to Earth. And opportunity to head home becomes available when the leader of the sky city they have taken refuge in seeks the "Nar Stones", the basis for the magic sceptre the Queen was so desperate to capture and use in the first volume. They get the stones and both Den and Kath head home. 

But things haven't been all that cut and dried, a woman from a distant city named Muuta has her eye on Den and has been trying her best to bed him. When he rejects her, she heads home much to the chagrin of her supposed fiance Tarn, the grandson of Zeg the leader and son of Scon. When Den leaves, Scon sees opportunity and Tarn gets himself lost seeking Muvovum to implore Muuta to come back. And that's when the real trouble starts. Dramites are human sized creatures who function much like ants and there are uncounted numbers of them. They destroy everything and everyone in the path. 

I found the adventure a bit less incendiary than the first volume, but there are plenty of great Corben pages to savor as the story rumbles along. In addition, we get an introduction by Walt Simonson, an epilogue by Jose Villarrubia, a lengthy discussion of Corben's earliest work by Dana Marie Andra, and a vintage introduction by Maurice Horn for the 1983 edition. There's some great additional art by Corben and sweetest of all, a map of Neverwhere. 

Next up is Children of the Fire. 

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The Cinematic Voyages Of Sinbad!

Ray Harryhausen was a dynamic film creator, but it was the work on Sinbad the Sailor in bright color and stunning "Dynarama" which made him something of a household name, at least in households which harbored at least one "Monster Kid" reared on Forry Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland. 

I've seen The 7th Voyage of Sinbad many many times, but always in the context of the fact it's an important Ray Harryhausen movie. This time I was watching it as part of a long part of films drawn from the mythology of The Arabian Nights. So I have to say the story was more a focus than the techniques of filming for the very first time, which sadly should be the way one watches any movie.

I will assume everyone has seen this movie, so this is a spoiler rich overview. I've never been particularly warm to Kerwin Mathews as Sinbad, but this time his performance didn't annoy as much as it has in the past. I was more plugged into Sinbad as a character and frankly he's quite the piece of work. Head over heels in love with his Princess (Kathryn Grant) he puts everyone else around him at extreme risk and frankly their lives are less important to him than hers or his own.

Beyond the striking creations of the Cyclops and the Dragon, this movie offers up a fantastic villain in Torin Thatcher as Sokurah the Magician. His grasping for power is what motivates all the action in the movie and his schemes put all the characters into extreme danger, but it's readily evident he cares not a whit for anyone. Even his own personal safety is secondary to his getting and keeping power, particularly the magic lamp which will give him control of a very youthful-looking genie.

The scene pictured above of Kerwin Mathews at the wheel of his ship was mentioned in some of the extra material I watched and he said he was incredibly ill on the day this scene was shot and he stepped out of his sickbed for this one scene only. It has become a signature image for the movie thanks to the comic and the soundtrack album which both sport it as a cover.

Marvel adapted the story, combining in one vigorous image by Gil Kane and Joe Sinnott Sinbad, his Princess, the Cyclops and the deadly sword-swinging skeletons. 

(Kathryn Grant and an admirer.)

Years later the team of Schneer and Harryhausen struck again. 

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad from 1973 is a diamond in the rough when it comes to Sinbad lore. John Phillip Law is my favorite of the three Captains Sinbad who appeared in the Schneer-Harryhausen fantasy films. He feels like a rogue who could be a hero.

He comes across as more legitimate visually and tonally than does Kerwin Mathews and both of them are much better actors than the later Patrick Wayne. Teamed with the exotic and attractive Caroline Munro and you have a delightful pair of protagonists to watch as the adventures unfold.

The villain of this one is Prince Koura played wonderfully by Tom Baker. Reports say that his performance here convinced the Doctor Who folks to give him that gig which made him a superstar among fantasy fans. If he'd never been Who, he'd still have been one of the best villains in a Sinbad movie. The way his magical efforts keep draining him as the movie progresses is remarkable to watch. I was also struck by the loyalty his man has for him throughout the film, which never waivers. Koura must have some characteristic which instills such loyalty, making him a worthy opponent.

The battle with the goddess Kali is among my favorite Harryhausen moments in any of his films and works beautifully in this one. I think I might like it a little better than the famous skeleton fight from Jason and the Argonauts...a little. The Centuar and the Griffin are fine as they go, but lack the visual impact of earlier Harryhausen beasts like the Cyclops or the Hydra.

This movie got the full adaptation treatment from Mighty Marvel in two issues of the science fiction comic Worlds Unknown. Clearly the folks at Marvel saw potential in crossing over these stories with fans of Conan.

And for fans of the lovely dames here you go. First with other castmates and then by her lovely lonesome.

(Caroline Munro)

But Harryhausen and company were not finished. 

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger is a diverting adventure tale with lots of delightful fantasy elements blended into it. It's hurt from the get-go by its lead Patrick Wayne. Sadly, Wayne is simply not up to the role and while perfectly handsome enough lacks the acting chops to hang with pros like Patrick Troughton and Margaret Whiting. Fortunately for Wayne he has relative novices alongside him such as pretty Taryn Power and a lovely up and coming Jane Seymour. Both are absolutely lovely to look at, but their acting in this vehicle at least is pretty indifferent.

On the Harryhausen special effects front, this is a movie with strengths and weaknesses, but mostly lost opportunities. The Minoton which dominates a lot of screen time marches all the way to the top fo the world with the villains but then gets crushed moments before a potentially awesome battle with the Troglodyte who ends up fighting a Sabretooth tiger instead. Why not have both. Harryhausen has said this movie was a bit of a rush job, in response to good ticket sales on The Golden Voyage several years before and frankly it shows.

The show even fails to my mind to make full use of such awe-inspiring sights as Petra which is only glimpsed in the early parts of the movie. Apparently none of the main actors went to the location and that really damages the sense of wonder which could have been achieved there.

The story itself seems a patch job, too similar in many respects to the earlier Golden Voyage. This is the only one of the three Sinbad movies I got to see in the theater and I remember being diverted by it at the time. But having seen the others, the deficiencies in this entry are sadly all too apparent.

But the ladies were beauteous! Behold!

(Jane Seymour)

(Taryn Power)

Marvel neglected to offer up any adaptation of this movie. It was left to the generically named "General Publishing" outfit to fill the bill with a version drawn by Ian Gibson. For more on the Sinbad adaptations check out this highly informative article "The Seven Comics of Sinbad" at Darkworlds Quarterly. 

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