John The Balladeer!

Manly Wade Wellman was one of his generation's finest writers of fantasy and weird science fiction. He also dabbled in comic, writing The Spirit for several years while Will Eisner completed his military service. In the early 1950's in the pages of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Wellman created "Silver John" (his last name is never revealed in the short stories), a character who roamed the hill country of North Carolina with his silver-stringed guitar on his back. He was an itinerant creature who used his talents as a musician to pay for his food and sometimes board. He depended on the kindness of others and offered his particular help when needed. He had a knack for finding supernatural trouble and in his own forthright way, armed with memory loaded with folk songs, found ways to beat back the evils which seemed to lurk in many of the shadowy hollers and sun-soaked peaks of his Appalachian region. 

Wellman wrote his Silver John stories during the 50's into the early 60's and these were collected in Who Fears the Devil? In the early 70's a movie was made, but more on that later. After some time, Wellman wrote a handful of novels (The Old Gods Waken, After Dark, The Lost and the Lurking, The Hanging Stones, and The Voice of the Mountain) featuring the character and then some more short stories, including his very last short story which is included in this collection simply titled John the Balladeer. 

"O Ugly Bird!", "The Desrick on Yandro", "Vandy, Vandy", "One Other", "Call Me from the Valley", "The Little Black Train", "Shiver in the Pines", "Walk Like a Mountain", "On the Hills and Everywhere", "Old Devlins Was A-Waiting", "Nine Yards of Other Cloth", "Wonder as I Wander: Some Footprints on John's Trail through Magic Mountains", and "Farther Down the Trail" are the tales and vignettes which comprised the first collection Who Fears the Devil? In these yarns we see John confront deadly flying familiars, witch women, resurrected legends, and other dark forces.  "Trill Coster's Burden", "The Spring", "Owl Hoot in the Daytime", "Can These Bones Live?", "Nobody Ever Goes There", and "Where Did She Wander?" are the stories Wellman wrote a few decades later when he revisited John's backwoods universe. The novels alas are unavailable as far as I can tell save as vintage editions. 

The Legend of Hillbilly John also known as Fear the Devil is a 1972 low-budget affair which features Hedges Capers, a fair to middling singer but a less effective actor in the lead role. The story combines a few of the early short stories into a hodge-podge, but to its credit it does feature some good views of the legitimate landscape the stories were set in. The cast features a pretty effective array of talent more commonly seen on TV such as Denver Pyle, Severn Darden, Alfred Ryder, and Susan Strasberg. It's not a great movie, it's barely a good one, but it's not uninteresting and it features some offbeat stop-motion as well. If you want to watch it go here. 

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Lost Marvels - Tower Of Shadows!

In the summer of 1969 Marvel decided to spread its wings and attempt to return to making magical mystery comics as they had done less than a decade before. The supernatural was popular again, so much so that the Comics Code had done little when DC brought forth a truly scary The House of Mystery under Joe Orlando's editorial control. DC was onto something and Marvel wanted a taste. To that end they announced two new titles -- Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness. Fantagraphics attempted to reprint Tower of Shadows but is only able to do so in an incomplete form. For some reason two stories based on H.P. Lovecraft stories were not able to be reprinted, much to the detriment of this otherwise handsome volume.  

"At the Stroke of Midnight!" by Jim Steranko is the first and the best story in the series. Steranko was at his very best, offering up a haunted house story that fragmented time for the characters and the reader as well.  "From the Brink!" by Johnny Craig gives us a dandy tale of a man who is seeking to root out fake mediums and then he finds a real one. "A Time to Die!" by Stan Lee and John Buscema and Don Heck is a tale of a mad scientist and his even madder assistant and what happens when the former discovers the secret of immorality.  Cover by John Romita, replacing one by Jim Steranko which Stan Lee rightly deemed in my eyes as less effective. 

"Witch Hunt!" by Roy Thomas, Don Heck and Dan Adkins tells the tragic story of a man looking for witches but gets surprised when he finds something else. "Look Out, Wyatt -- Automation's Gonna Get Your Job!" by Gary Friedrich, John Buscema and John Verpoorten is a story set in a mine where men fear machines will take their jobs, but one man finds that fear ends up threatening them even more. "One Hungers" by Neal Adams and Dan Adkins has a few hippies uncover a voracious menace from across time.  Cover by John Romita for the Adams story. 

"The Moving Finger Writhes...!" by Len Wein, Gene Colan and Mike Esposito is the story of a man who is a failure until he finds a special book which lets him glimpse the future, but what's there is both wonderful and terrible. "Midnight in the Wax Museum!" by Gary Friedrich, George Tuska and Marie Severin features a reporter who wakes up one day and discovers a house has appeared from nowhere and then he finds aliens. "The Terrible Old Man!" by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith finished this issue but sadly is not in this collection. Cover by Marie Severin for the Friedrich and Tuska tale. 

"Evil is a Baaaaad Scene!" by Allyn Brodsky and Don Heck has two hippies seeking cheap thrills but find more than they bargained for when they let an evil mystic cast spells in their apartment. "One Little Indian!" by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan and Dan Adkins tells the story of a cruel man who is cursed and is warned to avoid Indians, which he tries to do. "To Sneak -- Perchance to Dream!" by Tom Sutton is a sequel to a Chamber of Darkness story in which two spies occupy a living house in order to blow up a plutonium plant. Cover by Marie Severin and Herb Trimpe for the Brodsky and Heck tale. 

"The Demon that Devoured Hollywood!" by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith and Dan Adkins is about a famous horror film actor famous for his make-ups, but who has a terrible secret which ultimately destroys him. "Flight into Fear!" by Wally Wood tells of a lame young man who falls asleep on a gargoyle and before you know it finds himself a giant in a land of people needing a sword-wielding hero. "Time Out!" by Gerry Conway and Syd Shores gives us the story of a desperate couple who find themselves locked in a haunted house, and they lose something but gain something as well. Cover by Barry Windsor-Smith and Bill Everett for the Thomass-Windsor-Smith story. 

"The Ghost-Beast!" by Wally Wood is another sword and sorcery story in which a character named Beowulf fights a deadly monster, but it turns out he is a menace as well. "Contact!" by Tom Sutton is a two-page bit of fun about a power-hungry old man who makes contact with aliens, much to his regret. "The Scream from Beyond!" by Steve Skeates, Gene Colan, and Dan Adkins tells the story of an evil man who causes crashes to record the sounds, but who finds a sound he doesn't want. Cover by Marie Severin for a reprint story "Man in the Rat Hole!" by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. (Not in this collection.)

"The Scream of Things" by Allyn Brodsky, Barry Windsor-Smith, and Vince Colletta is about a researcher and an evil girl who find more than they can handle in a cursed mansion. "Of Swords and Sorcery!" by Wally Wood is another sword and sorcery effort, this one filled with an evil sorcerer, an elf, and a transformed dwarf in addition to the usual hero and damsel in distress. Cover by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Marie Severin for the reprint story "I Was Trapped by Titano, the Monster the Time Forgot!" (Not in this collection.)

"Sanctuary!" by Wally Wood is yet another sword and sorcery tale about a man who would be king and seeks a crown in a forbidden place. Cover by Berni Wrightson for the Wood tale. The rest of the issue is comprised of reprints featuring artwork by Steve Ditko and Don Heck. (Not included in this collection.)

"Pickman's Model" by Roy Thomas and Tom Palmer. Cover by Berni Wrightson. The balance of the issue was filled with work drawn by Don Heck and Jack Kirby. Only Wrightson's cover is included in this collection. 

This one-short King-Size Special cover by John Romita is included as well. 

Here is Jim Steranko's rejected cover for the debut issue of Tower of Shadows. It's an awesome piece of artwork, but I have to agree with Lee that Romita's was likely to sell more books. 

With both Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness, Marvel wanted to tap into that EC horror host vibe as both Warren and DC had done. To that end they created Digger, above seen in a distinctive outfit by Steranko. 

John Buscema renders him in his more traditional look for the third story in the first issue. Buscema's version is less offbeat but creepier. 

Digger shared hosting duties with the official host of Chamber of Darkness, one Headstone P. Gravely. Both Digger and Gravely show up in the early issues of Tower of Shadows, but soon Marvel lets them fade away in favor of letting the artists introduce their own tales. I hated to see the hosts go, but using the real talent was actually quite in keeping with Marvel's general trend of promoting that talent for the fans. 

Tower of Shadows changed its title to Creatures on the Loose and became a home to more vintage monster stories from the Atlas days and sword and sorcery, specifically Marvel's first King Kull story by Berni Wrightson, and later Gullivar of Mars by Gil Kane and Thongor of Lemuria by a host of talents. Man-Wolf finished off the series. But for all that, I never forgot Tower of Shadows and really enjoyed this chance to tumble into its pages again. 

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Bat Lash Day!

Nick Cardy was born on this date in 1920. Cardy worked tirelessly for DC Comics and made his mark on Aquaman, Teen Titans among other titles. He was DC's go-to cover artist in the early Bronze Age and created some stunningly fine images. He worked with Sergio Aragones on Bat Lash, a different kind of western hero. 

Bat Lash and I chanced upon the DC Universe at almost the same moment. Not that I actually read any Bat Lash comics, but I did see in the DC books I found here and there a fascinating ad which told that Bat Lash was at once a most mysterious and most disruptive desperado and called into question whether he would "Save the west? Or ruin it!" The ad (drawn by Joe Orlando I assume) set into my imagination what the dangerously named "Bat Lash" must be.

It turns out I was mistaken, but it would be many years before I was disabused of the errors of my imagination.

My first Bat Lash story was not really one at all. Bat Lash debuted as did so many DC characters in the fabled pages of Showcase. Showcase became a long running title reaching its one hundredth issue and in that very special edition drawn by an exuberant Joe Staton, the many characters from its pages were jammed together into a wild and raucous adventure which blended times and genres to utterly entertaining effect. I like to consider this comic almost like the zero issue for Crisis on Infinite Earths which did the same thing a decade or so later.

In his brief appearance we see Bat Lash putting the moves on the lovely Angel of Angel and the Ape fame. So, I immediately realized that Bat was only dangerous if you were an unsuspecting damsel. And he wore a flower, that didn't make sense.

I ran across a few more Bat Lash tales here and there in the pages of Jonah Hex and whatnot, but I never took the chance to read the original run until it was reprinted some years ago in the much-missed Showcase editions. Here in glorious black and white was the saga I'd been teased to read so many decades before. And despite not being what I expected, it was still a ton of fun.

The Bat Lash of the early episodes is an unabashed womanizer and is so confirmed in his selfishness that he's hard to root for at times. He's not especially trustworthy, even to those who appear to have earned some measure of trust.

But somehow Aragones, O'Neil and Cardy find a way to keep Bat just above water in terms of our admiration. He's not good, but he's not exactly bad. He's a cad but not a villain, though we wonder from moment to moment when he might let us down.

The stories are light and frothy and that keeps the reader from investing too deeply in the antics. They have that same tone as comedies of the silent era which thrust the hero into all sorts of dangerous situations but never allow him to come to real threat since we know it will come out in the end. That's the one of Bat Lash, danger and death loom but he is immune.

But these lightly toned episodes give way in the end as the origins of Bat Lash are more seriously explored.

We learn that Bat Lash is a man who has lost most that meant much to him. He is a man who has no home and who has taken vengeance on those who robbed him of it. We learn he has a sister who has suffered as much as he has and a love who has done likewise. They have not become rogues but have taken their misfortune and made lives with a positive character.

This makes Bat Lash feel more pathetic than he has in earlier stories. Bat Lash had that devil-may-care attitude which made him impervious and he was a dashing hero, but now we learn he is a tragic figure filled with regrets and remorse.

He even has a brother who has been lost in the most baroque of ways. Their meeting is a stranger event in the story and takes the series into a strange place just before it finds its somewhat abrupt ending.

Bat Lash lingers on in the DC Universe, a part of the western landscape and he shows up in some entertaining yarns after his initial run, but despite some fine craftsmanship the magic has slipped away somewhat. The wacky nature of the early tales has been lost a bit and he feels more conventional somehow.

I always wanted to read about Bat Lash, and I finally got to do it. He was everything I imagined and nothing I imagined.

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The Fiction House Spirit!

These Fiction House covers for The Spirit from 1952 are among the creepiest every created for the character. It's a bit hard to track down, but the first cover is by James Dixon who ghosted for Eisner in 1951. Dixon had a hand in some of the others as well. 

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The War That Time Forgot!

DC Comics were the undisputed mavens of the war comic in the 1960's. For all of Marvel's burgeoning success in the decade they only ever launched one really successful war comic -- Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. Charlton Comics produced war books on a regular schedule with some fine material but they were always a second-class outfit. Harvey and Tower and others tried out the war comic market but DC led by its stable of artists like Joe Kubert, Jerry Grandenetti, Russ Heath, Irv Novick and others along with the mainstay war writer Robert Kanigher held sway. Star-Spangled War Stories featured war tales both sublime and bizarre and in that last category for certain was "The War that Time Forgot". Kanigher writes them all and almost all of them were drawn by the stellar team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito. 

It began in Star-Spangled War Stories (SSWS from this point on) #90 with the story "The Island of Armored Giants". Some American soldiers are dropped onto an island where seismic activity has been reported. They expect perhaps the Japanese army but they find dinosaurs, lots of dinosaurs. They have been released in hordes and the G.I.s are overwhelmed. But they manage to survive the attacks and get to their sub, but the story ain't over. 

Turns out this is two-part story and couple of issues later we get the sequel. The sub is attacked buy underwater creatures and once again survival is about all the brave soldiers can hope for. Two soldiers are driven back to the island where they find enough explosives to stave off this "last battle of the Dinosaur Age".  The story is over but when books sell really well, DC can generally be relied upon to jump on the bandwagon. They did just that and for the several years the war in the Pacific was dominated by dinosaurs, at least in the pages of this particular DC comic. 

In the earliest stories the dinosaurs are largely the focus. Some few of the stories had a shred of memory but most were sui generis in that finding dinosaurs seems always to be a shock, though not a big enough one that the soldiers forgot their missions. And the dinosaurs themselves began to get stranger and stranger with Andru and Esposito creating monsters that never existed. 

"The Flying Boots" were a three-brother circus act. These acrobats were in the same military unit and kept getting sent to dinosaur island. Usually they never remembered they'd been there the issue before. Why Kanigher though acrobats offered up anything different for dinosaurs is beyond me. 

Some of my favorite stories are those starring the G.I. Robot who was always partnered with some chap who doubted his "Buddy" but who came to rely upon him in the end. 

It's possible that they came up with the covers first and then tried to finagle a story that might explain it. That sure seems to be the case with this wonderful image of dinosaurs disembarking from military landing craft. A "Dinosaur D-Day" indeed!

Eventually a whole team called the "Suicide Squadron" seemed to get tapped to go on these dinosaur missions. They were different guys at first, often with some personal issue which explained why they were in such an extreme outfit to begin with. 

A great white ape in the tradition of King Kong made a few appearances, always friendly and looking to help the humans survive the deadly dinosaurs. 

The dinosaurs were not always limited to being on some mysterious island and would show up in snowy climates as well. Usually they were shown to have been defrosted for somel reason. 

Perhaps the most disturbing team sent on missions to battle these dinosaurs was Morgan and Mace. They were a duo chained together by the tragic death of Morgan's brother who blamed Mace for his death. Mace is constantly accused of cowardice by Morgan who will often hold a forty-five automatic to his head in order to make him follow orders. Mace gives Morgan no reason to doubt him, but Morgan persists and comes across as quite insane. 

"Baby Dino" is added to a few stories in which the little dinosaur imprints on Mace and comes to his rescue a few times. Later a cave boy will show up. It indicated that the premise of the series was getting strained. 

The dinosaurs get weirder as the series rolls along and their motivations are inexplicable. Submarines are a regular target because I guess they offered a nice bit scale for the artists to use. 

Russ Heath steps in to relive Andru and Esposito for a single issue. I'm a fan of Heath but he's not at his best drawing dinosaurs. 

Gene Colan shows up to draw a few stories from time to time, though his are a bit shorter than the usual. It might be an indication that the series was losing steam as a cover feature. 

The war master Joe Kubert stepped in to draw an issue and it's a delightful entry with lots of emotion and power. The dinosaur in this one might be a delusion, a nifty play on the regular story. 

Kubert also drew the issue above, though it's not quite a powerful as the one before. 

The regular art team is back for the last issue in this Showcase volume which has some stalwart divers face off against an enormous undersea dinosaur. 

Alas there was never a second volume in this Showcase Presents series, but for your enjoyment and mine here are the covers of the remaining issues of SSWS which cover-featured the "The War the Time Forgot". 

The series was replaced by the magnificent Enemy Ace. I'd be hard pressed to remember a more abrupt change of pace on a series. From the outlandish misadventures of startled soldiers confronting deadly dinosaurs to the highly cerebral character driven tales of the Enemy Ace. And Bob Kanigher wrote them both. Magnificent! 

The War that Time Forgot was revived by writer Bruce Jones as a limited series in 2007. I well remember being attracted to this series at the time, lured in by the spectacular Neal Adams cover the debut issue, but I was ending my new comic book collecting for the most part back then and I let it go. But I always wanted to read it but alas it's only ever been collected in two rather slim volumes and the price is not necessarily nice. But thanks to online sources I got them somewhat cheaper than cover and gave them a read. Sadly as with most modern comics it didn't take all that long. The artwork for the first eight issues is by the team of Al Barrionuevo and Jimmy Palmiotti. The ninth is by Scott Kolins and the tenth and eleventh issues are by Graham Nolan and inker Dan Green. Barrionauevo returns for the finale with inks by Green. The art is solid but not spectacular. 

The premise is at once simple and complex. Warriors from across time are gathered together on a volcanic island teeming with all sorts of dinosaurs for reasons unknown to them. Being military folk they arrange themselves by rank and we end up with two forces at odds with one another. One group of more recent people on one side and on the other more ancient warriors. Among the time-lost characters are Enemy Ace, Golden Gladiator, Viking Prince, Firehair, G.I. Robot, and Tomahawk. There are others such as our main character Lt. Carson a U.S. pilot from just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. There is also a dame in a silver suit who seems to be from the future who is an enigma for much of the story. Personally I'd have loved to see more with the more famous characters but Jones I guess realized he could do little to advance their story arcs, so Carson and Vietnam vet called Jarhead and his wife Trang, along with a U.S. Iraq war pilot and a Japanese WWII ear pilot get much attention. A Colonel Jape proves to be as close to a villain as the series presents. There are lots of twists and turns, but in the final analysis I cannot recommend this one due to its prohibitive price for just too little story. 

There are some knockout covers as can be seen in the gallery below.  

(Neal Adams)

(Brian Bolland)

(Mark Schultz)

(Russ Heath)

(Walt Simonson)

(Mike Kaluta)

(Kevin Nowlan)

(Josh Middleton)

(Jose Ladronn)

(Justiniano)

(Jeff Darrow)

(Howard Porter)

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