The Animated Spider-Man Season Two!

It's definitely a change, but I have to say I prefer this second season to the first. The stories were slightly more complex and had a vaguely more adult feel to them. This is especially so of the origin story in the first two episodes of season two. The art on those was pretty good and the story very much like a Spidey comic. I love the backgrounds in this series, the colors are vibrant and intoxicating often making up for admittedly lackluster animation.

Now after that beginning things get strange. But knowing that fantasy masters like Lin Carter on the writing and Gray Morrow on the art design are at the helm I can't be surprised all that much that Spidey spent most of the season out of the city and in some vague jungle/alien setting up to his webs in plants and weird bat-things. One thing I noticed was that many of the stories really threw curveballs, in that Spidey would begin his adventure normally enough with crime and thugs but then there would be a shift and he'd find himself in the future, underground, or on a bizarre island somewhere.

I consider these adventures to be similar to the kinds of adventures that Spidey would have in Marvel Team-Up in which he'd often venture into territories radically different from the classic big city crime story he's rooted in. The MTU Spidey would travel in time, go into space, venture into lost worlds and do all manner of things bizarre by his standards. This second season had that kind of feel to it.

Here a dozen things I learned watching this second season of Spider-Man:

1. The sky is often green and always always dramatic as if a storm is about to erupt.

2. Purple gorillas are seen by the criminal set as effective disguises for some reason. Maybe it's a DC thing.

3. Spidey can pilot experimental jetplanes and has ready access to them on a whim, and no one misses them when they fly away.

4. Mole Men are ridiculously stupid, getting duped by the same criminal in two episodes. And they like to gong a lot.

5. Giant doors are common in many alien landscapes, as if Kong himself were on the other side.

6. Spidey loves to swing and swing and swing and swing and swing though the city, often attaching his webline to no discernable object.

7. Villains are most often green, the sure sign of villainy in the Bakshiverse.

8. Peter Parker plays baseball.

9. Parker sure hangs out with a lot of different girls, but I'm guessing he's not a FWB (Friend with Benefits), accounting for that gloomy puss he wears most of the time.

10. Manhattan is a remarkably sturdy cityscape and can survive mutltiple sinkings of various buildings and even detaching from the earth and flying into the sky.

11. Martians look amazingly like ancient gods of Norse and Greco-Roman mythology.

12. The power of flight is achieved by putting a blender on your head.


Ralph Bakshi produced a wacky cartoon, that's so bizarre that I wouldn't mind watching it again in a few years. The stories are at once patterned and unpredicatable. Spidey seems mostly trusted by the police, even admired by them save for the last episode when inexplicably he's seen as a baddie and a threat. The villains are cackling madmen, but intreresting looking by and large.

Things happen in the Bakshiverse that require no explanation, they just are. And in the context of these stories, I can accept that. You might even dub this season of Spidey stories his "Weird Adventures" and be very close to capturing the feeling they have.

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My Favorite Comic Covers -- Codename: Danger!

I've always adored this cover image by Rick Buckler and Bob Mcleod! It's got that neat hard edge that Buckler could be so good at when he was in his own style, a subtle blend of Neal Adams and John Buscema. The story underneath this one is pretty decent too, offering a Mission Impossible-like scenario with the hero Paul Makor a tough-as-nails operative who gets particular talent for particular missions.

This book was to be part of David Singer's comics empire alongside the luscious The Futurians by Dave Cockrum and the revived Thunder Agents, but all that tumbled apart for a host of legal reasons it seems. There are three more issues of Codename:Danger but they have a more superheroic flavor to them, and I never got them. This is the only issue featuring the work of Buckler. And this is one fantastic cover, my favorite ever by Buckler and that's saying something.

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Very Strange Invaders!

I remember this one from the theaters. I have a VHS copy of it somewhere but it's been years and years since I watched Strange Invaders. The movie is one I fondly remember, so when I found it in a discount bin on dvd I snapped it up.

But alas my memories are more kind than my review. The movie has a charm to it, but I have to say it's difficult to watch a movie where the dialogue is difficult to pick out because of the sound quality, and that's the original recording as far as I can tell. They must've done quite a bit of the sound on set, and sadly it shows.

The story is a clever one, or at the least the initial notion is. A group of aliens appear in the 1950's above a small Illinois town and take over. We cut forward to the 80's and we find a professor of entymology becomes embroiled in a mystery involving his ex-wife and his daughter. It turns out his ex-wife is one of the aliens sent to learn about human life and now the aliens are leaving and they want everyone to go even the little girl, the progeny of alien and human. There's a lot more in this like the usual government cover-up, blistering blue balls of light, ghost dogs, and whatnot, but all these clever bits don't really blend neatly.

The story just doesn't fall together. There is a curious sidestory about a man who goes on vacation with his family in the blighted town and loses his wife and kids and finds himself labeled years later a madman. It's his struggle that really gives the story some heart but sadly his tale doesn't fit in until the flick is half over.

Maybe it's the acting, which comes off as insincere, but something kept me outside the flow of this movie. As much as I liked see Kenneth Tobey in a smallish role as the top alien the movie is lethargic. It's got some neat scenes like when the professor is in a diner with a bunch of aliens who ignore him or when the aliens come to NYC to get the girl. Their out-of-time goofiness gives a creepiness to it all, but in the final analysis I just didn't care about the characters enough to invest in the overal expeience.

I give this a mild recommendation for the curious.

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The Animated Spider-Man Season One!

I finished up the first season of the 1960's Spider-Man TV show. It's a hoot. This cartoon, along with the Hanna-Barbera Fantastic Four and the Marvel Superheroes in syndication were my window into the Marvel Universe and the comics in general. I have great fondness for them, despite not having seen most of them for decades.

The first season of Spidey is a pretty formlaic affair. There are plenty of baddies from the comics series. There was Dr.Octopus, Elektro, Sandman, Mysterio, Lizard, Vulture (called Vulture-Man for several episodes), Rhino, Scorpion, Green Goblin and a few others. Notably missing was Chameleon though there was a make-up villain named "Charles Cameo" in a few episodes. Most of the villains got two episodes with a few getting into three. The most fun in that category for me though were the "new" guys they invented. Dr.Noah Boddy ("Nobody" get it) an invisible guy, The Human Fly twins (named "Stan" and "Lee"), some guy named The Phantom, and my personal fave Parafino proprietor of a wax museum and fabulous baddie. Also I assume that the Aussie hunter named "Clivendon" is a stand-in for Kraven the Hunter. This change along with the Chameleon one I don't get, as they originals are perfectly fine characters.

The other side of the coin was pretty thin. Betty Brant starts out as a pretty good character, but as the episodes roll on she becomes a cypher, merely a friend of Peter Parker's who stands up for him with J. Jonah Jameson. JJJ is in just about every episode and frankly it gets a bit tiresome, as way too many plots revolve around the Daily Bugle or its publisher in some way. JJJ seems to be the mayor of NYC the way the act in this cartoon. Aunt May shows up maybe once or twice at most, though we do see the Parker home many times.

The stories are pretty simple affairs. Spidey becomes aware of a threat usually by chance, intervenes and encounters the villain, we get the title of the episode, then Spidey loses the initial conflict. After that he goes to see Jameson for some reason or other, then fights the baddie again and usually loses. Then in the last battle he wins, typically by throwing webbing over them, a scheme that often doesn't work earlier in the story.

Here are a dozen things I learned watching this cartoon:

1. The streets of NYC are largely deserted save for a few villains, their victims, and at most five cops at any given time. Cop cars show up in threes and most of the cops are of Irish extraction.

2. The Rhino looks hilarious when he runs, picks the lamest hideouts, and his motivations for his crimes are ludicrous. A golden statue? Really!

3. The Green Goblin is a really little guy and wants to master real actual magic for some reason despite his many gimmicks of science.

4. The pictures in the Daily Bugle are not hung all that well and constantly shift when doors are slammed, or maybe that only applies to those featuring Jameson's mug.

5. Spidey's webbing has some really curious properties such as functioning as small motors for no discernable reason. He makes fans and propellers and all sorts of things. I love that he whips up special webbing on a whim.

6. The police really trust Spidey, but I can't really tell why. Maybe that's why he seems to know all sorts of classified stuff he really shouldn't know.

7. NYC has a Conservatory of MOD Music.

8. Dr.Connors has two arms on TV all the time.

9. Spidey spends quite a bit of time at the docks and more time in and around the water than I'd have expected. As a consequence he fights way too many gators.

10. Giant robots like to eat cars and appear for no reason in the middle of the city.

11. Pluto is inhabited by ice men, perhaps they are time-lost members of Martinex's race.

12. It always bugged me as a kid wondering where exactly Spidey's weblines were attached as he swung through the city, and after watching the full first season, I don't have any more idea about it than I did then.

As always in these stories, if the villains just used their intellects for good they'd make a lot more money than they do with crime. The Phantom could use his shrinking machine to revoltutionize shipping for instance.

The first season was fun, but after the thrill of seeing Spidey actually swinging across the city it gets a bit weak. I love the few shots we get now and again of actual comic art, especially the few images of Ditko Spideys.

Good fun. Next up is Season Two!

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Who Is... Starhawk?

Back in the 60's Marvel used Marvel Super-Heroes (formerly Fantasy Masterpieces) as a Showcase-style tryout book. New characters like Phantom Eagle and The Guardians of the Galaxy debuted in those pages, and others like Ka-Zar and Medusa were given solo stories to test the waters. But it all ended abruptly with a new Doc Doom story in issue #20, but not before a one page ad heralded the coming of a new hero by the name of "Starhawk". This was a new sci-fi hero by Roy Thomas and Dan Adkins. The ad showed promise but the title turned to reprints of The Avengers and The X-Men and Starhawk alas never appeared.


Until several years later when the cover art graced the issue #3 of Marvelmania Magazine.


Later the pages already produced by Thomas and Adkins were published in Marvelmania Magazine #6 under an unrelated Neal Adams cover.


The story is incomplete, literally a cliffhanger, but I for one was exceedingly happy after nearly forty years to at long last get a closer look at the hero who ignited my imagination so long before. Here are those pages.








Here are some other Starhawk images from The Comic Buyer's Guide where some Adkins art was adapted and a new image of Starhawk was produced by a fan artist named Bob Conway.



These are fun images.


The "Mandroid" name was dusted off and used again in an issue of Captain Marvel, ironically enough an issue written by Roy Thomas and inked by Dan Adkins.


And believe it or not, the "Mandroid" name gets used yet again by Roy in an issue of The Avengers during the famous Kree-Skrull War. This time the Mandroids are SHIELD agents in armor. I've lost track of such things, but it's possible these "Mandroids" are still extant in the Marvel Universe.


The name "Starhawk" of course was revived and given to a totally new character who hooked up with The Guardians of the Galaxy (who as noted debuted in Marvel Super-Heroes) and is still around as far as I know.

So alas the original Starhawk is lost to ages, but some remember.

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The Reason For The Season!

Have a safe Christmas Day! I have to travel, but with only some wind and rain to worry about, I'll count my blessings when I see what the folks in the Midwest are struggling with today.

We open our presents on Christmas Eve and it was a great time. It seems my family always has a great Christmas when the money is a little tight. We have replace mere commerce with more imagination, planning, and caring making for some wonderful presents. This year was one of the best Christmas Eves ever!

I hope your Christmas is wonderful too.

Merry Christmas!

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The Night Before Christmas!

’T WAS the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.


Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.


And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.


He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night.”
--Clement Clarke Moore



Have a Merry Christmas!

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