When Robots Ruled The Earth!

I finally finished a trade I've had sitting on the shelf for many moons, Magnus Robot Fighter Archives Volume 1. It collects the first seven Gold Key Magnus Robot Fighter comics from 1963 to 1964.

On the off chance you don't know the premise, Magnus is a flipside creation by Russ Manning, the late great artist best known for his work on Edgar Rice Burrough's Tarzan of the Apes. Manning pitched the idea of a superhero who was a Tarzan in reverse, instead of a man raised by apes who battled for truth and justice in society based on his own specific worldview, this Magnus was a man raised in the future of 4000 A.D. by a friendly robot to battle rogue robots who menace mankind who has become too dependent upon its own metal creations.


Russ Manning
The series begins with a bang as an unknown Magnus is dropped literally into the society of North Am and battles a rogue robot named H8 ("Hate") who has stolen humans to use their pooled mental might to overpower the greater society and elevate the status of robots.


Russ Manning
Then Magnus opposes Mekman, a crazed human who imagines himself to be a robot and who deploys a Magnus lookalike to create havoc in the society at large.


Russ Manning
Next is a gigantic robot from outer space sent by persistant foe Xyrkol, a human who seeks power over the Earth.


George Wilson
In the undersea realm where North Am's food supply comes from, Magnus finds a rogue brain robot who wants to undermine the sources of nutrition and bring humanity to its knees.


Russ Manning
Then there's the threat of a the immortal robot, who keeps rising from its own destruction. This turns out to be another threat from Xyrkol.


Russ Manning
Under the Earth, a robot named Talpa seeks power and Magnus must battle both robots and aggressive insect "Troglodytes" to keep mankind safe.


George Wilson
Finally Xyrkol pops up a third time and it takes the combined mental power of Magnus, his girlfriend Leeja and the minds of hundreds of humans formerly held captive by H8 to defeat the foe on a distant planet.

So as you can tell, the adventures of Magnus sprawl across a world well realized by artist and writer Russ Manning. He is helped on several issues by writers Robert Schaefer and Eric Friewald. A premise like that of Magnus, might seem repetitive, but they change up the settings and the threats nicely and keep it very fresh. The world of North Am proves sufficiently complex to support dozens of solid stories.

My personal favorite battle in this collection is the conflict against the giant robot from space, as it offers Manning some great opportunities for spectacular imagery.

I don't know if Dark Horse will get around to offering up any more archives in trade form, but I hope they do. I'll sure be around to pick them up.

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Weird Worlds!

I've always liked this Joe Kubert cover. It's easily the best this short-lived Weird Worlds magazine featured.

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Just Say No!

If I have to choose one James Bond movie, (and no one says I do by the way) I'd have to give the nod to Dr.No, the debut James Bond movie as my favorite in the series. Goldfinger (the best complete Bond movie) and From Russia With Love (the best Bond story) are outstanding, but it's this first glimpse of 007 which still gets my complete and full attention each and every time it shows up on television. I never seem to get tired of watching it.


In this story Sean Connery's Bond is still a man who can be hurt, a man who makes mistakes with regrettable and tragic consequences. This is the Bond movie with him at his most human and vunerable, traits which disappear with each succeeding film. Bond, the super agent is fun to watch still, but the emotional connection is broken when you know that he can never be hurt that the people around him might, but he'll certainly wreak his vengeance.


In Dr.No this doesn't really track. Bond is a sleuth, though admittedly a clumsy one and his partnership with Quarrel (John Kitzmiller) remains my favorite after all these years. In just a few scenes together, we get to care about these two men and the rugged and knowing kinship they share.

Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder is naive and beautiful and just enough of an airhead to keep you wincing, but not enough to quite make you dismiss her.


Joseph Wiseman as the titular villain damn near steals this show. He has just enough over-the-top nonsense to make him memorable, but still it's connected to a cold yet seething performance. He's got a lot of hate bottled up, and he doesn't rant like so many of his successors will do in years to come.


This is a damn good movie that builds to its climax with steady beats as the mystery of Crab Key unfolds. Since it's all new, we are properly surprised Jack Lord turns out to be the CIA's Felix Leiter, and we are a bit stunned by the cold-blooded assassination of No's henchman Professor Dent.

If the story requires that Dr.No's laboratory have some of the weakest security imaginable, it's okay, because the wrap up is so sweet.


The novel is substantially different from the movie, with Dr.No a more peculiar creature. If you've never read the original by Fleming, then you're in for a treat. It's got plenty to remind you of the film adaption, but enough different to keep it a fresh read.


Other Bond movies will get this detail or that detail better, but none of them capture the whole as well as this first did.

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Death Of An Invader!

Dave Hoover, a relatively young man has sadly passed away earlier this month. I remember Hoover almost exclusively from one Marvel project, his work on a four-issue revival of The Invaders.

The Invaders was a comic I dreamed about before it actually debuted back in the Bronze Age. After reading some of the vintage Golden Age reprints from Mighty Marvel, I thought new adventures of Cap, Subby, and Torch were a natural. Roy Thomas and Frank Robbins did too, and The Invaders were born, a revised look at Marvel's WWII years.

The series was cancelled alas, but it was with great glee I discovered the revival in the 90's under the pen of Roy Thomas and the artwork of Dave Hoover, who did a good job of balancing a classic comic book look with the then trendy Image approach to comics.

Hoover was a storyteller in a time when such skills were being eclipsed by artwork more about bombast than narrative. He straddled these two trends nicely, giving classic characters their due.

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When Sphinxes Go Bad!

Murphy Anderson
The great Sphinx is the utter and complete symbol of ancient mystery. But while the real Sphinx might be merely inscrutable, the Sphinxes of the comics can be downright disagreeable.


Gil Kane
There's the Sphinx of the Moon which made life quite difficult for some Earth astronauts. Both in this lovely cover by Gil Kane and the gorgeous wash by Murphy Anderson up top, the Sphinx is utter destruction for these brave men.


Jack Kirby & Steve Ditko
On Earth, the mighty robotic Sphinx named "Shagg" rose up and created no end of havoc thanks to the magic of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.


Jack Kirby
For more on his escapades see this monstrous link.


Ross Andru & Romeo Tanghal
And Sphinxes took part in the weirdest of wars too it seems.


Jack Abel & Al Milgrom
The Incredible Hulk battled a Sphinx animated by alien Horusians and its partner named Colossus to boot. Of course the Hulk defeated these "Godspawn".


Herb Trimpe & John Severin
Here's a link with the "Hulkerific" details.


Jack Kirby & Paul Reinman
The Sphinx became a symbol of evil from across time when Rama-Tut used it.


Carlos Pacheco & Jesus Merino
Soon to become Kang the Conqueror, he used the Sphinx as a disguise for his time-traveling machinery. One wacky but intriguing theory suggests Shagg is this very time machine run amok.


Rich Buckler & Frank Giacoia
And out of ancient Egypt, the name of the Sphinx was used by an evil sorcerer Anath-Na Mut who lived down through the ages thanks to the mysterious Ka Stone, and eventually came to battle Nova and the Fantastic Four.


Dave Cockrum, Keith Pollard & Joe Sinnott
Later a woman named Meryet Karim saps some of the Ka Stone energy and becomes another version of the Sphinx to battle the New Warriors.


Mark Bagley & Larry Mahlstedt
So as you can see, the Sphinx in comics is a problematic beast at best.



Update: Here are another couple of Sphinxes-gone-wild I found. Sheesh!

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The Big Book Of Adventure Stories!

Rafael DeSoto
I might've bought the last book I'll need for a while yesterday. The Big Book of Adventure Stories from Random House's Black Lizard label is a big ass book (874 very large pages) filled with some very intriguing stories from a rather broad spectrum of sources and writers.

The classics are well represented with stories by H.G.Wells, Rudyard Kipling, O.Henry, and Jack London. There's high adventure stories by Talbot Mundy, H. Rider Haggard, and Harold Lamb. There's sweet science fiction by Ray Cummings, Damon Knight, and Phillip Nowlan. There are westerns by Louis L'Amour and Johnston McCauley. And there's sword and/or sorcery by Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Fritz Leiber. There's pulpy shorts by Sax Rohmer, Lester Dent, and Cornell Woolrich. There's even a bit of a spoof by Phillip Jose Farmer. These are names to conjur with and there's a bunch more in this giant paperback tome.

The entire Edgar Rice Burrough's novel Tarzan the Terrible is included. We get Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Conan the Barbarian, Zorro, Buck Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, and even King Kong.

This is big entertainment. I'm most eager to read Ray Cummings' "The Girl from the Golden Atom", a seminal science fiction adventure. But Phillip Farmer's King Kong postscript tale is also high on the list. Richard Connell's classic "The Most Dangerous Game" is a story I'm currently teaching at school, and it's here too. There's a lot to choose from.

I like the heft of this book, and I love the look of the pages. I recommend it.

Here's a gallery of covers for some of the stories in this massive collection.











And finally the cover art for this volume by Rafael DeSoto comes from this 1961 issue of Adventure.


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Get Off My Yard!

I didn't feel particularly old when all the hubbub about the 50th anniversary of Marvel's Fantastic Four erupted over the course of this past year. That's fine, it seems long enough ago. It has historical oomph.

But when I stumbled across this today, I felt old...very old.

X-Men - 20th Anniversary #1!


This book should not be twenty years old. That's not right. I reject this information.

Sigh.


On a more solicitous note, if you want to truly celebrate the anniversary of the Fab 4, then I heartily recommend Maximum Fantastic Four a spectacular deconstruction of the original comic book (with Marvel's blessings). Here's a peek.

Maximum Fantastic Four

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