Chernobyl!

My daughters demanded that I sit my ass down and watch the mini-series Chernobyl. For some reason I don't really understand I was mildly reluctant, but finally they got me to do it. God almighty what did we almost do!

The saga is one of simple human failings, both on a large scale and a tiny one. Arrogance, ignorance, fear, and even love cause disease and destruction and death. When a few craven men decide to toy with the machinery of an atomic reactor for short-term gain they unleash an atomic monster with a blazing eye that man dare not stare into, because to behold the monster is to die. It remains to stalwart people to step into the breach and give themselves up to forestall the menace, if not end it. The story focuses mostly but not exclusively on three people, two physicists and one bureaucrat who must find a way to combat the monster.

I of course knew about the disaster at Chernobyl or thought that I did, but I did not know that the end of civilization as we know was nigh when the monster erupted sending emissaries of death on the winds and at the same time began to seek out the very center of the planet. I'd seen a few television shows here and there in more recent times and had some sense of how dangerous the place still was and will continue to be. But watching the story of men and women who willingly went to confront the monster knowing that death was soon to touch them on the shoulder for their courage, I was humbled.

There are five episodes of this series and if I'd have had my way, there might have been just four. But a desire to create an emotional connection to what all too often is just a rational judgment might have been worth the few more minutes, some of which were just delivering the serene quiet of the world when man is no longer admitted. The story of Chernobyl is a story of the utter ruthlessness and inane stupidity of bureaucracy but at the same time shows that same system rising up with good and true leadership to get things done that need doing.  It ain't the chain of command that's the problem in most cases, it's rotten links that nestle along that chain which make an unreliable problem solver.

If you want to stare into the abyss, watch Chernobyl. It's all still out there.

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The Rainbow Phantom!

This made me smile. The Phantom remains among the sturdiest heroes across the globe, in whatever color your prefer.

Here's the purple Phantom I grew up with and know -- purple tights and those outrageous strip shorts. This is the primary Phantom as far as I can tell.

Here is the red Phantom from Italy. For whatever reason he was given a red costume in that region and it stuck. He's sure easy to see.

In Sweden The Ghost Who Walks is blue. Maybe it's because it so much colder up there, but still the Phantom is, still the concept holds.

And here's the original Phantom, the grey Phantom, which was the intended color by Falk. It was changed to make the hero pop off the page a bit more I suspect. But I like the idea of this Phantom, it's very...well..."Phantomy".

UPDATE: It's confirmed (by the artist himself) that the Phantom cover above by Reno Maniquis is an homage to the vintage Detective Comics #241. Thanks Reno for brightening our day.

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When Wheels Were Hot!

Hot Wheels were awesome! Little cars, each hard die-cast beauty performing as a talisman to evoke a full-size car which was beyond the reach of the kid who cherished it. Driving, having the freedom of the car is crucial in some areas of the United States and is a powerful marker on the road to adulthood.

The toy car, either Hot Wheels or Matchbox or some other provided a device to dream about that delightful day of freedom and power.

And once upon a time there were car comics, performing the same function arguably and briefly DC Comics tried to bring the magic of Hot Wheels onto the newsstands with a comic produced by some of the best talent in the DC pen -- Alex Toth and Neal Adams to name two. But DC reached beyond its usual stable to grab Joe Gill, the ace script man at Charlton and veteran of many a car comic tale to write most of these stories before Len Wein too the reins in the final few issues. Doubtless Gill was there because he came with  Dick Giordano when the latter shifted over to DC after his relative success with the "Action Heroes". But while Giordano and others like Jim Aparo stayed, Gill and artist Pat Boyette eventually returned to the friendly climes of Derby.  The comic was produced in conjunction with a cartoon show, but neither found long term success. These stories need collecting -- but so much does.

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Beasts Of The Wood!

I'm a sucker for the work of the late great Wally Wood (born on this day in 1927), and I've long wanted to snag Vanguard's Jungle Adventures. Alas the only version I ever ran across was the hard cover edition and I couldn't justify the cost since many of stories are nestled in my collection in some form already. But I recently found the softcover version for small money and brought it home. Aside from the misadventures of white hunter Jim King (another name for the rights protected Jungle Jim) there are several stories from Wood's earliest days with the likes of Dorothy Lamour and such having jungle escapades.

But the clear mainstay of this collection is Animan, one of Wood's ground-level independent creations for Witzend, who in the splash page above from his second and last appearance screams Wolverine. Animan is not a human being, but something other, a concoction of the jungle imbued with human desires (hence the kidnapping of the obligatory dame in the yarn) but also gifted with senses and abilities beyond the ken of men. To see him in all his glory check out this link. Animan had apparently been rustling around in Wood's mind for a bit as he'd had a fascinating previous attempt at the concept in other quarters.

It was in the pages of Daredevil, the Marvel Comic Wood rescued from oblivion when he cooked up the amazing red costume and brought to the comic a noir sensibility which added spice to a book which was all too consumed with being Spidey on the half-shell. It was this noir feel that Frank Miller mined so effectively some years later to elevate the hero even further.

What did Wood do in DD, he gave us the Ani-Men. They were Cat-Man, Ape-Man, Bird-Man and Frog-Man, four felons from the teeming horde of Marvel's criminals who were given suits and potions to make them even more effective evil-doers. (I miss villains who only wanted to steal jewels and money and such, and not destroy large segments of the universe.) There's something elegantly simple about the Ani-Men and for all the hokey touches I really looked forward to their appearances. But they never looked as good as they did when Wally Wood was in charge.

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Do You Know Where Your Car Is?

One has to wonder how a movie like Repo Man comes to be. Suddenly in the middle of the 80's this stinging critique of then modern culture drops into theaters with little fanfare, but it quickly made its mark and became one of the most memorable films of its genre. But the question then is -- what is the genre? We have elements of science fiction, crime story, teenage drama and political thriller all jammed into the trunk of a flick which demands attention.

The "hero" of the yarn is Otto (Emilio Estevez) , a disaffected youngster groping for some direction and meaning in a world which appears to be largely barren of such things. His parents are zombies of TV land and his friends are not that at all, but just self-serving hormone addled creatures like himself. He falls in with a veteran "Repo Man" (Harry Dean Stanton) and finds a trade which gives him some direction and some ready cash. His old friends, a trio of teenage miscreants tumble through the movie "doing crimes" of increasing intensity and all the while the entire world seems to be on the lookout for a particular Ford Malibu carrying glowing death and more in its spacious trunk.

One of the more memorable details of the movie is the celebration of the "generic", at the time a relatively new concept which allowed stores to offer goods at a discounted price forgoing fancy packaging. While generics are hardly that anymore and have become a linchpin of the economy, at this time the idea was still unusual enough that a store filled with such items lingered in the mind. As will the music which is supplied by Iggy Pop and the Circle Jerks (who actually show up in the movie).

If the movie has a message I don't really understand it, unless somehow it's that we are more than the details of our daily lives might makes us seem. That we can rise above our base concerns about money, sex, and politics and strive for something more noble. But having said that, I realize such notions are beyond this film which doesn't want to preach, but show.

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The Strange Adventure Of Allan Gray!

1932's Vampyr by Carl Dreyer might seem at first to be a movie leaping onto the back of the success of Universal's Dracula from the previous year. But it seems Vampyr was in production before that famous Bela Lugosi vehicle hit. And besides that, the audience for Dracula might well also in many cases be the one for Vampyr, but the movies are quite different.

Dracula is a straightforward narrative using the multi-act construction of a play based on Bram Stoker's novel. Vampyr is derived from a collection of short stories by Sheridan Le Fanu and for its part often scoffs at linear storytelling, or least I got lost a lot. I first saw this movie decades ago on VHS when the market for such things was just opening and Public Domain material was coming onto the shelves at affordable prices. At a time when a VHS copy of Forbidden Planet was garnering around fifty bucks, getting a movie like Vampyr for three or so was a real bargain. Alas my copy had issues and I was not able to watch the movie through and despite some meager effort never found another.

The story invites us along on the adventure of one Allan Gray, a naive chap who just happens I guess to look like a young H.P. Lovecraft as he comes across a small village and stumbles onto a curse which afflicts it. There's a girl of course, but there's also a vampire and a vampire's assistant. At one point in this story Gray has a dream about being buried alive and in another he is able to step away from his physical body and wander around ghost like, not at all dissimilar to the gimmick Doctor Strange has used for decades. Maybe the creepiest gimmick in the movie is when shadows depart from the bodies that cast them and do all sorts of dangerous things.

I'll say no more about the story because that would ruin it and there's precious little plot to discuss. But the atmosphere of this movie, shot entirely on location and using a cast almost completely made up of amateurs is compelling despite the flaws in the version I obtained from Sinister Cinema.

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The Death Of Sensation!

What utterly bizarre movie is the Russian flick The Death of Sensation or otherwise called The Robots of Ripley. It speaks of the creation of a "horde" of robots for the purpose of replacing men in dangerous and monotonous jobs. Their creator Ripley seems to be a man moved by a true desire to help people but who by creating these metal tireless and uncomplaining workers has actually handed a bludgeon for the factory owners and military to use to oppress the workers. It's the classic struggle between capitalist and worker, and since this is a Soviet film you can likely guess how it ends.

The only movie I can think to compare this one to is Metropolis, though this film appears to have somehwat smaller ambitions. This is the story of one man who wishes to help his fellows but fails largely due to the corrupt nature of the society in which he lives. His creations are mighty robots, ten feet tall at leas and while less elegant than the lovely robot from Fritz Lang's masterpiece are still quite compelling. One detail is that the robots are controlled by sound and their creator uses a saxophone to get them to do his bidding whether that's work on dangerous welding assembly lines or in a drunken moment getting them to dance with him.

The Sinister Cinema DVD supplies no subtitles and but does give some notes periodically to help the viewer stay in tune with the plot such as it is. There are some fascinating and compelling visuals in this film. Here's a link and it's where I learned most of what I have about the flick. And here is a link to the Wikipedia page I discovered with assistance which indicates the source of this movie is a novel called "The Iron Riot". Below is a Youtube version of the film with subtitles.


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