Astro City MetroBook Two!

The second Astro City MetroBook has some of my all-time favorite stories from the esteemed series by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson, Alex Ross and company. The series has established itself by this time as one of the best in all the field all time and has found a home for the time being under the Homage brand at Image Comics. 

The first story introduces us to Looney Leo, a cartoon character who is brought to life through the machinations of a supervillain. Evoking memories of Tawky Tawny, Leo is a much gruffer character and has a range of misadventures as he tries to find a path of sorts through a real life which he has little or no preparation for. I'm reminded of Fatty Arbuckle among other infamous characters from entertainment. 

And then we are treated to one of the all-time best stories in Astro City lore, the saga of the down and out Steeljack. Steeljack is an ex-con, formerly known as "The Steel-Jacketed Man", he's grown weary of a life of crime and is merely trying to find a way to get along. But this dour protagonist finds things quite difficult as he's forced time and again to mingle with old friends, most all of them hoods of some kind. When an unknown force is killing masked villains in the area, he gets pulled into becoming a de facto gumshoe, but as he tells time and again, he's not really cut out for it. As the story rumbles along for six issues we meet the discredited hero El Hombre and the whimsical and tragic villain Mock Turtle. This one has lots of twists and turns and we get to see the heroes from the other side for a change. 

One of the most fanciful stories is about a woman who writes comic book stories for the publisher Bulldog Comics. The editor is a blustery fellow full of positive thoughts who is able to talk talent into doing things they perhaps regret later. When a villain takes issue with how he's portrayed things get dangerous and more than a tad nasty. But that's nothing compared to what's coming. A great one. 

We switch from comics to television when the star of the show The Crimson Cougar wants a little taste of what it's like to be a real superhero. He regrets his decision pretty quickly and takes steps ultimately to remove himself from the limelight, with a little help from his friend. And that brings the first Astro City series to an end. But wait, it's not over yet by any means. 

Astro City converts now to a sequence of limited-series runs, the first is a five-issue run labeled "Local Heroes". This plays hob with the numbering but that's something for completists to worry about really. The first of these issues tells the tale which gives us a look at what it might like to visit Astro City for the first time and what it might take to live there full-time. Our guide is a doorman at a local hotel who welcomes the newcomers and reflects on his own days being fresh in town. 

We get a highly personal story in the second issue where we follow the memories of a older lady as she reflects on the past and her attempts to achieve all that life had to offer. She found success in a career and for a time a seeming romance with a freshly-minted superhero named Atomicus. But her efforts to unlock his secrets prove tragic. 

The third issue takes us outside Astro City to the small country town of Caplinville where we follow a teenager forced to spend the summer with her relatives. She's a big city girl and has a difficult time getting used to the slower pace of the rural community and then she finds even these folks have superheroes and secrets. The Roustabout is a fine addition to Astro City's cavalcade of heroes. 

We encounter the Blue Knight in this two-part story which focuses on an honest lawyer who gets trapped between doing his best for his mobster client and protecting himself and his family. His success in the courtroom surprisingly doesn't give him the security he desires and so the Blue Knight takes a hand. This closes the Local Heroes run. 

Echoes of the Silver Age resound as Supersonic is called out of retirement and back into duty to help save the city. This special issue focuses on a hero who knows he's lost a step or two but must still try and bring the opponent down. It's a battle not without cost, but also not without enlightenment. 

In a short story which nested among many others celebrating the bravery of first responders, we get a tale that has no superhero, just regular heroes. In the real world that's what we have. 

In Astro City - A Visitor's Guide we are treated to a small tale by Busiek and Anderosn of a woman who gets wrapped up inside a heinous villain who is just waiting his chance. She survives and even thrives after her brush with danger and even possible death. The rest of this charming comic are faux ads for various places in Astro City, a map of the city, a brief history, as well as a rousing roster of hero bios decorated with wonderful portraits by the likes of Carlos Pacheco, Jim Lee, Dave Gibbons, Jerry Ordway, Walt Simonson, Lee Weeks, Jackson Guice, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Howard Chaykin, Mike Golden, Darwyn Cooke among many others. Alex Ross paints a stunner of a cover for this one. 

And that's the second MetroBook. Look for the next overview in a few weeks. 

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Robot Monster!

"I must, but I cannot!" This is the desperate moan which erupts from the helmeted maw of "Ro-Man", the titular Robot Monster. If you've never seen Robot Monster (otherwise known as Monster from Mars) then you have been cheated out of experiencing one of the most exquisitely awful movies of the 20th Century. If you've never seen it in 3-D, then I have to say you've not seen it at all in its malignant glory. This movie was made for small money and shot mostly on location in the famous Bronson Canyon and partially demolished territory which would become Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. 

The story goes that the Earth has been invaded by shaggy aliens with space helmet heads. All of the people of the planet have been killed save for seven. Two we never meet, and they die quickly enough. But the other five are the center of the story. They are a family comprised of one father (John Mylong), one mother (Selena Royle), two daughters-one of marrying age (Pamela Paulson and Claudia Barret respectively) and one son (Geoffrey Moffat). The son is our protagonist and there are secrets about him which explain the story. A young man shows up and falls in love with the elder daughter and then it seems that the inhuman "Ro-Man" (George Barrows with John Brown's voice) also gets a whiff of interest this final fertile Earth dame. That is the dilemma he suffers under when ordered by his leader "The Great Guidance" (the same actors and the same ape-suit with a different helmet) To say more would ruin what few surprises are in this meager movie which runs just over an hour. 

One nifty detail for us comic book fans is that apparently the producers of this movie went out in 1953 and snatched up a bunch of weird comics to serve as a backdrop for the logo when the movie begins. For your convenience I've search for the titles, and you can find them in the little gallery below. 

One title, Strange Suspense Stories, was even altered and had the Robot Monster label slapped on it. The comics are from the Fawcett, Charlton and Dell companies. It might've been a more dangerous thing to feature comics so proudly in 1953 when the hobby was under attack by moralists across the globe. 

I owned a VHS copy of Robot Monster, but I have to say my recent purchase of the Robot Monster DVD has really opened my eyes to this project -- almost literally. The 3-D process is well presented here, and it even captures the practically unique item in that at one point the producers make use of a visual gimmick called "Retinal Distress" when they give us different images for each eye. It's a subliminal trick and this is the only movie of its era which did it, or so say the folks who did the commentary. 

Those folks also recommended Robot Monster Diaries, a book about the movie. It was pretty cheap and while it's a thin book, it must be remembered it discusses a very thin movie. Great wonky stuff. I recommend both the DVD and book for those who love great bad movies. If you can't wait and want to see it in 2-D, check out this link to the Internet Archive. 

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Space Monster Wangmagwi!

Space Monster Wangmagwi is a hoot! This 1967 Korean Kaiju flick was believed to be lost for many years, and then a copy turned up. It was screened a few times, but the rights owner never allowed for any type of distribution anywhere until just last year. This is the first Kaiju movie made in Korea and is glorious black and white. But if you think you can predict what's going to happen in this movie, I doubt it. 

Aliens drop Wangmagwi onto the planet Earth as part of their scheme to invade and take over the planet. He grows to mammoth proportions and proceeds to plod through Seoul. Given that this movie was in part a King Kong inspired effort it's not much of a surprise when he takes time to stop and literally pick up a chick. This lady was a bride who is bereft that his arrival has stopped the wedding, and he hangs onto her for most of the movie. Later a young boy named "Squirrel" gets onto and later into the Space Monster and begins to use his knife to bother it by cutting its eardrums and poking its nasal passages. It will come as no surprise that the boy and the woman are ultimately saved by a jet pilot (who just happens to be the girl's intended) as the monster is at last dispatched. While the monster is rampaging through the city, we meet other folks such as two fools who insist on gambling over the monster's behavior and a few rich folks who cannot seem to leave their good fortunes behind. A woman gives birth, and another guy literally takes a dump at the same, while the rampage is underway,

I first learned of this movie only a few weeks ago. The article said it was unavailable but then I discovered things had changed and it wasn't that expensive, so I took a tumble. The first time watching it was I was overly impressed by its strangeness, slow pace, and relative cheapness. 

Yongary, Monster from the Deep was made around this same time and is much smoother for all its oddness. But a second viewing an informative commentary helped me to appreciate better what I was seeing. I cannot recommend this one for everyone by any means. King Kong fans might be interested and diehard Kaiju fans for sure. But if you're not one of those, this one might be great to see online but not maybe buy. You can watch Space Monster Wangmagwi here. 

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The Naked Monster!

The Naked Monster (once called Attack of the B-Movie Monster) is one of those works prompted by fan adoration and nostalgia and consequently must be seen and judged on those terms...somewhat. I say that to say this, this is not a very good movie in most of the traditional ways that one might mean that statement. But it is a cavalcade of monster fan wonderment, filled to nigh overflowing with images from past movies and the actors who made them. The movie operates in an oddball fictional universe where most if not all of the monster and alien invasion movies you've ever seen are real and that the heroic folks who helped save the planet from these threats are all up and around in locations like Santa Mira and Winnerden Flats.

The movie's lead is the great Kenneth Tobey who was important in several movies such as It Came From Beneath the Sea, Strange Invaders, and The Thing from Another World. It is as "Colonel Patrick Hendry" from the latter movie he portrays in this movie. Alongside him from the same flick are Robert Cornthwaite and George Feeneman. The former in his role as Dr. Carrington and the latter as the narrator of the movie.

From The War of the Worlds we get Les Tremayne as "General Mann" and Ann Robinson as "Dr. Sylvia Van Buren".

From The Return of the Creature both John Agar as "Clete Ferguson" and Lori Nelson as "Helen Dobson" make a showing.

The Monster from Piedras Blancas is represented by two folks playing similar roles. The keeper of the lighthouse and his wife are played by John Harmon and Jean Carmen, though in this brief appearance they are husband and wife and not father and daughter. Harmon was the god-father of Wayne Berwick who was the son of Irvin Berwick who wrote and directed The Monster from Piedras Blancas.

From Beyond the Time Barrier appears as "Major Allison" portrayed by Robert Clarke.

From The Indestructible Man we get Robert Shayne (left above) as "Professor Bradshaw".

Paul Marco who famously played "Kelton the Cop" in several of Ed Wood's epics, most famously Plan 9 from Outer Space comes to a grisly end in this movie.

"Scream Queen" Brinke Stevens is the true star of the show along with Tobey and has probably the most screen time. A bunch of that time is making really bad puns (which I enjoyed mightily) and a teensy bit of it was presenting some totally gratuitous nudity. One scene simply says that her character takes a shower, a pointless (as far as the plot anyway) diversion, though I for one found it very entertaining. The Weird Tales above feature Stevens on the cover and has a story by her inside. This issue appears in the movie at one point.

Lots of other cameos are spread throughout by the likes of Forry Ackerman, Bob (The Gorilla Tracey) Burns, Gloria Talbot, and Lennea Quigley (who engages in some delightful gratuitous nudity of her own). This is a riot of images and characters in a movie made over a twenty year period on the ultra cheap.

The eponymous monster was at one time early in the production a stop-motion creation, but that was deemed unworkable when the project expanded to feature length and a stunningly miserable costume is substituted. It makes one pine for the subtle creations of Paul Blaisdell. Sadly many of the veteran cast members who donated their time to the projected died before it was completed. The producer and director Ted Newsome (who appears in the movie much as William Castle did many years ago) put the film together bit by bit over too many years. 

The movie is almost like a moving collage of monster-movie images lifted from too many different films to count, and blended with new footage with little success. This is a wannabe bad movie made badly at times, but it has a fondness for the genre at its heart which keeps it pumping along. I cannot in any way recommend this movie save to those steeped in the love of 50's monsters like me, because only someone with that affliction can truly appreciate this ramshackle bit of cinema.

This is a Dojo classic re-post.  

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