It also features a beautiful Gil Kane Atom issue with the usual slightly dull crime and espionage plots for the Tiny Titan. But author Gardner Fox is doing a terrible, corny tongue-in-cheek narration. I suspect this was a misguided attempt to mimic Stan Lee's voice- but it was characters such as Ben Grimm or Peter Parker who quipped about the absurdity of their adventures, so the device fails to amuse or entertain. Fox was far better when he drew upon his pulp background or his wealth of obscure historical and scientific facts.
It's a fond farewell to the venerable Adventure comics this month, as we plod towards the conclusion of the over-long Legion of Super-Villains arc. I was disappointed to discover that Variable Lad was the Academy trainee who sacrificed himself to destroy antique villain Cosmic King, if only because it means one less Legionnaire of alien appearance. I've hoped for while for a new member along the lines of Sden, from August 1977's "Creature Who Conned the Legion":
Markedly unlike today's photorealism, the cartoony style of Joe Staton was the dominant "look" at DC in the summer of '77, on the interior art of the JSA, the Metal Men and the New Doom Patrol. I think we can see these comics as bandwagonesque attempts to duplicate Marvel's Invaders, the satirical whackiness of Steve Gerber and the international heroes of the All-New X-Men
Meanwhile at Marvel itself, the Legion's Boy Wonder, Jim Shooter was at the helm for one of the Avengers' most confident and well-received periods.Keith Giffen was drawing a very strange arc for the Defenders (and that's saying something). Marvel was promoting the new Spider-Woman and I "adapted" the Dr. Bong story from Howard the Duck to perform at school the following January (when Logan's Run and Blake's Seven were on tv).
More Zodiac next time...
With wide-spread destructive and criminal behaviour in England's inner cities, I thank my lucky stars I abandoned any plans to see Tennant and Tate in Much Ado in London ,after I got my new specs prescription. I've spent the the last couple of rainy days watching The Masque of Mandragora on dvd. This last-gasp burst of Gothic Who was filmed in the Prisoner's Portmeirion. Imagine! Dr Who trying to make Wales look like Italy! Lat time I blogged about it, in the spring of 2009, I said it was handsome but lifeless, and the dialogue was "ripe". Well, anyway, it's a sumptuous production, which shows how fantastic the BBC was in the late 70s at creating period detail. And Tom and Lis are superb. I've started income tax satire The Sun Makers now, one of my favourites from 1977. I taped it off the tv, either at the time or on its repeat in August 1978, just after we came back from our caravan holiday in Lendalfoot, when school was back. Look at what was on the spinner racks then:
I hated that orange Wasp outfit. The LSH text page taught me about the Legion's White Witch and Mxyzptlk
The final issue of FOOM and the DC Implosion both feel like yesterday to me...Previously, I blogged about how I'd improve the Fifth and Sixth Doctors. It might seems surprising then that I haven't had the same enthusiasm for "curing" their successor. After all, Sylvester McCoy's regeneration was, for a long time, my least-favourite Doctor. The vivid colours and comic-strip adventures of his debut season were a calculated response to the cynicism and shock tactics of Season 22 and the interminable and confounding Trial of a Time Lord. However, in those bedsit days of the late 80s, I rapidly fell out of love with Doctor Who. Nowadays, I've found a lot to enjoy in the Seventh Doctor's era: the ditsurbing Rezzies; the melancholy at the heart of the fanciful 50s holiday camp musical Delta; the madness of Lady Peinforte (and the social workers joke); Ling Tai in Battlefield; Gwendoline's piano playing...So, in fact, compared to his immediate predecessors, the Seventh Doctor needs less repair work.
Obviously, the question-mark motif has to go, but the silhouette works well, evoking a later period than the Time Lord's traditional Victorian or Edwardian dress- it says Mack Sennett to me: silent movie clown. My eye was drawn to these publicity photos in last September's DWM and I think the colours are effective for a darker Doctor (and I like the Van Gogh tie!):
However, it's hard to beat the simplicity of the TV Movie costume and the autumnal colours are appealing.
So, next on "How To Look Good in the Time Vortex", let's see the Three Doctors makeover:
Doctor Seven grew on me through the mid-90s when he was the manipulative protagonist of the Virgin New Adventures range. Before Who returned to tv so spectacularly, a number of new companions were introduced to replace Sophie Aldred's Ace: the Judge Dredd-style Adjudicators Chris and Roz (depicted in print, on one occasion, by Russell T. Davies); androids Cat Broome and Antimony; and on audio, Thomas "Hex" Schofield.
I still haven't quite warmed to Seven's new audio companion, Raine Creevy. That long-ago DWM article on the abandoned Season 27 made the stories seem exotic and exciting (of course, those were the days when Billie Piper's Rose Tyler was undreamed of). Unfortunately, they've been a little lacklustre as audios.
I still don't think McCoy sounds as if he's worked on the scripts before the performance but he's developed a menacing growl that contrasts well with the lighter tones of his companions. The final Lost Story, Earth Aid, is a slow-moving Star Trek parody, where the central conceit is Ace's imposture as a starship captain. Co-written by Andrew Cartmel and Ben Aaronovitch, I expected more drama and fewer comedy aliens. Paterson Joseph, once rumoured as the Eleventh Doctor, sings a maddening sea shanty which irritated the Hell out of me. I did like the internal continuity of this story but Raine gets little to do while Ace is still around (other than being locked in a safe, as an amusing reference to her first adventure, Crime of the Century.) She also sounds very much like Bonnie Langford. At present, tv's Lady Christina was a far more interesting and appealing version of the Posh Crook companion. Still, I hope to hear more of Raine's dad, Eastenders' Ricky Groves.
Coming Soon: Set the Cosmic Treadmill for Englehart's Avengers; more Conan; and The Tides of Time.
The Legal Bit: all images are presumed copyright of their respective owners.
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