Shelley Winter

Helloooo, Space Chums! Feeling Christmassy yet? Making a change to days and days of gales, I woke up to a fine fall of snow this morning, after a sharp frost last night. I'd been to see Aladdin at the Town Hall: there were five kids I teach, or have taught, in the chorus and more in the audience. Mawgan from S1 got me up to do some audience participation for "Kung Fu Fighting". I hope it isn't on Youtube. Earlier in the day, I went to support the skating gala and seven girls from my classes. I haven't been to an ice rink since a visit to the Magnum Centre in Irvine nearly 30 years ago and didn't really dress warmly enough. Still, the most fun I've had here since Jason was last up on business in the spring.

On Wednesday night we raised about £400 for Children in Need when I co-hosted Strictly Come Scottish Dancing with Miss Goudie in school. The teacher-winners were technically the best dancers but I wish the kids had got the trophy. Props to Mr. Wylie from the PE Dept who dressed as Gibson in Braveheart: the biceps were a hit (although his PT, Mr. Scott, was apparently also "tidy".)

I had to make a round trip of nearly seventy miles last Sunday, buying a dinner suit in my size in Inverness at the last minute, so this post is a week late.  I have been keeping up my other blog, http://materioptikon.wordpress.com which was supposed to be shorter and punchier. No luck with that, really. I plan to post there about DC's Super-Spectaculars and the 70s Secret Origins series over the holidays. However, my favourite, if unfortunately short-lived, ongoing reprint series of the early Bronze Age was Wanted: The World's Most Dangerous Villains. It only ran for a year, beginning in the summer of '72, at the height of the Golden Age reprint craze. The title had already been trialled in two DC Specials in '70 and '71.

I've no idea now where I first glimpsed the postage stamp-sized ad for DC Special 8. One of the bittersweet joys of buying comics in Lanarkshire or Ayrshire in the Bronze Age was sightings of comics that you knew you'd never be able to find and read. It might have been in one of issues, which were published that same summer:

 Dynamic agonising from a Gil Kane Flash (and some DC hippies); two spooky Adams covers, (the grotesque Moloch , from a Bats story about New Orleans jazz!); and a Kirby reprint.

 
But in Century 21, most of these yellowing, longed-for comics can be picked up fairly easily on ebay.
I bought DC Special 8 earlier this year but unfortunately, the contents don't live up to the promise of the elegant cover (Murphy Anderson?).The Shadow Thief story is probably my favourite, although I had read it before thirty years ago, in this Blue Ribbon Digest:

I've grown to like the vibrant, edgy work of Joe Kubert as an adult, although my introduction to the exotic, Burroughsian world of Hawkman was through Anderson. I am a great fan of Gil Kane but I find early Silver Age Green Lantern too full of leaden, B-movie sci-fi exposition, so the Sinestro story was stultifying. The Jim Mooney Joker/Luthor team-up was toothless and not a patch on this one:

 Chicks love the car

The Flash story is a sylish, Modernist piece by Infantino and features a cameo by one of my favourites, The Trickster. I had already read "Who Doomed the Flash " earlier, in this summer's Flash 100-pager; disappointingly, the Rogues don't team up but there is a poster of their roster by the dream team of Murphy and Carmine:

 Flash's Rogues were more garish and bizarre than most of Batman's villains but of course, in the modern era, they're now serial killers, addicts and in Grodd's case, a man-eater.
All in all, it was a disappointing package but I wonder if I would have loved it as a kid? Aside from the LSH and the JLA, I was really a Marvel devotee until the Fourth World burst onto the scene. More "Wanted" next time.

The Five Faces of Dr. Who Redux is now way off-schedule but today I want to look at the Eighth Doctor. Appearing only once, in the US co-produced TV Movie of 1996, Paul McGann's Pre-Raphaelite "frock-coated ponce" has had an incredibly long and complex life in comic strips, books, audios and DWM serials.He's faked a regeneration and destroyed Gallifrey; at least three of his companions have been killed including, probably, Rose Tyler-prototype Sam Jones. He was the first Doctor to have a companion declare their love for him; the first to be an adoptive father; the first to get married (to Scarlette, a prostitute and Tantric Sex practitioner!) and the first to grow a beard.Although he's had his thunder stolen on tv subsequently, he's become one of my favourite Doctors, just as much as Number Five was three decades ago.I don't think I've missed any of his Big Finish stories. For a long time, a decade ago, they were the only forward-looking material from BF (Previously, I've groused about the company reviving old Who monsters to no great advantage. They're now bringing back the Kraals. Seriously. The Kraals.)

Anyway, The Slver Turk begins a new series of adventures with Mary Shelley- THE Mary Shelley- as played rather breathlessly by Julie Cox. McGann always perks up when paired with a new companion and even though this story is hugely derivative of Dalek and its audio first draft Jubilee and Mary's Story on The Company of Friends, I thoroughly enjoyed it (although the Mondas Cyberman voice doesn't lend itself to ex-TEN-ded SPEE-ches.) There's a cinematic new arrangement of the theme. I took a long time to warm to the mash-up version in the Lucie Miller adventures, preferring the spectral one composed by David Arnold but this theme tune reminds me of the orchestral Tenth Doctor version. There was also a nod in the script to the Ninth Doctor's dress sense (but more of him next time). The marionettes in the story are quite creepy; atmospheric listening on windy, cat-black December nights.

Lastly, I rewatched two Colin Baker serials on dvd in the last two weeks. I still don't like Vengeance on Varos by Philip Martin: it's just an uglier version of The Sun Makers with virtually no jokes. I was intrigued by Baker's aside about Sil being considered as a Companion, which might have worked for one story, in my opinion. Mark of the Rani, on the other hand, is beautifully shot and atmospheric. Although the story is quite silly and overlong, I enjoy it more than the rest of Sixie's episodes.

Next: This Daft Old Face or The End of Term Itself.

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