Somewhere from my subconscious, Ken Nordine's sonorous voice drifted up the day before yesterday, from the eerie opening track of 1988 album Stay Awake. This was a collection of bluesy and avant- garde jazz interpretations of Disney songs. I've collected albums of unusual covers on and off ever since.
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Last night, for the first time since the 80s, I watched Roger Corman's Man with The X-Ray Eyes. It's an imagistic,unhinged exploitation movie with almost Lovecraftian overtones. Barely ten years old when I saw it at my uncle's farm in 1974 ( along with the equally shattering Naked Prey - what were they thinking of? I was 11!), there's a paranoid undercurrent to its tonal shifts. Whoops- there goes ol' Doc Boyce from the Star Trek pilot, right out the window!
Before the gruesome climax in the tent of some scary revivalist ( Glorious Godfrey?), Dr. Xavier (really!) takes refuge in a scuzzy carnival run by sleazy Don Rickles, whom I had previously thought to be a figment of Jack Kirby's imagination ( like Argyle Fist or Abner Little).
So in a kind of Jungian- synchronicity way, it was inevitable I would go to the Netherlands National Circus today. Plus, you know, Sunday in Elgin. The lights, the scent of straw, the thrills of the trapeze and the physicality of it all felt like you were in touch with a very old tradition. After all, Theatre is, primarily, the circus with a story.
I don't think I've seen a circus since I was a very wee boy,visiting the Christmas Carnival at the Kelvin Hall. I only have vague impressions of bus windows clouded with condensation; toffee apples and candy floss; the crashing dodgems' ozone and the stink of the animals.
I'd read in the local paper about Angelo the Portuguese clown, who said 40 was too old for an acrobat. His daughter is the "Princess of Balance", who can shoot a bow and arrow with her feet. So, let's look today at the relationship between super-heroes and the circus.
Obviously, the most high-profile connection is the story of the Flying Graysons. Last summer's Batman Live event used circus skills to retell that story.
In the late 50s, The Challengers of the Unknown were an act in a space circus.
Timber Wolf ( in his original Lone Wolf identity) made his heroic début at the Interplanetary Circus. Conway and Staton delivered a two-part adventure of the Interstellar Carnival in 1980, when the Legion of Super-Heroes was launched in its own title.
Deadman is of course the ghostly aerialist on a quest for his hook-handed assassin: a supernatural version of The Fugitive. The all-ages Batman & Robin Adventures was the first title I read to link Boston Brand with the Graysons' circus.
Circus acrobats really do strike that kind of pose!
Mr. Miracle had something of the circus performer about his act, with his diminutive assistant, Oberon. Scott Free was one of the most innovative and charismatic of Kirby's New Gods and certainly the most colourful ( but overshadowed by Big Barda!)
Marvel's circus characters often have larcenous leanings, like the Ringmaster and the Clown's Master of Menace. Both the Hulk and the She-Hulk have fallen foul of the Ringmaster's hypnotic hat. Princess Python and the gang impersonated caterers at the wedding of the Wasp. They also, rather oddly, faced off against Thor a couple of times. My favourite 70s giant, Black Goliath, was also part of their act briefly.
Hawkeye and the Swordsman earned money from their skills as circus performers before turning to super-crime and finally becoming Avengers. Toro, sidekick of the Golden Age Human Torch, was a circus fire eater, his mutant powers used to draw crowds.
In the 90s, it's chest out, back straight, Blobbo.
If I've missed any of your favourite carnies, let me know!
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A nice little trip down memory lane.
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