With The
Black Hood making his TV debut on Riverdale, after appearing in comics, radio
and a three issue pulp, I decided to look at what other pulp characters and
works from pulp writers have been adapted to TV.
So either
the character had to appear in a pulp magazine or it had to be the work of a
pulp writer.
Pulp
Characters
Conan
Conan The
Adventurer (1992)
Conan (1997-1998)
Zorro
Zorro
(1957-1961) The New
Adventures of Zorro (1981) Zorro and
Son (1983) Zorro (1990-1993) KaiketsuZorro (1994) Zorro
(1997-1998)
Zorro: La
Espada y La Rosa (2007) Zorro
Generation Z (2008) Zorro The
Chronicles (2015)
Sheena
Sheena Queen
of Jungle (1955-56)
Sheena (2000-2002)
The Lone Ranger
The Lone
Ranger (1949-1957) The Tarzan Zorro
Hour (1980-82)
Tarzan
Tarzan
(1966-68) Tarzan and The
Super 7 (1978)
Tarzan The
Lord of Jungle (1976-79) The Tarzan
Zorro Hour (1980-82)
Io Jane, Tu
Tarzan (1989 – Italy) Tarzan (1994) Tarzan: The
Epic Adventures (1996-1997) - which also featured Pellucidar and Amtor (Venus) from Burrough's other series. The Legend Of
Tarzan (2001-03) Tarzan (2003) Tarzan and
Jane (2017)
Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe
(1959-60) Philip
Marlowe, Private Eye (1983)
Flashgun Casey Crime
Photographer (1951-52)
Buck Rogers Buck Rogers
(1950) Buck Rogers in
the 25th Century (1979-81)
Pulp Writers
Dashiell Hammett The Thin Man
(1957-59) Erle Stanley Gardner Perry Mason
(1959-66) The New Perry
Mason (1973) Perry Mason TV
Movies (1986-1996) Max Brand (Frederick Faust)
Destry (1964)
Doctor Kildare (1961-66)
Young Doctor Kildare (1972)
A number of stories
that appeared in pulp magazines were adapted as episodes of anthology series
like Robert E. Howard’s “Pigeons from Hell” as an episode of Thriller or Lovecraft’s
Cthulhu Mythos appearing in many sources such as Supernatural, Scooby Doo,
Justice League, and Limitless to name a few.
So this movie has been a loooong time coming. The 2007 attempt Justice League Mortal never happened due to the writer's strike. The less said about the pilot that came out in 1997 the better. So The Justice League finally come out after some twenty years of trying.
Gal Gadot was great as Wonder Woman in her third outing as the character and she gets a nice arc here with reference to her solo outing. We finally get an explanation about the age of heroes coming again line from Wonder Woman.
Ben Affleck does another good turn as Batman. Henry Cavill is even better as Superman than his past couple of outings.
Now we finally get to see Jason Mamoa's Aquaman, Ray Fisher's Cyborg, and Ezra Miller's Flash.
Cyborg was probably the least used in the movie but Fisher is fine with a nice callout to the animated Teen Titans.
Aquaman takes queues from the long haired version seen in the 90s and I appreciated the blonde highlights in his hair. Mamoa is too bad ass to not be taken seriously.
Ezra Miller's Flash probably has the hardest job here not only does he have to compare to the comic book version but to the TV version played by Grant Gustin. (Miller would be the fifth actor to play Barry Allen - after Rod Haase, John Wesley Shipp, Kenny Johnson and Grant Gustin) And I found him lacking. Miller's character has more in common with Sheldon Cooper than any of the other Flashes and I found that a little hard to reconcile. The character is a nice comic relief but he never felt right, per haps had they made him Wally West instead of
I did enjoy the movie but I wouldn't rate it as one of the best superhero movies nor would I dismiss it as one of the worst. I am keen to see more of the new characters and will check them out in their solo outings but I felt that this film left a lot of the work to introducing the characters to the solo outings. This the advantage of the Marvel Avengers model pretty much everyone had been introduced and could be used quickly.
So it was Christmas 1989 (or it may be 1990 - Australia typically got stuff much later) when I saw this poster
I was like "who is this?"
It was a number of months later that I got to see the movie - a double feature with Ghost (if memory serves) and holy smokes it blew me away,
Sam Raimi wanted to make a Shadow movie but couldn't get the rights (although there was a story a few years back that he had the rights to all the Street and Smith pulp characters but nothing has come from it - I'd love to see him do those characters)
It always struck me as odd that when Taken came out in 2008 that people were surprised that Liam Neeson was an action hero I mean he was Darkman nearly 20 years earlier.
Darkman became a multimedia star - the movie was adapted to a three issue Marvel comic and a novelisation by Randall Boyle. There was plans to make a TV series with a pilot that was a 30 minute version of the movie
Except for the pilot, each had their own continuation, first up was Marvel with a six issue miniseries which had Darkman believe that Durant wasn't dead with an outrageous way to bring him back from the dead.
Then there was a four book series by Randall Boyle which was really good.
Next was two direct to TV movies starring Arnold Vosloo: Darkman II The Return of Durant Darkman III: Die Darkman Die.
The final Darkman product is the Dynamite 6 issue miniseries teaming Darkman with Ash Williams from The Evil Dead movies. Dynamite reported that they were doing a series but nothing came of it.
Surprisingly despite the fact that all the continuations were produced separately the stories form a fairly consistent narrative - the obvious one for me is the novels having Westlake taking a briefcase of money questioning if he should use it or not. By Darkman II we see Westlake ripping off criminals for money. (that said Durant's fate in the Marvel miniseries and the second movie are contradictory)
I collected everything I could find and original Marvel series was the most elusive and I finally found the last issue the other day.
So after the top 50 New Pulp Movies list a couple posts back, I decided to do a New Pulp TV series list. I've put them in alphabetical order (more so I don't double up) and not to play favourites.
So this came out the other day much to my surprise. I had heard rumblings that a Death Wish remake was in the cards but I hadn't heard anything for some time and I presumed that it was stuck in some type of development hell.
If I'm reading it right this is a remake of the 1974 film and not a reinterpretation of Brian Garfield's 1972 novel.
One of the obvious changes from both sources is the action is moved to Chicago but that's not too big a deviation as the main character Paul Kersey (in the movies) and Paul Benjamin (in the books) moves to Chicago at the end of both. The novel's sequel Death Sentence by Brian Garfield was set in Chicago. (The odd numbered movies are set in New York and the even numbered in Los Angeles, the 2007 Kevin Bacon movie Death Sentence (Based on the novel) was set in Columbia, South Carolina)
The film seems to create a visual call back to Unbreakable (as Willis' David Dunn wears his rain poncho with the hood up in the same way as Dr Paul Kersey wears the hood up on his hoodie) and I've seen it pointed out the visual similarity of Paul Kersey to Denzel Washington's Robert McCall in The Equalizer 2014.
The script was written by Joe Carnahan who wrote and directed Smoking Aces and The A Team, and has written the script for the Uncharted movie.
I'm intrigued by this movie and I look forward to seeing it.
I'm sure that I've mentioned my love for Modesty Blaise. The character started as a comic strip in 1963 and by 1966 there was a plan to make a movie. Peter O'Donnell wrote the screenplay which the movie makers then rewrote and reportedly only one line ended up in the final product, However, O'Donnell also wrote the novelisation and he used his script as the basis for that. SO O'Donnell adapted his first comic strip into a movie script which he then adapted into a novel. Phew! Now the 1966 movie was less than successful (and less than faithful*) and most people wouldn't be aware that the novel started out as a novelisation.
*I mean they made it a musical, dress Monica Vitti as a near perfect recreation of the comic strip and then go "nope not doing that" and have her run around as a blonde.
Given that the movie didn't gain a sequel and O'Donnell wrote another ten novels and two short story collections, I'd suggest that maybe they should have went with his script.
So I still need to read all the comic strips but I recently read all the novels. Some like Modesty Blaise and Cobra Trap for the first time.
The books are really good I love all the recurring characters - Stephen Collins and his eventual wife Diana, Doctor Giles Pennyfeather.
The novels give us a more detailed look at the world of Modesty and Willie, more than we can in the strips.
I heartily recommend reading the books and the comic strips (perhaps best to miss the 1966 movie and the 1982 TV pilot both available on youtube) The 2004 direct to DVD movie My Name is Modesty is okay but really get the DVD for the special features interviews with Peter O'Donnell, Quentin Tarantino and an overview of the comics.
Now O'Donnell supposedly has in his will that Tarantino is the only one who can make a movie. Tarantino has said he will quit making movies after 10 films and he has made 8 already - one of those last two had better be a Modesty Blaise movie.
Strictly speaking this is not the end
for the world of The Destroyer.The
books are still being published as is the Legacy spinoff series.But this is the end of playing catchup with
the series which started in the early 1970s.I started collecting in the late eighties and now have finally caught up
(if I had more time I'd reread the whole series in order) thanks in large part
to fact the entire series is now available as ebooks.151 books, a spinoff series of six books so
far, a movie (and a new one in the works), a TV pilot as well as Marvel comics.
(There are new comics that I need to get)
It feels weird being caught up, the
hunt for Destroyers has been part of my life for 30 years now.The Destroyer I can't remember how I discovered
him it might have been a copy of Inside Sinanju at the cheap books in the
corner store visiting my grandmother.It
might have been a library book.It may
have been the back cover blurb for the Doc Savage video (which was definitely
my introduction to Buckaroo Banzai).
When I found The Destroyer, I was in
love. The characters are great.Chuin
should be the most offensive character in the world but he's not. Some would
say that he's racist but it makes sense because he IS far superior to everyone
else. He’s a frail looking little old man but heaven help you if you upset him
or interrupt his soap operas.
Then there is Harold Smith the
incorruptible WWII veteran cheapskate with a computer system that can
infiltrate any electronic information.Smith was asked to head the agency CURE by Kennedy and has been in the
job since the 1960s.
A lot of the Destroyer has made its
way into other things Person of Interest, Knight Rider, The Karate Kid.
The Destroyer lead me to explore
other series and was why I wrote Serial Vigilantes of Paperback Fiction.Being able to write a Destroyer short story
for the More Blood anthology was one of the greatest moments of my life.
Recently Derrick Ferguson announced that he was doing a list of 50 New Pulp movies. The end result can be found here
When he announced it, it for shits and giggles I thought I'd try and see how well I'd go at predicting what would be on his list.
So here is my list the ones in red weren't on Derrick's list.
50 New Pulp Movies
1. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
2. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
3. Sahara
4. Indiana Jones Quartet
5. The Rocketeer
6. Sky Captain
7. Hudson Hawk
8. Our Man Flint/In like Flint
9. High Road to China
10. Darkman
11. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou
12. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
13. The Fifth Element
14. The Phantom
15. Romancing the Stone
16. Jake Speed
17. Dark Avenger
18. Dark Knight trilogy
19. King Kong 2005
20. Kong Skull Island
21. The Mummy Trilogy
22. The Goonies
23. Cutthroat Island
24. Sunset
25. Shoot em up
26. Captain America: The First Avenger
27. Atlantis the Lost Empire
28. The Punisher 2004
29. Big Trouble in Little China
30. National Treasure
31. Cast a Deadly Spell
32. The Black Mask
33. Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen
34. Brotherhood of the Wolf
35. The Black Samurai
36. The Black Scorpion
37. Billy Jack
38. Congo
39. Machete
40. The Man with the Iron Fists
41. Second Hand Lions
42. The Specialist
43. The Transporter
44. Cleopatra Jones
45. Coffy
46. Foxy Brown
47. Black Belt Jones
48. The Equaliser
49. The A Team
50. The President's Man
So with only 14 out of 50, I'm a poor prophet of Derrick's choices but it just shows the wide range of New Pulp movies out there (that is movies from after the 1950s in the pulp style)
As a fan and collector there are some
items that are an easy hole to fill.The
Cape, one season 10 episodes, buy the DVD done. A single movie like Sky Captain
and the World of Tomorrow similarly easy to complete the search. An ebook
megapack might get the complete works of Edgar Wallace or H. Rider Haggard for
99c.
Others take a bit more work I own and
have read all 135 JT Edson novels, I own all seven seasons of MacGyver, the two
TV movies, the novel (which I got Richard Dean Anderson to autograph) and the
2012 five issue comic book miniseries.And I've watched all the episodes of the 2016 revival.
It takes time and dedication.Recently I've realised that I've had three
things that were nearly completed or caught up on so once I'd finished them I
thought I'd share my thoughts on those things.
First we have Teen Wolf.Loosely based on the 1985 Michael J. Fox
movie of the same name. (The 1985 movie spawned an animated series and a sequel
Teen Wolf Too starring Jason Bateman as the cousin of the original).
The only thing this new version took
was a teenager named Scott whose best friend is named Stiles and is a
werewolf.Instead of Scott Howard we
have Scott McCall.
McCall played by Tyler Posey (who was
nearly Jacob in The Twilight movies) is a teen bitten by an Alpha
werewolf.The big mystery of the first
series is who is the Alpha? The series was darker and scarier version yet it
still had comedy.Dylan O'Brien was the
MVP of this series always there to help his friend Scott with a quip and some
great physical acting.
The series kept me on the edge of my
seat for 100 episodes, a Tie in novel and a three issue miniseries.
Characters came and went Scott grew
eventually becoming a true Alpha through his own strength of character.
The show played with mythology
bringing in kanemas, chimeras, the wild hunt, were jaguars, kitsunes, banshees,
were coyotes and skin walkers.I was
pleasantly surprised that the werewolf/vampire war seen in several other shows
never got played out here.
I can't complain about the ending as
it was left open for a spinoff starring Scott's beta Liam (Scott bit him to
save his life) or a follow up series set a few years later.
I'm fully expecting Dylan O'Brien to
have a great career after this show.
Firstly the intention of this timeline is
to work much of the Tomb Raider Franchise into one cohesive timeline.I am limiting this to event in Lara Croft’s
life so no expansions on the history of the artefacts she finds.I am working on the assumption that the new “Survivor”
game continuity is a prequel to the earlier games and that the “Legend” games
are also part of this continuity.Any
speculation on my part to explain any discrepancies will be clearly indicated.
There have been three games called Tomb
Raider the 1996 original, the 2000 Gameboy game and the 2013 reboot.I will be referring to the games as Tomb
Raider followed by their year.
Other adventures will be referred to by
their subtitles as we know they are Tomb Raider products.I will also be referring to the source for
each entry and the media type (So the novel Tomb Raider: The Lost Cult will be
referred to as The Lost Cult (novel))
I won’t be including fan productions as
much as I have enjoyed many of them. I also won’t incorporating references to
Lara Croft (in Rob Hayes Adventures Rob tells a female friend she is not Lara
Croft) or characters dressing as Lara Croft (Ally McBeal, Looney Tunes, Dexter,
How I met Your Mother.) The holographic projection of Lara in an episode of
Totally Spies is also excluded.
I’m excluding advertisements that treat
Tomb Raider as just a game for example one of the later Lucozade commercials
has Lara drinking a Lucozade while the game is paused.
Timeline
14 Feb 1968 (Core Design Bio)
Lara Croft born to Lord Richard Croft and
Amelia Croft (Legend - Game)
1971 - 1979
Private Tutoring 3-11 (Core Design Bio)
1977
Lady Amelia Croft and Lara are in a plane
crash.Amelia disappears and Lara walks
out (Legend –game)
1979 - 1984
Wimbledon High School for Girls 11-16 (Core
Bio)
1980
“Pre-Teen Raider” (Re/Visioned animation)
(Gail Simone advises that Lara is about 12)
1984
Training with Von Croy in Ankor Wat (The
Last Revelation –Game)
“Black Isle” (Chronicles Game)
1985
Lord Richard Croft dies (differing accounts
are given in Rise of the Tomb Raider– Game, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – Movie and
Legend –Game)
Speculation Lara is adopted by her uncle
Lord Henshingly Croft and his wife.Neither are fans of Lara adventuring and try to mould her into a proper
lady. The adoption explains why in 1996 her father is listed as Henshingly
Croft in the first game.
1984-1987
Gordonstoun Boarding School 16-18
1987-1989
Swiss Finishing School 18-21
1989
21 yo Plane crash Lara is only survivor
(Core Bio)
1990
Excavation Massacre (Legend – Game)
The Beginning (Dark Horse Comic)
Tomb Raider 2013 (game)
The Ten Thousand Immortals (novel)
Season of the Witch (Dark Horse Comic 1-6)
1991
Secrets and Lies (Dark Horse Comic 7-12)
Queen of Snakes (Dark Horse Comic 13-18)
1992
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Game)
Baba Yaga The
Temple of the Witch (Rise expansion – Game)
Cold Darkness
Awakened (Rise Expansion – Game)
Blood Ties (Rise
Expansion – Game)
Lara’s Nightmare
(Rise Expansion – Game)
Spore (Dark Horse Comic 1-6) (Spore
features a 1996 flashback this must be a 1976 flashback)
Trial and Sacrifice (Dark Horse Comic 7-12)
1994
Finds Bigfoot (Tomb Raider 1996 – Game)
Finds Ark of the Covenant (Tomb Raider 1996
- Game)
1995
Philosopher’s Stone (Chronicles – Game)
1996
Raider 1996 & Anniversary (Games)
Unfinished
Business /Shadow of the Cat (Tomb Raider 1996 Expansion – Game)
1997
Tomb Raider II
Golden Mask
(Tomb Raider II Expansion - Game)
Tomb Raider/Witchblade (Top Cow Comic)
Lucozade (commercials) (the last commercial is not counted)
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