Tuesday, March 5, 2019

This is the End: The Mummy/Scorpion King


I've been on a bit of a 1990s Mummy kick lately.  Brendan Fraser's The Mummy (1999) was a remaginging of the 1930s Universal movie of the same name bringing back the mummified Im Ho Tep. 

The later Universal films all featured a mummy named Kharis, except for Abbot and Costello meet the Mummy which featured Klaris.  Hammer films also made several mummy movies but none of theirs featured Im Ho Tep and none connected to each other. 

The 1999 movie shfted away from horror and became a slightly more supernatural version of Indiana Jones.  There's a joke that the three best Indy fims are Radiers of the Lost Ark, The Mummy, and the Mummy Returns.

It might appear that the 2017 Dark Universe The Mummy starring Tome Cruise put an end to the franchise but 2018 brought a new entry that sparked me off on this search.  The Scorpion King 5: The Book of Souls.

So what do we have in this franchise?

Movies

The Mummy 1999
The Mummy Returns 2001
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emporer  2008

with the spin-off




The Scorpion King (2002)

Which is all the theatrical movies.  However Universal made

The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior (2008)
The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (2012)
The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power (2015)
The Scorpion King: Book of Souls (2018)

None of which starred the Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson.  2 was a prequel  starring
Michael Copon, the Blue Ranger in Power Rangers: Time Force.

3 and 4 starred Victor Webster (Mutant X, Continuium)  5 starred Zach McGowan (Black Sails).

I've loved all the movies - the Scorpion King series have been fun sword and sandal romps.

There was also a two season animated series set after The Mummy Returns



Then I discovered the books;

All four theatrical movies were novelised by Max Allan Collins.

Dave Wolverton wrote a four book YA series The Mummy Chronicles which featured Alex learning to be a Magi.

There was also a tie-in Annual for the Mummy TV series.

1) Revenge in the Scorpion King
2) Heart of the Pharoh
3) The Curse of the Nile
4) Flight of the Phoenix

Then there were three different comic series

Only one of the three proposed issues of Chaos! Comics The Mummy: Valley of the Gods was released and was set during the O'Connell's honeymoon with prophetic dreams of the Scorpion King.  Chaos went out of business before the rest of the series could be released.

Next was Dark Horse's 2 issue The Scorpion King: The Akkadian Prophecy" set just before the Rock's movie (and before Rise of a Warrior)

Just before the third movie IDW released the four issue miniseries The Mummy: The Rise of Xango's Ax  set just before that movie.

The whole Scorpion King/Mummy franchise is a lot of fun to read/watch and I do hope that we will see more from this world.  The third movie set up a sequel with Jonathon moving to Peru just before the discovery of Mummies there.

I'm still waiting on several of the books to arrive but I'll review them when they arrive.  Actually I might do a Mummy March.




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