Adventureman #3 by Matthew Fraction and the Dodsons

 

So when we left Claire she had just stumbled into the family dinner.  OK there was a gap of some hours between when we saw last saw her until the dinner. It's a mystery what happened to her and one that should be solved in this installment. Let's see what Matt Fraction wrote.

The family is concerned and they race her to the Emergency Room.  Claire feels great and she can hear again (or at least partially).

When one of the cops she saw last issue is brought in injured.  He was injured in a bug attack and is losing blood.  He's AB- and Claire declares that she's multiversal blood type n and after an Adventureman flashback she gives him a transfusion of blood.

Record scratch - WHAT THE BUTTS?????

multiversal type n???  Fine, he's AB- but O- is the universal donor and can be given to anyone.  I get that they may have limited blood stocks but to make up a blood type from the whole cloth - which you don't really explain I was yanked out of the story sooooo fast.

Now I'll accept a lot in my pulp and pulp-adjacent fiction, I mean I'm the guy who wrote about a ray that causes the blood to rust (or at least appear to rust)  check out my novel Australis Incognito for more details.

But the type n blood was a step too far for me.

It may seem that I'm hard on this book and I am - I have high expectations of this story.

Back to the story, we get the information that Claire's dad may have been the Chief of Police as Claire's old partner calls him Chief.  

Then we're told that Claire appears to have grown fifteen inches (37.5 cm) but I'm not quite seeing that growth reflected in art.  (BTW the Dodson's art is gorgeous)

The MRI scan shows Claire's brain is active, really active.

And we're half way through the book and the mystery is set up and Claire can't remember what happened to her.

She goes home with her father where they along wih her son watch an Adventureman serial.  "Fair Phantom of the Lost Fortress" is the title (the other appears to be Adventures of A Dark Tomorrow)

As Claire watches she declares that she remembers.

But we leave Claire to see what is happpening with Baron and Baroness Bizarre torturing Philanda Phade - the ghost assistant of the original Adventureman.  There's several pages of Baron Bizarre talking where they are trying to release Abbathexiddion the Beast-GOd of the Ultravoid.  It ends with the Beast-God sending the Baroness to take the head of Adventureman.

The we get several pages of anecdotes and sketches about the creation of Claire's family and specifically her sisters.

I get the feeling that this comic would do better with less behind the scenes and more background, make it more like Watchmen where the back matter tells us about the classic pulp era Adventureman - excerpts from "the Great Pulp Heroes", fanzine articles about the Adventureman serials, interviews with the original pulp author, explanations about the magic pill Adventureman takes (because for all the mystery it seems obvious that Claire has taken that drug)

Pulp should be fast paced we are now three issues into the series and very little has happened.  I'm sticking with the book because it seems that we are building to something in the next issue but we need more answers and explanations of this world.   

Adventureman #2 by Matt Fraction and the Dodsons

 So we're back for issue 2 and when issue #1 ended insects were crawling all over our heroine's house and a beam of light or something shoots out of the house.

So what happened next?  Uh not sure.  What was the beam of light? No idea.

The issue opens in some sort of scary dimension where a voice with scary borders chastises Phaedra Phantom.  Phaedra was one of Adventureman's team and she is being held in this dimension by Adventureman's archnemesis Baron Bizarre and Baroness Bizarre.  It's implied that she escaped and visited Claire in the first issue but that's not clear.  Baron Bizarre is made of bugs. There's a hint that if people remember Baron Bizarre it gives him more power.

That interlude ends and Claire and her son Tommy are walking to school.  Tommy is reading the Adventureman guidebook from last issue.  Tommy advises that they gave the address of Adventure Worldwide - Adventureman's headquarters.  Like Doc Savage's 86th floor headquarters the building is never identified in the pulps, but they give the address in this guidebook.

(This came from Philip Jose Farmer's Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life where Farmer made a confincing case that Doc's Headquarters was the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, a fact never revealed in the pulps) 

Tommy has to race to school and Claire has an appointment with two of her sisters.  One is baking souffles and the other arrives late, makes noise and ruins the souffles and bugs crawl out of them. Could they be connected to Baron Bizarre and the bugs from last issue?

During the exchange with her sisters, Claire is reading the guidebook and the test is in white writing accross the page.  In at least one point, one of the sister's talks to Claire and her speech bubble covers the text - I get that it shows that this is interrupting the reading but it hides the words.  The white words also appear over the top of the panels even over lighter parts of the picture where the words are lost and impossible to read.  This happens several times in this issue and it is so annoying.

After the souffle incident, Claire decides to visit Adventure Worldwide - so she jumps on her vespa and  zips through the city.  She snatches a coffee from a cop and we discover that Claire Connell used to be an NYPD cop.  We have no idea why she stopped - it may be when she lost her hearing or when she had her son or someother reason.   2 pages about how cool Claire looks on the Vespa but just the hint about her past.

She gets to building and there's a giant art deco skyscraper there, that she doesn't remember being there before.  She texts her son in class for the street view of the address.  Tommy gets into trouble and can't respond.

Claire then accosts a passerby and he tells her that the building there is a dump.  Clearly Matt Fraction has seen the 1994 Shadow movie starring Alec Baldwin where Shiwan Khan hides an entire hotel which serves as his headquarters in a similar fashion - and Alec Baldwin accosts a passerby in the same fashion.

Claire walks to the door but there is no handle but she remembers how one of Adventureman's assistants first finds the building - another place with white writing where it gets lost in the image.  This time the information is important to the story. 

It turns out that Phaedra Phantom phases you thorugh the door - the place is in ruins but the security system still works as Phaedra warns before she disappears.  Claire immediately sets off the security system and has a fight with two robots where Claire uses brains and brawn to defeat them.  Claire takes the elevator to the top of building (shades of Doc Savage's flearun elevator) and calls out that she has the book.

We then skip to the family Friday night dinner - Tom is there but his mother isn't.  His grandfather is about to ask about Claire when she charges in with her shirt and pants torn (in a likely homage to covers to the 1960s Doc Savage reprints that featured Doc in a torn shirt) 

And the issue ends.

Argh, there is so much to like in this book but it frustrates me in so many ways.  It seems like there is information that we should be getting but aren't and transitions that aren't quite working for me.  

And the timing of events is confusing.  Every Friday night the family gathers for dinner.  This happens in issue 1.  What appears to be the next day, (Saturday) she gets the guidebook from Phaedra and that night the bugs over the house and the light.

But that can't be right as what appears to be the next day (Sunday) Claire is dropping her son to school - she visits her sister, visits Adventure Inc and then turns up late for Friday night dinner.    

But that timeline can't be right clearly she got the book on Thursday of that week, then took Tommy to school on Friday morning and spent the day at Adventure Inc.  but it's not clear.  I'm not even sure that the events of issue two take place the day after the end of issue 1. 

Let's see if issue 3 solves some of these issues.

   

Jurassic Park (1991) by Michael Crichton

Reportedly, the movie rights for this were sold before the book was even published and if you have seen the 1993 movie version you have the basic plot.

Billionaire John Hammond, owner of genetics company InGen, has found a way to source dinosaur DNA to "clone" dinosaurs and is making a zoo/tourist resort. Things go wrong.

You really don't need more than that.

I'd read the novel in the late 90s from memory and a lot of the details had been forgotten between now and my recent reread.

I'd forgotten that there was a lot of background to the genetic engineering industry and detail of Alan Grant and Ellie Satler's dig and a subplot involving dinosaurs escaping the island before we get to the more familiar parts of the movie. (although a dinosaur attack was modified and later appears at the Lost World movie)

It makes sense that things had to be cut from a 400 page novel to fit a 2 hour movie - Crichton himself worked on the screenplay as well. The novel also has several additional dinsaur chases that weren't in the movie and a raid on a raptor nest.  Characters who survive in the novel - die in the movie and vice versa, although 1 death in the novel is reversed in the sequel novel The Lost World.

Crichton had a lengthy career as a writer and movie maker writing thrillers in med school as John Lange, under his own name he wrote The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere, he wrote the screenplay for Westworld, Twister and co-created ER but this was probably the first time he had come to my attention.

If you enjoyed the movie, check out the novel  there are some differences but it enriches the experience of the movie.

I now have a desire to reread the Lost World.