Watchmen: the comic. Alan Moore (story) Dave Gibbons (art)

Holy smokes!  I realised that I hadn't transferred my old Watchmen related reviews over from Opera so I'll be inter spersing the new reviews with the old

  What can I say that hasn’t already been said about this graphic novel? Well one aspect I think has been overlooked is the pulp/serial vigilante influence on Watchmen.

Let’s look at the pulp references in Watchmen. The obvious point to begin is with Hollis Mason, The original Nite Owl – whilst not strictly a pulp reference but when we first meet him on page nine of chapter 1 we see that he has a copy of Phillip Wylie’s Gladiator, a novel considered by many to have been an influence on the creation of Superman. Later in the “excerpts’ from Under The Hood, we see that Mason was a fan of the Pulps referencing The Shadow and Doc Savage (Chapter 1; PP4-5*) While Superman is also cited as an influence it is The Shadow that Mason references in the second excerpt from Under The Hood (Chapter 2; p7) in designing his outfit. Hollis Mason is the only Golden Age character we are privy to the full reasoning why and how they adopted a costumed identity and it seems that he is a fan of the pulps.

It is appropriate the second Nite Owl – Dan Dreiberg is also a fan. Dreiberg wrote Mason to get permission to become the new Nite Owl and Dreiberg spends his time with Mason reminiscing about the past. Dreiberg also owned a Silk Spectre Tijuana Bible when he was younger.

Much has been made of the comic book influences on the characters of Watchmen but there is a pulp/serial vigilante influence. Now in some cases it may be a stretch and I certainly don’t suggest that there is the simple correlation that Watchmen shares with the Charlton characters.

 The most obvious is Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt)– like Doc Savage he travelled the world gaining knowledge becoming the physical and mental peak of human ability – both Savage and Veidt have remote polar bases.

 Rorschach - His simple outfit of trench coat and fedora calls to mind Pulp private eyes like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe and also Pulp heroes like The Shadow, The Spider (as seen on the covers), and The Whisperer. Rorschach’s journal calls to mind the war journals of the Executioner and the recordings of The Assassin Robert Briganti. (I would mention the Punisher but he’s a comic book character)

 The Silk Spectre (I & II) - The original Silk Spectre like The Domino Lady uses sex appeal to fight crime.

 The Nite Owl (I & II) –There is a similarity with The Black Bat as well as The Black Hood. The Black Hood is fairly unique in making the leap from comics to the pulps. The second Nite Owl invokes the wealthy crime-fighting playboy trope seen in many pulp heroes.

 The Comedian – Certainly Johnston McCulley’s The Crimson Clown invokes a similar naming convention, but I’ve long thought that The Comedian’s original costume resembled that of The Avenger especially as depicted on the covers of the 1970’s Warner books reprint and revival novels.

 Captain Metropolis- Many pulp heroes have a military background like Captain Metropolis such as Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Spider

Dollar Bill- The Corporate superhero as far as I can tell has no precedent in the pulps but several serial vigilantes, Hawker and The Expeditor come to mind, are sponsored by millionaire backers.

Mothman- This character had a fairly insignificant role in Watchmen but if we look at some versions of the penny dreadful character Spring-heeled Jack there is a slight resemblance in that both use mechanical aides to fight crime one flying the other leaping

Hooded Justice – His appearance is that of an executioner – possibly an allusion to Mack Bolan’s crime fighting persona.

Silhouette – Dressed all in black, a silhouette is a type of shadow, perhaps she was intended as a distaff version of The Shadow.

Like I said earlier these are very thin but it appears that the Minute Men are very much in the pulp/mystery men mould with the Shadow and Doc Savage as a partial inspiration for at least one of the members. The second generation of heroes – The Crimebusters (Watchmen in the movie version) with the exception of Doctor Manhattan would seem to borrow from the serial vigilante tradition as well as that of comic book characters.

Watchmen can be seen as a metaphor for the Superhero (Doctor Manhattan) replacing and superseding the non powered mystery men/pulp hero (every other hero mentioned above. We see this especially with Doctor Manhattan and Hollis Mason Nite-Owl I. One of the reasons Mason retires is the appearance of Doctor Manhattan which made Mason feel redundant. Mason plans on becoming a mechanic. Ironically, one of Manhattan’s inventions, an electrical car, quickly renders his new career equally redundant.

 Doctor Manhattan’s role in Vietnam meant that in this alternate reality, the events of that War most likely would not have caused the burst of vigilantes we saw in fiction in our world.

 * The page numbers are from the “pages” from Under The Hood.

Australis Incognito: Behind the curtain.

So as promised here's a peak behind the curtain for the story behind the story of Australis Incognito.

Now I'd love to say the whole thing came to me in a one big hit but that's not true.  Some of the ideas had been floating around in my head for some time.  The Rusting Death had been a title that been waiting since the mid 90s when I mistyped the Doc Savage novel The Rustling Death for my book list.

But the story really started on Watchmen's 25th anniversary in around 2011.  Like many fans I wondered how things would have went after the events of Moore and Gibbons' story.  It's a world now without a superman just people in costumes.  Was there a third wave/generation of heroes, did the peace last?  What might a third wave look like?

I let myself imagine.  Silk Spectre II and Nite-Owl II would have kids The Nite Spectre, Silk and Nite-Owl III.  There would be a Rorschach II, the daughter of the original's landlady who believes that Walter Kovacs is her father.  There would be original characters like the Cutlass.

I never wrote anything down and at some point reality set in assuming that DC was going to do anything they wouldn't be hiring me anytime soon (and shorly after we got the Before Watchmen collection of miniseries)

As any Watchmen fan worth their salt knows the story was written with the Charlton characters.  DC looked at the story and realised that it would render their newly acquired characters unusable.  Moore then created new characters who if you squint looked a little like the Charlton Characters,

So I squinted - The third generation Watchmen siblings became The Dingo, Risque and Risk.  Rorschach II became The Question Mark II.  I left the Cutlass alone.  I dropped several characters and created new ones.

One of my new characters was the Aggressor, a veteran of Afghanistan or Iraq and fighting a bloody crusade against organised crime.  Then I found the Cutter series by James Hopwood - and also published by Pro Se Press.  Hopwood did what I was planning and in all honesty did it better.  So I changed tack The Agressor was active in the 1980s and was involved in The Fitzgerald Inquiry into corruption in the Queensland Government and police force, which worked much better for me.  So James if you read this - Thank you.

Around the same time, I was looking at myself as an Australian new Pulp writer and what I wanted to write.   I discovered a history of Australians creating pulp and pulp adjacent characters and I met several other creators who were crafting new stories in the same vein.

I wanted to write a big Australian pulp story. I had the basis for my story.  I pitched the idea to Pro Se as Oz Pulp.

The good news they liked the idea, the bad - they were not so keen on Oz Pulp.  I wasn't keen on their suggested replacement Aus Pulp.

I sat brainstorming when  I remembered that on old maps Australia was called Terra Australis Incognita - and Australis Incognito was born.  (Several Australian horror anthologies have used Terror Australis)

Australis Incognito became more than the title of the story but the collective name of my heroes and would go back to the settlement of New South Wales in 1788 allowing me to weave a backstory that allowed me to reference several characters I had read about.  It also gave me a reason that these characters all knew each other.

I had the idea for a villian so big that these characters couldn't battle them alone.  I distinctly recall the idea that one of the heroes was suggesting the unknown villian was a Moriarty-type.  The mysterious villian lurking over the skyline of Brisbane on the cover.

Around this time I had been invited to contribute to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Was Not (IFWG, 2019) an anthology that paired Sherlock Holmes with a different doctor instead of Watson.  I selected Dr Nikola, the villian of five novels by Australian writer Guy Boothby that were just as popular as the Sherlock Holmes stories back in the 1890s.  Nikola became a large piece of the this new story and his actions in the past served as a catalyst for this modern day adventure.

I had a great time building a world where modern pulp heroes could operate and link in with other Australian pulp and pulp-adjacant characters.

Pulp Heroes: More Than Mortal & The Khan Dynasty by Wayne Reinagel

Originally published Tuesday, June 5, 2012 7:51:27 PM

I’ve chosen to review these two epics together because I read them closely together and for these two related novels, what I’ll say about one will mostly be repeated for the other.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned my love for Philip Jose Farmer’s A Feast Unknown in the past where Lord Grandith (a Tarzan stand in) and Doc Caliban (Doc Savage stand in) meet and discover some shocking revelations about their histories. Wayne Reinagel takes Farmer and goes beyond, throwing in some Wold Newton speculations for good measure and adding some of his own theories.

Both stories features analogues of many of hero pulps but focuses on Doc Titan (Doc Savage), The Darkness (The Shadow with a smidge of Marvel’s The Shroud), The Guardian (the Avenger) and The Scorpion (The Spider).

More than Mortal in essence is an epic adventure that reveals that Doc Titan, The Guardian and several other characters (or their analogues) are shown to have a connection in case that serves as grand finale for a number of pulp heroes – that’s not a spoiler as the opening of More Than Mortal is the death of one of minor pulp heroes.

The Kahn Dynasty is an earlier tale that serves as the semi prequel to The Avenger Justice Inc and a sequel to Doc Savage: Brand of the Werewolf (the introduction of Pat Savage) revealing more interconnections between the great heroes as an earlier adventure in the 1880’s impacted on our heroes today.

I enjoyed these two adventures and it was fun to read these as alternate versions of heroes I know and love with some surprising revelations.

If I had any complaints, Reinagel could do with some tighter editing – there is a tendency to reuse some of the phrasing. Two examples spring to mind from The Kahn Dynasty.

In one scene Pam Titan is packing her belongings to travel to New York and she describes her grandfather’s gun in detail to the friend helping her pack. A couple of chapters later, the story has Simon Titan getting the gun as a gift with nearly the same description.

In another scene Henry Jekyll is talking with his father and he thinks about their relationship, the point of view then changes to Jekyll’s father and he describes his relationship with his son in the exact same terms.

Pulp TV

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)
Kaiketsu Zorro (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 25^th 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. 

Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1 & 2 (2016) by Sean Levin published Meteor House

A few years back Win Scott Eckert published Crossovers: A Secret History of the Universe which made connections to many different characters through the links of crossovers. 

I reviewed these back on the old blog (which will have to be reposted here soon)  and found them to be excellent works that were well researched.  However, by its very nature such a work is incomplete - new crossover stories are written all the time and older ones await rediscovery.  Win handed the title of Crossover Chronicler to Sean Levin who after several years of work has published these two new volumes.

Levin has taken Win's format and built two new volumes that have the same breadth and scope of history as Win's works.  Indeed if all four volumes were to reedited into one giant sized telephone sized work I may have some trouble identifying which entries were by which author but this is a good thing it makes Crossovers Expanded feel like an organic outgrowth of the original volumes.

 Looking through both volumes I was frequently surprised by crossovers I was unaware of and pleased to see some familiar authors and names appear in this book.  Full disclosure, several of my stories are referenced in this work and Sean has done a great job at spotting the connections I have sprinkled through my stories. 

I bow to Sean's knowledge of pulp and adventure fiction.  I must also compliment the artwork that littered the work that provided a visual link to the works.  Keith Howell has done a great job on the covers illustrating several heroic archetypes.

As a fan of pulp and adventure fiction these are invaluable reference works.

Doc Savage: The Doom Dynasty (1992) Story Terry Collins Art Mike Wieringo Covers Brian Stelfreese

  

The next appearance of Doctor Nikola was this two part miniseries pitting Doc Savage against Dr Nikola. 

Set in 1939, Doc is contacted by an old friend of his father's, Hikara.  He wants to warn Doc about something but before he can tell Doc anything he is bitten by a monkey and infected with a deadly plague.  His dying words lead Doc to another friend Dr Plympton, who runs a clinic in Africa.

Doc arrives too late.  The clinic has been ransacked and  Plympton is dying of the same plague but he tells Doc the location of Clark Savage Snr's Journal from 1897.  The journal records Doc's grandfather Richard Henry Savage meeting with Dr Nikola in that year. Richard Henry provides to Nikola (which would be just after Lust For Hate) with funding for a scientific project.

Doc's reading is interrupted by the arrival of his aides: Renny, Monk and Ham who captured by Nikola and his men.  Part 1 ends with the three men in danger.

Part 2 has Doc trying to rescue his men but getting captured.  Nikola tells Doc that he knew Richard Henry Savage and that the elder Savage had discovered that Nikola had been using his money to create a deadly plague.  With assistance from Nikola's female assistant Li, Richard Savage escapes and burns down the laboratory and steals the only copy of the formula.  Nikola is treated with a regenerative serum based on Siliphilium (That's the spelling from the comic - in the Doc Savage novel Fear Cay it was Silphilium) 

Now after forty years, Nikola has recreated his plague formula and is trying to remove Doc who would be the only one able to  stop him.  I won't reveal the ending but  it's no surprise that Nikola is thwarted.  Although I was surprised to discover that Nikola took Li as a lover and his current assistant Kao is his daughter.

I was a little disappointed that the back matter didn't include an article on Dr Nikola.  There is an article by Will Murray about the real Richard Henry Savage in part 1 and letter column in part 2.  (There was a letter giving more information in the next Doc Savage Miniseries - Devil's Thoughts)

I enjoyed this story when I first read it and I enjoyed the recent reread after reading the original Nikola stories.  I was nice to see Nikola against foes who might be considered his equals. 

It appears Doom Dynasty takes its cues from A Lust for Hate and is a portrayal I'm not adverse to but it makes Nikola far less likable than his appearances in the other four Nikola books.

The Vril Agenda (2014) Josh Reynolds and Derrick Ferguson

Dillon is one of the premier New Pulp characters and I enjoy reading his adventures.  When I heard the premise of this novel I had to read it - a young Dillon at the start of his career seeking out a mentor to train him, 

The hero Dillon seeks out is Jim Anthony Super Detective.  Jim Anthony appeared in 25 tales from 1940 to 1943.  In recent times he's been revived by Airship 27 and Pro Se Productions.  Jim Anthony come from the Doc Savage School of pulp heroes.  He's half Irish, half Indian and all American and is an expert tracker and scientist.  His original adventures were of the spicy variety. 

The story opens with Dillon waiting at the New York branch of the Baltimore Gun Club in the hopes of meeting Jim Anthony.  After a discussion between the new hero and the retired one, Anthony takes Dillon to his penthouse apartment in the Waldorf-Anthony when enemies attack. 

This is slam-bang pulp adventure where we discover that an old enemy of Jim Anthony is back and even get a flash back adventure to when Jim Anthony first clashed with the German pulp hero Sun Koh. Crossovers and references come thick and fast throughout the book but the pace is so fast it's almost like trying to catch something out of the window of a speeding train.

I would be very surprised if this story was not nominated for a New Pulp Award come next year.  This an amazing book and I would recommend grabbing this.

K-20: The Legend of the Mask (2008) dir: Shimako Sato Starring: Takeshi Kaneshiro

Inspired by the works of Edogawa Ranpo.

Set in an alternate 1948 where Japan didn’t enter into World War II and class system is strictly enforced, the kaijin or mystery man known as K-20 The Fiend with 20 Faces has been stealing from the wealthy elite. 

When K-20 discovers that Nikola Tesla’s wireless electricity device has been built in Japan he tries to steal it.  The device is rumoured have been responsible for the Tunguska explosion in 1908.  As part of his plot K-20 frames a circus acrobat Heikichi Endo for his crimes.

Endo is a poor and idealistic circus acrobat/illusionist who is hired by K-20 to be at the scene of a crime to take photos of the engagement party of Yoko Hashiba a wealthy heiress and Kogoro Akechi an upper class police detective for the pulp magazine The True Story.

Endo is arrested but is rescued by the honourable thieves of Thieves Alley when they steal the bridge that the prison transport is traveling on.  Endo trains in the ways of the thief so that he can fight K-20 and clear his name.

This is a fun and pulpy romp through a Japan where the police patrol in blimps and fly autogyros – in many ways this film would make an ideal companion piece to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.  I was also reminded of The Cape – the idealist is framed for crimes he didn’t commit, trained by thieves who helped him escape death to become a hero.

There were several twists throughout the film and I have to admit that one of them caught me by surprize.   There were several parts that had me giggling with glee like when the thieves stole the bridge as well as the final confrontation between Endo and K-20. 

This an enjoyable film and well worth tracking down.  Whilst it appears that there was no sequel made to this, it has whetted my appetite to try the works of Edogawa Rampo and see how he uses K-20.