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.

The Great Vigilante reread: Vigilante Southland 2016

Here we are at the end of the road.  So after Dorian Chase's viiglante ended.  There was no more Vigilante.

The New 52 had Pat Trayce make a couple of appearances in the Deathstroke title.

But 2016 was a very good year.  DC wound back some of their New 52 changes with Rebirth and brought back some of the iconic versions of characters.

For Season 5 of Arrow it was announced that Adrian Chase and Vigilante would appear.

And DC announces that there is a new Vigilante series Vigilante Southland, which used the Vigilante logo from Adrian Chase's series.

Could it be that Adrian Chase was being ressurrected?  It seemed possible.

Instead we got a new Vigilante Donny Fairchild in a six issue miniseries written by Gary Phillips and art by Elana Casagrande.  However only the first three issues were released in floppies and the other half of the series was a trade exclusive.

It seems that poor reviews and sales killed the series but at least the entire series was released in a trade paperback.

When the series came out I pointed out some of the problems I had with the series as the continuity was a little hard to follow ie the main character shaves his head between panels.  and this reread was a much soomther experience knowing some of these things but I needed to have muddled through it the first time figure out what was going on,

In many ways the story reminded me of the Howard Chaykin Miniseries Midnight Men (for Marvel's Heavy Hitter line).  Donny Fairchild has no connection to any previous Vigilante (including the original Greg Saunders)  but there seems to be a group of vigilantes operating in LA, Donny's girlfriend Dorrie Smallwood wears a similar outfit and is killed at the start of the story.  As far as I can tell she never uses a codename like Vigilante.

Her mentor Mike Relagardo, used the indentity of the Eastsider 20 years ago before he was shot and paralysed.  I like the idea of a legacy group of heros all operating in the same area using differnt names but I'm not sure if Vigilante is be the best alter ego for this idea.

But the floppies kept me interested enough to seek out the trade.

But Gary Phillips wasn't only one reviving Vigilante in 2016.  Arrow brought Adrian Chase and The Vigilante into the series in season 5.

In a surprise move Chase wasn't The Vigilante - he was Prometheus the big bad of that season.  Arrow as a show cops a lot of crticism for not being 100% faithful in the adaptation, but I don't mind it.

In this case it meant the the reveal of Prometheus was a surprise because as comic readers we expected Chase to be Vigilante and I was going "who is Vigilante?"  (BTW there was a sweet George Perez sketch of Vigilante in at least one episode)

In season Six we discover that Dinah (Black Canary III) Drake's old police partner Vincent Sobol.

Vigilante was a fun antagonist for Team Arrow and who knows someone might cast a Donny Fairbanks, Dorian Chase, Justin Powell, Dave Winston or Alan Welles and bring back the Vigilante.

The Great Vigilante Reread:Vigilante 2009

So our 2005 Vigilante, Justin Sutter did not set the world on fire and Marv Wolfman the creator of Adrian Chase brought in a new Vigilante - this one was a cool and mysterious foe for Nightwing in his title.

Then the new Vigilante appeared in Gotham Underground where Batman handed him his ass.

It was a little later that we fianlly got a new Vigilante series that ran for 12 issues.  The series really brought up more questions than answers  and it wasn't until issue 7 that we discovered his name was Dorian.  Issue 9 we discover that he was Adrian Chase's brother and issue 12 that we discovered his backstory.

I bitched and moaned about this series back in 2010 when I first read it and its realiance on living in the DC shared universe.  Several issues were tied in with "Faces of Evil" issued 2, Origins and Omens issue 3 (with visit from Nightwing), Titan's Deathtrap (4,5 and 6)   with reference to another miniseries (DC Universe Decides) and Batman appearing in issue 10.

I'm even more frustrated with this series now than I was then.  The idea of a hero searching for redeption to atone for his sins is an interesting one.

It seems like story lines chopped and changed as the book was written and it felt like a heap of filler and tie-ins to get to an end result.

And questions - JJ is alive? How did that happen?  but he died in issue 10 of the 1980s series he was definately dead.  I know DC likes to rewrite their universes history but this was jarring.

Adrian has a younger brother?  One that was never mentioned before even when Adrian confronted his father about being a disappointment because he became a DA instead of joining the family law firm?

(i should mention this is not the first mysterious Chase relative to turn up the TItans had Danny Chase a psychic and son of spies who made reference to his uncle Adrian)

Perhaps if the story had the chance to find its feet free of the confines of the DCU proper it would have been better.

Dorian hasn't been seen since but he is still alive.  Who know he could get another shot but I wouldn't be holding my breath on this.

This is the End:Vigilante (1980s) Great Comic Reread

The 1980s version of the Vigilante has been one of those series that I've been collecting for awhile.  Debuting in New Teen Titans Annual #2 Adrian Chase saw his family killed and became The Vigilante, killing the mobsters and hired assassins who killed his family.

Fairly quickly he was spun off into his own series that ran for 50 issues, two annuals and an appearance in DC Presents Superman's team up title. I spend years searching for these issues get down to the last issues and wouldn't you know it DC starts reprinting them.

By and large this revolves around Adrian Chase and falls into four periods, issues 1- 19 where Adrian is the Vigilante until he retires to become a Judge.  One of his helpers JJ is killed in issue 10 and Chase feels guilt for his death for the rest of the series (Pay attention this will become important for later Vigilantes)

Period 2 is issues 20-28 where there is a mysterious new and more violent Vigilante appears.  Adrian dreams that he is committing the crimes, Nightwing appears to take down Chase and lets Chase hunt down his replacement.

Issue 28 reveals that Vigilante #2 (yes I know that Greg Saunders is the first Viglante making Adrian Vigilante 2 but in terms of this series Saunders is never mentioned so I'm just going to go with the numbering for Chase's Legacy), where was I? Vigilante #2 was one of Adrian's fellow Judges Allan Welles.

We were set up that Welles might be a recurring villian The Electrocutioner but nope The Electrocutioner was  some random no name.  (the Electrocutioner himself became a legacy - The name and costume were too cool not to use)

Once Welles died, Chase's baliff Dave Winston took over the mantle.  A Viet Nam veteran he was calmer and more Batman like, prefering   mercy bullets.  This was the version that met Superman is DC Presents.

Welles did not survive his encounter with Peacemaker, making his DC debut in issue 36.  (Peacemaker was the inspiration for The Comedian in Watchmen)

Chase returned to be Vigilante until issue 50 working for an unnamed spy agency.  In the final issue Chase realised that he had become what he had been hunting a psychcotic killer and took his own life.  It was a heavy issue.

The supporting characters and the spy agency then spun out into the 1988 series Checkmate which ran for 33 issues.


The main series until the last part rarely interconnected with the DCU -  Cyborg appeared in issue 3, Nightwing as mentioned above.  There is a really badly shoe horned red sky Crisis on Infinite Earths issue and an appearance by Batman in issue 47.

As a complete series this ran the gamut from psycho killers, terrrorists, child sex traffickers, and costumed hitmen.  Issues 17 and 18 were written by Alan Moore which was a trip and a half.


There's more but we might leave that for the next few posts.  

Oz Comic Con Comic Buys

I spent my afternoon at Oz Comic Con and grabbed myself several comics.  I thought I'd share what Ibought and my thoughts on the same.

Avengers:The Road to Marvel's Avengers (Marvel) -  I found this trade collecting some of the MCU tie in comics,  There are three Iron Man tie-ins and one for Captain America.

Being Team Cap all the way I only grabbed the book for Captain America: First Vengeance by Fred Van Lente and several artists.

There's a gap in Captain America: The First Avenger where most of Cap and the Howling Commandos WWII adventures are glossed over in a montage and I thought that a comic series (or an animated series) set in that time period would be pretty cool.  You could get appearances from other Timely era characters who would be very unlikely to get movies. The Blonde Phantom, The Phantom Reporter, Golden Girl, Claire Voyant The Black Widow.  So I was intersted to see what  First Vengeance would give us.

It was different weaving through the events of The Frrst Avenger, we see the rise of Johan Schmidt, the escape and attempted escapes of Prof Erskine, an early exploit of Peggy Carter Agent 13, the first meeting of Steve Rogers and Bucky, the meeting f Bucky and the Howling Commandos.

This was a fine story and fleshes out The First Avenger a little. (but Cap's WW2 adventures would have been cooler)

Another story in this collection is Proximity which comes from the Iron Man 2: Black Widow Agents of SHIELD comic.  You know how "Natalie Rushman" comes to see Tony with papers to sign.  Well this story is how THe Black Widow infiltrated Stark Industries and used her spycraft to manipulate events so that she is the one who has to see Tony.

Both stories were enjoyable enough and are like watching deleted scenes on the DVD release of the movies.

Headlocked: A Single Step written by Michael Kingston art by Randy Valiente and Michael Mulipola (Headlocked Comics)

At the last several cons, I've heard Michael Mulipola talk and I've walked past his booth.  I've been meaning to get his books but I ummed and ahhed and usually I'd run out of money.

I've noticed that it's the books that you stop and think about do I take a chance on this? are the ones that end up being the best ones.

Headlocked as you might guess is a wrestling comic.  One that follows a young wrestler Mike Hartmann, a young man who decides he wants to be a professional wrestler.

Kingston is a wrestling fan but much to my surprize Mulipola is a wrestler and an artist and he is not the only one.  The cover to A Single Step is provided by Jerry "The King" Lawler.  There are bonus stories written by MVP, The Young Bucks and Samoa Joe.

Oh boy this was a good story and tells of Hartmann's attempts to break into the industry I'm interested to see where the story goes in the next two volumes both called The Last Territory.

Next time I see Michael Mulipola, I'm going to have to grab his WWE comics that he has worked on.

Broken Line written by Andrew Constant and art by Emily K. Smith, Mark Lauthier & Kathryn Mann. (Gestalt Comics)

Gestalt is an  Australian comic company that started in 2005 and is the second longest operating Australian comic book company.  I have several of thier books and all of them have been quality products.  They are the publishers of The Deep, Wastelander Panda and Unmasked.  I'm going to mention several other books of theirs in this post.

Constant is the writer of  Torn (from Gestalt), the latest Demon Miniseries by DC and Frew's Kid Phantom (from issue 2)

Broken Line is Mad Max meets a supernatural apocalyspe.  The main character is unnamed and refers to himself as Cop.  The nature of the apocalypse is unspecified, the opening pages suggest a nuclear holocast but there seems to very little fallout or mutants.

Cop has a big black car that calls to mind Mad Max's car.  In story he tells us that he was given the car by a mysterious bogey man, the car is impossible to damage and the tank is always full (suddenly I want one)  and part way through the story the car (literally) disappears.

Cop sees that his sargeant has killed himself when he gets a call from "Robber" who has stolen a cop car.  The two play chicken and Robber shows Cop a young boy he has chained to a tree.  The young boy had bitten his own arm.

I though we may be in one of those Zombie apocalypse scenarios but the boy is human just messed up by a Rasputin-ish preacher who teaches that God and his angels hear prayers through cries of pain.

The story revolves around Cop, Robber and the boy tracking down the preacher.

This comic was enjoyable but whoo boy did it bring up a lot of questions, I'm interested to see where this goes and if we get answers in future installments.

Karnak Book 1 written by Christian Read art by Micheal Maier (Gestalt)

Reid and Maier are the team behind the supernatural western The Eldrich Kid (also from Gestalt (it's starting to look like I may have to do a series of Great Comics Rereads for my other Gestalt books).

The poster for this book described it as Doctor Who meets Dr Strange and I cannot argue with that.  As I looked at it the name Karnak seemed to dance around the edge of familiarity in my brain.  I mentioned it to Wolfgang Bylsma, owner of Gestalt and he mentioned one of Jack Kirby's  Inhumans had that name. (There is also an Egyptian city of Karnak with a large temple)

Then it struck me, it was similar to William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost Finder.  Wolf just smiled and showed me the electric pentagram on the back cover.

When I'm naming my characters I always want names I can conjure with and Christian Read has certainly done so in this series his Richard Karnak takes some cues from Hodgson's Thomas Carnacki but this is new character.

The story is set in the modern day (there are computers and mobile phones) and the 70s is a long time ago.

The story is narrated by Cass Lot who has moved in her new house with her fiance Chang Chan.  The lock on the front door appears to have blood in it.  (apparently moving into a new house is the scariest thing you can do - it rarely works out well in horror movies)  Things get worse from there and Cassie is apprached by Richard Karnak and his assistant Belthaniel (who I think may be an angel)

Karnak discovers that Lot's house was the home of the leader of a satanic swingers club in the 1970s (which by the way I want to know more about  Satanic Swingers sounds like it should have been a sleezy paperback in the seventites) which is the source of the problem.  There's very cool easter egg where the news story about the Satanic Swingers is written by Ned Buntline.  Buntline was the author of the Buffalo Bill Dime novels in the old west.

Belthaniel clears out the supernatural from Lot's house and Cassie intrigued by this new world she has stumbled on and goes to work for Karnak as his protege and assistant.

Karnak is almost exactly how I image Wesley Wyndum-Pryce (from Buffy and Angel may have turned out if he had not come across Angel) with a smattering of DC's John Constantine.

This is highly recommended.

Changing Ways Book 1 by Justin Randall (Gestalt)

I 'd heard good stuff about Changing Ways from a lot of people.  So I decided to give it a go.  I have to admit I was a little aprehensive because it looked like a zombie book and Brad don't do zombies (of course, I have a zombie story rattling my noggin)  but I'm willing to give it a crack,  Let me say Changing Ways is not a zombie story, I have no idea what genre to put this in.

in book 1, Tom Taylor writes a foreward where he says "Changing Ways grabbed me by the eyeballs and wouldn't let me go."

I really can't top that.  The story and art pulled me right in and did not let up, my wife called and I was at page 71,  and I was like "How did I get so far through?"

Great storytellers do that, time stops and you get caught in the story.

I was so hestitant to read this book and now I can't wait to see what the next two parts bring.

I thought intially I wouldn't like the art but damned if it grabbed me.  Randall's colouring bathes entire pages in yellows and reds and greens and blues.  I'm seriously lacking an art vocabulary to talk about the art and the colours.  There's an amazing bit where the young girl in the story is telling her parents something that happened to her and Randall drops his realistic style and gives us art that looks like it was drawn by a ten year old girl.  Holy Smokes.

Now I am torn do I rip straight throught the next two volumes? or dole them out over several days to savour them more?

The Secret Diary of Bettie Page (2017) by David Avallone (writer) and various artists

Bettie Page is a fascinating woman, one of the top pin up models.  She has been the subject of comics, a biopic (The Notorious Bettie Page starting Gretchen Mol) and a heap of photos and drawings.  I once heard that she was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most photographed person in the world, I cannot verify that.

Like many of my age, I discovered Bettie Page when Dave Stevens used her as the model for The Rocketeer's girlfriend Betty Page.  Stevens then created a revival of Bettie Page which gave her royalties.  There were several comics from Dark Horse in the 90s some with art by Stevens and others by Jim Silke.  Other comics of a more salacious nature.  Needless to say Bettie Page has a significant pop culture presence so a new comic isn't a surprise.  The idea that she was a secret agent in the 50s is in an interesting idea.

This miniseries has eight issues (and a six issue story in Playboy) all written by David Avallone with different artists. Issues 1-3 have art by Colton Wortley, with Esau Figueroa and Bane Wade sharing the duties for the last five issues.  Joseph Michael Lisner did the art for the Playboy story (which can be found here. Lisner provided covers for all the issues.

The eight issues are split into three parts. Issues 1-4 cover the events leading to Bettie's recruitment.  Issue 5 covers training and a small mission that pays homage to 50s drive in moves and issues 6-8 is the mission in Cannes. Personally, I would have gotten to the spy stuff sooner.

Issue 1 was a little confusing it starts with Bettie at a photoshoot in New York. The FBI raids the shoot and Bettie escapes down the fire escape.  At the bottom of the escape, just standing in the street is Rick Chaplain.  Chaplain helps her down and offers her a job.  A job in Los Angeles, where he proceeds to drive her.  I live in Australia but I know that LA and New York are a long way apart.
The whole set up seems off and a really bad way to get to her to Los Angeles.  I mean there wasn't even the opportunity for her to pack, Bettie is seen driving in the outfit she was wearing at the photoshoot.  Lucky it was the start of the shoot.

In LA, Bettie gets the lead role in a sci movie "Invasion of the Space Commies" while working as an assistant for Chaplain.  Seriously, the story could have started with Bettie in LA for auditions.  Hell she could have met Chaplain on the plane and it would have made more sense than what we got.

The story could have been tighter but it was far from the most disappointing part of the story.  Bettie Page Queen of the Pin-Ups this was a story begging for 'good girl' style art.  The Dark Horse stories had Dave Stevens and Jim Silke artwork.





And Dynamite delivers for the covers with Joseph Michael Lisner doing all eight issues and Scott Chandler on variants.  Issue one had twenty odd variants including photo covers with and one by  Terry Dodson homaging Dave Stevens.

 

If only the interior art matched these covers, I found Colton Worley's  art to be muddy.  It looked like he was using photo references but it didn't work, In issues 1 and 2 Worley inked his own work but issue 3 had Esau Figueroa inking but the inking only made the effect worse:

 

Figueroa drew issues 4, 6-8 with Bane Wade drawing issue 5 and inking issue 4.  I found the art did not improve with the changes in artist. Dynamite as I mentioned did a six page stand alone with Lisner on art for Playboy magazine, which co-incidentally was the memorial issue for Hugh Hefner.  Lisner's artwork was the only one I liked. I'm not sure why the artists changed but I did not realise that the change had taken place until I was writing this.

This was an interesting idea, that could have been awesome.  I was on board, this hit my sweet spot. Bettie Page, spy hell yeah.  The art was my biggest problem, the muddy interior art drew me away from the story - look I can appreciate different styles but certain styles work better for different characters and stories. Any story on Bettie Page cries out for strong good girl art, people reading it based on the name are expecting a book about a pin up queen.  The covers promised us this and the interior failed to deliver.

I was so critical of the art that until I started to reread issue 1, I had not really noticed some of the story flaws.  If you spend half your story getting her to be a spy it is too long and then spend an issue on a side story (a cool and interesting diversion into the 50s giant creature features) not having her spy I'm going to feel a little cheated. The set up did tie into the spying in the last three issues but the whole thing could have been handled better.

I would not recommend this comic.

The A-Team: The Mystery of Sue.

As a fan of 80s TV series I collect the UK annuals that came out over the years.  Recently I acquired the first annual for the A Team which is copyright 1984.



As you can see the full team are there Mr T as B.A. Dwight Shultz as Murdock, George Peppard as Hannibal, Dirk Benedict as Face and Melinda Culea as Amy.

Inside are five text stories, two comic strip stories, a profile of the four male members of the A Team, a Murdock Themed Plane Quiz (five planes are shown one is the product of Murdock's imagination which one, a "humour" page with B.A. at the Day Care centre.  Well I assume they were meant to be funny because they weren't.

So I read the first story Swamp Wreck, there's no Amy but there is a Sue who fills much the same role.  Sue appears in the next story the comic "Buried Alive."

The third story "When the War came back" had Zoe in the role.

Amy finally appears in "Seizure at Sneekerville".

Sue reappears in the comic "....Bring him back Alive." and the text story "The Scuzzball Diamond Set-To" .

In the final story "Hard Times in Hawaii" Ann is with the Team.

Lastly there is a board game "Get..The A-Team" where you have to collect the five members of the A Team Face, B.A, Murdock, Hannibal and Sue.  complete with pictures of the actors. 

Except Sue wasn't in the TV series

Who the hell is Sue? 

The picture isn't Melinda Culea, perhaps it was a guest star in the first season.  Looking through the cast lists for the season -Sue Beth appears in "The Rabbit who ate Los Vegas"  played by Michelle Avonne, an actress who appeared in five things and has no photos on the internet except this one



I watch the episode and she looks nothing like Sue from the Annual, nor does Katherine Moffatt who played Sue Beth's friend Darlene.  The episode isn't clear which character is which.

I show my wife and she points out that Sue looks a little like Patricia Richardson from Home Improvement.  I find a 1983 ad Patricia had done



Maybe  then I look at her filmography and in 1984 she did a show called Double Trouble

Where her hairdo looks a lot like that seen in the picture she appears at 0;32

 

 

I have no idea why they picked that photo of Patricia Richardson - she never appeared in the A-Team.  There were no characters called Sue in her filmography.

 

I have even less of a clue who Zoe and Amy are -  if I were to speculate there is a 10 year period while the A Team is on the run before they meet Amy Allen perhaps these women helped the team during that period.

The Great Comics Reread: The Twelve

So a few years back one of the local comic shops had a moving sale every back issue $1.  Sweet I say and have a shopping spree.

Part of that haul was Issues 3-8 of The Twelve as well as The Twelve: Spearhead one shot and the zero and half issues.  A little bit of internet research told me that the series had not been finished.  J. Michael Straczynski (writer) had become in demand with Hollywood after the success of the movie Changeling directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie.  The artist Chris Weston (who did Spearhead solo) also moved onto other projects.  The general consensus on the net seemed to be that we'd never see the end of the story then in 2012 the last four issues came out.

 The idea is that twelve characters from the Timely Comics era (and hadn't been seen since) were found in 2008 in a bunker in Germany in cryogenic suspension.  The military tries to make them think it's still the 1940s but the narrator The Phantom Reporter soon sees through that.  In many ways the scene is reminiscent of the end of Captain America: The First Avenger which came out three years later. 

Many of the reviews I read claimed that JMS was trying to do a Watchmen.  I can certainly see the similarities - one of the heroes is murdered at the end of the first issue.  The use of defunct characters (the original plans for Watchmen were just that - the MLJ and later the Charlton characters) and the old Timely characters. Some might even say that JMS later work on Before Watchmen bears this out.    I won't go into the merits of this but Watchmen would certainly appear to be an influence on this comic.

I liked the idea that Marvel was embracing some of their Golden Age heritage - except for Captain America and Sub-Mariner there were few characters that seemed to consistently used in the Marvel Universe.  Some of the Characters only appeared in one or two Golden Age Stories some had more.

I wasn't quite so fond of JMS retconning of the character's histories.  The Fiery Mask's origin is revealed to be completely false  for example completely trampling over the Joe Simon origin.  I though his handling of Rockman's origin was better leaving the reader to decide whether the new origin was true or not.

The Phantom Reporter had three identities Richard Jones, cub reporter, The Phantom Reporter and millionaire Van Elden.  The Van Elden identity is completely ignored. (The millionaire playboy fighting crime trope was a little overused in that time and perhaps made him too similar to Mr. E who was already in the Twelve)

It would have been a big problem but the zero and half issues reprinted several of the Golden Age stories so readers would have had the opportunity to read those stories and see the changers that JMS made.

Another thing that I had an issue with was that Twelve was a way to bring these characters back into the modern Marvel universe yet several of the characters were rendered useless for that purpose.  The delayed ending would not have helped in this regard.  Several were dead or presumed so (The Blue Blade, Dynamic Man, Rockman and The Fiery Mask) others seemed to be operating in secret (The Phantom Reporter, The Black Widow, Master Mind Excello, The Laughing Mask, Electro and The Witness) .  Me E had retired. 

Some like Electro and The Black Widow had new bearers of the name running around but a simple name change like (the original Daredevil now referred to as The Death Defying 'Devil  in new stories)

Overall,  I enjoyed the series.  I liked the idea of bringing back the classic characters and giving them a new life.

The pulp style covers were nice.

Oz Comic Con Report

So on Sunday 20 September 2015, I attended the second ever Brisbane  Oz Comic Con.

It was a full day, I left home at 7am and didn't get back until after 8pm.

I got down and lined up before the doors opened.  Once the doors opened we flowed in fairly quickly.  Some other cons I've attended that hasn't happened.

Oz Comic Con allows you to buy autograph tokens which is a huge time saver and I was able to slip straight into the Richard Dean Anderson autograph line.  I was glad that I did as that line became massive fairly quick.  I was lined up behind a really nice family and we had a bit of a chat as Mum and Dad tag teamed in and out of the line.  They had a cast photo of Stargate SG1 signed by all the cast members except one Richard Dean Anderson. 

There I was the almost lone MacGyver guy in a sea of Stargate fans. I had taken my copy of the only MacGyver tie in from the 1980's an original novel MacGyver On Ice.  As best I can tell it's set before the TV series.  (The only other Tie In I've found is the recent five issue comic book miniseries.)

 

Richard Dean Anderson had never seen it before. So I was stoked.  I also mentioned how much I also enjoyed his one season follow up Legend.  It was a steampunk western about a dime novel writer Ernest Pratt essentially living the life of his hero Nicodemus Legend. "So you were the one." He quipped. I shook his hand. 

After that I saw that Mark Sheppard's line had no one in it.  Like a flash I was over there.  Mark's filmography reads like a list of cool genre shows from the last two decades.  Supernatural, The X Files, Charmed, Leverage, the list goes on and on. I grabbed my DVD copy of Soldier of Fortune Inc.  The show was basically an updated version of The A Team.  Mercenaries hired by the government.  In the second season, the name changed to Special Ops Force, Sheppard and a couple of other actors were out replaced by Dennis Rodman.  I quite enjoyed the second season myself but I never saw the first season except for the DVD I'd found with two episodes.  As far I could find that was the only release for the series.

Mark Sheppard was really nice, he made a comment about being nearly hidden on the cover (that's him over on the far left) as he signed it. I commented that I loved his work and shook his hand. 

The first panel of the day I was planning on seeing was at 11 and it was nearly 10 so I decided to have a bit of a wander.  I hit the Dark Oz booth and grabbed a copy of Retro Sci Fi Tales.  This a great anthology title of fun old school Sci fi stories.  If you see a copy I recommend grabbing it. (The companion horror title Decay is pretty good too.)

I then got some issues of Birds of Prey signed by Nicola Scott and Greg Rucka signed my copy of Huntress: Cry for Blood.  I then saw Dr Paul Mason and grabbed a sweet print of the new Supergirl for Abbey.

After that I saw Jim Beaver and got him to sign Bobby Singer's Guide to Hunting.  He called me an Idjit. (Why? Because I asked him to.)

Then I was off to the first panel From Comic to Screen to Comic. Jim Beaver took a little longer than planned so I missed the start but it was interesting to hear the stories of adapting from one medium to another.  Everything I heard from Wolf, Tom and James makes me so keen to see The Deep animated series.  And the Fury Road tie in comics sound very interesting.

After that it was time for lunch and some more shopping before heading back to stage 3 for more panels.  I took the opportunity to grab a couple of Gesalt books Unmasked and Wasteland Panda.  I briefly spoke with Wolf mentioned how much I enjoyed the documentary Comic Book Heroes and got him to sign my copy of Wasteland Panda.

Dean Rankine, Dr Paul Mason, Kylie Chan, Queenie Chan and Doug Holgate talked about the realities of publishing.  Very few people in Australia (and around the world) make enough from their art be it writing or drawing or other.  The need to have a second career.  Dean made a point that he would like to be JK Rowling and it's true we look to the outliers, the ones who got the million dollar advances.  I know I'm probably never going to make a lot of money from writing but I have stories I want to tell which is the same for everyone else on the panel.  It was sobering and Paul, I think, jokingly referred to it as the kill your dreams panel.

After that I quickly popped down to Dean Rankine's booth and grabbed The Itty Bitty Bunnies save Christmas.  This book is just the right level of messed up.

The rest of the day was filled with panels.

Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott's Black Magick panel was interesting and the presentation got me really excited to read this new comic.  Greg Rucka described it as "Witch Noir" which sounds intriguing and Nicola Scott's grey washed style makes this a must get for me.

Next was the Scrubs panel with Sam Lloyd and Rob Maschio.  While the pair did answer the questions asked there was a lot of joking around and by the end of the panel it was standing room only. 

That ended my time on stage three.  I must say that Amanda Bacchi and her volunteers did an amazing keeping things moving and making the panels enjoyable and interesting.

Next I was up to stage one to see Richard Dean Anderson.  Man he is funny and irreverent.  I think Jack O'Neil is probably closer to the real Richard Dean Anderson that Angus MacGyver.  There were alot of questions asking him to pick his favourite thing - favourite line, favourite cast mate, favourite show etc.  But there were some funny stories like the time his brother tried the egg to fix a radiator trick that MacGyver did in one episode.  It didn't work for the Anderson brothers but they did enjoy the scrambled eggs. Or the last time he came to Australia there was a water leak on the plane and it had to turn around.  The next morning on the new plane, the pilot saw RDA and said had he known MacGyver was on board he would have kept flying and gotten MacGyver to fix it as they flew.

Lovely stuff.

Next was the Kevin Smith panel.  I've enjoyed Kevin's movies over the years.  Clerks, Mallrats, Jersey Girl, Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks II are all enjoyable films and I'd heard that he is really funny.

I wasn't disappointed, he went over time but it didn't feel long.  Stories of film financing blended into stories about Johnny Depp and making a stupid walrus movie.

I liked the message at end about as long as you're not hurting anyone have a go at your dreams.

While a long day it was a fun and enjoyable day.