The Saga of Dominic Fortune

Over the years, I've followed many, many characters - most of whom have a distinctly pulp flavor.  I could rattle them off for hours.  

Sometimes the character is new or simply new to me.  Other times I will rediscover a character that I had forgotten about or was only able to find one or two issues back in the day.  With the internet, expanding that collection or reacquiring books, movies or comics from the past is a lot easier.  

It's the latter case with Dominic Fortune, many years ago in the last century I picked up Web of Spiderman #10 

Who was this Dominic Fortune?  I must have bought this when it came out at the newsagent.  It didn't stay in the collection for one of the moves and I don't recall being aware that there were more adventures of Dominic Fortune.  I remember him using a roll of dimes or quarters as knuckledusters.

A few weeks back something reminded me of Dominic Fortune, and I started down the rabbit hole.  My wallet was less than happy with me, but I eventually managed to acquire the complete adventures of Dominic Fortune. More than that, Fortune was created by Howard Chaykin, and Chaykin had a test run for Fortune with Scorpion for Atlas Comics.  Chaykin drew the first two issues before the powers that be decided to make the series more superhero for the third and final issue.

So over the next few weeks, I will be looking at the three issues of the Scorpion and the Adventures of Dominic Fortune.  I will look at each individual story whether it be told as a short in an anthology, a single issue or a run of several issues and will do this in more or less publication order.

Come back next week for the first thrilling adventure of The Scorpion.

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.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) starring Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoe Salanda, voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel

There's not a lot I can say about this movie that hasn't been said already by Derrick Ferguson Jack Badelaire and  Mark Bousquet (who is also writing a series of character specific reactions) and a lot of others.

I thought Guardians was a clever move by Marvel Studios - it builds on elements introduced in The Avengers (Thanos and The Other) and Thor 2 (The Collector), and does so in a way that takes us beyond what we've seen previously and explores a whole new direction.  The movie opens with the abduction of young Peter Quill from Earth and he's our point of view character in the story.  That opening takes us from the familiar (Earth) and lets us explore the galaxy.

Chris Pratt in a lot of ways reminds me of Harrison Ford's Han Solo (and this probably makes Disney's Han Solo film that much harder). But Pratt's Quill is not the only character who we meet and develop a bond with.  There is one scene that had both my daughters in tears, so much did they come to care about the characters.

Rocket Racoon and Groot are the Jay and Silent Bob of this movie and I would cheerfully plonk down my cash for a movie starring them.

Gamora is an interesting character, in spite of her messed up upbringing by Thanos, she is willing to betray him to do what is right.  The movie offers her in direct contrast with her sister, Nebula.

Drax the Destroyer is a focused character and is literalism is played for laughs, but his partnership with the Guardians causes him to grow.  Actually, that holds for all the characters, alone they couldn't achieve their individual goals but together they move beyond their limitations and become better and more effective in achieving their goals.

The Guardians are getting a major push by Marvel in the comics and appearances in Hulk and The Agents of SMASH and Ultimate Spider-Man animated cartoons.

I loved this movie. 

A few thoughts on a possible Black Widow film

Just after The Avengers came out, there was a quote from Joe Quesada basically saying that there was no female Marvel properties or actresses that could carry a solo movie franchise.


Not surprisingly this caused a wee bit of a stir.  The internet rattled off multiple characters and actresses who could do exactly that, the most obvious one that most people pointed to was of course the one female character and actress who had appeared in both Iron Man 2

 

and The Avengers

 

 

 

 

 

After seeing Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the announcement that we were getting a Black Widow at some point in the future (after Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron) 

 

I had to wonder if Marvel Studios was playing it carefully -  there had only been one Marvel based film with a female lead character Elektra (2005)  and it was not a success. 

 

 (A number female characters appeared in the  X Men films and Sue Storm The Invisible Woman had appeared in the two Fantastic Four movies but they were part of an ensemble cast) There had been one animated series starring a solo Marvel heroine Spider-Woman which ran for 16 episodes.

 

So Marvel Studios had little experience with their own properties.  How was their largest rival DC handling solo female superhero movies/TV/Animation?

 

After two failed pilots, Wonder Woman had a TV series that ran for three seasons (1976-1979), Isis (TV series 1975), Supergirl (1984), Birds of Prey (TV series 2002)  Catwoman (2004) Wonder Woman (2009) animated film. Wonder Woman had an unaired pilot in 2011.  Of all of these only the Wonder Woman TV series starring Lynda Carter might be considered a success.

 

Outside of the big two I'd be hard pressed to think of any successful solo female film or TV series.

 

So I wonder if Marvel Studios, is carefully introducing us to Black Widow expanding her role just a little bit more each role - A glorified cameo in Iron Man 2, part of the ensemble in The Avengers, almost equal co star in Captain America; The Winter Soldier (at least one review has suggested that the movie should have been called Captain America and Black Widow)  so that we as fans actively want a Black Widow film.

 

I could be overthinking it.