Battle of the 80s Supercars

My love for Knight Rider is well known (and if not, it is now)  KITT (the Knight Industries Two Thousand) was a car ahead of it's time nearly forty years later we still haven't got everything that car could do.

The Battle of the 80s Supercars was in effect two specials in one.

The first part was David Hasselhoff driving around in KITT looking at the new wave of cars that were influenced by KITT and Knight Rider -  bulletproof cars, self driving cars, a self sufficent survival car, smart cars that you open through your watch as well as very fast cars.

In most cases, The Hoff drives the cars - there's part of me that imagines the creators of these vehicles were doing the "Knight Rider is driving my car" happy dance.  And it was fascinating to see what was currently being done.

There's a cool bit where the Hoff visits the desginer of KITT for the TV series and we see his design sketches for KITT.

The second part which was woven through the special was an 80s super car race -  now this was a great idea as a young boy in the 80s we had a number of supervehicles aside from KITT on TV:

• Blue Thunder (the one season spinoff from the movie), 
• Airwolf (helicopter), 
• Streethawk (motorcycle), 
• Automan's car, 
• the Coyote X from Hardcastle and McCormick, 
• The Highwayman's truck, 
• The A-Team van, 

and that is just off the top of my head.  (I was going to include Viper but that was in the 90s and we're not going into the Knight Rider spinoff TV Movies and series which would double the list alone.)

Okay we aren't doing the helicopters but that's an impressive list of vehicles and the producers got Dirk Bendict to drive the A Team Van - yes!  and Erik Estrada on his CHiPs bike - ah what now?

Now don't get me wrong CHiPs was a fine series and I have a feeling that my cousin Michael and I had CHiPs action figures but a) they were regular police motorcycles not super vehicles and b) CHiPs started in 1977.

A good chunk of the special had Erik Estrada hunting for his bike (which he did after accepting the challenge of the race) and Benedict getting the van serviced (at least he was spared running around looking for the van).

Really all they needed to do was what they did with Hasselhoff - make out that these guys were just driving around all the time in these vehicles.  I'm sure that most of us assume that to be the case anyway.

Partway through Hasselhoff runs into Morgan Fairchild who basically tells the Hoff  that she wishes he come last.  Morgan Freeman wasn't in any show even vaguely super car related, yeah she was in flashy soaps like Falcon Crest and Paper Dolls but why was she here?

We get to raceday and they get Catherine Bach (Daisy Duke from the Duke of Hazzard) as the race offical and starter which was a great idea, I suspect that instead of the four wheel drive she turned up in she was supposed to drive up in the General Lee, but given the sensitivity to the Confederate Flag these days that was sqashed,.  

The idea was first to win two races was the overall winner and I'm sure since this was Hasselhoff's special we can all guess who won.

The show ends with the Hoff talking a possible sequel with races with other super vehicles - that brought a huge grin to my face.

(I should mention that KITT brought the 

Arrow; A farewell

Wow has it really been eight years since Arrow started? Eight seasons of Oliver Queen fighting crime in Star(ling) City?

In many ways you could call Green Arrow the Iron Man of DCTV.  Like the MCU all of the top tier characters were tied up elsewhere and one of the lower teir characters got the tap to build a universe, in the case of DC it was the movie people who had all the cool toys.

To many people Green Arrow was a wanna be Batman with a Robin Hood twist.  And many people wrote Arrow off for just that - the early seasons were heavily influenced by the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy but dammit I loved it.

I was a huge fan of the Mike Grell run of Green Arrow comics in the 80s which were grim gritty street level crime comics and Arrow delivered that in spades. The twist was that it was the start of Green Arrow's career instead of a man in his forties (which lead to his death after Grell's run)

The early seasons had flash backs to five years earlier showing how Oliver gained the skills and knowledge he used in his fight against crime in the present day.

The show wasn't perfect but what show is?  I would have swapped season 4 and 5's flashbacks around as four took him back to the island he was stranded on in seasons 1 & 2 and then five sent him to Russia to race back to the island to be rescued at the end of the season to take us to the start of season 1's present day story.

The flashforwards to 2040 in later seasons did nothing for me.  I was hoping though that they might tie into the season 1 Legends of Tomorrow episode "Star City 2046")

I wasn't wild on all the costumes that were given to characters over the show.  Wildcat and later Black Canary costumes were some of my least favourite - I liked Sara Lance's original Black Canary costume. Other costumes like Ragman and Wild Dog were spot on.

Some characters got the short shift in the show either through actors not coming back or taken away by the movie people (Huntress, Suicide Squad, and Deathstroke).

The wasn't beholden to the comics, creating new characters (John Diggle, Sara Lance), recreating exisiting names (Felicity Smoak) and letting the story take them where it would - in at least on occasion the show used our knowledge of comics against us with the relevation of the true identity of Prometheus.  It was a surprise and while it could have rubbed some fans up the wrong way it made me incredibly happy - it solved a mystery with a twist that I wasn't expecting and handed me a new mystery that I thought I already knew the answer to.

Like Iron Man, the show grew and The Flash spun off from it, and then we added Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman, with Supergirl and Constantine joining from other networks which all culminated in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Crisis was probably the ultimate way to end Green Arrow's story in a tale so massive that it ranged outside the scope of the current Arrow-verse and affected other DC live action shows.  I won't spoil how it ended but the final episode was a great ending  for Oliver Queen.

Arrow was a show the defied expectations and changed TV superhero shows building a universe that challenges the MCU for a fraction of the budget.

The Watchmen Companion (2019)

The third Watchmen related product to come out in the same week is The Watchmen Companion.

Arguably the least controversial of the Watchmen spinoffs*. (Seriously, if read one more article about the Watchmen TV series or Doomsday Clock that calls it an unauthorised sequel... I get the murkiness but under the letter of the contract DC holds the rights).

The Companion is split into three parts: The Watchmen Roleplaying modules “Watching the Watchmen”, “Taking Out the Trash”, and “The Watchmen Sourcebook”; Various Watchmen promotional pieces and articles done by Moore and Gibbons; and The Question #17.

 The Question issue was okay. Vic Sage reads Watchmen and tries to act more like Rorschach, finishing with the Question declaring that “Rorschach sucks”. As we all know The Question was the inspiration for Rorschach – as I’ve pointed out that hasn’t stopped creators trying to watchmen-ify the Charlton heroes in stories like The LAW Living Assault Weapon and Pax Americana.

The promotional pieces are interesting and informative especially in hindsight. In an illustration for an article in Amazing Heroes shows The Minutemen’s character sketches and we see an alternate name for Hooded Justice, Brother Night. Fans of the TV series would be going “oh,” (I had a quick flick through Gibbon’s Watching The Watchmen and that detail doesn’t seem to be in there).

But the gold mine here is the RPG modules, which make up the majority of the book. Alan Moore worked with the writers to turn out these two prequel adventures and the source book. Reading the modules is challenging in the same way that reading a script is. It just takes some adjustment.

 “Watching the Watchmen” confirmed my theory that Captain Metropolis is a little bit dodgy. “Taking out the Trash” explains how Nixon ultimately became Vice President in the Watchmen world. The Sourcebook is an expanded version of the back matter of the graphic novel, it confirms that Rolf Muller is Hooded Justice and states that the Comedian killed him. 

*Saturday Morning Watchmen or Dave Gibbons “Watching the Watchmen” would also be in the running. 

Doomsday Clock (12 issue maxi series) written by Geoff Johns and art by Gary Frank

After the Before Watchmen collection of miniseries, I was less than keen for a new comic set in the world of Watchmen. But this was a sequel, and I’d long been intrigued by seeing where the world went next. Intended to finish at the end of 2018, this book ran over time and by a quirk of synergy the final issue came out the same week as the final episode of the TV series and the Watchmen Companion.

The story starts in 1992, Veidt’s deception has been discovered and the world immediately begins firing nuclear missiles. The world’s only hope is to track down Dr Manhattan. Not a bad start, Veidt is joined by the second Rorschach and the criminal duo of Mime and Marionette.

 I’m intrigued by the new characters. Who is the new Rorschach? Johns does a great job with this mystery giving us a character who is only hinted at in one panel of the Watchmen comic, (yep I was sent scurrying to the comic to see if it was legit. It was)

The problem is that the majority of the series is set in the DC Universe so we have to focus on the considerably larger cast of DC characters. Batman and Rorschach interact as do Adrian and Lex Luthor and any ambiguity if Veidt is a villain or a hero is out the window. There is a final confrontation between Superman and Dr Manhattan (the briefer Manhattan/Captain Atom clash was a disappointment)

There is a notion going through the DC Universe of the Superman Theory – America has the majority of superheroes because they are deliberately being created by the US government. It’s an interesting idea and I wonder would it have would have worked better without the Watchmen stuff. We discover that Dr Manhattan was responsible for the New 52 universe and his interference prevented the formation of the Justice Society and Legion of Superheroes.

Ultimately, I didn’t care. The crisis of infinite reboots that is DC makes me ask is, will this story still count/matter after the next round of retcons? I did like the idea that the Watchmen characters end up back in their own universe and their experiences in the DC Universe have injected some hope into their world. Ultimately is this a satisfying story? Yes. Is it what I would have liked to have seen? Not really, seeing the Watchmen characters in the DCU wasn’t something I’d hoped to see – we already had the Charlton heroes in there and writers have tried several times to make them into their Watchmen counterparts, The L.A.W. miniseries and the Pax Americana chapter of Multiversity come to mind. The artwork is really good and seems to have been the hold up with the stories. There were several articles that announced that the art for issue 12 was now done. The delays really hurt this series as it went longer and longer I presume that more people would have dropped the book or forgotten about it – some of the revelations and returns to continuity that should have debuted here had been preempted in other titles.

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.

Watchmen Season 1 starring Don Johnson, Regina King

Well what a show. Nine episodes and a complete story. Sure there were some dropped threads but generally speaking all the big questions were answered. There are going to be spoilers, don't say I didn't warn you.

We open in 1921 with the Tulsa race riots. America like Australia has moments in history that they should not be proud of. The Tulsa massacre was a real event but we don't find out the significance of it until later, several commentators have pointed out that the Tulsa massacre is in effect the destruction of Krypton. And serves as the traumatic origin of at least one character.

But that was not readily apparent and took several episodes to tie it all together. I didn't mind but it did create a little confusion as we jump to nearly a century later in the present day and I was trying to find the link. But I was rewarded but staying with the show – the sixth episode focussed on the first of the costumed adventurers Hooded Justice.

And the show succeeded in sending me back to the graphic novel to see if the revelation of who Hooded Justice was under the mask was plausible. Truth be told I have a couple of doubts. Fistly in Under the Hood, Hollis Mason says that he heard Hooded Justice openly support Hitler – not something that I would expect from the African-American Will Reeves. There is a hint that the German propaganda Will’s father brought back from World War I might account for this.

Next the actor they choose for 1930s Will Reeves seemed a little small to be Hooded Justice who shares a build with circus strongman Rolf Moller. I could make explanations that Mason was deliberately obscuring Hooded Justice's identity but that feels like I have to do too much damage to the Graphic novel.

Also Will is a man with a wife and child (and we need the child as we discover that Hooded Justice is main character Angela Abar's grandfather.) He is in a homosexual relationship with Captain Metropolis and as a beard for that he's swanning around with Sally Jupiter the original Silk Spectre on his arm. It's too much but for the TV series to work with the comic but for Will Reeves as Hooded Justice to work we need all three to happen. The latter two being what we knew from the graphic novel which the creators assured us was canon. (The TV series wisely doesn’t bring Sally Jupiter as a beard into the episode)

Another thing that bothered me as reread the graphic novel, the similarity of Hooded Justice’s origin to the first Nite Owl, both were cops in the same city at the same time, both read Superman comics and were inspired to put on costumes and fight crime. Now similar origins in comics aren’t unusual (Batman and Johnston McCulley’s The Bat – both of whom created their crime-fighting identity after a bat flew through their window). So it’s not impossible for it to play out that way but it doesn’t help my suspension of disbelief.

(given the racial politics of the show surely Hooded Justice’s original of nearly being hung and wearing the noose home has to be a reference to Jussie Smollett’s faked racially motivated attack)

 Ultimately, when watching the episode it seemed plausible enough and I am being really nit picky. I have to admit I loved the whole show.. The show has multiple callbacks to the graphic novel.

 The official tie-in Petey-pedia allows from interesting expansions to the lore of the world. Interestingly, with the Sister Night centred episode – Angela Abar took her name from a movie of the same name. Agent Petey’s memo about the movie expands about the origin of the movie and how it falls in the “Black Mask” genre which is a hybrid of Blaxploitation and Superhero movies. Now Angela’s surname Abar was niggling at the back of my mind I was sure I’d heard it before in a similar context and Agent Petey mentions Sister Night (1977), The Black Superman, Tarantula and Batman. The latter birthing a legion of click bait articles “Batman exists in Watchmen” It was the Black Superman that finally reminded where I’d heard her name. There is a real 1977 Blaxploitation movie called “Abar, the First Black Superman” (renamed “In Your Face” for VHS release in 1990). I’d presume that this was the source of Det. Abar’s surname.

Rereading Watchmen the graphic novel, while watching the TV series was equally rewarding. In Adrian Veidt’s interview in the back matter of issue 11 Adrian mentions the Seventh Cavalry. The context is completely different from the one seen in the show but one wonders if that was the source of the name (equally did Veidt form the 7th Kavalry to help discredit Rorschach )

I should mention the new characters primarily introduced though the Defence of Police Act. After the Seventh Kalvary attacks on police officers this act was introduced to allow police to wear masks and conceal their identities. The regular beat cops wear a yellow mask on their lower faces and detectives are allowed to create their own identities – the series focuses on Det Angela Abar’s Sister Night and Looking Glass, the latter’s origin tied to the ending of the Graphic novel. Red Scare, Pirate Jenny and Panda all appear but are background characters if there is to be a second season a focus on these characters would be welcome.

The TV series is a worthy continuation of the world of the graphic novel. If this all we get I can’t complain .

The Super Australians (2019) edited and conceived Chris Sequeira

Where to start? This book is a cleverly themed anthology to create an Australian super team ala Justice League or the Avengers. Chris’ idea harkens back to the classic Justice Society books – where the heroes get to together and recount their separate adventures with Wonder Woman as secretary.

I am certainly not aware of every Australian comic but most that I’m aware of are single character books – The Phantom Ranger, Crimson Comet, etc. I can only think of two or three team books Forerunners, that had a single title in the 90s, Southern Squadron from the 80s and 90s and the current revival of the characters of Cyclone Comics as Cyclone Force. (we’ll talk about Cyclone a little later) The story has 12 chapters with an prologue, interlude and epilogue written by Sequeira and drawn by Adam Yusoff with a character named Epoch. We don’t learn much about Epoch but he seems bent on dominating humanity. He sends out 12 energy lances in the prologue. It’s good premise to build the book around – the energy lances connect the tales.

Our first story is Paul Mason and Amanda Bacchi’s The Soldier Legacy story “...A Rock and a Hard Place”. The Solider Legacy is Paul’s original character and has appeared in several issues of his own title and in a couple of anthologies. Not surprisingly The Soldier Legacy is a legacy character with a focus on the latest bearer of the name and a parallel story with his ancestor in World War 2. This story opens in WW2 with that Solider Legacy going to the rescue of several soldiers trapped by Japanese masks. The present story has the current Soldier Legacy fighting against a right wing domestic terrorist group lead by The Gold Ghost. Each page alternates between the two stories with a speech by the golden age Soldier Legacy running over the current story and a lovely splash page of the World War 2 Soldier Legacy punching out Japanese troops on one side paired with the present day punching out The Gold Ghost. The story ends in the present day with the bad guys arrested and the police seizing one of the energy lances. I love Solider Legacy and I’m mates with both Paul and Amanda. I liked this story and wished it had of been longer. The Gold Ghost could make a fascinating villain for The Soldier Legacy – if the Soldier Legacy represents the best of Australia, the Gold Ghost could be a dark reflection of him. There are any number of incidents throughout Australian history that show the worst of Australia. The Lambing Flat massacre of Chinese miners during the Australian Gold Rush could be the beginning to the negative legacy of the Gold Ghost.

The second story “Djiniri” by Julie Ditrich and Marcello Baez. Djiniri is a new character, An ancient being “1200 years from home” her prison, what appears to be a jewellery box, is opened and she is released. There is a hint that this may be the effects of Epoch’s energy lance or it may be the presence of a ghoul or Ghul. Julie and I both had stories in “Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Was Not” and had met at Melbourne Supanova promoting that book. I liked this story and how Julie weaved some of the mythology of genies and ghouls into the story. Baez does a really good job on the art. I am very curious how her prison jewellery box got from Arabia to the Pinnacles in Western Australia.

The next story Soundstrike, written by Komala Singh and art by Michel Gerencir features the titular character the child of a human and an insectoid alien. This gives him very sensitive hearing and “some sort of space magic”. I really liked his costume it had a real Power Ranger/Beetleborg vibe to it. The villain of the story is a collection of nanobots that calls itself Nan-a. Interestingly Nan-a communicates with Epoch. Singh really drops a lot of information and gives several hints to what is happening in this story. I really want to see where is goes.

Lyrebird is next. Written by Chris Sequeira and art by W. Chew Chan. Lyrebird had previously appeared in the Lyrebird Special way back in the nineties (you know I’m certain I’ve read a Lyrebird story before but I cannot find where it was) This is an interesting story and Chris has picked an Australian territory that I, and most likely other people, had no idea about the sub cable protection zone, which is Australian waters around the internet cable under the sea. The story is set during an upgrade to the cable and the superpowered mercenary Dynamica Tungsten is on site providing protection. But not as it seems and the Lyrebird mentions that Sonex technology has some bad side effects. There’s a fight and Tungsten is revealed to be murderer. Another solid story that makes me want to try to track down the Lyrebird special and find out more.

The Australian Antarctic Territory is the setting for the next story featuring Aethyric Man. Aethryic Man is tracking his brother Mister Erebus and we come in the middle of the story. Mister Erebus has attacked Mawson station and killed several of the dogs and one of the researchers when the story opens. Aethyric Man is talking to the Mawson staff and tells them that Mr Erebus isn’t evil just on a different level of humanity. Aethryic Man tracks his brother, there’s what I think is a one panel flashback, the brother’s fight. Mr Erebus goes “Oh my God brother you were right.” And the fight ends. There’s a bit at the end where we discover that Mr Erebus has one of Epoch’s lances. This is probably the weakest of the stories in the collection. Jules Farber’s style is radically different to the other artists and feels closer to Garfield than Superman. It’s not bad per se but it has a different feel to it which took me out of the story. Bruce Mutard’s script didn’t help me either. In the story itself we never find out Aethryic Man’s name – not his secret identity but that he is called Aethryic Man. I had to look at the index. I have no idea why he has a giant yellow Y on his costume. This story didn’t let me in and give me something to latch onto. With the other stories when they raised questions I wanted to know the answers this one didn’t.

Next is Princess in “Beauty is a Beast.” Written by Jason Franks and art by J. Scherpenhuizen. This one opens with a press conference with Lisa Mambray CEO of the Mambray group opening a new facility when superpowered eco terrorist Brother Nature attacks. We discover that Lisa has a Hulk like alter-ego Princess. They fight and in the confusion one of Mambray’s security grabs Epoch’s rods. I’d definitely be curious to see more about how Lisa and Brother Nature got their powers.

The seventh story is Rogue Host written by Jonathon Saunders and art by Ana Maria Mendez Salgado. The idea is that our hero Christopher Stevens was accidentally given a military parasite. He believes his girlfriend has been attacked and he tries to save her. I’d be interested to see where this one goes, Saunders gives us enough background to let us know what is going on. Salgado’s art is very stylised but I liked it.

Dragonblade by Ian Gould and Christian Roux, was probably one of my favourite stories in this collection. It introduces the heroic Dragonblade and the villainous Stonefish with quick origins and gets right to the battle. The characters are quite funny. Would love to see more of these characters.

Next up is Longcoat written by Gregory Stewart and art by Matt Lin. Longcoat appears to be a werewolf or something similar and he works with ASIS which appears to have an “X Files” type of team where he works with Agent Cullinjarra on what appears to be a freelance basis. Epoch’s powerlance has gained the attention of the Darragan, demonic type creatures. I liked this story Stewart dishes enough to make speculate about Longcoat and his history and Lin’s art has a nice roughness to it.

Cosmosia by Naomi Hatchman and art by Queenie Chan. This feels like it’s set, say, fifty years in the future with a manned Australian geosynchronous satellite. Cosmosia is a robot on the station and she battles a hacker named Cryptus who is using Epoch’s rod to hack the satellite. The futuristic setting threw me a little but there is nothing to say all these stories take place now. Ultimately I liked this story.

Gary Chaloner’s The Jackaroo gets a story written by Cefn Ridout and art by J. Scherpenhuizen. The Jackaroo was a character who has been around since the 1980s and he’s a jackaroo who wears a mask and fights crime. I was so excited to see a new Jackaroo adventure and it’s an older Jackaroo taking his son, Jake, to MONA in Hobart. Epoch’s rod creates a new villain Kai Mera who sucks the life force out of people. I especially liked the line after Jake has stolen the staff Kai Mera says “Return it or I will drain your father’s life.” Jake’s report “Na, me Mum’s beaten you to it.” Just had me laughing. Top stuff this. Reminds me to get more classic Jackaroo stories.

Which brings us to the last story “The Public Servant” written by Karen Beilharz and art by Anthony Calvert. I quite liked Calvert’s art on this but the story had me a little lost as a nameless Canberra public servant of Asian heritage tackles a racist politician named Natter. Natter has one of Epoch’s power rods and it turns him into a lizard person called Vox Populist while the Public Servant becomes a giant glowing energy being . it’s implied in the text that the rod affected her to make her grow but the art doesn’t reflect that.

 Overall, I think this was a winner of an anthology with a couple of stories I wasn’t feeling. Look every anthology is going to have stories that may not work for you. There are 12 distinct art styles in this book and to have only one that I didn’t really like was pretty impressive. If I had one complaint each of the stories were too short I wanted more. I think some of the stories would have benefited from some more space, most I was being greedy and I wanted more. I’m keen to see where Super Australians 2 may go. Epoch was making villainous noises at the end of the book. Could we see the heroes interact with each other? (The Soldier Legacy and The Jackaroo, pretty please with a cherry on top). A villain swap maybe? A villain team up? Brother Nature and Stonefish had similar agendas.