A Game Most Dangerous, Part 4: Daredevil

Continuing my series A Game Most Dangerous, I'm looking at Daredevil Comics #4 (1941) with a story starring that very hero, Daredevil! This is not the Marvel Comics character, natch, but the Lev Gleason creation who wore red & blue tights and threw a mean boomerang. The story is called "Death Is the Referee" and was written & drawn by Charles Biro.

Our story opens with Daredevil in his civilian guise as Bart Hill, accompanying his girlfriend Tonia Saunders as they congratulate their newlywed friends Jeff & Sue Smith. Sue tells Tonia their honeymoon will be aboard Jeff's yacht in the Pacific and she invites Tonia and Bart to join her. Tonia really wants to go so suggests to Bart that travelling in the Pacific could be very dangerous. That piques Bart's 'Daredevil' nature and he agrees to accompanying their friends on their honeymoon. Which is a little weird.

It seems the island Jeff wants to visit is uncharted and the yacht's captain isn't too certain about locating it. Soon the waters get rough and they see a lighthouse in the distance. The yacht strikes a reef and the lighthouse soon disappears from view. By dawn, they spy an uncharted island ahead which the lighthouse guided them toward. A motorboat comes up to the yacht bearing one Hans Meyer, who introduces himself by stating "I am somewhat of a dictator here!" Friends, don't accept hospitality from people who introduce themselves as dictators.

The one-eyed Hans invites Bart, Tonia, Jeff and Sue to visit the island while the yacht's crew make their repairs, which are estimated to take two days. We see a bird's eye view of the yacht nearby the island and boy, this island is comically small! In the evening, Sue is alarmed to find Jeff missing. Bart and Tonia recall hearing Hans invite Jeff to see the island so obviously the best time of day to tour the grounds would be in the middle of the night while Sue is asleep. Bart decides to investigate this as Daredevil because he's obviously very concerned about maintaining his secret identity.

Daredevil happens upon Jeff, unconscious, with Hans about to kill him with a hatchet. "I, Hans Meyer, da greatest sportsman on Earth have added another trophy to mine large collection," the giant galoot intones. Daredevil closes in and fights Hans until he accidentally steps in one of Hans' animal traps. "Dey are too dumb, but men... ah... dey are sport! Great sport! To hunt men iss also a contest of vits, not alone brawn!" Hans is especially excited because the men on his island eaach came with a woman and Hans claims the women of the men he kills. He also explains his injuries came from previous men he hunted, explaining how a French sailor slashed his stomach with a stone hatchet and a wrestler took out his right eye. Hans decides to leave Daredevil down in the hole until he's ready to hunt him.

An hour later, two of Hans' servants let down a ladder to release Daredevil. Daredevil uses the ladder to knock the two men into the hole, then finds a heavily-armed Hans awaiting him. However, Daredevil dodges Hans' attacks, steals a knife and cuts off Hans' belt so his pants fall down. Daredevil discovers a miniature portable lighthouse which was responsible for the lights which attracted the yacht the day before. Hans tries to kill Daredevil with an avalanche of rocks then returns ot his home to force Tonia to marry him (not sure where Hans' servant got his license to perform ceremonies).

Daredevil breaks into the wedding, causing a furious Hans to boast, "Now I blitzkreig him for good!" He draws a bow and arrow to kill Daredevil but Jeff has finally revived and shoots Hans dead with his pistol, then collapses again. When Jeff revives he doesn't remember anything other than Hans - he never saw Daredevil. Thanks to random chance, Daredevil's secret identity is secure and the repaired yacht takes the two couples home.

All images from The Digital Comic Museum.

Summing Up: This story certainly owes a lot to the 1932 film of The Most Dangerous Game - the idea of the hunter killing a man then claiming a woman comes from there and Hans hunts with a bow, as did the film version of Zaroff. There's no good reason for the protagonist, Bart Hill, to ever don his Daredevil costume, though. He doesn't even use his boomerang! Any of the feats he performed as Daredevil could have been done in his civilian garb without risking his secret identity.

The Hunter:

• A RussianGerman nobleman (3/4 points)
• Who is a big game hunter (4/4 points)
• But is no longer challenged by big game (4/4 points)
• So he hunts men on his secluded island (4/4 points)
• Justifying this through a eugenics/Darwinian philosophy (0/4 points)
• He is aided by his servants, including a disfigured mute (3/4 points)
• And his vicious hunting dogs (0/4 points)
• He obtains his prey by scuttling nearby ships (4/4 points)
• His victims are given a time limit of 3 days; if they are alive at the deadline, they win the hunt (0/4 points)
• As a further example of his sense of "sportsmanship", he will deliberately prolong the hunt if he finds it interesting (1/4 points)
• His victims are placed on display in his trophy room... or at least, he refers to his victims as "trophies" (1/4 points)

The Hunted:

• A famous big game hunter (0/4 points)
• Who philosophizes about what (if anything) animals sense while being hunted (0/4 points)
• He is cast overboard and finds himselfin for repairs on the hunter's island, alone with his friends (1/4 points)
• The hunter knows him because of his reputation (0/4 points)
• When he learns the hunter's scheme he refuses to hunt alongside him (0/4 points)
• Hunted by the hunter, he flees into the wilderness trying to avoid detection (0/4 points)
• His only tool is a knife which the hunter gave him (0/4 points)
• In time he constructs traps to kill the hunter or his servants (0/4 points)
• He survives the ordeal by leaping over a cliff (0/4 points)
• Although the hunt is over, he confronts the hunter and duels him to the deathsomeone else finishes off the hunter (1/4 points)

The Island:

• Is a tropical island in the CaribbeanPacific (3/4 points)
• Surrounded by dangerous reefs which wreck ships (4/4 points)
• The island has a dangerous swamp (0/4 points)
• And high cliffs (0/4 points)

Total score: 33/100

More hunting to come!

A Game Most Dangerous, Part 3: Lance O'Casey

Welcome back to A Game Most Dangerous, in which I examine comic books which owe more than a little to the plot of Richard Connell's short story The Most Dangerous Game.

This time I'm visiting 1940's Whiz Comics #10 and a story featuring the adventure hero Lance O'Casey, written by Bill Parker and drawn by Bob Kingett. Lance O'Casey was one of the longest-running adventure heroes in the Fawcett Comics stable, lasting 1940-1953. Much like yesterday's hero, Gypsy Johnson, he was a "soldier of fortune" always seeking out new adventures. The introductory caption explains his home is on the South Seas island Maloana, his schooner is named the Brian Boru II and his pet monkey is named Mr. Hogan. That's more detail than Gypsy Johnson ever eeked out!

We open on the schooner as Lance spots a lifeboat and draws aboard a beautiful young woman named Janet Dale, an heiress who just inherited $10,000 from her uncle's estate but her ship went down in a hurricane. A storm comes up and the schooner scrapes into reef, damaging the craft. Lance successfully lands his damaged craft at a nearby island and they look for help.

Lance and Janet find a village and armed natives confront them, brandishing spears. Lance draws his pistol to ward them off but the confrontation is ended by the arrival of Simon Rudd, the "master" of these islanders. Dressed in a full tuxedo, he seems pretty out-of-place on the jungle island. Simon takes Janet into his home so she can rest and reveals he loves to play chess. When Simon tries to steal Janet's $10,000 Lance socks him in the jaw. However, the natives surround Lance and Janet to keep them from leaving.

To save his life, Lance suggests he and Simon play a game of chess for the money and their lives. Simon agrees but informs Lance it will be a game of "human chess." If Lance can survive on the island for ten hours he'll win the game but if Simon and his followers find him first, he'll die. To throw Simon off their trail Lance puts his shoes on Mr. Hogan's feet to create a false path. Frustrated by his inability to locate his quarry, Simon begins burning down the forest but Lance and Janet leap over a cliff to evade death.

Simon is just starting to gloat to the natives about his victory when Lance reappears. Simon draws a gun to kill him but Mr. Hogan spoils his aim. When the natives see Simon's defeat they declare from now on he'll be their slave instead of the other way around. Repairing his schooner, Lance transports Janet to another ship and she continues on her way home. "I can't thank you enough for saving my life - and the money, Lance." Our hero came out ahead of the money!

All scans from Digital Comic Museum

Summing Up: Once again we have a female sidekick for the hero as in the 1932 film of The Most Dangerous Game; as Lance is a solo hero, that means first introducing the woman to the cast, then writing her out after the climax. There's not much reason for her to be present other than copying elements from the movie.

This one is much less on-the-nose than the Gypsy Johnson story - in fact, Lance comes up with the idea of a challenge against Rudd to save his life and Rudd only comes up with the notion of hunting him in the spur of the moment.

The Hunter:

• A Russian nobleman (1/4 points)
• Who is a big game hunter (0/4 points)
• But is no longer challenged by big game (0/4 points)
• So he hunts menLance and Janet on his secluded island (1/4 points)
• Justifying this through a eugenics/Darwinian philosophy (0/4 points)
• He is aided by his servants, including a disfigured mute (2/4 points)
• And his vicious hunting dogs (0/4 points)
• He obtains his prey by scuttling nearby ships [or rather, he takes advantage of the same] (1/4 points)
• His victims are given a time limit of 3 daysten hours; if they are alive at the deadline, they win the hunt (3/4 points)
• As a further example of his sense of "sportsmanship", he will deliberately prolong the hunt if he finds it interesting (0/4 points)
• His victims are placed on display in his trophy room (0/4 points)

The Hunted:

• A famous big game hunter (0/4 points)
• Who philosophizes about what (if anything) animals sense while being hunted (0/4 points)
• He is cast overboardstopped for repairs and finds himself on the hunter's island, alonewith a woman (2/4 points)
• The hunter knows him because of his reputation (0/4 points)
• When he learns the hunter's scheme he refuses to hunt alongside him (0/4 points)
• Hunted by the hunter, he flees into the wilderness trying to avoid detection (4/4 points)
• His only tool is a knife which the hunter gave him (0/4 points)
• In time he constructs traps to kill the hunter or his servants (0/4 points)
• He survives the ordeal by leaping over a cliff (4/4 points)
• Although the hunt is over, he confronts the hunter and duels him to the deathhas a fistfight (2/4 points)

The Island:

• Is a tropical island in the CaribbeanPacific (3/4 points)
• Surrounded by dangerous reefs which wreck ships (4/4 points)
• The island has a dangerous swamp (4/4 points)
• And high cliffs (4/4 points)

Final score 35/100!

More hunting coming soon!

A Game Most Dangerous, Part 2: Gypsy Johnson

To begin my series of A Game Most Dangerous posts in earnest, I'm turning to a very early Archie comic book: Blue Ribbon Comics issues #5-6 (1940), featuring Gypsy Johnson! The artist is John Bulthuis. There's very little I can say about who the character is - he's introduced as a "Texan soldier of fortune" and he's "just been mustered out of the Foreign Legion." Blue Ribbon Comics #5 marks the character's 2nd appearance, so apparently his time in the Foreign Legion lasted but one issue. Clearly he's called 'Gypsy' because he's a wanderer, rather than anything to do with his ethnicity.

We open in Morocco as Gypsy leaves the Foreign Legion and rescues a white woman from being kidnapped by Arab slave traders. The white woman is Dorothy Collier and she's looking for her brother; it seems her brother gambled away their money, stranding them in Morocco, but now an aunt has wired them money so they can return to the USA. Leonard is a drunk and doesn't like Gypsy but Gypsy goes along with them aboard a tramp steamer.

And now we get to the Most Dangerous Game material: the beacons at sea guide the steamer into a reef. Leonard abandons Dorothy but Gypsy helps her float from the wrecked ship by hanging onto a floating crane. Gypsy drags Leonard to their crane and guides them to a nearby island. On the island they're greeted by Baron von Krasner, a monocle-wearing figure in a Russian cap who has a swarthy, silent servant and hunting dogs. As the story ends, he hopes they'll provide him with entertainment. Weirdly, a caption claims this is a Pacific island, which can't possibly be correct; someone got their oceans mixed up.

Continuing into Blue Ribbon Comics #6, Baron von Krasner hosts a dinner party for Gypsy, Dorothy and Leonard. The Baron explains his scheme immediately (hey, when you've got only 5 pages a month, you gotta hit the plot points fast!). "I am a great hunter, and you men shall be my quarry. I am bored hunting animals, they are too easy!" So yep, this is certainly shaping up as a legitimate rip-off. The Baron grants Gypsy and Leonard a four hour head start and will set them free if they win. The Baron's swarthy servant is named Solti and it turns out he can speak!

Gypsy suggests they cross a bridge then cut the ropes so the Baron can't follow them. Inexplicably, Leonard thinks this is a trap Gypsy has set and he runs the other way in terror. Gypsy has to drag him across the bridge. Since Leonard is afraid of the bridge, Gypsy rolls a giant boulder across the bridge, snapping it in the center. Supposedly this proves they shouldn't have crossed the bridge. I don't know, it looks like that boulder is significantly heavier than the two of them!

Later on, Leonard is caught in a bamboo trap the Baron set but Gypsy drags him along and they hide in a swamp. Gypsy ambushes the Baron, exchanges their clothes then fires the Baron's gun. This brings the Baron's dogs who attack their master and kill him. Then the dogs turn on Solti because they're "blood-thirsty". Gypsy, Dorothy and Leonard escape the island using a boat they take from the Baron's things and soon rendezvous with another ship at sea.

Summing Up: This is very obviously inspired by the 1932 motion picture version of The Most Dangerous Game what with the presence of the drunken brother and the sister. There's not too much to this comic - it's competant, but nothing special.

Let's rate it!

The Hunter:

• A Russian nobleman (4/4 points)
• Who is a big game hunter (4/4 points)
• But is no longer challenged by big game (4/4 points)
• So he hunts men on his secluded island (4/4 points)
• Justifying this through a eugenics/Darwinian philosophy (0/4 points)
• He is aided by his servants, including a disfigured mute (2/4 points)
• And his vicious hunting dogs (4/4 points)
• He obtains his prey by scuttling nearby ships (4/4 points)
• His victims are given a time limit of 3 days; if they are alive at the deadline, they win the hunt (3/4 points)
• As a further example of his sense of "sportsmanship", he will deliberately prolong the hunt if he finds it interesting (0/4 points)
• His victims are placed on display in his trophy room (0/4 points)

The Hunted:

• A famous big game hunter (0/4 points)
• Who philosophizes about what (if anything) animals sense while being hunted (0/4 points)
• He is cast overboard and finds himself on the hunter's island, alone with a drunk and his sister (3/4 points)
• The hunter knows him because of his reputation (0/4 points)
• When he learns the hunter's scheme he refuses to hunt alongside him (0/4 points)
• Hunted by the hunter, he flees into the wilderness trying to avoid detection (4/4 points)
• His only tool is a knife which the hunter gave him (0/4 points)
• In time he constructs traps to kill the hunter or his servants (0/4 points)
• He survives the ordeal by leaping over a cliff (0/4 points)
• Although the hunt is over, he confronts the hunter and duels him to the deathleaves him to be killed by his own dogs (1/4 points)

The Island:

• Is a tropical island in the CaribbeanPacific? The writer flunked geography (2/4 points)
• Surrounded by dangerous reefs which wreck ships (4/4 points)
• The island has a dangerous swamp (4/4 points)
• And high cliffs (0/4 points)

Final score: 47/100!

More to come!

A Game Most Dangerous, Part 1: Introduction

In 1924, Richard Connell wrote a fine short story titled "The Most Dangerous Game". The plot concerns a hunter named Rainsford who is washed overboard at sea and finds himself on a Caribbean island inhabited by General Zaroff, a Russian hunter. Zaroff is a great fan of Rainsford and treats him with the utmost hospitality, but as they talk about hunting it comes out that Zaroff has tired of hunting big game as he no longer finds it suitably challenging; eventually Rainsford learns Zaroff's new passion is hunting men. When Rainsford refuses to join in the hunt, Zaroff makes him his next prey.

It's a simple story but certainly effective; I have the short story as part of a terrific anthology called Great Tales of Action and Adventure. I've seen it claimed on the internet that it is the most heavily-anthologized short story of all-time -- but that sounds over-zealous. More anthologized than Poe, Wells, Doyle? It has definitely been republished more often than most, especially considering Richard Connell was never a huge name as an author. Today, "The Most Dangerous Game" is the only work of his which is remembered at all.

A large part of why the story is remembered is due to the thrilling 1932 motion picture adaptation, starring Joel McCrea as Ransford and Leslie Banks as Zaroff. The film did quite a bit to popularize the "man is the most dangerous game" trope and I dare say most adaptations of the story look first to the film, not Connell's story. The film version added Fay Wray as a love interest who is similarly stranded on the island and gave her an inebriated brother to provide comic relief. The brother's death isn't treated in a satisfactory manner since it requires Zaroff to break his code (the whole reason he hunts men is because of the sport and he always give them a fair chance; the drunken brother has no chance at all). The film also visualizes something which was only hinted at in the story -- that Zaroff keeps his victim's bodies as trophies.

Being a great fan of old-time radio, I enjoyed the adaptations on Suspense and Escape. The Suspense version from September 23, 1943 stars Orson Welles as Zaroff and Keenan Wynn as Rainsford. The Escape version from October 1, 1947 has virtually the same script but features Paul Frees as Rainsford and Hans Conreid as Zaroff. You may be surprised to learn that although I count myself an enormous fan of Orson Welles, I prefer the Escape version! Largely, I prefer it because Paul Frees is such an excellent Rainsford, capturing the hero's shifting moods from cunning to desperate to determined. You can hear the Suspense version on archive.org here and the Escape version here.

Anyway, I'm kicking off this series "A Game Most Dangerous" because I noticed there were quite a few comic book stories which (*ahem*) borrowed liberally from "The Most Dangerous Game", particularly during the 1940s. For fun, I'm going to review a few of those stories and give them a rating out of 100 based on how similar they are to the original source material. My scoring will be based on:

The Hunter:

• A Russian nobleman (/4 points)
• Who is a big game hunter (/4 points)
• But is no longer challenged by big game (/4 points)
• So he hunts men on his secluded island (/4 points)
• Justifying this through a eugenics/Darwinian philosophy (/4 points)
• He is aided by his servants, including a disfigured mute (/4 points)
• And his vicious hunting dogs (/4 points)
• He obtains his prey by scuttling nearby ships (/4 points)
• His victims are given a time limit of 3 days; if they are alive at the deadline, they win the hunt (/4 points)
• As a further example of his sense of "sportsmanship", he will deliberately prolong the hunt if he finds it interesting (/4 points)
• His victims are placed on display in his trophy room (/4 points)

The Hunted:

• A famous big game hunter (/4 points)
• Who philosophizes about what (if anything) animals sense while being hunted (/4 points)
• He is cast overboard and finds himself on the hunter's island, alone (/4 points)
• The hunter knows him because of his reputation (/4 points)
• When he learns the hunter's scheme he refuses to hunt alongside him (/4 points)
• Hunted by the hunter, he flees into the wilderness trying to avoid detection (/4 points)
• His only tool is a knife which the hunter gave him (/4 points)
• In time he constructs traps to kill the hunter or his servants (/4 points)
• He survives the ordeal by leaping over a cliff (/4 points)
• Although the hunt is over, he confronts the hunter and duels him to the death (/4 points)

The Island:

• Is a tropical island in the Caribbean (/4 points)
• Surrounded by dangerous reefs which wreck ships (/4 points)
• The island has a dangerous swamp (/4 points)
• And high cliffs (/4 points)

Join me as I begin A Game Most Dangerous! I expect rather fair sport.

2010s Review: Prose

Easily the book from the 2010s which I enjoyed the most was Five Came Back by Mark Harris, his account of five Hollywood filmmakers who created propaganda films during World War II (it became a terrific documentary mini-series on Netflix). This book taught me a lot about film history which I hadn't known and changed how I thought about some significant people.

Other great films about filmmaking which I enjoyed were King Vidor's The Crowd: The Making of a Silent Classic by Jordan Young and Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker's Journey by Harlan Lebo.

I read a few great books about comics history, the best of which were Blake Bell's Fire & Water, a biography of Bill Everett; Christopher Priest's Klang! in which he aired his issues with Q2: Quantum & Woody Return; MetaMaus by Art Spiegelman and The Secret History of Marvel Comics by Michael J. Vassallo.

The best 2010s books on Christianity I read were Speaking of Jesus by Carl Medearis, The Skeletons in God's Closet by Joshua Ryan Butler, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi and Insurrection by Peter Rollins.

It was in the 2010s that I first visited Africa (visited 7 times total) and that set off a passion for learning more about the continenent. With my focus primarily on Angola, the best books on that nation from the 2010s were Naulila 1914 by Jakob Zollmann and Angola: A Modern Military History by Stephen L. Weigert. I also enjoyed the fictional book A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa. Other great books about Africa were A Labyrinth of Kingdoms by Steve Kemper, Road Trip Rwanda by Will Ferguson, Prevail by Jeff Pearce, Crossing the Heart of Africa by Julian Smith and Congo: The Epic History of a People by David van Reybrouck. I also read Chasing the Devil and The Trigger by Tim Butcher, the first of which was about Sierra Leone. And I read Waiting for Dawn's First Light and They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children, both by Romeo Dallaire and concerned primarily with his experiences in Rwanda.

The books Bunk by Kevin Young and The Second Coming of the KKK by Linda Gordon were both helpful to me in understanding the current social climate of the USA by their emphasis on the histories of people believing in outrageous ideas and why it is that this happens.

Some other great history books were Spain in Our Hearts by Adam Hochschild, Erebus by Michael Palin, This Gulf of Fire by Mark Molesky and Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee. I also enjoyed Believing Is Seeing by Errol Morris in which he queried whether information seen in photographs can be considered 'staged'. And as an introvert I learned a lot from Quiet by Susan Cain.

Finally I read some good sci-fi/fantasy novels: The Goblin Emperor by Sarah Monette, A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin, Children of the Sky by Vernor Vinge, Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey and. The Sinister Shadow by Will Murray. I reviewed The Sinister Shadow here.

And that concludes my three-part look at media highlights of the 2010s!

2010s Review: Comics

The 2010s were a tough time for me and my comic book hobby. By the end of the 2000s I had gone from being a super hero-only reader to someone who had begun reading indies from pretty well all publishers. I'd also become a professional in the industry, working monthly for Marvel Comics on a variety of projects. But in 2012 I quit with Marvel over a moral principle and I haven't paid a great deal of attention to them since. Consequently, I've spent much less time in comic shops (circa 2009 I sometimes visited multiple shops per week every week! in 2019 I think I visited a shop 6 times in the entire year). Most of my reading has shifted to digital comics and library rentals. At the same time, it was during the 2010s that comics journalism took a tumble as once-great news outlets like CBR fell from grace, so I don't follow comics news any longer either. Despite all of that, I found plenty to like in the 2010s and while most of it was from old favourite creators, I made some new discoveries too.

Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai remains my easiest recommendation. The sheer consistency of high quality in Sakai's work continues to impress me, even as he's recently shifted from black & white at Dark Horse to full-colour at IDW. He continues to keep the series interesting with a mix between multi-part stories and done-in-one tales, all of them compelling. He also drew (but did not write) 47 Ronin, a fine retelling of the historical account. I reviewed Usagi Yojimbo here, here, here, here, and here. I reviewed 47 Ronin here.

I got into Michael Kupperman's work just as his hilarious Tales Designed to Thrizzle wound down. He doesn't seem to produce that often now, but I quite enjoyed his book All the Answers, a biography of his famous father. I reviewed All the Answers here.

During the 2010s Batton Lash turned his Supernatural Law publications over to a Kickstarter-only funding method. I was happy to support those efforts and even paid to appear in one as a cameo. Sadly, Lash passed away in 2019. I reviewed Supernatural Law here and here.

As a big fan of M. R. James' ghost stories I quite enjoyed Leah Moore, John Reppion & a host of artists adapting his tales for SelfMadeHero's Ghost Stories of an Antiquity. I can only hope there will be a third volume! I reviewed Ghost Stories of an Antiquity here and here.

There were some great comics from Roger Langridge in the 2010s. I enjoyed even the work he wrote for other artists, such as his adaptation of A Princess of Mars for Marvel, his fun Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror mini-series and his terrific Popeye comics. I reviewed Popeye here and here.

I continue to follow Larry Hama's G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero! not simply from nostalgia but because Hama continues to be a sharp writer. I do get a bit tired of his fascination with pitting robots against his heroes, but then a strong character-based issue will drop and remind me why I continue to patronize this series. I reviewed G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero! here and here.

Christopher Priest made something of a comeback in the 2010s after sitting out most of the 2000s. He and Mark Bright revisited Quantum & Woody and he took a brief turn as writer of Justice League while also writing Deathstroke for DC Comics. Priest's high standard of writing remains in full effect and I'm happy to see him gaining some of the recognition he deserves. I reviewed Deathstroke here and here. I reviewed Q2: Quantum & Woody Return here and here.

It had a brief run, but Sergio Aragones Funnies was one of my favourite books while it lasted. Sergio's autobiographical stories were immensely funny and interesting; I wish there had been a bigger audience for this material! I reviewed Sergio Aragones Funnies here, here and here.

Dark Horse released two new volumes of Blacksad: A Silent Hell and Amarillo. I wish Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido produced these stories more freqeuntly, but I certainly don't disparage the gorgeous work they've done on this series. I reviewed Blacksad here and here.

Harvey Kurtzman's incomplete adaptation of A Christmas Carol was dug up and finished as a graphic novel called Marley's Ghost, which had just enough Kurtzman to be worth it. I reviewed Marley's Ghost here.

Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin continues to stagger back into the light of day from time to time; ot late, Jill Thompson seems to stepped away while Benjamin Dewey has drawn the two most recent entries. I'm always happy to see more of the series, although the most recent installments seemed to have more to do with Dorkin's 'myth arc' than the earlier done-in-one stories I enjoyed. I reviewed Beasts of Burden here and here.

Mark Waid returned to his series Empire with Empire: Uprising, a limited series drawn by Leonard Kirk. I hope there will be more Empire in the future, Waid clearly has more stories he wants to tell. I reviewed Empire: Uprising here.

I became a regular reader of Michael Fiffe's Copra which has been an odd homage to 1980s super hero comics but done in a very indie style.I reviewed Copra here.

The graphic novel Andre the Giant introduced me to creator Box Brown, who did a fantastic job with that biography and I later enjoyed his book Tetris about the history of the video game. I reviewed Andre the Giant here.

I discovered Tom Gauld's cartoons and read two of his collections, Baking with Kafka and You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, both of which were very funny and I hope to read more of his work.

Joe Sacco's The Great War was an interesting art project, only barely a 'comic book'. As one immense portrait of the Battle of the Somme it was a departure from Sacco's usual work and pretty cool experiment. I reviewed The Great War here.

I've read almost all of Guy Delisle's books, my favourites being his memoir book Jerusalem and the other his biographical title Hostage.

Ramon K. Perez really impressed me with his art on the Jim Henson adaptation A Tale of Sand and he remains an artist I'm always happy to see more from. I reviewed A Tale of Sand here.

I hadn't read the original run of Xombi in the 1990s but after the brief yet enjoyable 6-issue run by John Rozum & Frazer Irving I went back and read the original book as well and it became a new back issue favourite of mine. I reviewed Xombi here.

I had heard good things about James Stokoe's work, but it was only when he created the outstanding Godzilla: The Half-Century War that I really took notice. After that I went back and read his terrific fantasy book Orc Stain. I reviewed Godzilla: The Half-Century War here.

I discovered Sarah Glidden through her graphic novel How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, then later enjoyed her book Rolling Blackouts. Good autobiographical stuff. I reviewed Rolling Blackouts here.

I kept up with Kurt Busiek & Brent Anderson's Astro City up until the series' conclusion; it's supposed to continue on as graphic novels, but I'm not sure if I want to keep reading it in that format - again, I like brief done-in-one stories. Although some of the lengthy Astro City arcs have been quite good, I feel the series is at its best with self-contained single issue stories.

Gene Luen Yang & Sonny Liew created a funny super hero graphic novel called The Shadow Hero. I reviewed The Shadow Hero here.

Although I've mostly kept away from Marvel, at the time I departed I had been enjoying Mark Waid's Daredevil quite a bit and since my departure I've enjoyed Jim Starlin's various Thanos graphic novels, particularly his most recent trilogy drawn by Alan Davis. I rather liked Mystery Men by David Liss & Patrick Zircher, a Marvel series about 1930s heroes. I also enjoyed reading Joe Kelly's run on Spider-Man/Deadpool, which was suprisingly good considering how tiresome Deadpool has become in other writers' hands.

I also read plenty of great European comics: Portugal by Cyril Pedrosa, It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi, Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf, The Death of Stalin by Fabien Nury & Robin Thierry, and Terrorist: Gavrilo Princip, the Assassin Who Ignited World War I by Henrik Rehr. And although I'm still not too great at following manga, I did enjoy All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Onward to Our Noble Deaths by Shigeru Mizuki.

Some other great comics of the 2010s included the Bernie Krigstein collection Messages in a Bottle, Jim Rugg's Afrodisiac, The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks & Canaan White, Fred Chao's Johnny Hiro, Nick Sousanis' Unflattening, Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant, James Vance & Dan E. Burr's On the Ropes, the adaptation of Harlan Ellison's Star Trek: City on the Edge of Forever by Scott Tipton, David Tipton & J. K. Woodward and Jim Woodring's Congress of the Animals.

Tomorrow: Prose!

2010s Review: Movies

Although I went to the theatre more times in the 2010s than I did in the 2000s, the decade felt a bit light to me. It's not that I regretted seeing any of the films I paid to see in theatres, but most of what I saw was simply "good". This did, at least, make the outstanding movies all the more notable when they arrived.

I went into Mad Max: Fury Road with extremely modest expectations, not being a big fan of the series and uncertain about the recasting. I'm glad I went in with such a mindset because the film knocked me for a loop; I enjoyed Mad Max: Fury Road more than any other film I saw during the 2010s and I may have watched it more than any other released in that period as well. I certainly don't often leave the cinema drawing comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock! This is also the only 2010s film I wrote a review for on this blog.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe began in the previous decade but really kicked into gear during the 2010s. I wasn't prepared to see the Marvel super-heroes completely redefine audience expectations for blockbuster films, yet here we are. It's kind of too bad that I fell out with Marvel just as the films began to peak. Of all the 2010s entries, I certainly enjoyed Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengeres: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

The 2010s are also when I reconsidered Tom Cruise. As a fan of the original Mission: Impossible television series I had been very unhappy with the first film adaptation and how it treated the source material. After that I kept away from the films, but I became curious about Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol because of director Brad Bird. During a long flight to Sierra Leone, Ghost Protocol was on the bottom of my list of films to watch, but I did eventually see it - and enjoyed it tremendously. By the time the theme song kicked in, I was won back to the franchise; I've enjoyed the other films in the series which followed (Rogue Nation and Fallout). I also really got into Edge of Tomorrow, which is a favourite film of mine now.

I didn't get out to see too many documentaries but with Netflix I was able to see quite a few I enjoyed. The best were Life Itself, Virunga, Going Clear, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, Batman and Bill. My favourite documentary maker Errol Morris had two pretty good films in The Unknown Known and Tabloid, although neither rate as highly as my favourites of his.

Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim versus the World was a little disappointing as an adaptation (there's way too much source material for a single film and Wright was clearly interested in the tone of the first 3 volumes, not volumes 4-6), but very good as a Wright picture. I also enjoyed The World's End. For a while it looked like Wright was about to break out in a big way, but Scott Pilgrim flopping and his walking off Ant-Man seems to have stalled his career.

I saw a surprising number of high quality family films in the 2010s; the best were: Toy Story 3, Inside Out, Zootopia, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Muppets.

Other noteworthy pictures were Beasts of No Nation, Creed, John Carter, Her, Skyfall (the first film I watched in Africa!), 12 Years a Slave, The Artist, Selma, Bridge of Spies, Hacksaw Ridge, Get Out, and The Death of Stalin.

Tomorrow: comics of the 2010s!

2019 Review: My pre-2019 Discoveries

As always, I read a ton of books every year. Probably the highlight in all the fiction I read was I Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich. Trashy as it sounds, that book was surprisingly engaging. I've also been reading a lot of Eric Ambler lately, such as Judgment on Deltchev, Passage of Arms, The Levanter and The Schrimer Inheritance. Espionage fiction isn't usually an interest of mine, but Ambler's books stand out because of the unusual characters he writes and the off-kilter problems they encounter.

Another book worth noting is The Night Comes On by Steve Duffy, a collection of short fiction deliberately written to be evocative of M. R. James. As a James fan, I enjoyed the book, but it couldn't help but be a little too predictable owing to its inspiration.

My interest in Africa took me to a variety of books; I was thoroughly fascinated by Naulila 1914 by Jakob Zollmann and I'm sure I'm the only person to ever make that claim! It's an entire book on World War I in Angola - that's pretty well targeted to my interests. I was also deeply engrossed by Prevail: The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941 by Jeff Pearce, which did a tremendous job of explaining how the Ethiopian War with Italy came about. Another interesting book was A Labyrinth of Kingdoms by Steve Kemper about Heinrich Barth's journeys through Africa in the 1840s.

Having enjoyed the rest of Adam Hochchild's writing, I sought out Spain in Our Hearts, his account of the Spanish Civil War. I hadn't read anything about that conflict before, so it was informative to get Hochchild's perspective. I also read The End of the Spear by Steve Saint, Erebus by Michael Palin, This Gulf of Fire by Mark Molesky, Pre-Code Hollywood by Thomas Doherty (which was much more thorough on the subject than I'd first assumed, a nice surprise), Devil in the White City by Erik Larson and The Second Coming of the KKK by Linda Gordon.

Having enjoyed the motion picture adaptation, I sought out the comic version of The Death of Stalin by Fabien Nury & Thierry Robin. Although I liked it, I was surprised to find it hewed closer to the historical record and was much less humorous than the film.

The best older films I sought out included Three Days of the Condor, one of the few recommendations from a book on thrillers which actually panned out; Black Dynamite, which I had learned of thanks to Move Sign with the Mads; The Girl on the Train was a competant thriller which I enjoyed mainly because I figured out the twist before the film explained it to me; I didn't find Creed II to be anywhere near as good as its predecessor, but it was all right; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was fun and loaded with neat Easter eggs; and Darkest Hour was a well-acted Winston Churchill film.

Tomorrow I'm going to begin a retrospective on the 2010s!

My Favorite Media of 2019

I'm beginning to think my tastes are more conservative than they used to be. More and more I seem to only seek out films, books or comics by people I have a history of enjoying. I seem to put less effort into seeking out new material.

Despite that, in 2019 I actually read a novel which was brand-new that year! Owing to my interest in all things African, I read the novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah. It's a fictionalized account of the effort to transport David Livingstone's remains undertaken by his servants. This book has some of the sharpest character writing I've encountered in a long time - with a modicum of words, Gappah makes her characters feel very fleshed-out.

I suppose it's in comics that I'm the most conservative - I checked out Vampirella & Deathstroke because of my long affection for Christopher Priest's work, and I still follow Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, Walt Simonson's Ragnarok and Larry Hama's G.I. Joe. It was especially notable to see Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo now produced in full colour on a regular basis; I was perfectly happy with his black & white format, but Tom Luth's colours are a nice bonus. Although I'm mostly done with Marvel Comics, I appreciated Jim Starlin & Alan Davis' Thanos: The Infinity Ending and the gracious farewell Starlin wrote in that book. I'm still following Copra by Michael Fiffe, which is now published by Image Comics; it's a bit hard to describe what that comic is even about - it's essentially an homage to 1980s comics but it's more about creative design than plot. There was a new Beasts of Burden limited series, the second one to be drawn by Benjamin Dewey rather than Jill Thompson. I don't know if Thompson is gone for good, but I have no problem with Dewey's art, having previously enjoyed his work on Autumnlands. I also delved into a few translations of European titles, the best of which was Riad Sattouf's Arab of the Future, which I'm now caught up on and eagerly awaiting the conclusion to. I suppose even in Arab of the Future there is a tinge of nostalgia as it's all about childhood; despite the very-different adolescence the author had from mine, there are a lot of aspects I could relate to.

In motion pictures, although I found Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far from Home to be just fine, I really got into Avengers: Endgame on a level which I seldom have at Marvel super hero films. The only other new film I went out to the theatre for was Yesterday, which was a charming picture. And although I gave up on all of my streaming services in 2019, I did get to see the new Dolemite Is My Name, which was a very fun biographical picture; I haven't seen any of Rudy Ray Moore's films, but the talent involved in the production made it a must-see for me.

Tomorrow I'll blog about older materials I sought out in 2019!

Unearthed: Worlds Unknown #4

It's been a while, so how about another instance of Unearthed? This is my occasional blogging series devoted to reading through an issue of a comic book series (usually an aging back issue). And this time out, why not Worlds Unknown #4?

Worlds Unknown was an unusual Marvel Comics series which ran eight issues from 1973-1974. Most of the issues featured adaptations of science fiction stories but the last two issues were an adaptation of the fantasy film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Issue #4 is an adaptation of Fredric Brown's 1944 short story "Arena".

I've read a bit of Fredric Brown but I've never read the original version of "Arena". I know of it thanks to its adaptation into a 1967 episode of Star Trek - it is one of the best-known episodes of the original series, thanks in part to the memorable lizard-man costume designed for the Gorn warrior who Captain Kirk fought.

This adaptation of "Arena" is by scripter Gerry Conway (best-known for his writing on Amazing Spider-Man) with art by John Buscema (the definitive Avengers and Conan the Barbarian artist) and Dick Giordano (the definitive inker of all those who ever inked). We open on a human named Carson who awakens on an alien world surrounded by blue sand. He's almost nude and has no tools or weapons.

Carson recalls how his fleet had recently encountered the "Outsiders", the first extraterrestrial life humanity had ever met; unfortunately, the Outsiders were malevolent and soon their fleets were battling Earth's vessels. Carson was about to engage an enemy craft in battle near Pluto when he saw a burst of light, then awoke in the blue desert. He notes a six-legged lizard in the sand.

A disembodied voice speaks to Carson and informs him that the war between the humans and Outsiders will inevitably lead to one exterminating the other. To prevent this destruction, this cosmic presence has brought Carson and an Outsider into the titular arena; the desert contains obstacles to keep the fight from finishing too quickly. The voice tells Carson "all you need to win is present on this world."

The Outsider (a big red alien with tentacles) comes charging up to Carson but strikes a force field which prevents it from reaching him. The field appears to extended below ground and can't be climbed over. Carson wonders if the force which abducted him intends for him to reason with the Outsider, so he tries to communicate through the force field to the Outsider. The response arrives through telepathy: "Kill Hate Death Kill Kill Kill".

The Outsider grabs one of the lizards and rips off its legs then throws it at Carson's feet. Carson is so disgusted by the Outsider's cruelty that it takes him a moment to realize the significance: non-living matter can pass through the force field. The two begin throwing rocks at each other until finally the Outsider retreats to plot strategy.

Carson begins to wonder if his isolation will drive him insane as he talks to one of the lizards. The lizard answers, "Hello," much to Carson's amazement. But he doesn't get to explore that revelation as the Outsider has built a catapult in order to hurl much larger rocks at Carson. Carson makes a fire and launches a fiery object at the catapult, burning it down.

Returning to the lizards, Carson sees the one which the Outsider mutilated is still alive and another lizard appears to be distressed by its condition. Carson puts the injured lizard out of its misery but now has to rethink his theory on how the force field functions. Theorizing that living creatures can pass through the field when they're unconscious, Carson hits himself in the head with a rock. This seems like a stupid plan, but I'm not the hero.

Anyway, it works: the Outsider closes in and Carson revives in time to grab a stone knife and stab the Outsider to death. Having won the cosmic being's contest, Carson is sent back to his spaceship, once again fully clothed. He still has a scar on his leg from where the Outsider hit him with a rock, but otherwise there's no evidence of his encounter. The human fleet commander informs Carson that the Outsider fleet has been completely wiped out; somehow, a chain reaction set off the destruction of the entire enemy fleet. Carson realizes the cosmic beings have made good on their promise.

(This issue also features "Lost... One World", a science fiction story by Bob Powell reprinted from 1957's Journey into Unknown Worlds #53.)

Thoughts: I'll have to read the original text, because I find this story a little unsatisfying. I rather like the Star Trek version of "Arena" where Kirk refuses to kill his enemy and instead proves his superiority by sparing the Gorn. In this tale, Carson tries to seek a peaceful solution but there is none to be found; perhaps that's because it was written against the backdrop of World War II, a struggle in which there was no hope of a peaceful outcome.

I guess what the story lacks, then, is a twist; in the Star Trek episode, Kirk winning by refusing to kill the Gorn is a satisfying twist ending. In this version, Carson does exactly what the cosmic beings tell him to. The "clever" solution is the part where Carson knocks himself out to give the Outsider an opportunity to close in. That's a really dumb solution, as it depended on Carson being able to predict how the Outsider would react and gambling on his waking up before the Outsider could kill him.

What makes the story philosophically troubling is the presence of the unidentified cosmic being who sets the contest in motion. It's essentially representing God and it takes the side of humanity against the Outsiders on the grounds that Carson kills one in a fair fight. It comes down to "might makes right" ideology which I find morally repugnant. The godlike deity performs genocide against the Outsiders as Carson's reward? I can see how this line of thinking would be wish fulfillment against the backdrop of World War II, but at the same time it feels disturbingly similar to the mindset of the people the USA were at war with at the time.

Anyway, with a mostly-naked man fighting tooth and nail against a monster this was clearly the kind of story John Buscema was meant to draw; it's Conan in space.