The Shadow: The Black Falcon

THE BLACK FALCON is not only the fourth Shadow novel I’ve read in 2018 but my fourth one overall. And, to date, it might be my favorite for all the action, mystery, and zeal of the storytelling.

As the story opens, Rowdy Kershing is at a poker game amongst his criminal brethren. When he loses his winnings, he needs to buy more chips. He does so with a fat wad of money he makes sure all around him see. What he hides is the presence of a falcon’s feather, dyed black. For Rowdy has been assigned a task: recruit some “gorillas” to be of service to the super criminal, The Black Falcon, who has already kidnapped one millionaire and taunts the police that he’ll do it again.

But as gruff a talker as Rowdy is, he pales when the Knight of Darkness enters the room. They all do. Action ensues and Rowdy squeals like a rat.

The next set piece is the preparations the police deployed to protect Elias Carthers, the next millionaire on The Black Falcon’s list. This is a great action sequence mainly for how it plays out and the clues it reveals. I know that in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, authors frequently left clues for the readers to draw their own conclusions. Pulp fiction was not too known for that, but the clues in this sequence are plain to see.

It is after these scenes where The Shadow, in disguise as millionaire Lamont Cranston, takes action not in Shadow garb. Again, I’m too new at reading these stories to know if this is normal or special, but I’m guessing it’s likely normal, seeing as how The Shadow inserts himself as Cranston into the action.

And by poking his nose into the action gets Cranston in hot water. You see, he’s a millionaire and he walks directly into the clutches of The Black Falcon. From here to the end, the action is fantastic, the revelations are eye-opening, and the ending is outstanding in a “how will he get out of this” manner.
Perhaps the reason I like this one so much is the similarities to the villains of Batman. The Joker or The Riddler rarely commit their crimes without letting everyone know ahead of time, and The Black Falcon is right in that wheelhouse. Surprisingly, the Falcon makes some deductions of his own, and that got me to worrying for The Shadow’s safety. This novel is from February 1934 so I needn’t have worried. There was still going to be another fifteen years of stories, but still.

At one point, The Shadow reveals his true face to another character…and author Walter Gibson doesn’t describe the face! He only describes the reactions of the other character. I found that simultaneously great and frustrating. Who really is The Shadow? And what must his visage look like to bring such dread?

Of the new productions by Audible, THE BLACK FALCON is not a full-cast recording but a single narrator. Thankfully, it’s the same narrator as the full-cast versions so there is continuity.
For those of y’all who have never read a Shadow novel, here is a good one with which to start. It’s got all the pieces in place for a rip-roaring pulp adventure tale.

Partners in Peril
The Shadow Unmasks
The Romanoff Jewels

The Shadow: The Romanoff Jewels

In the third Shadow novel I’ve read (actually heard; thanks Audible!), THE ROMANOFF JEWELS begins in the apartment full of wealthy men. Author Maxwell Grant (Walter Gibson) tells the reader who they are and why they’re there. One of those men is Lamont Cranston, otherwise known as…The Shadow.

Another one of those gentlemen is Marcus Holtmann. Unpretentious, Holtmann has a secret buried deep in his brain, a secret other men desperately want. You see, a friend of Holtmann’s casually let slip the hiding place of the Romanoff jewels, the very jewels seized by the Bolsheviks in 1917 when they overthrew—and murdered—Czar Nicholas II and his family. Priceless in value, nefarious men want to steal the jewels and return the czars to power. To bring out his knowledge, Holtmann is kidnapped and tortured by the insidious Michael Senov for the information.

Naturally the Shadow deduces Holtmann’s whereabouts and does his best to save the man’s life. But he was a few minutes too late. Holtmann was poisoned! With his dying breaths, Holtmann relates to The Shadow all that he divulged to Senov. Armed with that knowledge, The Shadow races across the Atlantic to thwart the attempt.

I won’t give away the ending here, but I’ll just say that a piece of information The Shadow relates I didn’t see coming…but it makes all the sense in the world.

This being only my third Shadow novel, I don’t know how prevalent it was for the Knight of Darkness to travel outside the confines of New York or even America, but I appreciated how, to the European adversaries he encountered, The Shadow was a complete unknown. At least the gangsters in The Big Apple are smart enough about The Shadow to be scared. In addition, I liked how The Shadow got injured at one point, so badly that he needed to be nursed back to health, once again proving he is simply a man.

Which leads to a question I hope long-time fans of The Shadow can answer: is there ever a novel in which author Walter Gibson relates The Shadow’s training?

I’m not sure what criteria Audible used to choose which Shadow novels they produced, but I think him traveling abroad might be high on the list. Or the great ending. PARTNERS IN PERIL is a good one because of how it was used in the first Batman story. THE SHADOW UNMASKS was a natural choice that The Shadow’s origin was reveal. THE ROMANOFF JEWELS not only had foreign travel but the revelation of a key aspect of The Shadow’s legacy.

I am thoroughly enjoying these books. Next up: THE BLACK FALCON.

Eighty-five Years of Doc Savage

Eighty-five years ago today, Doc Savage landed on magazine shelves for the first time and, one might argue, helped change popular culture all the way up to the present day.

The brainchild of Street and Smith publisher, Henry Ralston and editor John Nanovic, Doc Savage was the brighter answer to the magazine’s other runaway bestseller, The Shadow. But where the Knight of Darkness fought crime at night and in the, um, shadows, The Man of Bronze was a different type of hero. He strove “every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.” He was a paragon of virtue, the kind of person kids could look up to and revere.

Clark Savage, Jr. appeared in 181 adventures from 1933 to 1949, mostly written by a single author, Lester Dent. In nearly all of them, he was accompanied by his five stalwart brothers in arms: Monk Mayfair, Ham Brooks, John Renwick, Long Tom Roberts, and William Littlejohn. Each man of the Fabulous Five was an expert in his chosen discipline, but Doc bested each. Doc had trained his mind and body since birth to be a superman. He even had a Fortress of Solitude where he would retire from time to time to study. Invariably he would emerge from his seclusion with some new invention, knowledge, or something else to benefit humankind. His headquarters on the 86th Floor of the unnamed building in New York (but we all knew was the Empire State Building) was a palace of gadgets, technology, and books where Doc and his comrades planned their adventures. And his villains were trying to take over the world long before Lex Luther or Blofeld.

If you’ve read this far, I think you will recognize some names and terms. The obvious descendant is Superman himself. Extrapolate, if you will, what Superman wrought: Batman, DC Comics, other superheroes, Marvel Comics, novels, toys, merchandise, movie serials, major motion pictures with superheroes, and many other things that shape large chunks of popular culture. In fact, the biggest superhero movie to date, The Avengers: Infinity War, can trace its roots all the way back to a pulp magazine character that debuted eight-five years ago today.

I am woefully deficient in my Doc Savage reading, but then just imagine reading one novel a month at the pace Lester Dent and a handful of other co-writers drafted the books. You would finish in 2034! But these stories are fantastic to dip into from time to time for the breathless sense of adventure and wonder.

Generations of readers grew up on the original pulp magazines while other generations were raised on the Bantam reprints of the 1960s and 1970s, with Frank Bama's depiction of Doc with a widow's peak and a tattered shirt.

Nostalgia Ventures reprinted the entire run, adding historical commentary. And Will Murray has been using abandoned outlines from Dent’s personal papers to write new adventures, including one in which Doc teams up with The Shadow, bringing the entire saga full circle.

Now, in this 85th year of Doc Savage, I plan to read a few more adventures, including the black-and-white comics from the mid 70s as published by Marvel Comics. I'll be reviewing these yarns as I get to them, beginning with The Polar Treasure next week. 

What are your favorite Doc Savage stories? How about a Top 10 list?

Longarm and the Border Wildcat

In the 229th adventure of Custis Long, U.S. Marshal, he acquires a partner in the most Longarm-ish way possible: a fight over a woman.

Just as the voluptuous red-headed Anne Marie is about to lead Longarm up some stairs to her boudoir, a bearded, beefy hombre questions the federal lawman about his intentions with "my girl." The brawl ensues and both men get in their licks under the man, Lazarus Coffin, produces his Texas Ranger badge. Longarm laughs and trumps the state badge with his federal one. It is only then they realize they are both in Del Rio, Texas, for the same reason: to provide security during a delicate negotiation between diplomats from America and Mexico.

This being an adult western, naturally there is yet another woman. She is Sonia Guiterrez, sultry daughter of the Mexican diplomat, Don Alfredo. She in openly wanton in her wants and desires and she teases just about every man in every scene in which she appears. Naturally, her father is unaware, but Coffin and Longarm aren't. Thus begins a rivalry between the two men to see who can bed the temptress. Guess who wins.

Another factor is at play in this story: a mysterious marauder, El Aguila. The local owlhoots who ride through the streets and shoot up the town are alleged to be members of his gang. That may be so, but if they are his men, the leader himself proves too elusive.

Longarm and Coffin chaff at the boredom of standing guard while the diplomats negotiate, but that lull is quickly dispatched when El Agulia's gang again rides into town. This time, however, they kidnap Sonia. When asked why she was out of her hotel room, Longarm doesn't answer that he and Sonia were having a rendezvous in an alley.

Naturally, the two lawmen must pursue the kidnappers and bring back the lovely Sonia. Along the way, they meet El Aguila himself, sling lead with the bandits, and uncover the truth behind the entire scheme.

As always, these Longarm westerns are fun, action-packed, and a joy to read. I especially enjoyed the interplay between the more cautious and reasoned Longarm and the brash Coffin. This one was written by James Reasoner.  I emailed him and asked if Coffin ever showed up again in a future Longarm novel he wrote. He said no, so this is your one and only time to meet the big Ranger.

Speaking of Ranger, I also got a smile on my face when Reasoner namedropped "Jim Hatfield" as one of the Texas Rangers Longarm wished had been sent to Del Rio. Hatfield was the lead character written by Bradford Scott in the old pulp magazine TEXAS RANGER. Speaking of old pulp characters, there's another one hidden in plain sight. Read this book and see if you can identify the character.

The Shadow: The Shadow Unmasks

Hot on the heels of my first Shadow novel, PARTNERS IN PERIL, I have now read my second, THE SHADOW UNMASKS. And I loved it just as much.

In order to kick start my Shadow experience, I decided to listen to the new productions at Audible Studios. They feature a main narrator and multiple voice actors for the cast. Both I’ve heard are fantastic and recommended. As a result, however, I’m reading these Shadow novels out of order, which means what I learned in UNMASKS surprised me.

Up until now, I’ve always thought The Shadow was, in fact, Lamont Cranston. If my memory serves me, that simple one-to-one equation was on the radio shows and it certainly was on the Alec Baldwin movie. As I started in with UNMASKS, I was expecting the same, and it started out that way until the story took an interesting turn.

The main plot of UNMASKS involves a crook named Shark Meglo (great name!). He and his gang have a straightforward plan: find, attack, and kill the buyers of some rare and valuable gems before the buyer can utter the name of the seller. For you see, the master crook behind the entire operation recycles the gems in new settings. Every three weeks or so a new member of the wealthy class dies. All of them had recently purchased gems.

Naturally, the story begins with the most recent murder. The Shadow tries to thwart Shark’s evil plans…but fails. He learns vital clues to what’s going on, however, information needed to prevent the next death. But a distant accident lands on the front pages of New York’s newspapers. A plane accident in England injured a few Americans. The story not only listed the names of the individuals but splashes their photos. There, for all to see, is the real Lamont Cranston. The problem is, especially if you are police commissioner Ralph Weston, who reads the newspaper standing outside the Cobalt Club, is that you are literally talking to Lamont Cranston. Only it’s The Shadow in his disguise. There follows a fun subterfuge as the Agents of The Shadow basically try and convince Weston that he didn’t really see Lamont Cranston but Cranston’s nephew. And the commissioner bought it.

The odd turn the story took for me was when Kent Allard, famed aviator who crashed in the Guatemalan jungle a dozen years ago, has made a reappearance. He arrives in New York to great fanfare and very quickly, we learn Allard is really The Shadow. And, lest anyone (me included) wasn’t hip on how it all shook down back then, The Shadow visits the house of an old ally, Slade Farrow (another great name!) and reveals his true identity, complete with the entire background. The reasoning is spot on—The Shadow uses the identity of Cranston as long as Cranston stays out of New York—but I couldn’t help wondering how many times in this series and, of course, the comic book masked heroes, that the characters revealed their identity to others. It also makes me wonder if, after this August 1937 issue (number 131 overall) if Lamont Cranston was ever used again. Long-time readers of The Shadow: please let me know.

Anyway, after that startling revelation, the story continued until the inevitable end. Two things struck me about this ending. One, the big finale was somewhat low key. I guess you can’t have every novel end in a big shoot-out or something. The second thing was that The Shadow is very much like Sherlock Holmes in that he knows the likely ending far in advance and just moves the various chess pieces along the way, usually with his agents none the wiser.

I’ve now read two Shadow novels and I’m not gonna stop now. They are a blast. And, as a lifelong Batman fan, I’m really fascinated to research more in depth how Bill Finger drew on his love of The Shadow and helped shape the Dark Knight Detective.

So, fellow Shadow fans, where does this story rank in the all-time list?

Batman: Detective Comics No. 27

A couple of days ago, I reviewed Partners In Peril, the first Shadow novel I had never read. I selected this novel because the publisher packaged this novel with a couple of historical essays indicating how it was adapted into the very first Batman story. Today, take a look at Detective Comics No. 27 and "The Case Of The Chemical Syndicate," the first Batman adventure.

When you read the two stories side-by-side, it is obvious how writer Bill Finger took the Shadow novel and distilled it down to six, tight pages. The comic book opens with "young socialite" Bruce Wayne talking with Commissioner Gordon at the policeman's house. Gordon receives a call informing him that Lambert “the chemical king” has been stabbed to death and his son is being held as the prime suspect. Feigning boredom, Bruce tags along with Gordon to the Lambert house where he hears the young man's story of how he found his father, dead, with the knife stuck in his back, and his father's last dying word, "contract." When questioned about his father's business contacts, young Lambert names three men. And, with the speed of a 1939-era comic, one of those men – Stephen Crane – telephones the house. Crane, too, has received death threats, and Gordon urges Crane to stay put until police protection can arrive. It is at this point that Bruce Wayne, exhibiting disinterest, empties his pipe and exits.

The action cuts to Crane's house where he is brutally shot by some thug. As the thug escapes out the window onto the roof, he and his partner are met with the first image the world ever saw of Batman, or “The Bat-Man,” as Finger styles it. The hero quickly dispatches both thugs and snatches the paper recently stolen from Crane's house. Upon reading the purloined document, he speeds away in a red sedan. Yeah, just some random car. Can you image driving along a road and seeing Bat-Man behind the wheel?

Paul Rogers, the second of the business partners, visits Alfred Stryker, the last of the business associates of the murdered chemical king. Stryker's assistant, Jennings, wallops Rogers on the back of the head, ties him up, and informs the injured man that he is going to kill him with nerve gas used to experiment on guinea pigs. As the glass dome comes down, Bat-Man enters the scene. He throws himself into the dome, seals the incoming gas with a handkerchief (would that even help?), then breaks the glass dome, freeing both him and Rogers. With little effort, Bat-Man takes out Jennings right before Stryker himself arrives.

And the villain is revealed to be Stryker. As explained by Bat-Man, Stryker had agreed to pay his three former associates an annual fee, but with the three of them dead, not only would Stryker own the entire company, but he could keep all the money. With his plan revealed, Stryker draws a gun to kill the hero, but Bat-Man wallops him over a railing and down into the vat of acid. "A fitting end for his kind," mutters Bat-Man in a vein likely normal in Depression-era pulp stories but seems rather cavalier from here in the 21st Century.

The story wraps up with Bruce Wayne and Gordon again chatting until the last frame when it is revealed Bruce Wayne is secretly...The Bat-Man.

As a debut, it’s got all the ingredients necessary to whet the reading appetites of kids and adults in 1939, especially the tag ending. It would have been something if the modern convention of splash pages were in effect back then because the reveal could have been the last page. As it was, it was merely the last frame on the page. It also makes you glad that Bill Finger re-worked Bob Kane's original idea for the character--primarily a red suit--into the dark image of The Bat-Man. Still, this kind of character begs for a second and third adventure and we’ve gotten a monthly installment of Batman ever since. Stop and ponder that for a moment: For something like 950 months in a row, we have had at least one Batman story each month, with many months—especially in the 1990s when four Bat-titles were published—more than one. That’s a seriously incredible feat.

The one question I’d love to have ask Bill Finger was why this particular story from The Shadow was used? For debuts, it’s best to put out the best possible story. Did Finger think this was the best? Did he not yet have a handle on the character? Only a reading of the new few issues will reveal the answer, something I’m doing in these next few weeks.

The Shadow: Partners in Peril

Well, it took a while, but I finally read my first Shadow novel.*

I think like most of us, I’ve known about The Shadow for a long time. I first discovered him back in the late 70s when my parents purchased some old-time radio episodes on cassette to listen to on vacations. Ten years later, some of those episodes were broadcast on local Houston AM radio on Sunday nights and I’d listen to them as I returned back to college in Austin. And I’d even began collecting the wonderful reprints by Vintage Library to say nothing of some of the comic adaptations. Actually, up until now, the only time I’d encountered The Shadow in print was the two times he guest-starred in Batman comics (my reviews here and here).

Interestingly, it was because of Batman that I first wanted to read PARTNERS IN PERIL. The good folks a Vintage packaged PARTNERS along with LINGO and commissioned a couple of article about how PARTNERS and The Shadow influenced Bill Finger and Bob Kane to create Batman. The historian in me always gravitated to the historical commentary before I read the stories, and this collection is fantastic with not only historical commentary by Will Murray and Anthony Tollin but an introduction by Jerry Robinson, co-creator of Robin and the Joker. But today, the focus is on this November 1936 story.

Reed Harrington calls the police with a desperate situation: he’s been marked for death at midnight. For over a week, Harrington has tried to evade the mysterious caller, but every time, the mystery man finds him. With no one else to turn to, Harrington asks the police for help. Detective Joe Cardona is assigned the case and he’s there in the room when Harrington receives a call just before midnight…and falls dead! In short order, Arnold King arrives at the dead man’s apartment with the same incredible story. What links these two men? Well, they both were former partners of the Milcote Chemical Corporation. Armed with police protection, King holes up and waits…until he, too, falls dead. King dies of electrocution; Harrington of poison.

Enter: The Shadow. He directs his agents to discover the identity of other partners of the company and land on three: Simon Todd, Thomas Porter and his son, Ray. But what complicates the mystery is that Harrington, King, and the two Porters all are former partners of the chemical company. Who would want them dead? Perhaps it is sinister agents of a foreign power out to discover the secret formula for the new chemical weapon created for the United States to use in the next war.  Perhaps it’s something else, but you know before you even read the first word that The Shadow will emerge triumphant.

THOUGHTS

First of all, I really enjoyed this story. I liked how the action played fairly quick and straight. I have since learned that the author of PARTNERS wasn’t Walter Gibson but Theodore Tinsley. In fact, PARTNERS is Tinsley’s first Shadow novel. I read he studied Gibson’s writing style and aimed to achieve a certain verisimilitude with the prose. Today, I can’t say if he did, but the prose flowed well. An aspect of the writing that was likely a product of the times was the omniscient narrator where you rarely got into the characters heads, much less The Shadow. That was likely intentional because Tinsley has us readers (and certain characters) witnessing a thing only to reveal later that The Shadow had already performed a different task. It was very much like the movie serials of the time.

Speaking of The Shadow himself, I enjoyed his disguises and his ability to blend into his surroundings. He appeared both as a young and old workman and Tinsley treated us readers to a classic sly wink as the disguised hero vacated a scene just as another character paused and frowned in odd recognition. A surprising aspect of The Shadow’s character was when he constantly seemed to be five steps ahead of events. Like Sherlock Holmes who knew, for example, the villain in the The Hound of the Baskervilles before he even left London yet sent Watson on errands anyway. The Shadow did the same thing with his team which consisted of Burbank, a man who communicated the plans to other agents, reporter Clyde Burke, and Harry Vincent, who acts as The Shadow’s second-hand man. Ironically, just like Doc Savage’s compadres, Vincent gets himself in trouble and The Shadow has to rescue him, but Vincent proves an able partner.

I listened to PARTNERS from a new all-cast recording up on Audible. It was fantastic and I got a definite old-time radio vibe. There were no sound effects,  but there was soft jazz music at the end of each chapter. A funny aspect of the narrator was his slight pause every time “The Shadow” was mentioned in prose. Another note on the recording: they edited out much of the attribution. Since I had the hard copy and there was a particularly great action sequence, I marked it to re-read and study. It was then, while the audio was playing in my ears, that I noticed they were leaving out some words. As an avid audiobook listener, I wish other productions would do the same thing.

I thoroughly enjoyed PARTNERS IN PERIL and I’ll be quickly moving on to more Shadow novels. THE SHADOW UNMASKS is the only other full-cast recording while THE VOODOO MASTER and THE BLACK FALCON are narrated traditionally.

*P.S. In 2018, I’m reading mindfully and part of that is to read more of what I already own. Ironic timing, then, when I open up the hard copy to mark the passage I mentioned above only to find the receipt. I checked the date: 14 January 2009. I finished PARTNERS  on 14 January 2018. Nice serendipity.

Batman and The Shadow Meet Again: Batman 259

[This post originally was published in July 2016]

Nearly a calendar year after Batman 253, Batman 259 landed in the spinner racks across America in December 1974. Denny O’Neil is again the writer. The artists, whom I failed to note, are also the same: Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. The opening splash page shows a shoot-out with three hoodlums, a shadow in the shape of The Shadow, and a nurse, a gentleman in a suit, and a young boy. Breathlessly, O’Neil warns young readers that they haven’t opened the wrong magazine. “The Caped Crusader is in this scene! But you may not recognize him…because the event you are witnessing occurred a quarter of a century ago.” The gentleman turns out to be Thomas Wayne; the boy is his son, Bruce. The hoods are making their way off with the Starlight Tiara. The unsuspecting civilians walk into the escape and the nurse trips and falls. In the process, the nurse rips off the bandana from one of the hoods. It’s Willy Hank Stamper, the Boy Genius of Crime [doncha just love all the extras to characters back then?]. Just as Stamper is about to shoot her, Thomas Wayne leaps into action. He knocks Stamper away. A shootout ensues and Thomas, Bruce, and the nurse huddle on the floor. There, young Bruce is traumatized by the gunshots. The Shadow triumphs, Stamper is put in jail, but the scars in young Bruce remain.

In a quick two pages, we see Stamper in jail, the murder of Bruce’s parents, and the appearance of the dread Batman. (I always loved that O’Neil used “dread” as an adjective to describe Batman.) After a brief conversation between Batman and Commissioner Gordon—where the cop questions why Batman never uses a gun—Batman as Bruce goes to visit Mildred, the nurse from the opening panel. It’s just at the right time, too. She’s in her wheelchair on the roof of her old folks’ home. Stamper is there! So is Swofford, the jeweler, holding a large jewelry box. A quick fight ensues, but Stamper gets away because Swofford suffers a heart attack and dies. Interestingly, the box of jewels disappears right under Batman’s nose. Hmmm…

The next evening, at the Rare Gem Exhibit, the Starlight Tiara is on display. Bruce Wayne expects Stamper to strike. Instead, there’s a note that claims the Tiara is a fake. Upon closer inspection, it’s true! Suddenly, that peculiar laughter fills the loud speaker. Bruce knows that laugh. He also understands the message: “It will end where it began!” Now, Bruce heads back to the same building as the opening panel. The Swofford jewelry shop is now a dilapidated mannequin store. Batman walks in. Stamper’s there, of course, but he has no quarrel with Batman. Nonetheless, the Dark Knight Detective leaps into action. Stamper shoots at him, and then there’s an odd thing. Batman/Bruce has a flashback to that night 25 years ago. Again, he’s like the young Bruce who was traumatized by the gunshots. It freezes him as he remembers. Stamper’s about to shoot Batman when The Shadow’s laughter interrupts the action. Batman is snapped out of his fright and takes out Stamper.

Now, I’ll admit that in this day and age, Batman is all but a super man. He can do no wrong and has thought things out ten steps ahead of everyone. His brain is his super power. However, one of the things I still enjoy about Batman in the 1970s is that he’s still a man. He has the occasional moments like this. It humanizes him. So this scene worked for me.

The issue ends with Batman and The Shadow talking. The Shadow offers Batman a gift of a gun. Batman refuses. The Shadow points out that the box Swofford [where does O’Neil get these names?] was carrying had a hidden compartment. In there was the real Tiara. Lastly, Batman asks the obvious question: “You know my real identity.” That was the implication from their first adventure in issue 253, but it’s out in the open now. The Shadow assures Bruce that the secret is safe with him. The Shadow disappears into the night. Batman/Bruce laments that he didn’t get a chance to thank him. “He’s freed me from a dread [see the nice counter-use of the word here?] I didn’t realize I had.” O’Neil ends the issue with a text box: “The Batman does not fail…and neither does The Shadow.”

Overall, this is another excellent issue with these two heroes. It makes you really want to have more adventures with these two characters. Too bad that never came to pass. The last panel is a simple box: “We dedicate this story to the memory of our friend Bill Finger.” The co-creator of Batman died in January 1974. Back then, I think only a few knew of Finger’s contributions to the Batman mythos. Now, it’s generally acknowledged that the character we know today as Batman is the way he is largely as a result of Bill Finger. Glad he got his nod.

One more thing: This issue is one of the 100-page issues. DC would write a new story for the featured character and then fill in the rest of the pages with reprints. This way, they could charge $0.60. It was a bargain! In the days before trade paperback collections, this was the best (only?) way for young readers like I was to read the older stories. There would also be special features, like “The Strange Costumes of Batman” in this issue. Best of all for someone of my age, this issue had the new Saturday Morning Schedule for CBS. It was a two-page spread of all the new shows and the times. Back when cartoons and kids’ programming was relegated to Saturday mornings, I would often look for current issues and hope they had a spread like this one. Granted, 1974 was a little ahead of my time, but it is still good to have a peek at what CBS thought kids would like. Good times, huh?

When Batman Met The Shadow: Batman 253

[This post was originally published on another blog in July 2016] As much as I love and enjoy continuity and canonization of material in comics, I also appreciate the more free and open days of the past. Nowadays, DC Comics controls Batman so much that EVERYthing he does is canon and must align with every other book being published. The same is true for just about every other property published in comics nowadays. It’s great because we typically get great titles and stories, but the chances that characters from two universes meet can be pretty low.

Not so in the early 1970s. Batman was enjoying a dark renaissance after the comedic turn he took in the 1960s in both comic and on television. Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams had taken the Dark Knight back to the night and returned him to the atmospheric stories from the 1940s. By 1973, DC had earned the right to publish a new series featuring the pulp hero The Shadow. Denny O’Neil was the writer of that series as well. So I bet it was a no-brainer to have the two dark detectives meet.

Batman 253 was the result. These were the years where Batman’s typical rogues gallery was off-limits to writers, so Batman would face bad guys that were a whole lot less colorful but no less deadly. In this story, titled, “Who Knows What Evil?”, Batman tracks some goons to the docks. I got a huge chuckle and thrill with the opening text of the story: “It is a dark time at Gotham Freight Yards, when dawn is no more than a distant promise…a time when furtive men do furtive things…and when the Batman moves like an avenging wraith.” Pure pulp goodness.

No sooner does Batman take out the goons than one nearly gets the drop on him. But a bullet from the shadows knocks the gun out of the goon’s hand and Batman survives. He hears laughter, “coming from everywhere…and nowhere.” That’s his first clue. Alfred helps Batman figure out that the counterfeiters are based out of Arizona, Tumbleweed Crossing to be exact. Bruce Wayne arrives by bus—yeah, you read that correctly—and gets a room at the local hotel run by an old geezer named Bammy. No sooner does Bruce arrive than a gang of young hoodlums in dune buggies zoom through the town. The slang O’Neil writes for both the youngsters and Batman is so charmingly late 60s/early 70s. Again, after Batman learns that the hoodlums got bribed with “Fool’s money,” he hears the laughter again. Now, he starts to think it may be “Him.”

Later, at the hotel dining room, Bruce meets Lamont Cranston, complete with gray hair on the temples. Bruce doesn’t know of Cranston’s alter ego, but a remark from Cranston is the last clue Bruce needs. Here, in another charming note that’s now gone from comics, there’s a little yellow box: “Bruce [Batman] Wayne seems to have cracked the case! Have you?” It allowed young readers to be detectives. Love this. Still later, toward the end of the book, another clue is revealed. The editor wrote a note with the page and panel number. Sure enough, the clue was there. Wonderful stuff! As you’d expect, Batman travels to the counterfeiter’s hideout and fights them. And, in a very Robin-like move, Batman gets ink thrown in his face. His mysterious benefactor rescues him again, then leaves a note to meet back in Gotham the next night. They do, and The Shadow reveals himself. Basically, Batman is a huge fan and just wants to shake the hand of the old pulp hero. The Knight of Darkness, on the other hand, wanted to know if the Dark Knight deserved his reputation. He did.

As the Shadow melts into the night, Batman asks if the Shadow will come out of retirement. You know what the Shadow’s reply is before you even read it: “That…only the Shadow knows!”

 This was such a fun issue. It lead directly into the Shadow comic series. The two heroes would meet again in Batman 259…but that’s a review for a different day.

The Sun Rises West by Oscar J. Friend

Last week, I attended a small comic convention here in Houston that served as a throwback to the early days of comic book fandom. It was hosted in two rooms in a hotel. One room was devoted to toys; the other to comics. But, happily for me, the owner of Bedrock City Comics brought his pulp magazines.

I had been to his shop last month after I discovered Bradford Scott and his pulp hero, Texas Ranger Walt Slade, in paperback. After reading my first Slade novel, I wanted to read one of his old pulp exploits. I bought one issue of Thrilling Western and reviewed the Slade story. Naturally, I beelined to that section of the pulp magazines on sale last week, but I’m not here to talk about my next Slade story.

No, what I’m here to talk about is the odd mash-up of a western in a World War II setting.

The cover date for Thrilling Western volume 29, #1 is May 1942. I’m not sure how much lead time editor G. B. Farnum gave to writers, but Oscar J. Friend’s story was definitely written after December 7, 1941.

 “The Sun Rises West” features cowboy Chuck Hardin. He’s been hired to work a cattle ranch out on Hawaii. With just the description of Hardin, you know you’re in for a treat: other than battered suitcases and his typical cowboy attire (you know what I’m talking about), he brings his Winchester and two double-action .45 six-shooters. The other character comment on Hardin’s attire more than once.

There’s a girl here, but she doesn’t figure too much into the story other than the typical rivalry between Hardin and Montague Townley, the ranch’s manager. With a name like that, you also know what kind of man he is. Well, there’s also a native Hawaiian co-star in Hamelaki George who fills the role perfectly.

And you already know who the bad guys are just from reading the story’s title and sub-title: A Novelete [sic] of Texas Guns in Hawaii. Yup, the Japanese, specifically the houseboy Mikimatu. The old pulps were filled with descriptions and terms we in the 21st Century cringe at, and that’s all there. But Friend piles it on. After being introduced to Mikimatu, cowboy Hardin never pronounces his name correctly for the rest of the story, instead using terms like “Mikiblotto.” The physical
descriptions are worse. But that was a different time, and when Friend wrote the story and the readers consumed this story six months after Pearl Harbor, I don’t suspect many minded.

Speaking of Pearl Harbor, it doesn’t take a genius to know that’s when this story takes place. The day is lost for America, but Hardin, naturally, wins the day at the Robinson Ranch.

The story is good and about what you’d expect. Not much to write home about, but it’s a fantastic snapshot at a particular time and place.

The Haunted Legion: A Walt Slade Pulp Story by Bradford Scott

A little under a month ago, I discovered Walt Slade, El Halcon, the Texas Ranger extraordinaire as chronicled by prolific author Bradford Scott (aka A. Leslie Scott). It was a chance meeting, Slade and I, in an antique store in Jefferson, Texas. The book was FOUR MUST DIE, which, as it turned out—thanks to some excellent background from James Reasoner—was the one book in the paperback series not written by Scott. But I loved the character so I immediately followed-up by reading KILLER’S DOOM, another novel in the paperback series, this time actually written by Scott himself.

But Walt Slade got his start in the pulps. He was an honest-to-God pulp hero, his adventures gracing most covers of Thrilling Western. If you read James Reasoner’s short history of this character, you’ll learn Scott took Slade out of the pulps and reformulated him for the emerging paperback book audience. Having read two novels—with dozens more to go—I was quite curious about one of his pulp stories.

Last week, I stopped into one of the local Bedrock City comic stores here in Houston because I knew the owner sold pulps. I hoped he would have any issue of Thrilling Western and I was in luck. He had a handful and I bought the May 1947 issue. The Walt Slade story in question was “The Haunted Legion”—and the cover font was that old scary font from the 1940s! What was the pulp version of Slade like?

Well, what immediately jumped out at me were the illustrations. As usual with the pulps, pencil illustrations accompanied nearly every story. With “The Haunted Legion” being the cover story, it had more than a few. I’m not sure who the illustrator was, but his take on Slade was pretty much as described by Scott and how I pictured him. So far, so good.

As the story being, Slade is down at Matagorda Bay, Texas, and before you know it, we get ourselves a story. It’s told by an old Mexican who relates the tale of Black Mora. And when I say he tells the story, I’m talking almost a full first chapter in which the POV actually switching to Mora himself and the legend of this pirate captain and the ghosts that walk the region. Twas a tad odd, but it certainly captured the mood, especially considering Bradford Scott’s penchant for flowery descriptions.

No sooner does Slade hear this story than his eyes catch sight of a group of men on horseback. It’s stormy and he only sees them when the lightening flashes once. The next time electricity illuminates the sky, they are gone. But there is also a major bonfire. A nearby house and barn are engulfed in flames. How? And might the two things be related?

Well, of course they are.

A key difference in this pulp story versus the paperback stories literally jumped off the page: language. In “The Haunted Legion,” Slade talks just like most other characters, and Bradford Scott writes the dialogue using phonically spelled words: Figger, mebbe, yuh, etc. I don’t remember Slade’s dialogue being that way in the two books I’ve read so far. It made Slade seem dumber and, frankly, it irritated me a little. I got used to it, but I guess I just like my heroes to sound smart.

There’s a good dose of gunfights and action, but there was a surprising level of mere investigation. Like a good traditional mystery, Bradford Scott laid out the clues for the reader and the clever one might have been able to deduce the culprit. I didn’t, but then I wasn’t trying to. But Slade gets to tell the local sheriff—another dumb lawman, but one who is loyal to Slade—all the clues that led him to discover the owlhoot. Were it not for his clothes, Slade could easily have come across as a detective from England. It was clever and wrapped up the story neatly.

All the traits that readers enjoy about Slade is on display here, including his fast guns, clever brain, and singing voice. He is a very enjoyable character and I’ll happily be reading more of his adventures. I liked the short form of this story pretty well. It’s an eight-chapter story, and, in true pulp form, each chapter has three sub-sections. They are easily identified by a large first letter and small caps in the first couple of words. It’s pure formula, but when you like something, you can simply consume it and be satisfied. I was satisfied with “The Haunted Legion,” and I may have to make a return trip back to Bedrock City and buy the rest of the magazines.

In Defense of "John Carter"

“John Carter” is a very good film, not as bad as many critics have said, provided you know one thing: How To Have Fun.

To understand this essay, you have to understand where I come from and the type of viewer and reader I am. “A Princess of Mars,” Edgar Rice Burroughs’s first Mars book—first book period (!)—and the basis for the new movie, is one of the very few things that can literally transport me back to that glorious time in my life in the late 70s halo of those immediate post-Star Wars years where I learned about science fiction. While I cannot say with certainty that the John Carter books were my first literary SF, they were among the first. I re-read “Princess” a couple of years ago and found that the tale still held sway over my imagination despite my more adult observations on the technical proficiency of ERB’s writing style. In preparation for the new movie, my SF book club agreed to read the first two novels of the series (the second being The Gods of Mars), watch the movie, and then retire to a nearby restaurant and discuss.

As to the type of reader and viewer I am, let’s just say that I thoroughly enjoy being entertained. When it comes to TV cop shows, I can enjoy “The Wire” and “CSI: Miami” for what each of them are. CSI: Miami will never win over critics the way The Wire has, but I often have more fun with Horatio Caine and company versus McNulty and his pals. I was completely engrossed by “The Dark Knight” back in 2008 but also really dug the animated “Batman: The Brave and the Bold” released the same year. For another example, I am a proud member of the Star Wars Generation, a kid when it was released. As an adult, I was jazzed to see the new movies, yet left the theater after Episode I and Episode II having to justify many aspects of those movies. Of the six Star Wars movies made, only one is great, one is very good, and the rest are all muddled together. All this is to say that, while I don’t often wear my critical hat every time a watch or read something, I am no drone for properties and characters and universes I enjoy.

Which brings me to John Carter. I read no spoilers ahead of time. The older I’ve gotten, the more I prefer to be surprised in the movie theater rather than a grainy YouTube video or geekboy script breakdown published somewhere on the web. I knew those in control of the subject matter, namely Andrew Stanton, Michael Chabon, and Disney, among others. Stanton’s work with Pixar is magnificent, Chabon’s novels and mastery of the English language are often sublime, and I love Disney stuff. That Chabon and Stanton grew up loving the Barsoom (i.e., Mars) books and were in charge of the story left me no worries that they would shepherd the film with loving detail. I trusted in them, and, frankly, they did not let me down.

But I am a different type of viewer than your average viewer. I knew the material. In fulfilling my obligation to my book club (read the first two novels), I became so engrossed in the characters and landscape of Burroughs’s imagination that I have, to date, completed the first four novels and am reading the fifth. I pulled my old issues of the 1970s-era John Carter comics published by Marvel and am re-reading them. I’ve even bought the new anthology edited by John Joseph Adams, Under the Moons of Mars, new stories inspired by Barsoom. Sure, the books are laced with wild coincidences, pulpy writing, and outlandish plot details. So? You could say the same about The Da Vinci Code and not a few of the Sherlock Holmes stories, too, and I liked them. A simple story told simply isn’t bad. What I wanted most to see was Burroughs’s imagination come alive on screen. And, in that, Stanton delivered more than I could ever have hoped for.

Burroughs populated his adventures with giant four-arms green fighting men (Tharks), giant ten-legged Martian “lions” (banths), giant flying crafts that “sail” the air (Barsoomian war ships), and giant, four-armed white apes. See a trend here? Burroughs’s world is over-sized, filled with wondrous creatures, fierce and noble races, vile villains, and amazing technology. The oft-used phrase “sensawonder,” an amalgamation of “sense of wonder,” permeates the very text of Burroughs’s books and comes alive in readers’ imaginations.

And they come truly to life in the new movie. The Tharks I had always pictured to be muscle-bound hulks, but in Stanton’s hands, they are aggressive yet elegant, beautiful almost. Gollem, in The Lord of the Rings, is my standard by which I measure how computer animated characters interact with human characters. The Tharks have joined him. I love the Tharks in this film! I always pictured the white apes to be vicious brutes, and in Stanton’s interpretation, they are larger and far worse than I’d thought possible. Woola, the calot, or Martian dog, was a ten-legged beast in the books with little personality other than loyalty. On screen, Woola is a joy to watch as he is both loyal and laugh-out-loud comic relief. The flying ships are large and graceful, but can pack enough firepower to destroy whole towns. Yes, they sound like ships from Star Wars: Episode I, but who cares. There are only so many ways you can make spaceships sound. I caught the reference, and then quickly moved it aside in my mind. I was having too much dang fun.

I’m very glad that Stanton and company kept the framing device. In both the book and the movie, a fictional version of Burroughs is entrusted with a manuscript written by Carter that tells of his exploits on Mars. From there, the epic of John Carter is revealed. One of my fellows thought the film should have begun with Carter waking up on Mars. I liked the back story (and the additions Stanton made, especially the ending) and considered it to give Carter a bit more emotional resonance. Where the literary Carter is a military man nearly incapable of *not* joining a fight, the film version of Carter is a qualified fighting man, buy one for whom violence has taken a toll. That still doesn’t mean it can’t be the butt of a joke. I was laughing out loud when I watched the scenes of Carter, on Earth, being captured by the Union cavalry.

For a century, certain images from the books have been stuck in the imaginations of readers. One of the dangers that a faces a film like “John Carter” boils down to this: will the filmmakers “see” the scene like the readers have seen it. From my point of view, they nailed it. More than once in the novels, Carter fights hoards of beasts, the carcasses piling up around him. Stanton got this pitch perfect. The flying ships are exotic yet real, steampunk-inspired, yet futuristic. Helium as a city is magnificent, regal, yet lived in, as befitting a dying planet. Sure, George Lucas made his Star Wars universe “lived in,”—a quality the newer films kind of lacked—but he was probably inspired by Barsoom.

The Acting

You don’t watch Star Wars for acting lessons. Ditto the Harry Potter films, the Twilight films, or any random superhero movie. True, great acting emerges, either in certain characters (Heath Ledger’s Joker), certain scenes (the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when Cedric dies), over the course of a movie/series (Sean Astin’s Sam in The Lord of the Rings), and, occasionally, in a computer-generated character (Gollem, Wall E, or Anton Ego from Ratatouille). But, like a Michael Crichton novel, you often only need to let an actor say the lines that needs saying and propel the plot forward.

That doesn’t mean that the actors cannot embody their lines with life and verve. Here, however, is the tale of a man lost, a stranger in a strange world. How would *you* feel if you woke up on another planet? For me, I never saw Taylor Kitsch in anything until I saw him as John Carter. That’s a benefit for me, for I didn’t have his Friday Nights Lights character to influence how I perceived his portrayal of Carter. Ditto for Lynn Collins, the actress who plays Dejah Thoris, the princess of Mars. They were tasked—burdened?—with bringing to life and personifying a century’s worth of reader imaginations, to say nothing of the scores of young men who dreamed that *they* welded Carter’s sword and rescued Dejah themselves. And they did a good job. Neither rose above the text and overpowered the film, but they were not subsumed by it either.

Of the two characters, Dejah got an update. When you read the original novels, you will note that, while Dejah did find herself in numerous instances of peril, she wasn’t some limp-wristed damsel who did nothing but scream. She helps Carter in more than one spot, paving the way for future heroines like Princess Leia and Ripley from “Alien.” In the new movie, Dejah is still a princess, but she’s also a scientist who is researching the ninth ray, the mystical ray that, could it only be harnessed, it could even the battlefield against Helium’s enemies. Oh, and she’s a great fighter, too. Oh, and she’s beautiful. The other members of my book club rolled their eyes over the fact that all three traits were rolled into one. I, frankly, had no problem with it. I like strong women. It leveled the playing field between Carter’s supernatural strength and Dejah’s brain.

The love story worked for me. As innumerable love stories on film have done, you have two opposing personalities discovering their love for each other but go to great pains to hide it. We knew, going in, that Carter would fall for Dejah. The fun in the movie, however, was how Dejah fell for Carter. Remember the movie version of The Bridges of Madison County (stay with me, here) and how Meryl Streep’s character kept stealing glances at Clint Eastwood? Same stuff here, but, for example, through the reflection of a Martian sword. Collins had her work cut out for her seeing that generations of young boys probably got quite excited when their imaginations filled in the figure of the mostly naked princess of Mars. She had to embody this famous heroine, give her brains and brawn, but also be beautiful at the same time. Pretty as she was, she won me over with her sly smiles at Carter’s fighting prowess and her growing respect, admiration, and the fact that she saw in Carter a kindred spirit. It is through her eyes that the loves manifests itself first, and it is in her heartbroken eyes we see Carter’s initial refusal to help. She did a great job. One reviewer commented that he’d like to see a movie featuring Dejah alone. While I would not go that far, I was thoroughly impressed by Collins and thought she carried more than her share of the film.

The Changes

Readers and critics could debate all day on the merits of filming all the events from A Princess of Mars. One critic who panned the film talked of Stanton’s slavish devotion to the source material. I think there is a fine line between slavishly creating something on the screen from printed material (Watchmen) or taking inspiration from a book and creating something that is, in effect, a hybrid. Readers in 1912 traveled with Carter throughout this basic travelogue of a book, having adventures along the way. In that year, the spectacle of Mars was pretty much enough to maintain interest. In 2012, we’ve sent spaceship to Mars itself, so we know the truth. We have a more sophisticated appreciation for storytelling and, frankly, expect more and different things from a movie. Stanton and Chabon, knowing this fact, reached the only logical conclusion: incorporate the best elements of the main book, throw in a few elements from the second, and make up some new stuff to satisfy the demands of the viewing public.

All in all, they succeeded. SPOILERS start here. The villains from The Gods of Mars—the Therns—are brought into this story. These immortal beings, lead by Matai Shang (Mark Strong) control the lives and events of mortal souls. They know the secret of the ninth ray on Mars—a source of great power—and give it to the human bad guy of the film (Dominic West’s Sab Than, Prince of Zodanga, the great rival of Dejah’s Helium) to help him rule. The Therns are shape-shifters, able to, in the blink of an eye, change form. Cool! This is not in the books, but it works here, and it enables Carter to do exactly what the first movie in a (potential) series needs to do: defeat the smaller bad guy but not the larger bad guy. Think about the end of the first Star Wars film: Vader lives, but the Death Star is destroyed. You know he’s going to bring back the big guns, but that’s in the next movie.

Teleportation. In the books, Carter uses astral projection to get to Mars. Here, in the movie, it’s a combination of that plus a technological component. His body remains here on Earth while a living, breathing copy of him emerges on Mars. This concept sets up the great epilogue, a point I’m not spoiling here. I really liked that it was a scientific means of getting Carter to Mars, and, by having to possess an actual artifact, gave Carter a nice MacGuffin to chase.

The Criticisms

Yes, I have some. Earlier I mentioned how Stanton and Chabon picked the best parts of the first two books and put them in this movie. It must have been a tremendously fun exercise, much like the fun Anthony Horowitz must have experienced when he penned the new Sherlock Holmes novel, The House of Silk (2011). Think about it: you get to assemble what amounts to a mix tape of your favorite scenes. The one problem I have is that they may have picked too many.

Take, for example, a hallmark of Burroughs’s tales: the arena fight. I’ve forgotten how many exist in the novels, but it’s a lot. Likely the writers knew that they wanted to include one in the film and chose a rather awkward time for it. Sure, it set up the Braveheart-like visuals of Carter splattered with blue blood, but even I kind of shifted in my seat when I realized that Carter was captured yet again. But, I quickly reminded myself of the books, where Carter and his friends always get captured. Then, of course, in the film, you get the arena scene and the giant apes. Yes, I thought of Star Wars: Episode II at the start of the scene (and Spartacus and Ben Hur and Gladiator)…and quickly put it out of my mind. Arena battles are numerous in films and mythology. There are only a few ways to do them. And the way Carter did it was thrilling. Dude, he swung a giant bolder and smashed the head of a giant white ape! Yeah!

The Voice of Barsoom. In the books, Carter learns the one language of Mars the old fashioned way: by hearing it and, bit by bit, understanding it. In the movie, there is a magical liquid that the Tharks give their young and that one of the Tharkian women in charge of Carter gives the Earthman. Lo and behold, he now speaks their language. It’s a simple and straightforward way to get all the characters speaking the same language in the blink of a scene, but it’s a little eye rolling.

There are other minor criticisms, but I’d be throwing pebbles at a boulder. Who cares, really? I had a blast with the film.

Summary

If I had to sum up my thoughts into one word, it might be “thankfulness.” I’m thankful that Stanton, Chabon, and everyone involved were devoted to making a fun, entertaining, fun, faithful, fun, and exciting movie experience. I’m thankful that they played it straight with their film, not like the cheesy Flash Gordon movie of 1980. I’m thankful that they reminded us that jaded, post-modern takes on historical or old ideas need not be the only way to update old material. I’m thankful that Stanton hired Michael Giacchino who composed a superb soundtrack that evoked not only the thrilling soundtracks of Hollywood’s days gone by with the bombast of fight scenes, but also the ethereal, otherworldly music that shines and yet lovingly caresses the actors on screen during the quieter moments. (I’m thinking of that final episode of “Lost” and the openings of “Star Trek” and “Up” where his music nearly single-handedly brought tears to my eyes. That gravitas is present here, too.) I’m thankful for Disney who put up the money to make a giant pet project that millions of readers and viewers adore, no matter the final financial outcome. I’m thankful that movies like this are still being made, movies that entertain and thrill with no other ulterior motive than that. I’m thankful that there are moments in this movie where I wanted to stand up and cheer, where chills coursed over my arms, where my jaw dropped at the sheer size of the spectacle before me, and whose closing scene had me grinning like the eleven year old that I still am when it comes to this material.

I loved this movie for what it is: the best dang movie experienced I’ve seen in a long, long time. There are formidable movies that have planted their flags and laid claim to moments in my life, from childhood to adulthood: Star Wars, Superman, The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Amadeus, Back to the Future, Die Hard, Batman (1989), Dead Poet’s Society, When Harry Met Sally, The Fellowship of the Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Return of the King, Ratatouille, The Dark Knight, Toy Story 3, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. John Carter of Mars has landed with this company.

I loved this movie and I want to return to this universe. If, however, a sequel is never made, I will still cherish this film, these books, and this universe. If a movie sequel is never made, I implore Chabon and Stanton to write the novel. I want to know the next chapter in this new yet familiar story. It’s a long shot in these immediate days after the premiere, but there exists hope, and hope, according to John Carter, is enough.

Book Review Club: The John Carter of Mars Trilogy by Edgar Rice Burroughs

(This is the March 2012 entry in Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For the complete list, click the icon at the bottom of this review.)

In the run-up to the new Disney movie “John Carter,” bowing this Friday, the guys in my science fiction book club decided to read (or re-read as the case may be) the first two books in the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912) and The Gods of Mars (1913). Me being the completest person that I am—and because the second book ended on a cliffhanger—I forged ahead and read the third book, Warlord of Mars (1913-1914). After nearly 600 pages of action and adventure, one question still puzzles me: how the heck do you have a sword and all hosts of aliens and monsters when you’re naked?

To be honest, as I re-read Burroughs’ Martian tales—A Princess of Mars was his first book, pre-dating Tarzan by a few months—I kept an eye out to see if the characters really did wear loin clothes, robes, or what. Turns out no one wears clothes. Strange Martian custom. But, then again, strange was the way our hero, John Carter, found his way onto Mars.

A Civil War vet, Carter and a friend found a gold lode in the mountains of Arizona. There’s a problem, natch: Indians. They kill Carter’s friend and come after him. He’s holed up in a cave, waiting to go down with guns blazing when a strange thing happens: he becomes paralyzed. He hears the Indians approach the cave entrance…and then turn in fear. Great, thinks Carter, whatever scared them is behind me and I can’t do anything about it. Turns out, the thing behind him is…himself. He’s some sort of phantom and, before he knows it, he ‘wakes’ up on Mars. There’s little in the way of actual scientific facts regarding how Carter “teleported” to Mars, but that’s really okay. The book isn’t about science. It’s about battles, honor, bravery, and love.

And he’s Superman. He can leap tall buildings (most of the way) in a single bound. His strength is beyond that of mere mortal Martians. Lucky for Carter the Warrior the first beings he meets, the Green Men of Mars (huge hulks (heh) that stand nearly fifteen feet tall with a set of intermediary limbs below the arms and above the legs) only speak War, Bravery, and Combat Prowess. He woos them, even though he’s ostensibly a prisoner.

A Princess of Mars is basically a travelogue of Mars. Carter learns how Martian (Barsoomian in the language of the natives) babies are born, how naval vessels fly through the air, how the thin Martian atmosphere is treated, and how water is preserved on a planet without any surface water. Along the way, he doesn’t even bat an eye that he, and everyone else, is naked. That would include Dejah Thoris, the princess of the book’s title. She is captured after a battle and Carter falls for her. Well, of course. She’s naked. The rest of the book is his attempt to return her to her land and her people usually with many valiant sword fights and battles.

The Gods of Mars picks up ten years after the events of the first book when Carter returns to Barsoom. He saved the day at the end of the first book and mysteriously returned to Earth. Upon re-materializing on Mars, he finds himself in the Valley Dor alongside the River Iss. What makes this particular location treacherous is that Dor and Iss constitute the Martian afterlife. Think about the end of the Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Bilbo sail off into the sunset. No sooner is he back on Mars that he’s doing battle with heretofore unknown plant men, his friend Tars Tarkas (natch) by his side. Through battles, more battles, captivity, escape, more battles, Carter learns more about the religion of Mars, the deception that has been going on for ages, and that his beloved wife, Dejah Thoris, believing Carter dead, has taken the pilgrimage to the valley. What would a Carter/Mars novel be without a princess that needs saving? Not much fun to read, if you ask me. Along the way, Carter assembles allies (his discovers his son in held prisoner *in the very same prison* he land in…of course!) and enemies, charging ahead when mere mortals would think twice. Finally, he reaches the side of Dejah deep underground at Barsoom’s southern polar region only to have her snatched away again in the books final pages (natch).

Warlord of Mars picks up where Gods of Mars ends. Dejah, her staunch comrade, Thuvia, and enemy, Phaidor, all are captured inside a giant temple, the only door of which opens once a year. Oh, and the last time he saw his princess, Phaidor, knife in hand, had launched herself toward Dejah. Carter manages to follow his three main arch-enemies as they secretly rescue all three women only to escape…again! The bad guys fly literally all the way to the top of Mars, with Carter and a new ally, Thuvia’s father, chasing them. More battles, more heroics, more monsters and history of Barsoom ensue.

Let’s not go too deep here. These books are pure, unadulterated fun. Burroughs’ books and stories inspired countless creators of science fiction literature and films throughout the twentieth-century. There were a couple of places where you could see directly how George Lucas was inspired. At one point, Dejah is taken before a giant, ugly monstrosity. Jabba the Hutt and Princess Leia anyone? Speaking of Leia, I think we all know what she told Darth Vader in the first Star Wars movie. Come on. Do I have to quote it exactly? “I am on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.” Now, cut to this exchange between Dejah and her captor from the first book:

"And the nature of your expedition?" he [bad guy] continued.

"It was a purely scientific research party sent out by my father's father, the Jeddak of Helium, to rechart the air currents, and to take atmospheric density tests," replied the fair prisoner, in a low, well-modulated voice. "We were unprepared for battle," she continued, "as we were on a peaceful mission, as our banners and the colors of our craft denoted."

Of course, I see Star Trek in there, too. And Avatar. And Fern Gully. And Dances With Wolves. In fact, my biggest fear for the movie is that folks who don’t know will just think that “John Carter” ripped off Avatar, not realizing that Avatar ripped off Burroughs first.

The remnants of Victorian prejudices still color Burroughs’ characters. The Green Men of Mars basically are communists. They all live together each person owning nothing individual. One exception is Dejah herself. Like Leia and other damsels, yes, Dejah’s in distress but she holds her own, even helping out Carter a couple of times. It speaks to her character and the fact that Carter doesn’t put up a fuss makes him a better man for it.

This first three books in the eleven-book series is really a trilogy, meant to be read in order. Not all feature Carter and Dejah—I’m reading book #4 now which stars Carthoris, the son of John Carter going after *his* captured love (natch)—but Mars is the real featured player in these stories. Well, that and all our eleven-year-old imaginations that still live within us. I first read A Princess of Mars over thirty years ago and it is one of the few things in which I can literally transport myself to a younger time. In re-reading these stories, that magical time of discovering once again visited me. I’m hoping the movie will do the same.

Yes, there are flaws in these books: yes, a princess is always needing help; yes, there are coincidences that boggle the mind; yes, Carter can come across too good to be true. But logic is not why you read books like these. When you crack these covers and join John Carter on his adventures on another world, you will soar to the heavens with great abandon, losing yourself amid epic tales of heroism and courage, adventure and love. And let’s be honest: isn’t that one of the reasons you read books anyway?