Pushing the Old Guys Aside: HBO's Perry Mason Season 1

I finally finished Season 1 of the updated and re-imagined Perry Mason TV series on HBO Ma. Yeah, I know: I’m two years behind. There’s just too much good content to watch and not enough time.

Here’s a funny thing: when I pulled it up on HBO Max late last week, my time stamp was halfway through episode three. I asked my wife if she’d be up for watching. She was and, without going back to re-watch the opening two installments, we forged ahead.

The cheeky summation I’ve heard about this show is that it is not your grandfather’s Perry Mason. That’s certainly true, both in the language and the personal relationships. The moment where Della Street, assistant to E.B. Jonathan (Jonathan Lithgow), the nearly-too-old-for-this lawyer defending Emily Dodson, climbs into bed with her girlfriend, my wife asked about it. Cue said cheeky comment.

I enjoy the old TV show quite a bit, but I’m nowhere near an expert. It’s just good comfort television. As for the books, I’ve only read the first one. What’s fascinating about the first book and the 2020 series is how much alike they are. If the only Perry Mason you know is Raymond Burr, well, he’s not like Matthew Rhys but Burr is also not exactly like the character we first see in 1933. Rhys and 1933 Mason are scrappers, not afraid to poke a hornet’s nest and see what happens. It’s rather remarkable how well that type of character fit both in the Depression as well as ninety years later.

This being an origin story, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how far down Mason was when this series began. Employed by E.B., Mason drinks way too much, is estranged from his wife and son, and constantly is threatened to have his family’s house taken away from him.

But the core quality of Perry Mason is his drive for justice. He can’t let things go when he knows there is something just under the surface. To quote Mason’s own self description when asked what he does, “He snapped out two words at her. “I fight!””

Rhys fights, both with his fists as well as his brain. The problem is that he often goes a few steps too far and says things to people like Della or his investigator, Pete Strickland, who are trying to help. I appreciated seeing Rhys try and smooth over Mason’s rough edges by the end of the season and never quite finishing the job.

It’s also fascinating to see how they inject 21st Century themes into a show set in the Depression. It’s obvious that same sex relationships and racial prejudices existed in the 1930s (and the 1950s era of the TV show) but it’s good to see it out in the open. Paul Drake, Mason’s main investigator by the end of the 2020 series, is now portrayed by Chris Chalk, an African-American. That itself brings up a lot of possibilities of narratives and themes. But I liked that Drake, a beat cop when we first meet him, has an inner integrity that is stronger that any position or job. Ditto for Della. The old TV show always showed her as all but an equal partner, but she always remained a secretary. The 2020 Della is an assistant, but she’s already enrolled in school and plans on becoming a lawyer. “A woman lawyer,” Mason says at the end. “A lawyer,” Della replied. “No modifier.”

Author Erle Stanley Gardner’s books are famous for their intricate nature. This 2020 season lives up to that bar. I did not see the ending coming and I really liked how the trial was resolved.

Oh, a quick shout out: Stephen Root, known for his comedy chops, plays the smarmy, publicity-hungry DA is all of his greasy glory. It made me want to see how many other non-comedy roles the actor has done. Loved him as I did Lithgow.

I suppose, with any origin story, you have to have older characters in places of authority that the younger characters seek to overcome. It’s pretty much the same in Season 1. So, in a very literal sense, the young Perry Mason beat a couple of old guys. You know, so it really isn’t your grandfather’s Perry Mason.

The Reach of Living History

I'd like to call your attention to an article by John Gruber over at Daring Fireball as an example of the reach of living history.

Earlier this month, the last person who was receiving a Civil War pension died. Now, the first thing you might think is "Didn't that war end 155 years ago?"

Yes, it did. So how?

If you read the story, you'll learn that Irene Triplett died this month at the age of 90. Her father was a Confederate and US soldier (yes, both; read the article for the reason). In 1924, her dad, 78, married her mother, aged 27. Her dad died in 1938 (that meant Moses Triplett was 92 so longevity is in the genes). After her mom died, Irene was eligible for the pension, which she received, all the way through May 2020.

Just think on that for a moment. There may be other children of Civil War veterans out there who didn't receive their father's pension, but for all intents and purposes, Irene's death means that last living person with a direct relation to the Civil War (1861-1865) has now passed away.

In 2020.

If you visit the link, the story has a secondary link to something call The Great Span. There is a YouTube video of a 1929 interview with a then 103-year old man. If that man was born prior to July 4, 1826, that meant he was alive...when John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were both alive. James Madison, too. Beethoven was alive. Dickens was alive. 

Go back to Irene Triplett. She was borh when Hoover was president (and Coolidge was still alive), the Great Depression was ongoing, and World War II was still nine years in the future.

I find it utterly fascinating the reach of living history. Even in my own family, my son was born in the 21st Century. I am so last century. 

By the way, the last actual Civil War veteran died...in 1956 at the age of 106. 

Hoover by Kenneth Whyte

Even to a historian, Herbert Hoover was a mystery.

Before reading Kenneth Whyte’s new biography of our 31st president, Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, I knew three general things about Hoover. After World War I, he was instrumental in helping Europe feed itself and get back on its collective feet. As Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1929, he helped steer the American economy to high levels before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. And, as president, he was unable to stem the tide of Depression. On that last point, I had the general impression Hoover did little other than to say the Depression was just the way of business. It was only when Franklin Roosevelt came into office that the American government possessed a man willing to try anything to help.

But as I listened to the book and read about his energetic performance in just about everything he put himself into, a question began to form: what went wrong during his presidential administration? That is, didn’t Herbert Hoover try to help people?
When one reads a biography of a famous figure, generally you find things you like and can admire. Funny thing with Hoover: he was a peculiar man and, at least until his later life, an almost shy person who didn’t always enjoy the company of some people. In fact, during the early years of this biography, I got to thinking Hoover wouldn’t always be a guy with whom you’d want to just hang out. He was just peculiar. Even his marriage seemed rather perfunctory. The more the biography went on, the more it seemed, as the author noted, Hoover was a mere spectator of his own family.

Yet his engineering mind was fantastic. He worked all over the world which gave him a global perspective on things. In one of the more remarkable events I admired, it took Hoover, then living in London, barely a day to start setting up a group to help stranded American caught unawares at the outbreak of World War I. Many folks were stranded with no means to obtain money to buy a ticket back to America. Hoover started up a committee and did the thing he almost always insisted on: make him the one decision maker and leader. In this capacity, he was able to direct resources where needed and helped get over 100,000 Americans back home.

He repeated the feat during the war as he headed another committee to aid in relief of hungry Belgians. What I found fascinating was Hoover’s group, The American Relief Administration, was the only group recognized by both sides of the war. Each side allowed Hoover’s ships—flying its own flag—through enemy lines.

He was a data-driven man in an era just beginning to understand what data was and how it could be used. As Secretary of Commerce (and “under-secretary of everything else” as his detractors said), Hoover took an activist role in government. President Harding encouraged this and, when Coolidge assumed the office, kept Hoover on. He was in prime position to bring his expertise to American when the Mississippi River flooded in 1927. There Hoover was, on the ground, doing what he was most able to do: harness the goodwill of people and direct it to those in need.

He was a logical choice as the Republican nominee in 1928, and he won easily. His help to the poor in 1927 brought a large majority of Americans to his side in addition to the typical GOP voter. In an era of the Roaring Twenties, everyone seemed to like Hoover. Yet the man himself saw the warning signs looming on the horizon. He tried to thwart a potential downturn as Commerce Secretary, but others didn’t share his views. When the crash arrived, Herbert Hoover did what he had always done: gather a team with mounds of data and attack the problem.

It was here where I had my eyes opened. Rather than be the man who seemed to sit idly by waiting for the market to correct itself, Hoover actively pursued solutions. Sure, his personality wasn’t suited to leading the country in its most dire time before World War II, but he wasn’t a bystander. True, he preferred the government not to actively intervene if at all possible. He extolled the virtues of volunteerism, by individuals as well as businesses, seeing it as the best way for Americans to get back on their feet. But when businesses didn’t respond, he led the way. Not all his policies worked—the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff being the most famous example—but it is easy to see how Hoover paved the way for the direct government intervention of the Roosevelt years.

It is a rare figure where both sides of the political spectrum can claim a man as their own. The Progressives saw in Hoover a man willing to try things and have, as his ultimate aim, the betterment of his fellow Americans (and humans, as per his work prior to his government service). At the same time, the modern conservative movement can also claim Hoover as their own. After his defeat in 1932, he became a critic of what he saw as the overreach of FDR, and laid down a philosophy picked up by other conservatives in the 1950s and 1960s.

Herbert Hoover was a complicated man, yet there was more to him than meets the eye (or is contained in a Wikipedia article). He was certainly far from perfect and Americans needed a leader more personable than him during the Depression, but Hoover was a more-than-capable man who stands as a unique member of the American presidency. Whyte’s new biography is a fascinating exploration into a man hard to pin down, but is well worth the time.

Detective Comics 1000

Did you get yours yet?

I headed to Houston's The Pop Culture Company yesterday with the intention of picking up not one but three copies of Detective Comics 1000. Why? Because I wanted to covers.

Yet, each issue was priced at $10.

I had second thoughts and decided to go with the 1940s variant cover. Bruce Timm channeling Dick Sprang. Basically two for the price of one.

But that 1930s cover? Oh, man, does this check off basically all the pulp-era goodness I've come to enjoy. Gothic. Strange people wearing masks doing stranger things. Fire. Mystery. A damsel in distress. The hero about to save the day.

And this 1950s cover? Embraces all the goofiness of that decade.

The rest of the covers are decent. While I appreciate the artists behind both the 1960s and the 1970s covers (Jim Steranko and Bernie Wrightson respectively), the images don't exactly scream the decade in question. You can check out both of them and the rest at the always excellent 13th Dimension.

The Stories

Art is only one half of what goes into a comic book story and, as a writer, I'm always keen to know the authors behind the stories. Not every tale from this landmark issue listed the creators' names on the first page, so sometimes, you just started reading not knowing who penned the story. That was interesting.

"Batman's Longest Case" by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

Batman follows clues across the world to reveal... [no spoilers] This one is fun and benefits from the dramatic page-turn where you finally see who is behind the trail of clues. Enjoyed the deep dive in this particular comic title's history.

"Manufactured for Use" by Kevin Smith and Jim Lee

Smith's tale and Lee's art turn in a darn good story. Specifically, when you get to the end of the tale and find out what it's really about, you turn back to the opening panels and re-read it again. The clues were there all along.

"The Legend of Knute Brody" by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen

If the first story had some humor in it, then this one is likely the funniest of the bunch. Again, like Smith's story, this one will have you go back and scan the earlier panels to get more of the in-jokes.

"The Batman's Design" by Warren Ellis and Becky Cloonan

One of the neatest things about the modern Batman post-1990s is the Bat-God. If Bruce Wayne isn't super-powered, then his brain is. And he's usually twenty steps ahead of anyone. This story proves it.

"Return to Crime Alley" by Denny O'Neil and Steve Epting

This one is interesting and, based on interviews I've heard and read over the years by O'Neil, completely understandable. This one surprised me, and in a good, real-world way.

"Heretic" by Christopher Priest and Neal Adams

Of all the stories, this one was just decent. Adams' art is good as always, but I wasn't too sure about this one.

"I Know" by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev

There was more humor in this issue than I was expecting, and this one had a great ending. There's a sequence where Maleev just does a head shot of Penguin thinking. Thinking. The realization struck and he grinned. Loved it. And was that a smile on Bruce Wayne's face?

"The Last Crime in Gotham" by Geoff Johns and Kelley Jones 

Kelley Jones! Great to see his art again, and Johns, as always, delivers a good, heart-felt story. And another smile.

"The Precedent" by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez-Bueno

A nice story about the biggest decision Bruce Wayne ever made...after that first one. More smiles!

"Batman's Greatest Case" by Tom King and Tony S. Daniel & Joelle Jones

I've not read a lot of King's work, but darn, this one had a lot of personality. And humor. And character interactions. And yet another smile! So good to see something you don't always see.

For readers of the current Bat-titles, what's a good story arc by King?

"Medieval" by Peter J. Tomasi  and Doug Mahnke

This one appears to be the prologue to the upcoming new story arc starting in Detective 1001. I don't read comics monthly anymore, but I'm curious to see if, like Snyder and Capullo's Court of Owls masterpiece, there can be something new in the Bat-World.


All in all, it was a solid issue with only a couple of stories not landing for me, but that's likely personal preference. Loved seeing all the villains, especially the random ones, and the inclusion of Talon. The historian in me would have liked some sort of essay talking about Batman over the years, but that's likely coming in the hardback book. Still, it would have been a nice addition to the single issue more people will purchase than the bigger, more expensive book.

But what can one really say about Batman that hasn't already been said? If this single issue did one thing and one thing only, it proved that Batman isn't a single thing. The types of stories and the depictions of the characters varied with each writer and artist. Much like I commented yesterday, Batman is a canvas over which myriads of creators have painted with pictures and words.

And that makes the character, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane eighty years ago, timeless.