Michael vs. The Silver Age

Sadly, while DC has given its Golden Age comics its own Earth (and for a good while, integrated it into its sole Earth), it hasn't done the same with the Silver Age. I think they really should. The DCU needs a place where that kind of craziness can exist.
--Siskoid

I was going to include this with last week's Quotes, but it ties in closely with something I've been thinking about, wrestling with, and want to talk about. Still trying to figure out what makes Aquaman tick, I've been reading my way through the three volumes (so far) of Showcase Presents Aquaman, which chronicle his Silver Age adventures up through Aquaman #39 (or, more accurately, his guest-appearance in Jimmy Olsen #115). I've found some interesting things.

As Siskoid observes above, there's a craziness to the Silver Age and I'd love to see more of it in comics today. I talked about it some on Robot 6. Anything could happen in those comics. Superman would build robots of himself to fool Lois Lane, Bat-Mite and Ace the Bathound would team up to help Batwoman become more popular than Batman (popularity was a huge deal in DC's Silver Age, just ask Superboy), and everyone was growing giant, fat, turning into babies, and changing the color of their skin.

For Aquaman, the Silver Age meant introducing characters like Quisp the Water Sprite (Aquaman's version of Bat-Mite), playing James Bond to fight the evil organization O.G.R.E., and fighting off evil versions of himself. And of course he and his pals weren't above the standard DC Silver Age tropes of turning giant and changing personalities.

Put that way, the Silver Age wasn't all that imaginative. They kept going back to a fairly standard list of gimmicks that seem madly inventive compared to the darker comics of today, but get repetitive when read together in big chunks. I've long advocated that Aquaman is best when he stays under the sea and interacts with the limitless possibilities that exist in that environment, but even though writer Bob Haney mostly followed that approach, the "possibilities" he explored were in fact quite limited. Most were variations on aliens or monsters or supervillains or forgotten aquatic demigods attacking Atlantis. People and monsters really hated Atlantis back in the day. The details were different enough to keep things interesting, but Haney kept coming back to that plot while adding standard Silver Age twists like "Aqualad's sure acting strangely" or "Aquaman's dead!"

Pass the Comics: Zebra Joy-Ride

Judy of the Jungle faces the Vengeance of U'Bongo



A vengeful poacher uses trickery and superstition to try to kill Judy's pal Pistol Roberts the Jungle Ranger...and learns a little something about parenting in the process. [The Comic Book Catacombs]

Tiger Girl faces the Thunder on the Veldt



What's causing the jungle beasts to stampede? Tiger Girl plays detective to find out. [The Comic Book Catacombs]

Tiger Girl vs. The Mysterious Tusk Men



Also, she takes a zebra for a joyride, suffers the tragic consequences, and discovers the elephant graveyard. She's a busy girl. [The Comic Book Catacombs]

Art Show: Mrs. Ghost Rider

Plural vs. Singular



By Mattias Adolfsson.

Isle of 100,000 Graves



By Jason.

Underwater Ghost Rider and Friends



By Kerry Callen.

The Person I Find Most Attractive In This World

Conveniently, I'm married to her.






This is the last item from Calvin's List. It's been fun, but I'm going to have to find something new to do on Sundays now. Or not. It might be nice to have a day off.

Quotes of the Week: A very twisted way of thinking

I don’t view Eric Powell as a competitor or Mike Mignola or Terry Moore. I don’t have to take from someone else to gain something. That’s a very twisted way of thinking in my book. We’re all fighting the same fight. Sure, we’re all going for a slice of the same pie, but believe me, there’s plenty for everybody, and if we work together we can actually make the pie bigger again, like it used to be.
--Steve Niles

[Books are] very old, cats and kittens, but before we had them we had scrolls and before that we had tablets and before that we had oral traditions. The codex—a book with a cover and pages—hasn't been around forever and it won't be around forever, and the sooner publishers, booksellers, and other industry insiders realize this and not only accommodate but embrace the changes that are revolutionizing the way people read, the better.
--Eric Blank

The multiplex audience...seems to lay down money for the right to sit in front of the movie and do whatever they want. That's different [from the art-house theater crowd], and I don't like it as much. It's colder. I don't think it's that the people are any better or any worse; I think it has to do with how much they love being at the movies. And for me to love being at the movies, I have to be with other people who love being there, too.
--Linda Holmes

Island Intelligence: Aquawar

I'm abandoning the "Awesome List" title for news round-ups. Sometimes stuff isn't awesome, but I want to talk about it anyway (see: the way DC's handling its Aquawar storyline).



Comics

*A collection of Aquaman "splash" pages (get it?) by Jim Aparo. [Diversions of the Groovy Kind]

*DC teases some of its Aquawar storyline coming up in Brightest Day. I've been easing back into periodical comics after abandoning them for a year and I'd love for Aquaman's story to be one of the ones I can read as it comes out. Unfortunately, since it's part of Brightest Day, the only way I can read it is to endure the stories of a bunch of other characters I don't care anything about. That's not something I'm willing to do. I'll have to continue to keep up via The Aquaman Shrine's excellent summaries. [The Source]

*Greg McElhatton reviews Marineman #s 1 and 2. [Read About Comics]

Movies

*Marvel's working on a Black Panther movie. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Miscellaneous

*An undersea hunter in Indonesia is able to hold his breath for five minutes and stalk his prey on the ocean floor. It would be unbelievable, except that there's footage. [Awesome Robot!]

*If the T-shirt he wears on stage is any indication, the lead singer of The Kickback is an Alpha Flight fan. The band also has a song called "Alpha Filght." I need to listen to some Kickback, I'm thinking. [You Ain't No Picasso]

*Project: Rooftop, Warren Ellis, Superhero Cocoa, and Superhero of the Month are banding together to ask artists to redesign Aquaman. [Project: Rooftop]

Godzilla Hates Cephalopods

[Go Go Godzilla!]

Elsewhere...Harryhausen's Sinbad sails without Harryhausen

In lieu of actual content today, I hope you're okay with my pointing you to this week's Gorillas Riding Dinosaurs post:

Bluewater sent out a press release last week to announce that Morningside Entertainment has optioned the film rights to Bluewater’s Sinbad: Rogue of Mars comic from 2007. There are several interesting things about that.

According to the press release, Morningside has optioned the comic in order to adapt it into a feature film for 2012. Not a reboot, the movie is intended to be an extension of the Sinbad films that started with 1958’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and continued into the ‘70s with The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

The release went on to quote Executive Producer Barry Schneer as saying that Rogue of Mars would be the first film in a new trilogy. “I’m thrilled to continue the amazing legacy my uncle, Charles Schneer began with 7th Voyage and to bring to the screen the Sinbad movie that he and Ray Harryhausen never got to make.”

Since Bluewater published Sinbad: Rogue of Mars as part of its Ray Harryhausen Presents line of comics, I started wondering how this fit together and who owned the rights to what. I assumed that Morningside already owned at least a portion of the rights to the Sinbad films. Since Rogue of Mars was based on those movies, why would Morningside need to option the story from a comic book company that had bought the license from them in the first place? What exactly was Morningside optioning? And how does Ray Harryhausen himself fit into all of this?

I asked questions and got some answers, all of which you can read in the link.

Pass the Comics: Panther People

Oyster War



An oyster-fishing town fights back against oyster pirates. [Oyster War, by way of Robot 6]

Pirate Max Overacts



Wait'll you hear what Max and Klaus consider "relevant information." [Occasional Comics Disorder]

Young Tarzan



I didn't have a subscription to Pizzazz as a kid, but because it ran these John Buscema Tarzan stories (as well as a recurring Star Wars strip), I wanted one. The best I could do was try to find new issues when they hit the drug stores, but of course I missed some. It's very cool to see them collected in one place. [Diversions of the Groovy Kind]

Princess Pantha, Corporate Tool



I love the art on Princess Pantha, but she's a lousy hero. This comic concludes the multi-part storyline in which she plays Carl Denham to M'Gana's Kong for a paycheck from a cigar-smoking fatcat back in the States. [The Comic Book Catacombs]

Marga the Panther Woman on The Lost Plateau



Marga's much cooler. When a scientist takes his family on a scouting expedition to look for a radium deposit in the jungle, the pilot insists on bringing Marga along as a guide. The scientist objects at first, but soon learns her value when a rival group who also wants the radium attacks the party. [The Comic Book Catacombs]

The Phantom fights The Beasts of Madame Kahn



Were-beasts, that is. [Diversions of the Groovy Kind]

Art Show: Zombie Spoor

Pirate



By Jim Silke. [Illustrateurs]

Mermaids



Artist Unknown. [Never Sea Land]

Tannhauser at Hoerselberg



By Willy Pogany. [Golden Age Comic Book Stories]

Namor Meets the Beatles



By Chaz Folgar. [Puffdoggydaddy]

Somewhere I Want to Visit: Three places in Europe

Can't believe I'm almost done with Calvin's List.

There are a handful of places I want to visit before I die.

Scotland



Photo from Learn NC.

I don't know where the Mays come from. We've been in the US going back to Colonial days and no one in my family has been able to trace us back across the Atlantic. Growing up, I'd always heard that we were Welsh, but there's no hard evidence for that and I know that there are also French and German Mays. My favorite theory though is that we're Scots. There was a May sept of the MacDonald clan, so - lacking any proof to the contrary - that's who I claim.

It fits well with my mom's side of the family, anyway. Her father was a McGee and her mom was a Macoy, so there's not a lot of question about the kind of blood I inherited from her. I've never been to Europe, but when I do, there's no question either about where my first stop will be.

London



Photo from Novel Destinations.

As long as I'm in Britain, I'll have to visit the hometown of so many of my favorite literary heroes.

Paris



Photo from Willy Gommel's Third Domain Home Page.

Because I was an Anglophile for so many years, I grew up not really appreciating the French. Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and Gaston Leroux changed that though and I really want to spend time in Paris visiting literary sites and eating eclairs.

Those three places are the short list. There are plenty of other spots I'd also love to see. Diane's set on Italy, for instance, and I can't imagine having a bad time there myself. I'd stick the Caribbean on here too, but that couldn't really be considered a "visit." Once I get there, no one's going to be able to make me leave.