Gene Phillips's Blog, page 8

RAR #82: DEPUTY TALL BEAR

Deputy Tall Bear (from KID COLT #105) is one of those well-meaning efforts from credited writer Stan Lee that some readers would find problematic. Hero Kid Colt observes that Tall Bear, an Indian who talks in pidgin English, has been made deputy during the sheriff's absence. Colt also perceives that the local bigots are planning to assault Tall Bear in the night to teach the Indian his place. So the outlaw comes up with a complicated plan, putting blanks in the deputy's gun and then using mad gu...

RAR #81: LITTLE POCAHONTAS

 

I found this feature in the first couple of issues of the DC Comics title TOMAHAWK. It's as mediocre as all the other half-page humor features DC used to run, but I assume it's the only one ever centered upon a female Real American. For a time, TOMAHAWK included not only stories of the titular Indian-fighter, but also backup strips about Indian culture.

ALLOMYTHS AND ISOMYTHS PT. 4

"LOW ALLOMYTHICITY-- This would apply largely to what I've " called a "monster of the month" situation. Godzilla faces a number of one-shot monster-opponents-- Ebirah, Megaguirus, Biolante-- and although they are allomythic in comparison to Godzilla, their stories end in their debut tales, and so they do not sustain their allomyths beyond a low level of intensity." -- ALLOMYTHS, pt. 2.             
                       

As I've looked over the various entries I've made since starting this proje...

RAR #80: ARROWHEAD

By chance I stumbled across the adventures of ARROWHEAD in the pages of Atlas's early 1950s comic THE BLACK RIDER. I've only read two of them and don't have an overview as yet. The format was that Arrowhead was a renegade perpetually on the run from the law like the familiar Kid Colt, and just as perpetually got mixed up in other people's troubles. Both stories I saw were signed by Joe Sinnott.                   

      

MONSTER MASHUPS #114

 In some ways the post-apocalyptic world of Gold Key's MIGHTY SAMSON is pretty typical. However, one has to appreciate that when Samson and his buddies encounter a series of monsters controlled by Oggar-- who's the "Mister Hyde" to a human "Doctor Jekyll"-- each monster gets a well-defined cognomen.                                                     

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In ADVENTURE COMICS #155 (1950), long before it was routine for heroes to "meet and instantly fight," The Shining Knight got to contend with the Greek hero Bellerophon, whose flying horse Pegasus was the model for the Knight's own mount. It's a nice little yarn, apart from the distinction of Frank Frazetta's evocative pencil work.                                             

   

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 One of the lesser aspects of Howard Hughes' notorious 1943 THE OUTLAW, in which the screenwriter spins a fictional story about two western legends, Billy the Kid and Doc Holiday. In real history the two men were contemporaries but there's no record that they ever met, much less quarreled over a horse and a woman (in that same order of importance.) A fictional version of Sheriff Pat Garrett appears as well but I consider him ancillary to the legend of William Bonney.                             ...

MONSTER MASHUPS #113

 The 2003 LOONEY TUNES BACK IN ACTION flick, reviewed here, includes a sojourn to Area 52, where the government stores such alien monsters as the Robot Monster, a Trifid (maybe), the Man from Planet X, the Metalunan Mutant and a couple of Daleks. Not seen in the shot below is another captive, The Fiend Without a Face.                                                                                                          

 

MONSTER MASHUPS #112

 The Legion of Monsters concept, given a one-shot appearance in 1976, got upgraded to a limited series in 2011. Review here.                      

NULL-CROSSOVERS #20

 I haven't seen the Cecil B DeMille western epic THE PLAINSMAN (1936) in something like forty years, and it was not readily available on streaming. But there was a mediocre TV remake in 1966, and I wasted a little time sussing that out.

The entirely fictional story brings together western legends, Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill Cody, respectively played by Don Murray, Abby Dalton and Guy Stockwell. However, in contrast to at least two of my "western legend crossovers" explored ...