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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2023 19:09:32 GMT -5
Submarine
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2023 17:46:57 GMT -5
End of Time
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2023 9:57:23 GMT -5
Sitting on his throne, Jupiter passes judgement on men and mice alike.
Sitting on his throne, Roq passes something else and reads Arak, son of Thunder #34. (And maybe passes judgement on it, yeah).
The good: Arak will now seemingly travel to the Middle-East, and we expect him to discover the extraordinary world of Harun Al-Rashid's Baghdad, back when the caliphate was the most civilized and advanced place on Earth. Real World History, the Arabian Nights and Ray Harryhausen movies should provide as much material as Bullfinch's mythology and the Letter of Prester John had done in the first few years of the series! (Spoiler alert : no, it won't quite work out despite a honest attempt).
Today's story has our hero meet a djinn in the Syrian desert. As Arak and his companions make their way to Damascus, they camp near Abel's tomb (yes, the Biblical Abel) and a djinn fall from the sky. Said djinn, in the form of woman, entices and captures the lecherous Satyricus. Arak is ready to fight her for his friend's freedom, but his other companions chase the creature away by uttering the word "iron" in Arabic; such is the djinn's fear of the metal that the mere mention of its name is enough to send it scurrying. Using his new-found shamanic powers, Arak then uses his tomahawk as a dousing rod, and it leads him to a rock that he smites. The djinn and Satyricus pop out of the rock, and the Quontauka brave strikes his enemy with his iron axe, causing her to retreat.
The uh?... : Sharizad (nobody guesses she'll turn out to be Sheherazade, right?) wears an islamic veil, but is dressed in a Hollywood-style exotic bikini. I don't think that's what Islam considers "dressing modestly". We're closer to Hollywood representations of the Middle-East than to historical accuracy here. That didn't bother me as a youngster, since my knowledge of all things Arabic mostly came from fantasy films and novels, but today I find it somewhat distracting.
Arak's Moslem companions ask his help in giving a decent burial to their relative Alizar, which is understandable... but then they start on a week-long journey with the body in a cart. Alizar would have been buried as soon as possible in the real world. Not a big deal, but again the plot doesn't stick to local customs.
Sharizad keeps saying words in Arabic (for exoticism's sake, I guess) but not complete sentences. I don't speak Arabic so I wouldn't have known the difference, but it gives the impression that she's a little slow... "Fire". "Iron". "Food". I think we could have had her speak normally, if a in a different language:
The glitches : nothing terrible, but a few things that the editor should have caught.
The word "iron" sends the djinn fleeing, but she doesn't seem to mind that Arak is carrying an iron-headed axe when initially fighting him. Later on, we try to justify that by explaining that she only saw Arak as a "stone axe-carrying savage" and that she mistook the color of the iron blade for that of stone, but come on... if I was deadly afraid of iron, to the point that its mere name sends me packing, I'd definitely recognize it on sight.
As the djinn escapes at the end, she harangues Arak and warns him of terrible things to come. Arak's companion Alsind, who speaks Greek and Arabic, translates for his cousin Sharizad who only speaks Arabic. This suggests that the djinn spoke in Greek, which strikes me as all kinds of odds; why would't the djinn speak Arabic herself? And since we want what she says to be understandable by Arak, why wouldn't she use a language he is fluent in? Being a magical creature, she probably could have used Norse, Frankish or even Quontauka. Her choice of Greek is pretty odd.
A nice touch : Arak now wears the feather he got from his divine father in his hair.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 14, 2023 8:55:28 GMT -5
Comrade
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 13, 2023 16:47:27 GMT -5
Arak, son of Thunder #28 - 33
Our Qutontauka brave escapes Constantinople alongside his satyr friend Satyricus (what a name for a satyr) and a priestess of Artemis, Dyanna, who can turn into a lion. We then get into Simon Frazer territory, as Arak inadvertently enters the forest in which the mythical Golden Bough grows; this and the adjoining grove are defended by the (male) high priest of Artemis, whose job appointment is for life -until he gets killed by someone who takes his place, that is. Said priest attacks Arak, who has to slay him in self-defense; our hero is then captured by a tribe of Amazons, all worshippers of Artemis, who make him the new high priest and cause him to lose his memory. Arak's hair eventually grows back; the mohawk look didn't last all that long in the end!
Months later, an evil magician means to gain immortality by capturing Satyricus and getting some satyr's blood on the Golden Bough; that little operation is supposed to make one eternal. (Considering that the magician was beheaded once in the past, I can understand his wish for a good life insurance).
The evil dude invades Artemis's sacred grove and his plans come close to fruition, but it is ultimately stopped by a combination of Arak's fortitude (our friend recovered his memory eventually) and Dyanna sacrificing the Golden Bough, which she breaks rather than see it used to nefarious ends. The decapitated wizard is redecapitated, and it's time for a fill-in issue so we can catch our breath.
Issue 31 is a reprint of the first Arak story, which saw print as a supplement in Warlord #48. it benefits from a framing sequence by original artist Ernie Colon, and as Ernie inks his own work here the framing sequence looks really, really good. For my money, Ernie should have pencilled and inked the whole series; many of the inkers he was given, especially DeZuniga ad Alcala, simply drowned his style with their overpowering rendering.
In the following issues, Arak fights a dragon (actually a dinosaur) whose presence in late 8th century Lebanon is not explained. He's also killed in the adventure, and ascends his father's otherworldly mountain, as it is confirmed that Arak is really the son of He-No, the Quontauka god of thunder. The two have a pleasant chat and we learn of Arak's origin. It all turns south when Arak insists, since his tribe was not wiped out but now lives in misery, that he must go back to the world of the living to succour them. (He-No isn't keen on the idea because his erstwhile worshippers no longer pray to him).
Just once I wish this kind of situation would end with Dad saying "fine, son, you do what you must". But just as happened so often with Odin and Thor, He-No gets cranky and says that if his son turns his back on him, he better not change his mind later because it'll be too late. He nevertheless brings Arak back to life on Earth, and an eagle feather falling from heaven suggests that He-No might not be totally done with his wayward offspring.
This was a pretty good tale, and artist Ron Randall really seems more and more comfortable. (He was still a rookie at the time). He's notably inked by Gerald Forton and Rick Magyar, but it is in a Valda back-up feature inked by Tom Yeates that the art really pops out; these two guys work extremely well together. I wish they had been the artists for the main series.
Going forward, the series would suffer somewhat from Arak inheriting unclear magical aptitudes. Until his death and resurrection, he had just been a capable fighter with a head on his shoulders. After it, he became a shaman (an ill-defined term). Unlike Elric, who is clearly a warrior and a wizard, or the Grey Mouser, who's a dilettante in matters magical, Arak's shamanic powers would seem to be an ad hoc kind of thing that didn't particularly enhance the story; furthermore, while he had until then been a pretty relatable dude (a stranger in a world he never made), he'd now be connected to otherworldly powers that we readers did not understand. I wish writer Roy Thomas had never introduced the shamanic aspect.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 13, 2023 15:43:11 GMT -5
Preserve
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 13, 2023 13:06:30 GMT -5
Attn: Roquefort Raider , with reference to a response to your question in another thread about the Tom Strong Compendium, about a day or two afterward I again stumbled onto a great deal on that very book - used/like new condition, for the equivalent of $35, so just over half of cover price). It just arrived today: The entire 36-issue run between two covers - I'm very happy with this. And like I said in that previous comment, the compendiums are definitely worth the trouble, esp. if you can find a good deal (which is probably easier for you guys in North America than us European residents). Not in Canada, alas... It usually goes like "half price, plus $5,678.99 shipping fees". And in US dollars!!! But thanks for the recommendation. Amazon sells it for 60 bucks (CAN) right now, which is less than $2 per issue. I might just buy it!
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 13, 2023 6:18:52 GMT -5
Herring
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 12, 2023 18:03:19 GMT -5
Volleyball
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 12, 2023 11:51:28 GMT -5
Boston
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 11, 2023 20:12:50 GMT -5
Pogs
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 11, 2023 18:46:39 GMT -5
Trend
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 11, 2023 10:48:41 GMT -5
Trump
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 10, 2023 15:35:31 GMT -5
Podcast
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Nov 10, 2023 12:33:01 GMT -5
Species
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