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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 3, 2019 12:02:34 GMT -5
Young boys firing machine guns. Could you get away with this today ? Probably only if the story is dealing with boy soldiers, in Africa.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 3, 2019 12:06:27 GMT -5
One of the key things that set Batman apart from other playboys-turned vigilantes, both in the pulps and comics, was the Rogues Gallery of villains. The better pulp heroes faced colorful adversaries; but, most were killed off by the end of the story. Shiwan Khan and John Sunlight were two of the few who reappeared (in The Shadow and Doc Savage, respectively), which is why they are remembered more than most pulp villains. A lot of the Golden Age comics had the same problem: the hero either fought generic hoods or one-time villains. Finger swiped to colorful, recurring villains from Dick Tracy and put them in Batman, which made it memorable. the boy sidekick wasn't that new; but it worked well. The hidden lair was swiped, as well, but it fit well. All of that combined to create a memorable, if hardly original, character.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 3, 2019 13:42:19 GMT -5
One of the key things that set Batman apart from other playboys-turned vigilantes, both in the pulps and comics, was the Rogues Gallery of villains. The better pulp heroes faced colorful adversaries; but, most were killed off by the end of the story. Shiwan Khan and John Sunlight were two of the few who reappeared (in The Shadow and Doc Savage, respectively), which is why they are remembered more than most pulp villains. A lot of the Golden Age comics had the same problem: the hero either fought generic hoods or one-time villains. Finger swiped to colorful, recurring villains from Dick Tracy and put them in Batman, which made it memorable. the boy sidekick wasn't that new; but it worked well. The hidden lair was swiped, as well, but it fit well. All of that combined to create a memorable, if hardly original, character. Everything you note is true, but many of these elements weren't present in the earliest Batman stories and some, like Alfred and the Bat-Cave, weren't introduced until four years into the series. What we think of as classic Batman took a long time to gel.
Cei-U! I summon the perspective!
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jun 4, 2019 11:18:29 GMT -5
Suffering Sappho! (From Wonder Woman no. 124)
Why has nobody ever published a book of lesbian fetish stories entitled Suffering Sappho?
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Post by rberman on Jun 19, 2019 13:49:25 GMT -5
File this under "things I probably knew but forgot": It appears the early Secret Wars promo art (including the cover for issue #1) included Kitty Pryde on the adventure, but then she got written out, and scrubbed from the art. Perhaps because Shooter was planning to have Colossus fall in love while he as away and then dump her. Or maybe because she's only fifteen.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 19, 2019 17:45:44 GMT -5
File this under "things I probably knew but forgot": It appears the early Secret Wars promo art (including the cover for issue #1) included Kitty Pryde on the adventure, but then she got written out, and scrubbed from the art. Perhaps because Shooter was planning to have Colossus fall in love while he as away and then dump her. Or maybe because she's only fifteen. Xavier was strict on the curfew; no battles after 9:00 pm.
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Post by hondobrode on Jun 23, 2019 15:42:22 GMT -5
Who could ever forget that splash ?
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Post by Trevor on Jun 23, 2019 16:16:15 GMT -5
It gets homaged quite often. Just saw it yesterday in the excellent Image series Man-Eaters.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2019 0:29:33 GMT -5
Just discovered this image, it's Alex Raymond's promotional art for Captain Blood... -M
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 26, 2019 9:21:21 GMT -5
Just discovered this image, it's Alex Raymond's promotional art for Captain Blood... -M Neat! I'd love to have seen Raymond adapt Captain Blood. It's a great film and a fun very readable novel.
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Post by MWGallaher on Jun 27, 2019 13:27:11 GMT -5
One of the key things that set Batman apart from other playboys-turned vigilantes, both in the pulps and comics, was the Rogues Gallery of villains. The better pulp heroes faced colorful adversaries; but, most were killed off by the end of the story. Shiwan Khan and John Sunlight were two of the few who reappeared (in The Shadow and Doc Savage, respectively), which is why they are remembered more than most pulp villains. A lot of the Golden Age comics had the same problem: the hero either fought generic hoods or one-time villains. Finger swiped to colorful, recurring villains from Dick Tracy and put them in Batman, which made it memorable. the boy sidekick wasn't that new; but it worked well. The hidden lair was swiped, as well, but it fit well. All of that combined to create a memorable, if hardly original, character. Is the Joker the first great recurring villain in genre fiction? I've racked my brains to find a comparable predecessor, but the likely candidates don't quite fit my conception of a "great recurring villain": Dick Tracy's bad guys all tended to get killed off at the end of their storylines, until long after the Joker was well-established. Fu Manchu had appeared in 8 or 9 novels, but despite facing off against the same heroes, he was the main draw. He probably comes the closest, but by being the headliner, he's not quite the archetype of the "arch-nemesis" that the Joker--the man on the street isn't going to know who Fu Manchu fought. Professor Moriarty is a possibility, but aside from one or two stories, he's an off-stage, invisible character in the handful of Sherlock Holmes tales in which he is even mentioned. He's been inflated to super-villain status, it seems to me, because in a post-Joker world, we expect all fictional heroes to have a prime nemesis. Shiwan Khan was one of several repeat Shadow villains, but again, he strikes me as having been inflated into the Shadow's "Joker" because every hero (now) has to have one. Maybe I'm wrong, though, maybe pulp readers were thrilled to see that the Shadow was going up against Khan again, or Doc against Sunlight, but I don't remember either of these villains being played up when these two characters had their resurgence in popularity via reprints in the 70's. Ming the Merciless? He comes pretty close as well, but he wasn't a "recurring villain" but rather the central antagonist of the Flash Gordon story. Yeah, he recurred on a day-to-day basis, but he was the core of the premise. Bluto? He's more a nasty rival to Popeye, rather than a menace to society whose crimes must be fought against. The Sheriff of Nottingham? Morgain Le Fey? Literary characters or characters from folklore do serve as a kind of prototype, but it still doesn't feel at all like the same thing to me. Maybe it's that they are part of an established canon of stories, not an ongoing, growing body of fiction. There are probably other candidates, especially outside of American fiction, but I can't think of any that have the flair that made them memorable enough to be influential. Luthor debuted about the same time, but he was just another mad scientist at the time, not a notable character. The Joker seemed to click right off the bat, with his death at the end of his first appearance being reversed in the final panel, as if Bill Finger and Bob Kane realized they would be wasting something really good by following the established routines of killing off the villain.
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Post by rberman on Jun 27, 2019 13:49:56 GMT -5
One of the key things that set Batman apart from other playboys-turned vigilantes, both in the pulps and comics, was the Rogues Gallery of villains. The better pulp heroes faced colorful adversaries; but, most were killed off by the end of the story. Shiwan Khan and John Sunlight were two of the few who reappeared (in The Shadow and Doc Savage, respectively), which is why they are remembered more than most pulp villains. A lot of the Golden Age comics had the same problem: the hero either fought generic hoods or one-time villains. Finger swiped to colorful, recurring villains from Dick Tracy and put them in Batman, which made it memorable. the boy sidekick wasn't that new; but it worked well. The hidden lair was swiped, as well, but it fit well. All of that combined to create a memorable, if hardly original, character. Is the Joker the first great recurring villain in genre fiction? I've racked my brains to find a comparable predecessor, but the likely candidates don't quite fit my conception of a "great recurring villain". Probably the oldest example is Hera, who is the recurring foil to many a Greek hero.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 27, 2019 14:38:09 GMT -5
One of the key things that set Batman apart from other playboys-turned vigilantes, both in the pulps and comics, was the Rogues Gallery of villains. The better pulp heroes faced colorful adversaries; but, most were killed off by the end of the story. Shiwan Khan and John Sunlight were two of the few who reappeared (in The Shadow and Doc Savage, respectively), which is why they are remembered more than most pulp villains. A lot of the Golden Age comics had the same problem: the hero either fought generic hoods or one-time villains. Finger swiped to colorful, recurring villains from Dick Tracy and put them in Batman, which made it memorable. the boy sidekick wasn't that new; but it worked well. The hidden lair was swiped, as well, but it fit well. All of that combined to create a memorable, if hardly original, character. Is the Joker the first great recurring villain in genre fiction? I've racked my brains to find a comparable predecessor, but the likely candidates don't quite fit my conception of a "great recurring villain": Dick Tracy's bad guys all tended to get killed off at the end of their storylines, until long after the Joker was well-established. Fu Manchu had appeared in 8 or 9 novels, but despite facing off against the same heroes, he was the main draw. He probably comes the closest, but by being the headliner, he's not quite the archetype of the "arch-nemesis" that the Joker--the man on the street isn't going to know who Fu Manchu fought. Professor Moriarty is a possibility, but aside from one or two stories, he's an off-stage, invisible character in the handful of Sherlock Holmes tales in which he is even mentioned. He's been inflated to super-villain status, it seems to me, because in a post-Joker world, we expect all fictional heroes to have a prime nemesis. Shiwan Khan was one of several repeat Shadow villains, but again, he strikes me as having been inflated into the Shadow's "Joker" because every hero (now) has to have one. Maybe I'm wrong, though, maybe pulp readers were thrilled to see that the Shadow was going up against Khan again, or Doc against Sunlight, but I don't remember either of these villains being played up when these two characters had their resurgence in popularity via reprints in the 70's. Ming the Merciless? He comes pretty close as well, but he wasn't a "recurring villain" but rather the central antagonist of the Flash Gordon story. Yeah, he recurred on a day-to-day basis, but he was the core of the premise. Bluto? He's more a nasty rival to Popeye, rather than a menace to society whose crimes must be fought against. The Sheriff of Nottingham? Morgain Le Fey? Literary characters or characters from folklore do serve as a kind of prototype, but it still doesn't feel at all like the same thing to me. Maybe it's that they are part of an established canon of stories, not an ongoing, growing body of fiction. There are probably other candidates, especially outside of American fiction, but I can't think of any that have the flair that made them memorable enough to be influential. Luthor debuted about the same time, but he was just another mad scientist at the time, not a notable character. The Joker seemed to click right off the bat, with his death at the end of his first appearance being reversed in the final panel, as if Bill Finger and Bob Kane realized they would be wasting something really good by following the established routines of killing off the villain. Well, Joker was supposed to die, at the end of that first story; but, Whitney Ellsworth changed that. So, I still maintain that Dick Tracy is the inspiration for the villains, with the gimmicks. The recurring part is a bit of a debatable point. Big Boy is the main criminal force in the early strips. The longer continuities of the strips vs comics also shows how long they were in the public consciousness. The Dragon Lady made multiple appearances in Terry & the Pirates and became the model for the femme fatale, heavily influencing Catwoman. You have recurring villains in several works of pulp fiction, before the magazines of the 30s. Arsene Lupin crosses with Josephine Balsamo in several stories; The Scarlet Pimpernel with Cheauvelain, Fantomas routinely battles Fandor and Inspector Juve, Tarzan has his run ins with the Waziri. Doctor Mabuse crosses swords with Inspektor Lohman , which might be the first instance of characters crossing works (lohman first appears in Fritz Lang's M, then is after Mabuse's gang, in Testament of Dr Mabuse). Moriarty is only in the one story, "The Final problem," but, his organization is present for "The Adv. of Empty House," in the form of Col. Sebastian Moran. Shiwan Khan appears in 4 Shadow pulps, starting with The Golden Master, in 1939 (Sep 1939 issue)and ending with the Masters of death, in 1940. His reappearance was just a few months after his debut story, in The Return of Shiwan Khan, in the Dec 1939 issue of The Shadow. The Joker debuted in 1940, after Shiwan Khan had made at least 3 of his 4 appearances. John Sunlight appeared in "Fortress of Solitude," in October of 1938 (cover date) and returned in "The Devil Ghengis," in December 1938. Several legends have recurring battles between hero and villain, before the final confrontation. Fiction has that, as well. D'Artagnan deals with Milady Dewinter and Rochefort several times, in different circumstances, across the Three Musketeers. Rochefort even becomes a sort of comrade of D'Artagnan, over the years portrayed in the series, between The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask. Rupert of Hentzau is villain in The Prisoner of Zenda and the sequel, Rupert of Hentzau. Allan Quatermain faced the wizard Zikali, in 3 novels, from 1912-1917.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2019 14:45:58 GMT -5
Today would have been the 105th birthday of Joe Shuster -M
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 10, 2019 19:05:45 GMT -5
Just discovered this image, it's Alex Raymond's promotional art for Captain Blood... -M Shouldn't that blade be poking out the back? Otherwise, that's a pretty short rapier.
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