Peter Ledger, innit?

Yeah; brain-fart.

I wonder how much was Ploog.  The Marvel Premiere story and the later Marvel Fanfare stories were alright and a bit more humorous.  Ploog started out drawing the first book; but was way behind and either quit in a disagreement with Shooter or was fired from the book, according to who you believe (Rick Marschall claimed the latter and that Ploog was paid for work done).  I wonder how much plotting he was doing, vs what Moench ended up doing for Buscema.

I agree that 1) the art was gorgeous and 2) it was such a LOTR rip-off that it just didn't generate interest. I liked the Ploog Weirdworld stuff more and thought there was potential, but it eventually just felt watered down, even with the Buscema/Severin team on art. There was a feeling (to me) that Ploog was co-creating something and John B was just doing another art job, always excellent but not special.

My understanding was that Ploog was fired because he was demanding his original art back for the project.

I personally loved the original Weirdworld stories. They were light and fluffy but I found them charming. I found none of that charm in this wrap-up of the arc, which disappointed me.

I also didn't find the Ploog stories particularly reminiscent of LotR (any more than all fantasy of the era was), but the Buscema stories were so derivative that it killed a lot of my enjoyment of the series. I wonder whether Moench changed the storyline to reflect the new artist?

Okay, I had to dig for my Super Special digital archives for this one...

Marvel Super Special #14, Meteor



Cover is credited to Earl Norem; but was actually painted by Peter Ledger, based on the pencils by some guy called Frank Miller.

Creative Team: Ralph Macchio-writer, Pat Morita-pencils, William Zabka inks, Martin Kove-letters, Elizabeth Shue-colors, John Avildsen-editor

GOTTCHA!

Ralph Macchio-writer (the Marvel guy), Gene Colan-pencils, Tom Palmer-inks & colors, John Costanza-letters, Rick Marschall-editor.

Marvel adapts the "major" motion picture, Meteor, starring Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Brian Kieth, Karl Malden, and Martin Landau (among many others)...



Synopsis: In Hong Kong, a Japanese amateur astronomer discovers what he believes is a comet, but which observer's at Mt Palomar Observatory discover is something entirely different. they dispatch the Coast Guard to interrupt Dr Paul Brady from the middle of an America's Cup race, off Newport, RI. Bradley walked out of NASA after he found a project of his was being used for military applications. He is taken by jet to Los Angeles, until they are re-routed to new York. There, a briefing reveals that the comet is on a collision course with an asteroid belt and will likely dislodge a large meteor from its orbit and toward the Earth. Dr Bradley was the developer of a orbital weapons platform, named Hercules, designed to intercept and destroy potentially dangerous meteors before they can impact the Earth. He left NASA after finding it was being used to target sites in the USSR.

In New York, he meets Dr Alexi Dubov, of the USSR, who is there to offer any assistance from the Soviet Union, as the threat of a meteor strike also affects the territory of the USSR. He is accompanied by Tatiana Donskaya, interpreter and astrophysicist. A collision is confirmed with the asteroid belt and several fragments are en route to Earth, including a smaller one that impacts in Mongolia. bradley proposes launching Project Orpheus, to use the missile on Hercules to intercept further meteors. There is much debate and stonewalling by the Joint Chiefs, until another meteor crashes in the Austrian Alps, setting off a devastating avalanche. The US President goes on the air to reveal the existence of Hercules and the intent to use it to intercept the meteors. The existence of a Russian platform, Peter the Great, is confirmed and cooperation is negotiated. A new fragment impacts the Pacific and unleashes a tsunami on Japan. Another fragment, 3 miles in diameter is tracked on collision course and is targeted by Hercules and Peter.

A smaller fragment was missed in tracking and now discovered on collision course with new York City. two missiles are fired from Hercules but fail to impact and the fragment hits, destroying the World Trade Center, with further fragments colliding the surrounding area, including the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Plaza. The underground Orpheus command center is affected, knocking out control of Hercules. Bradley and Donskaya are able to target the missiles and fire, destroying the meteor; but they then have to find a way out of the partially buried complex. they do so and see another day, but the devastation is massive.

Thoughts: Sorry about the lack of images; but, there isn't much out there...









Essentially, Meteor was one of the last hurrahs for the Disaster Movie genre. The meteor is merely a mcguffin for scenes of massive earthquakes, tidal waves, avalanches and other natural disasters that arise from the impact. The missile subplot is there to highlight Cold War tensions and a way to save the Earth. There is a romantic subplot, as Dr Bradley falls for Tatiana and vice versa (and Sean had already had Natalie's sister, Lana, in Diamonds Are Forever). Brian Kieth played the Russian Dubov, who gives the orders to realign Peter the Great in support of Hercules, while Henry Fonda (again) plays the US President. The film was a commercial and critical flop and the effects were pretty much low to average, which was hardly good enough in the age of Star Wars. The basic plot isn't bad, as I watched the film when it was broadcast on network tv. The science is pretty bad (a comet in our solar system doesn't just appear out of the blue and a 3 mile in diameter asteroid would be visible long before it is). This is early asteroid doomsday stuff, before Deep Impact and Armageddon (though When Worlds Collide is the granddaddy of these things) and apocalyptic types have given lip service to such hysteria. Potentially, meteors could impact the Earth in large enough size to create mass devastation; but, the movies always place them at a size that would be discovered and tracked long before they appear in the films.

The adaptation is serviceable, but pares things way down. it doesn't really have the room to do much with the disaster scenes, so Gene Colan goes for the big image, in each instance, keeping the New York stuff for the real visual impact. The scary thing is that the devastation depicted is not much different than the 9/11 events, as the meteor impacts one of the two WTC towers and it collapses. Then, we see similar with other NYC landmarks, with the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center.

The acting in the film was decent, on par with other disaster films, with Natalie Wood getting to exercise her Russian. She was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, the child of two first generation Russian immigrants (refugees from the Bolshevik uprising). Natalie grew up in San Francisco, speaking English and Russian fluently, though with her American accent.

Connery was busy trying to build a career outside of Bond, with mixed results, apart from the well received middle 70s films The Man Who Would Be King (one of his best performances, in my opinion), The Wind and the Lion, and Robin and Marion. He struggled through the later 70s and early 80s, apart from his small role in Time Bandits, until landing better roles in the later 80s and 90s. Brian Kieth was a fine actor; but, was far better as Teddy roosevelt, in The Wind and the Lion, than trying to play a Russian, here. Really, the characters are mostly there to give a POV for reacting to the disasters.

Gene Colan does his usual excellent job with the material, which isn't much upon which to hang your hat. Macchio has to adapt the script and does what he can; but I have read better attempts at such things. The visuals are really the only notable part of this, which puts it ahead of the movie. The poor performance at the box office did this no favors. The collector prices on this are at the lower end of the MSS range, though there are some with even lower prices, from more successful films (Mile High lists the Start Trek TMP issue as lower than this). These days, it has some demand due to the similarities of the imagery with 9/11.

On the whole, it is well-crafted, average stuff.