I thought this was the best of Marvel's three Indiana Jones movie adaptations. The Raiders one in particular kinda sucked. Temple of Doom, on the other hand, worked really well as a comic book -- great scripting and nice artwork. I missed the film at the cinema, so for a good few years this was the only Temple of Doom that I knew. It still holds up as a great comic, regardless of whether you know the film or not.

Marvel Super Special #31, The Last Starfighter





Creative Team: Bill Mantlo-adapter, Brett Blevins-pencils, Tony Salmons-inks, Rick Parker-letters, Christie Scheele-colors, Tom DeFalco and Eliot Brown-editors.

So, obviously, this one wasn't considered a high priority by Marvel. It was just a little space movie, with an unknown lead, from a writer-turned-director. However, Nick Castle was a damned good writer and he knew how to do a classic space opera, wish-fulfillment kind of story. Can this capture the spirit of adventure and the charm of Robert Preston & Dan O'Herlihy? Let's find out...

Synopsis: Morning and the Starlight, Starbrite Trailer Park comes alive. Maggie Gordon is heading off to the lake, with friends. Louis Rogan is busy defending the galaxy from evil, with his trusty ray (dart) gun.



Well, we know what Blevins was interested in drawing...

Louis' brother Alex is busy playing the Starfighter arcade game, at the local grocery, where Mags catches up to him to head off with their friends and Alex turns his game over to Louis. Alex checks the mail and his friends kid him about school, but he wants more to life than beer, pick up trucks and city college. He dreams big, but his dreams are about to be shattered. His mother catches up to him, to fix the electrical hookup for Violet's trailer, so she doesn't miss her stories. The outing will have to wait. Maggie, offers to stay with Alex, but he tells her to go have fun. That is Alex's lot on life, to take care of things, while others go have fun. He carries responsibilities far beyond his years.

Alex fixes the electrics and is later unwinding with the video game, when Maggie returns. Alex is mostly playing by instinct, as Maggie tries to talk with him. He laments his lot in life and wonders if he will ever get to live his dreams. Then, everyone notices that Alex is winning and racking up a record score. In a sleepy little community, this is something exciting and people start gathering around, cheering him on. It is silly, but they like Alex and want to see him do something "big." He shatters the record and defeats the game, where he destroys the mothership of the Kodan Armada, stopping them from invading the Star League. Later, Alex and Maggie sit quietly in a swing, staring up at the stars, as neighbors say goodnight.

Alex's world is soon shattered, as he receives word that the bank turned down his loan application to go off to college. It seems he will never escape the things that hold him back. he storms off to be alone and ends up by the game, which is making strange noises and flashing odd lights. He looks at it carefully, when he is interrupted by a friendly voice, coming from in a high tech, fancy car. The man says he is the creator of the game and he is looking for the person who set the record. Alex tells him it was him and he motions for Alex to sit down in the car. From here, Alex's life is about to change!



Amazingly, he does so and bumps into its passenger and feels sparks, as the person gets out and walks away. Something familiar about him. The man is Centauri and he takes off, with Alex inside, rattling on about seeing the best and Alex beat them all. Alex thinks the man is crazy, as he gains speed and goes into a blocked tunnel, ignoring warning signs. Alex yells as they plummet over the side to the ground below, then continues yelling as they rise into the air and speed towards the stars and beyond!



They kick in stardrive and everything goes weird and the next thing Alex knows is they have landed. Centauri welcomes him to Rylos. Alex hears strange voices, speaking in weird tongues, until someone attaches something to his collar and he hears English. He finds he has been pulled into the world of the game; he has been recruited by the Star League, to defend against Xur and the Kodan Armada. It's all real!



After the speech, Alex meets Grig, a navigator and tells him what has happened. They run into Centauri, who is leaving and Alex demands to return to Earth. grig tells him Alex doesn't want to be a Starfighter and Centauri is chastised for conning him. Centauri is forced to take Alex back. Beforer leaving, they see a message from Xur, son of the leader of the Star League. He tortures a spy to death, then vows to conquer Rylos. Alex definitely wants out.

Meanwhile, Xur launches the attack on Starfighter Command, as he orders the ships mass drivers to hurl meteors at the base, while a saboteur, inside the base, knocks out the guns that protect the base. The meteors ome smashing in, destroying the hangar bays and the gunstar spacecraft, along with their starfighter pilots. There is no one to defend the Frontier against the Kodan Armada.



Back on Earth, Centauri grumbles but gives Alex a communicator, in case he changes his mind, and drives off. Alex returns home to find Maggie mad at him. he goes inside their trailer and finds Beta, an android that mimiced him, while he was away, and acted weird around everyone. Alex learns that Xur has alien assassins out hunting for starfighters. One of them turns up on Earth, near the park and nearly hits Alex. He recalls Centauri, who arrives in time to stop the assassin. he tells Alex that he will only be safe away from there and Alex joins him; but, Centauri is badly wounded getting into the vehicle. They make it to Rylos, but at the cost of Centauri's life.

Alex learns from Grig about the treachery and the loss of the starfighters. There is only one gunstar left, which Grig was working on, before the attack. Now, only he and Alex stand in the way. He tells Alex to suit up. Alex does and the pair climb aboard the sleek warship and launch. Grig takes Alex off to get a feel for the ship, whose controls match those of the arcade game. Alex soon gains the hang of it.



Meanwhile, on Earth, beta continues to cover for Alex, but senses something odd, as another assassin lurks around.

Alex & Grig run into advanced Xurian scouts and engage them in combat and are successful, but Alex is unnerved. Grig apologizes for forcing the situation and promises to get him safely home. They hide out in an asteroid field and compare photos of home. Alex comes to realize there is more than just his hide at stake in this fight. Thinking of home and visiting some caves gives him an idea. he and Grig hide out until the armada passes them, then attacks from the rear. It is a brilliant idea. They srprise the Kodan ships and draw them in, so that they can employ their secret weapon, Deathblossom, a multiple strike weapon.

On Earth, the assassin overhears Beta confess everything to Maggie and goes to broadcast the news. Beta runs after and stops him, at the cost of his existence. Maggie realizes he was telling the truth and Alex really is off in the stars, fighting a war.

Alex's gunstar is disabled, recharging after using Deathblossom. The Kodan mothership is bearing down on them. Grig works feverishly to restore power to the engines. He succeeds and Alex fires the engines, taking them out of the ship's path, then he maneuvers for a shot on the command ship and destroys it...



On Rylos, Alex and Grig are hailed as heroes and he is given toe offer by the President to help rebuild the Starfighters. he also is reunited with Centauri, who was only in stasis, repairing his body. he tells him to stop thinking like an Earther; he is on Rylos. Alex says he has one thing to do, first.

The residents of the trailer park are awakedned by bright lights and a roaring noise. They climb out to see what is happening and witness a spaceship landing nearby. They cautiously go over to see what is happening. A figure steps out and removes his helmet. It's Alex! Maggie hugs him as other s cheer and hurdle questions at him. he introduces them to Grig and then asks Maggie to join him....up there. Maggie is reluctant, until her grandmother tells her to go, but be sure to write...or whatever they do. Maggie leaves with Alex, on their new adventure, while Louis goes over to the Starfighter game to do his training, so he can one day join his brother and defend the Star League.



Thoughts: I love this film! It came out in the summer of 1984, after I had graduated high school. I was working my job, preparing to start up in college and in ROTC, in the fall. I was excited and terrified. I was leaving home, going off on my own into an unknown world, headed for potential adventure. The movie spoke deeply to me, even at its cheesiest. It is good old fashioned space opera, like the stories of EE "Doc" Smith, creator of the Skylark series, about an Earthman who has adventures in space, in his own handbuilt spacecraft, and the Lensman saga, about the guardians of the galaxy, defending against the Boskone pirates. Smith was the granddaddy of space opera and a master. The Lensman saga greatly influenced Star Wars, especially the Jedi and the generational aspect that developed in writing Empire. Skylark was filled with tales of one man fighting baddies in space, using his wits to defeat them.

Nick Castle captured that, but added his own modern hook to things and his satirical voice, writing Centauri specifically for Robert Preston, mimicing the character of Prof Henry Hill, from the Music Man. Castle assembled a great cast of veteran adult actors and neophyte young actors and the result helps smooth the rough edges of the youngsters and bring the charm of the veterans, to what seems on the surface to be lightweight material. However, as anyone who has ever dreamed of a life beyond what they see out their door can tell you, this movie is deceptively deep. Alex is a dreamer, but one who has had to live in the reality of being the responsible man of the family, after his father's death. His mother works long hours to support them and Alex is thrust into responsibilities at home and in caring for the trailer park, well beyond his years. he has a quiet leadership about him, as people respect him and want to see him succeed. he whines a bit, bit you can understand and empathize. Maggie truly loves him and wants to see him happy. However, she is also afraid she will lose him to the world beyond, as this is all she knows and she is scared. Alex is reluctant to be pulled into a war, until he understands what is truly at stake, that the war will reach Earth, eventually, if the Star League falls and he is in a position to do something about it. Alex does what a true hero does; he uses his wits and his instincts to accomplish the job in front of him. That is the essence of leadership. You do the job because it is necessary and you accept the responsibility for accomplishing it. Little did I know the life lessons I would absorb from this film, which I went to see because it had spaceships blowing each other up, and cool aliens. The music is pretty rousing, too...



Composer Craig Sarafan conducts.

Now, about the comic. Does it deliver the film experience? No, not really. It can't. They are just two vastly different media. Oh, the story is competently adapted by Mantlo; but, he doesn't give it the same emotional weight that an Archie Goodwin would. He basically does a by-the numbers (and formula) translation of the film script. Brett Blevins and Tony Salmon do a fine job on the art; but, it lacks the visual flair of a Walt Simonson or a Howard Chaykin. It doesn't quite capture the moodiness of an Al Wiiliamson and Carlos Garzon. It is pretty much generic Marvel, which was the standard set by Jim Shooter. It elevated the overall average sales of the Marvel line, as a whole; but, just tended to make the content that much more disposable than the mainstream already treated it. There were the noted pockets of resistance at Marvel; but, they were the very few shining beacons. Last Starfighter is caught in that web of competent, but bland, like a dinner from an MCL Cafeteria. This film adaptation needed something a bit more original and enticing, like a little upstart restaurant, that grows by word of mouth into something of an institution.

Like the other later Marvel adaptations, it also appeared as a mini-series.

Personally, I recommend just watching the movie. It's the real thing and the storytelling has much more spark and charm. Even at its silliest, it is pure entertainment. The computer graphics were fairly ahead of their time, though they were outdated by the following year and will look like a video game, of the 80s, now. Still, I felt that added to the charm of it, as time went on. I watch the film pretty much annually, as it takes me back to a magical time. There are comics that do the same; but, not this one.

Marvel Super Special #33





Well that seems straightforward; I can't understand why it wasn't a big hit.....

Creative Team: Bill Mantlo-adaptation, Mark Texeira-pencils, Armando Gil-inks, Rick Parker-letters, Ken Feduniewicz-colors, Tom DeFalco & Eliot Brown-editors
Bill Sienkiewicz has a new rival for unpronounceable names.

Synopsis: In the 1950s, an experiment to pass an object through solid matter, without destroying either, is sabotaged, killing Dr Masado Banzai, his wife sandra, and rocket car driver Sir Alan Motley. The tragedy is witnessed by young Buckaroo Banzai. 30 years later, Dr Buckaroo Banzai, physicist, neurosurgeon, test pilot and rock star is about to try the experiment again, with his jetcar and a newly developed oscillation overthruster...



Prof Toichi Hikita oversees preparations, as everyone is waiting for the pilot, who is still in the operating theater. The doc's band, the Hong Kong cavaliers look on and check with Buckaroo about how much longer. He finishes the operation and goes off to get into his vehicle. He launches the car and accelerates, breaking the sound barrier, then heads straight at a mountain. A beam of light fires from the vehicle and it passes right through the mountain, without boring a hole...



While in a strange dimension between particles, ge sees aliens who try to cling to his vehicle. He emerges from the other side of the mountain an crashes to a halt. he inspects his vehicle and finds something alien attached. he radios in and then refuses to sell his device to the military.

Meanwhile, at the Trenton Home for the criminally Insane, Dr Emilio Lizardo hears a broadcast of the test and starts a frenzy of activity, while recalling an experiment of his own, in 1938, that ended in disaster.



He passed into the 8th Dimension, but was grabbed by the aliens Buckaroo saw and returned changed. Now he knows that the 8th Dimension can be crossed.

Buckaroo and his crew examine the specimen from the car, which resembles the carapace of a praying mantis and seems to be growing. Then, they play a gig at a club, but stops it when he spots a woman who is despondent. he asks her name and she says Penny Priddy, which Buckaroo keeps getting wrong. he sings her a song to cheer her up. It doesn't work and she tries to shoot herself in the head and misses (!!!) and the Hong Kong Cavaliers react like it was an assassination attempt. She is alive and no one is hurt and she is taken away by The Blue Blaze Irregulars, groupies of Buckaroo and the Band.

Meanwhile, Lizardo escapes from the asylum and calls up one John Bigboote, to prepare to steal the overthruster.

The cavaliers remark on the resemblance of Penny to Buck's late wife, and are then alerted to the escape of Dr Lizardo. Buck goes to see Penny. He hears her tale and then bails her out. He then holds a press conference about the discovery of the alien life form, but is interrupted by the president. He takes the call, gets interference and then a shock. he starts scribbling information in his palm and runs back to the conference room. He shouts out that two reporters are Red Lectroids from the 8th Dimension...



Sounds like one of Trump's press conferences.

Buck chases the pair and misses a third who grabs Hikita and steals the oscillator. Meanwhile, a black spacecraft, looking like a big bug, descends on Earth and is shot down by a hunter. A figure is found dead, clutching a Buckaroo comic, while another slips away. One named John Gant radios in and is ordered to self-destruct.

The Red Lectroids are speeding away in a van and Buck follows, but is driven off the road. he recovers and catches up to find the van stopped and empty. he finds Hikita locked in a crate, as the Reds are talking to police, claiming that the black mass is theirs. Buck attacks, the ship blows up and he is spirited away by Blue Blaze dudes in a helo.

The Cavaliers check into Yoyodyne, the name on the van, and find all of their employees are named John, all provided the same home town when they applied for their Social Security Cards and all have a birthdate of October 31, 1938, with the hometown named as Grover's Mills, NJ, site of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio drama.

While they talk, Red Lectroids infiltrate the grounds and are followed by John Parker, the figure from the spacecraft. The Reds try to steal the jetcar. Parker 's message is seen by Byck. he is a Black Lectroid, sworn enemy of the reds and he explains that the reds' leader, John Whorfin, replaced Lizardo and came through in 1938. Buck runs to get his guns, while Reds attack Hikita.

Buck runs into Penny and explains that Peggy, his late wife, was her long lost twin.



The Reds break in and grab Penny, while Buck and the others fight. the Reds escape in a helo. Parker meets Buck face to face and the go after them. Buck breaks into Yoyodyne, but gets caught. Whorfin is about to open a passage to allow the Reds out, to conquer. Buck is tortured for the secrets of the oscillator, but the Cavaliers arrive and attack.

Whorfin goes to escape in his ship and Buck chases...



Whorfin's shift accelerates and smashes through the wall, but does not enter the 8th Dimension. Buck and Parker follow in a Black lectroid craft and blast Whorfin. Buck parachutes to safety after his craft is stricken, in the blast.

Penny is near death, but a kiss from Buck passes a spark that brings her back from the edge and she awakens and embraces Buckaroo.

Thoughts: I've tried to watch this movie twice and have never gotten past the scene of Buckaroo meeting Penny. The screenwriter, Eric Mac Rauch, was a young novelist who was from Dartmouth, as was director WD Richter. When his debut novel got good reviews, Richter's wife brought it to his attention and he corresponded with Mac Rauch and struck up a friendship. He encouraged Mac Rauch to become a screenwriter. this was the result, after numerous aborted attempts at a script. And herein lies the problem, for me. the story is pretty complex and confusing and it probably plays better on the page than it did on film. Audiences seem to agree, as the film was a failure, earning back only about half its budget and getting mostly bad to middling reviews, though it got a few good ones. it developed a cult following, especially on home video. It should be right up my alley, since it features a Doc Savage type; but, the story is all over the place and Peter Weller was so low key as to be boring, for me. Of the Cavaliers, Clancy Brown was the only one I cared for, as Goldblum doesn't do much early on. I just got too bored to continue. Maybe someday I will try again and get through it.

Bill Mantlo isn't exactly a writer I would turn to for complex stories, though his work on Rom puts this kind of up his alley. Mostly, he seemed to always be available. Mark Texeira had been around for a little while, but hadn't yet made a name for himself with Ghost Rider. He's a rather stylized artist, which I have found both off-putting and engaging, depending on the project. He'as at home with the weird alien stuff and the tech, but, I don't think he brings much to the human characters.

This wouldn't have gotten me to watch the film any more than the trailer did (I recall ads for the film, but passed). The concept and character would make for a great series, with a clearer eye to storytelling and a bit more character development. It's also not as funny as it wants to be. I think a John Carpenter or Sam Raimi could have done wonders with it; stripped it down to the essential stuff.

There is nothing bad about the comic; but, it doesn't improve on the material, either. It just sort of lays there, much like the Last Starfighter adaptation or the Krull one. At least those films had performances to help bring them to life; the comics don't have that luxury.

Next time, it's Sheena, based on the god-awful film with the never been good Tanya Roberts and her squeaky voice. Marvel at least has an ace up its sleeve for that one.

Streets of Fire is the movie I nearly walked out of.  I saw the music video for "Tonight is What It Means to be Young," which is all kinds of Jim Steinman epic awesomeness and the trailer.  It sounded up my alley; but, Michael Pare has the acting talent of a plank of wood, only less charisma.  It was one thing when he was annoying Mr H, on the Greatest American Hero; it was another to pay good money to hear him deadpan mumble his lines.  If it weren't fro Amy Madigan and Willem Dafoe (and Rick Moranis, to a lesser extent) that film would be nothing but a really great soundtrack and a mess of a story.  The 50s look is also at odds with the 80s music video styling.

Hell of a sountrack, though.  You don't often get The Fix, The Blasters, and Ry Cooder.  New Wave, Rockabilly, doo-wop and rock opera make for a strange, but enticing mix.

Like I say, I think Buckaroo Banzai probably works better as a novel (Rauch wrote the novelization), where you have time to absorb things, vs film, where you have a lot of characters standing around saying a lot of things that don't make a lot of sense.  I think it would have worked better if they had pushed the comedy up a notch, so that it was more like Sam Raimi's Darkman, or John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China, or like Verhoeven & Weller in Robocop.  I think I would have been more tolerant of the overly-written plot, had it seemed like the characters had more of a personality.  AS I said above, Clancy Brown was the only one I found interesting, in the amount I watched.  No matter what he is in, he is always memorable.  Highlander only works because of him and Sean Connery, and I would lay more of it in his lap than Sean's.

Marvel Super Special #34, Sheena





Tanya Roberts and Ted Wass, together on screen; how was this not a huge hit? I mean, look at their combined film careers: Curse of the Pink Panther, Oh God, You Devil, Bodyslammed, Hearts and Armour. Can anyone else present a film resume of this stature?

Creative Team: Cary Burkett-adaptation, Gray Morrow-art, Janice Chiang-letters, Bob Sharen-colors, Danny Fingeroth-editor.

Thank Eisner that Morrow is here, so at least someone can salvage something from this mess.



Ten years and that was the best they could produce.

Irish McCalla it ain't!

Synopsis: Dr Phillip Ames, wife Betsy and daughter Janet come to a hidden spot, somewhere in Africa, where the witness proof that soil in the area possesses healing properties....



The adulta are killed in a cave in and Janet is raised by the Zambuli tribe, as Sheena, which translates as "She-Devil who will try to steal our land and resources." She is raised by the shaman and learns the ways of nature and how to have rapport with the animals, including the snakes, who are taught not to squeeze the shaman.



Sheena becomes a keen archer and horse...er, zebrawoman.



The villain enters the story, revealing that the Zambuli sit on un-mined titanium deposits. He is brother to the king and plots his murder. He kills his accomplice, to keep the geological survey quiet, then arranges for an old college friend, a sports reporter to come with his cameraman, to provide the perfect alibi. The shaman has visions of danger and destruction and leaves Sheena to go into the city, but finds herself arrested. Turns out, the king's intended bride is the mastermind behind the murder plot and the arrest.

The shaman uses the force to call Sheena, who races to her aid. The murder plot goes down, as a remote rig fires a Zambuli arrow into the king, killing him. The shaman is brought in by the police to be Oswald. The camera had jammed and examination of the jammed film reveals the device that fired the shot. They go to investigate, while Sheena orchestrates a jailbreak...



Vic, the reporter, saves her from a guard and she leaves with the shaman. They follow in a land rover. The prince organizes the military to hunt them down and Vic and his buddy catch up to Sheena, and we get that horribly acted scene above...



The shaman dies, Vic tells Sheena his has proof of her innocence and soldiers approach. Fletch, the cameraman, heads back to the city, while Vic makes time with Sheena. They head for the Zambuli village, but find it massacred. Sheena goes ape...



They get cornered by a gunship and Sheena surrenders to save the animals from slaughter and delivers us a typical moment in jungle girl comics, the heroine in bondage...



Vic bargains witht he prince and Sheena is taken away in the helo by the countess, to be murdered. She summons flamingoes which attack and Sheena escapes and rallies the Zambuli to fight with bows and arrows against automatic weapons. Vic suckers his minder, on the way to retrieve the incriminating film and Sheena's army of archers and animals attack the soldiers. Apparently, no one with an automatic weapon can shoot straight or pop in another magazine. Sheena kills the prince and saves Vic, but he is badly burnt in the explosion. The healing earth......heals him and they fly off home. Sheena then goes to her sorority reunion, with Rima, Nyoka, Camilla, Ayesha, Fantomah, Jann, Judy, Lorna, Pantera Bionda, Princess Pantha, Rulah, Shanna, Taanda, and Jana, with Lady Jane Greystoke signed as the guest speaker.

Thoughts: Ridiculously cliched story that is greatly elevated by Gray Morrow's art, which didn't help the film. The film landed like Little Boy on Hiroshima, earning only 1/5 of its budget. It was nominated for 5 Golden Raspberry awards and came from the same writer and director as the King Kong remake and Pauline Kael seems to be the only critic who liked both films (the Kong remake is okay, if rather dull, though I don't find the original to be that great), Tanya Roberts has all the acting skill of a slug, but with a squeakier voice and Ted Wass was better on tv, on Soap. The film has a cult following, for people who like to mock bad acting (which is any Tanya Roberts film).

As a comic, separate from the film, it looks nice; but the story is tired and cliched. It steals from everything from Tarzan, to Dogs of War, the Kennedy Assassination and just about anything else not nailed down.Morrow had done the Tarzan comic strip, so at least he knew what he was doing. Wish he would have written his own story, though.

Next, Arnold oils up his pecs and is made to look like Olivier, thanks to Grace Jones and Wilt Chamberlain (hell, Grace is Merle Oberon, compared to Wilt Chamberlain). Come on back for Conan the Destroyer, which I still think should have had Conan donning a white mask and entering the world of professional wrestling, in Aquilonia!



Debbie Harry would have liked it!


(Doctor X is a name Dick Beyer used in the AWA, where he was their world champion, rather than use his Destroyer mask and name, for whatever reason.)

In the U.S., it's only the paperback-sized "Marvel Illustrated Books" version (which was the first version of the adaptation ever published) that features the purple, white-haired Yoda. This version of the character was based on Ralph MacQuarrie's concept art. The 1980 magazine version (which Cody is reviewing), the treasury edition, and the issues of Marvel's Star Wars comic that featured the ESB adaptation all featured the re-drawn, green Yoda, as seen in cody's scans.

Also, Yoda isn't smoking a pipe (which would've been cool), he's eating one of Luke's food concentrate sticks.

You can read more about this in my reviews here and here.

Ha!  You're right about the not-pipe... I have seen it as a pipe for 40 years!  I had no idea they revised the art so quickly... I thought that was done for a re-release years later, for the special edition movies.   I only have the paperback.