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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 3, 2021 16:21:38 GMT -5
New America #4 For the sword-impaired, Rosa is delivering a sword salute. There is a specific sequence of movements to perform one.... The main thing is not to whack yourself in the forehead! Creative Team: John Ostrander & Kim Yale-writers, Gary Kwapisz-pencils, Aubrey Bradford-inks, Mindy Eisman-letters, Sam Parsons-colors, Tim Truman-editor Synopsis: Some years have passed, since Rosa took up the cause of the Southwestern Free States.....  It is 2014, the civil war has raged for 11 years. A cargo plane is under attack by a pair of F-15s. They have flamed the plane and we see Rosa inside, rush into the cockpit and find the dead pilot. Desperately, she grabs the yoke and tries to pull the plane up. She isn't successful...  President Bill Loper receives word and passes on the news to the person who fed them the information to locate Rosa: Avner Glanzman. Loper keeps his part of the deal and turns the Pope over to Israel. As Avner leaves, he warns Loper that they know about his allies. Loper smiles and the, When Glanzman is gone, orders an aide to have Rosa's diary published, without edits. It is done and Israel's complicity in the murder of the Alaskan Royal Family, the assassination of Father Galvez. Israel's alliances crumble. A year later, Sen. Craig Creek is a prisoner of Bill Loper, who subjects him to torture and interrogation.  Creek delivers a final F-U to Loper. Loper loses his s@#* and strangles Creek to death, putting murder directly into his hands and also ending his torture. In his dying words, Creek said Rosa survived and Wizard (Monday's tech genius) and his people put her back together. We cut to the Southwestern desert and Rosa steps out of an APC (armored personnel carrier) and we see a prosthetic left arm, to match her existing right hand. She walks and comes across a little homestead and two small boys, playing. She asks them for water and has an impromptu reunion.....  Scout has a wife and two children. He has everything that Rosa could never give him, since she was sterilized in Camp Falwell. She runs away, in tears. She had activated the guns in her right hand fingers, but struggles to hold it down. She runs away, damning Scout, for killing what was left of her humanity and mentally condemning Bill Loper to death. Rosa's transformation is now complete. Rosa meets with Banner, to hire the Swords' armor. He wants cash on the barrelhead and knows they don't have it. Rosa calls Wizard and interfaces with a computer. Soon, Banner has the million dollars he asks for, plus a second million, all from Bill Loper's accounts. Rosa's wire-gun link allows her to interface with computers. She tells Banner she wants one vehicle to be modified, according to her specifications. Rosa and her forces move into Sierra Vieja, where she, Scout, Banner and Monday faced the Mexican invasion. Loper gets word and wants to be on site to see the death of the revolution and Rosa. Rosa moves her tanks forward and Loper observes with a general. he commits the bulk of his armor to destroy them and they move in, blasting Banner's armor. Rosa watches and smiles, as they have bitten the bait. She moves to hook and land them, as Loper has committed the bulk of his Southwestern army. She gives Banner the signal and his reserve armor moves in to ambush the government and they get slaughtered. Loper realizes it is a trap; but it is too late, as Rosa is coming for him...  Rosa is wired into her tank and can fire weapons with a thought. The government forces are no match. Loper flees in a jeep, saying something about a last ditch weapon. Rosa runs over the general and goes after the jeep. Loper rushes into a studio and takes to the airways, feeding lies about Laura Carver and apocalyptic messages about Satan coming to claim them, via Rosa and her forces. Rosa bursts in and Loper begs for his life on live tv, saying the country will splinter without him. Rosa is past caring and she sends the mental command to her weapons...  Rosa gives her first address to the nation, as the new head of government. Thoughts: A corrupt government goes down in flames and Rosa has lost touch with her humanity. This series really was the metamorphosis of Rosa Winter, as she went from disillusioned soldier who had joined a rebellion against a corrupt government and became a political mover and assassin. She destabilized America's neighboring threats, plunging them into chaos, leaving the threat to America's borders in the dust. She rescues a pope and used him for her own political purposes. Now, she has her revenge for the murder of Laura Carver and her body and soul. Bill Loper is dead. You could also say, so is Rosa Winter. The idea here was conceived by Tim Truman, but executed by John Ostrander and Kim Yale, with Gary Kwapisz doing the visuals. At every turn, we see Rosa give up something more of herself for a greater cause. Her story has been one of sacrifices. She was taken away from family and made a child soldier. In the camps, they took her reproductive system, so that she would never bear children. She lost Scout as a lover and he freed himself from a life that she would not leave. She exchanged her friendship with Ray Vaughn to protect Laura Carver from Bill Loper and he died for it, though he had it coming. She sacrificed Laura to fight Loper's corruption and stop Loper's nuclear gambit. She sacrificed her hand, in Baja, fermenting a revolution and saw its leader sacrificed to create a martyr to rally the people. She gave away her soul to murder a family and take a child for herself, only the child now knows the truth. She gave what was left to become a killing machine that finnaly destroyed Loper. She has created a New America, but is it any better than the previous one? How will this new machine Rosa govern? Will democracy be restored or is she just the new dictator? Those questions will be answered in Scout War Shaman. When Rosa comes across Scout, she discovers he has a wife and family. The wife entered the picture in the wedding special, packaged with the Dixie Pistols' album, Marauder, in a mini-comic... The comic was really a poem, set to painted images of the desert, of eagles, and Scout and his bride...  There were just 6 pages. We learn nothing about how they met and fell in love; just that they loved and had two sons. When Rosa sees it, she reacts violently. You can interpret her gun hand a couple of ways, that she wanted to kill herself, or that she wanted to kill Scout's wife (and possibly the children, maybe the whole family). Whatever, her intended target, she stops herself and in that moment, Rosa Winter dies and is reborn as Gen. Rosa Winter, liberator of America. As we will see, liberators rarely make good governors and her relationship with Scout is forever changed. Gary Kwapisz really got a handle on the characters, by this point, as he was a bit shaky, at the start. Things look great, here and he captures the emotion, as well as the action. This is everything that Swords of Texas should have been, but wasn't. I almost get the impression that Swords was just a side project proposed by either Chuck of Ben Dunn, or both, as it really doesn't fit well into the link between Scout and War Shaman. New America does, as it not only advances Rosa's story, it covers what is happening in the world and also checks in with Scout. So, that's it for the Scout spin-offs. We will enter the next phase soon, as Scout War Shaman debuts and Tim Truman returns to art to write and draw the next chapter of Emanuel Santana, as well as introduce us to Tahzey and Victorio, his two sons. Next, a look at Winter World.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 10, 2021 21:27:59 GMT -5
Winter World #1-3   This is fitting, as right now, the temperature in Bloomington if 12 deg F, with a wind chill of -3, with steady snow all day, on top of the previous day's sleet and snow and the ice we got earlier, a few weeks back. It's no Minnesota or Alaska, but it's cold and reading about a Winterworld doesn't help! Creative Team: Chuck Dixon-writer, Jorge Zaffino-art, Tim Harkins-letters, Julie Michels-colors (my source is B&W, though), Tim Truman-editor Synopsis: In some kind of post-apocalyptic future, a world where winter is constant, a lone armored vehicle travels and stops at a settlement, offering to trade. The residents are barely human, their language devolving to broken sentences, wild look in their eyes. They are happy to trade and drag out a young girl, about 12 or so, except they use her as bait to attack the trader and take everything. problem is, they didn't recon on Rahrah, his pet badger....  The trader, Scully, collapses and wakes up inside the tank, where the girl, Wynn, has tended to him and fed herself and Rahrah. She says she was part of a group of air crash survivors, which Scully doesn't believe. They travel on, when the engine conks out. Wynn shows an aptitude for repair, but they are interrupted by new arrivals, who are armed. It is a slaving party and they capture the pair and seem to kill Rahrah. They are somewhere in what was once Texas. They are marched off through the snows to a place where they will be traded to be slave labor, a place where they grow food...  They are separated and Scully fights to stay alive with the meager rations and hard work, while not fighting back against the guards. he is caught hiding food and forced to defend himself. dogs are sicked on him and he grabs a baseball bat and fight them off, before he is eventually overwhelmed and dumped into the waste removal tubes to clean them and die there. rahrah appears, alive, and they escape through a waterpipe and find that Raharah has brought clothes and food. Scully dons them, then tries to figure out how to get to Wynn. In part two, Scully is alone, in the wild, hunting with spear, trying to stay alive. He spots hunters, with guns and supplies and kills them, with Rahrah's help. He knows where there are trade goods and he could get another tractor and leave, except something won't let him leave Wynn behind. he travels to a nearby settlement, where the Bear People live, led by Bigbite. He had traded with them before and he plays on Bigbite's ego to get him to help attack the domed complex and take over, so he can free Wynn. First he proves his ability by leading Bigbite to a derelict shopping mall, where they find food and supplies scattered about...  They find the blind man who enslaved Scully & Wynn and force him to lead them to the domed city, disguised as more slaves. Scully gets inside, though it cost him a finger, as an escaped slave...  He sets out to find Wynn. Part 3 The plan is that Scully has 3 days to find Wynn, then they will stage a revolt, to distract the guards, while Bigbite attacks from the outside. Scully locates Wynn, who later stages her own escape after tricking a guard...  She gets to Scully's cell and frees him and tells him they can't wait for the next night for Bigbite. They decide to go ahead and launch the revolt and hope to raise enough noise to draw in Bigbite. They attack the guards and set off a gasoline tanker, setting the place on fire, which draws in Bigbite. Wynn is missing two fingers, the price of learning her way around the complex. They run into the head guard and Scully fights for his life, while Wynn fights against dobermans. She is helped by Rahrah and Scully kills the guard. They escape while Bigbite and the guards fight to the end, as the place goes up....  They head for a stash of trade goods and plan to move east, while Wynn speaks of airplanes and they actually see one, headed south. They turn and head that direction, as the story ends with Skitters, Bigbite's lieutenant, walking out of the wreckage of the dome.  Thoughts: Published 15 years before Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore's The Walking Dead, WinterWorld is a post-apocalyptic adventure from Dixon and Zaffino. Back in the 80s, post-apocalyptic fiction was en vogue, in sci-fi, at the movies, and even in the real world, as survivalists prepared for what they saw as the inevitable clash between the US and USSR, in a nuclear exchange that would bring a so-called "nuclear winter." By this point, there were three Mad max films, with visions of desert wastelands and feral people, fighting for gasoline and survival. Men's Adventure pulp novelist Jerry Ahern had been writing his Survivalist series of novels and DC had turned Jonah hex into a hero in a far-flung future, with Mad Max overtones. Scout had proven popular at Eclipse, with its decimated United States and Dixon added this tale of survival. He was introduced to Zaffino's work by Ricardo Villagran, who shared a studio with Zaffino, in Argentina. he stood out from the rest, with a darkness to his work that appealed to Dixon. together they crafted this. Dixon had already tread in this area, with his own Evangeline, about a bounty hunter in a future post-apocalyptic world. At the time, this got quite a bit of critical attention, though modest sales, due to Eclipse's lower profile. It is harsh and brutal and Zaffino's line really brings a grittiness to it. The black and white of the IDW collection really accentuates this. We know nothing of what happened here, though it is obvious that the domed complex is the Houston Astrodome, given that Scully says they are in what was once Texas. I read my share of this kind of stuff, though I did not originally collect this series. I burnt out on that kind of thing quickly and Chernobyl gave us a new nuclear nightmare. For similar reasons, I have had no desire to read The Walking Dead. It's just not my kind of escapism from a harsh enough world. I've lived through a few disasters of lesser kind and people tend to pull together far more than they turn into animals, which is why I can't really get into this kind of fiction. That said, this is excellent material, as Dixon keeps it lean and Zaffino gives it a ton of atmosphere and says so much more than endless exposition could. Way better than the Punisher graphic novels that Zaffino did at Marvel. The IDW collection includes the unpublished sequel, WinterSea, which takes Scully and Wynn into the frozen Caribbean, where they encounter modern vikings. Zaffino passed away in 2002, at age 43, of a heart attack. In 2014, Dixon returned to the material with Butch Guice, for 7 issues (and a Zero issue). Those have also been collected.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 14, 2021 21:46:43 GMT -5
Revenge of the Prowler #1 I like Sndyer's art; but, I not particularly wild about that cover. I think that is part of why it took me so long to actually pick up the Prowler comics and read them, well after they were released. Creative Team: Tim Truman-writer, John K Snyder III-art, Tim Harkins-letters, Julie Michel-colors & Scott Kida's artwork (within story), cat yronwode-editor Synopsis: Scott writes a letter home to his aunt & uncle, which kind of sets where we are, as he hasn't been around Leo since the end of their battle with the vampires, which still affects Scott. The blase letter contrasts with the scenes of dead bodies in the underground area where the battle took place.  The images are surfacing in Scott's painting, at school and his instructor gushes about the nature, if not the subject. He starts inferring his own ideas in it and Scott basically walks away after some snide comments. His friends Shelly chases after and tries to talk to him; but Scott is acting like a jerk. He eventually chills a bit and lets Shelly into his apartment, which is a disaster area. There are drawings scattered around, including those of Leo. Shelly asks about him. She is worried that Leo has hurt him in some way. Scott says no, but it is obvious to Sheely that he is hiding things. She leaves but leaves the door open that he can confide in her. Scott scoops up the costume and goes to see Leo and tell him he is done with being a vigilante. The are interrupted by two of Leo's old friends, Tom Grayson and Frank Corby, aka The Devil Dogs (see below). Corby asks if Leo has heard from Chandu, Captain Eagle, Rackman, Iron Ace or The Rattler. The latter gets a gruff response from Leo and an apology from Frank. He gets down to business and shows Leo some porn rags and says his granddaughter is on the cover of Babysitters and Babes.  Scott tells Leo he is in and they prepare to find Frank's granddaughter. We then switch to a past adventure of Leo's, illustrated by Graham Nolan. In the 1930s, Leo runs into a guy named Herman, who found a large bat in an alley. it bites him and flies away and Leo makes him see a doctor, Dr Von Niemann, who Herman works for. Herman runs off when he sees a syringe. The doctor hears Leo out about the bat and says he will take care of Herman, when he calms down. Later that night, a woman is murdered...sucked dry of blood.....  Two low-lifes, McTeague and Sauer saw Leo and Herman and think he might be a vampire. They go looking for them and the doctor tells them off. That night, something attacks Sauer. The Prowler is out hunting and runs into Geraldine Crane, reporter. They part and Leo sees a crowd outside Von Niemann's building. McTeague has them spun up, saying Sauer was murdered by a vampire, Herman.  Geraldine sneaks in the basement and finds Murder Le Gendre, who captures her. Von Niemann reports in, revealing that the creature that killed Sauer has destroyed Herman...  Le Gendre leaves and Von Niemann reveals he has discovered a creature that requires a host and he plans on developing it. Prowler shoots the Herman creature then the new one, in a glass container and it attacks the doctor, while Prowler rescues Geraldine. She mentions Le Gendre, as the story ends. Thoughts: Interesting beginning, with the mental toll that Scott is enduring is illustrated and it seems like he wants to break free. then, Leo's reunion with old friends presents something Scott cannot walk away from: child pornography and exploitation. Once again, Truman and Snyder present a post-modern pulp adventure, with stories darker than the actual pulps (mostly, though some of them got pretty grisly). That new plot element sounds rather like the film Hardcore, with George C Scott. in both cases, the missing girl (granddaughter here, daughter in the Scott film) ran away from a troubled home and ended up being exploited in the world of pornography. In both cases, this was not some benign thing of nudity and sex; this is child exploitation, while the film dealt with so-called "snuff porn". No matter how much Scott wants to get away from what happened with Le Gendre's college vampire cult, he can't walk away from a child in danger. Scott is more haunted by the fact that he might actually be like Leo, someone who is compelled to bring justice amid horror and it frightens him; and, yet, that sense of justice is there. Scott genuinely wants to help people in trouble, but he doesn't want to kill to do it. Leo has seen the stakes and killing is required for the horrors he has faced. Snyder's art, again, has that rough edge to it that fits the mood of the piece. Scott looks like hell, physically, and it matches where he is, mentally. It's not a pretty world. Tom Grayson and Frank Corby make their second appearance in a 4 Winds comic, as they were just in the Skywolf back-up story, in Airboy, at Sky's bachelor party. They are the heroes of the Republic Studios action serial, Fighting Devil Dogs... In the serial, Grayson and Corby are a pair of Marines who get caught up trying to stop the schemes of the villain, The Lightning, a madman who operates from a giant flying wing aircraft, while his identity is hidden under a black helmet. The serial is filled with great stunts and action and is considered a classic of the genre, influencing the look of Darth Vader, as well as scenes in the Indian Jones films (a boat stunt was used in both Dick Tracy and Fighting Devil Dogs, which was recreated for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). To save money, the serial reused footage from the original Dick Tracy serial (the flying wing and a few stunt pieces, as well as the same actor as a henchman, to better match some of the footage). Truman also name drops Sgt Strike, showing that 4 Winds is actually creating a shared world for the characters: Airboy, the Prowler, Fighting Devil Dogs, Sgt Strike, Captain Eagle, Rackman (a Hillman character, whose son is now head of Nelson Aviation security), and more. He even brings up the Rattler, one of the fictional heroes of the Jolly Farmer comic books, from the Strike! back-up stories. That was a pulp hero, rather like the Shadow (and The Prowler), which seems to irk Leo, probably an in-joke about there having never been such a character (though, there could be, now...well then-"now"....it's confusing, temporally). The back-up story, Vampire Meat, is adapted from the 1933 low budget Majestic film, The Vampire Bat, starring Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray. The basic plot is similar, right down to people persecuting Herman and Dt Von Niemann being behind things. The film had a better look to it, thanks to the availability of sets from James Whale's Frankenstein. The story here is written by MH Price, who is the driving force of mixing pre-Hayes Code horror films, especially from Poverty Row, with Leo's backstory. Most of the films are public domain, which made them fair game. There is a future Prowler special, which mixes in Bela Lugosi's White Zombie (which inspired the name of Rob Zombie's old band). Here's the original.... Now all the 4 Winds guys need to do is find a way to bring in Gene Autrey's The Phantom Legion! Interesting stuff, even if Scott's costume does resemble something from a cheap S&M porno.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 15, 2021 22:11:22 GMT -5
Airboy #37 Creative Team: Chuck Dixon-writer, Stan Woch-pencils, Will Bkyberg-inks, Tim Harkins-letters, Olyoptics-colors, cat yronwode-editor Skywolf: Chuck-writer, Dan Spiegle-artist, Carrie Spiegle-letters, Olyoptics-colors, cat-editor Also from Eclipse: Air Fighters Classic #3, Area 88 #20 &21, Fusion #8, Hand of Fate #2, Legend of Kamui #20 & 21, Lost Planet #5, Mai the Psychic Girl #20 & 21, Man of War #3, New America #4, Revenge of the Prowler #2, Robot Battalion 2050 #1, Scout: The Four Monsters TPB, Scout War Shaman #1, Skywolf #1, Swords of Texas #4, Target: Airboy #1, Winter World #3, Xenon #7 & 8. Already covered some; Scout returns and also gets his first trade collection (Eclipse did 2; this one and Mt Fire). Skywolf gets a solo mini, which takes him to French Indochina, and Target : Airboy has Davy run up against Clint, of the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. Not much else going on in comics, apart from some Batman thing, with the Joker, by a couple of British guys. Oh, yeah; Flash Gordon was back, as a basketball player! Yeah, nothing says swashbuckling interplanetary hero like white basketball player. Just imagine Larry Bird in the 1980 film, instead of Sam Jones. I guess that means the music will be from the Alan Parsons Project, instead of Queen. Synopsis:When we last left the Airfighters, they were in deep doo-doo, locked in the old torture cells, while Valkyrie is taken to a bedroom to "serve the State."  She draws one of the older dudes first and promptly bonks him on the head with a champagne bottle. Meanwhile, Davy is moping while Sky tries to cheer him up. They are taunted by their guard. At the hospital, Guillermo is still in a coma, while the conspirators plot to keep him under sedation, should he awaken. Back outside Valkyrie's room, the guards hear noises and grin, then realize it is not the female they hear. They burst in and find the conspirator, dressed in Valkyries neglige and tied to the bed, while they are stunned, she bashes them with the champagne bottle and kicks the crap out of them... Elsewhere, Hirota and Iron Ace prepare, while listening to radio reports about the trial. We cut to the festivities...  The kangaroos are all lined up and things get hopping. Outside, a gallows awaits, but so does Valkyrie, as she sights in her rifle, ready to free the boys. They are trotted out, but notice the crowd isn't especially bloodthirsty and the tension is high. They are marched up to the gallows and the nooses applied, when Valkyrie opens fire and Hirota slashes with his katana...  The guard draws a bead on Davy and gets a 5.56 mm bullet to the head from Valkyrie, who sees a shadow pass over her and sees...  F@#$ yeah! Ronald unloads his ordinance, the Airfighters seize weapons and the people rise up in support. The conspirators decide it's time for a goodwill tour, preferably on the other side of the world. Valkyrie saves Davy's life again and the head for the presidential yacht, where the conspirators are trying to escape. Lupina opens fire and the rest join, but they are out of range. then, Iron Ace flies over  Bye-bye bad guys! Lupina gets patched up and Davy and Valkyrie swap spit, while the guys grin. Skywolf: January, 1954, Lawrence and Shirley (Riot) Wolfe have settled down into wedded bliss, in the suburbs. Lawrence has a little trouble lighting the barbecue, so he improvises and gets it going...  After dinner, Lawrence shares his job search results with the guys, while the ladies do the dishes. The gals quiz Shirley about any youngin's on the way and Shirley is a little skittish, as they haven't talked about that. They boys are in the living room, drinking beers and talking about their days in the service. Larry tells them he flew against Germany and in Korea, then speaks his piece about winning that one. The ladies join them and the subject of flying comes up...  The guys natter on about baseball and the women about the PTA. Larry can't take it and gets up and goes to the bedroom. Shirley goes after him, chastising him for abandoning their guests and she finds him sitting on the bed, staring at his mask.  He tells Shirley he thinks having a baby is a good idea, might help set things on the right path. Shirley doesn't answer. In the morning, Larry wakes up and Riot is gone. he finds a note, which says she isn't ready to settle down and have kids and tells him to find someone more stable. Thoughts: the main story brings the return to Bogantilla to a satisfying and exciting conclusion, with Iron Ace returning to the skies, in one seriously badass contraption! This is pulpy goodness! Not much to add there as story and art are their usual greatness. Skywolf explores a world that many ex-servicemen faced, after WW2 and Korea: civilian life. Riot and Skywolf try to do what is expected: they got married, bought (or rented) a house, and settled in the suburbs as Mr & Mrs. Lawrence Wolfe. They make friends with the neighbors and invite them over for a barbecue and beers, so they can get to know one another. And, the entire time, they ache for the excitement and danger they left behind. The war was death and destruction, but they were also never more alive. they were doing something important, risking death in combat, finding thrills greater than any adventure tour. How to you settle down in a 2 bedroom in the suburbs and work 9 to 5 after that? That was the dilemma for many. it's even worse for Larry and Shirley. They went beyond the norm, as Skywolf and Riot O'Hara. They were heroes and adventurers, fighting tooth and nail with the enemy on their own turf. As we see, it isn't just Lawrence; Shirley enjoyed flying, enjoyed being Riot O'Hara, aviatrix, cargo flyer and adventurer. She found a freedom in flying and was her own boss. The thought of keeping house, having babies and joining the PTA sounds like torture. This was the dilemma for many women; they got jobs in factories and contributed to the war effort and had to give them up when the guys came home. They were good at their jobs; why should they have to step aside? Why is housewife the only road open to them? A lot of women decided it wasn't enough, though it took time for those sentiments to build into a movement, with women demanding more. Dan Spiegle is perfect for this, as he is a master of adventure and the mundane. he captures the stifling world of suburbia, the pleasant facades, yet also captures the looks of ennui and tension as Lawrence and Shirley face the prospects of this life, this lie. You wonder if the others don't feel it too, but only Lawrence and Shirley have the conviction to reject it and choose their own paths, as Skywolf and Riot. Amazingly, it is Riot who leaves, rather than Skywolf. His father had left his mother and himself behind, while he went off adventuring. He followed in his footsteps; but, felt he had to do the right thing by Riot. He wasn't going to be like his father. Riot sees it and feels it in herself, knowing he won't let go of the fantasy, so she forces the issue. She walks away. Now, Skywolf is free to go back to the life he loves, with no guilt. This will lead to the Skywolf mini-series, as this leads to him hooking up again with Jack Gatling and going on another foolish treasure hunt, in a war zone, near a place called Dien Bien Phu. Airboy is great, but Skywolf continues to be outstanding! Next, Davy faces a hamster, with a gun!
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 20, 2021 20:41:28 GMT -5
Target: Airboy Creative Team: Don Chin & Chuck Dixon-writers, Sam Kieth-pencils, Sam De La Rosa & Russ Sever-inks, Kurt Hathaway-letters, Marcus Davis-colors, Letitia Glozer & Fred Burke-editor This is a crossover between Airboy and the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters, Eclipse's attempt to jump on the TMNT bandwagon, with characters named for action movie heroes. Not the worst of the wannabes; but hardly a classic. Synopsis: Clint, one of the ARBBH, has been hired to assassinate Airboy, for a million dollars. The rats are involved, as well. The other hamsters are gone, presumed dead, though we learn that Bruce has actually been transformed into a shuffling monster...  He was hoping to get to Tibet, but is in California, instead. He mistakes the monastery for a Tibetan temple, despite the architecture being nothing like Tibet. Monsters aren't exactly the brightest in the world, nor do they subscribe to Architectural Digest, or even Ranger Rick! He sees Iron Ace having some target practice, while also sensing The Heap (he's a swamp monster, so I bet he is easy to "sense," especially the nasal variety. Meanwhile, Marlene is staying at the monastery, having arrived as a surprise and found Davy gone. Dallas is interrupted by a news bulletin and she is bored, so, she dresses up in Davy's fighting gear and even she thinks its kind of kinky. Just then, Clint turns up and sees her through his scope, apparently too stupid to recognize a woman, even in ill-fitting men's clothing. He takes aim and hits The Heap, who jumped in the way and who Clint met in ARBBH #3. Heap still throws him around, then Bruce turns up. Meanwhile, Iron Ace asks Airgirl, aka Marlene, if she heard anything. Apparently not, possibly due tot eh sound of air rushing between her ears. They hear noises and find the Heap and Bruce fighting, then run into (literally) Clint, in a jeep.  Clint tears off, with Marlene and Iron Ace clinging to his jeep, headed right for a cliff. He bails out and so do the other two. Marlene corners him after shooting him in the shoulder, then tries to finish him off, only to find her weapon empty. Clint decks her, then Bruce turns up, they reunite and jump off and Heap finds Marlene and Iron Ace and takes them back to the monestary. Thoughts: Um.....yeah.........this is............ CRAP! Basically, this is a disjointed mess, which from the continuity note sounds like it was late. It's not funny in the least, the fight scenes are nothing to write home about and there isn't much plot; nor do we see the rats again. The one positive is the art from Sam Kieth; but, we aren't talking Sandman Sam Kieth or Epicurus Sam Kieth or even The Maxx Sam Kieth. It's serviceable, but missing the moodiness. Don't bother with this, unless you are a completist. I would also hazard a bet that you aren't missing anything by skipping the Hamseters' own book, though I have never read it. I've also never heard praise for it and it didn't last long; so, draw your own conclusions from that. On to better comics.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 23, 2021 16:02:10 GMT -5
Scout: War Shaman #1 Scout has his M-16/M-203 and Tahzey has his bunny; all is right with the world! Creative Team: Tim Truman-story & art, Tim Harkins-letters, cat yronwode-editor Truman did the art as paintings, which follows the work he did on the wedding issue, in the Dixie Pistols album, Marauder. If memory serves, the cover was cardstock, which made an interesting change in the packaging. They kept that up for the first 10 issues. Truman returns to line art with the next issue. Synopsis: Our story is told through an interview between a Dr Heinrich and Victor Santana.. Victor tells a fable of a mountain that was strong and fed the people who dwelled in its shadow, but took more from them then it gave. The people complained and the mountain sent its eagle to take what it wants from their lands.....  But, then, a group of people, called "red devils" taught the people in the shadow of the mountain to fight back with stones and they drove away the eagle and prospered, while the mountain was forced to eat its own heart, until it was a husk and the eagle was dead. Victor tells the doctor that his father taught him this parable. We return to the past and see Santana tend to his now dead wife, killed by radiation sickness.  Victor and his brother Tahzey say goodbye to their mother and Scout buries her. Then, he calls on Victor to take Tahzey home and Victor is defiant.  Santana checks his moment of anger and, instead, comforts his grieving son. They head home and jets fly overhead. Scout stops and looks to the sky. Victor and Tahzey become scared when they see their father react to this. he turns his head and looks o the distant hills and we see an observer, with binoculars. Cut to Amarillo, where soldiers round up the men and boys and execute them. Wizard, now an old man, is stunned. Rosa Winter is angry, as the New America soldiers left a corridor open and her column was ambushed.  Santana hunts for food and travels on with his sons...  Scout puts his sons to bed, then sneaks off through the brush and ambushes a pair of predators out to attack their camp. They don't live long. he finds others in the hunting party and disposes of them. Two of them get to Victor and Tahzey and call Santana to come out and wish they had moved on, instead....  He leaves one alive and collects his boys to move on. Tim concludes with an essay about his trip 9with wife Beth) to Arizona, to see the lands of the Hopi and Navajo, where Scout is set.  He notes how the Navajo have ben able to adapt to the coming of the white man, yet preserve their culture and language, which proved beneficial to the US, in WW2, as Navajo code talkers were able to relay messages via radio that Japanese radio men could not under stand and decode, as there was no written reference to the Navajo language. Truman notes modern houses and ranches, but also a hogan also kept nearby each one. Scout's wife is Navajo, so Truman is mixing elements of the Navajo culture (and Hopi) with the Apache legends and culture previously seen. Thoughts: Things have changed, but Truman quickly gets us up to speed. Those who picked up the Marauder album saw the wedding of Emanuel Santana and his Navajo bride, in a short painted piece, set with a poem. In New America, Rosa Winter comes across the home of Santana and his family and sees his wife and nearly shoots her, before taking control of her impulses and her wire gun, running away in tears, as Scout recognizes her. We saw the couple with two small boys. They are a bit older now and Scout has lost his wife and the boys their mother. Through Victor's addled memories, we learn that something in the environment slowly poisoned those who lived there, suggesting either radioactive fallout from the Las Vegas bombing or nuclear or chemical waste stored in the canyons. either way, death lives in the area. Once she is buried, Scout takes his children and moves on. Things have gotten worse since we left Santana behind. The civil war between the US and the Southwest Free States devastated and already fractured nation. Civilization has broken down more. The SWS leadership is gone; but, Rosa is now in control of the American government and is trying to pacify the remaining rebellious areas. Things haven't improved under her rule, as law is all but non-existent and predators roam the countryside, as we seen the men hunting, before Santana kills them. In the next few issues, we will see more of this, plus the enclaves of humanity, which are cesspools of corruption. Wizard is an old man, horrified by the killing he sees, but still aiding Rosa in her quest to recover America. The problem is, it seems Rosa has lost her soul. She keeps her eyes hidden by her Raybans; her body is partially machine and her weapons are wired into her brain, making her a killing machine, but not a feeling one. Scout is now burdened with his two sons, whereas, before, it was just him, fighting the army, until he acquired Missy as a tag-along. Really, for a loner, Scout never seems to be able to be alone, for long, whether it is Missy, Rev CW Deluxe and Doody, Rosa and Avner Glanzman, Monday, Beau La Duke or sons Tahzey and Victor. The series is very much in the vein of the Mad Max series, with the desert locales, the marauders preying on the weak and the small forts protecting cowering citizens. However, instead of a burnt out ex-cop, you have a renegade Apache ex-Ranger, with two small boys. How no one latched onto this for a film franchise is beyond me, but Scout has always screamed that it should be adapted, though I shudder to think what Hollywood would do to it, starting with who they would pick to play Santana. The last big Native American role in film went to a white guy, from Kentucky and the movie was not a hit. I always saw Wes Studi as perfect for the role, from around the time he was doing Last of the Mohicans and Geronimo, An American Legend. The painted art has more an an impressionistic quality to it, compared to the line art. This was during a period where there were several painted comics experiments, before Alex Ross became a big name. Christopher Moeller adapted the Republic serial King of the Rocketmen, for Innovation, Jon J Muth's work at Epic/Marvel and Eclipse, Dan Brereton at Eclipse and DC (and his own Nocturnals) and a few others. Truman was also producing some book covers, around this period or soon after, including at least a couple for George RR Martin's Wild Cards series (particularly one focusing on Yeoman, the archer character). This is a good intro to the sequel series and it does a great job of bringing us up to speed, introducing Tahzey and Victor and setting them off in a collision with the worst of this world. Next, we will see what happens when they do collide with others.
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 27, 2021 21:13:32 GMT -5
Skywolf #1 Sky is hooked up with Jack Gatling, which spells trouble. The metal faced dude is Baron Von Tundra, Sky's WW2 enemy; so, double the trouble! Creative Team Chuck Dixon-writer, Tom Lyle-pencils, Ricardo Villagran-inks, Mindy Eisman-letters, Olyoptics-colors, cat yronwode-editor Synopsis: March, 1954......Down in Tijuana, Skywolf is beating up sailors in a bar....  Meanwhile, in Hollywood, stunt pilot Jack Gatling crash lands at the wrong field and the cameras miss it. The director is a little miffed...  The director fires him on the spot and tells him to leave the costume there, where he stands. Jack strips down to his skivvies and walks off to his trailer and someone hands him a message, from Sky. They meet up later at Skinny McGinty's bar, near the Burbank airport. He finds Sky in the back, getting wasted and crying in his whiskey about Riot leaving him. he alternates between attacking her and himself, while Gatling tries to get him to see it wasn't meant to be and asks if he has been down to see his mother. he says no and he needs something to occupy his mind. Gatling has just the thing and takes Sky to get him cleaned up. later, they meet with an archeologist, who is after 12 horse, made of solid gold, encrusted with jade and jewels, created as a tribute to the Ming dynasty, in Indochina, but waylaid by bandits, before the tribute reached China. The university museum has received a 15th Century manuscript, written by an official who was captured by the same bandits and escaped and contains a map to the location of their hidden jungle fortress. The site is somewhere in the north of what was once called Vietnam.  Sky, Jack and Dr Nicholls (bet you thought his name was Jones) land at the French airfield at Son La, north of the Plain of Jars. Nicholls goes to speak to the base commander, while Sky and Jack notice that the airfield is armed to the teeth. The CO says no, that the Viet Minh control that area and he doesn't give a damn about papers from the French government, who have no clue about the war in French Indochina. Nicholls offers some other papers, the green kind, with presidential faces, as an alternative and is granted passage into the area on the map. Nicholls tell the flyboys he has permission, provided that they are accompanied by a military escort. The boys feel this compromises the treasure hunt, but they have no choice. A platoon of Foreign Legion have been assigned and they go to meet their detail and get a nasty surprise...  The platoon is led by Baron Von Tundra, a German soldier who was Skywolf's enemy, in the war. Von Tundra says they are on the same side, fighting communists, but Sky says he is still a murdering Nazi SOB. The French weren't too picky, as they sent then to Indochina to fight the Viet Minh and die for France (and some went to Algiers, too). Sky isn't taking things lightly and punches Von Tundra and goes for a follow up and hits the metal plate. Von Tundra gets his artificial hand on Sky's throat, while Gatling waves his BAR and Colt M1911 at the other Legionnaires, telling them the fight is personal and to stay out of it. Sky pulls his own pistol and points it to a part of Von Tundra's anatomy that doesn't have a steel plate and he releases him. The CO breaks it up and chastises Nicholls for his companions starting fights and also warns Von Tundra that the guillotine awaits he and his SS brethren, if they don't follow orders.  A local Viet Minh spy sees the convoy assembling and passes the info along his network to the nearby troop. Nichols and the escort set out in 3 trucks and Von Tundra says the French control only the roads and major metropolitan areas, but are losing the war and he and his cohorts were sent there to die. Sky and Jack are still fuming. The stop and Von Tundra begins to deploy his men, when the flyboys hear an incoming mortar round and dive for cover. Von Tundra yells for his men to get into the treeline and out of sight. The trucks gets hit and Von tundra loses some of his men. Nichols and the boys are with them in the treeline and they move out quickly. Nicholls laments the loss of the trucks and Von Tundra remarks that they are only searching for clay pots (the cover story), though his laughter suggests he doesn't buy that for a deutschmark. The group treks over the hills and Nicholls directs them to look for a waterfall, between two ridges. They move on, but Jack and Sky smell fish oil and it reminds them of Burma and their trigger fingers get itchy. They find the waterfall and the prof says the entrance is behind the waterfall and Lone Ranger jokes follow...  They confirm the location of a tunnel and enter. it has been carved out of the rock, which confirms it is the bandits' lair. They eventually find a room, with the statues they seek. They are interrupted by Von Tundra and his men, as he comes in and sees the treasure. He is intent on melting them for the gold, rather than the archeological find of the intact horses. The point becomes moot as the Viet Minh take out the sentries. Nicholls tries to attack Von Tundra and is gunned down. He points his weapon at the Americans; but, the Viet Minh attack and throw in a satchel charge, which blows open the wall and the water from the river runs in and traps the men inside, with the water level rising.  There follows ads for Milton Caniff's America (forward by Jimmy Stewart!), Scout: War Shaman #1, Rudyard Kipling's Red Dog, Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland's work on Nigerian superhero Powerbolt, and the dreamery, with the tag line "More fun than a congressional investigation!" Thoughts: Chuck dives right into dumping Skywolf and Jack Gatling into another war zone. Korea is over and the next war is unfolding in French Indochina. At the Potsdam Conference, in 1945, it was decided that Southeast Asia, below the 16th Parallel, was to be administered by the British and the North by the Chinese. Chiang Kai-Shek recognized the new Democratic republic of Vietnam, formed by Ho Chi Minh, at Hanoi. The British, deferring to the French, did not and blocked the OSS in backing the Viet Minh, who had been effective guerrilla fighters, against the Japanese. French troops overthrew the DRV government in Saigon and began retaking parts of the country. Talks between the French and Ho Chi Minh were held in Paris, but broke down and a state of all-out war began in December, 1946. From the onset, the Viet Minh, and Ho's forces were known, controlled much of the countryside, while the French concentrated on establishing control of the cities and provincial capitals. The French Foreign Legion was a major presence in the French forces, carrying out patrols to hunt the Viet Minh and garrisoning forts and other positions scattered across the country. One of these was at Dien Bien Phu, sited to interdict Viet Minh movements into Laos. Part of the garrison was manned by French Foreign Legion paratroops, the elite of the Legion. It has been documented that in the period immediately following the end of the war in Europe, some German solders of the Wehrmacht and the SS joined the French Foreign Legion, though the extent of the population has been exaggerated in fiction and is a point of contention with historians, especially in the context of the Indochina War. There is much evidence that communist propaganda operations helped create a myth of large scale ex-Nazi units within the Legion. The French government actually began a crackdown of Legion background checks in 1947, blocking further entry, though there were always other avenues, with faked documents, especially with the displaced persons populations in Europe. That said, the Legion did conduct background checks and the myth of "no questions asked" by Legion recruiters was built in literature and film, and was never fully true. Baron Von Tundra first appeared in Air Fighters Comics #2, in the first Skywolf story, as his enemy. He returned for a few more appearances, in the early days of the Air Fighters. He was revived in the Air Fighters meet Sgt Strike Special, which was set in WW2 and he escaped death at the hands of Skywolf and the other Air Fighters, as they tried to stop the Nazis from launching an orbital platform. Chuck catches us up with Skywolf and Riot, then dumps him into the next adventure, in something out of Indiana Jones. The idea of bringing a treasure out of a war zone, with mercenaries, has more than a few parallels to Wilbur Smith's novel, Dark of the Sun, which was adapted into a film, of the same name (also known as The Mercenaries, in some countries), starring Rod Taylor and Jim Brown. In both the book and the film, a mercenary commander accepts a contract to lead an armored and fortified train into enemy held territory and bring out a diamond shipment that is locked in a vault, at the mining camp. In the film version, the mercenaries include an ex-SS officer, who is at odds with Taylor's character. The German murders Brown and Taylor goes after him for revenge. The book was set early in the Congo independence, in the period of what was known as the Baluba War, while the film is set during the Katanga secession, but mixes in the later Simba revolt, which occurred after Katanga rejoined the rest of the Republic of the Congo. The German character (played by Peter Carsten) was somewhat based on an actual German mercenary in the Congo, Siegfried Muller, who had served in the Hitler Youth and Wehrmacht, in Poland, France and Russia. He earned the Iron Cross and was notorious for wearing it on his uniform, in the Congo. In the film, Carsten is seen wearing a metal swastika badge over his left shirt pocket, rather than the Iron Cross. Chuck also gives us the basics about the French and Viet Minh, in Indochina and Tom has done his research and he depicts the French in correct uniforms and carrying correct and identifiable weaponry, such as the French MAT-49 submachine gun....  Which was used extensively by paratroops, armored units, police and non-coms. He gives Jack Gatling his favorite Browning Automatic Rifle, which was a squad support weapon, with a long, heavy barrel and a magazine, rather than the belt-fed M-1934 .30 cal machine gun. The rest carry Thompson M1 submachine guns, which were supplied to allied soldiers during and after the war and the French Army was outfitted with much US equipment, after the liberation. The Viet Minh are shown to wear peasant clothing, carry a bedroll and food and weapons such as the Russian PPSh-41 submachine gun and bolt action rifle of probably French, Russian and Japanese origin. The Japanese actually continued to handle security, after the surrender, under Ho's DVR government and helped train the Viet Minh forces, during the war with the French. Aside from another treasure hunt/military adventure, Chuck is giving a lesson to American readers about the lead up to the fall of Dien Bien Phu, which immediately led to the US becoming involved in propping up the government of South Vietnam. This was soon followed by US military advisors, then combat troops, as the country got sucked deeper and deeper into the conflict, until the draw down of forces in 1972-73 and the final complete withdrawal and the collapse of Saigon, in 1975. Little of this part of the Vietnam War is discussed in US history courses, other than the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu led to French withdrawal and the outright civil war between North and South Vietnam. The uS film industry has also ignored the earlier parts of the war, with a couple of exceptions. the Quiet American, starring Michael Caine, based on the Graham Greene novel, is set during the French period and shows the CIA involved in anti-Ho Chi Minh propaganda, ultimately leading to them using attacks within the cities to lead US opinion in backing the South. Another more direct movie is the Anthony Quinn film, Lost Command, where he plays a French paratroop officer, who commands the garrison at Dien Bien Phu (or a sub-camp) and then rebuilds a team, after their release from Vietnam, to fight Algerian rebels in French Algeria, led by a former comrade (played by George Segal). Dien Bien Phu marks the opening section of the film, before Algiers takes center stage. For a really good dramatic look at this period, I recommend the French film Dien Bien Phu, directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer. Schoendoerffer served in a French film unit at Dien Bien Phu and he treats the film as a docu-drama, much like Tora! Tora! Tora! Donald Pleasance has a role as a journalist, covering the fighting. We see early stages and then the siege, as the French try to hold out, while others try to resupply and reinforce, before the camp is forced to surrender. Tom Lyle's art continues to look good here, though his expressions are still a bit cruder than his work at DC and Marvel. He stages the action well and he is probably Dixon's best collaborator, if not necessarily the best artist on the Skywolf stories (that would be Dan Spiegle, in my opinion). Once again, Dixon & Lyle give us more Blackhawk-style adventure, with a modern historical twist, making it a cross between the Quality Blackhawk and the Kanigher/Kubert Sgt Rock. I'm not 100% sure; but, I believe this mini-series was a test for a Skywolf solo book, with the Vietnam story as justification for its length. Vietnam was a hot subject at the movies, with both Full Metal Jacket and Platoon preceding this mini-series (as well as Francis Ford Coppola's Gardens of Stone and the more exploitive Rambo, First Blood II and Missing in Action). After it concluded, Skywolf returned to Airboy, though not immediately and not for long. The tail end of Airboy deals with flashbacks to the end of WW2, explaining how Valkyrie fell into Misery's power and Davy III attempt to destroy Misery, once and for all. The Eclipse series was canceled with issue 50 and Skywolf's adventures ended with that last storyline. Next: Revenge of the Prowler #2.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 3, 2021 19:44:15 GMT -5
Revenge of the Prowler #2 Creative Team: Tim Truman-writer, John K Snyder III-art, Tim harkins-letters, Julie Michel-colors, cat yronwode-editor Synopsis: Leo and Tom Grayson sit in a car, while staking out an adult theater neighborhood. Tom relates his troubles to Leo....  Frank Corby and Scott have gone inside a porn shop and ask the clerk for more "specialized" material, dropping the name Gerritz. They are told there is a private reading room, with a $100 membership, for a year. One C-note later and they are headed back there. Scott sees the videos and ephemera there and Corby finds a magazine, with pictures of his granddaughter. He calls in Leo and Tom and then they confront the shop clerk, after disarming him. They start asking about his suppliers...  Leo forces the clerk to listen to an audio tape of a young girl being hiurt and holds an automatic to his head, telling the clerk he'd like to hurt him. The clerk suddenly remembers who supplied the magazine with Frank's granddaughter. They follow the trail to a Sidney Rhoads, where Leo offers another C-note for companionship, a young boy. They are led to a young man, named Stevie. He goes off with Leo and is silenced by Tom, as they gear up. Leo gives the disposition of the enemy. They get the drop on the two at the door and force them to take them to the others, leading them to an apartment, where they kick in the door and guns start blazing...  The force the slime to tell them where the kids are and rescue them. Leo tells Scott that "this is who we fight for..."  They then turn their attention to the scum. A few threats and he sings about how he gets the photos for the magazine he distributes, what happens to other photos, where they are taken. It is sickening. Most are runaways. Some of the better looking get shipped to Mexico. Leo "asks" where and the walking fecal matter claims ignorance, but a lit cigar end convinces him to rat on someone who does. Leo and the team leave Rhoads tied to a chair, weapons in his lap, surrounded by the dead men and stacks of porn and call the cops. They go to find Charles Clairdale. Clairdale is a legal advisor for a fundraising group, serving various social causes, but is actually a group known as the Association for Man/Boy Love. Mr Clairdale meets the Prowler.  Leo leaves him naked, in a noose, with cocaine powder he found in a safe, to be found by security, babbly about a satanic being that entered his mind. Leo takes Scott to a warehouse, with a surprise...  They also find a cat, named Theo Roosevelt, who has mechanical prosthetics, which saved its life, after a run in with a train. They meet the man who provided them, Craig Mansfield, aka Rack Man. He is busy working on a mecha suit, when Leo asks him for a favor...  Thoughts: Excuse me while I wash the foul taste from my mouth. This is dark....very dark. Leo, Scott and the Devil Dogs have entered the world of child exploitation; both pornography and prostitution. Tim isn't pulling any punches here, although he does kind of oversimplify things and presents it in a nice pulpy dramatic fashion. The storytelling conventions are those of the old pulp heroes, especially stuff like The Spider, where the hero used terror to fight worse criminals. Some of the pulps got into dark territory; but, most didn't go into this world. This has some commonality with the more modern men's adventure pulps, as heroes like Mack Bolan would take down Mafia-run pornography and prostitution operations, usually exaggerating mafia interest into such things. Most pornography came from legitimate, if slimy sources. Mafia interest were usually more in the area of protection for the shadier operations, including distribution. The old mafia families had a pretty low opinion of this kind of thing, though more enterprising gangs weren't above it, any more than narcotics. Sadly, children have been exploited for this kind of thing as long as prostitution has existed. This time period came with media revelations about child porn rings, child prostitutes and more. Runaways were a big source. The British tv series Prime Suspect, with Helen Mirren, centered it's 3rd series around "rent boys," underaged male prostitutes operating in the area. DCI Tennison learns that things go deeper than that, as there is a pedophile ring operating around the rent boys and a young man is torched because he was talking to a journalist to sell the story. Tennison uncovers a world of runaway children, picked up by a predator who cruises the bus and railway stations, giving them food and shelter. Then, he provides them to special clients or puts them out on the street. At the center of it all is a youth advice center, which is supposed to be a haven for these kids. Instead, the man running it is tied to child molestation at children's homes and the operations here, with the pedophile ring involving senior government and police officials. Tennison is warned off when she starts ruffling the wrong feathers, but pursues it to the end. This is covering similar territory, but in a pulp manner. There are no rules for Leo, only justice. Charles Clairdale's Association For Man/Boy Love is an obvious reference to the very real North American Man/Boy Love Association or NAMBLA, which was documented in the film Chickenhawk, in 1994. It is pretty clear what the creative team thinks of the group. Can't say I disagree. Snyder's dark style really adds to the mood to this and is really unsettling, in the grimier portions. This is scarier than the previous mini, as child predators are far more real than vampires. The back 3rd of the book is another vintage Prowler tale, with Kevin Nowlan on art, depicted as a newspaper comic strip, involving a murder trial...   There is also a flexi-disc, with soundtrack music. 
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Post by chaykinstevens on Mar 4, 2021 14:24:29 GMT -5
The back 3rd of the book is another vintage Prowler tale, with Kevin Nowlan on art, depicted as a newspaper comic strip, involving a murder trial... Disappointingly, the artwork turns out to be by Graham Nolan. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 4, 2021 23:24:05 GMT -5
The back 3rd of the book is another vintage Prowler tale, with Kevin Nowlan on art, depicted as a newspaper comic strip, involving a murder trial... Disappointingly, the artwork turns out to be by Graham Nolan. That's what I meant. I was kind of tired when I wrote this. I'd have to go back; but, I may have done that in a couple of other spots, as Nolan was doing some of the Skywolf stories, in Airboy. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 6, 2021 20:56:12 GMT -5
Airboy #38 Looks like Davy and Val interrupted some kind of Iron John gathering. Creative Team: Chuck Dixon-writer, Gary Kwapisz-art, Tim Harkins-letters, Olyoptics-colors, cat yronwode-editor Heap: Len Wein-script, Lou Mougin-story, Carmine Infantino-pencils, Mark Pacella-inks, Bill Pearson-letters, Olyoptics-colors, cat-editor Oooooh; co-creator of Swamp Thing writing the Heap, should be good.....right? Also from Eclipse: Aces #1, Area 88 #22 & 23, Dreamery #9, Hand of Fate #3, Legend of Kamui #22 & 23, Lost Planet #6, Mai the Psychic Girl #22 & 23, Masked Man #12, Miracleman #14, Phaze #1, Revenge of the Prowler #3, Xenon #9 & 10, Zot #18. Aces was one of Eclipse's co-productions, with the British publisher Acme, reprinting European comics, in an anthology. Phaze was from editor Fred Burke & Raphael Kayanan, a sort of time travel story with experimental art. Masked Man has its final issue, which was a shame, as it was a good series and one of Eclipse's early features. Miracleman ended a 5 month wait for the next issue, which I belieev was related to vision problems that John Totleben suffered, before they were eventually diagnosed correctly. No Scout this month or Skywolf; they would return in May. Synopsis: Davy, Val and Hirota are trekking through the jungle (with my M-16), looking for Birdie....  Iron Ace is airborn, scout and directs Hirota to a defile, between two peaks. They head that direction. Davy & Val do an exposition dump that Skywolf is staying in Bogantilla a couple of days to make sure Marissa is recovered from her wounds, then is heading home to check on his mother. Guillermo is recovering and forming a coalition with Violeta Cortez, of the Bogantillan People's Front (I thought we were the Popular Front...) Val's putting flowers in her hair when Davy hears noises in the bush. It turns out to be wild pigs, who knock Davy over. Val laughs so he dumps her on her nicely rounded caboose. They got all starey-eyed and moody, when Hirotus-interruptus occurs...  Apparently, Hirota is a Dead Head. Groovy, man. They go truckin' on and we cut to Iron Ace, who has set down and goes scouting, then gets caught by the Ewoks...  ...or whatever tribe they belong to. Later, the trio finds Iron Ace's wing section and can't raise him on the radio. They start to search and the Race Bannon Defamation league attacks....  They fight, but, the girls gets captured, so the macho he-men give up. Wusses! They are taken back to their camp, where they find Iron Ace lashed to a tree, who says he thinks they are going to sacrifice them to their god. Yup, Race Bannon time.... Iron Ace detaches his hand and sends it off to broadcast an SOS, some 4 years before Kryten did the same thing, on Red Dwarf.   The hand unties them, but gets caught before they can escape. They are brought to the temple of their god, who turns out to be...  Davy does an Akizio on the jungle tribe and they run off, then he and Val get down to some in-flight refueling, if you get my drift. Turns out, Davy is a rookie, so he gets to have Valkyrie for a coach. The Heap: We are reminded that Baron Von Emmelman died in a swamp, in Poland, but we find out he had a wife and son. This is their story. We cut to 1931 and see 16 year-old Karl Emmelman. He is an arrogant twerp and he comes home to find that his mother has pawned his father's trophies, to keep going, since he can find no work. He hits her and storms off to get tghem back, demanding the pawnbroker return them without payment. This leads to violence and he accidentally kills the Jewish pawnbroker...  In 1935, he is visited in prison by an old friend of his father, Herman Goering, who recruits him for his new Luftwaffe. He trains to be a pilot, then flies with the Condor Squadron in Spain, aiding Franco's fascist troops. We cut to 1943 and he is receiving orders sending him to Wasau, Poland...  The troubled Karl walks along the swamp and finds the remains of his father's plane, then what remains of his father, in The Heap.  The Heap takes him into Wasau, via the sewers, to the Jewish ghetto. he brings him to Rabbi Judah Ben Jacob, who Karl helps to escape, along with his family. They go to the airbase in disguise and Karl steals a transport plane, to fly them out. The Heap tears through the base, destroying fighters (well Stukas, 'cause no one seems to know they were a dive bomber and not a fighter) and the family escapes with Karl.  Thoughts: For those who have never sung "Jodies" while running, the joke about the jungle and an M-16 is from a "Jody", a cadence song to help a group keep pace, while marching or running. This one goes "Runnin' through the jungle with my M-16, I'm a mean mother-@#$%^&, I'm a US Marine!" Apparently, they are not allowed to curse anymore in boot camp. Shyeah, right! If anyone is in earshot, maybe. You can accomplish a lot with a well placed use of the F-Bomb! The main story is pretty stereotyped, even for the period. Yes, everyone who lives in the jungle is totally backwards and has had no contact with the outside world, ever, and worships anything they have never seen before as a god. You know, Pursuit of the Po-Ho was in the 1960s, this is the tail end of the 1980s; you'd think we would be more advanced than that; but, not in Chuck's script, I guess. Iron Ace's capture is pretty much C3P) and the Ewoks, minus the chanting and Harrison Ford having some fun. otherwise, it is just an excuse for Valkyrie and Airboy to finally lock 'n' load, as it were. Remember, that's how Moonlighting went downhill! The Heap is okay; but nothing special. It's a pretty cliched plot. it would have been more interesting for Karl to be a dyed in the wool Nazi, who the Heap drags to a concentration camp or to the horror of the ghetto and forces him to see. Instead, he already doubts his orders (even after Guernica and Warsaw), and is easily swayed to help one rabbi and his family, but no one else. Len didn't conceive the story; so, I don't blame him; and, they only had a few pages to pull it off; but, I think of what Alan Moore would have done with this, at the same time, and shake my head. Heck, even Len, himself, 10 years before! This is late Infantino and the 80s were not kind to him. This is okay; I've seen much worse from him in this timeframe; but, it is no match for his work in Strange Adventures or The Flash. Heck, even his angular Marvel stuff was better (I actually like some of that, depending on his inker). I do miss having a Skywolf adventure, though, even though he is adventuring in Vietnam in his mini. I'm not gonna lie; the glory days of this title are over; but, there is still some good stuff ahead. The finale has 2nd generation Kubert; so, there is that to look forward to and Ernie Colon and Chuck team up for the tale of the Air Fighters at the end of WW2. Oh, we aren't done with Goering, either. Next, Revenge of the Prowler #3
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 7, 2021 15:54:05 GMT -5
Revenge of the Prowler #3 Creative Team: Tim Truman-writer, John K Snyder III-art, Tim Harkins-letters, Don Gidley-colors, cat yronwode-editor Synopsis: Down in mexico, some men prepare to move out a truck shipment, from a heavily guarded fenced encampment. They are soon interrupted by visitors...  The visitors land further away, in the desert and our heroes get out, all 4 of them, of the P-38 Lightning, which was a single-seat fighter. Comics! They move out to the hills above the camp and observe the shipment preparation. Children are loaded aboard and they verify that Tom's granddaughter is not among them. Prowler will follow the truck while the rest hit the camp, as the truck leaves. The truck moves out and the plan goes into operation. The Devil Dogs and Scott cut their way through the chain link fence, silence some guards and search for other kids. Leo follows the truck.....  Leo takes out the outrider then the driver and shotgun. He tells the kids he is taking them home and everything will be alright. Then, Leo has some kind of seizure, but powers through. he says he needs to find the Chinaman, soon. Elsewhere, a photo session is interrupted by the Devil Dogs and Scott....  Excuse me a minute, I have something in my eye...... Scott loses it and attacks the sack of #@%& in the clown suit. The woman hits Tom from behind and runs of spreading the alarm. Frank Corby tries to arrest them and gets shot in the chest. He pulls the pin on a grenade and smiles. The shack is destroyed. Tom and Scott are trapped in a heavy crossfire. Then, the cavalry comes....  They find Frank, who sees that the girl is safe and dies....  The woman drops the name The Piranha. Leo takes a sledgehammer and tells Scott to get Tom and the girl to the plane, where the other kids wait. He goes to "talk" to the woman and her husband. Rest of the issue is Graham Nolan drawing a tale of the past, as Leo battles mobster Carmine Bonoxide. he has kidnapped paper mill heiress Madeline Short. Leo follows a trail, with Madeline's fiancee and ends up in Wisconsin, where he enquires about any odd strangers at a farm, home of one Ed Gein.  ZHe points them to a neighboring farm, where a truck showed up late and smoke came out of the chimney of a farmhouse that had sat empty for some time. he tried to be neighborly and was chased off. Ed admires Leo's facemask, saying it looks like a second skin. They find Sorbino Bonoxide, who is also looking for Carmine. They were disowned by their father and Carmine has become involved in voodoo, using zombie to kill. Leo puts him to rest and they follow their first clue. Thoughts: The death of a Devil Dog. The kids are rescued, in a nice bit of justice, by the world's oldest commando team (after the Calcutta Light Horse). We get a glimpse of the toll Leo has paid for his long life, as he mentions seeking a Chinaman, soon. The reference alludes to Fu Manchu and the elixir vitae, I assume, thought they could use various serial stand-ins (Fu did star in Drums of Fu Manchu, which is a good one). Frank Corby gives up his life and Tom is reunited with his granddaughter. Corby mentions something called SAFE, to help Tom's granddaughter. i believe he is referring to the SAFE Child organization, based around the work of Sherryll Kraizer, who has worked for years on initiatives to protect children from abuse, bullying and similar issues. The P-38 we will leave to pulp fantasy, along with Leo backpack helicopter. The back-up story is treading more into the film White Zombie, and Ed Gein probably needs no introduction; but, was one of the most notorious killers in the US. In 1957, a woman who owned a hardware store was reported missing from Plainfield, WI. He torso was eventually found on Gein's farm, cut up like a deer being dressed. A search of the farm turned up a nightmare of severed heads, skulls, wastebaskets made of human skin and a female "suit" made of tanned human skins. Gein confessed to also killing a female tavern owner a few years before and grave robbing, where most of the skulls, bones and skins had come from. The story inspired Robert Bloch's Psycho, which led to the Hitchcock film, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the killer Buffalo Bill, in Silence of the Lambs (novel, then movie). This is the 1940s, based on the poster in a general store for war bonds. All pretty dark stuff. It's well done; but, I wouldn't want a steady diet of this.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 9, 2021 0:23:56 GMT -5
Airboy #39 Davy flies with the Confederate Air Force (hate the name, love the planes). Creative Team: Chuck Dixon-writer, Ricardo Villagran-art, Tim Harkins-letters, Olyoptics-colors, cat yronwode-editor HeaP: Len Wein-script, Lou Mougin-story, Carmine Infantino-pencils, Mark pacella-inks, Bill Pearson-letters, Oyoptics-colors, cat-editor Also from Eclipse: Air Fighters Classic #4, Alien Worlds #1, Area 88 #24 & 25, California Girls #8, Fusion #9, Legend of Kamui #24 & 25, Liberty Project #8, Mai the Psychic Girl #24 & 25, Miracleman Family #1, Revenge of the Prowler #4, Scout: War Shaman #2, Skywolf #2, Strike vs Sgt Strike Special #1, Total Eclipse #1, Xenon #11 & 12, Zorro: The Complete Classic Adventures Vol 1 TPB. Alien Worlds was actually a graphic album reprint of some of Bruce Jones' previous Alien Worlds material. Liberty Project returns, after a 6 month absence, to end the series. Miracleman Family reprints old Mick Anglo Marvelman material. Revenge of the Prowler wraps up its storyline and Strive vs Sgt Strike finishes up the alien storyline from the defunct Strike! series, then takes things into Total Eclipse, where their story is completed. Total Eclipse, itself, was Eclipse jumping on the company-wide crossover bandwagon, after First had done Crossroads, trying to emulate the success of Crisis and Secret Wars. Total Eclipse would heavily feature the Airboy characters and some of the other Eclipse adventure characters, including Miracleman, featuring Neil Gaiman's first work on the character (reprinted in Miracleman Apocrypha). Chuck Dixon and Beau Smith's Black terror would also appear in there, as would Doug Moench's Aztec Ace. Marv Wolfman wrote it and Bo Hampton did the pencils, with inks from Will Blyberg and some others. I will touch on the series, as a whole, as it did affect the Airboy and Strike titles, though it was not a 4 Winds project. Zorro reprints Alex Toth's gorgeous Zorro stories from Dell/Western, some of the finest adventure comics ever produced. Synopsis: Davy is test flying Birdie, which Iron Ace helped rebuild and modify. Davy is happier than an eagle soaring in a thermal and invites Val to Texas to experience some old memories. Why Texas? Well...   It's a gathering of the Confederate Air Force, a group of aviation enthusiasts that began in Alabama, in 1953 and grew from there (now called the Commemorative Air Force, for obvious reasons). They rebuild, maintain and fly vintage aircraft from all over. Val is in heaven, as she is reunited with the Messerschmitt Bf-109, her aircraft. Davy and Val soon find out that Birdie has fans, too, as some of the pilots approach Davy and ask if that is the real Birdie.  During the show, Carl Detweiler, of Zephyr Aviation, presents the Z-6 Harpy, a remote piloted drone, to the crowd. the pilots aren't impressed and neither is Davy. Davy goes over and introduces himself and Detweiler takes shots at Nelson Aviation's subsidiary businesses. The Harpy is then launched for the demonstration...  They soon discover that the drone is armed with live ammo, which was not planned. It is also locked in a defense mode and will attack anything in the air and the controller cannot get it back under manual control. Detweiler freaks out and Davy runs to Birdie to take care of things. It fires on a pair of badly rendered He-111s, then Davy chases it off. It heads for the stands and Davy can't fire, so he tries to lure it into a safer area. Detweiler threatens the jobs of the controllers if they can't regain control and one of them decks him and gets back to trying to stop the machine. Davy gets it to persue and leads it straight into the water tower of the nearby town, destroying it.  Davy lands and is greeted by the pilots and is made a Colonel of the Confederate Air Force. Val gives him her own reward. The Heap: We get a recap of the origin of the Heap and the story of his son, Karl, who we are told married the daughter of Rabbi Ben-Jacob, who he rescued and they had a son...  That son, Joachim, goes off to join the US Army, in 1964, and fight in Vietnam. his parents try to talk him out of it, but he feels it is a just war and likens it to WW2 and Israel's fight for survival. 3 months later, Joachim is excelling in flight training, in the US Air Force (I thought something was screwy there). he receives orders to ship out to Vietnam (um, flight training is longer than 3 months, even in the 60s). We get a presentation of the Domino Theory. One of the observers is Skywolf...  Joe is on a bombing mission as an observer and is less than thrilled that they just bombed a village full of civilians. he suddenly has a change of heart (very suddenly) about the righteousness of the war (quicker than his old man) and he is restrained and told to toe the line and Len doesn't know the difference between the Army and the Air Force. Joe is transferred to badly drawn helos and flies without a helmet, while some CIA spook throws a suspected VC out of his chopper. On the ground, he confronts the spook and Skywolf cools him off. he takes him for a hop in a Huey and discusses Joe's grandfather...  They are hit and go down in the jungle. They are captured and interrogated & tortured. While resting in their cells, a rescue comes, in the form of The Heap...  He breaks them out and gets them to where they will be found, then disappears. Joe is brought back home to finish out his tour and he has had a change of heart, still opposing communism, but feeling that proxy wars don't fix the problem. Thoughts: The main story is a fun romp, as Birdie and Davy get to do their thing for a crowd and the gang gets to draw old planes and such, though Villagran seemed to have issues with the Heinkels. he did better on the splash page. The runaway drone reminds one of ED-209, in Robocop, from the year before. Drones have been around since WW2 and even before; but, combat drones were just getting tested, at this stage. Personally, I find the idea of combat via drones to be rather chilling, as it further removes one from the human side of war and makes it seem that much more likely. The jabs about Nelson Aviation will lead into Total Eclipse, as the series begins with Davy testing Nelson's new aviation project, as events unfold. This is mostly a palate cleanser as we prepare to send Davy to Afghanistan to face the Soviets, a storyline that put Chuck Dixon at odds with cat yronwode and signaled that Airboy's days were numbered. The Heap story is rather under-developed, again, as Joachim gets a change of heart rather quickly and the whole thing seems to be rather cliched. Len doesn't seem to understand that aircraft are not flown by the US Army, since the Air Force was spun off into a separate service, in 1947. The bomber that they fly looks more like a Lear Jet and Carmine is all over the place with his helos, until a later shot of a Huey cockpit exterior, as Joe and Skywolf get ready to take their fateful flight. Also, helicopter pilots wear flight helmets, as do the aircrew. They do not fly wearing ballcaps. I think Len or Carmine was basing things on episodes of MASH. Skywolf turning up in Vietnam, after his French Indochina adventure seems rather odd, as I see it more likely that he would want little more to do with that part of the world. I see it more likely that he would have gotten involved in other wars, like in the Middle East or the fighting in the Congo (which had plenty or mercenaries), Nigeria, Bolivia, or some other part of the world. We'll see why in the third issue of the Skywolf mini-series. There follows instructions for making a balsa wood model of Birdie, which my dad would have loved. He used to design and build his own rubber band-powered airplane models, with balsa and tissue paper.  The back cover is one of several house ads for Eclipse's 10th Anniversary, which was being celebrated with Total Eclipse...  Each ad had thematically linked characters. Next: Scout: War Shaman #2
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 10, 2021 16:59:08 GMT -5
Scout: War Shaman #2 It's not Lipps, Inc; but, it is a little closer to the time frame of this issue... Creative Team: Tim Truman-story & art, Tim Harkins-letters, Sam Parsons-colors, cat yronwode-editor John Ostrander & Kim Yale get a special thanks, though why is never stated. Synopsis: Scout and his two sons, Victor and Tahzey, prepare for the next phase of their adventure...  Not enough dental hygiene in dystopian adventure comics! Scout has the lone surviving raider on a leash and he leads them to a "booger town," a settlement built around the remains of civilization. Heavily fortified, terribly expensive to get into and more likely to take from you. Surveying it all is a shadowy man, sitting on an observation platform, high above the ground...  The dangerous man is Redwire, the toady with the clipboard is Wormer, late of Las Vegas. Wormeir is the administrator, keeping things humming; Redwire is the power. Scout and the boys enter the area and the raider leads them to the head man, Boss Torbull, the union rep. The town is a closed shop. They trade in goods or labor and Scoput says he just wants provisions to cross the desrt. He offers a medallion of turquoise and silver, which belonged to his wife. Torbull gives him a credit card and they move on. Scout lets the raider live, because he doesn't want him leading the town on his canyon area, as there are other families and they will take it all. Meanwhile, Dr Portugal is busy giving Redwire a check-up...  Dr Frankenstein would be proud! They are interrupted by Torbull and Wormeir. There is tension, as Torbull wants his union in Portugal's genetics lab, which Portugal doesn't desire. Wormeir tries to keep peace, as Redwire stops Torbull from attacking Portugal, with one hand, from a prone position, on the examining table...  It turns out that Wormeir is fiddling the books. naughty, naughty! He finds the medallion and takes it, from the newly arrived trade goods. Scout takes the boys shopping and we see what Missy has been up to, plus hear a news report about the Israeli Alliance, in the Mediterranean and Avner Glanzman...  They move on and Scout spots Redwire, and they exchange glances...there seems to be recognition.....  Scout brings back the credit card, spent to the penny, then Torbull unveils the real scam....taxes, to ensure forced labor. Scout has other ideas and decks Torbull and tells the raider to get Tahzey out of there (Victor is riding on Santana's back) and he listens, but runs into Redwire. Tahzey is safe, but the raider dies and Redwire takes his place, as Santana and the boys are led away.. Scout is put to manual labor, while the boys are put in the lab to do odd maintenance tasks. They have the run of the place and witness Dr Portugal and the other's of the council confront Torbull about irregularities, which Wormeir has framed on Torbull. Outside, Scout sees toxic waste and radioactive materials brought to the lab. Scout makes a decision. Inside the lab, Torbull is in deep doo-doo, while Redwire catches Tahzey and Victor and asks a question...  Santana turns up and tells Redwire to let them go. It turns into a fight and Redwire knows Scout, but he doesn't seem to know who Redwire is...  The fight takes them through a door, into Wormeir's office, revealing his pilfering. Their attention turns to him and Scout escapes with his sons. As they walk away, we see that Wormeir is condemned to death and Scout has retrieved his wife's medallion, while Tahzey has his own souvenir: the tail of a cat, from the lab. Thoughts: Intriguing and mysterious issue, as Truman does a bit of world building. He introduces us to the killer Redwire, the muscle of the town leaders and someone who knows Santana. He seems to be the product of one of Dr Portugal's genetic experiments. Wormeir we first met in Las Vegas, working for Savage Henry, Showdog's rival in the entertainment business. Savage Henry tried to take Missy away from the New Disciples of Soul and paid dearly for it. Now, he works for the town, but can't quite leave behind his treachery. Dr Portugal we also met in Las Vegas, treating Savage Henry. So, both survived the nuking of Vegas and Redwire seems to have a connection with Scout. A lot of faithful readers picked up on a possible candidate, though it seemed a little unlikely; but, this was a world with an immortal, orbiting the Earth on a nuclear weapons platform, keeping the governments from any further nuclear strikes. This issue, even more than the first or the previous series, shows the connection with the Mad Max-style dystopian future. Things were bad in the first series; but, civilization wasn't in complete collapse. Now, the civil war has ravaged large parts of what remained and the system has broken down. Rosa has lost her soul and is waging war against dissent. Rule by Strength exists out in the desert lands. Scout and Max Rockatansky would get along quite well. By this point, Beyond Thunderdome had been released, after the huge US (and worldwide) success of The Road Warrior. Everyone was doing dystopian futures, from book series like The Survivalist, to comics, to other movies. Scout had elements in common with things like Red Dawn, the story of Geronimo and his rebellion, and Mad Max, with touches of Sergio Leone. Now, we are firmly in George Miller territory. We will get back to Redwire, after a bit, as he will be a looming presence and we will learn, definitively, who he is. We will also see Rosa again.
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Post by codystarbuck on Mar 14, 2021 22:50:41 GMT -5
Skywolf #2 You really don't want to know what is on the end of those spikes. Creative Team: Chuck Dixon-writer, Tom Lyle-pencils, Ricardo Villagran-inks, Mindy Eisman-letters, Olyoptics-colors, cat yronwode-editor Synopsis: When we left Sky and Jack and Baron Von Tundra, they had discovered the bandit fortress and the golden horses, just in time for a Viet Minh ambush. Now they are being swept away by a flood of water. The Viet Minh enter the cave and see the dead legionnaires and then get a surprise...  Jack, Sky and Von Tundra pop out of the water with an ambush of their own. It doesn't take long for Sky and Von Tundra to turn on each other; but, the VM quickly catch their attention with a grenade. Jack snatches it and throws it back and they return to the enemy at hand, as the battle their way out of the cave. Jack grabs a satchel charge and makes a hole in the VM's skirmish line and they make their escape through that direction, though another of the legionnaires goes down. Von Tundra, upon hearing the man scream when the VM find him alive, is worried that he will give away the secret of the gold to the communists. Jack and Sky think he is nuts, but he plans on returning to claim it, when the French are gone. They stop to look over maps and plan. It is too far to head back to their base, so the make course for a newer airfield, near the Laotian border; a place called Dien-Bien Phu. Sky agrees, but disarms Von Tundra as he doesn't trust him. They move out, with Von Tundra protesting, when Jack steps right into a punji stake trap, with Sky barely holding him above the spikes. Von Tundra picks up Sky's discarded Thomspon M-1...  He walks off and leaves Sky and Jack to their fate. Jack's weight is dragging Sky towards the edge of the whole, threatening to pull them both in. He yells to Jack to try and take some of his weight off and he pulls out his bayonet and jams it into the edge of the pit to use as a foothold. It does the trick and Sky is able to pull Jack high enough to hoist himself over the edge and out of the pit. The rest for a minute and decide what to do, as Jack dropped their remaining weapons in the pit. Sky says they need to move and they still have their sidearms. They can pick up a rifle from a dead man, if it comes to it. The move on, headed int he direction of Dien-Bien Phu, though without the maps. They stumble right onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail...  Sky figures they are headed for the base and decides to trail them. Sure enough, they eventually see the lights from the base, many of which are coming from the explosion of mortar rounds and artillery shells exploding. They ambush a mortar team and use the mortar to create confusion in the Viet Minh lines, to allow them to cross and get into the base. Inside the base, a legionnaire spots the explosions and then sees two men headed across the wire, with a crowd trailing after. He remarks to his comrades that one is wearing a mask...  Von Tundra says it is a trick and grabs a scoped rifle and takes aim at Skywolf's head, but his comrade knocks his arm aside yelling that they are white men. The French help with some artillery and Sky and Jack make it to a trench, though Jack gets clipped. They share some vinogel (canned wine concentrate, aka Red Tiger). They get acquainted with their new friends, who include a Belgian, a Swede, a Hungarian, an American (former AVG, from China) and one of them mentions a German that came through a little while back. Hearing this Sky asks if he had a metal arm, which gets an affirmative and Sky grabs a weapon and goes hunting. He finds Von Tundra in a bunker and takes aim, though Von Tundra says he will not kill in cold blood. They never find out as the Viet Minh step up their barrage and launch a full out assault on the sub-base. Everyone mans the defenses and tries to hold them off...  They have sappers through the wire and they reach Sky's position. Jack goes down and Sky is hit with a rifle butt and the enemy looms over him as the chapter ends. Thoughts: A few cliches in the plot here, as Von Tundra leaves Skywolf and Jack to die, once they escape the Viet Minh. That has been used in everything from The Rat Patrol to Dark of the Sun, which as I said last time, seems to have a lot of parallels to this. The attack at the end is historically correct, but the visuals and pacing seem to be taken from John Wayne's The Green Berets. The cliffhanger is old school war comics, particularly the 1950s comics about Korea, where the enemy is standing over a fallen soldier, ready to bayonet them. Not hard to predict how Skywolf will get out of it. At one point, Skywolf and Jack discuss Sky's failed marriage to Riot and Sky expresses a desire to find her, if they get out, but he also recognizes that she was unhappy and was the one who left before he could. He knows she wanted to fly, not have kids and be in suburbia; but, that wasn't an option opened to women, in the 1950s, in marriage. Sky comes to the conclusion that she is better off without him, as she would probably end up like his mother, abandoned by his father, in search of adventure. Dien-Bien Phu was a whole system of defenses, rather than one base. They had various satellite positions, with artillery and heavy weapons covering approaches to the airbase. The Viet Minh assaulted these positions in turn, pressing inward, before the base fell.  The Viet Minh started their assault (March 13, 1954) on the northern most sector, Beatrice, which had three strong points, forming a triangle, with the apex facing north. It was overwhelmed on the first day of the main attack, with the use of point blank firing by Viet Minh artillery, from camouflaged positions. Traditionally, artillery uses forward spotters to call in strikes, but the Viet Minh artillery men did their own spotting, at closer range, from they entrenched positions. It limited their ability to fire on a position, but, they were able to keep up a heavy rate of fire, while the French could not zero in on their positions for counter-battery fire. The Viet Minh then turned their sights on Gabrielle and stunned the Algerian battalion there with artillery fire, then a heavy infantry assault. A counter-attack was carried out, but using a parachute battalion that had jumped in the previous day and was physically exhausted. the rescue forces were caught by artillery fire and suffered heavy losses. ASt Ann Marie, Thai troops were in place, but a propaganda campaign and the stunning defeats at the other positions influenced the Thai soldiers to desert their positions in the night. The main fighting commenced as the VM attacked the Dominique and Eliane sectors Eliane housed the French command and the area saw the heaviest fighting. The Viet Minh assaulted the three strong points in Dominique sector and they fell one after another. Attempts to launch counter-attacks to retake some of the positions failed. Prior to the attacks on those sectors, there was about a 2 week lull in the fighting, which the Viet Minh used to further isolate the defenders and cut off the southern outpost, Isabelle. French morale was low and command was in a shambles. The French commander, Christian de Castries, had proven incapable of commanding a siege defense. He was a cavalryman and the base had been set up as a center of mobile warfare, which wasn't possible, in that terrain. The French didn't have enough air assets to keep the base well supplied. de Castries, with the failures at the satellite positions, retreated into his command bunker and did not come out to direct operations, and had no experience in trench fighting. In effect, he removed himself from command and satellite commanders had to compensate. The French general in charge of the region, Rene Cogny, tried to fly in to take command, but heavy artillery fire forced his aircraft to turn back. By April, the fighting had turned to trench warfare, as Gen Giap used more traditional siege tactics to move closer to the French, as artillery and airsupport had inflicted heavy, but not devastating losses. the French actually had some support from the US, with the loan of transport aircraft (flown by French crews) and B-26 bombers for close air support. The US sent in observation teams to assess the situation and pressed the British to make an Allied stand, supporting the French. The British refused and even parts of the US government weren't convinced to commit large scale aid. French resolve was collapsing and the leadership was failing, while they materially were unable to stem the tide. They had made failures in their intelligence, which suggested no real enemy buildup in the area when they set up the base and didn't believe the Viet Minh could establish artillery positions in the hills above the defenses, which they did. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was used to move large scale troop formations through the jungle, unseen from the air, just as they had with the Japanese and just as they would with the US, in the 1960s. Next time, the battle comes to a head, as do Skywolf and Von Tundra. Next: Strike vs Sgt Strike Special, as Chuck and Tom Lyle wrap up the dangling storyline and segue into Total Eclipse, where their story will be finished.
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