Reign of the Supermen #478: Devolved Superman

Source: Justice League of America vol.1 #114 (1974)
Type: Transformation (in an imaginary story)

Remember Anakronus? The Lord of Time's silent partner who, way back in Justice League of America #10 defeated the entire JLA more or less right after the comic ended? No? Neither has Snapper Carr who, three years after his falling out with the League (our time), finds his whole family taken hostage unless the JLA gives Anakronus the 10 million bucks their telethon has just netted (a JLA telethon?! Come back Monday for the details, there's a post in them there hills!). He goes on and on about defeating the Justice League and tells an involved story in which he uses his temporal powers to bring back/forward various warriors or evolve/devolve creatures to fight the heroes for him, and it all ends with the JLA - including Superman - devolved into NOTHINGNESS!!!!

Obviously they got better.

OR the truth may be that Anakronus is a nutjob in a Centurion outfit from a costume shop, wielding a blinged-up .45 automatic. At least, that's what it looks like when the Atom, Elongated Man and Red Tornado show up to save Snapper and his family. Which doesn't explain how Anakronus knew about the Lord of Time or why his gun makes sci-fi noises. I call shenanigans on Len Wein, and to no-win a no-prize, I'll say Anakronus' story is true, but the JLA prevented the timeline from occurring somehow, leaving the poor villain lost in time, his mind broken, with echoes of memories of what once went wrong.

Section for Snapper Carr haters: Instead of using his JLA signal device (he doesn't think of it), he calls the telethon and puts subtle emphasis on certain words to let Green Lantern know he was in trouble. Being subtle with Hal Jordan is a risk, I think you'll agree.

Doctor Who #550: Warriors' Gate Part 1

"It's a ship." "What, for midgets?" "Or a coffin for a very large man." (A prophetic quote, as it turns out.)

TECHNICAL SPECS: This story is available on DVD. First aired Jan.3 1981.

IN THIS ONE... The TARDIS and a human ship navigated by a lion-man's imagination get stuck at zero coordinates, in a vast whiteness.

REVIEW: I don't think we've had such a visually impressive story since The Leisure Hive shocked the show out of the 70s. There are hiccups here and there - the bit-mapped frozen coin comes to mind - but the handheld work walking around the split-level spaceship set, the leonine Beric running through the void with his own echoes on his trail, the cobwebbed castle right out of Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête, the wire-frame TARDIS in the navigator's eye... But all this eye-candy comes at a price. Appropriately for this program, that cost is TIME, and director Paul Joyce would never work on the show again. Overruns and all that. I don't think it's entirely his fault. There are LOT of video effects that must be catered to, and that just takes time. Not for the audience, of course - this looks to be another of those serials with chapters closer to 20 minutes than 25 - but the short running time is at least filled with interesting visuals and heady concepts.

Now, I'm all for rich and complex scripts. For example, I'm on record as a fan of Ghost Light. Warriors' Gate is one of those Doctor Who stories that invites literary analysis too, though I sometimes think it's overrated. What keeps it from really charming me is the underlying science. While I'm intrigued by the theme of randomization and the overt reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (the two grease monkeys commenting on the story happening over their heads and flipping coins), I have the niggling feeling that this is another Bidmead wet dream about mathematics. He's created E-Space where coordinates are negative, and now writer Steve Gallagher is asked to set a story at zero coordinates, an imaginary point where the two universes theoretically touch. Thankfully, Gallagher is literate enough to make this concept more poetic than scientific (though those TARDIS scenes tend towards technobabble), and the idea of "two sides of a coin" returns again and again - the two levels on the ship, Beric walking through a mirror, and his zen riddle about being from both the past and future.

One thing I've noticed since I started this pilgrimage is that the show used to told from the TARDISeers' point of view and over time moved that POV to the natives of the TARDIS' destinations. We used to discover worlds and times with the Doctor and his companions, but now spend a fair amount of time, especially in the first chapter of every serial, immersed in an alien world before the TARDIS ever arrives. The consequence is that we get tedious TARDIS scenes just so the heroes can appear early in the episode. By the time they disembark, there's only just time for a little skulking about before the cliffhanger happens. That happens here. There's a bit of discontinuity with the Doctor proposing to bring Adric to Gallifrey instead of returning him home as he intended at the end of the previous episode. K9 gets his with solar winds as he once again gets hammered by JNT edicts. And Romana prepares her departure from the program by saying she might part ways with the Doctor. Plus, what's the I Ching and some bla bla bla about time rifts. I've nothing against the "alien POV" structure per se, but they really need to integrate the regulars into it better.

THEORIES: A white void? Where have we seen that before? Ah yes. So is there a connection between the void at "zero coordinates" and the whiteness in the Land of Fiction's lobby? Both are outside the universe as we understand it, both snare the TARDIS, and both have strange physical properties that allow people to walk on, and breathe, nothing. In the middle of nowhere, there's a partly visible castle built by a race of lion-men - truly shades of Beauty and the Beast - one of which runs Through the Looking Glass to a pocket dimension/time track that looks (as we'll later find out) like pictures of gardens. Could this be a disused corner of the same pocket dimension where people can apply their imagination to affect reality, not part of the Land of Fiction exactly, but certainly woven of the same fabric? Maybe the white void has various realms in it. The Tharil Empire looks independent of the Land of Fiction, though there seems to be a certain amount of crossover if the literary references are anything to go by. Or might independent people in the void somehow affect creative types in real space, people like Cocteau, Carroll and Stoppard. The Land of Fiction could just be creative backwash.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - The regulars are ill-used, but the episode is otherwise gorgeous and richly textured.

My Kryptonian Glyph

Here's a neat thing they're doing to promote the Man of Steel movie. The Glyph Creator asks you a couple of questions and gives you one of 20 possible Kryptonian chest emblems, along with a family name and what it stands for, and what it would look like in a strange Kryptonian cursive that's really not like the font DC uses in its books. It's the DC movie-verse, what can I say?

Hope you get a cool-looking one!

Doctor Who #549: State of Decay Part 4

"You're on the menu. If it's a choice between that and joining the diners, I mean, there's no sense in two of us getting the chop."

TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Dec.13 1980.

IN THIS ONE... Just before Romana is sacrificed to the Great One, the Doctor plunges an entire spaceship into the heart of the great vampire.

REVIEW: The story of this planet is one of patience. The vampires have spent a thousand years as "servants" in order to become the masters of N-Space, while the peasants have waited just as long for their freedom. The difference between them is that the peasants are willing to wait even longer, so the Doctor must intervene and give them K9 as a general so they can at least storm the battlements. It's just a diversion, of course. The real battle is waged by the Doctor flying part of the Tower (it's made up of three scout ships) right into the Great One's heart, so the staging of this is a little iffy. The script's demands may have been too much for the production team. The giant hand coming through the ground works well enough, but the vampire puppet flapping its wings on X-ray makes little sense and doesn't seem to be presenting its heart where the rocket is to fall. Getting actors to hit dramatic marks is one thing, but the episode is hit and miss when it comes to setting up some of its effects. Even in the bit where the vampires desiccate, there's one make-up transition that's just a little bit too cartoony.

Now that he's awake again, Adric proves to be a problematic character. For one thing, what does he know exactly? He's never heard the expression "what goes up must come down", but talks as if he's heard folk tales about vampires. Does Alzarius really have vampire legends? But mostly - and this is an observation based on my knowing what's ahead, having grown up on the Adric stories - it's his bluff about choosing power over friendship that irks me. It's the first time he's offered power, but not the last, and if this time he's trying to trick the bad guys, it won't always be so (Four to Doomsday comes to mind best). To me, Adric will always be a traitor, the weak member of the team too easy to manipulate or too eager to go against the Doctor. And when I really think about it, this more than the stiff acting is my reason to dislike him so much. Here, he's not actually betraying Romana, but his plan is extremely foolish and turns out to be completely ineffectual. When at the end the Doctor says he's returning him to the Starliner, it gave me hope, false hope. Of course, I know it won't happen.

Sadly, the script isn't as witty as it was in the previous installments, but that often happens in Parts 4, as the action takes over from the dialog. If State of Decay has been a throwback to the "gods are really aliens" stories of the Pertwee era and the Hammer Horror stylings of the Holmes era, the use of K9 here takes us only back to the just-completed Williams era. He's a miniature tank (that, for once, we see navigate the TARDIS door), finds his way to the vampire throne, and gets a mercifully brief scene in which Ivo apologizes to him for not wanting to follow his lead. Baker also puts a little of himself into the finale, going by a bunch of extras and giving each of them a nod. Other actors provide the best moments, I'm afraid. Emrys James (Aukon) is delightfully evil when he tells the panicking guard who fears his men will all be killed, "Then die!", and while Romana has little to do once she's mesmerized, I've rarely seen someone sell that kind of catatonia so well. She looks like a wax doll!

VERSIONS: I'm not aware of any significant differences between the Target novelization and the televised episode.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The quality drops in the final act with poorly-executed effects and I find myself irked both by Adric's uselessness and K9's useFULness. That only makes this episode the weakest of four parts, not a BAD episode by any means.

STORY REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Terrence Dicks delivers the kind of script that would have fitted quite well in the Holmes era, and after a few middling plots, it's refreshing to hear the Doctor's wit and even poetry, and see a plot unfold where all the pieces matter and fit.

Dating Lois Lane - Don't You Hate It When She Tells You Her Dreams?

Hey, you're gonna wake up next to another person, you're gonna pay your dues.

And Lois has some of the strangest dreams ever.

Like she's been eating apples just before going to bed.

What? They're NOT dreams? They happened for realz? The pre-Crisis DC Universe was a strange place, yo!

Doctor Who #548: State of Decay Part 3

"Rassilon ordered the construction of bow ships. Ah. Swift vessels that fired a mighty bold of steel that transfixed the monsters through the heart. For only if his heart be utterly destroyed will a vampire die."

TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Dec.6 1980.

IN THIS ONE... The Doctor talks about the old vampires legends of Gallifrey. Romana tries to spring Adric from the vamps' inner sanctum.

REVIEW: Admittedly, not much actually happens in this episode. The Time Lords are captured and escape, the technophile rebels continue to plot their Lords' downfall, and Romana finds Adric and gets jumped by the King and Queen. But incident merely takes a back seat to revelation. At the core of Part 3 is a story from long ago, told to the Doctor by the hermit in the mountains the third Doctor sometimes spoke about (nice bit of continuity from Dicks), about a war between the Time Lords of Rassilon's time and ancient vampires. It's something the writers of extracanonical stories - the Virgin novels especially - made quite a meal of, but who can blame them? The imagery is epic. Giant vampires who could suck entire planets dry. Time Lord bow ships that launched a immense steel spikes into their hearts. And a lone King who fled our dimension to take refuge in E-Space. These revelations are padded out over a number of scenes and have the Doctor running for the TARDIS (how old are Type-40s that Rassilon references them, or didn't he write his "Record"?), then to a magnetic card filing system, not to mention the initial scene in which Romana keeps interrupting the story. And yet, the simple poetry of the tale, Baker's voice and some quick editing to moments of action, keep us interested.

The program can't show us any of this, but the words are enough to raise the stakes considerably. The three vampires the heroes have been dealing with are powerful enough to temporarily mesmerize a Time Lord and possessed of great strength, and yet they are only servants of the Great One whose heartbeat can be heard through the ground. Worse, the ancient vampire king will soon awaken (it's why they're recruiting new servants like Adric) and plans to return them to N-Space to feed. So much time has passes, even the Time Lords might not be able to stop him this time, especially since their war seems to be the reason they've lost their taste for violence (not that the Doctor doesn't indulge in a stray punch from time to time as he does here).

I've praised Uncle Terry a lot over the past three reviews, but director Peter Moffatt is doing a good job too. There are several bits of business that simply enhance scenes. For example, the ritualistic movements of the vampires, dead people going through the motions of a former life. Their attack on Romana and Adric is right out of a silent film, but works in that context. I also like in how it took all this time for the Time Lords to realize they had a new companion. Yes, there's padding, but the information we (and the Time Lords) learn is worthy of getting its own framing episode.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Dicks adds to Time Lord mythology considerably, without having us go to boring old Gallifrey.

Warehouse 13 Artifacts: Season 1

So I've been getting into Warehouse 13 these past couple weeks (yes, I know I'm late to the party) and am already up to the start of Season 3. I've started dreaming in terms of chasing down artifacts, so I really need to purge the imagery via the blog. How about a discussion on some favorite artifacts from each season?

Most Want

Dimensional Conversion Camera (Resonance)
A camera that temporarily turns people into cardboard cut-outs? What's not to like? It's a neat, harmless weapon (well, so long as someone doesn't put a match to your cut-out, I suppose) and I bet it takes good pictures too. I'd use it sparingly to get some peace and quiet from time to time. Oh, who am I kidding? If I'd use it for that, I'd be using it ALL THE TIME. I wonder who it belonged to and how it became an artifact?

Coolest But Way Too Dangerous

Lewis Carroll's Looking Glass (Resonance, Duped)
You look into it and your reflection is gifted with independent action. It can even play ping-pong against you! That's because your reflection is actually animated by a psychotic Alice Liddell, trapped for our own safety inside the mirror. You really don't want her to switch places with you. Unless you have to go to a ping-pong tournament. She's got mad skills. I bet she's good at croquet too.

Cleverest/Craziest

Personnel Quarters Archive (Burnout)
Inside the Warehouse is a huge mechanisms that can store and retrieve the bed&breakfast rooms of every agent that ever died or was otherwise "lost" on the job. The entire ROOM. You'd think this gimmick would only be good for a single, very specific case, but the show's used it several times, so I guess it's a good investment. How rooms are transferred from the B&B is a mystery and only adds to the craziness.

It's a Curse - Keep It Away From Me

Farnsworth (every episode)
I'm sure the two-way video phone with unhackable frequencies and an apparently unlimited power supply is very handy for Warehouse agents, but you're reading the words of a man who 1) never turns on his webcam, and 2) doesn't own a phone - neither land line or cel. Throw in an annoying buzz-ring and you've got a gadget I never want to see in my house. If I were an agent, I guess I'd want to carry the Tesla. No ifs and buts about it.

Throwaway Most Worthy of Its Own Episode

Training Flight 22 (Pilot)
An aircraft pulled from the Bermuda Triangle, and the Triangle has been trying to pull it back ever since. How about our agents discovering the truth of this unnatural phenomenon when they board the craft and get pulled to warm tropical waters? Sounds like a cool episode to me!

What are your choices from Season 1? Tell me about them while I start thinking about next week's Season 2 artifact selection!

Doctor Who #547: State of Decay Part 2

"There's nothing worse than a peasant with indigestion. Makes them quite rebellious."

TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Nov.29 1980.

IN THIS ONE... The Doctor and Romana meet the vampires and discover the Tower is actually a spaceship. Aukon makes Adric his "Chosen One".

REVIEW: It strikes me how much of a capable draftsman writer Terrance Dicks is, maybe because craftsmanship has been hard to come by in the past couple of seasons. Elements, once introduced, tend to pay off (like they should). For example, one of the rebels was once a guard, so he can sneak into the Tower to try and rescue the Time Lords. Dicks also doesn't rely on characters acting stupidly to move his plot forward, so the rebels actually debate and come to a compromise instead of some fool rogue plowing ahead with his plans no matter what. And most importantly, Dicks has thought his premise and its consequences through. The Lords of the Tower's names changed over the centuries through consonantal shift (educational!) and the Doctor can find his way inside the Tower because he's conversant with the type of ship. The pilot room has been left untouched because no one goes there or uses it, while the fuel tanks have been filled with blood to feed "the Great One". The vamps obviously plan to create of themselves, but they've bred the peasants to be sheep, with none of the qualities needed to become "Lords", so cocky Adric looks like a good prospect.  This world MAKES SENSE.

Its characters do too. The village headman can't bear to hear his wife talk about their son Karl, and she just won't shut up about him. All completely natural, and you almost wish their Karl really was inducted in the Tower guard instead of winding up among those bloodless husks down in the bowels of the ship. The technophile rebels are reasonable. The head guard is quick to offer excuses. Lord Aukon springs a surprise "selection" at the inn in case the previous day's planned visit was staged to only offer the dregs of the village (from the extras lined up, I could believe me - me, I'd probably avoid the inn like the Wasting). The vampires have the somewhat clichéed moment where a character cuts themselves and they show a little bloodlust, but it's nice to see they're not the same person written twice over. The Queen is obviously smarter than her husband, though she perhaps has less self-control, and the King lets slip the vital clue about the "ship of state" (he hasn't lost his old vocabulary).

As in Part 1, the leads get to be witty and though Lalla Ward tends to look bored in isolated moments (working AND living with Baker can be straining), their chemistry still provides fun moments reminiscent of their relationship in City of Death (which I'd call their high point). Baker gets to use his story telling skills and that marvelous voice of his to give some creep factor to his musings on the universality of vampire legends. The beating of a hideously large heart certainly helps give the subsequent scenes atmosphere. Adric... Adric is mostly used as an exposition receptor, and his insolence isn't particularly entertaining compared to the Doctor's, but he's got a good entranced scene where the vamps swing a knife close to his eyes and he doesn't react. This is an serial that doesn't mind going dark, but never crosses the line into needless, shocking violence.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Maybe I'm starved for competence - I do require all stories to feature worlds that are well thought-out and characters with proper motivations - but State of Decay is more than competent. It's got a strong script AND effective execution.

Kung Fu Friday Moments: The KarateKid-a-Thon

Last Saturday, we spent some 10 hours watching all 5 Karate Kid movies. I decided to live-tweet the event and since it makes for a cheap and easy post, let me reprint those tweets here (plus any guest comments from the Twitterverse).

Preambles
Karate Kid-a-thon starts at 1h. Probably some mild live tweeting. Call me Siskoid-San.
@yvesdoucet: @Siskoid Surely, you will wax-on/wax-off poetic about the films? #désolé
@Stonger4: The KKpt.1 scene of Mr. Miyagi jumping the fence and kicking the shit out of the brats?Watched it overN'over at least 200X as a kid

Karate Kid is all about brunettes vs. blonds. Daniel-San shouldn't have gone after their women #KarateKid
@yvesdoucet: "This school sucks, man. Sucks."
#KarateKid Nothing like moving across a whole continent to get a waitress job.
#KarateKid So are they going to address Mr. Miyagi's drinking problem, or is this just 1984?
#KarateKid Of course Daniel-San was going to pick that car. You never forget your first wax job. #cough
#KarateKid Elisabeth Shue's entire arc is about driving other people's cars.
#KarateKid Ah good, Elisabeth Shue knows how tournaments works. See girls? It pays to listen to your boy talk about his boring interests
#KarateKid So did Elisabeth Shue's parents get a divorce? (Maybe I'm invested in the wrong stuff.)
#KarateKid 2 is next!

@NathGoguen Honor has no time limit #KarateKid2 #SumsUpMostKungFu
#KarateKid2 SWEEP THE LEG RECAP!
#KarateKid2 Zamphir is gonna be all up in this bitch, isn't it?
#KarateKid2 We're off to Okinawa to meet MIYAGI'S bully. Because they're everywhere. That's the franchise's life lesson.
#KarateKid2 So you think you can dance? Daniel-San must be the least graceful martial artist on the books.
#KarateKid2 Look at the matte painting! That's where we used to dance! Until Sato ruined it! Like he ruined everything! #grrr
#KarateKid2 That's what I call breaking the ice. Gee, EVERYONE is in that "bad place" bar.
#KarateKid2 These movies have a real 50s fixation. Vintage cars for everyone. Now a dance playing the the song the McFlys fell in love to.
#KarateKid2 Lesson: Don't walk around with all your tuition money in your back pocket.
#KarateKid2 So are they gonna reveal that Daniel-San just got unwittingly married in that tea ceremony? #CamecaForever
#KarateKid2 They kissed and the gods are immediately angry. #Hurricane
#KarateKid2 Miyagi stands in the middle of a hurricane saving his archenemy. Dude screams "YOU COWARD!!!" English isn't his first language.
#KarateKid2 Okinawa culture commercial yes. Karate... not so much.
#KarateKid2 They made a big deal about the drum technique, and then the drum just becomes rhythmic juicing at the end.

#KarateKid3 No one ever remembers what happens in this one.
@Stonger4: Someone will break a bonsai tree and there will be a big cliff. Apart from that, I agree.
#KarateKid3 This franchise just LOVES to write its characters out in the most obvious way.
#KarateKid3 We're sending you to TAHITI! She got a job in TOKYO! Hi Mom, you take care of uncle Louie's emphysema! #WrittenOut
#KarateKid3 vs. over the top karate mobster who wants to untrain him to revenge his old Vietnam captain...
#KarateKid3 Daniel-San, going from rebound to rebound. Teenagers.
#KarateKid3 So now the returning champion need only play the final bout. Most participants... WRITTEN OUT
#KarateKid3 Ninja in the chimney!
#KarateKid3 Gee, it's a good thing the one girl he meets knows how to mountain-climb.
#KarateKid3 "Why am I so STUPID!?" We've been asking the same question, Daniel-San.
#KarateKid3 Making stupid mistakes and non-stop monologuing is all part of puberty.
#KarateKid3 QuickSilva rule no 4... if a man doesn't have a spine, he can't fight.
#KarateKid3 I think the script just told Ralph Macchio to ramble.
#KarateKid3 Glad for the final tournament. Daniel-San has to stop talking during.

#NextKarateKid begins... The credits already look like they're from a TV movie...
@Stonger4: Oooooh! Isn't that the one with the Akerley look-alike? #boysdontcry #insidejoke #NextKarateKid
That's the one. And she's a delinquent orphan who breaks into her school to practice falconry. #NextKarateKid
#NextKarateKid AND talk to herself a lot. She is Daniel-San's true inheritor.
#NextKarateKid What are these school Nazis, the "Alpha League"? Do U.S. schools regularly have security forces like this?
#NextKarateKid The students look old enough to be teachers. #90210fail
#NextKarateKid Babysitting montage!!! #ohlord
#NextKarateKid Why is everyone so rapey in this movie? Just because the Kid is a girl doesn't make it justifiable.
#NextKarateKid Buddhist monks in the Boston hills!
@Mike_Zeidler: There's a number* of Buddhist temples/monasteries in the foothills of Boston. *That number being two
With actual Japanese monks? That's incredible. Still seems surreal.
@Mike_Zeidler: I believe they're Tibetan. I was shocked by how Zen-friendly the entire Boston area is.
@Mike_Zeidler: In fact, I believe the Boston area has the only Shinto shrine in NA.
@NathGoguen: Never trust a spiritual leader that can't dance #NextKarateKid #Wisdom
#NextKarateKid Birthday at Buddhist temple...turns into a William Tell demonstration FAST
#NextKarateKid I sure hope the hawk comes back in the final reel to gouge the bad guys' eyes out. #KindaThinkItWillHappen
#NextKarateKid Miyagi cutting up a phallic food in front of Julie-San's prom date
#NextKarateKid Buddhist Bowling! (Another strange subplot)
#NextKarateKid Bungee bomb the prom!!!
#NextKarateKid I guess Boston is a lawless anarchy.

#KungFuKid What the 2010 #KarateKid should really be called. Bring it on!
#KungFuKid This is so beat-for-beat the original, I'm not sure they should have handed out screenwriter credits
#KungFuKid I'm not sure the romance subplots are appropriate for a 12-year-old lead, EVEN IF his dad is Will Smith
#KungFuKid It's the marathon fatigue talking, but I could do without the travelogue for Beijing
#KungFuKid At least the training regimen is different
#KungFuKid We're done! Sadly, it has to end on a Justin Bieber song.
@JadedSkeptic: Well I'm sure we can live with that in one film. Now if the world ends on a Justin Bieber song...

Aftermath (DVD extras)
#KarateKid The studio wanted Toshiro Mifune as Mr. Miyagi!
@MartyLight: Oh wow. That would of been awesome.
Scratches beard... "WAX ON WAX OFF!!" "But Mr. Miyagiiiii" Blood spurt.
@JoshFialkov: GUYS! The Karate kid cartoon is on Netflix! Also - there was a Karate Kid cartoon!

Thanks to all my KFFFriends for some of the material above; I stole liberally from the room. And please, take this as an invitation to share your memories of the Karate Kid franchise!

Doctor Who #546: State of Decay Part 1

"Oh, knowing's easy. Everyone does that ad nauseam. I just sort of hope."

TECHNICAL SPECS: This story is available on DVD. First aired Nov.22 1980.

IN THIS ONE... Adric stows away to a medieval planet ruled by vampires.

REVIEW: Bringing back an old Doctor Who writer does wonders for the show, it really does. Terrance Dicks not only gives us the kind of Gothic story the show was famous for in the mid-70s (thanks to Holmes, but he did his part with Horror of Fang Rock - in fact, State of Decay is what he had originally pitched for that slot), but the Time Lords, and even Adric, are allowed to be witty again. With a better script, the visuals don't have to do all the work, though they're quite effective too, give or take a fake beard or two. The planet of the vampires looks wet and dreary, the vampires have the look of old playing cards, and Aukon's control of bats is introduced without needless exposition, with a simple juxtaposition of images. Even Romana's costume is on point, looking for all the world like she's part of the Van Helsing family.

The theme of leaders lying to their people has been going on all season and continues here. The vampiric Lords are apparently repressing all knowledge and been cherry-picking people from a rather limited pool to "serve" them (like to be "served TO" them), and have spawned a literally underground resistance of technophiles. We also discover these are humans descended from an Earth ship that crashed long ago, while the Lords actually ARE long-lived members of that crew. Is it possible the Starliner from the previous serial was also from Earth (Terradon could be a deformation)? All human-types in E-Space could in fact come from ships who got lost in a CVE. Whatever the case may be, the scene is set. We have cruel Lords with a fearsome power, a rebel force in over its head but willing to receive the heroes help, and a crop of innocent victims, poor villagers kept in the dark ages, terrorized but with strong family values. The latter can be seen in the headman's wife who gives Adric shelter even after he tries to steal food from their inn. She's just lost a son to the Lords' appetites and is quick to generously take in another.

I remember this story as Adric's best. Ironically, it's his first in production order, so it's all downhill from there. Perhaps it's because he's closest to his initial "artful dodger" concept, a bit of rogue who fast-talks his way around K9's logic and the headman's interrogation. He's a little bit cocky, but his banter is kind of fun. It makes me believe he should have been a proper Outler in his first aired episode, instead of an "elite" at odds with them. I hate him as a math whiz, and here enjoy him as a rogue.  Alas... Of course, his stowing away is played as a surprise, and the Time Lords don't even know he followed them to this new world. Boy are they going to be surprised. Me, I'm surprised Adric asks for cheese. Just what did they milk on Alzarius?

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - Dicks shows the new guys how it's done in this smart and Gothic throwback to an earlier era.

Teen Sidekicks

Robin, Bucky, Sandy, Kid-Flash, Dan the Dyna-Mite, Toro, Aqualad, Kid Devil, Speedy, Captain Marvel Jr., Squire, Wonder Girl (ish)... We've been talking about superhero derivatives lately and the very earliest is the boy/teen sidekick (specifically, Robin the Boy Wonder). It seems like a quaint idea today, and often gets wrapped up in the issue of child endangerment, but back in the Golden Age of comics, this was a watershed event. The idea at the time - and it seems to have worked - was to give young readers someone to identify with. Batman had adult problems and responsibilities (well, as much as any millionaire playboy might, so let's call it an adult "outlook"), but Robin was someone you might BE, not someone you could only LOOK UP TO. This was an extremely popular idea, and led in Robin's case to his starring in his very own solo feature (in Star-Spangled Comics). Other sidekicks started popping up as heroes became intent on sharing their adventures with someone.

At its purest, the teen sidekick is a simple derivation of the lead character's core concept. Robin wasn't Batboy or Batty or anything like that, but he was given another flying creature's name, was also an orphan, and shared Batman's abilities and utility belt. The difference was that in making him younger, his creators Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson gave him a more youthful outlook. He was a more positive version of Batman, a creature of the day, not of the night. And indeed, his presence lightened Batman's adventures right up. Unlike Robin, most teenage sidekicks wear a costume substantially similar to their father/mother figure, and are born of the same question as other derivations: What would the hero be like if he/she were young/the opposite sex/an animal?

Once you have a formula, it's time to introduce twist. The Star-Spangled Kid, for example, was teen with an adult sidekick, Stripesy. Superboy was a teen version of Superman, but not a sidekick, just retroactively introduced adventures of Superman at an earlier age. Wonder Girl was the same until she was repurposed as a separate character in Teen Titans. I would be remiss if I didn't also talk about adult sidekicks who, for some reason, are often from minority groups. Kato is probably the prototype, though Tonto precedes him by a few years, but the idea of giving a lead white hero a minority sidekick was reproduced several times - Wing, Stuff the Chinatown Kid, the Falcon, even Rhodey (the way he's used today). Their status as sidekicks means they are perceived as secondary to the white lead, and through the history of the sidekick archetype, made equivalent to immature teenagers or children. A better name for them would be Partners, but unless they share the billing (which the Falcon did, at one point), it's hard to see them as equals.

But is the adult "partner" the future of sidekickery? Are we too cynical and p.c. to accept teenage sidekicks anymore? Have comics moved away from children's escapism and into a faux-realism where violence is too real for underage characters to be put at risk? These are questions readers and writers are struggling with today. What do you think?

Doctor Who #545: Full Circle Part 4

"We're all basically primeval slime with ideas above its station."

TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Nov.15 1980.

IN THIS ONE... The Alzarians are revealed to be the Marshmen's descendants and the ship leaves after oxygenating the monsters out.

REVIEW: This is rather like The Mutants, isn't it? A planet where evolution is proceeding in strange and improbable ways, where the monsters are really another form of the native "humans". It's not entirely clear WHAT the evolutionary set-up is, truthfully. When the cells from the spiders, Marshmen and Alzarians are shown to be "the same", it sounds like they're trying to say these are different stages of the same organism's life cycle. But what's actually on screen is merely the more reasonable revelation that the Alzarians are native to the planet and not transplanted "Terradonians". The dialog is either too technical (from the Time Lords) or too simple (from his Outler assistants) to make that clear. And with Romana acting like a bored cat, swatting at the air as if she was turning into a marsh creature, and the big to-do about Adric's cellular regeneration abilities, it really does seem like a story about a metamorphosing species. Instead - and again, I think this is a more believable story, or else the Deciders wouldn't have stuff about the Marshmen in their books - what we see is two strands of evolution side by side, sort of like where Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons shared the planet. The Marshmen, primeval cousins of the Alzarians, just come out when the planet cools down is all. It's a strong SF premise, but the dialog doesn't quite bring put it across.

The idea that the Starliner crashing and creating a whole culture, mythology and science, indeed an entire re-writing of a people's identity is a good one, and (inadvertently?) mirrored in the Doctor's use of K9's head as a mask to strike fear into the Marshmen who were previously using it as an axe head. It's a neat image and recalls the cargo cults of the Pacific. With his two companions having lost their heads, it's good to see the Doctor  do something interesting. This season, the show's often been content with providing eye candy as opposed to well thought-through plots and witty dialog. In this case, plenty of extras on both sides when the Marshmen make their move. Unfortunate that in the climax, the Deciders' debates are boring and rather pathetic. Maybe they should be called Procrastinators instead. In Login, they seem to have elected the first Decider with any kind of active leadership in generations, and finally the ship takes off, leaving the Marshmen to their own devices.

So what about Adric? Interestingly, he doesn't join the crew at the end of the episode. It's left as a surprise for the next. He leaves a gift, a spare part from the Starliner that is exactly like the frizzed-out part from the TARDIS. It's a ludicrous coincidence, of course, that a ship from Terradon in E-Space would be exactly the same as one manufactured on Gallifrey. Or does the TARDIS' innards have a translation circuit of their own? They do seem to change over time... Though he still doesn't know what to do with himself when he's on camera, Adric isn't quite the character fans will come to hate. I wouldn't call his brother's death touching exactly (it's savage and harrowing though), but there's something to Adric inheriting his rope belt, I suppose. But as the episode leaves it, he was just a guest player and an okay one. Had they left well enough alone... but State of Decay was produced first, so...

THEORIES: So what the heck is E-Space? It's not a parallel dimension like the one in Inferno. It's smaller than our own universe (N-Space), apparently, and its green tinge might mean physical laws are different there (though it's hard to say; Full Circle's science isn't any wonkier than Leisure Hive's or Nightmare of Eden's, for example). Not parallel, but when you superimpose N-Space's absolute coordinates on E-Space's, you do get planets in the same spaces. Alzarius is right on top of Gallifrey, so should we see a connection between Time Lord regeneration and Alzarian quick healing and super-evolution? The ship, apparently crewed by humans, came from Terradon, not a far cry from our own Terra, i.e. Earth. Are those parallels, or extreme coincidences? And what should we make of Exo-Space having negative coordinates? It's obviously not an anti-matter universe like Omega's realm. Is it some kind of under-universe, sitting on the reverse side of space-time? The way I see it is as a reflective pond on space-time, not quite covering the whole of it. Some objects (planets and stars) are reflected in the pond, though there's a certain distortion. And apparently, you can't dive in at any point you'd like. The question as to why a move to E-Space was necessary beyond giving Romana an exit strategy that didn't involve her returning to Gallifrey, and the only thing I can come up with is that Bidmead read some fool article on imaginary numbers and plugging negative coordinates into physics equations. They still make something of it in the next two stories, but it need not have been so convoluted. Alien planets and starships are the same in any universe.

VERSIONS: The Target novelization includes a prologue in which the Starliner crashes, and more detail on the evolutionary link between riverfruit, spiders, Marshmen and Alzarians. Most characters are given a second name, there are more Outlers (to kill off), and Garif and Keara are wimpier than on television.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - Though the explanations are a bit of a muddle and zombie cat isn't the best use of Romana, the episode looks quite good, the inferred explanations are sound, and Adric isn't seen to join the regular cast.

STORY REWATCHABILITY: Medium - A great location and a strong SF concept - and of course, the all-important introduction of a new companion - hampered by short running times, poorly thought-through ideas, and confusing scientific rationales. It's perfectly okay, but it could have been much better than that with an extra draft or two.

This Week in Geek (13-19/05/13)

Buys

Ok, after a couple weeks of frugal existence, I got loads of stuff this week, mostly DVDs. There's the UK version of House of Cards, Three Days of Hamlet, Disciples of Shaolin, Pina, Tai Chi Zero, Doctor Who's The Visitation Special Edition, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Detachment (see below for these last two), the complete K9 series from Australia, and Warehouse 13 Season 3. Books too: I'm well into A Feast for Crows, the fourth volume of The Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones to some of you), so I got vol. 5, A Dance with Dragons. Annnnnnd Cubicle 7's print version of the First Doctor Sourcebook arrived in the mail. It's awwwwesommmme!

"Accomplishments"

DVDs: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is Shane Black's directorial debut, and after Iron Man 3, I was curious to see his first pairing with Robert Downey Jr. The result is a film noir comedy that gets amusingly meta about the genre's narration, and pleasantly surprises with its character choices. The Hollywood setting made the idea of characters knowing they're in a film justifiable, and the story came off as something that might take place in the Elmore Leonard universe. Val Kilmer's Gay Perry steals the show, and is probably the most memorable character Kilmer has played since Doc Holliday in Tombstone. And I've loved Michelle Monaghan since I saw her in Source Code, and would definitely like to see her in more films (not romcoms, please). I did find the casual nudity on the exploitative side, but I've otherwise got no complaints. The DVD includes an amusing commentary track with Black, Downey Jr. and Kilmer, and a gag reel.

Detachment tells the story of a long-term substitute teacher who spends a month in a school with more than its fair share of problem kids. But this isn't Dangerous Minds. The kids won't be saved by discovering dance or something. No, this is the opposite picture. There's a bleakness to Detachment that's rather poignant, and you'll only find hope in small, fleeting, even ambiguous moments. Though sometimes openly "art house", most of the film is in a "cinema vérité" style that's only broken by the fact we can pretty much recognize the school's entire staff - Andrien Brody (amazing performance), Christina Hendricks, James Caan, Lucy Liu, etc. - not that I'd get rid of any of them. The kids aren't just unknowns, they're somehow unknowable. Detachment is told from the teachers' perspective, and addresses the educational system's many problems. I have a number of friends who are high school teachers, and though Detachment seemingly presents an extreme, these problems have come up in conversation. No easy answers in this, and I'm not even sure I agree with its representation of the modern classroom, but I think what it does best is open these questions up for debate. I recommend this film to any teacher OR parent without any reserve. I think it should be part of the conversation many of our countries should have about education. The DVD has no extras, so the film must stand alone and its questions remain open.

Though I'd seen the pilot and the Eureka crossover episodes, I finally sat down to watch the whole of Warehouse 13 this week. I don't know why I waited so long. After all, the year before it premiered, I was running a GURPS campaign with almost exactly the same set-up (though the Warehouse number was 23), and Joanne Kelly was someone I was tapped into since she appeared in the superlative Slings & Arrows. Perhaps the premise reminded me too much of the old Friday the 13th TV series, and I feared the show would quickly become formulaic, with its artifact of the week, and all that. I shouldn't have worried. Like its cousin Eureka, the writers change things up a lot, introduce a recurring villain, delve into the characters' back stories, and lay in several mysteries over the course of Season 1's 12 episodes. And like Eureka, they thread the line between comedy, drama, and genre quite effectively. I'm sorry if I have Eureka on my mind, by the way, but W13 sort of asked for it by featuring three Eureka actors in two back-to-back episodes at one point, two of them in the same kind of relationship as on the other show, so much so I thought that's who they were. I love the winks at the fanboys as much as anyone, but that was a little distracting. Nice DVD package overall, with a fun cast and crew commentary track on several episodes, lots of deleted scenes, a gag reel, and a making of bolstered by plenty of thematic featurettes. Like the show, these are almost universally tongue-in-cheek, like Saul Rubinek answering his cast mate's questions over a Farnsworth.

This Saturday, we watched every single Karate Kid movie, back-to-back (oh those Kung Fu Friday special events!). The first four came in a boxed set, starting, of course, with the classic original. And it IS a classic, iconic even. I'm not even sure what to say about it because everyone reading this is likely to have seen it. It still works. Part 2 isn't quite as good. I respect the idea of returning to Okinawa and exploring Mr. Miyagi's origins, but the character's resistance to fighting translates into a film without a lot of karate. The kinds of lessons Miyagi was teaching in Part 1 are there, but don't pay off as well. Part 2 also starts the franchise's tradition of writing out unneeded characters in an off-hand way, and of course, shows there are bullies everywhere you go. Increasingly motiveless bullies. Part 3 returns to California and takes it to ridiculous extremes. The villain comes out of nowhere to revenge Part 1's baddie, and is over-the-top evil. Why is this karate-chopping millionaire taking time out of his toxic-spilling schedule to ruin the life of a 17-year-old? By this point - and this may be the effect of watching them in one go - Daniel-San's tics have become annoying. He's always been prone to talking to himself and rambling, but what was once naturalism is now exposition-filled, incessant monologuing. So is Part 3 the least of the series? It may be. It's certainly the least memorable. The Next Karate Kid could also make a claim to that title. Daniel himself is written out as Mr. Miyagi does some babysitting for a friend in Boston, teaching her orphaned delinquent relative to face her problems head on. Hilary Swank is actually effective in the role and a much better fighter than Macchio ever was. There's also some sitcommy fun in seeing Miyagi try to raise a difficult teenage girl. Unfortunately, the plot is ABSURD! And in a way, it's why I'm giving this one a better review than Part 3. At one point, the absurdity got too much and I was in stitches! Examples: A Buddhist monastery in the Boston foot hills, zen Bouddhist bowling, bungee bombing the prom (that's the one that got me), and the whole karate security force in the school (where NO ONE looks like a high school student) run by a motivelessly evil Michael Ironside. It isn't a good film, but taken as a spoof, it's actually fun. The set's DVD extras are, not surprisingly, on the first disc. The writer, director and lead have some fun on the commentary track, and the retrospective making of lasts a good hour and goes from concept to result, and includes a featurette on bonsai trees with a true-life artist. Part 2 features a short vintage featurette, more marketing than insight. Part 3 and Next can't even be counted on to have their own trailers in their bonus trailers.

The 2010 Karate Kid, which should really be called The Kung Fu Kid, stars Jaden Smith as the Kid and Jackie Chan as Mr. Han, the Miyagi figure. While the fighting is much better than in the original franchise, and Han's back story more tragic, it's way too attached to the original's story beats. There's usually a twist (and the training is completely different), but sometimes, it's repeating the first film line for line. In other words, it's perfectly acceptable for audiences that have never seen the original, but a bad case of déjà vu for everyone else. One of the themes of the original was an American corruption of martial arts' true message, which I'm not sure translates to the Beijing location (the State's corruption of same?). The trip to China also means we spend some time in travelogue mode, tedious to someone who's seen as many Chinese movies as I have. It's pretty padding though. The Kid being 12 years old instead of a teenager creates a few problems for me too. It's sweeter, but the romance comes off as a Mini-Pops version of the original's, and the injuries Dre sustains means his mother really should have interceded and not let him fight in the final. Both Kids' moms are pretty permissive, but the sassy new model comes off as negligent. So some great action, and a good mix of comedy and touching drama, but in no way does it dethrone the original, which remains the most iconic and relevant. The DVD includes a 20-minute making of, some Mandarin lessons, and a Justin Bieber video (I hope that sold DVDs, guys...).

Audio: Nigel Robinson's The Emperor of Eternity was written for someone exactly like me - a fan of both Doctor Who and Chinese historical films - and perhaps that's why I was so disappointed with it. The biggest problem for me is Deborah Watling's narration. She is likely my least favorite Companion Chronicle star. Her voice has changed too much since the 60s, and even her Victoria is unrecognizable, never mind when she's speaking as the second Doctor or other guest characters. Frazer Hines reads Jamie's lines, but doesn't share the narration, so he sounds slightly disconnected from the rest of the audio play (did he record his lines separately?). The plot, focused on courtly shenanigans in historical China, complete with terracotta soldiers and the quest for immortality, required a clear story teller to overcome the normal problems audiences have distinguishing between characters with difficult-to-remember names (and Chinese names definitely count), and that's not what we get with Watling. Interesting period in history and a good final act, but a bit confused in the beginning and middle.

RPGs: Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. The Shepherd Season 2 episode 3: Babel

This week's session started out as a comedy interlude, but went surprisingly dark at the end. The plot followed a couple of suggestions in the First Doctor sourcebook about TARDIS malfunctions (because no one wants to do the confusing Edge of Destruction as written). Companion Corey gets into the TARDIS pool and causes a leak when he freaks out the space manatee family (my invention) sheltered there by the Shepherd. This leak of infinite water gets into the TARDIS systems and starts flooding the control room, and causes a problem with the telepathic circuits and translation matrix. As soon as the trouble starts, I forced my players to speak only in "exquisite corpses" from a bowl of words on the table. In the end, the TARDIS accidentally flies to a point from before the Big Bang and it's the TARDIS venting water that acts as the "last drop" that makes it explode. The short trip to the United States of Lizardia (the Big Bang acts as an access to various time tracks) is the last straw for Corey who immediately breaks up with the Time Lord character and asks to be brought home in Renaissance Italy. Listless, he doesn't even push back when Machiavelli shows up to ruin his life. Player hasn't quite the game, it was all in character, though I can tell it was informed by his tiredness from having spent the weekend at an improv tournament. But I also admit my error in crafting a TARDIS-bound scenario. For a character who's best described as the "interactor" of the team, it didn't give him much to do. No NPCs, and besides, an obstacle to communication, which was his strength and function. I saw it happening, and the frustration mounting, but didn't figure out how to write myself out of it at that point. Fixing it for the next game... in which I also introduce someone to role-playing! That's exciting.

Hyperion to a Satyr posts this week:
Other Hamlets: Kill Shakespeare

Your Daily Splash Page this week features a splash from every DC title, alphabetically, from Justice League International to Justice League Quarterly.

Doctor Who #544: Full Circle Part 3

"These short trips don't usually work. And the chances of reversing a short trip are even more remote. Still, here's hopping."

TECHNICAL SPECS: First aired Nov.8 1980.

IN THIS ONE... Romana falls under the spell of the Marshmen and lets them into the Starliner. The Doctor is angered by the near-vivisection of the baby Marshman.

REVIEW: There's a long reprise that features the Top 2 most bonehead moves of the previous episode, in case you missed them, which leaves 18 minutes of new material, kids. TARDIS inconsistencies continue to build, as the Doctor makes some straw about short hops in space being very difficult, yet it's done three times over the course of the episode. I think it's far more likely that Romana is behind the TARDIS' increased accuracy since she came on board. She calculated these particular coordinates, after all. He won't have her in the crew for long though. I can't help but see this episode as foreshadowing. Possessed by a spider bite that bonds her to the Marshmen (and gives her that Cyberman veiny infection make-up from The Moonbase), she smashes up her room and lets Adric play companion. It's a passive-aggressive way to tell us she's leaving. There's even a sad passing of the torch when Adric fingers her crushed hat from Shada... which might have meant something to the audience at the time had the story actually aired. Good move, Einsteins.

Otherwise, the story is getting better, in no small part because of the renewed focus on the Starliner crew. They attract the Doctor's righteous anger when they try to vivisect the hapless Marshbaby, giving Tom Baker the first strong dramatic scene he's had to play in a while. The baby's violent fit saves its life, but also drives Romana to open the gates to its brethren. The vivisectionist is generally well-meaning though amoral, but you can feel the anxiety coming off the Deciders who let him go ahead with his plans. These aren't villains, just people trying to do their best for their community. Of course, their best isn't very imaginative, and it takes the Doctor to really rattle their cages and dare expose their secrets. We don't learn the entire truth here, not yet, but the accusation of willful procrastination that has kept their society idling for generations is a fair one. They've been maintaining a ship, but haven't told the citizens they can't pilot the craft. In other hands (say Holmes or Adams), this would take a satirical bent. Even the Outlers put to work on the ship doing drone work walk around in a pack of six, which could be a condemnation of the unions. But while there's irony in the Alzarians' situation, there's no sense that it's meant to reflect 1980 Earth. I think it's because the script is by and large humorless, so our brains are never switched to that mode of understanding.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium - The revelations are good ones and the Doctor's scene with the Deciders is excellent, but the story's potential for satire is wasted.

Reign of the Supermen #477: Post Punk Superman

Source: Butcher Billy’s post-punk Justice League (2013)
Type: Fan-made Amalgam

Brazilian mash-up sensation Butcher Biller does the Justice League as post-punk/New Wave music artists at the link above. Superman is The Smiths' Morrissey for some reason. Guess he's going by looks.

DISCOGRAPHY!
"All You Need Is Me, Metropolis"
"Now My Heart Is Full (of Kryptonite)" (song for Metallo)
"We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful" (off the album World's Finest)
"Girlfriend in a Coma" (Lois in the New52)
"Wonderful Woman" (ditto)
"How Soon Is Now (and If I Spin the Earth Faster, Is It Sooner?)"
"Half A Person" (song for Composite-Superman)
"I Keep Mine Hidden" (off the album Secret Identity)
"Satan Rejected My Soul"
"In the Future When All's Well" (for the Legion)
"Doomsday Is Squeezing My Skull"/"You Have Killed Me" medley
"Vicar In a Tutu"