Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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What on Earth were they putting in Hollywood's water in June of 1982? It's not unreasonable to expect a thirty-day period to produce the release of one memorable movie but, that month, it must have been hard to know which auditorium to choose upon entering your local cinema. It was, it turns out, the month that saw the unleashing of Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Firefox, Blade Runner and The Thing.
It also saw the release of Grease 2 and Hanky Panky but they were, possibly, not quite as memorable, even though I remember one of them.
I'm sure I'd remember Hanky Panky too, if I'd ever seen it but I haven't seen it and I suspect I never will.
Well, this is an interesting one. It would appear to be a retelling of the Fantastic Four's first encounter with Rama-Tut - but told through the eyes of Doctor Strange.
Norrin Radd's first series failed to catch light. Will his second fare any better?
The good news is the FF help him break through Galactus' Space Barrier, ending his exile on Earth and opening up a whole universe of possibilities for story-telling.
It would also seem to feature him being deserted by Clea.
Dramatic stuff indeed.
The bad news is that, at the end of the issue, our hero's trapped on Earth again, thus closing the route to a whole universe of story-telling possibilities.
I suspect the answer to the second question is his armour would have run out of power and that would have been the end of him.
I don't have a clue what happens in it but I'm sure it's full of action, man.
Are these the people who turned up in that issue of Captain America, a few months back? The one in which they all found themselves in a town filled with the Mad Thinker's robots?
I'm not sure anyone really cares about the fate of the Collector. So, I'm sure the fate of the human race is at stake, as well.
What's this? GI Joe doesn't just get a Treasury Edition, this month. He also gets the launch of his own monthly title? One with exactly the same cover as the other book?
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24 comments:
Loved that run on Dr.Strange,great stories and great artwork.What-if was very hit and miss for me but I bought every issue.The Silver Surferissue was non distributed in the UK(I think) but was a real treat as Stan Lee had formerly requested that no-one except himself could use the character,clearing the way for the solo series in 1987!Gi Joe sadly passed me by as did Nam and Semper Fi in years to come.However with Byrne,Simonson,Miller,Rodgers,Ron Frenz etc, 1982 was a good year for Marvel.
Regarding Firefox, tue book wqs sensational reading… but i was like 20 at the time, lol. The movie was interesting enough…kind of same level as Hunt for Red October?
Anyhow, a movie that gets over on the Ruskies is always ok?
Phillip! Its Charlie! Thanks for the Marrin WARE byline! I googled and his autobiography is releasing in August! I plan to read it asap, though as inexpensive as possible lol.
FWIW - HEAVEN 17 is supposed to perform in Chi-town in September (or maybe that’s the PET SHOP Boys and H17 is in October?). Charlie shall be there! The fates command it!
Matthew - Firefox is...not bad. As regards Tron, I bought the novelization - but can't remember reading it. So, it can't have been that good!
Charlie - On Look North (a Yorkshire local news show), a few weeks ago, Martyn Ware was saying how pleased he was to get awarded the honourary Phd, as his parents never had enough money for him to go to university. Hopefully the autobiography will flesh out some of the details. As well as Heaven 17, Martyn Ware was in the early Human League. But I only knew The Human League from later, when the 2 girls were with Phil Oakey, so I don't remember Ware's stint with the League! Can't be that many pop singers in 2 bands - then again...Paul (Beatles & Wings); The Power Station & Duran Duran shared some singer (?); one of the blokes in Erasure was in another group (?)...Didn't Genesis & Mike & the Mechanics share at least one singer (?) - Maybe there are more than I thought!
Phillip
PHILLIP - Funny thing about HUMAN LEAGUE.
The only book I've found on the history of New Wave called "AN ORAL HISTORY OF NEW WAVE" wanted to interview Oakley for the Human League. However OAKLEY refused which would seemingly suck since HL's biggest hits were under OAKLEY.
However, the author was pretty clever and decided to interview WARE since he was a founding member of HL before breaking off to start Heaven 17.
However, IIRC, the book did NOT thus have a chapter on HEAVEN 17, lol.
Anyhow, I do recommend the book. Each group gets 3-5 pages which is probably enough. It's perfect beach / summertime reading.
That Silver Surfer #1 was scripted by Stan Lee wasn't it, Fantastic Four follower?
Ok, it was plotted by John Byrne, so technically that is at least someone different... but I've always been a bit dubious about the claim that only Lee was allowed to write the Surfer, as just of the top of my head both Steve Englehart and Roy Thomas used the character during the 70s, in the Defenders and the FF respectively.
The earlier Surfer series wasn't a big seller, so his second shot was never going to be likely for some time after.
Yeah, that Dr Strange run was great. Personally I find Marshall Rogers work a bit stiff but he did a nice line in Ditko-style imagery, and Roger Stern really understood how to write Doc.
The tie-in with FF #19 was nicely done, back before continuity heavy re-visits of old stories became all the rage.
-sean
Sean - I think you're right to be dubious about Lee having exclusive dibs on the Surfer. In addition to the examples you cited, Bill Mantlo also wrote a Surfer story in his Hulk run.
Phillip
I have had the misfortune to read Contest of Champions Steve.
Mainly because I wanted to be able to complain about it after finding out it #1 marked the first appearance of (I know I'm going to regret bringing this up) Irish super-hero Shamrock.
Somewhat astonishingly, she isn't even the worst new character in the comic! Although when you realize thats an indigenous Australian - Talisman - you know theres no way they're going to get anything right about him.
Also featuring: the Arabian Knight, Sabra - you remember her right, the Israeli who's prickly on the outside? - and Collective Man. He's Chinese.
The only good bit is a panel where Shamrock gives Captain Brexit the evil eye. Because of 'the enmity between their people'!
-sean
PS Oops, I forgot - the Soviet Super Soldiers in it too.
Although to be fair to Marvel, they were actually quite cool.
-sean
Ah yes, 1982 was pretty solid in terms of popular culture. Watching "Tron"; listening to Kraftwerk, Duran Duran and Human League. Loving Byrne on Fantastic Four and Stern/Rogers on Dr. Strange. How did I find time for my college studies? Well, that was actually easy; art school was full of comics fans and Brit music aficionados. Hence there were plenty of late nights around the studios, music blaring, smoke wafting, paint flying, and comics being discussed. Who needed the 60's? We had it all in the 80's!
This Silver Surfer was only a one-shot. His second actual series didn't begin until 1987. This one was, presumably, a Byrne initiated gift to himself to work with Stan Lee on the iconic character. Wasn't Contest of the Champions the first (Marvel, at least) mini series? Soon followed by Miller's Wolverine and Vision & Scarlet Witch, once they relayed how lucrative these could be. I assume it was an actor they had playing Captain Britain, as the real CB was trapped on Earth-238 at the time. I suspect the actor's catastrophic decision to use the wrong costume pretty much ended his career. What a plum.
Possibly embarrassing, however I saw all of those movies, although mostly on VHS. The most anticipated, at the time, was Grease 2, which turned out to be an absolute shocker.
DW
Own every film Steve mentioned in this post, except ET. The only reason I saw it was to take my girlfriend's little 5yr boy. He liked Wraith Of Khan better. I got him hooked on OG Star Trek early.
Blade Runner & The Thing ARE classics. Too bad the Runner's sequel wasn't real good The Thing has become the cult classic it deserves, after getting spanked by ET at the box office.
Wish I would've caught that Dr. Strange cover on a spinner rack. One of my early intros to the Fantastic Four was the Hanna Barbera cartoons, and that was the first episode I saw.
Got into a small argument with a fellow online, about how Keanu was races- swapped on the Loki show. The guy said, "He's always been black!" I replied, "I'm a devout silver & bronze age reader, and in "our" dimension Rama Tut, Kang, and Immortus are evolutions of the same being, and they are Caucasian in the comics.
Asked him to check online
Never heard from him again
That was Killdumpster. Your new layout won't take my URL, Steve.
This morning, Look North said Sheffield (Hallam) University's awarding Ginger Spice an honourary doctorate. Kind of devalues Martyn Ware's, doesn't it!
Phillip
Well, GINGER SPICE, is married to CHRISTIAN "SPICE BOY" HORNER who is the face of RED BULL F1 racing and world champ 5 (?) times in F1.
Christian does hold an OBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. And Spice Girls are the biggest selling all-girl act of all-time all-over the world.
Maybe she wants an OBE too?
STEVE SDC - I dare say I never thought I would type "Christian 'Spice Boy' Horner" in my life, but at your blog anything can happen! IT's a miracle!
Simon Reynolds book ‘Rip It Up And Start Again’ is a pretty definitive guide to New Wave and New Pop.
I think I’ve bloviated here before about the unparalleled bounty of SF/Fantasy movies in that magical Summer of ‘82. So I need not do so again. But yes, it was a blast. I spent a LOT of time in movie theatres that summer.
I have a vivid memory of watching THE THING during its first week of release, at an afternoon matinee screening in the enormous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre — and I had the entire place all to myself. THAT’S how bad the buzz was on the movie at the time, and what a huge box-office dumpster fire it was. I myself LOVED Carpenter’s remake, thought it was one of the best movies of that whole year.
I believe the thing about Stan wanting to hog all the Surfer stories himself is actually true. I’ve seen it confirmed in print by both Steve Englehart and Roy Thomas. Yes, the Silvered One DID appear in comics by other writers, but only as a guest star in someone else’s comic or as a member of The Defenders, but not in SOLO stories. Up to and including (the Byrne-plotted) SS#1, all the solo Surfer stories had been written by Stan.
Supposedly, he didn’t even like having the Surfer as a permanent member of The Defenders. He tolerated it for awhile but then ordered that Norrin Radd be removed from the series.
I think after the Stan/Byrne/Palmer one-shot, SOMEONE made Stan see reason on the subject. I mean, Stan was writing almost NO comics at the time, and the character was just too cool and iconic (and potentially profitable) to be limited to the occasional Guest Star appearance. Marvel was determined to have an on-going Surfer title, so unless Stan wanted to jump back into the grind of writing funny books every month, he was gonna have to let his little chrome-plated birdie leave the nest and fly off without him. Which is what happened, for better or worse.
One other fun fact: Byrne specifically requested to have Tom Palmer ink SS#1, because he loved the Adams/Palmer combo on X-MEN. But the finished job didn’t meet with his approval (honestly, I’m not a fan of it either). I remember reading a quote from him in some fanzine expressing his disappointment that it didn’t come out looking the way he’d expected. Either he forgot to take into account that Palmer’s inking style in 1982 was quite different from what it looked like in 1969, or that he himself was not Neal Adams.
b.t.
I liked that run of DOCTOR STRANGE by Stern, Rogers and Austin too. But I have to admit that my favorite Marshall Rogers stuff is his earlier run on DETECTIVE COMICS, and that nifty (but problematical) Daughters of the Dragon two-parter in DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU. When he was just starting out, he had an extremely stylized look, almost like a cross between Chaykin and Simonson. Once he started to draw more ‘realistically’, much of the funky charm was lost. His DOCTOR STRANGE run is really solid and his storytelling and layouts are exciting and interesting but as Sean mentions above, his figures ARE starting to get a bit stiff. By the time he does that actual on-going SILVER SURFER title with Englehart in 1987, his art is almost unrecognizable — technically ‘well drawn’ but lifeless and almost generic.
b.t.
b.t., Marshall Rogers was clearly one of the more interesting comic artists working regularly in the early 80s - see: Detectives Inc, Madame Xanadu and Coyote, as well as that Dr Strange run - but all the same, there was something about his stuff that didn't completely work for me.
It came as no surprise when I read he trained as an architect - for better (and worse), thats exactly what you'd expect from how he drew comics.
I can accept that about Stan Lee and SOLO Silver Surfer stories.
But thats one of the more dubious aspects of it, that keeping the character for himself seemed tied up with the idea that the original series had been an attempt at next level work.
Now to be fair to Stan, the late 60s/early 70s newstand market was not ideal for comics aiming at greater artistic/literary coherence and for a more 'mature' audience, but even so... John Buscema did the heavy lifting on the original double-size Surfer comics. For someone supposedly trying to make his mark as a writer, Stan didn't seem to be trying very hard.
Its almost as if he thought the character/concept - somewhat ironically one which we actually know for sure was a solo Kirby creation - was strong enough on its own to do well in the right circumstances (hence a one-shot to test the new emerging direct market in '82) so better keep the gig for himself.
-sean
Sean,
I wouldn’t presume to know exactly WHY Stan wrote the giant-sized Surfer run the way he did, but I get the distinct impression that he was deliberately aiming for that hip college-age crowd of Marvel Fans that he was always bragging about. Amidst all the sci-fi / Space opera shenanigans, those stories are loaded with Messages about Man’s Inhumanity To Man! and Racism! and Existential Despair! and Injustice! and Loneliness! — delivered with all the subtlety of a wall of Marshall Stacks cranked up to Eleven.
(It must be said : John Buscema’s Surfer comics are technically beautiful to look at — genuinely quite stunning — but his staging, body language and facial expressions are so wildly melodramatic, they border on parody. Assuming he and Stan were doing these Marvel Style (plot, then art, then script) it’s impossible to tell who is most at fault for all the overwrought theatrics — the chicken or the egg? But when you get panel after panel of the Surfer soaring against a starlit sky, all the while pleading and wailing and grandly gesturing and gesticulating and every page packed with the purple-est of prose and the most pompous of platitudes, it’s clear there’s plenty of blame to go around.)
I think Stan was honestly trying to be Serious and Deep and With-It in his Surfer stories, but his reach was WAY beyond his grasp — and at the end of the day, he just didn’t have anything truly profound to say.
b.t.
Oh — and despite all my criticisms above, I DO still have a lot of fondness for the Lee / Buscema SILVER SURFER run. I freaking loved ‘em when I was a kid, and even though they haven’t aged very well, I still flip thru them occasionally. But nowadays I focus mostly on the pretty pictures (and they really are gorgeous) and skim over the dialogue.
b.t.
Yeah, I pretty much agree with that b.t.
Whether Stan Lee actually had anything profound to say I don't know, but he didn't even seem to try and up his game for the Silver Surfer, which you think would be the obvious thing to do for a writer aiming to do a Great Work and be taken more seriously.
That was true of his later Surfer stuff too, which seemed to appear whenever the changing comic book market offered fresh opportunities to reach a broader audience - the late 70s 'graphic novel' with Kirby, Marvel's bold venture in adult illustrated blah blah Epic #1, the '82 one-shot here, and so on.
Even his approach to a deluxe Surfer book with Moebius didn't fundamentally seem too different to what he did in the 60s.
I know it sounds like I'm dissing Stan, but it is genuinely puzzling why someone who wanted to be seriously as a writer didn't put a bit more effort in.
The only sense I can make of it is that his idea of comics was rooted in an earlier time, that he really believed the 60s Marvel 'Pop Art' hype and thought he just needed better printing and hard covers - and full painted colour or Moebius artwork - for the literati to pay attention.
-sean
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