Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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A number of moderately well-known films were unveiled in July 1982 but by far the most famous release that month was Tron, Disney's effects-packed tale of something or other.
Come to think of it, although I've, "seen," it on several occasions, I'm not sure I've ever managed to keep my attention on the thing all the way through, leaving me with very little idea of what it's actually about.
It would seem our hero's in Haiti where he teams up with Brother Voodoo to take down a terrorist who can raise the undead.
And it hasn't.
Inevitably, it's drawn by John Buscema but, perhaps shockingly, there's no involvement from Roy Thomas in the writing stakes.
Instead, we have the likes of John Milius, Oliver Stone, Ed Summer, John Buscema and even Michael Fleisher credited as authors.
I'm just hoping Fleisher manages to inject some of his Iron Jaw magic into proceedings.
It's true. The 1980s' greatest musical gets the comic book treatment, even though, as I've commented in the past, it does seem a strange idea to do comic book adaptations of musicals, bearing in mind the impossibility of capturing the tunes on a comic book page.
I dread to think what the lyrics to Annie's songs look like on the page. They probably seem like the dark rites of some nightmarish doomsday cult.
The second contains She-Hulk, Captain Britain and Defensor vs Iron Man, Sabra and the Arabian Knight Bizarrely, the latter of those two teams wins. I can only assume Iron Man did all the fighting for them.
It would appear our armoured astronaut has to tangle with the combined power of Mystique, Rogue and Destiny but not before the usual confusion over who's the good guy and who's the bad guy.
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9 comments:
As regards Contest of Champions, the only decisive outcome was Iron Man vs She-Hulk. She-Hulk grabbed Iron Man around the neck, with both hands, and got hit by a repulsor ray, at point blank range, rendering her unconscious.
If Iron Man defeated She-Hulk so easily - and he didn't even need to overload his armour to do it (unlike with the Hulk, & Nefaria) - what's the point of having She-Hulk as a strong person? Even the Thing wasn't fazed by a repulsor! The only possible justification for She-Hulk's poor performance is she was worn out after battling Sabra!
Nevertheless, although Iron Man won the battle, he lost the war - as while he was bending over She-Hulk, worried that he'd injured her, Arabian Knight snuck in, behind his back, and grabbed the gleaming golden quartet of the globe of life (alliteration overdose).
The entire story's a rip off of - I mean possibly a bit of an homage to - the Avengers/Defenders clash, methinks, with the winners being the first ones to find & capture the thingummybob - not necessarily the ones who win the fight!
Phillip
After all the pre-release hype in the sci-fi film mags , TRON was a resounding dud when I saw it on opening weekend. The much-touted computer graphics were cold and un-exciting, the live-action footage was grainy and dark, and the storyline….hell, WAS there a storyline?
Sadly, Big John Buscema was totally on ‘auto-pilot’ when he drew the CONAN THE BARBARIAN movie adaptation ( as he often was in the 80s and early 90s, frankly) — it’s strictly from Dullsville. Not that I think the movie itself was anything special, but Big John didn’t go out of his way to elevate the material.
Amazingly, I think that ROM cover is my favorite of this batch. It’s dynamic, Sinnott’s slick inks mesh well with Milgrom’s pencils, and the unusual color scheme really pops.
Maybe I just have a dirty mind, but the positioning of Daredevil’s Billy-club and mouth looks kinda porny to me…
b.t.
On that CONTEST OF CHAMPIONS cover, I mean.
b.t.
I didn’t get to see Tron until Easter 1983 (U.K. didn’t get it until the end of 82, and if you lived in the sticks like me you had to wait even longer).
I thought it was amazing. I still do. I went to see it in the cinema again a couple of months ago, and I think the graphics are pretty stunning - particularly when you consider how mind-bendingly difficult they were to produce.
At a glance I thought that billy club looked like a giant syringe b.t.
Erm, maybe thats giving away too much about how my mind works...
I go with Matthew on that Moon Knight cover as the best here. A shame Bill Sienkiewicz didn't draw the interior - he would have done something to make it more worthwhile, not unlike the way Gene Colan's artwork elevated Brother Voodoo's own series.
Still, over the coming issues Sienkiewicz really comes into his own. Besides doing his own inks, I think thats also down to the title's (then recent) switch from newsstand to direct market sales only giving him more freedom to try stuff, just as he was finding his own voice as an artist.
Steve, as with Marvel's Xanadu adaptation, the inability to include songs in Annie would surely be an advantage. And of course Annie was based on a comic strip, so its perhaps not so strange they should do a version of the film.
-sean
I can't say I recall much about Tron either (sorry Matthew).
Which is strange - you'd think a film designed by Moebius and Syd Mead would leave more of an impression...
-sean
In 1982, I got the 'Tron' novelization. I don't recall anything about the story, at all. Here's the first sentence:
"THAT OTHER WORLD is vast too; to its inhabitants, their System is limitless."
For a first line, it doesn't grab the reader's attention, does it? If anything, rather the opposite!
Nevertheless, in the early 80s, the world of computer games was marketed as a magical 'Never-never Land' - and I suppose that's what 'Tron' was about, to a large extent.
Phillip
Thanks for your comments.
I'm going with the Micronauts cover as my cover of the month. I like the melodrama of it.
Moon Knight's appearances in WEREWOLF BY NIGHT and his initial solo adventures in Marvel Premiere(?) were about my extent of my interest in the the character. If I would've been an avid comics buyer at the time, I would've picked up on that Brother Voodoo storyline. Always liked Bro V, and Moon Knight, especially from his introduction, lends himself to the supernatural.
As far as warping him from a multi- identity adventurer and into a schizopath at the whim of Egyptian gods, I had to bail from that guy.
Prefer my heroes, more or less, a little more cut-and-dry.
ANNIE. Arrrrrgh. There was a ditzy broad that came into my hotel bar claiming she did ANNIE on Broadway. She'd play the jukebox and do over-volume impromptu karaoke, with arm/hand florishments to no one's amusement. Except to her and her husband.
EVERYONE at the bar loathed her, but I was the only one that spoke up. Guess cuz her ol' man was a big guy.
One night she was shrieking away to the Beatles. I told her to shut the f*(k up. She yelled, " Don't you like the Beatles?!" I yelled back, "I USED to!!"
"I was in ANNIE on Broadway!!!"
"Nobody bought tickets to hear you squak at this bar, you crazy b*t(h!!)"
Her big husband got up and came towards me, calling me an a$$hole. A guy next to me said, "I got your back." I walked up to that big lunk and told him that THEY were the a$$holes, and everyone that drinks here would be happy if they left. A VERY big round of applause.
They left mortified. Never saw them again, but heard they quit drinking.
-Killdumpster
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