Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Load up. Load up. Load up with rubber bullets.
No. Steve Does Comics hasn't decided to dramatically change tack and head off down the path of mindless violence. You'll be pleased to know this site's as peace-loving as it's ever been.
I'm merely acknowledging that, fifty years ago this week, 10cc's song that bore those lyrics hit the Number One spot on the UK singles chart. I do believe it was the first time they'd managed the feat and they'd go on to have a total of three chart-toppers in the space of five years.
On the British album chart, however, it was those Various Artists who were again proving indomitable, thanks to their latest offering Pure Gold which sat proudly at Number One.
However, it's foiled by our hero reverting to Bruce Banner.
Still, the threat isn't over, as a spy uses Banner's Gamma Gun to transform himself into the Abomination, a monstrous entity even more powerful than the Hulk!
In our second tale of the issue, having been beaten up by the Abomination, Hulkie's revived by Thunderbolt Ross's men.
But can his scientist alter-ego concoct a plan that can stop the villain and liberate Betty Ross from the villain's clutches?
In the Fantastic Four's tale, the Sub-Mariner - upset about damage done to his undersea kingdom - is still planning an attack upon the dwellers of the surface world.
Needless to say, that plan fails miserably and the puffed-up publisher will have to go back to the drawing board.
Elsewhere, Thor must deal with the sensational return of Zarrko the Tomorrow Man.
This is because Loki's restored the villain's memory. And, now, that villain builds a robot so powerful that even the god of thunder can't defeat it!
But who cares about that? All we really care about is that, according to the front cover, we have a chance to win another great football competition!
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44 comments:
Get Banner to call the Silver Surfer. He beat the Abomination, at close quarters, whilst barely raising a sweat!
Is this Spider-slayer pre-Marla, because she seems involved in every subsequent one!
Reed ought to letter Namor take Sue - in the long run, it would be preferable!
Phillip
*let not letter*
Phillip
Phillip, this Spider-Slayer was well before Marla. Professor Smythe was the mad scientist behind this one.
Simon B, sorry for taking so long to answer you. I do indeed remember Grantbridge Street & Other Misadventures. I remember Joe Bloke being one of the first three people to ever comment on this site, along with you and the Groovy Agent.
I see MWOM has now reached the point at which is stars the Incredible Hulk. They still produce original covers for a while, and so I guess some accountant hasn't yet noticed the additional cost. By the time I was a Marvel regular, it was mostly re-purposed US covers and so seeing these early 'originals' is a bit jarring. They weren't exactly everyone's finest work.
DW
CEREBRUS, et al! Thanks for the info on PETE DOREE's new blog. I shall check it out.
Also, I had totally forgotten about the GROOVE AGENTs blog! Don't know why... got distracted here I suspect!
Charlie Horse 47
GET CARTER!
Thanks PHILLIP et al. on the recommendation.
I enjoyed the atmosphere of Newcastle.
I did stop half way or so and research the movie's plot as I was sort of losing track of whose who. I'm glad I did before finishing it as it was not quite making sense to me that seemingly minor characters (e.g., Eric the Chauffer) were being referred to in significant ways.
Wiki says at least a couple surveys put this movie like in the top 50 and also the best UK movie of the 1900s? Wow.
My question to you chaps is do you feel it rates that high?
Some points of interest:
Using a porn film to possibly bring down the head of a mob by telling the police about it. Nowadays folks think porn is a legit career aspiration.
The cowboy and indian wallpaper? Seems out of place in the UK?
The "What would Jesus Say" sign above the bed where folks were not thinking about JC? I thought something like that was a US thing?
The amount of nudity really surprised me as well as the natural, non-model, salt-of-the-earth look of the actors.
All said, I enjoyed the flick! Thanks for the recommendation!
I've never seen Get Carter but wasn't Alf Roberts from Corrie in it?
Colin
He was. He played the big man who was out of condition.
DW
Charlie, the short version: a part of Get Carter's appeal is quite specific, and maybe loses something in the translation to a different audience?
The longer version: I think Get Carter is a bit like The Wicker Man, in that it was just another genre film on release, and didn't get that much attention at first. When I originally saw it - and I suspect this is true for most of my age group - it was kind of just another late night film on tv fairly regularly... but it immediately stood out, straight away from Roy Budd's opening theme tune, and made an impression.
Plus, it seemed to say something about its particular time and place, about the way Britain was changing eg the spread of 60s ideas about the liberalization of public morality through the broader society in the following decade. I think that's where the porn thing comes in - as you say, no-one would bat an eyelid about it now really, but in the early 70s it was seedy, and tied into police corruption.
If you're that interested, Jah Wobble explains it better, in a reasonably entertaining way, here -
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXel0g8KNjo
(Apparently 'Alf Roberts' was religious, and asked his priest if it was ok to act in the film - that made me laugh)
-sean
Although my preferred British gangster film of the period is Performance.
-sean
Charlie - In 'Get Carter', the name "Keith", enunciated by Michael Caine in his clear and precise southern tones, in a northern drinking den, is also highly entertaining! Being a 'fish out water', in the North, doesn't faze Caine's character, at all - in fact, he revels in it! Usually, this north-south thing's done in reverse (particularly in 'Minder'), with Northerners coming to London, as comical figures of fun, amidst Arthur Daley's escapades. 'Minder', incidentally, parodied 'Get Carter', with an episode entitled, 'Get Daley'. But, as Sean's pointed out before, 'Minder' got pretty 'mainstream' !
DW - For MWOM, original covers were still being produced in 1977/78, when I was reading it. I suppose, with 4 issues/month, it was a necessity, were the Hulk to feature on every cover. I suppose if, in a 4 title UK comic, each different US title made the cover, in relays, Marvel UK wouldn't have needed to commission original covers!)
Phillip
Funnily enough Phillip, Jah Wobble goes on in that clip about one of the main themes of Get Carter being Londoners going to the Norf. "In the 70s it was like going to a foreign country..."
It also includes a gratuitous Hartlepool monkey reference (;
-sean
Phillip, Steve, and to all the Brits here -
Happy Independence Day! Have a good one.
-sean
Sean - For you Londoners, bunting may be out, but Steve and myself are Yorkshiremen, our National Day being August 1st:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_Day
Good luck in your celebrations,
Phillip
Sean, I didn't know that Bryan Mosley was religious but I did read somewhere that he was a life-long socialist though, if true, it's not mentioned in his Wikipedia entry. A definite Corrie socialist was Doris Speed who played snooty Tory Annie Walker while lefty/liberal Ken Barlow was (still is!) played by William Roache who is a Tory in real life and has even campaigned for them - go figure!
My house is bedecked in Union Jacks for this Independence Day by the way ;)
STRANGE FACT: Bryan Mosley died a few weeks after Alf Roberts had been killed off on Corrie.
DW, as Phillip said, the UK-exclusive original covers continued for years. Planet Of The Apes had almost entirely original covers with a painted cover from the US POTA magazine now and again.
Ok Phillip, I'll get my coat...
-sean
Sean - I'll get mine, too. It was a crappy reply! There'll be humble pie eaten a-plenty, over Brexit, as your joke rightly pointed out!
Phillip
You can have a laugh at me next month, Phillip. I'm supposed to be visiting my brother in Ireland, and he's currently working in the north. No shortage of bunting there in July (;
-sean
Sean - carry a Terry's chocolate orange, and eat segments, then you'll fly under the radar! Good luck, anyway!
Phillip
I'll sort it out with the chocolate orangeman, Phillip.
-sean
Oh bugga, I forgot it was that time of year again Sean.
Independence day in UK? Is that for Brexit ? If so as you can imagine that won't go down well in most of Scotland I can't believe anyone would celebrate that considering what it's cost the UK economy so far.
According to a new poll only 18% of Leave voters think Brexit has been a success so far but 61% believe it will all work out eventually - that still leaves a whopping 39% of Leave voters who think Brexit will never deliver. And they all believe that politicians have betrayed Brexit (we didn't get the Brexit we voted for etc).
There's a documentary on Radio 4 tonight at 8pm called 'A Brief History Of Boomers' which is presented by Joe Queenan, an American writer who is a 72 year-old boomer himself. The usual definition of "baby boomer" means those born between 1945 and either 1964 or 1965 (but Wikipedia says 1946-64) so a number of Steve Does Comics readers are boomers. I was born in Feb '66 so I'm officially Generation X which was followed by Millennials from 1980 onwards. You boomers were responsible for Brexit and Trump and you've destroyed the environment so I hope you're pleased with yourselves ;)
My parents were married in 1954 (on New Year's Day) so their children could have been boomers but weren't.
Phillip, I didn't know about Yorkshire Day. In 1995 William Hague was appointed Secretary of State for Wales, the 4th English MP in a row since 1987 to get that post. He replied to criticism by saying "I'm not English, I'm from Yorkshire".
Colin - Yes, and other counties' residents react similarly, I imagine (despite their counties' serious flaws!)
Phillip
I'm including Yorkshire in 'serious flaws' (to be clear!)
Phillip
But not south Yorkshire, Phillip, surely?
-sean
Sowing division, Sean?
Phillip
Is Russia on the brink of civil war?? Will Putin nuke the West and bring the world down with him??
PHILLIP - Regarding GET CARTER...
- Thanks for explaining the "Keith" thing being related to the accents between north and south of UK. I was indeed wondering why Caine (Carter) said "Keith" loudly in the bar to the bar tender (IIRC) several times, seemingly piercing the atmoshphere and then the camera should show the old men kind of looking up, curiously, but not too...
Ms. Charlie is wondering, should be visit her kin in Newcastle, what to expect for a dialect. Is there a youtube video you might recommend?
Also, we have (had?) a similar accent thing in the USA with the north east seeming "elite" and the south seeming the opposite.
Lastly, I do wonder if GET CARTER is the first movie with a "phone sex" scene, between Caine and Britt Eckland? Like the movie in general, it was rather coarse and to the point?
CHARLIE is hurting...
In 1989 I received a portable radio that had all the short waves, FM, AM. It was a gift from my french father in law so that we could attempt to listen to french broadcasts while living in Chicago.
A week ago I thought it would be fun to use it again since I do like a bit of news / music whilst paying bills, cleaning and really prefer the simplicity and discovery that occurs from the radio vs. using the internet.
Well.. lo and behold... could not find a single short wave station! Nothing! NO Agence France, BBC, Deutsche Welle! NOTHING!
Resorting to the internet I learned that the internet caused the closure of all the short wave radio stations but for the most remote parts of the world. Interestingly, I came across an article citing Lech Walesa, Vacliv Havel, et al. saying that the short wave radio played an unquantifiable but critical role in bringing down communism because it was basically impossible for their govts to censor broadcasts from the West. However we see that govts can and are censoring the internet. Indeed, the article had a plea for the western nations to resume short wave broadcasts into Russia and China.
I do miss the old days in many ways... just turn the radio on, spin the dial, and listen.
Now, they are even talking about a law in the USA to mandate AM radios in cars, probably b/c FORD made news a few weeks ago by deciding to still keep AM radios in their pick up trucks.
Charlie:
Newcastle has famous dialect words:
Why Aye = Hello (often combined with 'Man' - "Why Aye, Man!" ) Also, "man" is sometimes used as a kind of intensifier, at the end of sentences.
Pet = noun - term of affection
Bairn - baby, infant
Canny = adjective - term of affection (e.g. "She's a canny bairn!")
Bullets = sweets/candy
Sometimes "est" is suffixed onto certain verbs. For example, "soundest like you're making good progress!"
There are others, too!
It's a long time since I've watched 'Get Carter', but it's certainly seedy, and Michael Caine is very much 'to the point' !
Phillip
Fairly sure Radio Havana still transmits to the US on shortwave, Charlie. Evenings mainly, 6000 kHz I believe.
You're welcome.
-sean
Don't worry about Russia, Colin. I expect this business at the moment is some plan to find a face-saving way out of Ukraine. Either Putin is purging the army, or the army is doing it to him.
Anyway, there's much more important news today -
www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jun/24/marvel-cult-stan-lee-disney-documentary-steve-ditko-jack-kirby
Actually, 'news' might be putting it a bit strongly - I expect everyone here is familiar with the issues - but maybe its an interesting piece all the same.
-sean
Having been the operations officer for the first Apache attack helicopter squadron positioned in west Germany in 1987, I feel fairly comfortable stating that 4 to 6 Russian attack helicopters to take down the Wagner group in about 20 minutes.
The only real question is why they haven’t.
And of course no one has been able to answer the first question as to why Putin attack the Ukraine in the first place.
I would not spend much time trying to think about, interpret or understand what the hell is going on in Russia. Just sit back, grab a bag of popcorn and your favorite beverage and enjoy it as it unfolds.
If an autocrat's feeling politically insecure, they propose to the public an external threat (imaginary), and attack it. That way, the autocrat's political opponents can't oppose them, in any way, without being smeared, as an "enemy" sympathizer. This game's as old as the hills, with variations played all the time.
Phillip
Phillip, Colin
Fair call regarding the original covers. I realised as soon as I'd posted that I was misremembering. I think once the covers were printed on glossy stock, they mostly dropped the multiple character themes (Spidey plus Thor etc) and so the original covers more closely resembled their US counterparts. And they did print far more US originals.
Putin. The ultimate small man...
DW
Its not that hard to understand the invasion of Ukraine, Charlie - its a military power in decline attempting to assert itself in its traditional backyard, like the British government trying to push back against the Irish peace agreement and reimpose the old land border (sorry, couldn't resist the comparison ;). And what Phillip said.
I'm sure you're right about the ability to take down the Wagner group, but the whole thing seems a bit smoke and mirrors. A bit of a show, to extricate Putin from his messy war. That would be my guess.
-sean
The Radio 4 documentary 'A Brief History Of Boomers' was very interesting!
I saw baby boomers described somewhere once as people born between 1945 and 1964. That made me and my late mum both boomers!
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