Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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When it came to matters meteorological, July 1983 was a month of contrasts.
On the one hand, the lowest temperature ever recorded on Earth was registered at Vostok Station, Antarctica, racking up a bracing −89.2 °C.
On the other hand, the UK was embracing a heatwave, as temperatures reached 33 °C in London.
The hot hits of the time were Rod Stewart's Baby Jane and Paul Young's Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home) which respectively held the Number One spot on the UK singles chart, that month.
On the British album chart, however, the month began with Wham!'s Fantastic gripping the top spot before it was displaced by Yazoo's You And Me Both which then had to make way for The Very Best of the Beach Boys.
It's double trouble in this month's main strip.
For a start, the former Captain UK is having nightmares about the Fury having killed all her friends.
But, also, Captain Britain's attending a kangaroo court where Saturnyne's quickly condemned for her recent failure.
Elsewhere, Steve Moore and Steve Jones consider comics published in Japan, Alan Moore reviews fanzines, and Night-Raven encounters the Snow Queen.
In Daredevil's strip, the Gladiator holds a group of kids hostage in a museum.
And, finally, we get a reprint called Black Sun Rising, taken from the pages of Doctor Who Monthly.
In our main story, Mystique and her mates are out to kill Senator Kelly but Kitty's future self helps the X-Men thwart the plan, therefore changing the future.
As the future's previously consisted of the Sentinels wiping out Mutantkind, this is clearly a good thing.
Or is it...?
In the rest of the mag, Frank Plowright presents his Abbreviated History of the American Comic and the Scarlet Witch and Vision star in a tale called Faith of Our Fathers.
There's also a brand new comic strip begins but I don't know what it involves.
Well, this all looks like cause for concern. After all, if the cover's to be believed, inside we see Avon in trouble and Vila close to death!
Beyond that, I can say nothing of this issue's contents other than it seems that, yet again, Paul Darrow writes.
All I can do is hope he writes as melodramatically as he speaks.
For instance, I know Britain's greatest sci-fi mag takes a look at brand new movie Videodrome, even if the censors may end up not letting us see it
Inevitably, we get a look at the filming of Return of the Jedi.
And, less inevitably, legendary horror/sci-fi dramatist Nigel Kneale talks about this involvement with John Carpenter's Halloween III.
Posts
27 comments:
On the Fury killing the former Captain UK's friends in Daredevils #7, Steve - "Miracleman! It shot Miracleman!"
So presumably events in Captain Brexit - and Marvel comics generally - are simulations inside Gargunza's dream machines...
The new comic strip in Dr Who monthly #78 is the four part '4 Dimensional Vistas' by Steve Parkhouse and Mick Austin, which definitely involved the fifth Doctor and some Ice Warriors. And possibly also old Who antagonist the Time Meddler. I think it might have been set in an alternative universe with WW2 going on in the '60s, but don't quote me on that.
-sean
'Plunder of Death Island'
That sounds like fun back in the Hyborian Age this month, Steve.
-sean
Sean -
You know, there are people out there who will be doing mental gymnastics, citing that in-joke appearance of a Miracleman in CB to argue that MM is actually part of the Marvel universe and that if and when this interminable Gaiman run on the character finishes up he should be ported over to regular continuity in order to have fights with The Hulk and cosmic face-offs with The Silver Surfer. I kid you not.
DDs 7 -
that's a funny old cover image, but fair enough. The contents are pure magic.
Dr Who -
does anyone know if there's reason why Patrick Troughton's Doctor is so little discussed? Has he been found guilty of sexual abuse or something, and I missed it? The BBC are releasing entire seasons of Dr Who on Blu-ray now, and they've done sets for everyone but Troughton. Which is a shame, as he seems fascinating.
Starburst -
we did get to see Videodrome here in the UK, just not all of it. I remember watching the cut version on VHS in 1985, and eventually the uncut version in 1990. I bought it on tape the same day I bought the European version of the Twin Peaks pilot, from a branch of WH Smiths.
Nigel Kneale no doubt had terrible things to say about Halloween III, but then he was a pretty grumpy sod and didn't seem to like very much generally. Which is a shame, as I think Halloween III is pretty solid. I never went in expecting giddy heights, but the premise is solid, the execution is OK and the window dressing [Carpenter music, Dean Cundy lighting again] are great. I keep meaning to watch it again.
I guess between Star Wars and Blakes 7 they finished off that last sheet of 'Data 70' font Letraset. Very thrifty.
Yeah, it is a bit weird to enlarge a CB headshot for the cover of Daredevils, Matthew. You'd think filling it with the image from that poster would be a no-brainer.
Marvel are going to use Miracleman anyway, cameo or no cameo.
Tom Brevoort wrote about that on his blog, arguing that Miracleman - like Watchmen - works because the series is set in its own internally consistent universe, and changing that damages it... and then explained why had Marvel 'owned' Watchmen they'd have followed it up much more quickly than DC did! What a plonker.
https://tombrevoort.substack.com/p/36-2500
My suspicion though is that we won't see that much of MM in the Marvel universe, outside of the occasional 'special' to maintain a trademark. I mean, how many people keen on the Moore/Gaiman stories - which have never been a Watchmen (or even Sandman) level blockbuster - are going to be that interested in reading, say, a Miracleman Family v the Avengers book by some comic biz hacks?
Or, coming from the other direction, will most Marvel zuvembies will consider Miracleman a 'real' Marvel character? (Even though his first appearance was in Daredevils #7 ;)
-sean
*Oops, apologies for the second, stray 'will' at the end there. Duh.
-sean
Matthew:
Aren’t many of the Troughton Era DOCTOR WHO episodes presumed lost, taped-over by some poor sod at the BBC? I seem to recall that was the reason they haven’t been properly collected.
Having never seen an episode with him as The Doctor myself, I mostly think of him as the creepy old priest from THE OMEN, yelling “HIS MOTHER WAS A JACKAL!!!” at Gregory Peck.
b.t.
bt, Patrick Troughton also played Melanthius in 'Sinbad & The Eye Of The Tiger'. He guided Sinbad to the Shrine Of The Four Elements in order to cure the prince who'd been turned into a baboon.
Another great Conan cover but Sean probably disagrees ;)
I vaguely recall the budget for Daredevils' covers being used to support the original internal content. Certainly the covers from #5 to #8 were all reconstituted from existing imagery. Then again, if Davis (presumably) had been paid for the promotional poster, then this doesn't stand up. Either way 11 pages of A-grade Captain Britain this month. The poster also suggests that The Special Executive may have continued in solo stories beyond the Dr. Who reprints, had the magazine not folded. What a shame. I guess on Earth 334 there was a Moore/Davis 12 issues maxi-series following the teams ongoing adventures. Probably on baxter paper too.
I'm guessing Miracleman may not have been the cash cow Marvel hoped for. Gaiman hasn't exactly smashed himself to finish the scripts, which (again presumably) aren't paying anywhere near Netflix rates.
DW
DW, I doubt there would have been any plans for the Special Executive to get their own series at this point - outside of tv tie-ins Marvel UK didn't really have much of a budget for original material - but they were probably considered part of the ongoing CB cast.
My understanding is the reason the Executive didn't return in the series is that doubts arose about ownership, due to their original appearance being in Dr Who stories. Apparently thats why Davis and Delano came up with Gatecrasher's Technet as a replacement.
-sean
Yeah, I read Brevoort’s stuff as well. He’s affable enough but there’s definitely a Company Man mentality going on - there was thing recently where he defended Marvel reneging on their promise not to use Elektra unless Miller was involved by pointing out how Miller had been slagging off Marvel at the time so ‘screw that guy’. Not a great line of defence.
Sean
I assumed the Special Exec characters had their ownership in doubt due to being created by Moore rather than being introduced in Dr Who, but you could be right. They used Fascination in the Technet (co-created by Moore but not in Dr. Who), albeit with a different name. They way they advertised the Special Exec as Britain's new super group still makes me think that they would have continued had Daredevils become profitable. Captain Britain monthly has those funny Captain Britain related back-ups (The Cherubim?) which could easily have been new Special Exec. stories. Funnily enough they did reprint the Dr Who related Abslom Daak in CB monthly. Like most of the things going on a Marvel UK back then (Bernie Jaye's exit - which we'll get to soon enough), it depends upon who is recalling what happened and when.
DW
While we're talking about Patrick Troughton, let us also not forget he played the blind man tormented by harpies in Jason and the Argonauts.
Matthew, as bt says, there are very few complete Patrick Troughton Dr Who stories that still survive. As a result, his era tends to get a bit overlooked.
I must confess that Halloween III is the only one in the Halloween series that I've ever liked.
And of course Patrick Troughton played Father Brennan (who got a big spike through his bpdy) in the Omen. I had forgotten all about his being in Jason and the Argonauts. He was a pretty good actor.
WHAT THE HELL is going on with giant ant-man hybrid...
I get that with Conan, slaying one horrible monster month after month, they felt like they hadda keep upping the ante, but...
Was that guy just a normal-sized ant-human hybrid, and the cover artist took some artistic license? That would be somewhat less horrible.
M.P.
Steve, what do you think about Twitter's new X logo?
DW, maybe we should be grateful Absalom Daak wasn't reprinted with the Daleks redrawn as, I don't know, Martians or something.
Fwiw, I remember hearing about the Special Executive/Dr Who thing in the mid 80s, before I was aware that Moore had an ownership claim himself. His relationship with Marvel UK presumably wasn't too strained when the monthly started, as Jamie Delano got the writer gig on his recommendation (I think that side of things kicked off when Claremont planned to use the Fury in X-Men?)
A doubt about rights wouldn't get in the way of reprinting anything. Possibly that might even have been a reason for running Absalom Daak, to test the waters? I assume that was why - much later obviously - Marvel put out old Mick Anglo-era Miracleman stories before the Moore stuff.
-sean
*Marvelman
-sean
Not that you asked me, Colin, but I'm surprised Marvel haven't claimed the letter 'X' is a trademark of theirs and taken legal action against Musk yet.
-sean
Sean -
I always thought Marvel just put those Olde Miracleman Family books as a loss-leader...?
If you've just paid however million dollars for Miracleman so why not at least attempt to cash in on all that dross? Couldn't hurt.
The books sold about twenty copies, but worth a punt.
DW -
I think those Abslom Dark reprints would likely have been kosher. Steve Dillon and most likely Steve Moore were probably still on good terms with UK Marvel - Dillon did draw the cover to the MOWM that featured Alan Moore's last episode a little while earlier. So could well be that their permissions were in place. Abslom Dark was also reprinted in a Dr Who special in 1983, which was my first exposure to the character.
Colin, the X logo is stupid. Especially, as the site still seems to be called Twitter.
Marvelman Family books, Matthew, not Miracleman (;
Seriously though, it was relatively late in the MM publication saga that it came out Mick Anglo still had a good claim to ownership, so I'd be surprised if establishing the rights before spending even more money on polishing up the Moore/Leach/Davis stuff wasn't at least a consideration with putting out those reprints.
I'd have thought any Dr Who licence from the BBC would have included some reprint rights... but even if that allowed stuff being re-run in non-Who titles, theres still a big difference between a series like Absalom Daak, and switching characters like the Executive from Who into the Marvel universe. I'm surprised any editor went along with it in the first place - its such an obvious grey area.
Although as it happens, it wasn't a problem when Marvel did eventually reprint the Moore CB. Btw, on that subject, the Comic Journal did a piece earlier this year about the collected Davis-era CB - the usual suspects here might be interested if they haven't already read it.
www.tcj.com/a-very-british-scandal-the-missing-writer-of-the-captain-britain-omnibus/
-sean
That's a nice review on the TCJ, Sean.
As an aside, to our Chicago based readers, has anyone watched The Bear on TV? Unbelievably good (and set in Chicago). Its on Disney+ in Australia (and I believe the UK). I think its on Hulu in the US but I'm not familiar with that streaming service.
DW
DW -
Everyone I know who has Disney+ [or watches things illegally] says The Bear is incredible.
I do a single month of Disney a year, once the shows and movies have racked up to a certain level. I plan to do my next one in October so I'll be sure to watch it then.
Sean -
The CJ piece was interesting. I might give the Delano stories a go, though I do generally find his work actually boring - not just by comparison with Moore - so low expectations.
Matthew
Yes, it really is excellent. Two series (18 episodes in total) mostly around 30 minutes.
The post Moore CB stuff is pretty good. Davis clearly the driving force and (mostly) Delano, Collins and others (including Davis) on scripts. It does very much follow on from the Jaspers/Fury storyline.
DW
Matthew, I appreciated the point that piece was trying to make, but even so it overestimated the post-Moore CB imo. Delano is a strange one, as I really liked his Hellblazer but anything of his I tried after was disappointing. If you're not a fan, his early work on CB isn't going to change your mind about him. At all.
As for the Davis written CB stories I've read - admittedly not that many - I think you have to be really into super-hero comics to get much out of them (sorry, DW).
-sean
Sean -
I read a fair few of the Delano stories when they were published (looking at them reprinted in the omnibus I picked up years ago and recognising a lot of it, it seems I stuck with CB monthly for a surprisingly long time). So don’t worry, I wouldn’t be seeking them out - just doing a refresher.
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