Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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A visit to the cinema in December 1983 was, most likely, a tense one, with the release of such knuckle-chewing thrillers as Christine, Scarface, The Keep, The Plague Dogs and, erm, Terms of Endearment...
...and Yentl.
As far as I can remember; amongst those, Christine and Scarface are the only ones I've ever seen. I will, therefore, go for Christine as my pick of the bunch, even though I suspect it's nothing like the best of them.
In it, Moon Knight and his friend Jason set off to watch a total lunar eclipse, to discover what effect such a phenomenon will have on his powers and, as far as I can make out, they bump into the Hulk while they're at it.
However, it's made up entirely of reprints from Jim Steranko's 1960s run.
More specifically, tales involving such rogues as Scorpio and Centurius.
And, to celebrate, Marvel grants them a double-sized comic. One in which we're retold the origins of the dynamic duo.
And, given the embiggened page count, I'm sure there's plenty more happens in it besides that.
And it's built around a brand new adventure from Bill Mantlo, Roger Stern, Ed Hannigan and Jim Mooney. However, I can shed no light upon what actually happens in it.
It would seem the villainous Louie Minelli makes his debut but I don't have a clue who he is.
Again, it's just reprints. This time, recycling tales from the first three issues of their monthly mag.
And it happens when Storm and Illyana team up to do something or other!
All I know of this book is Illyana's trapped in Limbo, with the X-Men from an alternate timeline.
I assume they would have buried her or cremated her. Hopefully, they wouldn't have got the Human Torch to cremate her, as that would have been, frankly, tasteless.
Beyond that, I cannot speculate as to what would have transpired.
However, that's all the light I can shed upon the subject of what occurs within, because neither my personal experience nor Googling provides me with ready answers.
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22 comments:
Well, I picked up that Moon Knight reprint as I was just getting into US comics at this point and Moon Knight [the latter BS issues] were one of my entry points. I was a bit disappointed by the slightly primitive contents, but nice covers.
And I got those couple of issues of Steranko SHIELD as well, as Alan Moore had name-checked it at the beginning of his article on Frank Miller in The Daredevils 1.
But I think I picked them up in 1984, because I only read The Daredevils 1 at Christmas 1983. I'd missed it and got the back-issue for Christmas.
I've got the Majik series in an omnibus on the shelf behind me but honestly, life is too short.
That STAR WARS cover is amazing! I've never seen that before. And a quick internet search reveals it was Klaus Janson and that he did the interior art and colours as well. I am hunting that down as we speak.
I'd say The Keep as my pick of those films. It's endlessly fascinating and disappointing in equal measure. Unique but uniquely flawed. Has laugh-out-loud music choice towards the end.
If a song doesn’t mention Santa, Jesus, Snow, or some other traditional aspect of Xmas, and only mentions the word Xmas, I deem it cannot be a Xmas song. Steve- cancel the impending poll!
Steve- do you only have two YouTube comic critiques?
Charlie
Charlie, as far as I can remember, I only did about 2 or 3 videos, as I decided they took more time to make than I felt they were worth.
The masses on YouTube don't appreciate you enough, Steve.
Thats not a good cover for What If #46. I checked it out online, and would you believe it was drawn by Michael Golden? Oh dear. Presumably he was trying for pastiche, the kind of thing Kirby might have done for the FF in the mid to late 60s, but even so... it looks more Not Brand Echh to me.
The only one of these comics I got was, as I confessed last time, Magik #1.
Now I see it, I remember why. Besides the Buscema/Palmer team, the cover says its also about Storm, the only X-Person who seemed to have the potential to be an interesting character (I did not know the other woman in the foreground was Kitty Pryde, all growed up but as it turned out, still annoying).
Matthew is correct - life's too short. I did not get #2.
I was mad for Steranko back then, since first reading some of his SHIELD stories as a little scrote in the old Captain Brexit weekly. But I didn't get either of those special editions because two or three years earlier I got a Humanoides Associés book which reprinted the same stories, Nick Fury Agent du SERVO.
French suits Steranko's work better than English. It makes him seem even more stylish.
-sean
*What If #42.
Duh.
-sean
Charlie, 'Wonderful Christmastime' doesn't mention Santa, Jesus, or snow (I looked up the lyrics). Technically, it doesn't even mention Christmas...
-sean
Presumably What If? spins off from FF annual 6, which introduced Annihilus and in which Sue gave birth to Franklin. I read this in one of the Titans hard cover annuals. I believe I also fell for the spiel for Magik which promised to explain why Illyana Rasputin aged several years, between two panels in X-men #160. I think I made it to issue two.
Marvel were certainly into their baxter-paper reprints. I think the Kree-Skrull war and Neal Adams' X-men stories were also given the deluxe treatment around this time. I guess those initial Moon Knight stories were pretty rare at the time, however were the Micronauts ever that popular to demand reprints of early issues? I appreciate I wasn't the core market for these...
Were marvel also experimenting with pastels at this time? The IF&PM and US1 covers do look a little sixth form portfolio-like.
DW
Actually, wasn't Magik the mini-series that featured Cerebus as a villain called Sym? Claremont's response to Dave Sim using Wolveroach in Cerebus.
DW
Yeah, S'ym was in Magik, DW. And some later X-comics. Although I don't know if many people would have made the connection with Cerebus if Claremont hadn't stated it outright at some point? There were some vague plans for a crossover, but it didn't happen. Possibly because of the Wolveroach.
Have you seen this yet? -
www.previewsworld.com/Catalog/OCT231371
Not read one of those for a while, but I might well check out Marvelmanvark #1...
Btw, the Kree-Skrull War special edition was included in this very feature a few months ago (pay attention - there may be a test at the end of the year).
-sean
Steve, I love your matter of fact answers to that WHAT IF…? cover question. My answer would be “Reed would freak out and wave his bendy arms around in overly melodramatic grief. “ I love Mike Golden but yeah that cover is super-weird.
b.t.
Sean
I hadn't seen that. I'll certainly browse if it makes it to the shelf of Brisbane's premier comic store.
I must have been 'in transit' when that when the September lucky bag featured the Kree-Skrull wars, as I'm sure I would have commented. Particularly given the comments moved onto Bowie and Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.
DW
b.t., Golden must have been deliberately having a laugh with that cover. The question surely is whether editorial were in on it, or just didn't notice.
-sean
I've never seen the film version of 'Christine' but I did buy the novel - however I can't say whether it was any good or not because I only read the first few pages and to this day it remains the only Stephen King novel I've ever owned.
Steve- that Amazing Spider-Man Annual featured Peter Parker's High School reunion, with a tale that centered around one of his former classmates. Not a bad story, but not one of the more memorable Annuals. It did have an appearance of the Kingpin, and pencils by the underrated Ed Hannigan...
That book, and Magik, were the only two I bought from this grouping. And like everyone else seemed to, I failed to make it past the first issue. That was about the time I dropped X-Men, anyway; so it didn't really matter too much.
Film-wise, I did see "Terms of Endearment"; but it didn;t make much of an impression as I only remember Jack Nicholson's odd turn as a former astronaut. At least I think it was that movie. Oh, those senior moments seem to come ever more frequently!
CHRISTINE — I liked the movie and thought it was a decent adaptation of the novel (I read ALL of King’s books back then, was a huge SK fan)
SCARFACE — saw it at Graumann’s Chinese in Hollywood , pretty high on pot — that chainsaw scene freaked me the hell out! Other than that I thought it was kinda silly, almost cartoonish. Al Pacino, Paul Shenar and F. Murray Abraham as Cubans : umm, okaaaayyyy…
THE KEEP — I loved the novel, thought the movie was incredibly disappointing. I’d love to re-visit it, but it never shows up on any of the streaming services I subscribe to.
b.t.
Yeah, I can see the chainsaw scene in Scarface being a bit much when you're stoned.
Thats right, Pacino and that lot do ham it up as cartoon Cubans, but even so I kind of enjoy the film's garish 80sness.
The Keep is worth seeing AND disappointing (like Matthew said) - the studio drastically edited it down for release, so its inconsistent. If theres a film that would actually benefit from a restored director's cut, The Keep is probably it. Somewhat surprising that hasn't happened, given the vogue for that kind of thing in recent years. I believe Michael Mann has distanced himself from the film, but even so you'd think there's enough interest in him as a director.
Still, you can always enjoy the Tangerine Dream soundtrack, b.t. Especially if you're stoned (;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VPKs1Io7A0
-sean
Sean -
I took a friend to see a rare cinema screening of The Keep a few years ago. As we were leaving, film critic Kim Newman was in front of us and he described it to his companion as 'feeling too short but overlong at the same time', which I think nails it completely.
Having watched THE KEEP just once way back in the day, I have very few specific memories :
—The production design of the eponymous structure’s interior was startlingly smooth and austere, not at all like your typical ancient Gothic castle
— the design of the “Monster” looked kind of creepy/cool in some shots and like a He-Man villain toy in others
— I think it was one of the first movies I ever saw that seemed obviously to have been edited into near-incomprehensiblity (the climax in particular was a choppy, chaotic mess)
— Ian McKellen’s character started out as an old man who gradually becomes younger throughout the story, and even in “Old Age” makeup he seemed way too young :)
b.t.
Awesome comic book artist Enki Bilal did design work on The Keep - or La Fortresse Noire, as he might have known it - so that probably explains the more striking, cooler aspects, b.t.
Matthew, apparently Mann's original cut was three and a half hours long (yikes!)
-sean
Red, thanks for the Spider-Man Annual info. :)
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