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Amongst the most high-profile of them were: Breaking Point, Ode to Billy Joe, The Cars That Ate Paris, Silent Movie, The Food of the Gods, The Big Bus, Logan's Run, Murder by Death, Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, The Omen and The Outlaw Josey Wales.
It was also a month that saw the re-release of A Clockwork Orange, meaning that, now, at last, a whole new audience could discover just what all the fuss was about.
The cover declares this book be a big blazing battle ish and I believe it, even though I don't have a clue what happens in it.
It's that one we all love and cherish, as the Guardians find themselves on an alien world that's evolved to be just like Earth - or, at least, New York City.
As far as I'm aware, all that unpleasantness with the Magus and Thanos is over, leaving our hero free to blunder into a whole load of other unpleasantness.
I must confess I'd totally forgotten Weird Wonder Tales existed but here it is, back again and, seemingly, riding on the Jaws bandwagon when a woman offers a diver $10,000 to kill a shark but he, instead, uncovers a smuggling ring!
History is made.
It's all the dinosaur action we could ever need when the Thing visits the Savage Land, seeking out the source of volcanic eruptions that threaten to destroy the whole world!
It's the one we've all been waiting for, when, at last, we're told the origin of Old Skull and of how he first got to meet Killraven!
The cover informs me that I demanded to see Moon Knight in non-stop solo action for the first time.
Of the above-mentioned films, I shall nominate The Big Bus as the Steve Does Comics Movie of the Month, despite not having seen it in at least forty years.
Well, that's not quite true. I do know Red Wolf shows up. But I only know that because it says so on the big blazing battle cover.
I also know that someone called Madame Menace appears.
I am going to assume she's a bad guy and that she's not related to Madame MacEvil.
But what's this?
"Don't dare peek at our shocking final page!"?
What on Earth could it possibly contain?
And, if I did peek at it, would I ever recover my senses again?
And then turns out to be a lunatic asylum.
Oh the bitter satire.
One that features the villain we can only know as the Star-Thief!
Following that, a mysterious package is delivered to the office of the heroine we know as Venus, and she and the delivery man are nearly driven mad by the evil force contained within it!
Finally, an artist finds an alien pencil that makes real whatever he draws. But his selfish use of it soon leads to his loss of it.
All of these tales are, as you may have guessed, reprints and sourced from the 1950s and 1960s.
And so is the future.
Jack Kirby brings us his mammoth-sized adaptation of Stanley Kubrick's 2001, via the medium of an 84-page Treasury Edition.
And, not only do we get that, we're also treated to David Anthony Kraft's retrospective upon the film itself.
This can only lead he and Ka-Zar to the villain called Volcanus!
I must confess I don't remember demanding it but I'm sure Marvel wouldn't lie to me.
Therefore, I shall look forward to it appearing in my local newsagents - and then I can read of how he tries to prevent the Conquer-Lord from assassinating the mayor!
Last month, he got to meet Killraven.
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39 comments:
Of those films, I remember seeing Murder By Death on TV in the early 80s and thinking it was one of the funniest things ever. But I was 9 or 10, and I haven’t seen it since and can barely remember anything about it beyond the ‘Bensonmum’ scene.
Logan’s Run I’ve seen a couple of times and find it impossible to warm to. I picked up the soundtrack fairly recently and I find that hard going too, even though Jerry Goldsmith was absolutely on fire at the time.
Which leads me to The Omen, which I must have seen on TV about the same time as Murder By Death and was obsessed with as a kid. Unhealthily so. I’m still very fond of it - it is creepy and scary.
I watched Buffalo Bill… on VHS when I was getting into Robert Altman as a student but it was a bit boring.
I just picked up The Cars That Ate Paris, as the BFI have just restored and re-released it. Haven’t watched it yet.
I never had any of those comics, but the Warlock, War Of The Worlds and Moon Knight have all turned up in reprints I’ve bought.
I wish I had a copy of that Kirby 2001. I have the later issues where he spins it off into standard Kirby cosmic slugfests, but not the adaptation.
I've watched 'Logan's Run' (why isn't the series ever repeated, like the film is?), & 'The Outlaw Josey Wales'. I think 'A Clockwork Orange', too (a long time ago) - but my memory's hazy.
Comics...
Definitely the Guardians ( this story, in the US comic illustrated, and possibly part of it in Star Wars Weekly, too.) Also, definitely Warlock ( Barry Bauman's bizarre brain's ability to reach out, and cause mischief - anticipating 'The Medusa Touch' a bit, perhaps? )
MTIO looks familiar - but the story doesn't ring any bells. The mind playing tricks, perhaps...
That Killraven's one of the few I don't have...
I do, however, have that Moon Knight - Spector being hired by a bunch of wallies, to ice Werewolf by Night.
Regarding 'Speak Your Brain' (about sugary snacks, a few weeks ago) - here's something for Team USA (if they can watch it! ):
https://www.channel5.com/show/the-sweets-treats-we-loved-lost/season-1/the-1970s
Phillip
Oh - I also watched the Omen, but didn't like it!
Phillip
The Logan’s Run TV series came out on DVD in the US a few years ago. I’d imagine it’s never repeated because - like Man From Atlantis - it was pretty niche back then and not very popular even within that niche?
I remember it being on UK TV. I was very very young and excited for any SF that was on the box.
You drove me to taking a peek at the final page of Marvel Chillers #5. I was expecting a big splash page revealing Red Skull or Magneto or someone as the big villain who had been in the background all along.
Strap yourselves in and take a deep breath. You can find the whole comic at https://readallcomics.com/marvel-chillers-5/
Matthew - Yes, I followed any SF on tv, too. Watching Logan's Run, it would probably disappoint. Nevertheless, it's a chance to compare your adult reaction to what you remembered as a kid. Lucan's another one I'd like repeated, but never is. ( The Kevin Brophy Wolfboy/man show, before anyone makes predictable Lord Lucan jokes! )
Phillip
Lucan - good grief. I’d forgotten that one. Is it the kid who grew up in a forest or something? I remember the premise and vaguely the credits sequence. I think.
Matthew - Yes, raised by wolves in the Pacific Northwest - or was it Minnesota? The novelization's on my bookshelf, but it's 30 years since I read it!
Phillip
dangermash - It's likely Red Wolf's throwing his tomahawk at her chain, or the explosive device (or something), isn't he? That'll be next month's big reveal, won't it?
Phillip
Yeah, Red Wolf is throwing a tomahawk at her. A weird panel to finish a comic. I get the same vibes as when Marvel UK would cut US stories into two pieces before reprinting them with the cut ending up in a weird place.
Did Marvel comics with cliffhangers in the middle of a fight tend to stop at a point where both parties were taking a breather rather than in the middle of the action? Like at the end of FF#25 in that two-issue FF vs Hulk story.
So very weird and unusual. And definitely not worthy of the hyperbole on the cover.
A bit like the mystery ninja throwing a shuriken (strike that, it was his katana) at Iron Fist (seemingly), when it's actually aimed at Harold Meachum, behind Iron Fist!
Phillip
I believe I bought all of these comics back in ‘76 except for WEIRD WONDER TALES. The 2001 TREASURY gets my vote for Best Of This Batch — it still amazes me that Kirby did such a fantastic job of translating that movie to comics. That MARVEL TEAM-UP is my pick for Stinker Of The Week. Breakdowns by Our Pal Sal inked by Mike Esposito…oof. Lifeless rubbish.
b.t.
I saw SILENT MOVIE, THE BIG BUS, LOGAN’S RUN and THE OMEN at the theatre back in the Long Ago. I seem to think I liked BIG BUS at the time but don’t remember much about it now, not even who was in it. Joe Bologna maybe? Stockard Channing? I remember being disappointed that SILENT MOVIE wasn’t nearly as funny or entertaining as BLAZING SADDLES or YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, and that’s about it. Did Mel wear a captain’s hat and an ascot in it?
I loved THE OMEN at the time, have seen it many times since, most recently about a year ago, and I love it still. It’s absolutely ridiculous if you think about too closely, but it’s so well made, the performances are so good, and Goldsmith’s score is freaking GREAT.
I saw LOGAN’S RUN at the theatre — more than once, actually — and several more times in the years since. I’ll be the first person to admit it’s not a very good movie, on almost any level, but I do find it kinda charming and entertaining in spite of (or maybe BECAUSE of) it’s myriad serious flaws. I think Goldsmith’s score is genuinely pretty great. Maybe not quite in the same league as his scores for THE WIND AND THE LION or PLANET OF THE APES etc but still, I like it quite a bit.
b.t.
Phillip, the actress who played Jessica in the Logan's Run TV series had also played one of the Von Trapp children in The Sound Of Music (you probably already knew that). I watched the Logan's Run TV series before I'd seen the film so when I finally watched the film I was surprised to discover that the city was run by a computer and not a secret group of old men as in the TV series.
I'm totally unfamiliar with Lucan but I did like Fantastic Journey - anyone remember it? Unfortunately it was cancelled after about nine episodes.
Best thing about Logan's Run was definitely the Carousel scene...
Last day
Capricorn fifteens
Year of the city, 2274
Carousel begins
Be strong and you will be renewed...
(That's Logan's Run the movie of course).
Colin:
Just the other day I noticed that THE FANTASTIC JOURNEY is playing on Tubi. Hadn’t even thought about that show in many years. I’m definitely curious to revisit it.
I bought a cheap copy of the complete LOGAN’S RUN tv series a few years ago. I don’t think I made it through the first episode :D
b.t.
Colin - Yes, I was aware of Jessica's 'Sound of Music' background. Likewise, Peter Parker (Nicholas Hammond) was a 'SoM' brat, prior to the 70s Spidey tv series. Like yourself, I think I watched the 'Logan's Run' tv series before the film, so that seemed the orthodoxy.
Rewind TV broadcast 'The Fantastic Journey', a bit back. Roddy & Jared Martin both classic 70s actors. That boy-genius kid (c.f. Adric, Wesley Crusher, etc) also played Duffy Moon, on 'The Cosmic Awareness of DF'. The young black doctor/intern later starred in 'The A-Team', as Decker's side-kick, sergeant Crane. The female characters, however, don't ring any bells!
b.t. - Ah well...at least you put that ghost to rest! Maybe I'll check 'Logan's Run' out, someday (or it'll appear on Youtube! ) Them repeating it on tv, would save me the hassle!
Phillip
Phillip, the main female character in The Fantastic Journey was telepathic and had a telepathic cat as I recall.
According to Wikipedia the telepathic woman was called Liana and her cat was called Sil-El.
Matthew mentioned The Man From Atlantis which I definitely remember and which starred a pre-Dallas Patrick Duffy of course. Jared Martin from The Fantastic Journey also starred in Dallas for a while as Sue-Ellen's boyfriend (Dusty?) until he gets killed in a plane crash.
Colin - Didn't that woman (one of the women?) get left at a sinister Logan's Run-style) city-of-the-future, removing her from the cast? Jared Martin was also in a so-bad-it's-good martial arts film, entitled 'Men of the Dragon' !
Phillip
I don’t remember the specific details of ‘that woman’ on FANTASTIC JOURNEY — played by an actress named Katie Saylor — I just recall her wearing very short skirts and thinking she was very pretty. I read online that she abruptly left the show because of an illness. Also, didn’t the ‘boy genius’ kid later play a young cadet that gets killed in STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN?
b.t.
Ike Eisenmann, yeah. I remember him from the 70s, and he played Scotty’s nephew in Khan - who dies honourably in that movie.
Anyhow — comics!
According to ‘Mike’s’, another comic published that month in 1976 was STAR REACH #5, featuring the first appearance of Gideon Faust by Len Wein and Howard Chaykin. Faust was a Victorian Sorcerer/Detective, kind of a cross between Dr. Strange and Sherlock Holmes (he had a ‘Watson’ instead of a ‘Wong’). Chaykin’s art was super-stylish on this one. Faust later returned in a fully-painted adventure by Wein and Chaykin for HEAVY METAL.
b.t.
Phillip, as bt says, Katie Saylor dropped out of The Fantastic Journey due to an illness - maybe she'd intended to return but the series was cancelled a couple of episodes later anyway. Her disappearance was explained by Liana wanting to stay behind for a while in the city you mentioned before catching up with the others which sounded highly unlikely as how would she know where they'd gone?? Anyway I remember being disappointed when Liana dropped out because she and her telepathic cat were two of my favourite characters.
Boy Howdy!
Yeah, that Guardians of the Galaxy story, with it's ironic twist, was straight outta Star Trek....or maybe the Twilight Zone.
Ah, I miss the old crew.
M.P.
Agree with b.t. that the best comic here - that I've read anyway - is the 2001 adaptation. Kubrick's lifeless, sterile vision of space becomes a Kirby klassic, krackling with kosmic energy! Awesome.
If only Marvel had got Jack Kirby to do a Clockwork Orange Treasury too...
Amazing Adventures #37 is an odd one, which I didn't much care for at the time, even at the height of my infatuation with Dauntless Don McGregor's writing. And not just because of the distinct lack of purple prose (where were all the wordy captions...?)
On the one hand, we finally see Killraven & co meet and hang out with other people. But instead of taking the opportunity to give us a bit of background about human society under the Martians and move the series forward a bit, McGregor just gives a flashback to the invasion and some arena action from Old Skull's point of view.
We get to see Killraven back in his original lederhosen, fighting other equally camp gladiators, but not much in the way of anything interesting happens.
Warlock is a bit of a fail too with the Star Thief storyline, in which a done-in-one gets stretched out as a two parter. Is the space shark in #13, or is that the next issue (which also has the stupid giant expanding Warlock ending)?
Either way, it's a sad month for 70s Marvel when Warlock and Killraven (and the Jungle Action Black Panther) aren't any good.
-sean
So, I've just been reading Marvel Chillers #5. That's ten minutes for my life I won't get back, thanks a lot dangermash...
I thought the worst ever 70s Marvel was Red Wolf #6, but I think that issue of Chillers might just have beaten it into second place. What a sh*t comic. Everytime I tried to read the words my brain kept refusing to do it...
Anyway, the first thing that occurred to me about Red Wolf throwing his tomahawk on that last page was that it probably wasn't what it looked like. And that Phillip would almost certainly turn out to be correct about the reveal next issue.
So I had a look at Marvel Chillers #6 to check. And sure enough, Red Wolf was actually throwing his tomahawk at Tigra's chains... Even though the cover shows Red Wolf throwing his tomahawk at Tigra, while shouting 'Die, Were-woman, DIE!'
#6 was drawn by Marvel newbie John Byrne, but strangely looks just as bad as #5.
-sean
Great commentary, Sean!
At least I didn't miss much, with that Killraven.
To me, Star Thief isn't a complete dead loss ( abruptly ending one of Marvel's greatest ever characters in such a cavalier way, notwithstanding.)
The giant, expanding universe Warlock (being facetious) is nicked from Moorcock. The scene with cosmic jester, Lord Balo, when the same thing happens to Elric. ( In 'The Vanishing Tower', if memory serves. )
Warlock using a black hole as a cosmic "short cut", coming out of a white hole, on the other side, was an idea speculated on in Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos'. But Cosmos came later, so Starlin must have read it elsewhere!
Phillip
nicked - I mean 'inspired by' ( hee, hee! )
Phillip
Phil-
Yeah, Warlock's powers were all over the place. I'm not sure what he was capable of, with or without that soul gem.
Kept racking up powers. Sorta like the early Thor (or even '50's Superman, now that I think about it) back in the old days. Remember when Thor had time-travelling powers?
That would be problematic, to say the least. But apparently Warlock could warp through space.
M.P.
Phillip, if you're looking for a source popularising the idea of wormholes prior to Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos', black holes were used for space travel short cuts in Joe Haldeman's1974 novel 'Forever War', which I think was relatively (so to speak) widely read back then.
-sean
Phillip, just because bt was disappointed on re-watching the Logan's Run TV series doesn't mean you would be too.
I'd never heard of readallcomics.com but I've just been looking at Marvel Chillers #5 too and I'll definitely be visiting that site again. I assume only American comics are available so no Marvel UK?
M.P. - Yes, returning as 'the ultimate avenger, Warlock transforming Thanos to stone, came completely out of left field. He was pulling powers out of his hat!
Sean - Only 5 in '1974, I'm pleading youth, as an excuse. Haldeman's name featured on my dad's Analogs' covers quite frequently, though.
Colin - Yes, didn't some of Star Trek's best writers pen some episodes (albeit perhaps stock sci-fi plots)?
Phillip
Yeah, Sean's the one to thank for that. He mentioned it here a few months ago.
Phillip:
Yes — IIRC, D.C. Fontana, David Gerrold and even Harlan Ellison contributed scripts to the LOGAN’S RUN TV series. I think the Gerrold and Ellison scripts were heavily re-written by other writers.
And Colin’s right — don’t let my dismissive snark put you off. Who knows, you might actually enjoy the show.
b.t.
Jumping in here pretty late...
Totally agree with the consensus on the "2001" Treasury. A great book, one of Jack's best 70's efforts.
Regarding "Murder by Death"- I absolutely loved it 'back in the day'. A couple of years ago, I happened to pick up a copy on dvd and watched it again. Although Peter Sellers' character is a bit cringey from our 21st. Century viewpoint, most of the film remains hilarious. The sequence in which the blind butler tries to give instructions to the deaf cook is a hoot.
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