Quatermass and the Pit meets Guardians of the Galaxy.

Hooray! It's time for a new regular feature on the UK's three hundred and ninety one millionth best blog. One where I give a quick round-up of whatever genre-related films I've been watching lately.

Obviously, when I say, "Regular," none of us should hold our breaths waiting for the next instalment because, once I've done this post, apathy'll probably seize me and the feature will no doubt never be heard of again.

Anyway, inspired by conversation on Back in the Bronze Age, I've been rewatching the classic 1958 BBC serial Quatermass and the Pit - that dread reminder of why messing about with shovels can only ever lead to horror. By eerie coincidence, the night after I watched the final episode, the Horror Channel then showed the 1967 Hammer movie remake, giving me a chance to make a direct comparison in a way I'd never done before.

It's always been the thing amongst the wise and informed to say the TV version's massively superior to the film version but, as someone who saw the movie first, I've always had strong resistance to such a notion and see both incarnations as equal but different. Being a serial, the TV show has time to explore its characters, ideas and setting in more depth, especially with its backdrop of Notting Hill style race riots, references to which, I think, are totally absent from the movie. But the film gains by being quicker and more sharply focused, cutting out all of the padding that was logistically necessary in the TV show.

When it comes to casting, it's also a draw. André Morell and Andrew Keir are chalk and cheese, Morell all sophisticated charm, and Keir, a ball of kindly irascibility. You could imagine Keir's hero decking someone with a well-placed right hook. Something you could never imagine Morell doing. Despite the differences between them, both are excellent in the part and, despite delivering exactly the same dialogue in totally different ways, both somehow manage to be perfectly cast.

Likewise Cec Linder and James Donald are both excellent as maverick archaeologist Matthew Roney. The movie's Donald does seem more like an intellectual, while TV's showmanlike Linder feels more like an outsider, a status that becomes crucial as the tale reaches its climax. It also has to be said that Linder really does look like he's stepped straight out of a panel drawn by Steve Ditko.

As Barbara, Roney's assistant, Barbara Shelley is more glamorous and self-possessed than Christine Finn but Finn has a somewhat strange quality to her and she's allowed to develop a friendship with the army captain that's totally missing from the film.

For me, where the film definitely scores over the TV version in terms of casting is that of Colonel Breen. Julian Glover's Breen starts out with some degree of charm, wit and even manners before degenerating into a deranged blockhead, whereas Anthony Bushell's Breen is a deranged blockhead from the very start, making you wonder how he ever got into any kind of position of authority.

Having said that, the TV show possibly gives hints that his behaviour is because (having a militaristic mindset?) he's being influenced by the machine before everyone else, whereas the movie doesn't hint at that, making Breen's refusal to recognise the mountain of evidence piling up in front of him somewhat baffling.

When it comes to production values, amazingly, the TV version beats the movie. The creatures are far better constructed in the TV version (although the movie ones are creepier) and the purging of the Martian hives is staged far more impressively. It does seem odd that a 1950s BBC serial should be able to rustle up better effects than a big screen movie from a decade later but I suppose that's just a reminder of how low-budget Hammer films really were and just how much they managed to hide that sin by hiring excellent casts to make them seem classier than they were.

So, in the end, I still declare it to be a draw, with both versions being classics in their own right.

One thing that does strike me as being astonishing about the TV version is that it was broadcast live, with filmed inserts for the trickier scenes. The idea that anyone would broadcast a science fiction show live seems like madness but they pull it off beautifully, with only the odd glitch to remind you that there were no retakes possible.

One last thing that strikes me is that the TV version of the craft looks remarkably like a dalek that's got drunk and fallen over on its way home from the pub. I had assumed it must be because dalek designer Raymond Cusick was involved but it turns out he didn't join the BBC until a couple of years later. Could he have been influenced by the design when he first drew his deadly mutants or was it pure coincidence?

*

If last night was a chance for me to revisit an old friend in Bernard Quatermass, it was also a chance to visit some new ones in the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Obviously, the Guardians of the Galaxy aren't really new friends. They're not friends at all. I've never met them and they've never met me and they'd probably mug me if they did meet me but I have at least encountered them before.

However, that was in the pages of a comic, and last night's bank holiday scheduling did give me a chance to see their movie for the first time.

Obviously, I was looking forward to it because I'm that kind of a man but did I enjoy it?

I enjoyed it when there was personal interaction going on. The characters were well-defined and sympathetic, somehow managing to come across as plucky underdogs despite having enough power between them to flatten an army.

I didn't enjoy it anything like as much when there was actual action going on. Not being a fan of space battles, especially CGI ones, I must admit the film lost my attention whenever the lasers started firing.

My other complaint would be that Ronan was a totally undeveloped villain. From what I can remember, we found out nothing about him other than that he wanted to destroy a planet for no reason that I could remember. Also, Thanos and Karen Gillan's Nebula were frustratingly underused. So far, all I've seen Thanos do in Marvel films is sit in a chair. I do hope he manages to escape his chair in future films or the series' climax is going to be a bit dull.

Anyway, I give it seven out of ten. It wasn't a film that blew me away but I'd have no objection to watching it again.

Marvel Presents: Guardians of the Galaxy #5. A New York state of mind.

The visitor stats to the World's Greatest Blog tell me that now is the ideal moment to cash in on the impending release of the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie by posting an article that mentions the Guardians of the Galaxy a lot.

But how can I contrive to post an article on here that mentions the Guardians of the Galaxy a lot?

How?

How??

How???

I know!

I'll do a review of an issue of the Guardians of the Galaxy!

I suspect that anyone who read the Guardians' original run in Marvel Presents most remembers the issue where, in search of a transistor with which they can repair their obviously state-of-the-art spaceship, four of the Guardians find themselves on an alien world almost identical to New York circa 1980.

Needless to say, with their highly developed social skills, it's not long before they're all involved in various scraps and scrapes, with Charlie-27 in a post-bar-brawl police cell, as Nikki finds herself at war with a religious cult, while Yondu and Vance Astro find themselves accused of theft from a radio shop.

And, needless to say, there's a twist in the tale when - rescued at the end of the mag, with seemingly all of New York out to kill them - it turns out the world is in fact not a planned society but a lunatic asylum that resembles New York because the inmates have been left to create the society that best suits their madness.

The decision to launch the Guardians into space was clearly an attempt to redo Star Trek and nowhere is that more obvious than in this tale, which is clearly inspired by those Star Trek episodes where Kirk and friends found themselves on planets that resembled prohibition America, Nazi Germany or Ancient Rome.

With its not exactly subtle satire by Steve Gerber and Al Milgrom, it's not what you'd call a classic but it's all good fun and passes the time painlessly while fitting into the vibe you got from Milgrom during his run on Captain Marvel. In fact, you could easily imagine this being done as a one-off Captain Marvel tale. Whisper it quietly but you could even imagine it being done as a Jim Starlin Warlock tale, with Adam, Pip and Gamora in the Guardians' place. In the latter instance, you suspect the satire would have been handled more darkly and more bitingly.

My favourite character in this story has to be the Mercurian Nikki who comes across as a less irritating but more troublesome predecessor to the X-Men's Jubilee.

The most annoying character has to be Vance Astro with his non-stop racism directed at Yondu. It might have made sense for him to look down his nose at Yondu as an ignorant savage when they first met but, after all the adventures they've had together, you'd have thought he'd have learned some sort of respect for him by now.

Marvel Presents #3 - The Guardians of the Galaxy.

I'm not sure what it says about me but the upcoming Marvel movie I'm most excited about is The Guardians of the Galaxy.

Admittedly, the only other Marvel movie I can think of that's in the pipeline is Ant-Man, so it's probably not that great an achievement on behalf of the space-bound adventure. But, still....

As the film features a talking raccoon and a talking tree, this excitement probably suggests I've blown some sort of fuse and succumbed to a madness brought on by decades of breathing in ink fumes.

But, of course, whatever it's appeal, the movie features a totally different cast from the set of characters the comic possessed in my youth.

As that comic was one of my favourite strips when I was a lad, that suggests it's time to take a look again at the very first issue of their short-lived run in Marvel Presents.

The thing that first strikes you upon reading Steve Gerber and Al Milgrom's tale is that it's an issue of two halves. Clearly, like anyone with any sense, Gerber can't wait to get the Earth/Badoon War out of the way, as he brings it to an end in short order, with the Sisterhood of the Badoon showing up to take away their reprehensible menfolk for a fate that's clearly going to be worse than death.

The second half of the tale deals with the various guardians then finding it impossible to fit into peacetime society until they have to be whipped away by Starhawk to fly off into space, looking for suitable punch-up opportunities.

To be honest, it's not a totally compelling start to the series. For me, the reptilian Badoon were always the worst alien species in the Marvel universe, being even less impressive than the Krylorians who were so bad that they themselves were barely more than stand-ins for the Toadmen from Outer Space.

It's in the second half of the issue that things get more interesting. We get Yondu deciding to kill himself but then changing his mind, when stabbing a caveman makes him realise he still has a self-preservation instinct and therefore must have a reason to live. Martinex, meanwhile, encounters racial prejudice against those made of carbon. Charlie-27 quits his job as a construction worker, after getting fed up of his boss. In the most emotionally-charged section, Vance Astro's inevitably still tormented by having to wear a glorified gimp suit at all times if he doesn't want to be reduced to dust.

This in mind, Starhawk beams them all up to the spaceship and they set off into space in a scenario that no doubt owes nothing at all to Star Trek.

Bearing in mind my affection for the strip, it'd be easy to bemoan the fact that the original characters aren't going to be in the movie but the truth is, with their sheer absurdity, the characters in the film seem to have far more potential to hold the audience's interest than the originals would have. For all their appeal; with his bitterness, sense of isolation and short temper, Vance Astro is the only genuinely compelling character amongst the originals.

So it's not a great story but it does at least get rid of the less-than-majestic Badoon nonsense and sets things up for the series' far stronger and quirkier tales to come.

Having said all that, if there's no mention of the originals at any point in the movie, I shall be even crosser than Vance Astro always was.

And that's saying something.

Grrr!

The Guardians of the Galaxy movie trailer.

These are exciting times for those of us who have the maturity levels of a ten year old.

First we get the senses-shattering Lego Movie and now we get the trailer for the Guardians of the Galaxy. Has any film of the last ten years ever been more eagerly anticipated than this one has?

Well, yes. Even as one who liked the 1970s version of the strip and possessed several issues of it, I have to admit it's not necessarily the super-hero movie that's most cried out to be made over the years. But, still, as long as it's Marvel and there's super-heroics, it's going to hold a certain frisson for some of us.

Sadly, of course, it's not the Guardians of my youth. The likes of Vance Astro, Yondu, that wide bloke, that bloke who was made of diamonds, that woman with the flamey hair, and whatever the others were called, are notably absent.

So is Starhawk. But, given how annoying he was, that's probably no bad thing. And it can't be denied that, potentially silly as they are, the current bunch are a more diverse - and threaten to be a more interesting - set of characters for a cinema audience than the originals would have been.

I first encountered the Guardians as a very briefly run strip in Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes comic, in a Gene Colan drawn origin tale that didn't exactly bowl me over; mostly because the villains were called the Badoon and it all ended with a sing-along.

Karen Gillan not being blue.
Photo by MangakaMaiden
 [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Fortunately, things were looking a lot better when they re-emerged with their own series in the back of Marvel UK's Star Wars comic where they'd had something of a makeover and put the Badoon behind them to have a bunch of unlikely adventures in space that lent them the same sort of appeal as Steve Gerber's other regular strip The Defenders.

The trailer's an odd thing, depicting our heroes as a bunch of losers and misfits - a role I'm not used to seeing the likes of Gamora and Drax being fitted into - and whether it'll turn out to be a fun romp or a film let down by its inability to take its leads seriously, only time will tell.

Will we get to see Warlock?

Will we get to see Thanos?

Only time can tell.

But, of course, for Dr Who fans, the real appeal of the movie is we get to see Karen Gillan painted blue. If you don't want to see a blue-painted Karen Gillan, then, frankly, I fear there may be no hope for you in life.

Steve Does Comics leaps into the 21st Century!

Like Spider-Woman in Avengers #12.1 , Steve Who Does
Comics is surrounded by enemies wherever he goes!

As I roam the streets of Sheffield, people often say to me, "Steve, you're always going on about some old crap or other. You do know it's not still 1978, don't you?"

And I reply, "You half-witted dolt! Of course it's still 1978! Why, if it wasn't, Brian and Michael wouldn't still be Number 1 with their moving tribute to LS Lowry!"

"Get with it, grandad!" they retort. "Brian and Michael haven't been Number 1 for weeks! It's the Bee Gees now, with their latest smash Night Fever! How can you keep up with current trends if you don't even watch Top of the Pops!?!"

To address this very issue, the other day I decided to take advantage of Free Comic Day and scoop up a pile of more modern comics than I'm used to dealing with, from Comixology. To keep it balanced, I chose some titles I was familiar with and some I'd never heard of before. Having not read a new comic since 1996, I shall at last find out what's been happening in the world of panels since those halcyon days of yore.

Avengers Vol 4 #12.1
By Brian Michael Bendis & Bryan Hitch.

Hooray! The Avengers! We all love the Avengers!

On the hunt for aliens, Spider-Woman's been kidnapped by a gang of arch-villains, and the Avengers go to her rescue.

The first thing that struck me about this is every super-hero in the world now seems to be in the Avengers - including Spider-Man and Wolverine, two characters who should surely never be in the Avengers.

It's all very nicely drawn - and beautifully coloured but somewhat bland in both its visual and verbal story-telling, and the sheer overabundance of heroes and villains makes it oddly uninvolving.

Even the return of Ultron, which lends the tale its climax, seems strangely flat when it should feel like the most mind-searingly thrilling thing ever to have happened, ever.

Strange also that none of the bad guys recognise Ultron when they see him.

Batman Black & White: A Black & White World
By Neil Gaiman and Simon Bisley.

A short story that works on the conceit that Batman and the Joker are basically actors playing a part and are chatting to each other whilst waiting to do their scenes.

It's all very pleasant but, as so often with Gaiman, feels suspiciously like it might, deep down, just be punchless whimsy.

Class War #1
by Rob Williams & Trevor Hairsine.

I must admit to being impressed that there're people called Trevor working in the modern industry. I like to think he smokes a pipe as he draws, and wears a cable-knit sweater.

But this is more like it. A government-appointed super-hero discovers just how bad the American government is and decides to turn against it.

I do worry that this comic's aimed at conspiracy theorists and the sort of people who have bunkers in their backyards, full of assault rifles for when, "The Day," comes. Also, the characters aren't properly introduced, making it a little confusing in places but, unlike the previous comics I've looked at here, it has a strong premise and an emotional thrust that does mean I'd be interested in seeing what happens next.

The Evil Tree #1
by Erik Hendrix  and Daniel Thollin.

This is a horror tale about some people driving around in the snow.

At least, the bit I read was.

I must admit I gave up after a few pages. It seemed like fairly standard horror fare and was very badly drawn.

Obviously, it was deliberately badly drawn, to suit its genre but the combination of ugly artwork and unengaging writing put me off before I could get very far into it.

Guardians of the Galaxy Infinite Comic #1.
by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming.

I always loved the Guardians of the Galaxy, so I was always going to be drawn to this one.

Drax is sat around, minding his own business, when he's attacked and has a fight that goes on for page after page until it ends. Then some bloke turns up and says he's needed elsewhere.

Erm, that's it in terms of story.

On the plus side, the thing's been put together with electronic reading in mind, which means it tells the tale with fresh panels popping up over already displaying pages, rather than everything appearing sequentially, demonstrating that some sort of thought's been put into its structuring.

On the downside, it has virtually no dialogue, characterisation, wit, plot, intelligence or point and the artwork is awful. Given the ambitious story-telling style of Drax's creator, I can't help feeling Jim Starlin would be turning in his grave if he were dead.

Mouse Guard Fall 1152 #1
by David Petersen.

I can't deny it, I got this one because it's about mice - and who doesn't love mice?

What happens is some talking mice set out to find a missing talking mouse but instead find he had a dark secret.

This has a children's storybook feel to it, which automatically lends it a certain charm. It's not what you could call the most involving story of all time - in fact, the writing's pretty much as dull as it could be - but it is very nicely drawn and stars mice, so it gets a thumbs up from me.

Superman: War of the Supermen #0
by Sterling Gates/James Robinson and Various.

General Zod's back, is now leader of the Kandorians and wants to invade our planet. Meanwhile, dark forces are stirring on Earth.

This is a lot more violent than the good old days of Curt Swan.

That's not necessarily a bad thing but it is a shock to the system for the older-style reader.

It all seems to be well done and its various artists make up for an appallingly bad cover by giving us a lovely - if vaguely fascistic - splash page of the Kandorians heading toward Earth to give it a good smacking.

I don't know if I like the comic or not. I'd probably have to read more in order to make my mind up.

But it does have to be said that, with his seeming inability to grasp that all Kryptonians have the same powers that he has, Superman does come across as not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

"Well that's all fancy blather," I hear you cry, "But which was your favourite? And what did you make of the modern world of comics?"

My favourite for writing was Class War - which had flaws but was at least taut - and, for art, it was Mouse Guard.

I can make few conclusions on the state of modern comics because I'd need a bigger sample to get a proper overview of that. But, The Evil Tree and Guardians of the Galaxy aside, the experience wasn't as bad as I'd feared.

One of the reasons I gave up comics in the mid-1990s was because of rampantly self-indulgent artwork that made it impossible to understand what was actually going on. Apart from the odd lapse, none of these comics had that flaw. And one thing that does seem to have improved since then is that not one of them was drawn by someone who draws like Jim Lee with a broken arm.

Marvel Presents #4. The Guardians of the Galaxy.

I first came across the Guardians of the Galaxy in Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes comic which reprinted their début outing.

I wasn't impressed.

For a start, they looked bad. And, for another thing, so did their enemies.

Their enemies were an alien race called the Badoon who, in some far-flung future, had conquered the Earth and its colonies. As far as I was concerned, if the Marvel Universe needed another race of aliens, it wasn't the Badoon. Obviously someone had got the word "baboon" and changed its first syllable to "bad" to let us know they were, well, bad.

Leaving aside the fact they were clearly reptilian and therefore not baboons, the trouble was they weren't only bad they were rubbish. "We shall overcome," sang the Guardians at the end of that tale. If it was reader apathy they were hoping to overcome, frankly, I didn't fancy their chances.

But, in Comicbookland there's rarely life without hope and they were brought back by Steve Gerber who slotted them into The Defenders comic and brought the whole Badoon saga to a welcome end. Needless to say, with Gerber in charge they were a much more interesting proposition. Like the Defenders, they were a bunch of misfits - in this case, having to hang out together because they were unable to fit into a post-war society. They also acquired two new members; Starhawk and, in this issue, a young female Mercurian called Nikki.

Frankly, to my eyes, Starhawk was a bit of a stiff. He was a man of mystery and,  aside from coming across as irredeemably pompous, men of mystery rarely sustain interest for more than five minutes. On top of that, he kept turning into a woman of mystery. Just what we needed, two persons of mystery on one starship.

Nikki was much better. Just as the addition of Valkyrie to the Defenders brought an extra dimension to an otherwise all-male strip, so the addition of a teenage girl to the previously all-male, all-square Guardians changed the gang's dynamic for the better. In this tale, the Guardians, having failed completely to cope with life in a normal society, have got back together to do the Star Trek thing and, thanks to Starhawk, are on the trail of a huge beast that eats stars.

Needless to say, despite being led by, "One who knows," by the end of the issue it's all gone belly-up and they're facing doom but what's interesting to me is that, the ending aside, not a lot happens in this tale. Basically they hang around talking about stuff, then Nikki shows up and they talk about some more stuff and then, at last they get to face up to a giant monster.

This follows on from the previous issue where, also, not a lot happened. It was an approach that reminded us that Steve Gerber was nothing if not unconventional. And maybe this refusal to toe the comic book line guaranteed the strip a one-way ticket to cancellation but perhaps it was also this refusal to do the expected that secured the previously forgettable Guardians a place in my heart. Even in their revamped form they were never quite as good a strip as The Defenders but, when it came to reader apathy, they had at least overcome.