Week 20.2 – Yi Fan

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Twain was taken prisoner by the Cobalt Czar’s men. And now…

The men riding with him did their best to intimidate him with sly looks and muttered remarks followed by cruel laughter. He tried to make them think they were in control by staying quiet and looking nervous.

Which wasn’t too hard. The diesel fumes were mixing badly with the greasy aftertaste of the boiled lunch he’d just half-eaten, and combined with the headache, he was sure he was an interesting shade of pale-verging-on-green.

The headache was from the mask, he was thinking. It always hurt when he flipped a lot of mass, but once he’d done it, there was no lingering effect. However, the mask was a powerful object itself; when he flipped it, he could always feel its power hovering out there somewhere. It hadn’t been much of an issue on the flight over, but he’d started developing a killer headache on the drive.

Around ten minutes later, the truck pulled to a stop with a squeal of abused brakes. The men grabbed him and hustled him out into the fresh air. They were in a small town with narrow streets and relatively new buildings built too close together. The low concrete building they were parked in front of had the drab, utilitarian look of a jail or what passed for a police station in the Czar’s domain.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]Twain stumbled and seemed to twist his ankle, falling heavily against the man on his right. And then he threw his shoulder hard into the man’s hip…[/blockquote]There were two ways to play this. Usually, he would go willingly into a cell, because once he was locked up, their guard would be down, and he could escape more easily, either by using the tools and implements he carried in his other suit, or by simply flipping the door.

But he was carrying too much stuff on the other side to make either of those approaches feasible. So he really needed to make his escape before being taken into the building, like right now.

Three of the men walked in front of him, chattering and laughing. His arms were held by men on each side, and the last man brought up the rear. As they walked him around the side of the truck toward the front door, the man on his left let go of his arm to light a cigarette. Twain stumbled and seemed to twist his ankle, falling heavily against the man on his right. And then he threw his shoulder hard into the man’s hip.

They both fell down, and Twain rolled past him under the truck. It took the men a moment to realize something was wrong, and another moment to decide whether to chase him under the truck or go around to the other side, and by that time, Twain was on his feet and sprinting hard for the building on the other side of the street. He opened the door and scrambled inside as shots rang out behind him.

The building was a vet’s office. Dogs inside started to yap and bark as he vaulted the counter and zig-zagged through a few dirty exam rooms to a back door, followed by angry shouts.

Will Twain get away? Will this week’s illustration ever appear? Be here tomorrow for our next exciting episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

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Week 20.1 – Yi Fan

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Twain stopped for a meal on the outskirts of the Czar’s territory, when he heard shouts outside. And now…

Twain kept his eyes down on his bowl as the men walked in: three of them, a big one flanked by two smaller men, like fighters escorting a bomber. They walked up to stand in front of the low table where Twain sat, so he looked up at them, taking in their rough, dirty clothes and jackets of almost-but-not-quite-matching blue.

The blue marked them out as the Czar’s men. The elite soldiers the Czar kept camped close to his palace (though elite was a relative term where the Czar’s men were concerned, having as much to do with loyalty as skill) wore proper uniforms of matching cut and color. The bully squads the Czar had patrolling the periphery of his territory were like these men, wearing whatever clothes they had that happened to be the right colors. They were more like gang members than soldiers, which made them simultaneously less and more dangerous: less because they weren’t as well trained, but more because they weren’t as disciplined, and therefore unpredictable.

The big  man reached down and plucked the small bowl from Twain’s fingers. “You come.”
Twain was confused by the man’s demeanor. On the one hand, it certainly seemed as if they had come here looking specifically for him. On the other hand, they didn’t seem angry or even especially cautious, so it didn’t seem as if they knew he was the man who had escaped from the Czar’s dungeons and killed a guard with a door on the way out. Maybe they wre just generally more wary about white men since the incident.

“I haven’t done anything,” Twain said.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]They were more like gang members than soldiers, which made them simultaneously less and more dangerous: less because they weren’t as well trained, but more because they weren’t as disciplined, and therefore unpredictable…[/blockquote]“No question,” the man replied. Twain wasn’t sure whether he meant for Twain not to ask questions or that he hadn’t asked a question. Or that there was no question that Twain had done something.

The smaller men each seized one of Twain’s arms and hauled him to his feet. Twain didn’t resist as they led him outside. They were more than a mile out of town. The yurt sat by the side of the road surrounded by open steppes. There was nowhere for him to run if he did try to escape. Better to let them think he had no fight in him until he got someplace where escape would be a more feasible option.

More men were going through his car. If they ever decided to let him have his car back, he knew that anything valuable that had been in it would be gone. Fortunately, all the good stuff was flipped. Except for the blue crystal hanging from a thong around his neck. If they found that, things would get messy. He really needed to get away before then.

He was led to their truck, an old military transport that looked to be of Soviet vintage. The big man got in the cab with the driver, while four more got in back with him. The other two remained with his car. Things were looking worse every second.

Will the men take him straight back to the Cobalt Czar? Is his mission over  before it has begun? Be here tomorrow for our next exciting episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

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Super Movies – Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapters 9-12

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Here it is: the conclusion of our four-week recap of Republic’s Adventures of Captain Marvel serial from 1941. Once again, this will be pretty long because I’m trying to finish it in four weeks. In the last chapter, Republic upended the normal cliffhanger formula by putting a couple of bad guy mooks into the deathtrap, and what do you know? In the opening of Chapter 9, “Dead Man’s Trap,” they don’t escape when the bomb goes off in the car they are driving.

Lang’s car runs off the road, but luckily Barnett and Braincase drop by to give the professor and Billy a ride. They are taken to the Scorpion’s house, where Lang meets the Scorpion, who enters through a secret passage. You know, the secret passage doesn’t stay secret for long if you keep showing it off to everybody. Just saying. Anyway, Lang is tortured in a cage with spikes inside.

Lang gives up the location of his lens. It’s in his library, in a safe hidden behind a painting. He gives the Scorpion the combination. The Scorpion orders Batson brought up from the basement. Billy’s guard leaves  the room to get water to revive Billy, so Billy (who was just playing possum) gets up and cries “Shazam!”

The thug walks in and shoots at Captain Marvel. There’s a close-up of something bouncing off Marvel’s chest, and whatever they’ve been shooting Tyler with really startles him this time, because he flinches and blinks, then forces on this hideous smile. The thug screams in terror because he knows he’s doomed.

Captain Marvel grabs him and tosses the gun away, which goes off and shoots the thug in the back. Captain Marvel looks completely confused as this guy dies in his arms. Then he heads to the Scorpion’s office.

The Scorpion uses Lang as human shield to escape through the secret passage, where he loses his mask and we get a glimpse of face for just a few frames.

It’s not actually any of the Lensmen, so he’s probably one of the crew used as a decoy. The Scorpion escapes pursuit through another secret passage in the secret passage. Tricky.

Meanwhile, Lang is calling Betty to retrieve his lens before the Scorpion’s men can get it, but just as he’s warning her that there’s a deathtrap set on the safe, the Scorpion reenters through another secret door, shoots Lang and escapes with the Golden Scorpion (now called the Golden Scorpion Atom Smasher). Lang survives just long enough to tell Captain Marvel there’s a deathtrap, but not what it is, nor who the Scorpion is.

Barnett’s men go to Lang’s place, where the groundskeeper also turns out to be one of their men. They leave him out front with a rifle, then go in to find the safe. Betty arrives, but before the groundskeeper can shoot her, Captain Marvel tackles him and knocks him out.

Meanwhile inside, as Braincase is working the combination to the safe, a panel opens in the wall behind the men and two Thompson submachine guns move into position.

Professor Lang don’t play. Bet the butler installed that. Before the guns can fire, though, the men hear Billy outside calling to Betty. Even though they are three armed, hardass thugs, they hide from the kid and the girl.

Betty mentions the deathtrap to Billy, but he assumes that the danger was from the groundskeeper guarding the gate. He and Betty move to the safe. As Billy begins the combination, the panel with the machine guns opens once more. Even though Billy looks back at Betty between every number, he never notices the threat. Once the combination is finished, the guns fire.

Welcome to Chapter 10, ” Doom Ship.” The third thug knocks Betty and Billy out and turns to the last number of the combination, causing the guns to fire and kill him. Barnett and Braincase open the safe once it’s, um, safe, and find a map showing that the lens (or “lense”) is still hidden inside the tomb back in Siam. As Barnett and Braincase are leaving, Billy goes on the attack!

Braincase escapes with the map, while Billy  stands on a chair and delivers a mighty uppercut which leads to Barnett being knocked out by a decorative sculpture. Then Billy changes to Captain Marvel and flies after Braincase as he flees across the lawn in another really nice flying effects shot.

He ties Braincase up with his own belt and takes the map, then changes back to Billy Batson to join Betty.

They run back to tell the three remaining Lensmen (Malcolm, Turban and Mustache) about the map. Malcolm decides they must return to Siam to retrieve the lens. He rips the map into five pieces and gives one each to Billy, Betty, Turban and Mustache to ensure everyone’s safety or something (because doing that with the lenses has worked out so well). Betty books passage on the freighter Carfax.

Back at his house (the house we last saw him leaving in a hurry when Captain Marvel had discovered it), the Scorpion tells Barnett that he’s leaving on the freighter “Colfax.” He gives Barnett some written orders, along with “ample funds,” to follow until he returns. Damn, Scorpion makes his thugs do homework. He’s a tough boss.

The freighter is caught in a storm off the Siamese coast and runs onto a reef. Billy changes to Captain Marvel and offers to fly a line ashore so they can get people safely off the ship. But as everyone is in line to be hauled to shore, Betty remembers “something” in her cabin and runs back to get it, watched by Turban and Mustache. Moments later, the Scorpion (who has taken the time to don his full Scorpion robe) knocks Betty out and takes her handbag.

Everybody else leaves the ship, and nobody notices that Billy somehow makes the trip to shore without riding the rope line, nor that Betty is missing, until the storm is over. Once Billy notices, he gets the others to help him back to the ship. He finds Betty’s unconscious, and instead of rescuing her, begins undressing her (apparently because the life jacket makes her too bulky to carry or something). But as he lifts her up, the line securing the ship breaks and the ship begins to sink!

Into Chapter 11, “Valley of Death!” Billy doesn’t even bother changing to Captain Marvel for this cliffhanger, just swims to shore towing Betty. She tells everyone how she was knocked out and her bag taken, but she has the map fragment hidden inside her jacket. The expedition goes to a nearby village to rest up. The Scorpion sends a message to Rahman Bar, the tribal leader we saw in Chapter One, by messenger, um, eagle? Hawk? It’s really big, whatever it is.

Meanwhile, Billy steamrolls the members of the expedition into leaving for the Valley early. They should call him “Bully Batson.” The Lensmen are reluctant to go so early, the Scorpion because he wants to give Rahman Bar time to prepare, and the others apparently because they were really hoping to party with some Thai prostitutes.

On the journey, Billy spots a native with a signal mirror.

In America,

Billy changes to Captain Marvel and chases the guy down in another nice flying shot. I keep showing all these, because it’s amazing to me how convincing and versatile this effect was, and yet nobody after the Lydeckers seems to have used it.

The tribesmen block the road through a pass and set a charge to blow up the mountainside in order to kill the expedition (including the Scorpion, unbeknownst to them). And amusingly, they set the charge on an identical hilltop to where the signal mirror guy was a few miles back (the scene was obviously shot on the same location).

Captain Marvel unblocks the road, allowing the expedition to escape before the bomb goes off, and Billy somehow catches up to them by the time they reach the tomb. They join the pieces of the map to figure out the lens’s hiding place. And even though he has traveled halfway around the world to get here, Turban refuses to enter the tomb.

Meanwhile, the tribesmen have decided to divert the river into the volcano to cause it to erupt so they can rouse all the local tribes against the white men. The eruption causes an earthquake, which causes the tomb to cave in. Everybody is trapped, except for Turban and Billy outside.

So here we are, finally at the last chapter, “Captain Marvel’s Secret.” Turban runs off to stall the tribesmen while Billy changes to Captain Marvel and rescues Whitey and Betty. Meanwhile, Malcolm amd Mustache (Bentley) have managed to escape down a rear tunnel, where the Scorpion reveals himself and shoots the other man. Though their faces are kept in shadow, it’s pretty clear that Malcolm is shot.

The Scorpion finds his robe somewhere and puts it on, then goes outside in time to see Captain Marvel change back to Billy Batson. But he doesn’t see how it’s done. He sends the tribesmen to capture Billy, Whitey and Betty.

Final confrontation time. In a cave with the tribal leaders and the prisoners, the Scorpion threatens to kill Betty with the atom-smashing power of the Golden Scorpion (now with all its lenses fully in place) unless Billy reveals the secret of how he transforms himself (the Scorpion thinks it might be a drug or something that Billy takes). Betty never seems particularly frightened in this scene, just baffled.

Seriously, I give Louise Currie a hard time, but it’s only because her performance was pretty bad. Anyway, Billy agrees, so the Scorpion removes Billy’s gag, and Billy says the magic word for the last time.

Captain Marvel breaks his bonds and grabs the Scorpion, pulling off his mask to reveal… Bentley.

No big surprise there, although it does mean that the big fight that destroys Bentley’s study in Chapter 6 was basically a big misunderstanding. But it is a surprise when Bentley breaks free and shoves a pistol into Betty’s side. He backs toward the cave entrance, using Betty as a shield, and walks directly into the path of the Golden Scorpion’s disintegration ray, activated by Rahman Bar, the tribal leader. The Scorpion is no more.

Captain Marvel gives a speech about power and greed, and then he throws the Golden Scorpion into the red-hot lava of the volcano. A ghostly voice says, “Shazam!” and Captain Marvel changes back to Billy. Turban explains that with the Scorpion destroyed, Captain Marvel is no longer needed to guard it. Therefore Billy is just a normal guy once more.

Billy, Betty and Whitey link arms to head happily back to America. Let’s hope that Barnett and Braincase weren’t left orders to kill them if they ever showed their faces again.

And that’s it. On the one hand, it’s a pretty rousing adventure serial with some unique and convincing special effects, better than Columbia’s Superman serials that would follow several years later. But on the other hand, since it was the first comics superhero to make it to the screen, the unwritten rules for heroes hadn’t been set in stone yet. So Captain Marvel had no problem gunning down his enemies, or throwing them off rooftops and cliffs. He wasn’t as dark as heroes would get in the 80’s and 90’s, but darker than most of what would follow for the next 40 years.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this. We’ll return with something more modern next week.

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Out of the Vault – Lords of the Ultra-Realm

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Tony Frazier

1986 was DC’s year, the year of Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen, as well as the final issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths and John Byrne’s reboot of Superman. But DC also had some less successful experiments during this time, like Electric Warrior and Lords of the Ultra-Realm

Lords of the Ultra-Realm was a 6-issue limited series written by Doug Moench and illustrated by Pat Broderick. It was a fantasy series that took place partially on our Earth and partially on a parallel world populated by the stuff of dreams, avatars of love and hate and rage and bliss and yada-yada-yada. Think of Roger Zelazny’s Amber series strained through 1970’s-vintage Marvel Comics cliches, in much the same way that Moench’s Weirdworld stories (including Warriors of the Shadow Realm) borrowed themes and elements from Tolkien and turned them utterly pedestrian.

The story opens with Vietnam Vet Michael Savage (not the talk radio host) playing pinball after his return to America. A street gang decides to hassle the soldier, and right away, even on this first page, you can see the strengths and weaknesses of the book.

On the one hand, Broderick’s art is solid and nicely-detailed. Broderick was never my favorite artist. He always turned in a decent job–decent layout with solid-looking figures and a nice amount of detail. But where other artists made what they did look graceful and effortless (even when it wasn’t)–guys like Steve Rude and Art Adams and Michael Golden–Broderick’s art always looked like he was sweating bullets with every panel, the figures a little too stiff and the facial features just a bit off.

Lords… features probably the best rendering job I’ve ever seen from Broderick–he not only pencilled, but also inked and colored–but his character design was not the best. Look at that street gang in the bottom panel (and yes, that guy’s name is indeed Slit). This is like a bad comic book interpretation of a bad Hollywood version of a street gang.

Anyway, back to the story. Just at the time that Savage is being hassled, on the parallel world of Ultra-Realm (a world which is made of the hopes, dreams and fears of mankind, and therefore possesses one side which is eternally dark and another which is eternally light), Falkon, Lord of Bliss, is “renewing” himself with his magic mirror and his skimpy toga.

And this is where you can tell the story has wandered into shitty cliche fantasy and will probably never find its way back out. Because the bad guys wear badass armor and actually do stuff, while the good guys wander around in white togas like H.G. Wells’s Eloi from The Time Machine and wet themselves whenever evil decides to show its face.

Seriously, compare the bad guys of Ultra-Realm…

To the good guys.

On the bad side, there’s a fat guy, a red guy with a mohawk, a skeleton guy, a guy in a weird hood… You’ve got a group of visually distinctive guys (and girls when they transform into their female aspects) with distinctive personalities as well. On the good side, you’ve got a bunch of interchangeable white douchebags who only vary in their choice of bad hairstyles and porn mustaches.

Anyway, Falkon dies after a swordfight with his opposite number, the Lord of Rage.

But Michael Savage, the earthly archetype of both Bliss and Rage, is transported to the Ultra-Realm where he takes over Falkon’s body and begins killing his way through the Lords, both Light and Dark, to restore balance to the Ultra-Realm. He is aided by a female journalist and by his former boxing trainer and a buddy from ‘Nam, whose only dramatic function (seriously) is to get killed at a climactic moment, thus driving Savage into a berserker rage that allows him to defeat the Dark Lords.

The big finale involves Savage becoming the “Overlord” of the Ultra-Realm and using his godlike powers to bring back the Lords, giving Moench the chance to add a little bit of crappy philosophy to his crappy plotting, crappy exposition, and crappy dialogue, although I do like the way Broderick mimics P. Craig Russell’s style in this one panel.

In the end, although in a lettercolumn Moench said there were plenty of stories to tell in the Ultra-Realm, DC only ever went back once, for a one-shot special the next year which was apparently not well received. Which was just as well. Look, 1986 was an extraordinary year, but they couldn’t all be winners.

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Week 19.5 – Cortex’s Theory

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Cole Chen, alias the superhero Metalord, offered to take Digger to China. And now…

“Wait, how did you get Digger a passport?” Katrina asked.

“I didn’t say I was putting him on a plane to China,” Cole said. “I said I’m taking him. We don’t need passports, because we’re not going through Customs. We just get on the plane and go.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” Katrina said.

“I’m pretty sure they can’t stop me,” Cole said.

“And how will you get into China?” Katrina asked.

“I have a plan,” Cole said. “Why are you so concerned? You want to come?”

“No, I don’t want to come,” Katrina answered. “And I’m concerned because I’m Digger’s friend. You’re not seriously considering this, are you?”

Digger jumped as he realized she had spoken that last to him. “Um, I don’t know. It does sound risky.”

“Of course it’s risky,” Cole said. “That’s not the point. The point is, do you seriously think you’re going to be able to get to China through legitimate channels in less than six weeks? I got the impression that you were in a hurry to catch up to this guy.”

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]“Crazy I can handle,” Digger said. “It’s when things start making too much sense that I start to worry.”[/blockquote]“I am,” Digger said. “And he’s right, Katrina. I came without a plan, but I knew an opportunity would present itself. Here’s the opportunity. I’ve got to take it.”

“It’s crazy,” Katrina said, and added in a lower voice, “He’s crazy.”

“Crazy I can handle,” Digger said. “It’s when things start making too much sense that I start to worry.”

***

The rusty Tianjin wheezed to a stop at a yurt on the outskirts of Batsumber, on the fringes of the Czar’s territory at the border between Mongolia and Siberia. Twain got out of the car and stretched, then limped toward the door. Hours of driving across bumps and potholes had left him stiff and sore.

And starving, he realized as he caught the smell of boiled mutton coming from inside. He opened the door and stepped inside. The five men in the room stared at him distrustfully. He bowed to them, and one of them spooned him out a bowl of meat from the iron pot over the fire. He accepted the bowl and settled down to eat on the opposite side of the round tent-like dome from the men, who resumed chattering in a mix of Mongolian and Russian, with the odd English word thrown in every now and then.

There wasn’t much flavor to the food, but it was warm and fatty and very filling. As he ate, Twain considered his options. He could go up into the mountains to find a remote place to camp while he scouted the City of the Moon more thoroughly than last time. Or he could pose as a missionary or something, ask around for information they would surely be afraid to give.

He was interrupted by the sound of a clattering diesel pulling up and stopping with the scream of worn brake drums. The other men in the tent tensed. Twain heard several voices shouting, and heavy footfalls approached the door.

What will happen to Twain? Will Digger really need to stop him, or merely scrape what’s left of him off the floor? Be here next week for the next exciting chapter!

To read from the beginning, click here…

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Week 19.4 – Cortex’s Theory

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Digger explained his situation to the members of Defcon 5, but their leader Cortex said that they could not help him. And now…

Digger sipped at his coffee as he sat at the counter in Katrina’s kitchen the next morning. The room was not at all what he expected–rustic and homey, the kitchen of a farmer’s wife rather than a super-powered former pole dancer.

“So what are you going to do today?” Katrina asked as she stirred eggs in the frying pan.

“I’m not sure,” Digger said. “I guess I’ll look up Ron first and see if he has any contacts who can help.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then my choices get a lot narrower,” Digger said. “Maybe my friend Davey can grease some palms, although I don’t want to fall back on him too much. And I really don’t want to ask my lawyer for help.”

“You have Invictus?”

“Caveat.”

Katrina made a face. “Sorry. I wish I could help, but I don’t know many people in a position to, and the ones I do know, I kinda need to keep for myself. You know.”

He did, in a way that only a few other heroes could. Explosions were by nature imprecise, which meant you were always blowing up stuff you didn’t mean to. You tended to burn through a lot of favors smoothing that stuff over, so if you had some good ones owed, you guarded them closely.

“But there may be one guy I could talk to,” Katrina said, spooning eggs onto a plate. “He’s..”

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]Before she had finished setting down the skillet, they heard the door open. Katrina tensed, and sparks danced before her eyes–three tiny detonations, like tiny fireworks, POP-POP-POP…[/blockquote]She was cut off by the sound of the doorbell. Before she had finished setting down the skillet, they heard the door open. Katrina tensed, and sparks danced before her eyes–three tiny detonations, like tiny fireworks, POP-POP-POP. But she relaxed in the next second as Metalord’s voice called out, “Hey, Katrina, you decent?”

“Never,” she replied.

Cole Chen strolled into the kitchen in slim jeans and a button-down shirt that was probably as expensive as it was plain. “D-Man!” he said. “Thought I’d find you here.”

“What are you doing just walking in here?” Katrina asked. “You know I was about to blow your ass up?”

“Yeah, that would’ve happened,” Cole said as he slid onto a stool beside Digger. “So D, I’ve been thinking. I feel really bad about your rental getting wrecked and all, and I want to make it up to you.”

“Thanks,” Digger said. “You can start by not calling me ‘D.’”

“So here’s the plan. You and I are going to go out and buy you some clothes. Some…” He looked Digger up and down and said, “…presentable clothes. And then we’re going sightseeing.”

Digger rubbed at his eyes, suddenly feeling tired again. “Do you ever listen to what someone else says? Anyone?”

Cole looked confused. “Like what?”

“Like I told you yesterday that I’ve spent a lot of time in San Francisco,” Digger said. “I’m very familiar with the city. I don’t need to waste any time sightseeing.”

“Who said anything anout San Francisco?” Cole replied. “Come on, dude, the plane’s waiting. I’m taking you to China.”

Well, if you read the trailer, you knew this was coming, so no big surprises here. But come back tomorrow anyway, for our next episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | 1 Comment

Week 19.3 – Cortex’s Theory

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Digger was telling the members of Defcon 5 the story of what happened with Twain. And now…

After Digger had related the rest of his story, Cortex looked thoughtful. “Something doesn’t make sense. If his plan was to go back to Mongolia all along, why all the rigamarole with the cup?”

“I don’t know,” Digger said. “Although… his attitude did seem to change after I got back from the past. He was quieter. I thought he was just working out a new plan. I guess he was, but it wasn’t the kind of plan I thought.”

“So maybe something did change in the past.”

“No,” Digger said. “Nothing changed.”

“So then perhaps you learned something important,” Boon prompted.

“No, I didn’t,” Digger said. “Everything was the same as when it first happened. The only new thing was…”

“What?”

“Well, I did discover that the crystal had a Chinese letter carved in it,” Digger said.

“Character,” Metalord corrected.

“Yeah,” Digger said. “The one for time. He explained how it was supposed to represent a Chinese water clock.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Metalord asked. He grabbed Cortex’s tablet and opened a drawing app. He drew a stark black character on the sceen with a few deft strokes of his fingertip. “Does that look like a clock to you?”

“That’s not the character I saw.” Digger took the tablet and tried clumsily to reproduce the character he remembered.

Metalord look at what he’d done and drew another character next to Digger’s shaky attempt. “Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not time,” Metalord said. “That’s moon.”

“City of the Moon,” Digger breathed.

“And so you’re coming to us hoping what, exactly?” Cortex asked.

“I don’t really know,” Digger said. “Whiz said you guys had fought the Czar a few times…”

“Whiz?” Katrina cut in.

“Cole’s brother? The douche?” Migi asked as her sister Hidari blushed and looked away.

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]“Whiz?” Katrina cut in. “Cole’s brother? The douche?” Migi asked as her sister Hidari blushed and looked away…[/blockquote]“So I thought maybe you could give me directions,” Digger said, realizing how lame it sounded. “Or something.”

“Well, I suppose we can help you get your luggage out of your wrecked car,” Cortex said.

“Don’t have any,” Digger said.

“Then where’s your passport?”

“Don’t have one,” Digger said.

“I’m sorry, but how were you planning to go to China without a passport?” Boon asked.

“Still working on that one,” Digger said. “I thought my frien Ron might be able to help.”

“Ron in Customer Service?” Hidari muttered and Migi giggled.

“What was that?” Digger asked.

“Sorry,” Hidari said. “Just making a joke about AcroCop.”

“You know him?”

Hidari’s jaw dropped. “You weren’t seriously talking about him, were you? He’s nobody. He doesn’t even have any powers.”

“But maybe he still has contacts,” Digger said. “Right now, powers can’t help me. I need someone with pull, maybe in the State Department, who can get me overseas.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Cortex said. “Sorry we can’t be more help, but we can’t take on the Czar without a more concrete threat.”

“Didn’t expect it,” Digger said.

Katrina took his arm and smiled. “But let me take you to dinner, at least.”

So what will Digger’s next move be (and I don’t mean with Katrina)? Be here tomorrow for the next episode.

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | 3 Comments

Week 19.2 – Cortex’s Theory

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Cortex, resident genius of Defcon 5, told Digger he still has super powers. And now…

“That’s crazy,” Digger said. “I don’t have super powers.”

“You do,” Cortex said. “You just don’t understand them.”

“According to your theory?”

“You don’t want to hear about the theory,” Metalord said.

“Do you know the concept of gravity in spacetime?” Cortex asked. “That gravity is not a force exerted by one object on another, but rather, the warping of spacetime by an object’s mass. What we perceive as gravity is really a distortion of reality caused by the mass of the Earth. Well, imagine your super powers doing the same kind of thing. Your powers distort your reality, and all possible alternate realities.”

“You’re saying it’s my destiny, no matter what universe I live in,” Digger said.

“No. Destiny implies an end point in common, or a similar life path across all realities, even some sort of intelligent purpose,” Cortex said. “Destiny is a mistaken interpretation of a simple cosmological phenomenon. You warp reality around you to create what you perceive as super powers. In any given reality, your powers could be anything you imagine and even things you can’t. You can be anything, except normal.”

“And I suppose you have math to back this up.”

Cortex smiled a little too eagerly. “I do! Do you want to see it?”

Behind him, Metalord shook his head, no.

“Maybe later,” Digger said. “But you still haven’t shown me any proof.”

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”left”]“And I suppose you have math to back this up.” Cortex smiled a little too eagerly. “I do! Do you want to see it?”[/blockquote]“Here’s proof!” Cortex waved at the tablet. “The only way to apply enough force to damage those knees was to hit with the force concentrated along the edge of the chassis. But you were over-rotating slightly and would have hit with the broader, softer side panels. Until you rolled down the window, which created just enough drag to slow the rotation and cause you to hit in just the right spot. Likewise, opening the car door slowed your spin just enough to hit both knees simultaneously. If you hadn’t done everything exactly right, from braking to turning your wheel to rolling down the window, you wouldn’t have brought the robot down. That can’t have happened by chance. Has anything else strange happened since you lost your powers?”

“No,” Digger said. “I mean, the drive up here was kind of weird, but I was just tired and had an awesome car.”

“Awesome how?” Katrina asked.

“Well, I made really good time,” Digger said. “And I only had to fill up once between Houston and here.”

“That’s impossible,” Migi said.

“No,” Cortex said. “That may be it. Your power may be something to do with operating machines with incredible efficency and precision. We’ll know more after we run some tests.”

“I don’t have time for tests,” Digger said. “I have to get to Mongolia and stop Twain.”

“From doing what?”

“I don’t know for sure,” Digger said. “But I think it’s some sort of revenge against the Cobalt Czar.”

“Sorry to say, but your friend’s a dead man,” Cortex said.

“He’s not my friend,” Digger said, “And I’m afraid he might succeed.”

Can Defcon 5 help? More importantly, will they? Join us tomorrow for the next exciting episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

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Week 19.1 – Cortex’s Theory

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Previously: Digger had just met the sixth member of Defcon 5, a woman he recognized as Katrina. And now…

“You know each other?” asked Cortex.

“Of course,” Digger said. “That’s Katrina Von Boom, the Detonating Dancer. We celebrated in Vegas together after she won that pole-dancing thing, what was that, six years ago? You dyed your hair.”

Katrina ran a hand through her blonde locks and smiled. “That’s because I’m the Blonde Bombshell now. You can’t strip forever.”

“Guess not,” Digger said. “You look good.”

“Thanks. You do, too.”

“Wait, was that exploding tentacle-thing you?” Digger asked.

“I thought you said you knew her,” Metalord said.

“She couldn’t always do that,” Digger said.

“It’s not a tentacle, just a contrail,” Katrina said. “I make air molecules explode to push me through the air. It’s a noisy way to fly, but it works.”

“Looks cool, too,” Digger said.

“Yeah,” Katrina said. She nodded at Digger’s hands. “So where are your things?”

“Long story,” Digger said. He sat down. “Sorry, I’m still not thinking straight since I took down that robot.”

“You took down a robot?” Cortex asked. “I thought you said you lost your powers.”

“I did,” Digger said.

“He crashed into it with his car,” Metalord explained.

“No way,” Cortex said. “A simple car crash couldn’t have taken one of those down.”

“I must have hit it just right or something,” Digger said. “I broke its knees.”

[blockquote type=”blockquote_quotes” align=”right”]“He thinks that being a genius gives him permission to be rude,” Boon added. Hidari nodded, while Migi mouthed, it doesn’t…[/blockquote]Cortex didn’t say anything for a moment, then walked out of the room. Digger looked at Metalord, who shrugged. “He does that.”

“He thinks that being a genius gives him permission to be rude,” Boon added.

Hidari nodded, while Migi mouthed, it doesn’t.

“Well, anyway, it started in a bar,” Digger said.

He told them the story as well as he could remember it all, and just as everyone in the room was moaning (or laughing) at the disclosure that Digger was robbing Caveat Maledictor’s house, Cortex rushed back into the room carrying a tablet computer. “Digger, I need you to explain something for me.”

Cortex pulled up several camera views of the spot where Digger crashed into the robot. He tapped the screen to freeze the image as the car started to skid, then advanced the videos frame-by-frame with swipes of his finger. “Look at this,” he said. “Those knees are too high to be damaged by collision with a car. But you locked up the wheels in just the right way to make the car not only tumble, but launch up off the ground, striking both knees simultaneously.”

“Okay,” Digger said. “But that sounds like you’re explaining things to me. You wanted me to explain something to you.”

“Yes,” Cortex said. He swiped the video backwards several frames. “What are you doing right here?”

“I don’t know,” Digger said. “Rolling down the window.”

“Exactly,” Cortex said. “Why?”

“To get out?”

“Hmm.” Cortex swiped a few frames forward. “And here you’re opening the car door, right before you hit.”

“What does it matter?” asked Metalord.

“It matters because Digger is living proof of my theory,” Cortex said. “He still has super powers.”

What theory is Cortex talking about? Be here tomorrow for the next informative episode!

To read from the beginning, click here…

Posted in Run Digger Run | 1 Comment

Super Movies – Adventures of Captain Marvel, Chapters 5-8

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Tony Frazier

Continuing our recap of the very first screen appearance of a comic book superhero, the Republic serial Adventures of Captain Marvel from 1941. I apologize for the length, but I’m trying to only spend four weeks on this. As Chapter 4 was ending, Betty was unconscious in a car careening down the ramp of a parking garage, headed toward an imminent and probably fatal collision.

In Chapter 5, “The Scorpion Strikes,” Captain Marvel arrives just in time and leaps onto the running board of the car to steer it to safety. He shakes Betty really hard to wake her up, then slaps her face a few times. It’s pretty funny, only because it’s Louise Currie. She finally comes to and points out the Scorpion’s men on the roof of the parking garage. So Captain Marvel flies up in another impressively realistic flying shot.

The thugs try to set a trap for him by luring him under a lift holding an engine block, but Captain Marvel catches it as it drops on him and throws it at them, bashing one of them in the head (ironically, he’s the only one who survives past the end of this episode).

Captain Marvel tackles another thug (the garage attendant Betty spoke to last episode) and straight throws him off the roof to fall nine stories to his death.

The last thug tries to flee down the elevator, but Captain Marvel hauls it up by the cables, grabs the guy, and threatens to strangle him unless the guy gives up the identity of the Scorpion. The guy says he doesn’t know; the Scorpion always wears a mask, but he might be able to recognize his voice.

Next thing you know, the thug is walking into a private meeting of the Lensmen with… Billy. Exactly how he pulled off the switch without compromising his secret is not addressed.  At this point, we have four Scorpion suspects: Creepy Turban Guy, Creepy Mustache Guy, Creepy Angry Guy, and Creepy Nervous Guy.

After all four of them have spoken, Billy asks the thug which one is the Scorpion. The thug chickens out, and the Lensmen leave in a huff, angry at Billy for having wasted their time with wild accusations. One of them secretly drops a note in the thug’s hat, telling him to lure Billy out to a certain cave.

So Billy and the thug go to the cave, where they fall into a pit to their deaths. Well, the thug does; Billy yells “Shazam!” and changes to Captain Marvel, in full view of the Scorpion, who is sitting absolutely motionless behind a card table in an absolutely unsuspicious manner.

Captain Marvel rips off the Scorpion’s mask to reveal his true identity. It’s Mike!

The Scorpion’s actually outside with Barnett, who uses the Golden Scorpion to direct a beam of energy at the mouth of the cave, causing the rock to melt.

I have no idea how they did this effect, but it is really cool. You can actually see parts of the image warp and start to run down. I wonder if it’s maybe a really realistic matte painting that they’re melting with heat or something, but the right half of the image looks too realistic for that. It really looks like they’re using a Photoshop-style Smudge effect, but I don’t know an analog method for that.

Captain Marvel finds himself trapped by the flood of molten rock. Doom!

Until the beginning of the next chapter, “Lens of Death,” in which Captain Marvel notices an opening in the ceiling of the chamber and leaps up to safety. Meanwhile, the Scorpion gloats to Barnett that Captain Marvel is dead and they pause to take a look at the abstract artwork the Golden Scorpion has made out of the cliff.

Doesn't look good, whatever it is

Now the Scorpion decides to hatch a new plan to deflect suspicion and get the remaining lenses. He has his men call the Lensmen and tell them to tune their shortwave to a special live broadcast. The Scorpion comes on and says that he has already stolen all the lenses except one. But wait: isn’t the Scorpion supposed to be one of the Lensmen?

Yeah, it’s a trick. Check out Barnett’s huge, uh, stereo system.

So the Lensmen take off to check out their hidden lenses. A couple of thugs chase Mustache home and discover him checking out the books in his study.

Mustache (whose actual name is Bentley) barely manages to say, “Wait, I…” before the thugs knock him cold and start rifling through the books in the bookcase. Inside one with Marine Law on the spine, they find…

I like that the book they decided to cut up to make the prop was something called How to Study. I tried to find an actual book from the period with that title, but my Google Fu isn’t good enough, apparently.

But before the crooks can make their getaway, the butler walks in and turns into a fighting machine.

I love when minor walk-on characters show up and lay into the bad guys. It often seems like they’re better fighters than the main character, like the chauffeur in 1949’s Batman and Robin or the electric company goons in Atom Man vs. Superman.

Anyway, the butler knocks one goon out quick, then bashes the other one around, destroying the room in the process. But that guy finally knocks the butler out. Then, as he’s trying to wake up his buddy to get out of there, the butler comes to and jumps him again (man, they must have really come up short some script pages for this one). The two goons finally subdue the butler then escape out the window just as Billy arrives and knocks on the locked door.

Billy changes to Captain Marvel and smashes his way in, and by this time, the room is totally devastated.

Compare this pic to the one above before the fight started. Apparently, Republic had a reputation for doing this in their serials, having fistfights that just totally dismantled sets with their ferocity.

Captain Marvel pursues the goons, catches them and retrieves the lens. When he returns to Bentley’s place, Bentley has disappeared. Captain Marvel leaves the lens with the butler and says he’s going to check on Angry (whose name is actually Fisher).

But Fisher is already being held prisoner at gunpoint in his house by the Scorpion and a thug. Fisher opens a secret panel in his wall to reveal the lens, but when the thug reaches in to get it, he is zapped by a deadly electric shock. The Scorpion makes Fisher turn the juice off so he can retrieve the lens, but Whitey shows up and pulls a gun on the Scorpion.

The Scorpion kills the lights, shoots Fisher, and sneaks around the edge of the room in the dark to club Whitey over the head. But before he can grab the lens, Captain Marvel shows up. The Scorpion hides behind the drapes and turns on the juice as Captain Marvel is reaching in for the lens. ZAP! Down goes Marvel!

Until Chapter 7, “Human Targets.” The Scorpion takes the lens from the unconscious Captain Marvel’s hand and flees. Captain Marvel comes to and discovers Fisher dead and the lens gone. Fisher should have had a butler.

The next day, as the Lensmen discuss their dwindling numbers, they learn that Billy was the one who figured out the Scorpion’s ruse after hearing about the radio broadcast from Betty. Turban (actually Tal Chotali, who has been pretty shifty from the beginning) angrily demands that their meetings be held in secret. You know, to keep Billy from saving them again or something.

The Scorpion is upset that Captain Marvel still lives, so he decides to use Betty as bait to lure Captain Marvel into a trap using “a destructive force that no living being could withstand.” Betty then gets a call asking her to bring Billy’s radio script notes to the station.

On the way there, the thug hiding in her trunk (the same who got his braincase crushed by an engine block two chapters ago) pokes his hand around the fender and shoots out her tire. When she pulls over, the thug gets out and covers her while another car shows up with more thugs.

When Billy hears about the script notes, he realizes it’s a trap and follows Betty. He finds her abandoned car and keeps following the same road. Meanwhile, trapped in a car full of gun-wielding gangsters, Betty pulls the keys out of the ignition and throws them out the window. The car coasts to a stop, and the thugs get out to look for the keys. Betty (who still has the keys hidden in her hand) takes the opportunity to run. Two thugs chase her while Braincase stays behind to look for the keys.

Billy shows up and changes to Captain Marvel. When he confronts Braincase, the guy immediately tells him that Betty has run into the woods. Captain Marvel tosses the guy contemptuously aside and starts to walk away when Braincase pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the back. Man, that head injury really did mess with him.

Captain Marvel knocks him out and goes into the woods. He finds one of the thugs beside a lake and tosses him off a cliff into the water.

Then, spotting the other thug chasing Betty across a dam, he flies down after him in a marvelous tracking shot.

The guy empties his pistol into Captain Marvel’s chest, then stumbles and falls off the dam. Betty faints from seeing this guy fall to his death (as opposed to Captain Marvel, who seems to kill someone almost every episode) and Captain Marvel carries her back to the thugs’ car. When Betty asks Captain Marvel how he knew she was in trouble, he mentions that Billy Batson called him on the radio, which he always has set to channel 16.

He is overheard by Braincase, who is hiding on the running board on the other side of the car. He rides off with Betty as she leaves, with Captain Marvel waving cheerfully.

Once they are out of sight, Braincase opens the door and forces Betty over. Then he takes her to the Scorpion’s hideout. Once the Scorpion hears Braincase’s testimony, he decides to use both Billy and Betty as bait for the trap. He tells Barnett to send men to kidnap Billy and take them both to the military bombing range. Barnett is also to leave a shortwave unit in the shack so Betty can call Captain Marvel.

But before they can execute the plan, Betty tries a desperate gambit to kill the Scorpion by grabbing Braincase’s pistol and trying to shoot the mastermind.  She is stopped by the four thugs surrounding her, but manages to inflict a wound in the Scorpion’s hand. Seriously, Betty is way too cool a character to have been played by Louise Currie. Also, why do I feel as if there will be a sudden rash of hand wounds to the entire group of Lensmen?

Billy is kidnapped and taken to the bombing range shack, tied and gagged. Betty manages to get to the radio to call frantically for Captain Marvel, not knowing he’s in the room with her. As she calls, military planes on a training run draw closer and start bombing the shack. It takes them three tries, but they finally do it.

Leading us finally to Chapter 8, “Boomerang.” And since this is really long, I don’t have any screencaps from this one. The second bomb causes debris to fall on Betty’s head, knocking her out, leaving Billy free to work his gag loose and shout “Shazam” before the third bombing run. He carries Betty out of the shack before it is blown up.

And seriously, was that the Scorpion’s brilliant plan? To lure Captain Marvel into a shack on a bombing range on the off chance he’ll get hit directly. It’s an awfully haphazard way to try to kill a god in human flesh. Just saying.

So the Scorpion decides to get rid of Billy Batson once and for all by having Barnett rig a bomb in Batson’s car. Meanwhile, Billy drops in on a meeting of the Lensmen with a document for them all to sign. Nervous (a.k.a Lang) has a bandage on his right hand, tipping Billy off that Lang is the Scorpion. Billy decides to search Lang’s house while he’s in the meeting. Billy takes Lang’s hat, coat, and car so Lang’s servants will let him in the front gate.

Barnett and Braincase don’t realize that “Lang” is actually Billy Batson. They finish rigging Billy’s car to blow up if it goes over 50 miles per hour. And suddenly, Lang comes out of the meeting, in a hurry to get home. Whitey tells Lang his car is gone, so Lang demands Whitey drive him home. They take Billy’s car.

Billy pulls into Lang’s estate and is spotted by a couple of the Scorpion’s men, who knock him out and leave him locked in the garage with the car running. Billy manages to croak “Shazam!” and escape while Whitey and Lang are on their way. Lang is upset that Whitey’s driving so slowly (i.e. under 50 mph), but Whitey is stalling to give Billy more time.

Captain Marvel beats up the Scorpion’s thugs, then changes back into Billy just in time to confront Lang about the evidence that he is the Scorpion. Lang invites them inside and tells his butler to turn up the heat, which is apparently code for “pour chloroform into the ventilation system.” The butler does just that, and Lang keeps his mouth and nose covered while Billy and Whitey pass out. Man, I need a butler. Butlers are badass.

Lang tells the butler that he must leave quickly, because the Scorpion is after him. He leaves Whitey at the house, but takes Billy with him, because Billy’s in danger also. They drive off in Lang’s car just as the Scorpion’s men are coming to. The Scorpion’s thugs give chase in Billy’s car. There follows a hair-raising chase at 40 miles per hour, until the thugs realize they can go faster. They accelerate up to 50 to try to catch Lang and Billy, when there’s an explosion.

Holy cow! What a cliffhanger! Those bad guy mooks totally blew up. I wonder how they’ll get out of it next week?

Be here for the final four next week!

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