10 More DC Comics That Would Make Good TV Shows

Originally written for the Tricycle Offense

My last article on this subject didn’t really need a followup. Nor did it need to come so soon after the last one. Does it really matter though?

10. Challengers of the Unknown

You know, I kind of feel bad for Fantastic 4. They’re the first family of Marvel after all, the foundation that allowed it to become the multi-billion dollar media empire that it is today (give or take a few bankruptcies). Before the Avengers did the first bit of Avenging, before the X-men were the buttmonkeys of the world, before Spider-Man shot his sticky white web all over men in strange costumes (Spidey’s first appearance was with the F4), the Fantastic 4 were capturing the hearts and minds of millions of children and nerds in those swinging Mad Men years of the early 1960s. Reed “Mr. Fantastic” Richards, Sue “Invisible Girl” Storm, her brother Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm, and Ben Grimm, the ever-lovin’ Thing, who knows where Marvel comics would be without the mythology that have built up around those 4 characters? Who knows if Spidey or the X-Men would have existed as they are now if not for the Fantastic family? Maybe Peter Parker would have been Chinese, or Magneto would have been an ape in a suit. No one but Ashton Kutcher in the sci-fi thriller film The Butterfly Effect could say for sure.

I’m giving a one paragraph dissertation about the Fantastic 4 not just because I recently viewed the trailer for the currently-upcoming Fantastic 4 reboot/reimagining, which I found just vague enough to make it look like every other modern sci-fi film farted out by Hollywood recently, but because it was actually DC that did the ‘four person team exploring new avenues of science and bizarre worlds’ thing first with the Challengers of the Unknown, who made their first appearance in Showcase #6 way back in February 1957. Although the exploits of pilot ‘Ace’ Morgan, pro risk taker ‘Red’ Ryan, strongman ‘Rocky’ Davis and scientist ‘Prof’ Haley have never reached the popularity of their cross company cousins, and indeed haven’t held a position of importance relative to what the Richards clan enjoys, but similarly they haven’t suffered the ignominious fate that have befallen that similar super team. The short-lived cartoon series, the generally unremarkable movies put out by Fox and the potentially unimpressive upcoming film haven’t done much to establish the 4 as a hot product in modern times, to the point that I think the most vocal of nerds want the F4 license to return to Marvel and Marvel Studios more for Doctor Doom and Galactus than the actual Fantastic Four itself. If Marvel can’t get their act together, why not let DC try their hand at a ‘Fantastic Four’ for a change and see what comes from it?

I suppose, given the success of Guardians of the Galaxy and such, that there’s no reason why the Challengers of the Unknown couldn’t make it as a movie, but I put it down as a TV show because the concept doesn’t seem necessarily film-exclusive. Perhaps, were this attached to the interconnected TV universe that Arrow and Flash, it could be used to introduce weird and obscure bits of the DC mythos to the general public that wouldn’t really work out on those more grounded shows. Imagine the Challengers traveling to a parallel Earth to help G.I. Robot and the Creature Commandos in World War II, or solving mysteries with Detective Chimp? It could be like DC mixed with Sliders, and that sounds fine with me. As long as its early Sliders and not season 3-4 Sliders, of course.

9. Book of Magic

Stop me if you heard this one before: Young seemingly average boy with black hair and glasses discovers that he is actually a wizard, and goes on wild magical adventures in preparation for his destiny as a super cool adult wizard, with fantasy elements and such juxtaposed by modern society.

Yes, that does indeed sound like Harry Potter, the titular boyish wizard of J.K. Rowling’s series of fantasy novels, but it also describes Timothy Hunter, boy wizard of DC’s fantasy series Books of Magic. Created by Sandman author Neil Gaiman back in 1990, Tim Hunter is destined to be the most powerful wizard in history, and every force with a horse in the magic race is falling over themselves to get a piece of that sweet, sweet potential power. Will Tim be a force for chaos or order? Good or evil? Due to the nature of comics we may never see an actual resolution, but at least you’ll have fun doing it.

The explosive popularity of Harry Potter has proven that fantasy series and boy wizards and crap like that can make mad bank, and now that Pottermania has been on the downslope it’s a perfect time for DC to slide in and pick up the slack with their own teen fantasy drama series. A Books of Magic series could also coceivably work  as the cornerstone of the ‘dark’ end of the DC TV Universe, now that Constantine is currently out of the picture and NBC is holding off on renewing it. Tim’s level of importance in the magic means that any number of supernatural characters could be introduced fairly easily, either wanting to manipulate Hunter for their own ends or trying to eliminate the threat he ultimately poses. Constantine, Jason Blood, the Spectre, Felix Faust, the Endless, the sky's the limit. Frankly, I’d be surprised if DC hadn’t considered it before, and I don’t see why it couldn’t get at least two seasons if they put some work into it. I’d give it a try, at least.

8. House of Mystery

If you’re wondering, yes, a lot of these choices are going to going to be Vertigo titles. I’ve been on a huge Vertigo kick lately, mainly their old school stuff, Sandman, Shade and such, as close to superheroes as you can get without stepping on a cape. Since I’m such a slave to my influences, I figured what better way to show what I’m currently reading than shove a bunch of crap onto a list? Not that I don’t legitimately think that the comics on these lists could make for good shows, just laying it out there for you. I mean after sitting through 2 seasons of Arrow I would go for anything.

Though probably most known nowadays from such series as Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Secret Six and the like, The House of Mystery (and it’s literal brother the House of Secrets) was a horror anthology series published by DC back in the day, in order to compete with EC and Fawcett. Much like with similar comic lines like EC Comic’s Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, The House of Mystery featured a macabre narrator, in this case Cain and Abel of the Houses Mystery and Secrets respectively (and the bible I guess) weaving tales of spine-chilling horror and mind-numbing terror every week. Every week until the Comics Code was implemented that is, that infamous little bit of authoritarian legislation which aimed to keep comic books as saccharine as possible in order to keep children complacent and unquestioning about our military’s involvement in South America. Of course by the time that Cain & Abel appeared in Sandman the Comics Code had become obsolete, and what comics could show and what they could represent as a creative medium had changed significantly. Like having Doctor Destiny force a diner full of people to rape and torture each other to death, comics could delve into levels of depravity that the two brothers only hinted at in their old stories. Maybe Neil Gaiman just loves callbacks.

Honestly, the main reason I would want a House of Mystery/Secrets show is entirely based on the fact that there is, to my knowledge, no horror anthology TV on the market at the moment. I don’t know or care how they would tie it into their franchising plans, I just know there’s been a void left by shows like Twilight Zone, Night Gallery and Tales from the Crypt and there’s yet to be anything to take up the slack. Much like what I assume they’re doing with Gotham (never watched it, probably never will), it might be better for DC in the long run to show that, while they may be lagging behind in the movie race, they can make up for that with genre diversity. Much like how horror and romance books took a lion’s share of the comics market after the superhero recession, a series like House of Mystery could potentially keep the public eye on DC in the off chance of a similar case of mainstream apathy towards superhero fiction. Diversify ya bonds, DC.

7. The Spectre

Hero of the Golden Age, stalwart member of the Justice Society of America and spirit of divine vengeance, The Spectre has been entertaining fans of disproportionate retribution for about 5+ decades now. Much in the same way as Marvel’s Phoenix Force, the Spectre is a supremely potent source of power which can only be properly manipulated when a person is in possession of it. Also like the Phoenix, the Spectre tends to be an ultimately unstable figure, and can just as easily do as much bad than good when the stories call for it, whether it’s the Spectre trying to destroy all magic users in the universe or Phoenix trying to destroy the Earth again. Hey, when you make a character basically omnipotent you have to do something to keep them interesting time after time. Just ask Batman.

Although the Spectre has inhabited several people over the years, the first and most famous of those bodies was Jim Corrigan, who made his first appearance in More Fun Comics #52 back in February 1940. On his way to his engagement party, police officer Corrigan (a particularly hard-boiled one, according to wikipedia) is thrown into a barrel of cement and drowned. Instead of moving to the afterlife, as other people do presumably, Corrigan is tasked by a mysterious disembodied voice called The Voice to eliminate all evil. In so doing he becomes the grim and ghastly Spectre, dedicated to killing any and all things his undefined master determines is against its moral compass in horrifying ways. Later years would add to his mythos of course, making him an agent of DC’s divinity and such, but he’s basically a supernatural Son of Sam. Just as god intended.

Jim Corrigan has already been introduced in Constantine, so there is something in place if they wanted to go the Spectre show route (won’t matter much if Constantine is never renewed, but whatevs). Seems simple enough, a police procedural/detective show where the once dead Corrigan tracks down the worst of the worst in killers and enacts brutal Hannibal-style vengeance upon them. Throw in some supernatural stuff to keep it from being too formulaic, toss in some drama about how Jim can’t love because he’s dead or some shit, and have a cameo from Constantine every once in a while to keep the ‘interconnected universe’ thing and you’ve got yourself. Hell, it might end up working even better than Constantine, despite being an even more obscure character than Hellblazer’s lovable protagonist. Trust me DC, if there’s anything that television audiences love, it’s police procedural shows and graphic violence, and any show with both is bound to make some coin. Make it happen.

6. Justice League International

Truth be told, despite the critically lauded cartoon series a few years back, the multiple concurrently running titles and the fact that DC is shoving an extra 6 superheroes in what was originally going to be a sequel to Man of Steel,  DC hasn’t always been as confident in the Justice League title as they seem to be now. Sure, when DC launched their Justice League comic, a sleek, modern version of their then-all star team up book the Justice Society, it was certainly a huge success. You had all the big stars of DC in one book, there to enjoy in a weekly series. Superman and Batman of course, but also Wonder Woman (who was actually the League secretary originally, which tells you a bit about what point in history this book came from), Aquaman, Martian Manhunter and the sleek, modern updates on the Flash and Green Lantern, Barry Allen and Hal Jordan respectively. As certain characters came and went, depending on storyline or editorial circumstances, we would also see the likes of Hawkman, Green Arrow and the Ray Palmer version of the Atom join the League throughout the years, but it is this lineup that DC tends to return. In fact, that’s literally the team that was being pushed by DC during their nu52 business, with Cyborg replacing Martian Manhunter  At least we know they don’t dwell in the past, right?

In the late 80s, in the midst of declining sales and increased reader apathy, DC decided to kill off what was then the Justice League of America and relaunch the title as Justice League International, under the creative team of Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. Canonically, the team was first formed by business tycoon Maxwell Lord, who was seeking a way to take the JL brand and expand it into a global superhero force, without the implied Western bias that a name like Justice League of America. Despite the best of intentions however, it seemed like the members of JLI were just as eager to mess with each other and goof off with each as they were with saving the world from whatever. Some time later they ended up splitting into two groups, the JLI and Justice League Europe, which kind of defeats the purpose of the ‘International’ title, but whatever. In-universe they were treated as a joke (at least until they rebooted the team), ‘pretenders to the throne’ of the Justice League legacy, but at least they were a funny joke. Unlike Vibe.

I have no delusions that my super crazy Doom Patrol cartoon could ever get made, but I don’t see any real issues with making a JLI cartoon beyond DC being afraid to confuse audiences with two Justice Leagues for some reason. It’s an action comedy series, so no need to worry about cramming needless comedy into something that doesn’t call for it. The JLI even counted Batman amongst its members, and DC loves shoving Batman into anything and everything they possibly can, so if they wanted to they could go that route as well. Considering that the JLI/JLE roster has number over a dozen people collectively though, I’d prefer to see what could be done with a sans-Bats team. Personally, I’m leaning towards a Ted Kord/Booster Gold/Guy Gardner/Fire/Ice/Elongated Man/Mister Miracle, but obviously I’m more interested in a return to the 80s team than any modern iteration (much like how DC returns to the Super Friends era Justice League nowadays, I say in a fit of dramatic irony). At worst it would be just another Teen Titans Go, at its best it would be a goofier Justice League Unlimited. I can easily ignore the former, but I’d really be interested in the latter. Make it happen.

5. Animal Man

Aside from, say, Swamp Thing and Marvelman, I don’t think there’s any superhero who’s gone from being a total relic of history into a critically-lauded fictional star than Buddy Baker. Originally a strictly D-list hero from the musty annals of the Silver Age, Animal Man was one of the collection of comic book that were retooled and reimagined in DC’s post-modern boom of the late 80s and early 90s. Helmed originally by Grant Morrison (who was also behind the Doom Patrol, which I’ve already talked way too much about) and later written by Peter Milligan (Shade, the Changing Man) and Jamie Delano (Hellblazer), Animal Man went from being a book about some dude who met got animal powers from aliens and decided to become a funny costume into an  arthouse experiment in ecology, philosophy and metaphysics. Suddenly Buddy’s powers didn’t come from aliens, but from avatars which connected him to the mystical connecting force of all animal life-forms in the universe known as the Red (similar to the Swamp Thing’s the Green, naturally). Suddenly Buddy is traveling across space and time to confront Grant Morrison himself about the death of his wife and children. Suddenly he’s traveling through panels made through an emulation of William Burroughs's cut-up technique. In a way it was a continuation of what guys like Denny O’Neill, Frank Miller and of course Alan Moore were doing with the Question, Daredevil and Swamp Thing in the 80s, reinventing an old character for a modern audience, but at there was enough there generally that it felt like a natural character progression. However, the fact that Animal Man’s appearances within the DC universe were so limited made him pretty much a blank slate to mold in any whatever way Grant and the others wanted. Who would have guessed a guy who sounds like Hawkman’s lame cousin could eventually become a fantastic example of existentialism and metaphysics in comics?

For the purposes of this list though, I don’t have the Morrison-era Animal Man in mind, but actually the nu52 Animal Man that came out a few years ago. Written by Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth), Animal Man was a sort of a mean cross between a family dramedy crossed with a Cronenberg horror film in all the right ways. After a visit by ‘aliens’ imbues him with the ability to draw upon the abilities of any nearby animal, struggling actor Buddy Baker decides to become the superhero known as Animal Man, and in so doing manages to turn his life around. Years later, as a movie star, animal rights activist and popular crime-fighter, Buddy learns that those ‘aliens’ that gave him his powers were actually agents of the Red, one of the major forces of life in the universe. The Rot, the corrosive and corruptive forces of death, had killed the last champion of the Red, and Buddy’s existence as Animal Man was merely a insurance policy to safeguard the next champion from the forces of the Rot until they are ready to assume their role. Unfortunately that champion just so happens to be his daughter, and the Rot just so happens to be far more powerful than anyone could have imagined. It is, as the French would say, a ‘fucking clusterfuck of crazy situations and horrific body mutations’. Pretty good read, too.

So yeah, I’d like to see DC try their hand at an Animal Man show, maybe even an animated series like the CW is doing with Vixen, since her and Buddy’s powers are pretty much the same. Having a superhero who isn’t wrapped up in the secret identity angst bullshit that Flash and Arrow get into is always a plus, and if they tried out some 80s gorehound style practical effects as well I’d be into it even more.

4. Plastic Man

If you perused the comment section to the last article, although I don’t know why you would, you might recall that I heaped praise upon Grant Morrison’s run of JLA and cast doubt upon others because of the inclusion or exclusion of Patrick ‘Eel’ O’Brian, otherwise known as the elastic Plastic Man. That comment was made partially in jest, but it’s also true that ever since I first started reading comics, I’ve always been interested in the obscure and more offbeat heroes and villans than I was the mainstream. Batman was cool, but I was always interested in finding out more about Green Arrow and the Question. Superman was great, but give me a Captain Marvel comic any day of the week. It’s a large part of why I loved Justice League Unlimited and Batman: Brave and the Bold so much, just heroes galore. DC has over a hundred of the damn things, might as well use them.

This choice might be stretching the rules a bit (hardy har har), because Plastic Man is the only one on either of my lists to already have his own TV show. Specifically The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show, which ran from 1979-1981. Produced by Ruby Spears Productions, otherwise known for creating Thundarr the Barbarian, the Mega Man cartoon and Rubik the Amazing Cube, the PMC/AS was generally...unremarkable. Eel is a secret agent or something, and he, his girlfriend and ethnic sidekick Hula Hula (better than Hal Jordan’s ‘Pieface’ or the Spirit’s ‘Ebony White’, but considering Plas already had a sidekick in the form of Woozy Winks,  ultimately unnecessary) travel the world solving Scooby-esque mysteries and foiling the schemes of not-so-supervillains. Pretty typical Ruby-Spears/Hannah-Barbera fare, limited animation, corney humour, only really noteworthy for the fact that it was a DC (technically Quality) cartoon that didn’t feature Superman or Batman, which I think has only happened maybe twice.

Decades later, a pilot was made for a new Plastic Man show, which sometimes aired on the short-lived DCNation block on Cartoon Network (I believe some shorts were also made). Featuring Tom Kenney as the voice of Eel O’brian, who also voiced Plas in the Brave and the Bold, that pilot was exactly what I expected and, really, what I wanted from a Plastic Man cartoon: Looney Tunes with superheroes. Unfortunately that pilot never gave way to an actual show, so in this case I guess it’s no so much giving light to an idea that’s potentially good than it is recognizing a missed opportunity. Either way I want more Plastic Man, so make it happen. And make sure it’s not that shitty Wachowski Brothers version with Keanu Reeves as Plas either. That sounds as bad as that Jack Black Green Lantern idea that was being thrown around a few years back.

Yeah, that’s right. I read wikipedia sometimes.

3. Captain Marvel

No, not Shazam. I could really care less for DC’s sleek, modern, joyless version of Fawcett Comics’ most famous creation (more popular perhaps than even Superman, at one point in time), and I don’t care that DC’s Cinematic Universe is planning for a Shazam movie in 2019, with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson possibly in the role of Black Adam. All I know is that the Big Red Cheese has been screwed over by everybody over the years, from DC and Marvel, and he’s never gotten the respect in the modern day that he deserves. In my opinion, of course.

Captain Marvel is perhaps the epitome of wish fulfillment in comics. Orphaned by the death of his parents, cast onto the streets by a greedy, uncaring relative, young Billy Batson lives a harsh life in the alleyways of Fawcett City. One day in particular, Billy meets a strange old man, and in so doing is transported by a magical train to a magical dimension known as the Rock of Eternity. Once there, the strange old man reveals himself to be the wizard Shazam, imbued with the powers and traits of some the greatest gods and heroes of antiquity, and a defender of the good and innocent himself. The wizard has grown old however, and the pressing forces have forced him to find a person pure of heart and mind to take up the power and become the new champion, to find Billy Batson and bestow upon him the powers that Shazam commands. Whenever Billy speaks the name ‘Shazam’ (or ‘Captain Marvel’, as in the unfortunate case of Captain Marvel Jr.), he is transformed into Captain Marvel, the World’s Mightiest Mortal, defender of truth, justice, and all that stuff. From that day forward Billy, along with his extended Marvel Family, dedicates his life to protecting the people of Fawcett City and the rest of the world from mad scientists, magically-enhanced supervillains, and telepathic alien inchworms. You know, the normal stuff.

I know the current trend of DC is for ‘gritty’ and ‘dark’, so a Captain Marvel cartoon reminiscent of the original comics, or even a take on the 90s run or Jeff Smith’s Monster Society of Evil book is nigh on impossible. The thing is, as most people who aren’t in charge of DC have figured out, is that ‘dark and gritty’ is not equivalent to quality. Some characters work best with dark tones, the Question, Jonah Hex, Batman, Constantine, but why does Clark Kent need to brood as much as Bruce Wayne? Why can’t Captain Marvel stay within the realms of fantasy without dipping into all the depressing crap we all have to deal with on a day to day basis? I would think that the success of Guardians of the Galaxy proved that the manufactured angst of shows like Arrow isn’t the only possible route a superhero product can take. Like I mentioned way back on the House of Mystery entry, diversity is not a bad thing. Just because Batman is a popular superhero doesn’t mean every superhero needs to be Batman.

So yeah, bring back Captain Marvel.

2. Sandman Mystery Theatre

While I’ve said that the runs of O’Neill and Morrison on the Question and Animal Man are cases of reinvention, perhaps a more blatantly radical example would be Neil Gaiman’s infamous critically-acclaimed Sandman series. After all, Wesley Dodd, the Golden Age costumed adventurer otherwise known as the Sandman, isn’t really a part of the Sandman series at all. Instead we get tales of dark fantasy and metaphysical adventures (pretty much Neil Gaiman in a nutshell) with the literary Sandman, otherwise known as Dream, the physical embodiment dreaming for the entire universe, and his similarly D-named goth-punk brethren. It’s certainly an interesting series, if a bit heavy-handed at times, and if you haven’t read it before than I’d suggest trying it out for yourself. If you’re the kind of person who is way too into Tim Burton movies, than you’d probably find something to like there.

A few years later, in order to capitalize on the abundant popularity of the Sandman name, DC/Vertigo put out a short-lived series known as Sandman Mystery Theatre. Although not technically connected to Gaiman’s series (hence the addition of ‘Mystery Theatre’ to the title), the series did focus on Wesley Dodd, the Golden Age Sandman. With his trusty yet creepy mask, gas gun and socialite love interest Dian Belmont, Wesley fights against gangsters and bizarre monsters in the back alleys and shadowy corners of New York City during that titular Golden Age. And occasionally solves mysteries, perhaps in a theatrical manner.

Much like in the case of the Question, this seems to me like a relatively inexpensive way to get a superhero show on the market, seeing as the whole ‘costume’ is a old-timey suit, gasmask and a funny looking handgun. Of course I don’t know what being a period piece, as SMT really should be, does to the cost and audience interest for a show. What works for Mad Men and Penny Dreadful wouldn’t necessarily work out for Sandman Mystery Theatre to be sure, although perhaps the ‘pulp horror’ style of the show might draw some interest just based on its relative uniqueness. In an ideal world, I’d say it would look good on an HBO or a Showtime, right alongside the Question, mostly so that it wouldn’t have to worry about the continuity and other shit that would come with being on CW. Although I have been toying with a ‘Crisis on Multiple Earths’ idea that the Flash show could use to allow for Golden Age superheroes without affecting original continuity, but who knows how deep into that rabbit hole we could go before the TV audience throws up their collective hands and walks away from superheroes entirely. I already don’t give a shit about Arrow, and we’ve haven’t even gotten into it. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give it a shot.

And speaking of things that rely on continuity…

1. Starman

Truth be told, maybe Starman wouldn’t make for a good TV show.

Not that it couldn’t be done, I suppose. Or even that it could end up good, if it leaned more towards the Flash sides of things rather than Arrow, if it managed to get past the continuity issues having a continuous line of Starmen since the 40s (assuming it was thrust onto the CW), if it had the budget to make the Cosmic Rod not look like garbage, if etc., etc., etc. I guess moreso that Jamie Robinson run of Starman is so good, so interconnected with the history of the character and the DC universe, that a TV show attempting a more homogenized version of that story, if it would even look like the same story, just seems superfluous to me. Of course this whole thing is superfluous, so maybe I’m just being silly. It’s better overall if more people knew who Starman is than less, I guess.

Honestly, this whole thing has felt superfluous recently. Partly this list, which has taken far too much effort to write for how shitty it is. Partly life. which has been shitty whether I put effort into it or not. Still wishing I was like Tim Hunter I guess, with some kind of potential to look forward to, or like Billy Batson and Jack Knight, with some legacy to live up to as best I can. But I don’t. I’ve just been some jackass in the real world, wishing he was important to someone, but unable to spend a whole day alone with his own thoughts. The epitome of the daily grind, you could say, and I’m just so damn tired of it.

TV shows are good sometimes. So are comic books. If you have any idea of your own about it, feel free to share. Not with me necessarily, just anyone who will listen. Maybe it’ll happen one day.

Trancers (1985), directed by Charles Band & Dollman (1991), directed by Albert Pyun

Originally written for the Tricycle Offense

I’d say that a significant amount of time has passed since my last Double Feature article, so how about a new one?

At several points during my musings on film I’ve brought up the idea of the auteur director, the concept of a director as the supreme creative force over a film. While this is true to an extent, and certainly it was auteurs like Spielberg, Lucas and Coppola that defined American cinema in the 70s, the idea that directors are always the most important voice in the room. Studio execs, producers, the guys with the money basically, have always had a say in what goes on when it comes to films (and everything else, really), for better or for worse.

It was on the word of Dino de Laurentiis that Alejandro Jodorowsky’s project for Dune, the most famous film never made was scrapped, its team sent to the winds and its concept eventually handed off to David Lynch to spread his spice all over it. It was on the word of a producer that the Wild Wild West is now infamous for its gigantic mechanical steampunk spider (which was originally going to be shoehorned into Kevin Smith’s ill-fated script for a Superman film). Obviously the word of the director is not absolute, and in plenty of cases a different point of view is great for the creative process (god knows Troy Duffy could’ve used it), it’s also true that people in the film industry of things are generally only interested in making money or inflating their own egos, and I know that can just as easily apply to the creative side of film just as it does the business side. I’m not against people wanting to make money, I wish I was making money right now myself, but my interests have always lied in the strange, the bizarre and the not necessarily lucrative, which typically places me on the side of the director. Too many interesting ideas have been homogenized to death in an attempt to make a buck for my tastes.

None of that really has anything to do with what I was trying to say, which is this: Much like record labels, comic companies and the like, movie studios can be a haven for the bizarre and the strange and not just the bureaucratic machine that congeals itself around art. Troma is perhaps the most famous example, home of The Toxic Avenger and such, where even the serious dramas (what little there are of them seem to be steeped in Z-list sleaze and ultraviolence. Old school studios like Hammer and Amicus also did the lion’s share of the work in reinventing and reinvigorating the horror movie genre in the 1950s and 60s, taking cues from the Universal monster movies of the the 30s and 40s. Despite being on the wrong side of a payday most of the time, these studios, much like Geffen, or Zap! Comix, have succeeded in establishing a distinctive ‘brand’ or style that other mainstream businesses lack. The average moviegoer probably couldn’t tell you what studio made what movie that’s released today, unless it’s a Marvel movie of course, but anyone with a passing movie knowledge can tell a Troma movie or a Hammer Horror film at a glance. You won’t see any Academy Awards floating their way, but you can’t deny their influence.

This time on the Double Feature I’ve decided to follow through on that reasoning and shine the spotlight on one of these alt-rock studios: Full Moon Features/Studios/Productions/Entertainment/Pictures, who just so happen to have a couple films on hulu at the moment, which kinda spurred this whole thing in the first place. Founded in 1989 and headed by persistent B-movie director Charles Band, FMF have produced a number of films in the schlocky B-movie horror and sci-fi genres, many of which have spun off into schlocky horror and sci-fi movie franchises. There’s Puppet Master (dedicated readers will know my connection with the original film) and its legions of sequels, which I think number in the dozens at this point. Killjoy, the adventures of the titular murderous clown. Subspecies, FMF’s required vampire series. The Gingerdead Man, which featured the voice of the infamous Gary Busey as the malevolent baked good,  and which eventually crossed over with The Evil Bong (true story). And of course The Demonic Toys, a ripoff of their own Puppet Master franchise, with an almost equal amount of subpar sequels. Hopefully the two films I’ve chosen this time around give us a sense of what they’re all about.

First up is…

Trancers (1985), directed by Charles Band

A holdover from Charles Band during his time in Empire, Trancers is one of the earliest FMF franchises, having spawned at least three sequels during its lifespan. Not to be confused with Scanners, which spawned two sequels of its own, none of which people actually remember but which can be found on hulu. Also not to be confused with trance, an electronica sub genre that got its start sometime in the 1990s. Did you know that Cronenberg's remake of The Fly also had a sequel, three years afterwards? Things are weird sometimes.

In the far flung dystopian future, in strange new land built near the sunken ruins of ‘Lost’ Angeles, Jack Deth (played by Tim Thomerson, and that is indeed his real name) is a grizzled, badass Trooper who plays by nobodies rules but his own, and who looks like Thomas Jane cosplaying at a Buckaroo Banzai convention. Deth has been a grizzled badass Trooper who plays by nobodies rules but his own ever since his wife was killed by Whistler (Michael Stefani), the most vile of villains in dystopian California. Due to some ill-explained bit of future science, Whistler has the ability to turn people of weak will into Trancers, mind controlled slaves to his will , which have proven to be an enormous issue in this beef-less, coffee-less new land. Mind controlled slaves in the Trancerverse seems to translate into ‘extras from Day of the Dead’ who evaporate into red light when they die’ by the way, which probably made sense to someone down the line but doesn’t in the actual film. Just an excuse to have ‘monsters’ without having to put too much work into it.

Jack Deth is a day into his early retirement (after a case gone sour, of course) when he is suddenly recruited back to the Troopers for a mission of grave importance. It turns out Whistler was not deceased, as had previously been assumed, but is instead...back in time! 300 years in fact, his spirit inhabiting the body of his ancestor, a prominent police chief who resided in the not-sunken city of Los Angeles. His plan: Murder the ancestors of the three members of the post-apocalyptic Californian government, thus wiping them out of existence and allowing his Trancer army to take over. It’s up to Jack to travel back to ancient Los Angeles, inhabiting the body of his ancestor Phil, and take care of Whistler and his Trancers once and for all. All the while having sex with Phil’s one-night stand Leena (Helen Hunt) of course, which is a bit of implied incestous romance worthy of a skit on Futurama. Doesn’t matter if it was 300 years ago, dude is basically fucking his grandma.

I’ll say this for Trancers: it had a lot of potential, even if it doesn’t reach it. When I saw the opening and I thought it was going to be some sort of Blade Runner neo-noir kind of thing, I was really into it. When it got into the main plot, and I thought it would be some kinda Terminator by way of Quantum Leap kind of thing, I was really into it. It’s not any of those things, and maybe the feeling of dissatisfaction is unwarranted, given the heights to which my imagination soared at the possibilities of the concept. It is a B-movie from the mid-80s after all, and expecting some sort of sci-fi masterpiece from the folks that made Puppet Master vs. The Demonic Toys and The Gingerdead Man is perhaps asking for too much. Not that it can’t be done, the 80s might’ve been the pinnacle of B-movies after all, but it’s not the case here.

Trancers is the kind of movie that falls apart if you look at it too hard, and in this case ‘hard’ means ‘a light breeze’. Why does Whistler having mind control powers make people into ‘yellow’ zombies (they constantly refer to Trancers as being yellow in color, but I can remember only one scene in which a Trancer actually have yellow coloration) and why do they disintegrate in red light. If Whistler’s mind is 300 years in the past, how is he still able to control a Trancer army in the future? If Whistler does eliminate the ancestors of these councilmen and they cease to exist, shouldn’t the folks in the future not remember them or why they’re sending Jack to the first place. Why doesn’t Whistler just take over the world in the past, since it’s proven in the film that he can control the police and politicians, which would affect the future in his favor much more easily and efficiently than his original plan? Why does the film gloss over the fact that Phil, Jack’s ancestor, is either ostensibly dead or trapped in a strange future due a plan he was never included in, in an unfamiliar body? When Jack’s superior arrives at Leena’s apartment in the body of a young girl (his nearest ancestor, and actually a decent bit of writing), he antidotes both of them back to the future almost immediately afterward. How the fuck does that girl get home? Are we to assume this kid lives just down the street in Chinatown, that there weren’t kidnappers or pederasts in L.A. in the 80s, and that finding her way home from wherever the fuck she was abducted from in nothing but her nightgown is no big deal with Trancer cops patrolling the streets? I could be accused of over thinking these kinds of things, it wouldn’t be the first time, but when you’re watching a movie like this your mind is naturally drawn to such questions. Gotta do something to distract yourself whenever they try to have awkward romantic scenes after all.

Trancers is a cheesy sci-fi-action flick with a somewhat interesting concept. That’s enough to form a cult following, and that following was apparently enough to wring three more movies out of the concept. I can certainly see the appeal, but as far as cheesy flicks go I’ve seen funnier and better executed movies than this. Still it’s kinda funny, so I’d say it’s worth a watch or a MST3K if you’re into that kind of thing. A solid C+, I’d say.

RESULT: RECOMMENDED

Dollman (1991), directed by Albert Pyun

It used to be in the days of film’s past that all you needed for a sci-fi/horror movie was a random animal and a bit of camera trickery. So much of the genre has been built upon people being attacked by things being larger than they should be (Them, The Deadly Mantis, Bert I. Gordon’s entire filmography), people being attacked by things that are small and originally thought harmless (Gremlins, Small Soldiers, Puppet Master), or people being reduced in size and attacked by things that are small (Fantastic Voyage, Honey I Shrunk the Kids) that it’s hard to say where sci-fi or the film industry would be without it. It’s so cheap to make these kinds of movies, just splice some B-roll of an iguana next to screaming girl and you got yourself a movie, that a studio can’t help but make a profit off of them, which in turn allows them to spend it on making more movies. We’ve ended up with a lot of crappy movies because of it, just look at the MST3K episode list for confirmation, but as long as making crappy movie A gives us a chance to do good movie B, I’d say that it’s an even trade.

Out of the three possibilities I’ve listed, it seems that the ‘shrinking person’ movie has been one that has been more or less forgotten over the years. Sure, we have giant monsters in movies all the time, Godzilla, Pacific Rim, Cloverfield, that one giant worm monster in Avengers, yet movies about tiny people seem to be a dying art in Hollywood these days. Perhaps Marvel’s upcoming Ant-Man movie and Arrow’s apparent inclusion of Ray Palmer, aka The Atom to the series will help return the idea of shrinking to the public consciousness, but for now it seems relegated to films of the of the past. Films like Full Moon Entertainment’s 1991 classic Dollman, which happens to be the second film of our FMF Double Feature.

Not to be confused with the DC superhero Doll Man, which I almost did. Although Dollman did get his own comic book back in the 90’s, which just confuses the matter.

10,000 light years from Earth on the futuristic planet of Arturos, where the lifeforms look human and speak perfect English for some reason, Brick Bardo (played by Trancers star Tim Thomerson) is a grizzled badass cop who plays by nobody’s rules but his own. A space-age Dirty Harry, quick with a witty one-liner and even quicker with his fancy future gun, Bardo has been a loose-cannon kind of guy ever since his family and about 35 other civilians were killed in a police action gone wrong. Apparently if you’re a cop in the Full Mooniverse, you’re better off staying single, it seems. Much smaller body count, and you’re pretty much assured to get a hot piece of tail at some point. Especially if you’re Tim Thomerson.

While in pursuit of his arch-nemesis Sprug (what he lacks in a body below his neck he makes up for in planet-destroying fusion bombs), Brick hits the ‘energy band’ and is transported across the universe, crash landing in the then present-day South Bronx. Unfortunately for Brick his ship is broken, leaving him stranded on a similar-yet-alien world, forcing him to rely on the kindness of single mother Debbie (Kamala Lopez, no relation to the Ugandan Giant) for shelter. Also unfortunately for Brick, Sprug and the fusion bomb are still intact and under the protection of Braxton (Jackie Earle Haley in an early role, probably the biggest actor to ever be in an FMF movie), leader of the deadly South Bronx street gang. It’s up to Brick Bardo and his fancy future gun to stop Sprug once and for all, recover/disarm the fusion bomb, and take out Braxton and his gang, thus solving the problems endemic in the inner-city once and for all. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Oh, also he’s 13 inches tall now, for some reason. Hence the name.

Despite involving alien planets and tiny men, it feels like Dollman isn’t trying to reach quite as far as Trancers was, and in so doing manages to be a lot less stupid and a lot more palatable as a film. Still incredibly simplistic of course, in fact it’s even more of a one-note film than Trancers was, for better or worse. Brick Bardo is pretty much the exact same character as Jack Deth, right down to the deceased love ones, except with even less character depth. Braxton and his gang are the stereotypical early 90’s style street gang, cartoonishly evil that shoot liquor store owners without actually stealing anything and try to burn people alive for shits and giggles. Braxton has a bit of charm to him, possibly the talent of Haley shining through, but otherwise he’s a low-rent Clarence Boddicker. Debbie is...well, Debbie is the female lead, and I found it hard to give a shit about her. Not because I didn’t sympathize with her plight, since I’m the result of a single-parent household in a poor/shitty area,  but because even though she had a large chunk of screentime I couldn’t give a shit about her character. The discount mayonnaise to Bardo’s plain white bread, if you will.  

Also worth bringing up is the criminal lack of tiny shenanigans in this film. The movie is called Dollman for christ’s sake, the main character is barely a foot long, but you never get a sense that he’s actually that size. Sure, you have kids gawk at him, he hangs from a car window once, but never once is the illusion of size ever achieved in my opinion. Where’s Bardo trying to make his way across a gigantic room, or fighting off rats with a fork, or riding to the rescue on a housecat that he made a tiny saddle for? I know they are budget constraints, but if you’re going down the well-trod road of Lilliput and Brobdingnag then there needs to be some sort of payoff in that regard. With the way this film is edited and the explosive power of Bardo’s gun, there isn’t that much difference between ‘Brick Bardo: Dollman’ and ‘Brick Bardo: Jump-cut Man’. What’s the damn point of watching a man called fucking Dollman if he’s barely a stranger in a strange land? At least Jack Deth is confused by stuff when he travels back to the past; Brick Bardo seems barely inconvenienced to be stranded on a world of giants. Don’t make a movie about a tiny protagonist if you aren’t going to have tiny shenanigans Full Moon Entertainment. Otherwise it’s just embarrassing.

So neither Dollman or Trancers are going to be threatening Citizen Kane on any ‘greatest movie of all time’ list, but both movies had an interesting premise and in my opinion had the potential to be better than they were with a bit of retooling and reworking. As far as viewing experiences go I suppose I’d recommend Trancers, going by the ‘stupid=entertaining’ school of thought, but as for what I thought worked better as a film and what I thought could be taken in more interesting directions, I’d probably go with Dollman. It’s kinda simple and kinda stupid, but I think that makes it a sort of tabula rasa type scenario, where something great could spring from a basic foundation. Much like Alan Moore with Marvelman or Grant Morrison’s Animal Man, to give really obvious examples. I’m not saying I’m the guy who could take Dollman (or Trancers, by the way)  to new heights of drama, making it the cult phenomenon it was always meant to be, but if Full Moon Features would be willing to send me some cash to find out, I wouldn’t be against it.

Hint hint, Mr. Band.

RESULT: RECOMMENDED

Some more news

I've been doing some retrospective write ups on the films I've already done here for the Tricycle Offense. Basically just rewatching my backlog and giving new thoughts and such. Those will be exclusive to the T.O. for the time being; might update the entries here later. So if you're interested in that shit, check it out.

New article coming up in the new future.

The War of the Worlds (1953), directed by Byron Haskin

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Thunder Child", by Jeff Wayne

Or, The Martians Crave Our Delicious Hamburger Sandwiches

     I’ve already talked in spades about the influential figures in my life when it comes to comic books, Grant Morrison, Alan Moore etc., but let’s spend a paragraph or two talking about some non-graphic novelists who I enjoyed in my youth. Way back in the day, when the Syfy Channel was still Sci-Fi and internet pornography was an as-yet inexact science I was an avid reader of books (physical copies of ebooks printed onto sheets of paper, for you younger readers out there), and when it wasn’t Harry Potter or Animorphs, it was classical literature. Dumas, Cervantes, Verne, Doyle, from the Elizabethan to the Victorian I took my fill of the best that the written word had to offer. I couldn’t say for sure what it was that inspired such a consuming interest, whether it was the act of a (so-called) intelligent child searching for reading material beyond the level of his peers or a fascination with the ill-fated League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film and the far, far better comic original, but if it was old it was interesting to me. Which helps to explain my choice in movies as well.

     Of all the old-timey wordsmiths in history however, the one that stuck with me the most was undoubtedly H.G. Wells. Jules Verne was pretty good, especially if you were a fan of people traveling to various places in exotic vehicles, but it was Wells, oft-regarded as one of the earliest ‘science fiction’ writers, that really dug its claws into the imaginative portion of my mind. There’s just something about that turn-of-the-century fiction that I’ve always loved, when science was still a work-in-progress and there was a sense of wonder and discovery in the air, or at least that’s how it reads after the fact when folks aren’t dying of tuberculosis. “The Time Machine”, “The Island of Doctor Moreau”, ‘The Invisible Man”, stories that have managed to survive the test of time to be endlessly repackaged by studio executives looking to profit from a dead man’s work. No wonder poor people turn into lemurs in the future.

     Out of all the stories by Mr. Wells, there is one that affected me as much as it affected pop culture at large: The War of the Worlds. The premier alien invasion story, a concept that has been repeated endlessly throughout the 20th and 21st century, which itself has been revisited numerous times over the years. There was the infamous radio broadcast by Orson Welles in the 30s, which caused far less mass hysteria than we like to pretend it did, likely because no one in New Jersey would’ve been able to tell the difference. There was a subpar film by the great Steven Spielberg in 2005, starring a Tom Cruise not yet ostracized from society and a Dakota Fanning not quite old enough to be forgotten, which you might (not) remember being parodied in one of those shitty Scary Movie sequels. There was a TV series that ran 2 seasons in 1988, which was a continuation of our subject today. There was a D-list movie released the same year as the Spielberg film, which spawned an equally D-list sequel three years later. There was even a War of the Worlds musical produced for the stage that played throughout London, which despite being about murderous alien death machine probably had a smaller body count than that Spider-Man show on Broadway (#topicalreference). We won’t be talking about those things today though, obviously since I’ve already listed in an off-handed and casual manner. Instead, we’ll take a look at what is probably the second most famous take on The War of the Worlds, the 1953 film adaptation directed by Byron Haskin and released through Paramount. Whether these aliens are a thinly-veiled metaphor of the Communist menace or not is up to you to decide.

     The plot of The War of the Worlds is literally over a century old at this point, so you’ll have to forgive me if I spoil some things plotwise. Basically, it turns out that there is life on other planets (specifically Mars), and the lifeforms on that planet are jealous of the temperate climate and the fine-ass hoes that we have here on Earth. So in typical human fashion they decide to invade our planet, first appearing in a small town but quickly spreading throughout the rest of the world. Aforementioned militaries of the world attempt to curtail the extra-terrestrial attacks to no avail, and just when it seems that humanity is destined to be a footnote in the pages of history, the Martians are killed by what is essentially a deus ex machina. Apparently Martians were smart enough to master space travel and enormous war machines but just forget to get their booster shots before making the trip. I mean Great Britain didn’t even figure out typhoid wasn’t caused by farts until a decade or so prior, but the highly advanced alien race couldn’t put two and two together? But of course internet critics didn’t exist back then, so these sorts of things get a pass.

     For now…

     The 53’ Paramount adaptation, as you might expect from a film adaptation, keeps the basic framework of the original idea but makes a substantial amount of changes. The setting is changed, taking place in Smalltown California, USA in the early 1950s rather than Tinyton Glen, Great Britain in the late 1900s. The iconic ‘tripods’ in the original story are replaced with sleek silver flying machines (which have become iconic in their own right), and the black smoke and red weed of the tripods are replaced with generic laser beams and force fields. Most substantial of all perhaps is the addition of a protagonist and leading lady, for that romantic subplot that all films are required to have and such, rather than the ‘lone survivor’ angle that the story went for. Ann Robinson plays Sylvia van Buren, who is supposedly very intelligent but does nothing but look attractive and scream, as is the nature of female characters in sci-fi, and Gene Barry plays Dr. Clayton Forrester (absolutely mind-blowing to a MST3K fan like me), the the consistently unflappable scientist at Pacific Tech who just so happens to be near ground zero at the start of the whole deal. Retro TV fans will know Gene Barry for his role as the pimp of the Old West, Bat Masterson, from the show of the same name. Give Clayton a derby and a cane and there wouldn’t be any difference, which is either a knock against Mr. Barry’s dramatic range or a testament to his Colt .45 levels of badassery.

     I’m finding it a bit difficult to rip into The War of the Worlds, because at the end of the day it is a sci-fi movie made in the 50s, and so was limited as all genre films generally were during that time. But I can certainly list a few issues. As much as I love Gene Barry, Clayton Forrester isn’t so much a protagonist as he is a guy the camera focuses on a lot of the time, and even then he occasionally gets lost in the shuffle. Sylvia is a women in the 50s, and so isn’t allowed to do anything or develop a real personality, thus making the romance between her and Forrester feel as hollow as most 1950’s marriages. The Martians just look stupid as hell, limitations of costuming in that era be damned, and I feel like the film would have benefited from showing as little of their physical form as possible. Nothing that comes about due to their appearance is really vital to the plot in my opinion, beyond acting as a cheap scare after an already suspenseful scene, and it could just as easily have been excised or altered with no dip in quality. There’s nothing scarier than what spawns our own imagination, after all. Also, not quite sure what the God deal is going on with this movie, as if Bruce Almighty ‘saved’ mankind because bacteria killed the Martians. Pretty sure if a Human-loving deity of a Christian persuasion really existed or cared, he probably wouldn’t have let a priest get flash-fried in the first half of the movie. Or let a enormous amount of Earth’s population die, have their homes and property destroyed and descend into mass hysteria. Or at least let those deadly bacteria that he created kill off the Martians before they almost destroyed the planet. As I said at the beginning though, this is a sci-fi flick from the 50’s, and science fiction in film was a much slower beast in terms of experimentation and philosophical exploration as it was in literature. Rubber suits and screaming girls were what sold the tickets back then, and that’s what we got.

     Plot problems, characterization problems and thematic problems aside, there is one area where The War of the Worlds excels: special effects. Much like fellow sci-fi classic The Blob, which also involves an alien creature falling to Earth in Smalltown USA by the way, WotW is practically bursting with bright lights and color, and you persistent readers know how much I love generous helpings of color in movies. Every scene that features the alien ships fucking up the landscape, blasting everything to hell with their multi-colored death beams, engenders a visceral, childlike joy in destruction that you only ever get when a Godzilla movie is doing things right. While I generally tend to prefer the tripod designs for the Martian war machines, I have to admit that that flying machines used here; sleek, near featureless silver aircrafts with their tri-colored electronic eyes slowly drifting over the ruins of civilization, have their own appeal, and I think they’ve got the potential to become one of my favorite spacecraft designs.They quickly and firmly establish the inhumanity of the alien threat right from the outset, cold, inscrutable, much more so than the actual Martians do. It looks like either the T-1000 eating the head of ED-209 or a Yes album cover, in a good way.

     If you’re interested in getting into old school sci-fi, The War of the Worlds should be right up on the top of your list, along with The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Blob, and The Thing From Another World. They can be cheesy and the stories can be a bit spotty (which isn’t really restricted to sci-fi films of that era, is it Mr. Emmerich?) but it accomplishes exactly what good science fiction is meant to do: It inspires the imagination, gives light to new ideas and new ways of looking at things, that you might create something as strange and exciting in the future. Maybe it doesn’t succeed as well as H.G. Wells did in 1897, but as far as film adaptations go it’s manages to stand on its own two feet, which is more than you can say for I Am Legend. Worth a watch.

RESULT: RECOMMENDED