historical inevitability versus laser beams

Until a mid-90's change in postal regulations, comic book publishers were forced to include a couple of text pages in each individual comic in order to qualify for the second class bulk rate for periodicals. Before the letters page/editorial page format became the standard method of fulfilling this requirement, publishers often filled two pages with dubious "educational" content or generally terrible short stories.

Fawcett's Captain Marvel Adventures, a series which I've professed my love for in more than a few previous posts, met its obligations to the USPS though an ongoing series of stories starring "Lieutenant Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol" written by "Eando Binder," actually a collaborative pseudonym of brothers Earl and Otto Binder ("E and O"), though some sources credit Otto (who was also writing the Captain Marvel comic stories at the time) with pulling the lion's share of the weight. The two already had an impressive sci-fi writing résumé under their belts -- including the highly influential "I, Robot"/Adam Link material published in Amazing Stories in the late 1930's and early 1940's -- but none of that previous magic was on display with the Jon Jarl stories, which were stock "two-fisted" sci-fi adventure tales flatter than the paper they were printed on. Given the stories' principal purpose, they didn't have to aspire to anything more artistically, though such awareness doesn't make them any more readable.

As a result, whenever I flip through an issue of CMA, I tend to skip past the Jon Jarl pages in favor of actual comics content featuring the Big Red Cheese battle rogue sausage-making machines or atomic killer robots. However the title, and accompanying racist caricature, which adorned this installment of Lt. Jarl's adventures from Captain Marvel Adventures #142 (March 1953)...

...piqued my curiosity enough that I had to find out what the full story was.

Fawcett, though its roster of titles featuring the various Marvel Family members, backed Truman's police action against Global Communism on the Korean Peninsula 110%. The lead story in CMA #142 in fact featured Captain Marvel going up against the (again) grotesque racist caricature of the "Red Crusher" and his insidious Bolshevik "lightning machine." Apparently not content in limiting the patriotic agitprop and demonization of the other to the comic content, Binder felt compelled to expand his platform to include the text pages, as well.

The following is an abridged yet annotated retelling of "Korea of Space":

The story begins with Jon Jarl, the 22nd century's answer to Joe Friday, stuck working the Asteroid Beat, a boring place where the biggest crimes are hotlinking images and failure to give due credit for borrowed content (wait, I'm thinking of another Beat). Things get interesting, however, when Jarl finds a largely intact satellite embedded into the side of a stray asteroid. He determines the object is of mid-twentieth century origin, more specifically from the year 1953 (a blatant bit of plothammering of an example of post-war technoptimism? Take your pick).

Upon exploring the vessel's interior Jarl discovers that the crew is intact, but flash-frozen into a state of suspended animation. Using his belt's Atomic Heat Lamp (concerns about radiation damage to reproductive organs in the 22nd century have been mitigated by the ubiquity of Vend-o-Baby machines), Jarl thaws out the timelost travellers...

...only to discover that they are a lost detachment of North Korean soldiers whose weapons platform had been knocked off course by a comet. They are naturally curious about the outcome of the war, and Jarl takes an unusual amount of pleasure in telling them of their eventual loss (if by "loss" you mean a shaky cease-fire stretching over five decades along a demilitarized zone and complicated by nuclear weapons ambitions). The future-shocked Stalinists don't take the news well:

"Furthermore," added Jarl pulchritudinously, "Nyah, nyah, nyah!"

Next time anyone moans in your presence about how comics content used to be more innocent and kid-friendly back in the "good old days," feel free to point out the astonishingly frank level of racist content in this story, which if anything is more restrained than what appears in the actual comics material featured in this issue and others dealing with similar subject matter.

While sickened by the stench of centuries old Bolshevism, Jarl still condescends to offer assistance in helping the soldiers find a place in this brave new world...


(Vintage popcult ethnic shorthand lesson #26: "Buddha" = "Asian" "Oriental," even if the characters in question are atheistic Reds)

The duplicitous commies have other plans, however, and begin to embark on a Glorious People's Crusade throughout the belt colonies.

"...and if we should have to use our status as galactic superpower to force compliance from those backwards natives though political assassinations, election tampering, or other black op tactics, that's a price the United Worlds is prepared to pay. Our access to their markets, I mean the notion of liberal democracy, demands it," thought Jarl petuantly.

Call it "Space Man's Burden."

The archaic technology of the North Koreans is no match for the pocket nukes and high-yield lasers of Jarl's patrol craft, which he unleashes with a sense of estatic glee that makes one question the psych-screening procedures of the Space Patrol Force.

"It's a little something we in the 22nd century call the Bush Doctrine. It's how we brought modern civilization to the Venusians -- and those thirteen survivors out of an original population of fifty million are grateful to us for it," Jarl said pusillanimously.


The procrustean nature of the narrative, the lack of rudimentary plot logic, the uncomfortable feeling that you're reading a transcipt of someone's personal fantasy rather than a considered work of literature... Well, I'll be! I think we've just stumbled across the ur-text from which all fanfic was derived!

The entire time I was reading this story, I had the most powerful feelings of deja vu. I eventually figured out why. "Korea of Space" is remarkably similar in plot to the original Star Trek series episode "Space Seed," only heavier on the Red Scare agitprop and tragically devoid of an over-the-top fight scene featuring William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban. Which is a shame, because there are few works so terrible that they could not be redeeemed by the addition of James T. Kirk delivering his trademark two-handed, entwined-fingers, downward punch.

And it goes without saying, but also: YOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG!

The Rezillos - Cold Wars (from Can't Stand the Rezillos, 1978) - Gleefully anachronistic, heavy on the sci-fi elements, and free of racist caricatures. It's a win-win-win situation! (Seriously, though, if you don't own a copy of this album, go out and buy one at the soonest available opportunity. You'll be glad you did.)

when you're unwanted

One of the things I picked up on yesterday's trip to the comic shop was a copy of the July 1985 issue of Starburst, a UK sci-fi fan mag. The initial draws were the photo-heavy feature articles on Max Headroom and Robin of Sherwood (a pagan-slash-crusty 80's retelling of the legend). In typical fashion for these kind of purchases, however, it was the odds and ends material, written up in a breathy excited twenty-years-gone now, that ended up fascinating me the most.

Things like advance speculation on the "forthcoming" Pluto Nash film or the announcement that Tobe Hooper's next project will be the Spider-Man film (wrong horror film director, wrong decade), seem rather poignant and quaint when taken in from a present-day vantage point, not to mention the fact that the tone and tenor of these speculations and teasers haven't changed at all over the years, only the names of the individual franchises. ("Did you hear? Tobey Maguire has been linked to the 'forthcoming' Robotech movie!")

...and then there's the letter page, which offers the armchair pathologist ample material for their study of the fan subspecies. Here are a some choice excepts, featuring annotations compiled by yours truly:

Here we have an excellent example of the bottom-feeding connoisseur at work. While it is possible (and frequently rewarding) to clinically dissect trash culture artifacts in search of hidden meanings and evidence of historical trends, what sets the bottom-feeding connoisseur apart is an intrinsic inability to separate the forest from the trees, and are quick to expend hundreds or thousands of words expounding with a total lack of self-awareness on such matters as how many Daleks coud fit on the head of a sonic screwdriver in terms similar to those used in a doctoral dissertation, and yet utterly miss the point through their obsession with minutae.

In almost every case, their elaborate theses end with an unintentional punchline that serves to verify their status as bottom feeders. For example: "...and this is why I find Crisis on Infinite Earths to be a creative endeavor in all aspects inferior to Dragon Ball Z."

Above is a classic case of dysmorphic proportionality. My father once stated that "the most important thing that ever happened to you is the most important thing that ever happened to you," meaning that significance is subject to a personal frame of reference. Being the first human to set foot on the moon or enrolling at UMass Boston -- the actual scope of such actions for the individuals involved lies within each person, and in that aspect does not lend itself to quick objective comparisons.

That said, most people do have a sense (to varying degrees) of proportionality about such things, understanding that what they strongly value might not be what the next person does, be it pomegranates, cats, or Firefly. Those suffering from dysmorphic proportionality are unwilling or unable to acknowledge conflicting views regarding their own hobby-horses, and when confronted with dissenting opinions turn very nasty, very quickly. This is often because those suffering from the syndrome have chosen to structure their personal reality around the contested subject. Calling its validity into question is therefore seen as a personal attack on their core being, thus calling for a all-out response, ad hominem attacks and all.

When practiced in a casual environment, the act of fan-casting, matching actors to roles to an imaginary film based on some property or other, can be a highly entertaining and frequently amusing activity. (I'm rereading The Count of Monte Cristo currently, and I keep thinking "Armand Assante" in mental picture of Edmond Dantès for some reason.) The inveterate fan-caster, however, has overindulged in the process to a point where their palette of potential choices has narrowed so as as to only include current "hot" actors or operates on overly facile typecasting.

Having entered the terminal phase of the syndrome, the inveterate fan-caster finds his- or herself unable, even in the most ironic or comedic contexts, to proffer selections such as "Gary Coleman as B.A. Baracus in The A-Team movie," but will instead fill every role with either "Samuel L. Jackson" (tough guy), "Scarlet Johannson" (female lead), "Johnny Depp" (male lead),or "that guy who was in that one episode of Farscape who played an android because the character in the imaginary movie is an android."

Also, regarding the above letter: I've read it a dozen times, I have it in front of me printed out in black and white, but I am still having extreme difficulty accepting the fact that anyone, at anytime could have possibly written "I'll be looking forward to the film Santa Claus coming up."

Echo & The Bunnymen - People Are Strange (from The Lost Boys OST, 1987) - The only thing I actually liked about Joel Shumacher's extended vampiric remix of INXS's "Devil Inside" music video. (The wife thinks the film is pretty swell, but there are plenty of iffy patches in her usually unquestionable tastes.)

(Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident.)

Halloween Countdown: October 24 – come out of the garden, baby

When I was writing Monday's Prince of Darkness post, I kept thinking of another film made two decades prior that incorporated many of the same elements, and to much better effect. The film is Quatermass and the Pit, released in America as Five Million Years to Earth, and was a Hammer Studios adaptation of a 1958 BBC television serial.

Professor Bernard Quatermass, the quintessential man of science and reason, was the creation of writer Nigel Kneale, and made appearances in various media from the early 1950's to the late 1970's. Kneale himself wrote the screenplay for the big screen version of Quatermass and the Pit, which is one of Hammer's finest efforts and probably the most aesthetically successful attempt in capturing the essence of cosmic horror on film, despite technically falling under the science fiction genre tag. (John Carpenter acknowledged his debt to the franchise in Prince of Darkness by crediting the screenplay to a "Martin Quatermass" as well as featuring a "Kneale University" in the film, much to Nigel Kneale's displeasure.)

The discovery of prehistoric remains and a strange rocket-like craft during subway construction beneath the reputedly "cursed" neighborhood of Hobbs End sets off a jurisdictional dispute between the transit authority, the archeological community, and the military's unexploded ordnance group. Quatermass, as a member of Britain's Experimental Rocket Group, finds himself drawn into the puzzle of the mysterious vessel's origin and how it connects to ancient myths and the origins of humanity.

It all culminates with the arrival of this fellow, the psychic manifestation of an alien race's will to mass suicide -- a popular pastime on the insectoid beings' home planet -- which they generously bequeathed to humanity via the genetic manipulation of our ancient ancestors.

Welcome to Swingin' London, hepcats! This party's not stopping until there's nothing left standing.
As I said, it's an excellent film; the writing and acting are strong enough to keep one from noticing the high level of talkiness (a common flaw in Hammer productions), and the ending is nothing short of remarkable. (If I could explain it in more detail without spoiling it, I would. Suffice to say, its impact lies in its unusual execution.) I give it my highest recommendation.

The DVD of the film is currently out of print (and commands extortionate prices on the secondary market), but it is available to rent though Netflix. So what are you waiting for?

Defuser - World Suicide (from a 1982 single) - San Francisco art punk/wave with a darkly humorous sensibility. I only rediscovered the song recently, but I swear I remember hearing it on local college/aternative radio back when I was a wee lad.

Tristam Cary - Quatermass and the Pit (from Hammer Film Music Collection, Vol. 1, 2000) - Atmospheric and effective, but it doesn't hold a candle to Moon Zero Two in the best Hammer film theme sweepstakes. (That's an unfair comparison. Nothing holds a candle to the Moon Zero Two theme, period.)

you’ll dream of microwaves tonight

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself contemplating the parallels between Bridezillas and the “two minutes hate” of Orwell’s 1984, when I happened to jog loose a random memory about a story I read in grade school. It was about a future society where the populace was kept in line though a ubiquitous food additive that made those who ingested it susceptible to subliminals embedded in the (government-controlled) television broadcasts. A teenage chemistry whiz manages to unravel the secrets of the totalitarian state’s social control program, but like Winston Smith, ends up learning the hard way that you can’t fight city hall Big Brother.

The story disturbed me immensely when I first read it a sci-fi anthology that had been collecting dust in the back of my fifth grade classroom, and even over the space of twenty-plus years, I felt a small chill when I recalled it. The titles of the story and the anthology eluded me, and the book itself was most certainly consumed in the fire that destroyed that wing of my elementary school in the mid-eighties. (Along with the school library’s copy of an absolutely stunning retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey illustrated with Greek urn-inspired watercolor paintings that now goes for a small fortune online. If only I had been bold enough to commit petty larceny in my formative years…)

I did, however, remember the name of the breakfast cereal in the story that piques the doomed student’s curiosity: “Biskies.” Armed with that small lead, I popped onto the internet to see what Google could uncover for me. Based on the results returned, it seemed that I was not the only child traumatized by the story, which turned out to be “A Bowl of Biskies Makes a Growing Boy” by Raymond F. Jones. It appeared in The Other Side of Tomorrow: Original Science Fiction Stories About Young People in the Future published by Random House in 1973. A quick check of half.com, my usual go-to site for cheap out-of-print books, turned up a reasonable-priced copy which was promptly ordered by yours truly and delivered a week or so later by the USPS.

The style of the book mirrors that of those Alfred Hitchcock horror and suspense anthologies (Monster Museum, Haunted Houseful, et cetera) that used to scare the bejeezus out of me when I was a wee lad, and the book itself seems like an attempt to spin off the format into the science fiction realm. (Plugs for several of the Hitchcock anthologies appear on the inside of the dustjacket’s back endleaf, which supports my theory.) I managed to finish the entire book in a single evening’s reading, and it was fascinating to discover how much of the material I remembered, misremembered, or just plum forgot over time.

Many of the online commentaries about The Other Side of Tomorrow make note of the generally bleak tenor of the stories considering the target audience, but I’d have to respond by saying it was published at a time when bleakness in was in vogue. For all its prognosticative window-dressing, science fiction is most usually rooted in the issues and concerns of the “now,” which is why the art-deco alien cities of 1930’s sci-fi and the chrome and neon Nippon-ocentric worlds of 1980’s cyberpunk novels appear kitschy and quaint these days.

1973, the year The Other Side of Tomorrow was published, was smack dab in the middle of a period I’ve informally dubbed The Great Disillusionment, a mass crisis of faith in the wake of the failures of both the Establishment and the counterculture to effectively respond to changing times. The war in Vietnam, race riots, Kent State, the growing concern over the state of the environment, the end of cheap fossil fuels, the stagnation of real wages, the assertion of and resistance to the demands by historically marginalized groups for equal rights, the violent implosion of the counterculture movement – these events formed the tapestry that serves as the contextual background for The Other Side of Tomorrow, and in light of that fact, I’m surprised it wasn’t an even bleaker read.

Not all of the stories are grim in tone. Thomas N. Scortia’s “Final Exam” is a straightforward adventure story with overtones similar to E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series or even the 60’s Green Lantern comic book tales. “Night of the Millennium” by Edward D. Hoch is an adventure-mystery yarn set in the last few hours of the year 1999, where the writer envisions a future where fifteen year olds are considered independent adults (as opposed to a world where twenty- and thirty-somethings attempt to prolong their adolescence indefinitely).

Arthur Tofte’s “The Speeders” is a reiteration of Lord of the Flies by way of Harlan Ellison’s “Along the Scenic Route,” as teenage repeat offender speed freaks (of the vehicular, not the meth-head, sort) are shuttled off to a prison camp where they can fatally indulge their lead feet. It’s not a happy story, by any stretch, but the main characters don’t really elicit the reader’s sympathy, leaving one to feel that they’re just paddling toward a foregone conclusion.

Both Joseph Green’s “Let My People Go!” and J. Hunter Holly’s “The Others” deal with the plight of throwbacks and mutations in worlds where genetic enhancement is the norm. Holly’s story is the better of the two, and features real moments of pathos (whereas the first person narrator in Green’s story is too clinically detached to be taken seriously as a believable character), but both tales end with a sense of hope for the outcasts’ future.

I found Leigh Brackett’s “Come Sing the Moons of Moraven” and Gail Kimberly’s “Peace, Love, and Food for the Hungry” of particular interest because they both address the issues of the sixties’ youth movement in a direct and unromantic manner through the premise of young folks attempting, and failing, to create off-world utopias. The young colonists in Brackett’s story are highly-educated, highly-motivated pioneers whose earnest dreams come up against and immutable force of nature. The communal society of Kimberly’s story finds itself being crushed alive by their own demons, embodied by a rapidly multiplying mass of alien lifeforms that feed on the colonists’ negative emotions, which are in ample supply despite their frequently-mouthed “love the brother” homilies. The vectors of delivery may be science-fiction tales, but the echoes of Great Disillusionment loom large over both stories, specifically the death of the dream via unyielding external pressures (Chicago 1968) or the internal seeds of self-destruction (the Manson Family murders and the rise of militant factions, plus the seamy side of the free love and drug cultures). It’s depressing stuff, but absolutely of its time.

The two dystopian future tales, the previously mentioned “A Box of Biskies Makes a Growing Boy” and Gordon Eklund’s “Examination Day” are both unremittingly bleak, but that’s par for the course in dystopian fiction, whose appeal lies in painting a really grim (and ostensibly cautionary) picture of the possible shapes of things to come, especially when it extrapolates based on present trends, hothousing problematic acorns into terrifyingly twisted giant oak trees. “Biskies” is by far the better story in terms of premise and execution, but the core concept of “Examination Day” – in a society where careers are determined by the state, how does one deal with being selected to oversee a concentration camp? – is strong enough to carry the tale despite several awkward missteps by the author. I once read an essay (and I wish I could remember where) that the overarching theme in fiction about adolescence is that of acknowledging limits, bartering the dreams of youth for the realities of adulthood at a really lopsided rate of exchange – and nowhere has the rate of exchange been as lopsided as in “Examination Day.”

If there’s a current of grimness in there stories, it’s one in sync with the tone of that era of young adult fiction from Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War to Robert C. O’Brien’s Z for Zachariah to Paul Zindel’s The Pigman to the works of S.E. Hinton and even M.E. Kerr (Not to mention Jack Thomas’s teen trash classic Heavy Number, which is as close an American equivalent to Richard Allen’s Skinhead novels as one can find.) Given the reactionary trends of the past three decades, it may seem harsh stuff to market to kids, but, speaking from personal experience, the kids are a lot tougher than the grown-ups give them credit for being, and there are worse things than being given an opportunity to think about big issues, rather than spoon feeding them aseptic escapist fare in hopes of delaying the inevitable.

The Epoxies – No Interest (from Stop the Future, 2005) – Maura brought home the new Epoxies EP the other day. I’m not sure what I think about it, yet. There’s a decent enough Wipers’ cover, a formerly iTunes-exclusive bonus track from Stop The Future, and two new songs that are slower and more experimental than anything previously released by the band.

Max Frost and The Troopers – Shape of Things to Come (from Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968, 1998) – A repost from last year’s cult movie-themed post, but too perfect a fit to pass on.

The B-52’s – Song for a Future Generation (from Whammy! 1983) – Hello, I’m Andrew, I’m a Pisces! I like nectarines and writing long, self-conscious blog posts!