BEYOND THE ETHER (1898) – Written by W. Cairns Johnston. This little honey is so jam-packed with enjoyable weirdness that it’s sort of like “If Ed Wood wrote Steampunk.”
Two friends from Harvard reunite on a camping and mountain-climbing trip. In Maine they discover a mysterious new gas which erupts from the ground. The pair study the gas and decide to use its lighter than air properties to visit other planets in our solar system.
In a cosmic-level coincidence our heroes later stumble upon a previously unknown plant here on Earth. The plant can be used to induce suspended animation for space travel and to heal grievous injuries. The incredibly lucky explorers leave the Earth on board their balloon propelled by their new gas.
At 30,000 feet they use their newly discovered plant to put themselves into suspended animation for their trip to Mars. More than three years later they wake up as they enter the atmosphere of the Red Planet. Clumsily, our space pioneers fall out of their balloon’s basket and land in the nest of a gigantic Martian eagle. Continue reading
THE CHAMPIONS (1968-1969) – This British series from ITC featured three secret agents whose plane crash-landed near Shangri-La, the secret civilization in the Himalayas. They were granted enhanced physical strength and superior senses as well as ESP. They used their new abilities in their role as secret agents for an international organization called Nemesis. 
THE BEGINNING – Pilot Craig Stirling is flying himself and his colleagues Dr. Sharron Macready and William Gaunt out of Communist China after completing their latest mission. The Chinese Air Force damages their plane to such a degree that they crash-land in the Himalayas and learn Shangri-La really exists. The three are granted paranormal abilities and return to the world at large. Burt Kwouk guest stars. 
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JAMES JOYCE! His works got me hooked in my teens when I really related to his character Stephen Dedalus as he rejected his religion and indulged what I call his “young and pretentious side” in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). I wore out my copy of Joyce’s novel Ulysses (1922) and continue to mark Bloom’s Day to this very day.
This weekend’s belated superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at this Iron Fist adventure serialized in Deadly Hands of Kung Fu. It was penned by Chris Claremont and though it features his X-Men foes the Demons of the N’Garai and a woman called the Firebird whose schtick resembles his later retcons to the Phoenix Force, the story ultimately sucks and is an incoherent mess. 
DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #19 (Dec 1975)
Iron Fist attacks the pair, joined by Colleen, who is swiftly defeated. Our hero continues fighting the Messengers and when he uses the power of the Iron Fist to finish them off, that somehow causes him and Jade to be transported from Earth to Feng-Tu. They are in the throne room of Dhasha Khan (right), who affirms that he is the ruler of this afterlife and states that he plans to strip Jade of her soul and have it damned forever.
Like Demond Wilson in Baby, I’m Back, Balladeer’s Blog is BACK! 
SCHALCKEN THE PAINTER (1979) – The British Film Institute has released a terrific video edition of this 69-minute Gothic Horror telefilm which originally aired on December 23rd, 1979 as part of the Omnibus program. 
Jeremy Clyde of Chad & Jeremy fame stars as the Dutch artist Schalcken with Maurice Denham as his already famous teacher Garrett Dou and Cheryl Kennedy as Rose, Dou’s niece and Schalcken’s desire.
It’s 
A JOURNEY IN THE TWENTY-NINTH CENTURY (1824) – Written by Faddei Bulgarin, who had served in the Polish Legion of Napoleon’s Grand Army in his youth before going on to work for the Czars of Russia. In this fascinating tale an unnamed narrator gets swept overboard in the Gulf of Finland in 1824. The cold water and another element somehow put him in suspended animation and when he comes to he is all the way over in Siberia, where his body was recovered in the waters of Cape Shelagski centuries after he was lost at sea.
Balladeer's Blog 