Tag Archives: book reviews

February 26, 2022 · 1:08 am

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 9 – CAP QUITS AND THE ALIEN LUCIFER RETURNS

For Part One of this series click HERE.

ca f 176CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #176 (August 1974)

Title: Captain America No More

Villain: Steve Rogers’ drama queen tendency to quit being Captain America every so many years. This was already the SECOND time he had pulled this.

Synopsis: Captain America, still reeling from the monumental revelation about the leader of the now-defeated Secret Empire, has been contemplating whether or not his disillusionment is strong enough to drive him to quit being Captain America.

Avengers 125NOTE: In spite of my joke above, I do recognize that THIS time that Cap quit let the Marvel Comics writers explore competing nationwide feelings of the time period. I would argue that this time also should have been the last time this gimmick was pulled. Everybody always knows that Steve Rogers will go back to being Captain America no matter how many times he quits.

While weighing his decision, he motorcycled from Washington DC to New York City, where he and his fellow Avengers fought alongside Captain Marvel and Drax the Destroyer in the first Thanos War (1973-1974). He was also still with the Avengers when they faced the supervillains Klaw and Solarr.

This issue picks up late that same night, after the Avengers’ official farewell dinner for the Black Panther, who was temporarily leaving the team to devote all his attention to Killmonger’s uprising in Wakanda. Cap stands on the rooftop of Avengers Mansion, still engaged in soul-searching. Continue reading →

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February 25, 2022 · 1:58 pm

PAUL AERMONT AMONG THE PLANETS (1873) – ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

venus-landscapeA NARRATIVE OF THE TRAVELS AND ADVENTURES OF PAUL AERMONT AMONG THE PLANETS (1873) – I shortened the title when naming this blog post. Paul Aermont was the pseudonym of an unknown author, so full credit cannot be officially given.  

Paul Aermont, an American descendant of fallen French aristocrats, is living in Albany, NY with his parents. After running off to sea years earlier Paul has sown some wild oats and now seems willing to settle down. In his travels he has learned how to be a pharmacist but while pursuing this stable profession by day the still-adventurous young man spends his free time experimenting with gases and balloons.  

In the early 1820s Aermont discovers a fictional gas which enables his aeronautical balloon & cart vehicle to escape the Earth’s gravitational field and explore our solar system. Like other vintage science fiction that Balladeer’s Blog has reviewed this story presents space travel being possible without breathing equipment. Once in space Paul is rendered inert and is unaware of the “space currents” (sic) blowing him toward Jupiter.   Continue reading →

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February 24, 2022 · 1:33 pm

JIREL OF JOIRY: STORY SIX

Balladeer’s Blog concludes its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.

jirel in armorHELLSGARDE (1939) – Sadly, this is the last of C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry adventures, but the character gets to go out on a high note. The handsome but treacherous Guy of Garlot ambushes twenty of Jirel’s soldiers and imprisons them in the dungeons of Castle Garlot.

Guy demands ransom, so Jirel meets with him to negotiate since Castle Garlot is impregnable to assault and sieges as it sits atop a high, steep mountain with underground springs supplying it with endless water. The only payment Guy will accept to free Jirel’s men unharmed is the treasure from the remote and damned castle of Hellsgarde. Continue reading →

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February 18, 2022 · 10:20 pm

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 8 – FINAL BATTLES WITH THE SECRET EMPIRE AND MOONSTONE

For Part One of this series click HERE. 

ca f 174CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #174 (June 1974)

Title: It’s Always Darkest …

Villains: The Secret Empire

Synopsis: This story picks up right where the previous issue left off. The disguised Captain America and the Falcon, posing as drifting, mutant-hating goons for hire have been recruited into the Secret Empire. That villainous organization has been plotting to take over the United States and has also been hunting down and capturing mutants in furtherance of that goal.

The Empire’s operative Number 13 is escorting the disguised Cap and Falc via elevator into their secret headquarters far beneath the New Mexico desert. (Where the group has been lurking ever since their first battles with the Hulk in the 1960s.)

As our undercover heroes are led by Number 13 throughout the high-tech and armament-loaded lair, Captain America reflects to himself how this whole convoluted saga began with the public campaign against him by the Viper and his crooked colleagues on Madison Avenue. Continue reading →

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February 15, 2022 · 12:22 pm

JIREL OF JOIRY: STORY FIVE

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.

jirel picQUEST OF THE STAR STONE (1937) – It’s crossover time! C.L. Moore decided to do a story in which her two most famous pulp creations – Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry – meet each other. Trouble is Jirel’s adventures take place in Medieval times while Northwest Smith’s stories are set around 2500 A.D. Any reader of pulp fiction knows that’s no real obstacle so let’s dive in.

The story opens in Jirel’s time. She is leading her obedient soldiers in an assault on the castle of a sorceror named Franga. Our sword-wielding heroine battles her way through to Franga’s chamber where she seizes a mystic gem called the Star Stone. That jewel is so powerful but so unfathomable that even Franga was still trying to discover how to harness its arcane energies.

Jirel defeats Franga and forces him to flee between dimensions, but as he leaves he promises Jirel that he’ll return to get revenge on her and get the Star Stone back – just as soon as he finds a champion capable of matching Jirel’s courage, cunning and force of will. “No matter what world or what time I find them in” he adds, letting the reader know what’s coming up.  Continue reading →

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February 12, 2022 · 11:55 pm

MEDA: A TALE OF THE FUTURE (1891) – ANCIENT SCIENCE FICTION

medaMEDA: A TALE OF THE FUTURE (1891) – This sci-fi tale of the year 5575 AD was first written in 1888 but read mostly among the social circle of the author. Its first official publication came in 1891.

Artist Kenneth Folingsby is flung forward in time to the year 5575, when he can tell that the pull of gravity has lessened substantially. Following a canal, he comes across the ruins of Edinburgh and sees what people of future Scotland – who call themselves Scotonians – look like. This is another of those 1800s novels which absurdly assume that less than 4,000 years will be enough time to bring on enormous evolutionary changes to the human body.

To be fair, though, Meda: A Tale of the Future does use mutation following a planetary disaster to justify the rapid physiological changes. 

The Scotonians have stubby bodies with large heads shaped like hot air balloons and are no taller than four feet. The people themselves are practically lighter than air, with some needing weighted down with lead or stones to prevent them from floating off into the upper atmosphere. Continue reading →

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February 11, 2022 · 10:37 pm

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 7 – MOONSTONE, BANSHEE AND THE X-MEN

For Part One of this series click HERE.

ca f 171CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #171 (March 1974)

Title: Bust-Out!

Villains: Stone-Face and Moonstone

NOTE: This is the first story with the Falcon using his new wings in action.

Synopsis: We pick up right where we left off last time. The country is heatedly divided regarding the jailed Captain America’s guilt or innocence on the murder charge. We readers know that Cap was framed by Moonstone and Quentin Harderman (a former colleague of the supervillain the Viper) as the capstone of their smear campaign against our hero.

falcon and redwingA gang of armed men have blasted their way into Captain America’s jail cell, claiming to be on his side and offering to help him escape. Cap is torn, apprehensive that people will conclude he’s guilty if he escapes but fearful that if he stays nobody will be able to prove his innocence.

Our hero ultimately decides to stay in his cell to let the legal process play out. It is then that the supposedly “pro-Cap” armed men reveal that they are really part of Harderman’s organization and tell him he has no choice: come with them or they’ll kill him. Continue reading →

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February 5, 2022 · 12:04 am

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 6 – PHOENIX, THE TUMBLER AND MOONSTONE

For Part One of this series click HERE.

ca f 168CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #168 (December 1973)

Title: And A Phoenix Shall Arise

Villain: Phoenix (The son of the original Baron Zemo) FIRST APPEARANCE

Synopsis: We pick up an unknown number of weeks or months after the end of the Yellow Claw storyline. In the intervening time period Captain America was in action with the Avengers saving the universe from Dormammu and Loki alongside the Defenders. 

Captain America and the Falcon are out on their nightly patrol looking for crime. At length they pause on a rooftop to discuss how much guilt that Steve (Cap) still feels about the way that the long-lost Peggy Carter is still adjusting to the years she lost in the mental hospital.

And, sadly, has been relying on Cap more and more to cope with the modern world since he went through a similar experience when the Avengers found him frozen in suspended animation years ago. Worst of all is the way that Peggy thinks that she and Steve/ Cap are still an item even though in the years that she was gone he and Sharon Carter, Peggy’s much younger sister, have fallen in love.

NOTE: Over the decades, as the World War Two era was left further and further behind, Marvel retconned it so that Sharon was really Peggy’s niece, then grand-niece, etc instead of her younger sister.

Without warning, Steve and Sam (Falcon) are attacked by a new supervillain calling himself the Phoenix and using a high-tech rifle that shoots deadly energy rays. Phoenix taunts Cap that he has a grievance to settle with him, puzzling our hero, who doesn’t recognize him. Continue reading →

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February 2, 2022 · 3:10 am

JIREL OF JOIRY: STORY THREE

Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of the stories of pulp heroine Jirel of Joiry, the Medieval French woman-warrior created by female author C.L. Moore in 1934. For the first story click HERE.

jirel meets magicJIREL MEETS MAGIC (1935) – First off, let me say that is a bizarrely bland and unfitting title for this wildly imaginative tale. It also ignores the supernatural elements of Jirel’s first two adventures by implying this is the first time she “meets” magic.

The story opens up with Jirel on horseback leading her army in a bloody assault on Castle Guischard, the stronghold of the sorcerer Giraud. When our heroine leads the way into the castle itself, even her bravest men are a bit intimidated by the dark history of the place, but charge in along with her.

jirel on hillWhen the last of Giraud’s men are slain and all secret passageways from Castle Guischard are covered, Jirel and her men scour the entire castle for any sign of the sorcerer, whom she has sworn to kill over his double-dealing with her.

At last, in a high tower of the castle, Jirel finds what must have been Giraud’s hiding place and sees how he apparently fled.

Behind plush curtains is a window with impossibly large ivory shutters. Once opened, those shutters reveal that the window leads not to the outside, but to another dimension in which Giraud has sought shelter.
Continue reading →

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January 29, 2022 · 2:12 am

CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON: 1970s CLASSICS 5 – THE YELLOW CLAW

For Part One of this series click HERE.

ca f 165CAPTAIN AMERICA & THE FALCON Vol 1 #165 (September 1973)

Title: The Yellow Claw Strikes

Villain: The Yellow Claw (later called the Golden Claw)

Synopsis: We pick up right where we left off last time around, on top of the walls around Grimrock Prison in Maryland, where Captain America and the Falcon defeated the supervillainess Nightshade. 

nick furyNick Fury, who arrived recently with several armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in helicopters, is still explaining to Cap and Falc that Nightshade was being financed by the Yellow Claw. Fury and his agents arrived hoping to capture the Claw but that villain had already escaped.   

Things are still a bit tense between Cap and Nick because this is only their second face to face meeting since Contessa Valentina went back to Nick after making him think she was leaving him for Cap. (She did that to get back at Nick for the way he temporarily dumped HER for Laura Brown. What a Soap Opera.)

Fury, in a ridiculously irrational dispay of anger, tries accusing Steve and Sam (Cap & Falc) of screwing up S.H.I.E.L.D.’s attempt to arrest the Yellow Claw, even though our two heroes were lured to Grimrock Prison by Nightshade as part of her plan.
Continue reading →

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