THE SIXTH OF JUNE – Many sites are marking the larger event of the D-Day Invasion during World War Two on this date, but in keeping with Balladeer’s Blog’s theme of neglected and obscure items I’ll take a look at a forgotten action from America’s Revolutionary War. With the 4th of July less than a month away, similar seasonal posts will follow in the weeks ahead.
This action involved fighting between New York City’s Sons of Liberty and British forces in the area. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
The spacecraft departs from Mercury.
THE UNPRETENTIOUS PHILOSOPHER (1775) – By Louis-Guillaume de La Follie. The original French title of this work of proto-science fiction was Le Philosophe sans Pretention ou l’Homme Rare, but in the 21st Century it’s more generally known by the slightly shorter title.
One of the central characters of this story is an Earth scholar named Nadir, and I have no idea if it’s a coincidence or if the people behind the 1960’s film Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster were paying sly homage to de La Follie by naming one of the characters Nadir. At any rate Nadir is visited by Ormisais, a space traveler from the planet Mercury.
Ormisais regales Nadir with details about life on Mercury and also informs him that he has crash-landed on Earth and needs rare elements to repair his electrically-powered craft so that he can return to his home planet. The Mercurians had a planetary version of the British Royal Society and the French Academy, but it had a much more limited membership. Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
For this weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero blog post let’s do something different. Here’s a brief look at all the Marvel Comics publications from January of 1970. Reprints excluded.
AVENGERS Vol 1 #72 (January 1970)
Title: Did You Hear the One About Scorpio?
Avengers Roster: The Wasp (Janet Van Dyne), Captain America (Steve Rogers), Goliath (Clint Barton), Yellowjacket (Hank Pym, PhD), the Vision (not applicable) and Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell, Kree Captain)
Villains: Zodiac (first appearance)
Synopsis: At Avengers Mansion, Captain America reconciles with Rick Jones, explaining that it was really the Red Skull and not him who savagely beat Rick when he was serving as the new Bucky. NOTE: The Red Skull had used the Tesseract/ Cosmic Cube to transfer his mind into Cap’s body and vice versa.
During a briefing from S.H.I.E.L.D. the Avengers are informed that three high New York officials have been abducted by a costumed supervillain called Scorpio, a recurring foe of S.H.I.E.L.D. back then. Scorpio was really Nick Fury’s evil brother Jake Fury.
This leads to the Avengers learning that Scorpio is not alone – he is a member of a global, astrology-oriented team of supervillains called Zodiac. Each member rules their own crime empire in various locations around the world.
Our heroes clash with Zodiac, whose members wield powers based on their zodiacal signs. The Avengers thwart the villains’ plan to seize the capital cities of a dozen nations as part of a plan to take over the world.
Zodiac is defeated in battle, but they escape to face the Avengers multiple times in the future. NOTE: The Zodiac member Libra will be revealed as Mantis’ father in Avengers #122 (April 1974). Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
JACK LONG or The Shot in the Eye (1844) – With the Frontierado Holiday coming up in early August, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at this Charles Wilkins Webber short story from 1844.
Jack Long was a milestone in western fiction and proved so popular that it was reprinted in many other countries, often in distorted versions and was even presented as a stage play, all without any payment to Webber.
In 1853, the author added his original, official version of the story to his collection Tales of the Southern Border. It may be impossible to overstate the legacy of Jack Long. This Texas-set story presented virtually Biblical levels of violence during the Shelby County War (1839-1844) and set the standard for tales of gunslinging revenge quests down to the present day.
Over a century before High Plains Drifter, Pale Rider and countless similar stories, Jack Long depicted a man subjected to horrific torture & abuse and left for dead who appears later as a possibly supernatural figure blowing away his tormentors. And speaking of the supernatural/ horror angle, no less an authority than Edgar Allan Poe praised Webber’s story, which has been hailed as Southern Gothic. Continue reading
Filed under FRONTIERADO
AMPHIBIAN MAN (1962) – This “mad scientist creates a man capable of living underwater” movie was made in the Soviet Union but frequently appeared in dubbed English on American television decades ago.
While not classically bad, Amphibian Man features plenty of those comfortable B-movie elements that prove schlock is fun to laugh at no matter the country of origin.
Many online reviewers accuse the makers of The Shape of Water of ripping off this 1962 movie that is based on a 1928 novel. Arguments can be made for that, but it’s important to remember that all sci-fi stories draw from the same general inheritance of tropes.
Amphibian Man itself bears similarities to the 1908 French novel The Man Who Could Live Underwater, in which a mad scientist creates a man-shark which he calls the Ichtaner. Coincidentally enough, in Amphibian Man the man-shark is named Ichtyandr, so this movie is not immune to rip-off accusations of its own. Plus, in both stories, the experimental man-shark is intended as merely the first of many.
This film’s characters:
ICHTYANDR SALVATOR (Vladimir Korenev) – A young Argentinean man whose scientist father prevented him from dying of a lung disease in childhood by grafting shark gills on to his body. Ichtyandr has been raised and educated in isolation and his father even designed a comical looking underwater suit for our hero to wear, complete with a shark fin. Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
A VOYAGE TO THE WORLD IN THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH (1755) – This intriguing work was published in London anonymously and no author has yet been decisively identified. The novel’s narrator – who remains as anonymous as the book’s author – parties away his inheritance and then ships out for Italy.
Exploring on Mount Vesuvius our hero accidentally falls into what we readers are eventually told is just one of many holes that lead to the interior of the Earth, where another world awaits. A miraculous landing on a haystack saves the narrator’s life but he finds himself unable to move because of the greater gravity of this interior world.
A friendly inhabitant of the inner Earth applies a chemical salve to our protagonist’s body, a salve which allows him to stand up and move about in the higher gravity. A second salve massaged into the narrator’s body renders him capable of understanding and conversing in the language of Inner Earth.
The inhabitants of this interior world dress in silk robes and live to be 200 years old or older. They possess limited telepathy. Precious gems litter the ground but those jewels are meaningless to the Inner Earthers. Their society is partially socialist but with families held sacrosanct and with paternal authority sovereign in each household until the children reach adulthood.
Periodically a King is elected for a lifetime term. Common-sense morality prevails, and ingratitude is especially frowned upon. All of the inhabitants are strict vegetarians, as are the animals so the humans and the beasts interact peacefully.
In addition to the usual above-ground animals, Inner Earth also boasts gigantic birds who are trained to provide air travel throughout the subterranean land. Our hero gets to meet the reigning King in the world capital called Oudentominos.
The King makes him welcome but stresses that visitors are usually encouraged to leave after a year. That custom was set in place when a still-extant colony of British men and women discovered Inner Earth nearly a hundred years earlier and have been causing frequent problems.
During our protagonist’s stay the cantankerous Brits once again come close to mutinying so the Inner Earthers attack them and subdue them. The men are castrated and both sexes of the Anglos are scattered around Inner Earth to prevent any more rebellions from fermenting.
As for life on other planets in our solar system: Continue reading
Filed under Ancient Science Fiction
Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with my odd sense of humor. While searching for some more obscure films to watch and review, I came across this synopsis of the storyline for a 1974 Italian comedy. The movie in question is La Cugina (The Cousin), and the English translation of whatever the contributor actually wrote in Italian is … a bit garbled. Hilariously entertaining, but garbled nevertheless.
Here it is, word for word: Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, humor
HAVE A RESPECTFUL MEMORIAL DAY, EVERYONE! Two years ago I marked the holiday with a look at the U.S. forces who fought in Russia from 1918-1920. Last year I examined American forces during the Boxer conflict. For this Memorial Day let’s look at some Congressional Medal of Honor recipients from the Spanish-American War.
GEORGE CHARRETTE
Branch of Service: Navy
Rank: Gunner’s Mate 3rd Class
Citation: “In connection with the sinking of the U.S.S. Merrimac at the entrance to the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, 2 June 1898. Despite heavy fire from the Spanish batteries, Charrette displayed extraordinary heroism throughout this operation.”
The Merrimac was being intentionally sunk to try blocking the Spanish ships from being able to come out to fight the U.S. fleet. Charrette was taken prisoner and later exchanged on July 6th, 1898. NOTE: Charrette subsequently served in World War One.
EDWARD LEE BAKER JR.
Branch of Service: Army
Rank: Sergeant-Major
Citation: “For extraordinary heroism on 1 July 1898, while serving with the 10th U.S. Cavalry, in action at Santiago, Cuba. Sergeant-Major Baker left cover and, under fire, rescued a wounded comrade from drowning.”
NOTE: This African-American had served in the storied Buffalo Soldiers during campaigns against the Native Americans in the west prior to the Spanish-American War. After that conflict, Baker served in the Philippine War (1899-1902) and the subsequent campaigns against the Moros and others. Continue reading
Filed under Neglected History
This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero blog post centers around Marvel’s Power Man. Last year I covered his first twenty issues HERE. Here are more of his 1970s tales.
POWER MAN Vol 1 #21 (October 1974)
Title: The Killer with My Name
Villain: The original, villainous Power Man (Erik Josten)
Synopsis: The flood of glowing headlines that Power Man has been getting after crushing Cottonmouth’s drug ring in the previous issue get soured a bit one day when Luke goes to Noah Burstein’s clinic. He has gone there to visit his girlfriend, Dr. Claire Temple, but she has left behind a note for him saying she has left New York and can never see him again.
The hurt and angry Power Man returns to his Hero for Hire office above the Gem Theater. Luke gets attacked there by the original Power Man, a former operative of Baron Zemo who was given his super-strength by the Avengers foe the Enchantress.
That villain, real name Erik Josten, is demanding that Luke stop using the Power Man name since he has been using it for years. The resulting destructive battle causes the building to start collapsing, trapping a little girl inside. Naturally, Luke Cage wins the fight and saves the child. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS – Here at Balladeer’s Blog I like to cover neglected items, even when it comes to popular subjects like Peter Pan. Before the figure became established in the public consciousness as the leader of the Lost Boys in Neverland, J.M. Barrie presented Peter in a very different form.
Six chapters of Barrie’s 1902 work The Little White Bird were devoted to his original concept for Peter Pan and presented his lair as London’s Kensington Gardens rather than Neverland. Instead of the dog Nana there was the dog Porthos, and instead of Wendy Darling there was Maimie Mannering, but still with the kiss/ thimble bit of business.
This was followed by the 1904 stage play about Peter Pan, which established the more well-known lore regarding the character. In 1906, the six chapters from The Little White Bird were published in a separate book as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. That was followed by the 1911 novelized version of the 1904 play, with the novel adding some finishing touches to Peter Pan lore.
J.M. Barrie invented a detailed mythology for this first rendition of his renowned figure. Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens tells us that babies are hatched from eggs laid by birds on the island in Serpentine Lake inside Kensington Gardens. Within a very short time Solomon Caw, a crow who is the leader of all the birds in the Gardens, delivers those baby birds destined to become children to the mothers who wrote to him requesting them. Continue reading
Balladeer's Blog 