The Leap Year Of The Sabre!

Let me take advantage of this extra day in February in the year 2020 to look at one of the most important publications in comic book history, and one which just happens by the way to feature a compelling "blaxploitation" character and takes it to a new level in a new format, and as it turns out into a new marketplace as well. Comic books were dying off in the Bronze Age as newsstands quit carrying them as their profitability became harder and harder to achieve. New ways to meet the dwindling numbers of the comic book consumer were needed and the direct market was fashioned to give publishers new life and to give the fan new comics, and as it turned out comics unlike anything ever seen before. 

The "graphic novel" was just being born and early examples are Contract with God by Will Eisner and Red Tide by Jim Steranko among others. But the one which cracked the code in the new marketplace was a "graphic album" or "comic novel" from a brand new company named Eclipse. It featured a brand new hero, one fashioned by two creators at the top of their games. Don McGregor had made his bones on "Panther's Rage" in Jungle Action for Marvel Comics and likewise Paul Gulacy had dazzled one and all with beautiful issues of Master of Kung-Fu. These two talents combined forces and so was born Sabre.

(Regular comic reprinting the first half.)

Sabre was the star of a story titled "Slow Fade of an Endangered Species" and it was a tale of the future. That future was ironically enough February 2020 and now we are at long last finally here to see how well this narrative's predictions hold up in the light of brutal reality. The answer is frightening well and not so good too.

(Regular comic reprinting the second half.)

The America of this 2020 is one that has suffered from famines leading to epidemics in the shadow of massive radiation leaks creating uninhabitable wastelands and leading to a nation under defacto martial law. (The prediction is pretty dire, and most of it hasn't happened, but we have Trump, so it's a bit of a wash.) In this world is born the first test-tube child, the fatherless and motherless Melissa Siren who is the romantic interest of our black rebel hero known just as Sabre, a man filled with a need for liberty and to fight for that liberty with the aplomb of a vintage Errol Flynn character. 

(10th Anniversary Reprint)

Sabre and Siren are seeking to rescue some villagers who have been taken by deadly mercenaries and are held hostage in some abandoned amusement park against Sabre's arrival and presumed execution. But to say much more would be to ruin a darn good story. Suffice it to say Sabre fights the good fight against baroque villains such the a robotic tiger-faced "Grouse", the black-patched "Blackstar" and most of all the top villain named "Overseer" who hides his gruesome visage, made so by the fact he wants to live in a decaying body made possible by future science. Weird with a cherry on top.

McGregor's story moves at the pace he dictates quite literally with his verbose style leading the reader leisurely through this new world. Once in a while he wears me out, but in this story is seems to work better than usual. (Annette Kawecki, the letterer sure earns her drachmas in this one.) Paul Gulacy's debt to the great Steranko is evident, as he crafts pages which sometimes look like lost parts of a Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD story. But in the end it all comes together, the whole greater than the sum of the parts and we have if not a masterpiece, a virtuoso performance of the higher order.  

And puts a nifty bow on Black History month. Tomorrow the Dojo goes to War! 

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The Pull Of Gravity!

Captain Gravity and the Power Of The Vril from Penny-Farthing Press is a handsome trade volume. It has flap covers and exceedingly high production values seep through it. One close glimpse showed me that Sal Velluto was the artist and I always stop to check his stuff out more closely. This was the perfect marriage of talent and topic as they had Sal drawing vintage pre-WWII settings and characters.

I left this one on the stands a long time before I finally picked it up. It seemed (and it is) a very close spin on The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens, but there's more going on here still. Actually anyone who likes Rocketeer will in all probability like this. I'd call the story by Jason Dysart, Rocketeer meets Indiana Jones meets Hellboy. It's not a rip-off but all of these properties deal with the Nazis and often with the occult aspects of the Third Reich. This story does a great job with these themes as well as dealing a bit with good old fashioned American racism since our hero is black, a fact he keeps well hidden from his own government for obvious reasons. There's romance and high adventure and secrets within secrets within secrets.

I highly recommend this story to one and all. There's a depth to the story missing from much material and the last page is awesome. Oh and it has cameos by Willie Ley and Ian Fleming.


The first Captain Gravity story is not as good as its sequel. The artwork by Keith Martin and Robert Quijano is quaint and evokes a bit of the Golden Age feel, but frankly it seems merely adequate. The faces are difficult to read and tell apart. The figure are clumsy in places. It has a bit of an amateur feel to it frankly. The backgrounds are better. Overall it's a C- at best where the Sal Velluto-Bob Almond work on the sequel is A+.

The story by Stephen Vrattos is structured in an interesting way, beginning in the middle of the action and using flashbacks for exposition. The transitions don't always work but I never got lost for long. The characterization isn't as rich as the sequel and there's little real feel for the presentation of racisim in this one. I get that our hero as a black man is supposed to feel diminished and marginalized in the culture and he rises beyond those demeaning limits; I get all that, but I rarely feel it. The damsel in distress doesn't have enough to do in this one and doesn't really get to show what she's made of. The Nazis in this one are cliches and don't elevate beyond that.

The biggest flaw is that despite the use of a flashback structure we don't get any actual Captain Gravity action until the fourth and final issue. That's too late to wait for the hero to take the field. I can't imagine how frustrating this was to read it in the original mini-series. I did like the notion that sitting in a movie theatre makes distinctions of race invisible and bonds the audience in a pure shared experience. That notion works.


The one-shot comic is a little incoherent. I guess the Nazis from the first story line survived and they arranged to have a shape-shifting superhero challenge Captain Gravity but it's all very unclear. I'll need to check it out again as I feel I missed something. The artwork is the same, with all the same weaknesses and rare strengths. At least in this one we get more Captain Gravity action. This is merely an adequate package. Interesting, curious and worthwhile if only to see the origins of the hero who moves through the superior sequel. The Mark Schultz cover for the trade is outstanding!

I heartily recommend the second Captain Gravity volume to one and all. The debut is for pulp enthusiasts mostly. Both are entertaining.

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(This has been a Dojo classic pulled from the earliest days nearly a decade ago. Recently read it again and my opinion has not changed. Mighty good stuff indeed.)

BlackKKKlansman!

BlacKKKLansman is the movie you thought was a comedy sketch on the Chappelle's Show, but then he'd have to be blind. (It is a brilliant sketch.) Turns out this shit really happened way back in 1979 when a black cop named Ron Stalworth,  among other things joined the Klu Kux Klan by mail order and phoned up David Duke, then Grand Wizard of the Klan. It's a wacky story of perceptions misunderstanding about race, and it's a story that doesn't really let any of us off the hook.  It's a story that  begged to be made into a movie, but what could've become a mindless crime adventure as developed by some, in the hands of Spike Lee becomes a sensitive and compelling fable about racism in America now and then, but mostly now because while some things might change in these United States, racisim it seems will never ever die.

(Topher Grace as David Duke)

The movie does what movies can do best, squash up time and events and give a dramatic power to things which on their own might have less impact emotionally for the witness or viewer as we're commonly called. We are taken into a oddly realistic world of ignorance and hatred where the most stupid ideas are given credence and form the basis for building the self-esteem of miserable people looking to strike back at something which hurt them. Those people often choose those who are easily identifiable and who are less powerful and so comfortable targets. The Klan has ever been about beating up on the weakest to make the weak feel strong and this movie gets that pitiful aspect of this awful organization fully and shows the world. 

(John David Washington as Ron Stalworth and Laura Harrier as Patrice Dumas)

I'm a white man in America, and so will never know what it's like to be black and always under suspicion for some thing or other by those in this culture who are desperate to look for enemies. The powerful use these games to keep order, if not law so that the profits can keep rolling in. Fear and resentment fuel this country in ways that beggar the imagination of those who confront it. Spike Lee made this movie end with the events of Charllotsville, Virginia where soon after the elevation of the idiot-king Trump protesters found the Civil War monuments in their midst unacceptable. Racism is the story of America, whether it's when we momentarily overcome it raise up a man like Barrack Obama, or when we cave in and hand off power to a demagogue like our current "president".

(Charlottesville, Virginia 2017)

We must do better. We must. 

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Klan For A Day!

The Birth of A Nation is at once one of the greatest movies and most terrible movies ever made. D.W. Griffith's expansive and innovative storytelling is on full display and the magnificent power of cinema is is all too evident, but tragically the story this tells is one of a dreadful history, of an aspect of American life which is truly shameful. That shame is not present in Griffith's portrayal of the Klu Klux Klan, the Secret Empire which in this movie rises up out of a misguided sense of necessity to stem the savagery of the freed black slaves who show they are incapable of leading themselves in a civilized manner and threaten the creamy white skins of Southern womanhood. It's the most profound and dreadful bullshit! But this truly is a well polished turd, and the artistry of The Birth of A Nation can be recognized, but never should its themes be celebrated.

D.W. Griffith was a Kentucky boy, like myself, and for that reason I was keen to include some of his work in my Film Studies classes. But these are high school classes and not college and so much more care must be taken in selecting examples of cinema. Last year when Spike Lee's BlacKKKlansman was in theaters, I sought to get permission from my principal to show The Birth of A Nation in class. I was eager to use the opportunity to drive home the misguided themes of the movie within the context of the new film. Much to his credit he listened to my arguments seriously but ultimately decided against it. I understand his decision. A news story that some white teacher was showing The Birth of A Nation to his mostly white students in a community famous for its conservative leanings could be publicity no one needed, least of all me. To attempt to explain the film being shown in some historical context with proper permissions from parents sought and signed, would've meant nothing to media intent on sensationalizing race relations in America at almost every turn. He likely saved me from myself.

But it's important in a way that Griffith made this document of the beliefs of the Klan. This rosy anti-historical account is a byway into the mind of the racist nationalist who lives in constant fear of the outsider, the one who unlike himself seeks not the same, but something new and different. The real Klan is about preserving the false memory of a more civilized time when order was maintained through violence and the utter and complete dehumanization of both men and women. It is the shame that will blight the American record for all time.

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Blackenstein!

Blackenstein (don't you just love the title) is a flick I've been eager to see for many many moons. I caught part of it one night on a late-night fright show once years ago, but by and large the movie has escaped me. Every once in a while I get on a Frankenstein kick and want to check out all the versions I can and this one was always a gap in my knowledge. But no more!

Now despite starring a Lone Ranger, the ironically named "Ivory Stone" and the perfectly named "Roosevelt Jackson", I cannot say this is in any way a "good" movie by any measure normally applied to cinema. But it's a pretty nifty diversion and offers up a "Frankenstein" who is almost noble and a "Frankenstein's Monster" who is especially sympathetic. A woman wants her boyfriend, a veteran horribly wounded in Vietnam to get special medical treatment and her former mentor (John Hart as "Dr. Stein") has just the right techniques to possibly help if he will. He does, and does so with the appropriate  and balanced motivations, to help a patient in pain and then to further his understanding of the science he is seeking. Others such as his not-so-nice butler Malcom (Roosevelt Jackson no less) manage to corrupt that process and of course as in every such movie mayhem erupts.

"Blackenstein" is played by Joe De Sue, a hapless non-actor who just sort of looks out of his face most of movie, even when he's nibbling on a victim (yest this Creature is a cannibal). That and the mostly catch-as-catch-can sets really limit what can be seen, that and the meager lighting in any scene not on an interior set (or room). The tried and true Frankenstein electrical equipment fashioned by Kenneth Strickfadden so many years before for the Universal classics and I guess will be used a year later in Young Frankenstein by Mel Brooks. Blackenstein is not a good movie, but it's still fun to watch.

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MAD Now And Again!

MAD Magazine enters a new and I guess old phase with its new hybrid publishing scheme to blend some few new material with lots of vintage stuff from across the many decades of the magazine's history. The first issue focuses on television, a medium which has been around only just a little longer than MAD itself. I was frankly surprised by the nature and quality of some of these articles. There's almost literally something for anyone and frankly some of it didn't appeal to me. But then some of it appealed to me in a big way.

But there was two sentences I found that disturbed me:

"The vintage MAD pieces reprinted in this issue were produced in a time that was less mindful and sensitive to the matters of race, gender, sexual identity, religion, and food allergies. The text of these articles is presented here unaltered (and with crossed fingers) for historical reference."

I'm used to cautions like this on vintage collections of cartoons and such. But a moment please...

Let me get this straight-- you've just picked up MAD Magazine, a publication famous and infamous for popularizing satire and delivering it to the households of uncounted millions for decades and you have to have a warning label. The "food allergies" gives me hope the sentences are presented with a little tongue thrust into cheek but the "crossed fingers" line makes worry that the producers really care about potential blow back from some modern group for being offended at work intended to mock and which did so decades before by men and women likely long dead.

I hope I'm wrong and this was a gag. I go to MAD for a respite from the daily grind filled with news of witless and craven  leaders  and masses all too eager to be swindled. I go to see the truth laid bare in a manner both funny and true, the very essence of good satire. It must never be apologized for...ever. Or it's over before it has begun. I fear I'm not entirely wrong.

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Black Lightning Strikes Out!

Black Lightning - Cold Dead Hands is a modern reworking of the Black Lightning concept by the Tony Isabella, the characters creator. It's a modern comic book story with modern comic book art and that means for this fanboy it's an inferior outing compared to its Bronze Age source.

I give Isabella credit for trying to make this reimagined Black Lightning fit into the world of the modern day, a world in which young black men are shot down for far too little reason far too often. Once again we have the teacher-hero who returns to elevate the lives of the children and bring them hope. But in this case, the teacher-hero smacks too much of the type I don't like, given credit for charm but showing little evidence of labor and gifted with interested and bright students just eager for a chance. No one ever does the struggle of battling the system on behalf of kids who don't care for the battle to be fought, but Black Lightning came the closest. This version has too much Freedom Writers aroma for me, even if Jefferson Pierce is black.

And the Black Lightning here is not alone, but we are forced to encounter an avalanche of back up characters, most far too swiftly. The modern art makes identifying characters difficult in the best of times and saddling the reader with lots of pretty much identical people makes it almost impossible to keep up. And then there are shape-shifters too.

The villain in this story is Tobias Whale, but in contradiction to the original we get a black Whale, the albino villain trope being cast overboard in this instance. Unfortunately the bleached white skin in opposition to Jeffersion Pierce was much of the thematic undercurrent of the series. He's not as scary and doesn't feel nearly as memorable.

And where did all the fucking aliens come from. It seems the DCU is now rife with aliens around every corner. I'm not sure if this is the way it is these days, but these sci-fi touches really scratch gashes in the realism  a series like Black Lightning is supposed to have.

This is a more powerful Black Lightning too, a man with an electrical field and a suit that makes the most of it in some creative ways. I'm worried that Black Lightning is too powerful, too far removed from his "blaxploitation" fisticuffs mode, but I can handle that change I guess.

All in all this was a much less compelling read than the original or the nineties revival. It lacked the chutzpah of both of those series and as pretty as it could be was at times just plain confusing.

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Bon Voyage Captain Cosmos!

Captain Cosmos has stood his final watch my friends. The Last Starveyer has left this planet Earth behind for good alas. Nicola Cuti has passed away after a long bout with cancer.

The creator of Captain Cosmos - the Last Starveyer and Moonchild the Starbabes and scores of other entertaining comic book characters, Nicola Cuti worked as an editor and writer and artist for Warren, Charlton, DC, and more through the many decades of his career. He has a story in the most recent issue of The Creeps magazine titled "Bug-Eyed Monster" and it was his role as an Associate Editor which finally got me to give that mag a chance. Nick Cuti had career and life which seemed filled with enthusiasm for the comics and characters he loved.

His most famous creation was E-Man who he fashioned with artist Joe Staton long ago at the now gone but hardly forgotten Charlton Comics shop where Nick was an Assistant Editor to George Wildman.

E-Man stares down on me at this very moment, the delightful poster used to promote the character was added to my walls many years ago and has always had the most prominent and important position. For the umpteenth time on a blog a mine, but the first time at my "Other Blog" here are the covers for the original E-Man run.

The ten original issues of that magnificent comic book are perhaps the most influential in my life. I remember reading the sixth issue (the first I found) as if it were yesterday afternoon. You cared about the characters, even the baddies and no romance was more potent or real than that between Alec Tronn and Nova Kane.

Michael Mauser was a stroke of comic genius all by himself. The humor and adventure and sheer humanity evident in those comics is superior to any other comic I've chanced upon in decades of reading.  Some books came close, but none ever blended those elements so  harmoniously or with such aplomb.

I might well have more to say about Nick, the only one of my favorite writers I ever got to correspond with, but now his Captain Cosmos videos are just the thing to remember him by -- I'll dig that out. And then it's to reading some of that original E-Man yet again to warm my heart. Thanks again Nick and bon voyage Captain Cosmos.

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Goliath In Black!

Tony Isabella has crafted a reputation for writing black heroes. His creation DC's Black Lightning being  the most famous of his outings in this arena. But he began at Marvel and there he wrote some singular issues of the comic Luke Cage, Power Man and later he crafted the earliest adventures of Black Goliath.

In the debut issue of Black Goliath (smartly drawn by George Tuska and Vince Colletta) we meet the fifteen foot giant who is in his off hours Bill Foster, a talented bio-chemist who had in earlier days assisted Henry Pym and it was there that he'd "perfected" the growing formula which Pym had dabbled with for many years. In that first issue we find a Goliath who is reminiscing about his early days in the Watts community and who ends up fighting some low-level criminals he chances upon. Later we learn that Foster is a man in full command of his power, who can elevate to fifteen feet on a whim and who is running a research lab manned by three up and coming talented young scientists. He seems to be a man well positioned for a successful life, but as we well know the lot of a superhero is rarely blissful..

We'd first met Black Goliath in the pages of Luke Cage, Power Man when the aforementioned Hero for Hire came to blows with the giant when he was searching for his lady love Claire Temple. Turns out Claire is the ex-wife of Foster and had joined him on the West Coast to help because she thought he was trapped at the fifteen foot size. Apparently this is a lie perpetrated by Foster to keep Claire close.

Black Goliath and Luke Cage face off, but both find themselves fighting as a duo against the Circus of Crime. 

I love the Circus of Crime, but this is not one of their most entertaining outings. Cage and Foster quickly dispense with them and Black Goliath moves on the headline his own title, but only briefly. 

Black Goliath only lasted four more issues and rated on visit with Spidey in Marvel Team-Up. Later Bill Foster changed his fighting name to Giant-Man and fought alongside the Thing in Marvel-Two-In-One. He became a background character at Marvel for many years.

Always it seemed he was a hero looking for a place to fight, a time to show his worth. The very stuff of tragedy. 

On a final note, let me that I always loved the corner box image for these the Black Goliath comics, brief though was their stay. 

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