tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250269071385467004.post833160242163239015..comments2024-01-23T19:26:48.882-05:00Comments on Julian Perez Conquers the Universe!: Calling Captain Future: A Pulp Hero Who Skewed YoungJulian Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16276143599750947248noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250269071385467004.post-89981482942879680782013-08-13T16:59:45.841-04:002013-08-13T16:59:45.841-04:00I don't know what's up with Green Arrow, b...I don't know what's up with Green Arrow, but it's my understanding that Mort's relationship on Aquaman was the exact 180-degree opposite of what he did on Captain Future. With CF, Uncle Morty came up with the idea and Hamilton developed it and wrote the novels. With Aquaman, Paul Norris came up with the idea, and Mort Weisenger wrote the first script. <br /><br />My favorite case of that kind of "exposition in the dialogue" they used to do on radio ("Oh, I see you just came in through the door, Annette!") was in the NPR Star Wars radio production, where Brock Peters used his sorcery to choke an insolent officer and described what he was doing in visceral, grisly detail what it was like to choke.Julian Perezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16276143599750947248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250269071385467004.post-3666278997934196692013-08-13T15:47:45.260-04:002013-08-13T15:47:45.260-04:00Even if you had the elbow room to change in a phon...Even if you had the elbow room to change in a phone booth, it would be a pretty stupid move. Clark Kent goes in, Superman comes out...it's not like there could be a crowd of other "secret identity" suspects in there.<br /><br />I remember a late 70s comic where Superman leaps from a ledge and ponders the origins of "Up, Up and Away." ("I wonder who started that? It certainly wasn't me!") That one at least made sense, originating on the radio where he had to explain where he was going, but it was an interesting "meta-textual reference" before that was a common practice.<br /><br />Didn't realize Uncle Mort had created Captain Future. Combined with Aquaman and Green Arrow, that has to make him like the "King of the Also-Rans."<br /><br /> David Morefieldhttp://davidmorefield.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250269071385467004.post-24478356469820733532013-08-13T15:04:21.021-04:002013-08-13T15:04:21.021-04:00One thing I forgot to mention you might find relev...One thing I forgot to mention you might find relevant: Captain Future was created by Mort Weisenger, and the idea was developed by Ed Hamilton!<br /><br />Captain Future is worth getting into, though like Doc Savage, I wouldn't read one story after the other because they tend to be similar. The most interesting moments are the surprisingly adult moments of horror, coming from Hamilton's Weird Tales background. These stories are a lot of fun (I love the metal eating telepathic lunar rat) but be aware that they do seem to have more of a kid audience in mind. That makes it all the more surprising when it goes hard science and the crime is solved by Einstein's "gravitational lensing."<br /><br />Kids might be the only people who aren't inclined to laugh at a "Uranian Star-Tiger." I wonder...when did people mispronouncing Uranus become a joke? Because these stories repeatedly mention Uranus and it's hard not to keep your cool!<br /><br />Planet-Smasher Hamilton's stories are especially worth reading if you're a comics fan of Silver Age DC. For one thing, the references aren't one way (comics quoting the pulps). When Ed Hamilton wrote "Battle for the Stars," he slipped a reference in to a specific kind of Martian creature: a "Nightwing and Flamebird!"<br /><br />Getting into pulp science fiction and horror has been especially rewarding if you like DC. For instance, "Volthoom" is a reference to a diabolical Martian god in a Clark Ashton Smith story. Remember the evil Supergirl created by red Kryptonite, Black Flame? A reference to a novel, Black Flame, about an immortal female heroine.<br /><br />That's just off the top of my head.<br /><br /><i>Nitpick: the Fleischer cartoons did indeed show Superman changing in a phone booth. Not often, and maybe just once, but it does qualify as a precedent and I'd imagine that audiences then, as now, were larger for the films than the comics. </i><br /><br />True. If memory serves, he only did this once, and it was one of those old time wood phone booths with yellow fog glass you see at the New York Transit Museum. Changing in a regular phone booth where everyone can see you wouldn't make sense.<br /><br />What's interesting is, I can remember a reprinted comics story from the early 1940s, where Superman makes a note to himself that it actually isn't possible to change in a phone booth. So, the sole mention of this I can find in the comics, people were making fun of this even though it wasn't a thing!<br /><br /><i> Surprised Tom Paris' "Captain Proton" didn't get a name-check in this piece.</i><br /><br />For good reason: unlike Colbert's Tek Jensen or Captain Zoom...Captain Proton was <i>really accurate</i> to how the serial heroes really were! No kid sidekick, girlfriend got kidnapped, that weird cave location they used in 500 serials, ponderous giant robots, down to the flute sound effect when screens were turned on and off.<br /><br />People don't like Voyager, and mostly for good reason: it never committed to the core concept. The characters never really "roughed-it." They seldom had to make dangerous choices in isolation. And shoot, they never even ran out of shuttlecraft!<br /><br />But that 5th season had some high points. The introduction of Seven of Nine gave that show its groove. "Bride of Chaotica!" was just plain fun, for instance.Julian Perezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16276143599750947248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250269071385467004.post-11537355360683735952013-08-13T11:53:55.460-04:002013-08-13T11:53:55.460-04:00Thanks for this; I've been meaning to get into...Thanks for this; I've been meaning to get into the Captain Future pulps forever, but I never seem to get around to it. Ed Hamilton, as you probably know, is my favorite Superman writer of all time, and I've been greatly enjoying his (non-Cap F) science fiction works in free e-book form since I got a Kindle. Looks like I'll have to break down and spend actual money to get these, as well.<br /><br />I haven't read "Whisker of Hercules" either (!) but if it's true Dent mocked superheroes, comics got the last laugh when Doc was adapted into one himself, and one of the lamest, most pathetic ones of the Golden Age, at that. If Dent knew what Street and Smith were planning for the comics, I don't begrudge him taking revenge in "Whisker."<br /><br />Nitpick: the Fleischer cartoons did indeed show Superman changing in a phone booth. Not often, and maybe just once, but it does qualify as a precedent and I'd imagine that audiences then, as now, were larger for the films than the comics.<br /><br />Surprised Tom Paris' "Captain Proton" didn't get a name-check in this piece. David Morefieldhttp://davidmorefield.comnoreply@blogger.com