Looking Back at Thor

One of the first Marvel comics I looked at was Journey Into Mystery #93 staring the Mighty Thor. I remember seeing a group of comics by some off-brand company (not DC). A guy with long hair and a red cape attacked some tanks. I remember thinking, 'He talks about his hammer too much,' and stopped looking before the feature villain, the Radioactive Man, even appeared. A few months later I read X-Men #3 (featuring the Blob) and was hooked on Marvel comics. Being an instant X-Men fan, I just had to buy Journey Into Mystery (Thor) #109 which featured Magneto with sort of a cameo by the X-Men. I missed the next issue but started buying it regularly with #111. When Thor met the Destroyer the following year I thought that it was one of the most exciting cliff-hangers ever. I also picked up enough back issues and reprints to fill in my knowledge of the character.

Looking back, I started reading Thor just as the character really came into his own. The first several issues were clumsy. The story often revolved around Thor turning into Don Blake without his hammer and having to retrieve it before wrapping things up fast. The supporting cast consisted of Blake's nurse, Jane Foster and the strip was only given 13 pages so stories had to be streamlined.

The big change came when Jack Kirby became the regular artist and co-plotter. A whole new element was added - Asgard. Don Blake's life never got any more interesting but Thor's relatives, friends, and enemies were slowly introduced giving the strip a fairly large cast. This is also when the character moved from being about a regular guy who could become a superhero to being about a god who could disguise himself as a human. Jane Foster was written out of the comic in #136. Finally in issue #159 Thor finds out that Blake was nothing more than a construct to teach Thor humility. After that revelation, Don Blake pretty much ceased appearing unless needed for his medical knowledge.

The team of Lee and Kirby continued until Kirby left in 1970. The great Neil Adams took over for two issues followed by John Buscema., The quality of the comic continued until Stan Lee left around 1971. He still wrote a couple of issues after that but Gerry Conway became the regular writer. As time passed, the stories seemed to be going through the motions rather than capturing new glory. This was a general problem in comics at the time as a new generation of creators struggled to find their voice.

Marvel went through a set of revolving editors in the 1970s with the result that few comics had a regular creative team. Thor saw stories written by Conway, Roy Thomas and Len Wein and art by John and Sal Buscema, Rich Buckler, and Walt Simonson. Somewhere in there Jane Foster returned and merged with the goddess Sif. For a while Jane and Sif could switch places like Thor and Don Blake. One memorable plotline involved a false Ragnarok.

Jack Kirby returned to Marvel briefly in the late 1970s, creating some ultra-powerful characters called the Eternals. The book lasted less than a year but many of the plot threads moved on to Thor. Most of the stories over a two year period combined the Eternals and ancient Norse myths into a single plotline.

Quality continued to decline in the early 1980s. The comic was on the verge of cancellation when it was turned over to Walt Simonson as writer/artist. Overnight Simonson revived the character, making Thor cool for the first time in a decade. I reread some of his stories last week and they hold up very well.

Simonson began his run by introducing Beta Ray Bill, an alien demon-horse thing who was judged worthy of Thor's powers. Eventually he was given his own hammer. The spell that let Thor change into Don Blake is transferred to Bill allowing him to transform back to the humanoid he was before being re-engineered into the protector for his people.

Thor returned to Earth and took up the identity of Sigurd Jarlson, a construction worker so that he could be closer to humanity. Simonson did the art for two years between issues #337 and #353. After that Sal Buscema took over the art with Simonson continuing to write and doing around half the art. Along the way Thor's face is scarred and he grows a beard. The death goddess Hel curses him with fragile bones and he has to wear armor to support his broken limbs. The whole thing came to a climax in Thor #382 which marked Simonson's departure from the comic.

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz took over and the quality of the book began another decline. An architect named Eric Masterson was introduced and merged with Thor replacing Don Blake as Thor's mortal identity.

In the late 1990s the big thing was reviving sales by replacing a hero. This was done at one point or another with Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Captain America, Spider-Man, and Iron Man. Thor's turn came after he "killed" Loki (he got better). Thor's identity was submerged and Eric Masterson became the new Thor in 1991 in issue #433. In issue #440 they introduced the Thor Corps - Eric Masterson's Thor, a Thor from the future, and Beta Ray Bill (Beta Ray Thor). The real Thor finally returned in issue #457 and Masterson was spun off as Thunderstrike with an enchanted mace.

After his return Thor went crazy and fought most of the other cosmic heroes in a mammoth cross-over.

At the end of this Thor got a new costume and Roy Thomas took over writing. I remember hating this period.

Warren Ellis wrote memorable four issue run reviving the character once again and starting a long affair with the Enchantress. Bill Messner-Leob took over as the regular writer. Thor lost his powers, shirt, and helmet. He worked as a free-lance hero with the also-powerless Enchantress handling the billing. He got his powers back just in time for the Onslaught plotline. This was a cross-continuity event where all of the major non-mutant heroes vanished to another world and were presumed dead. Thor's last regular issues was #502, printed in 1996. It was a nice send-off as Thor and a second Thor (leftover from a Roy Thomas plotline from 1979) prepared for one final fight to the death. It was only marred by a brand-new costume which just looked strange.

Thor was replaced with the Lost Asgardians for a year. Somehow various Asgardians had been transported to Earth and given human identities. It was really nothing more than a way of marking time.

The whole thing led to a massive reboot of the Marvel universe. Old plotlines and dangling plot threads were ignored and the various characters started with fresh creative teams and #1 issues. Thor was joined (again) with an emergency medical technician named Jake Olsen.

Dan Jurgens was the writer and the quality stayed fairly high. After around fifty regular issues the book got into really interesting territory - what if the gods took a more active role in humanity's affairs? Odin died and people started praying directly to Thor. Starting in issue #68, the comic jumped 17 years then 200 years into the future. Thor and the Asgardians have conquered the world and turned it into a paradise ruled over by Thor (who lost an eye, an arm and his hammer along the way), the Enchantress, and Loki. It eventually turns out that to be a hollow paradise and Thor uses his power to turn back time and undo most of the events. This is followed by a six-part version of Ragnarok and the cancellation of the comic.

Thor was revived again, three years later in 2007. The series has been separated into different story arcs which are easy to package as graphic novels. The first was is about the revival of the gods and their new home, floating above a small town in Oklahoma. The second arc was about the machinations of Loki and Doctor Doom, leading up to the Siege event. The Siege of Asgard itself was a major cross-continuity event involving nearly everyone in the Marvel Universe. That was followed with Thor's attempts to save the Asgardian dead.

All of these have been strong stories, especially the first set written by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. They are best read as graphic novels instead of individual issues.

So there we are - nearly 40 years of Thor. Long stretches of creativity punctuated by longer stretches of mediocrity.

Should Superman be a free agent?

In Action 900, Superman informs the national security adviser that he plans to renounce his American citizenship. He decided to take this action after catching flack from the administration for supporting pro-democracy protests in Iran. In a bit of cross-over from the real world, the Obama administration was roundly criticized for not supporting the Iranian protesters. Even though his action was on his own initiative, Superman's support was taken as a sign of US policy.

This is a tricky question. It openly rejects the idea of "Truth, justice and the American Way" following the last movie, "Truth, justice, and all that." The American way is no longer good enough for this citizen of the world. But where to go from there?

This question has real-world parallels. As I write this, former President Carter is engaged in negotiations in Korea. Granted he cannot move mountains but his stature as former president his presence implies official authority. Similarly, Jesse Jackson has engaged in private negotiations with foreign governments.

Since Superman is going to inform the UN, presumably he plans on submitting himself to UN control. Will this be the General Assembly or the Security Council? The General Assembly includes Iran, Libya, Syria, and Liberia. Does Superman really plan on limiting himself to actions that this assembly sanctions? The Security Council is little better. Both Russia and China are permanent members who practice human rights abuse. Russia tends to support Iran and would certainly have vetoed and actions against its government by Superman.

In fact, nearly every nation in the UN would be leery of letting Superman support the overthrow of a recognized government. the reason that NATO is acting in Libya is that the UN refused to become involved (Russia again). This underscores the problem that the governments of the world do not necessarily represent the peoples of the world. Most of the 3rd world is ruled by corrupt governments. Superman could find himself supporting dictators rather than upholding liberty.

What if Superman gave up all citizenship and asked the UN to just trust him to do the right thing? In the movie Superman 4 The Quest for Peace, Superman decided on his own that the world needed nuclear disarmament. Personally, I found that scary. Superman is not infallible. What if he decided on his own that nuclear power was bad and took it upon himself to destroy all nuclear reactors? That would cut off power to millions. It is the arbitrariness that is scary. We would have to hope that a free-agent Superman would do the right thing but the "right thing" is often a complex subject. Where would he draw the line? Personally I find the idea of someone with unlimited power and no accountability to be scary. Personally, I prefer omnipotent beings to be responsible to elected leaders even ones I didn't vote for.

The easiest thing is to avoid policy issues altogether. That is what Superman traditionally did. If you limit yourself to defending the Earth, preventing natural disasters, and upholding the law (mainly in Metropolis) then no one will complain. But he went beyond that which is what brought us to this point. This is probably an issue that comic books should avoid.

In some ways this is just DC catching up with issues Marvel confronted decades ago. Their heroes have been accountable to their governments or treated as outlaws. Truly free agents like the Silver Surfer were treated as menaces.

One final question - what happens to Clark Kent? It seems hypocritical for Superman to renounce his citizenship but then get it back by putting on a pair of glasses and combing is hair differently.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman is returning to TV in a new series being filmed for NBC. Superheroes have had a mixed reception on TV. Clark Kent has had a long run in his "no tights, no flights" Smallville. Heroes lasted four seasons. On the other hand, The Cape and No Ordinary Family have seen declining ratings and neither is likely to be renewed. The Bionic Woman started strong but may have set a record for audience loss.

Wonder Woman has already had some controversy. When the character was unveiled, everyone hated her new costume. Instead of blue shorts spangled with white stars, she had long blue pants and matching boots. Some people thought that the network was trying to downplay the patriotic angle. Others simply hated the vinyl look. NBC seems to have listened. Pictures taken during shooting show that her pants are a different material with a row of yellow stars down the sides and red boots. They also changed the cut so the crotch is not so tight.

Wonder Woman is one of DC's big three characters - the only three to remain in continuous publication from the Golden Age to the Silver Age. That said, she is the least of them. By the 1960s Superman and Batman each appeared in multiple comics. Wonder Woman only had the one and it was struggling by the late 1960s.

For a time DC reworked the character completely. The Amazons left our dimension. Dianna Prince stayed behind, losing her powers. She bought a "mod" boutique ("mod" was slag for the youth-oriented fashions in the 60s) and took on a second job as an undercover agent under the tutelage of a character named I Ching. That phase didn't last very long. The Amazons returned and Wonder Woman regained her powers.

There was an attempt at updating Wonder Woman for TV in the mid-1970s. This version was blond and wore a different outfit. Her bracelets were full of gimmicks. She didn't seem to have any special powers. At one point the villain asked how she got there so fast. She replied, "I have an invisible airplane." That line was the main thing proving that the producers of the movie even knew who Wonder Woman was. The pilot was boring and the fans hated this version. It made the list of 100 dumbest events in television.

They tried again with the famous Linda Carter version. This one kept the Wonder Woman mythos intact. It was set during World War II. Parts of it bordered on camp, especially the pilot, but it was played straight and the characters' earnestness played well against the war. Ratings were fairly good but the expense of doing a costume show kept ABC from renewing it. CBS picked the show up and moved it into the present (1977) where it ran for two more years.

Wonder Woman also became a feminist icon during the 1970s. A collection of Golden Age stories was published with an introduction by feminist leader Gloria Steinem stressing Wonder Woman's independence from men. This aspect was also central to the comic when it was rebooted in the 1980s by George Perez.

Superman and General Zod

It was announced over the weekend that the new Superman movie, Superman: Man of Steel, will have General Zod as the villain. I'm not sure what to make of this.

The biggest flaw of Superman Returns was the lack of originality. The plot and many of the scenes were remakes of the original Superman movie. The new movie is supposed to be a reboot. The fact that they are recycling villains from Superman II is a bad sign.

On the other hand, Superman II was the best of the Chris Reeve movies. It pushed the envelope beyond anything in the comic books (at the time) with Superman giving up his powers in order to sleep with Lois only to find out that he had to sacrifice his personal happiness for the greater good. It also had the first real fight between super-powered characters.

But, Zod was never a great villain and his presence in the movie was more plot point than anything. He could have easily been replaced with any powerful character. His second-in-command, Ursa, was actually more menacing (and a lot sexier).

The biggest problem with Zod as a character is that he is also from Krypton. While this puts him on an equal footing with Superman, it also dilutes Superman's status. For decades, Superman was at the top of the food chain and the only way that a villain could match him was to come from Krypton or another red sun world. Since then DC has introduced villains such as Darkseid and Mongul who are more powerful than Superman without being from Krypton.

Zod has never been a first-tier villain. I'm sure that the only reason he was included is because he was in Superman II. That is a strike against the new movie since most superhero movies try to use the strongest villains possible.

Radiation and the Super Hero

Wired found a 1953 article on radiation and mutation and speculates that this is where all of the superheroes with radioactive origins came from. The article was written and illustrated by people long-associated with Superman comic books - Otto Binder, and Kurt Schaffenberger. Case closed, right? Well, not exactly.

DC was not the company that used radiation to explain everything. That was Marvel under Stan Lee and they didn't start appearing until the 1960s. The Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Daredevil as well as several villains received their powers from direct exposure to radiation (or close exposure in Spider-Man's case). In addition to these characters, Professor X explained in X-Men #1 that the amount of radioactive fallout in the air was causing an increase in mutants.

On the other hand, the Parasite is the only DC character I can remember who got his powers from radiation (he opened a container of nuclear waste) and he wasn't created until the mid-1960s by Jim Shooter who was only two years old when the Binder article appeared.

Stan Lee has admitted that he used radiation as a short-cut. He knew that it can cause genetic mutation but didn't know much beyond that.

I think that the 1952 article was only one aspect of the general culture of the 1950s. After all, radiation was also used to explain giant monsters such as the ants in Them! and Godzilla, both appearing years before the Fantastic Four. Also the article shows mutants who look like the common depiction of aliens with enlarged heads and long limbs. These mutations do not look a bit like superheroes. So this is just a cultural footnote rather than the basis for a stable of superheroes.

Rango

In honor of Rango being the first movie of the year to break $100 million (plus we finally got around to seeing it this weekend), here are my observations on it. I will avoid spoilers.

This is the first full-length CGI movie by Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). Their experience in ground-breaking special effects really shows. This is an amazingly ambitious movie. Where Tangled went for a hand-drawn animation look, Rango is photo-realistic. No other CGI movie has come close to this level of detail.

It is also the first movie shot in what director Gore Verbinski calls "performance capture". Normally the voice work for animated movies is done with each actor recording his lines by himself in a sound booth. The other end of the spectrum is motion capture where the actors wear special suits that follow their movements. This is something in-between. What Verbinski did was to gather the entire cast and have them act out their parts using minimal costumes and props. In addition to recording their voices, their performance was captured on video tape. This became a reference for the animators.

So, it was a great technical triumph. But how is the movie? Hilarious.

The movie has a constant stream of jokes on multiple levels. Rango himself is funny as are the inhabitants of the town of Dirt. The town is a clever mixture of old west sets mixed with some modern items. Since the inhabitants are all small animals, items from the human world are oversized. For example, a five gallon tank from a water cooler becomes a water tower.

Finally, there are numerous references to other movies. Many of these are very subtle and you don't have to get any of them to understand the movie (except for the Spirit of the West).

The movie itself is a Don Knotts-style movie complete with references to one bullet. A hawk has a silver beak just as an evil gunslinger in Cat Ballou has a silver nose. One character is on a Don Quixote-style quest and carries a walking stick that looks like a lance. When we first see Rango he is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. One of Johnny Depps' earlier roles was "Raoul Duke" who wore Hawaiin shirts and saw talking lizards.

The result is a movie that works for all ages. Adults need not be ashamed to see it but the kids will love it, too.

Nook on Android - further thoughts

After reading a few hundred pages on the Nook app for Android I have a better feel for what works and what doesn't. This has not changed my initial impression that the Kindle app is more mature.

My biggest complaint is with the app losing my place. It I just close the app and come back it often takes me to the start of the chapter. I have taken to bookmarking pages every time I put the tablet down or end the app. I can get back to this place but it is a three-step process. First I have to bring up the menu and select "GO TO" then I have to select "bookmarks" before I can select the proper bookmark to get to where I was. Unfortunately, the app does not synchronize bookmarks between devices so I cannot alternate reading with my tablet and my phone without having to hunt for my place.

The app also has trouble keeping the place when I change orientation. I have the landscape mode set for two columns which is much more readable than a single wide column. Landscape shows more text than portrait which requires the app to recalculate my position. If I turn the tablet over completely then it recalculates twice and loses my place, sometimes going back two pages. When in landscape mode, my tablet has a slightly wider margin at the bottom. When in portrait, it is easier to hold this side. The app starts up in portrait mode with the larger margin on the right so if I want to hold it in my left hand I either have to hold the narrower margin or lose my place. Also, the power button ends up on the bottom in the default position and it is possible to put the device to sleep if I rest it on my leg the wrong way. There is a noticeable lag while it recalculates my position and it does this twice when I turn it over. All of this is probably made worse because I am reading a long book (The Lord of the Rings).

In contrast, the Kindle app reorients very quickly (although I was testing on a shorter book) and never loses my place. If I open the same book on a different device it offers to take me to the last place I was reading and it gets it right, even when switching between the large screen on my tablet and the small screen on my phone.

My previous post mentioned that I have to use my right hand to turn the page (or my left hand if I am paging back) regardless of which hand I am holding the tablet with. Kindle uses a swipe gesture so I can use either hand.

There are some good points about the Nook app. It offers more fonts than other programs and four themes - white, egg, sepia, and black. Bookmarks are done by touching the top right corner and shows as if the corner was folded over.

The page turn animation looks good but is sluggish, especially in landscape mode. My tablet is as fast as any Android tablet in the market so the animation itself is slow. This can be turned off. Then it resembles a Kindle page turn.

The app supports footnotes but these are not implemented very well. They work like a regular web link but there is no way back. The "back" key takes you out of the book. The only way to use a footnote is to bookmark the page you are on then go through the "goto bookmark" process to return.

My overall impression is that the app needs a few more releases before it catches up with the Kindle in usability. Since both run on my tablet, I only have to live with the Nook app when a book is not available from Amazon. I have no idea how well the Nook app works on other devices but I expected it to work better on Android since that is what the Nook branded readers run on.

EBooks on Android

I've been having fun with my tablet but I have not found the experience as magical as advertised. Using touch with a web browser does not "make the Internet disappear" as some of the more breathless accounts of the IPad claimed. But that isn't why I bought a tablet. I mainly wanted it as an EBook reader. For that, it is great. So far I have read all or parts of several books using various readers. As I hoped, I find reading much easier on a tablet. It is smaller and lighter than a hardback and the print is larger and better lit than reading a paperback. Also, I can carry multiple books with me at once in case I finish a book while on a trip.

Plus, of course, it is really easy to get more books. All I need is WiFi access.

The experience does vary by reader. All of them are usable but some are more mature. Here are my experiences.

Kindle

This is the most mature product. It automatically orients which ever way you hold it. Page turns only take a short swipe. I can easily hold the tablet in my left hand, balanced on my leg and turn pages with my thumb. The page flip shows as new text replacing the old text from right to left. The app lets me adjust the font size and margins. It has three viewing options - black on white, black on sepia, and white on black. I can read for a while on my tablet then open the book on my phone and the Kindle app will automatically offer to sync the position in the book. I can tap on the screen and see a progress bar at the bottom showing how far I am into the book. the bookshelf view also gives an indication of how long a book is and how far you are into it with a row of dots beside each book.

The Kindle store (Amazon) has a wide variety of free books that are out of copyright. It also has some deeply discounted books. Some books offer a free sample. When you buy a book you can specify which device you want it sent to and it will appear there. Other devices can download the book on request.

Nook

This is not quite as mature but it is close. It offers more viewing options than the Kindle app. In addition to changing font size, you can also change the font itself. Nook also offers more color options: white, sepia and eggshell plus white on black.The sepia option in Kindle is subtle. With Nook, it is more pronounced and closer to the color of old paper. Using an older-style font with sepia is very close to the experience of reading a real book. This is enhanced by the page-turn animation which is more pronounced than the Kindle. By touching the upper right-hand corner you can add a bookmark which looks like a folded over corner. It also shows the current page number and the total page count at all times.

There are a few things I don't like. The opening screen does not auto-orient. It has a fixed portrait orientation. To turn a page forward you tap the right side. This means that I cannot turn the page with my thumb. I have to hold it with my left hand and turn the page with my right hand. The animation is also a bit slow. Making the app look and feel like a book is a good thing but it should not affect usability.

Unlike the other readers, the Nook app opens on a menu instead of your current bookshelf. It does sync books between devices.

The Barnes and Noble store is not as tightly integrated. Buying a book does not push it onto a selected device. You always have to pull it in a separate step. Also, you have to enter your billing information and credit card before you can download a free book. There are differences in the books carried. I considered getting a digital copy of the Lord of the Rings so that I can reread it without carrying a big hardback. Amazon offers the individual volumes separately at $10 each ($30 for all). Barnes and Noble has a single-volume collection for $19. B&N also has a selection of recent books that are either free or $0.99.

Borders

Borders was late to the EBook market and it shows. They do not have a proprietary device. Instead they use a reader from a third party called Kobo. I think that this is where their desktop and app versions come from, also. Page orientation works but there are fewer display options. You can change font size and choose serif, sans serif, or monospace. There is no sepia option, just black on white or white on black. You can flip pages with your thumb but there is no animation. The whole page just changes. I have used this the least, partly because the lack or page flip animation make it difficult to tell that you changed pages. The app does sync between devices.

The Borders store is very similar to B&N's store in set-up and content.

FBReader

Unlike the others, this is an open source reader that is not associated with a book seller. You can buy books through it. You can also use it to search Project Gutenburg. You have to manually rotate the screen with this reader and it does not sync between devices.

Cool Reader

This is an app for reading files in RTF format. I have a copy of The Hobbit in this format so I tried it. This app uses a background that looks like paper complete with texture. It does not sync between devices and does not support any library.

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Bottom line - I listed these in order of preference. Assuming that I can get the same book for the same price, I would choose the Kindle app first and the Nook second. I am avoiding the Borders app because of the page turn.

Viewsonic GTab - custom ROM

I tried the stock GTab for a while before breaking down and installing the TNT Lite custom ROM. TNT Lite is a variation of the stock Tap N Tap but with some important changes.

Installing the ROM is easy. The steps are exactly the same that I used to upgrade my phone to Android 2.2. You download and unzip a file, copy it to the Android device, reboot while holding the volume up key then use the volume, home, and back keys to navigate. I actually had to do this three times, once to install a backup utility, once for the current version of TNT Lite, and once for some patches.

The result of all of this is a faster device with some of the stock android apps restored. The most important of these are GMail and the Android Market (although by default you only get a  fraction of the available apps). The speed increase really shows up when watching Youtube. In Tap N Tap the sound and video stutter. With TNT it works beautifully.

TNT is not as polished as Tap N Tap but it works better. Tap N Tap's clock, news and weather apps are gone and the email app is a harsh black and white instead of wood-tone. All of my settings and passwords transferred over which was nice.

With TNT is is possible to view Hulu although there are some extra steps. You have to edit a library to change "AND" (for Android) to "WIN" (for Windows) and you have to remember to set the browser for "desktop" instead of "tablet".

I really got this tablet as an ereader. I don't want to be locked down to one vendor's format. Free reader apps are available from Amazon (Kindle), Barns and Noble (Nook) and Borders that support their formats. There are also readers available for public domain books. I have been using FBReader for those.

For now I am using the Kindle app. I have downloaded several public domain books and a few 99 cent ones. It is a good experience.

Over the years my eyesight has gotten worse. At the same time, publishers have reduced the type size in order to save on paper costs. The result is that text is about the same size on a paperback book as on my phone. On the tablet the text is much larger and well-lit so it is much easier to read. Kindle automatically synchronizes the devices so I can pull out my phone and read without losing my place (as long as the tablet is near a WiFi spot the next time I start reading with it).

Our public library supports loaning books in the EPub format. Kindle does not support this but the other readers do so I will have to check out that feature soon.

Viewsonic's Gtablet

I broke down and bought a tablet - the Viewsonic gtablet. There are several reasons for getting this device. High on the list is that I do not want to become part of the Apple revenue stream. This tablet is cheaper and much more open. It costs less than half of the new Xoom (without being subsidized by a data plan). It is comparable with the smaller Galaxy Tablet although that needs a two year data plan, also.

One important point - there is no data plan for this tablet because it does not support 3G or 4G. Your only wireless communication is over WiFi or Bluetooth. That is fine with me. If I really need to connect with something I can enable the WiFi hotspot in my phone and use that.

The next important point - the Out of the Box experience is awful. Viewsonic put an interface called Tap V Tap on top of Android. It is terrible. Even worse, I knew that there was an update that would improve things but it kept failing. In fact, everything failed. I couldn't set the clock or my city.

This turned out to be easy to fix. I rebooted and it settled down. A little while later it received the Over The Air update and applied it. Once it had been rebooted again it looked the same except for a shortcut to the "classic desktop". This looks like an Android tablet should. The other thing is still there and is now called the "Dashboard". I don't see much use for it.

There are improvements for Tap N Tap out there that are not hard for a someone technologically proficient to install. I just haven't gotten around to it. According to the reviews of it, it runs much faster with the custom ROMs. For now I am basing my review on the base version.

The final point that you should know is that Google does not allow 10" tablets into the Android Market. Viewsonic has a page of favorite software and a link to an alternative to the Android Market. Not everything is there but you can still find all of the main apps. The only thing I could not find is the media player Zimly which I use on my Droid Incredible. They also have a link to the beta release of Flash.

Everything I have installed seems to work fine. Winamp had no problem wirelessly syncing music and videos from my PC. The Kindle App downloaded the books I have on my phone. The browser is fine. I tried a few flash sites and everything worked (except Hulu and there is a work-around for that). The email app is better than the one on my phone. GMail is supported through the browser. The tablet also includes built-in support for Picasa.

I mainly wanted this as an eReader. There are multiple eReader apps available. They look really good on the tablet, especially in portrait mode.

The screen is 16:9 instead of 4:3 so it is better for watching movies. I've checked a couple of movies that I (legally) ripped from DVD and they played fine.

It is very open. You can attach it to your PC and it looks like an external drive. It also has a slot for an SD card and a full-sized USB port that will accept a thumb drive. Rooting it is simple and Viewsonic even includes links to the custom ROMS. In many ways this is the anti-iPad.

The screen has limited viewing angles which makes typing difficult, even with the extra-large keyboard.

I'm not convinced about the tablet metaphor for web-browsing. It is at least as easy to have my notebook on my lap as the tablet and I get to use a real keyboard that way. Also, some web sites have mouse-over events that don't work with a touchpad.

It works well as an eReader. It is heavy enough that you need to rest the bottom edge on something. Because of this a 7" tablet or a dedicated reader might be a better choice. On the other hand, dedicated readers lock you into a specific bookseller which is why I decided on a tablet.

Overall, I am quite happy with it.

Pricing the IPad

When Steve Jobs first announced the IPad the biggest gasp came when he gave the price. Everyone knew that he was going to announce a tablet and that it would be pretty much an oversized IPhone. Industry analysts expected it to go for upwards of $800. Instead the starting price was $500. Since then, most of the competition has either been in that ball park for a smaller tablet or in the $800 range for a similar tablet. Granted, the model of IPad most comparable with these more expensive tablets have similar price tags. That does not make up for the lack of a lower-price alternative. The Galaxy Tablet costs less but requires a two-year data plan.

Traditionally, Apple has some of the highest margins in the industry. How can they sell these tablets for so little?

There have been many suggestions - their low-cost Chinese production facilities, their vertical integration, their Apple Stores. Some of these suggestions have more merit than others.

First, it is possible to produce a tablet with similar specs for less. Viewsonic has a 10" tablet for less than $400.00. According to reviews, it runs Android 2.2 and has great battery life. It also has a slow, clunky interface that is so bad Staples stopped carrying it. Even if the implementation was bad, this proves that it can be done.

So why can Apple do it and no one else can?

I'm going to start by eliminating some of the factors others have given. Yes, Apple has extensive production facilities in China. So do others.

They operate their own retail stores. That means that they could run the stores on a break-even basis in order to keep the price down on the end product. They could but I don't think that they do. If they were cutting margins on the IPad then you would expect them to do the same on other products. They don't. Their computers are expensive.

 They have a tightly integrated product stack. They design everything in-house down to the CPU in their tablets. They do not have to pay licensing fees for the operating system. Again, I don't thing that this is what keeps down the IPad price. The argument still applies about everything else they make and why the rest of it is so expensive. They may not have to pay a licensing fee to Microsoft for the operating system but that does not make it free. They have to develop it themselves. That takes money.

So what is the answer? I think it is a two-part answer. First, the cost of making a device breaks down into three parts. There is the cost of the materials, the cost of the labor it takes to assemble it, and the cost of developing the device. This last is important.

Designing a new product is expensive. It is also a fixed cost. In order to make a profit, you project the minimum number of units you expect to sell then divide that into the development cost and add the resulting figure to the per-unit cost. That gives you your minimum price. You can play with this figure several different ways but the basics are still the same. This is also known as the break-even point - how many units do you have to sell at a particular price before breaking even?

Let's say that it costs $50 million to develop a new tablet. Apple is sure that they will sell more than 10 million units so they can add $5 to the unit price to pay for development. But a competitor does not have the Apple magic. They might only sell a half million units. That means that they have to add $50 to the unit price.

We saw this happen when the IPhone was first introduced. Apple was not sure how popular it would be so they really jacked up the price. It was immediately obvious that they had a hit so they dropped the price by $200 just a few weeks after the phone's introduction.

When Apple introduced the IPad they were sure that they would sell millions so they divided the development costs accordingly. The Galacy Tab has been a surprise hit and has sold over a million (the last I heard) but it could just as easily have flopped. That means that a much higher portion of the development costs went into each one.

That is probably a big factor in the tablet prices. Once a few successful competitors come out we will see prices drop.

There is another factor that is unique to Apple. For most manufacturers, the finished unit itself is the top of the chain. Once you sell it your revenue stream is finished. This is not true for the IPad.

The IPad is meant as a "media consumption device" and Apple set things up so that you pay for most of the media and they get a big cut. If you want to buy music or a video or a book, they are there to sell it to you. If you are paying a service like Rhapsody, then they also want a cut. If you use your IPad the way Apple wants then you are constantly paying for content and they are getting 30%. That means that they do not need their normal margins. They could sell it to you at cost and still make money.

That is a revenue stream that no one is able to match at present.

Face-Off

I do not normally like TV reality shows. They are formulaic and manipulative. I am making an exception for SyFY's Face-Off. This is a contest for make-up artists. All of the contestants are experienced professionals on a regional level. The judges are top of the field pros who have won Emmys and Oscars. Even the host who could have been cast on looks alone is the daughter of the guy who was in charge of make-up for Star Trek (TNG on). The challenges are reasonable, also. The contestants are given all of the resources they could ask for and up to three days for their challenges. The constraints they are operating under seem consistent with TV shows.

What I really like are the results. These are really talented people and their best work is better than a lot of what has actually been used on TV.

Being artists, the contestants are a mixed bag of personalities. Sometimes they get along. Sometimes they don't. Usually you can see the projects turn into train wrecks from the start. At its best you can see what goes into a really good special effects costume.

Are Ten Best Picture Nominations Too Many?

Starting last year, the Academy Awards nominates ten pictures for best picture instead of the traditional five. This was taken as an admission that popular, mainstream releases such as Dark Knight and Iron Man were better than some of the small independent releases that were nominated and possibly the actual best picture was not even nominated. 

Here are the best picture nominations for this year:

• "127 Hours," Fox Searchlight, six nominations, $11.2 million, released Nov. 12.
• "Black Swan," Fox Searchlight, five nominations, $83.2 million, released Dec. 3.
• "Inception," Warner Bros., eight nominations, $292.5 million, released July 16.
• "The Fighter," Paramount, seven nominations, $72.6 million, released Dec. 10.
• "The Kids Are All Right," Focus, four nominations, $20.8 million, released July 30.
• "The King's Speech," Weinstein Co., 12 nominations, $57.3 million, released Dec. 10.
• "The Social Network," Sony, eight nominations, $95.4 million, released Oct. 1.
• "Toy Story 3," Disney, five nominations, $414.9 million, released June 18.
• "True Grit," Paramount, 10 nominations, $137.9 million, released Dec. 22.
• "Winter's Bone," Roadside Attractions, four nominations, $6.2 million, released June 10.

Does every movie on that list belong there? Probably not. But which ones would be cut if the list was pared back to five nominations? I have my own opinion but the Academy has a strong bias for small, independent films. Toy Story 3 was the top money-maker of the year and the best reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, Pixar movies almost always take the top rank but normally have to settle for best animated picture. It would never have gotten picked if there were only five slots. The same is true for Inception which was one of the most talked-about movies of the year. At a guess, I would pick The Social Network and The Kids Are All Right as two more that would not have made the cut. That cuts out all of the light movies.

It is hard to guess the last one that would be cut. The Academy likes the Coen brothers and it got nine other nominations. The one strike against it is that it was successful - it broke $100 million making it the most successful western since the 1990s. The Academy seems to hate successful movies. No one has seen Winter's Bone. Even for an Academy that prefers small independent releases, it is pretty obscure. Finally most of the buzz about 127 Hours is for the acting so it might not have gotten a best picture nomination.

Often Best Picture and Best Director awards go to the same movie. Here is the list of Best Director nominations:

• "Black Swan" Darren Aronofsky
• "The Fighter" David O. Russell
• "The King's Speech" Tom Hooper
• "The Social Network" David Fincher
• "True Grit" Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

That matches up pretty well with my guesses although the Social Network made the cut.

Personally, I think that the winner should be The King Speech with True Grit as a close second. Since both got best director nominations, they likely would have gotten best picture nominations. By that measure, the extra five slots were not needed.

Two last notes - Despicable Me really should have gotten an animated picture nomination. Hailee Steinfeld from True Grit should have gotten a best actress nomination instead of best supporting actress. Maybe they didn't want to nominate someone so young for best actress. I hope that she wins in her category. It was really her movie with Jeff Bridges as a supporting actor.

The King's Speech

This is one of those movies where the destination is not as important as the journey. It is based on (not just inspired by) historic events and it is a matter of historic record that the future George VI had a terrible stammer. His first attempt at public speaking was painful for both himself and his audience. A few years later he delivered a moving speech announcing that Britain had declared war on Germany. How did he manage this speech?

That is the point of the movie. It starts with Bertie (as he was known to his family) trying to speak to a soccer tournament. At the time he was the Duke of York and second in line for the throne. It follows an attempt or two at speech therapy before settling on Lionel Logue, an unconventional Australian with controversial methods. The two form an unlikely friendship as Bertie becomes a reluctant king.

The movie is fun on several levels. First, the lead characters are both good-humored as is Elizabeth, the mother of the current monarch.

The various exercises have their own charm. After noticing that Bertie has no trouble swearing, Lionel encourages him in a torrent of F-bombs that give the movie its R rating.

For those interested in the private lives of monarchs, this is a juicy time. George V was a tyrant to his family, insisting that since he feared his father his sons should fear him.

Bertie's brother, Edward VIII, is usually remembered romantically as the king who gave up his thrown for love. This shows him in a different light as a dilettante more concerned with refilling his mistress's champagne glass than doing his duties as king.  (Check his Wikipedia entry for an even darker view).

The movie is very well researched. The few errors that IMDB quotes are trivial things like women's stocking not having seams.

I do have a few quibbles. At the time of the movie, Churchill's party was out of power. I'm not sure that he had the level of access to the King shown.

The other quibble is the reaction to the king's speech at the end. Everyone reacted to the delivery of the speech, not the content. Given that this marked England's entry into World War II, I would expect a more sober response. This is a concession to the format of the movie. It has to have a tidy ending.

Regardless, this should get a bunch of nominations. It's Golden Globe for best actor was well-deserved. Colin Firth did an amazing job of reproducing a stammer.

iPhone on Verizon - what does it mean for Android?

Until now the biggest reason to buy an Android phone was because only AT&T carried the iPhone. Now that Verizon has announced that they will carry the iPhone, how will that affect Android? I suspect that the impact will not be all that big.

The biggest thing to remember is that the people who will only buy an iPhone already have one. It has been out for nearly four years and most wireless contracts are only for two years so there were no penalties for switching to AT&T. This limits the potential iPhone customers to people who prefer Verizon's network over the iPhone.

The next factor are those two year contracts. I'm sure that some people will be willing to pay full retail in order to upgrade to an iPhone on Verizon but I doubt that many will. Most will wait until their current contract expires. The prospect of an iPhone 5 coming out soon will also be a factor here.

Other things to keep in mind - Android does some things better than the iPhone. Most technical writers felt that the last iOS upgrade was more catchup than anything else. Android does better multi-tasking and isn't tied to iTunes. Many Android phones support external storage and standard USB connectors. Android phones come with turn by turn directions out of the box. Want to install a custom ringtone without paying Apple - then you need an Android.

There is only one iPhone model released per year while several vendors release multiple Android models and all of them cost less than the iPhone.

Verizon has a lot of incentive to keep pushing their Droid line of Android phones. It sets them apart from the other vendors. They will never have an iPhone that is noticeably different from the AT&T model.

Many reviewers rank some Android models ahead of the iPhone.

Then there are people like me who are irritated by Apple's arrogance in general and their inconsistent standards for approving apps.

The Green Hornet

It isn't out yet and I'm not sure that I will go to see it when it premiers so I might as well write about the Green Hornet now.

I've seen the trailers and the Mythbusters episode (they busted the stunts). It doesn't look good.

Then there is the release date - January is when studios dump movies. It is an off month for theater-going. Christmas is over, the kids are back in school, and a lot of the country has cold and snow. They have to have something new for the theaters so they release the movies that they are sure would do poorly, anyway. The movies that do well in January were already in the theaters before New Years. So, a mid-January release means that the studio thinks that the movie is a stinker.

There have been rumors of a funny take on a super hero movie for years. At one point Green Lantern was going to star Jack Black. I remember rumors of a funny Aquaman movie, also. This is the first one to actually make it to the screen.

From interviews with Seth Rogen, this movie was sort of inspired by the 1960s TV series. That was done by the same producers as Batman but they played it straight with the Green Hornet. There were still a few fancy weapons like the Hornet's Sting that could open locks but the plots and the villains were all toned down from Batman. Even the hero's "costume" mainly consisted of a black suit and overcoat with a fancy mask. It only lasted one season. The source material for the show was a radio show that is only spoken of in terms of the TV show.

A cable channel was showing reruns of the TV show a couple of years ago. It was more boring than I remembered it. Unlike Batman, the Green Hornet never became a cult classic. It was simply canceled and forgotten.

So, there is not much sacred territory. Besides the connection with the Batman TV show, the only other memorable thing about the Green Hornet was the actor who played his sidekick, Kato - Bruce Lee. In fact, Lee did actual side-kicks and other martial arts. Each show's climactic fight had the Green Hornet fighting the head bad guy while Kato knocked off the rest of the gang.

What's the point? I guess it is to make an "everyman hero". From the trailers, it looks like Kato is the real hero and the Green Hornet is just along for the ride for some reason - maybe because he is paying the bills.

To be fair, the Tim Burton Batman looked bad at first glance. Bruce Wayne was played by Michael Keaton, a guy known for playing Beetlejuice and Mr. Mom. Burton himself was mainly known for Pee Wee Herman and Beetlejuice. Batman worked because they played against type - they played it straight. Plus, Jack Nicholson chewed up the set in one of his best roles.

There is no Nicholson to save the Green Hornet. Rogen is the biggest-name star in the movie. Is was also one of the writers. That doesn't offer much hope of a watchable movie.

Fantastic Three

Marvel has announced that they will kill a founding member of the Fantastic Four. They have not said which character. I'm going to make an educated guess.

I think that they will kill the Johnny Storm, Human Torch. There are several reasons.

The biggest reason is the novelty.

Reed and the Thing have been killed before. Sue and the Thing have each left for extended periods for other reasons. There has not been an extended plotline with the Torch missing and the other three still there.

There are other considerations. When Reed was dead, it really changed the dynamics of the team. I don' t think that the title could survive without him.

The kids are an integral part of the comic. that makes Sue indispensable. I don't see Marvel leaving them motherless and the prospect of Reed trying to raise two kids as a single dad are frightening.

The Thing is a popular character. He has had his own solo book and a team-up book. Killing him would affect long-term sales of the FF. Again, there is the novelty factor. Ben left the group for years in the 1980s and was replaced by She-Hulk.

The Torch is no longer unique. Both the Golden Age Human Torch and his sidekick Toro have been revived. The fact that Marvel ran a book called "The Human Torch" that did not star Johnny Storm is a bad omen.

As a character, the Torch stopped growing in the 1990s. The movies showed him as a jerk and the comic book version seemed to become younger and less mature to match the movie version.

The Torch's characterization has changed dramatically since the days of Lee and Kirby. Back then he was easily the most powerful and versatile member (not counting the time a small dinosaur knocked a flower vase on him and doused his flame). When Doctor Doom stole the Silver Surfer's power, the Torch took him on single-handed. He lost but the off-screen battle caused miles of devastation.

When John Byrne took over the book and the Thing took an extended leave of absence, Johnny started a romance with the Thing's girlfriend, Alicia. They eventually married. Later writers hated the idea so it turned out that "Alicia" was actually a Skrull named Lyja. The two developed an interesting relationship until the comic was rebooted as part of the Onslaught story arc. Lyja was forgotten after that until the Skrull invasion.

In the 1990s there was a special embossed cover of the Fantastic Four showing the Torch using his nova-strength flame and melting a good portion of Empire State University.

TRON: Legacy

The main attraction of the original TRON was the immerse atmosphere. The visuals were just so unique that you didn't really care about the plot. The new version is very similar. The plot is weak but it looks so good that it is worth going to.

The basic premise is similar - a human finds himself inside a computer grid. The specifics have changed with technology.

When the original as made most people accessed a mainframe through terminals. Most people accessing computers were programmers. The characters in the computer were programs. Each program looked like the person who created it. Everything was fine until a new security program called the MCP took over and shut down access between the users and their programs. A program called TRON and a user named Flynn managed to shut down the MCP and open up access to the IO towers allowing programs and users to communicate again.

Nowadays everyone has one or more computers. Today's cell phones have more processing power than a 1982 mainframe and much of the computing has moved onto the "cloud". None of that is reflected in TRON: Legacy. Instead, Flynn worked on building a new, perfect world somewhere - probably in a mainframe or cluster. Flynn created a program named Clu to help him. As in the original movie, Clu looks like Flynn did when he created Clu. Flynn became trapped and, years later, his son goes looking for him and ends up in the digitized world.

TRON was the first movie to make extensive use of Computer Generated Images (CGI). These were limited and very simple. Most CGI shots were not integrated with the live action. Most of the movie was shot in black and white with glowing colors added with back lighting and hand animation. This is not an issue with the new movie. In fact, Clu is one of the biggest effects. Since he is supposed to look like Flynn did in his 30s, the computer animators filmed the modern Jeff Bridges and digitally removed years from his face.

In the original movie, Dillinger, the man who created the MCP also stole some game programs from Flynn. Flynn needed access to the mainframe to prove that he actually wrote the programs. By this point MCP had absorbed hundreds of other programs and was much smarter than Dylan's original creation.

The new movie has a quick appearance by Dillinger's son who was in charge of the company's new operating system. Since the original movie the corporation Encom has gone from producing games to making operating systems. There is a dispute about operating systems being free or proprietary. While this could be aimed at Microsoft, these days Encom is closer to Apple since they are trying to create a walled ecosystem around their computers.

One last note - don't bother paying extra for 3D. The real world parts of the movie were filmed in 2D and it makes very little difference to the parts of the movie taking place in the computer.

A bit of trivia - Flynn wrote a program named Clu in the first movie but it was destroyed early on.

The 1960s Christmas Toy Season

It's hard to believe how much things have changed over the last 50 years, especially in how Christmas toys are marketed.

Back then there were no huge discount stores like Walmart. The biggest toy stores were mom and pop operations in a strip center. Enclosed malls were still in the future. Toys came from downtown department stores (every city had its own department store which was close to a multi-story mall) five and dime stores, and super markets. The first sign of Christmas was the appearance of toys on top of the refrigerator units in the super market. These were the good toys, too. They were big - 2-3 feet long, often with a transparent section so that you could see the toy inside the box. This is where the Johnny Seven gun and the Tiger Tank were sold.

Not long after the toys appeared in the super markets you would start to see ads for them on tv. All TV was broadcast. Since there were only three networks and a scattering of independent stations, the amount of programming devoted to children was limited. There was a couple of hours in the morning dominated by Captain Kangaroo. A local host would show cartoons after school. Some old kid-friendly shows were syndicated between school and the news - shows like Mr. Ed or McHale's Navy. Then there was Saturday morning when 3-4 hours on all three networks was devoted to kids shows. This is when the targeted ads would run.

The other big source of toys was catalog stores, mainly Sears and Penny's. It was an event when the Sears Christmas catalog arrived. It had page after page of toys, some of them exclusive to Sears.

The department stores had their own secret weapon - Santa. Columbus's department store was Lazarus and they went all out. There was a locally-produced morning kids show called Lucy's Toyshop. This was a half hour show with Lucy and a cast of puppets. Starting December 1, Lucy and the puppets would expand the show, adding an extra half hour featuring Santa Claus himself and sponsored by Lazarus. Every year Santa got behind and needed Lucy and the puppet's help to catch up making toys. They had a toy-making machine that would plop out toys periodically. Lucy would examine the toy and make sure that the parents knew that they could buy this toy at Lazarus. The kids also knew that most "Santas" were just Santa Helpers but the real Santa was at Lazarus.

In addition to sponsoring a half-hour daily kids show, Lazarus featured an animated window and a Santa Land. These were done from scratch every year. These days Santa's main purpose is to sell pictures of the kids on Santa's lap. In those days, his job was to get the family into the toy department. To minimize the time spent waiting for Santa, Lazarus had several. I think that they had five at their peak. I remember one year getting in line and seeing all of the kids in front of us and thinking that it would take forever. The lines split up. I expected them to join together again but instead we went around a corner and there was Santa. It seemed too good to be true but I was so happy at the short line that I didn't question it very closely.

Lazarus also had a Children's Secret Gift shop. Parents would send the kids in along with some an envelope containing money and some suggestions. Gift specialists would then steer the kids to buy the proper present and wrap it for them.

Not all toys came from standard sources. Sometimes gas stations and tire stores would get in on it, selling branded toys at Christmas.

Lazarus was not the only place you could see Santa. Zanesville, where I grew up, also had Santas at the shoping center and at the County Courthouse. Santa arrived at the shopping center by helicopter the day after Thanksgiving. Both Santas had special houses set up for them. A few times the Zanesville Santa had his own afternoon show but it never had the production values that the Lazarus one had.

Downtown was always decorated for Christmas. Every lamp post had some sort of decoration and sometimes lights crisscrossed the main streets.

Even the comic page got into the act. Disney often put out a special comic strip in which some of their movie characters helped Santa in some way. This ran from December 1 to Christmas Eve.

This might make Christmas sound highly marketed and it was to an extent but within reason. No one pushed cars as Christmas presents. Toys might be pushed during kids shows but there was little licensed merchandise. These days the big push is at high-ticket items for adults and most kids toys are tie-ins with movies or other sources. The Christmas season was carefully defined as running from the day after Christmas until Christmas Eve. Everyone was closed on Sunday so the number of shopping days until Christmas was posted in the paper.

Everything changed during the 1960s. Malls covered the country. Sears and Penny's changed from catalog operations to mall anchors. The department stores anchored the other end of the malls. Big box toy stores and discount stores became the norm. Everyone opened on Sunday and Santa began arriving the weekend before Thanksgiving. Santa stopped getting his own tv show and moved to the mall. As Viet Nam escalated, war toys stopped being big sellers.

Like Halloween, Christmas went from being a children's holiday to a general holiday with most of the marketing aimed at adults.

1960s Christmas Gifts

I was an only child and my father was a doctor. We were not rich but we weren't poor, either. That meant that I got a lot of good Christmas presents. I ran across a site listing some vintage toys from the 1950s through the 1970s and as surprised at how many of these I had. Here is some commentary on some of them.

The Johnny Seven OMA set was seven weapons in one. It fired three types of projectiles. It could also be set up as a grenade launcher.You folded the legs down and spread them to make a tripod and flipped up the launcher. The stock detached and the pistol grip became an actual pistol. All together, there were two triggers and four firing buttons plus the release for the pistol.

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The James Bond Attache Case was something I really wanted. I think that it was a Sear exclusive back when they were a major retailer. It had a bunch of gimmicks right out of the movies. There was a (plastic) knife hidden in one end. You could shoot a plastic bullet. It had a built-in camera and walkie-talkie and separate receiver. It had a trick latch that would fire a cap if you opened it wrong. Inside it had some secret agent identification and a pistol that could convert to a rifle. I continued to use the walkie-talkie receiver for years.

I had both of these consoles. The top one was ok. It had several controls that you could play with but the bottom one was more fun. The bottom one had controls for an airplane with the airplane mounted on top. The throttle controlled the propellers (this predated  jet airliners) and the yoke make the plane tilt up, down, left, or right.

This car dashboard looks familiar. Either I had one of these or a friend did. Either way, its more fun to pretend to fly a plane than drive a car.

The Johnny Astro spacecraft was a neat idea. It used a vortex to lift a small balloon. By using a joystick and throttle you could control the balloon's flight. I found it frustrating. There was too much play in the controls and I could never get the balloon to go quite where I wanted it to go. You also had to use a feather-light touch on the throttle or the balloon would fly out of the vortex and you would have to start from scratch.

My Give-A-Show projector was red instead of blue but otherwise it was just like this one. It projected four panel cartoons. I got a lot of use out of this one.

This car wash looks familiar. I'm sure that I had one. I'm also sure that using it as a car wash was fun for five minutes. After that I used the parts as other things.

Part of the Mattel Thing Maker series. You squirted some colored goop into metal molds then heated them for a few minutes. After they cooled you had soft, rubbery pieces. There were heads, arms, and legs. You used a pencil to hold them together. It was fun until the goop ran out.

The Wham-o Air Blaster was great. There was rubber membrane inside. You cocked it with a lever on top then fired it by pulling the trigger. It created a blast of air and a cool sound. The air blast moved surprisingly slow. I played with it until I wore out the rubber membrane.

I just auctioned off my tank last Summer. I still had the box, too. The tank was controlled by a "walkie-talkie" with control buttons. The walkie-talkie was on a long cord and also held the 4 D cell batteries. It was ok for indoor play but the electric motor was disappointing. The tank was too slow and did not have enough power for rough terrain.

Thimble City was a city block on legs. The set included cars, people, and a couple of pets, all with magnets in their base. There was a pair of magnetic wands that you could use to move the objects around. This was never as much fun as the ads made it seem. When I played with it my friend and I usually kept stealing each other's characters. The pets were the best for this since they left more of the magnets exposed. I remember having an insane amount of fun that way.

This seems like a lot of toys but spread over several years of both birthday and Christmas it isn't even one present per occasion.

While these were fun, the toys I really played with are not on the site. I'll see if I can find some for a future post.

Marvel's Disturbing Women

Marvel has been releasing digital back issues of Ms Marvel. While reading them I got to thinking about how solo women have fared in the Marvel Universe. It isn't pretty. Most of them end up going through transformations, both mental and physical. Many have been victims or had some form of mental problem.

As far as I know, the first Marvel woman to be featured in a solo story in the Silver Age or later was the Wasp in a back-up story. It was pretty forgettable. The Wasp was on her way to meet Henry Pym while wearing a coat over her costume. She saw someone lifting a man hole cover and investigated. He turned out to be an escaping robber. The Wasp didn't have her sting with her (back then she needed her costume to shrink and her sting came from a device she wore on her forearm). She got the robber to surrender by rolling up a piece of paper to make a megaphone and impersonated the Invisible Girl. The robber was afraid that the Thing and the Torch were following and surrendered to the police.

Compared with the other women I will cover, the Wasp did fairly well - right up to her death. She even led the Avengers for several years. Henry Pym had enough problems for both of them. He was initially interested in her because she resembled his dead first wife. They married while he thought that he was someone else. He had several breakdowns and became abusive.

The next woman to go solo was Medusa in a one-shot. The Black Window had her own half-book for a few issues and also went on to lead the Avengers. Her life up until the Avengers Disassemble plot was straightforward although her life became bumpier later.

This is where things get creepy.

In response to the Woman's movement, Marvel introduced The Cat, the first character created, written, and drawn by women. The comic flopped and an effort was made to bring her back. To do this, she was transformed into the half-tiger, Tigra. That also failed and she ended up in the Avengers. Besides going furry and growing claws, she has had periods where her personality was taken over by her cat impulses. She also grew a tail.

The Cat's costume was found by Patsy Walker who put it on and became the Hellcat. She eventually married the Son of Satan who turned abusive.

One of Robert E. Howard's creations was Red Sonya - a 16th century mercenary. The story she appeared in was adapted as a Conan story and she became Red Sonja (with a "j"). In her first few appearances she dressed similarly to Conan with a mail shirt, silk shorts (hers were tighter and shorter), and high boots. She was immediately popular and was given her own comic. He outfit was changed to a scale-mail bikini and she was given an origin. It seemed that she had been a farm girl who was raped. A goddess appeared to her and gave her skill with the sword. The catch was that she could only make love to a man who defeated her. This came close to saying that she could only have sex when raped.

The She-Hulk was created for trademark reasons. Unlike her cousin, the She-Hulk didn't have two personalities although her personality was different when she was green. She eventually stopped using her human form and for a while she lost it completely. Later she went crazy and destroyed a town before being turned back into her human form. From there she worked back up to being the She-Hulk most of the time. I don't think that she used her human form in the last few years.

More important is how the She-Hulk's personality progressed. She became a party-girl who would sleep with anyone. In a lot of ways she is the perfect male fantasy - a beautiful, sexy woman who wears very little and will hop in bed with men with no strings attached.

The Scarlet Witch has never had a solo strip but she did share a comic book with the Vision for a while. Regardless, she deserves special mention. She started out as a reluctant member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. When the Stranger took Magneto to another world to study, she joined the Avengers and was a member off and on for decades after that. She fell in love with the Vision, an android (or synthazoid) and eventually married him. She had a few false starts about her parentage before learning that her real father was Magneto. While practicing magic, she managed a virgin conception and had twins. It turned out that the twins were actually a product of her magic and eventually vanished. Over time this drove the Scarlet Witch insane and she began using her reality-warping powers unconsciously. She broke up the Avengers, killing or maiming different members in the process. Next she completely rewrote reality in an attempt to recreate her children. Eventually she lost her powers and her memory (for the moment).

After the Cat flopped, Ms Marvel was created as the company's flagship female character. There were issues from the beginning. The character was created around Carol Danvers who had been a supporting character in Captain Marvel. When she first appeared, Ms Marvel had complete amnesia. Her powers were similar to Captain Marvel's and she wore a costume like his except with a scarf, bare legs and cutouts over her stomach and back. The cut-outs were controversial and a pain for the artist so the were quickly dropped. At first neither Carol Danvers not Ms Marvel were aware of the other. When they did become aware, they resented each other. They regarded each other as different people. It took months before the two personalities merged. After that she adopted the sexy costume she wears now.

Ms Marvel's comic lasted a couple of years. After that she joined the Avengers (I think I see a pattern here). She left after a virgin pregnancy. She came to term quickly and delivered a child that grew to adulthood in hours. She married him and went to live with him in a different dimension. Does this sound wrong? Her husband continued to age rapidly and quickly died of old age. Ms Marvel returned to Earth realizing that she had been the victim of mind-control and angry that none of the Avengers saved her. Not long afterward, the mutant Rogue attacked her, stealing her powers and memories.

Carol eventually regained most of her memories. After being kidnapped by aliens she was subjected to some experiments that linked her with a white star. This put her in the cosmic hero class. Taking the name Binary, she left Earth for some time and joined the group the Starjammers. Eventually she returned to Earth and rejoined the Avengers. Her powers as Binary faded and she was back to a variation of her Ms Marvel powers. For a while she called herself Warbird. She developed a drinking problem and had to drop out of the Avengers.

More recently Carol went back to being Ms Marvel in her own book. During the Civil War she was on Iron Man's side. Afterward she was asked to form a new team of Avengers. All well and good except she also sort of merged with an alien and later died (at least for a while). She was replaced as Ms Marvel by Moonstone who has her own issues despite being a trained psychiatrist.

Even though she did not have a solo book, Jean Gray's life deserves some examination. She was a new recruit to the X-Men in X-Men #1. Eventually she and Cyclops fell in love. In X-Men #100 she sacrificed herself by piloting a space shuttle through a solar flare without shielding. This should have killed her but a cosmic being was attracted to her act of self-sacrifice. It took her place and put her in a healing cocoon. The cosmic being's own powers manifested and it called itself Phoenix. The power of the Phoenix was too much temptation for the Jean Grey construct and it killed itself (after killing a world of asparagus people and threatening the Earth). When the original Jean finally finished healing and emerged from the cocoon she discovered that Cyclops had married her clone and they had a child. Cyclops abandoned both to be with Jean. After a few years, all three versions of Jean merged. She and Cyclops married and spent their honeymoon raising Cyclops's son in different bodies in the far future. Jean broke up with Cyclops, regained her Phoenix powers and moved on to another plane of existence.

Update - I forgot Jessica Drew, Spider Woman. At first she thought that she was one of the High Evolutionary's human/animal creations, a literal spider-woman. She spent several issues convinced that she was inhuman and the people were instinctively repulsed by her. It later turned out that she was a normal human who had obtained spider-powers through the High Evolutionary. The reason that people disliked her was because she gave off pheromones that repelled people. Charming.

Like the She-Hulk, Spider Woman mainly existed to tie down copyright. When the character didn't prove popular she was forgotten for years and replaced by a Spider Woman in a black and white costume. Jessica didn't make a come-back until the 2000s.

Heroes and the Law II

Continuing my thoughts on the relationship between superheroes and the law. Previously I looked at how the real world would handle superheroes. Now I will look at how they related to the law in their own universes.

When superheroes were first created at the end of the 1930s, they were an extension of a long tradition of adventurers who either aided the law or took the law into their own hands. This tradition went back decades and included stories about the wild west, the pulps, and radio dramas. Superheroes were descended from heroes such as the Shadow, Doc Savage, and Sherlock Holmes. There were also newspaper comic strips that featured heroes who were costumed or at least wore distinctive dress who were nearly superheroes. These included The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician and the futuristic heroes Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. All of these characters fought crime on some level without official sanction. Beyond that, Prohibition and the corruption it caused left people with a poor opinion of the police. Naturally, people didn't spend much time thinking about the legal ramifications of super-powered vigilantes with all of these other characters in circulation.

The Phantom deserves special mention. He was the secret chief of the Jungle Patrol making him the first costumed hero to actually head a police department.

When Superman first appeared he was obviously working outside the law. In his first couple of appearances he ran a corrupt senator out of town and stopped a war. Just imagine the consequences of either of these acts today.

World War II began just as superheroes were starting to bloom. Most heroes joined the war effort in some manner. Some heroes like Captain America were officially working within the government. The Human Torch joined the police force early on then recruited the Sub-Mariner to help in the fight against the Nazis.

The Golden Age of Comics ended along with World War II and most superhero comics were canceled. The most notable exceptions were Superman and Batman. By the 1950s, Batman had been deputized into the Gotham Police Force and Superman was officially recognized by the UN and the various law enforcement agencies of the world.

In the DC universe, several Silver Age heroes had relationships with law enforcement agencies one way or another. Green Lantern was part of a galactic police force. Hawkman and Hawkgirl were extraterrestrial police officers on earth to learn human police methods. Martian Manhunter's secret identity was a police detective named John Jones. The Flash was a scientist for the police.

Things were a little different when Marvel started. The three original teams in the Marvel Universe all had ties with the government. Nick Fury, who still had both eyes and was working with the CIA sent the Fantastic Four on a mission to stop the Hate Monger. Professor X had an FBI liaison he regularly met with. The Avengers went several steps beyond this. Avengers authority could be used to order police. An Avengers id was an all-access card. Rick Jones used his to see the President without an appointment. Later on these relationships became strained. After Professor X's apparent death, the FBI ordered the X-Men to split up in order to present a smaller target. This only lasted a couple of issues and was probably a sales ploy. The government took a stronger role in the Avengers, ordering them to diversify their membership and making other changes.

Non-team heroes did not fare as well. No one really cared about Daredevil and Doctor Strange operated below everyone's radar but Spider-Man was actively wanted for general questioning and the Hulk was considered an enemy of any country he happened to be in. He was attacked by the military in the US and the USSR.

The next batch of Marvel heroes operated outside the law as often as in it. This included the Sub-Mariner (who had attacked New York a couple of times) and the Silver Surfer (who had attacked the entire world). The next team, the Defenders, was never officially recognized by anyone. At one point it got out that there was no formal membership and the team was overrun by would-be members. From that point on, most teams existed without any relationship to the government.

There were exceptions. The original X-Force presented itself as a private anti-mutant squad. This was actually a cover for the original X-Men to rescue mutants. After they merged with the X-Men, the team became a government-run team of mutants. The British group, Excalibur had an arrangement with the British government which eventually included having Peter Wisdom, a member of a British secret agency, as a member.

After the apparent death of the FF, Baron Zemo founded the Thunderbolts. This was actually made up of super-villains using new names in order to gain official access to the FF's headquarters. The core members eventually decided that they preferred being heroes and went straight.

Out of all of the solo heroes, Captain America has had the closest relationship with the government. He worked with SHIELD many times, more than any other hero. On the other hand, in the 1980s someone in the White House discovered that the government helds the rights to the name and costume and informed Steve Rogers that he was now reporting to them. In order to retain his status as a free agent, Rogers resigned and a new Captain America was recruited. This continued until President Reagan found out about it and he ordered his staff to give the role back to Steve Rogers.

The 1970s saw the rise of the monster comic along with several monster-related heroes. These included the Ghost Rider, the Son of Satan, the Beast, the Werewolf (by night), and a host of others. All of them were hunted by the police any time they became aware of these characters.

During the 1990s, the various mutant groups shifted membership and missions several times. They started resembling gangs fighting over territory rather than heroes and operated outside of the government.

Superheroes and the Law

I was reading some marvel digital comics and hit a few issues from the Civil War arc. That got me to thinking about what the relationship would be in the real world between superheroes and the government. I'll do a second post on how the topic evolved in the comics.

Civil War was meant partly as commentary on the Patriot Act and other policies of President George W. Bush. Because of this background, many of the plot elements were meant to show the government as being over-the-top. The conflict was over an act that required superheroes to register with and work for the government. The split between the heroes was between the conservatives on the side of the government and the liberals who opposed the act.

So, how would today's real world react to superheroes? This gets complicated because many heroes are not actually super. Some are costumes acrobats using archaic weapons (Captain America, Daredevil, Hawkeye). Batman would also be in this group but the DC universe has always been different from ours while the Marvel Universe is based on more closely on the real world.

Anyway... the next group consists of regular people using advanced technology (Iron Man, War Machine). The final group has the people with actual powers. These distinctions can get a little fuzzy. Daredevil has radar sense, Iron Man's armor has been part of him at times. There are also people who use technology or magic to gain powers. Giant Man originally used a gas and later a helmet to change size. Thor used to change back to a human if he lost hold of his hammer for more than a minute. I'm making the call that Daredevil could (and has) functioned with regular vision and that having real powers is more important than how they are obtained. That still leaves Iron Fist who has a real super power but seldom uses it but no classification is perfect. The fact that he can demolish a building with a single punch puts him in the people with powers class.

Now, I'm going to extrapolate from the real world and assume that conservatives would accept superheroes more readily than liberals. My reasoning is that most gun-control advocates are liberal and that the areas with the tightest gun controls are liberal strongholds. The same goes for militia groups and volunteer boarder-watchers. Conservatives support them and liberals hate them. Real vigilantism is very rare but the few examples break down the same way. Bernie Goetz, the subway shooter, comes to mind. He shot four men who were trying to rob him. Liberals believe that the four men were only asking for loose change and were shot unprovoked. Conservatives believe Goetz's version, that the four men threatened him and would have hurt him if he had not shot them.

So, my extrapolation makes me think that liberals would tend to see superheroes as a threat and might start examining the race of offenders caught for signs of racism. Conservatives would be more likely to take superheroes at face value. That would cover the costumed acrobats. With the exception of the Punisher (who would be on the Most Wanted list), the acrobats use bare hands and minimal weapons against criminals who often carry guns.

Things change when we get to the group that uses advanced technology. It is one thing to take out an armed robber with a stick. It is something quite different when you are wearing the equivalent of a tank. It is illegal to own a tank with a working cannon or a warplane with missiles. I doubt that the government would support someone wearing armor that could tear either of these to pieces. Again, I expect that more conservatives than liberals would support this class of hero but I suspect that the majority of the country would want some sort of official control over technology like this. There are strict prohibitions against using US military force against the citizenry. These restrictions would probably be extended to superheroes. They might be treated like firms such as Backwater Security (AKA Xe) which is allowed to carry weapons under contract to the government. Again, support for Blackwater is higher among conservatives than liberals.

This brings us to the people with real powers. Things get trickier when you have someone who cannot be disarmed. They might be forced to work for the government as in the Marvel Universe or they might be treated as contractors. There might be exceptions made for people with powers who do not use them as long as they do not use them. But how do you handle people who start fires because they are irritated or can wreck a city block in a fight over a girl? And this is just the Fantastic Four (in the Silver Surfer's second appearance the Thing started a fight over Alicia and a block of condemned buildings was leveled).

Liability insurance for these beings would be impossible. They would have to have federally-backed insurance like flood insurance.

Just being close to these heroes can be dangerous so they might be ordered to post their location and stay away from locations where people assemble, especially children. In short, we might end up treating superheroes like sex offenders.

Or we might go the route taken in the Incredibles and offer superheroes a deal - retire and receive amnesty or be outlawed. Regardless, I doubt that the real world would be as hero-friendly as the Marvel Universe.

Some Thoughts on Harry Potter

So, the Harry Potter series is half-way through the finale. I'm not going to write a review, just some thoughts on the movie. I don't think I'm including any spoilers that aren't in most reviews.

First, this isn't exactly a Harry Potter movie. True, it features Harry and most of the characters from the other movies but it abandoned the formula. All of the other movies followed a year at Hogwarts. Not this one. Harry never gets near it. The closest the movie comes is when some Death Eaters search the Hogwart Express. So, there are no classes, no moving stairways, No talking paintings, no Quidditch, not even Harry on a broom. We only see a few of the teachers and not for long. On the other hand, this movie refers to the other movies more than most - things like "the wand chooses you" and the composition of the wand.

This is not a kid's movie, either. Parts of it are scary. The rest would be boring to small kids.

Harry and company spend more time in the modern (muggle) world in this movie than in all of the others put together. It is a bit jarring having Harry and company order cappuccinos. An opening scene in Hermione's house underscores how different muggles live than wizards. Wizards tend to live in ancient houses in remote areas. The one exception is an ancient townhouse.

Wizards are also decades behind on technology. They use candles and other flames for light. Newspapers are printed on 19th century presses or by magic. The Hogwart Express is a steam engine. The most modern technology we see them use is at least 50 years out of date - the Weasley's flying car, Hagrid's flying motorcycle, and Hermione's transistor radio. Even the elevators at the Ministry of Magic and the toilets they use are pre-WWII. Harry's uncle's family is more modern but even they seem a couple of decades off.

For something really scary, think of what the movie would have been like if Chris Columbus directed it instead of just the first two.

Inkers

During the Golden and Silver Ages of comics, the process for creating a comic book page remained pretty much the same. First the artist would draw the pages in pencil, possibly using a blue pencil for guidelines. Then the pencils would be inked over, usually by a separate inker. Room would be left for word balloons. A letterer would fill in the word balloons in ink. Copies would be made of the pages and sent to a colorist. The printing process was in four colors with different shades of each color. This allowed 32 colors. From there, the colors were separated back into their individual four colors and sent to the presses.

Today I'm going to talk about the inker's role in the process. On the surface, his job is simple - just follow the pencil lines. In practice, the inker had a much stronger impact. Just deciding how thick to make the lines can have a major effect on the art. The inker also added the shading, cross-hatching, and zip-a-tone. An artist with a strong style might overpower the pencils.

For an example of how an inker can affect the finished work, look at issues #6 and #7 of the Silver Surfer. Both had the same artist, John Buscema, but issue #6 was inked by Joe Sinnott and #7 was inked by John's brother, Sal. The Surfer seemed to lose 100 pounds of muscle, going from the Silver Surfer to the White Wipeout.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, the inker also enforced the house style. Most of the time during this period, any artist was expected to be able to draw any comic book and the readers were not supposed to know the difference. Neil Adams, who is best known for his ultra-realistic work on Batman, did some issues of Archie. At Marvel (which was still Timely), the artist would come in for a monthly meeting with Stan Lee. Lee had a pile of scripts and would hand the artist the one on the top. There was no permanent assignment. Kid Colt might be drawn by Dick Ayers one month and Don Heck the next. Inkers who knew the house style could cover over any differences in the artists.

When Timely switched to Marvel, artists were assigned to individual books but, even then, there were exceptions. Most of the early issues of the Avengers were drawn by Jack Kirby but a few were not.

Things changed over the next few years. Artists were allowed to develop their own style and were assigned to books for long stretches. At the same time, inkers began to develop their own style. This was especially true of inkers who entered the field after the mid-1960s.

Joe Sinnott was one of the first celebrity inkers, but with a twist. The fans still hadn't noticed inkers but the artists were always concerned with how the finished product looked. Sinnott was in demand by artists because he made them look good. Stan reserved him for flagship books, especially the Fantastic Four which he inked for 16 years.

On the other hand, Vincent Colletta had the reputation of simplifying backgrounds and even eliminating characters in order to make tight deadlines. In his defense - many people consider his work on Jack Kirby's pencils to be the definitive look for Thor. I have a page of original art from a Frankenstein black and white that he inked over Val Mayerik's pencils and it is a really nice piece of art. Marerik had a light, sketchy style that was complimented by Colletta's inks.

One of the first fan favorite inkers was Tom Palmer. He was knows for imaginative shading and cross-hatching. He also colored his own work, combining colors and zip-a-tone to give the impression of more than the standard 32 colors. Palmer was involved in fan favorites such as the Roy Thomas/Gene Colon Doctor Strange and the Tomb of Dracula and contributed a lot to their atmosphere.

Tony DeZuniga was an artist with a strong style that carried over to his inking. He was from the Philippines. While he was working for Marvel in the 1970s, he hooked them up with several other Filipino artists who became mainstays at Marvel. One of these, Alfredo Alcala, became an inking star for his work on John Buscema's pencils on the black and white Conan books. Rather than rely on short-cuts like Zip-a-Tone, Alcala did all of his own shading by hand with intricate crosshatching and whirls. His inking over Buscema's pencils was so popular that their art overshadowed the stories. Robert E. Howard had only written a limited number of Conan stories and Marvel had been parceling these out carefully. Most of the Howard adaptations from the 1970s were done by this pair.

Another popular inker was Klaus Jonson. He is best known for his inking over Frank Miller's Daredevil during the 1980s when it was the top-selling comic book in the country.

I'm not sure why but inkers seem to have declined in importance since the early 1980s. Most inkers also pencil and it might be that the rise in comic books stores and independent comics allowed new artists with strong styles to launch their own works.

Despicable Me vs Megamind

Like the year that Ants and A Bug's Life came out, we have two CGI movies with sort of the same premise - a villain reforms through outside influence. Beyond that, the two movies are very different.

Warning, from here on I'm dealing in spoilers.

Despicable Me features the type of villain that James Bond usually fights. He thinks big and he has someone else actually build his gadgets. He dresses distinctively but is outfit is based on regular street clothing.

Megamind is a super-villain. He is centered on fighting a super hero. He builds (most of) his on gadgets. He wears an over-the-top costume. Even his pajamas are over-the-top.

Both have a main minion and a horde of lesser minions. Gru, the villain in Despicable Me, it is a scientist and a crowd of beings that look like walking Twinkies. Megamind has a minion named Minion (an alien fish in an exoskeleton) and a horde of flying disk-like robots.

Gru is fighting a competitor who is younger and better-financed. Megaman fights a pair of supermen with nearly unlimited powers.

Gru reforms after adopting three orphaned girls in order to infiltrate his rival's lair. Eventually he discovers that he has feelings for the girls and risk his life to save them. Megamind falls in love with a plucky woman reporter (think Lois Lane). He also discovers that his life was entered on fighting Megaman. After Megeman's apparent death, he spends a while looting and vandalizing Metro City but quickly tires of it.

Megamind starts with a flashback to his childhood. He was not naturally evil. He turned to evil after being rejected. We never get any backstory on Gru, just an opening sequence where he consoles a child who lost his ice cream cone. Gru make an elaborate balloon animal which quiets the child - until Gru pops it. He really was evil.

Despicable Me is the better of the two movies. The plot flows better. In the other hand, Megamind is visually better. Both are in 3D but Megamind make better use of it. This is the first movie with a flying superhero to really capture the flight. Regardless, both are very good and well worth seeing.

Both are successes, also. Despicable Me was a first movie from a new studio so expectations were moderate. So far the domestic box office is around a quarter billion. World wide box office doubled that for a total take of around a half billion. Megamind took in $60 million on its opening week and took first place in the box office two weekends in a row. It should make money but nothing like Despicable Me or The Incredibles.

Dino De Laurentis

The movie producer Dino De Laurentis died at the age of 91. IMDB lists him as having produced 166 movies, some of them in Italian. Some of his movies have become cult classics. Others, like The Battle of the Bulge, regularly show up on TV decades after they were filmed.

Only a few of his movies are relevant to this blog - King Kong, Conan, and Flash Gordon.

De Laurentis movies emphasized spectacle over everything else. Sometimes the spectacle got in the way of the action. King Kong, for example, is a very ponderous movie compared with the original. It has not aged well. The movie was heavily updated for the 1970s and the emphasis of the love story. The original featured multiple fights between the prehistoric animals of Skull Island and the humans and/or Kong. The remake eliminated all but a fight with a snake. The original ended with a fight between Kong and airplanes. In the remake this turned into an execution. The original set the standard for stop-motion animation. The remake used a man in a monkey suit (plus a very poor robot that is only seen for a couple of seconds). Regardless, the remake was popular when it came up and launched a year-long King Kong craze. The Peter Jackson remake was better (although it had its own problems) but failed to generate the same level of buzz. There was a sequel but the critics hated it and I never bothered seeing it.

De Laurentis's two Conan movies were better but they were also ponderous. Fights tended to be over in seconds in Conan the barbarian, the first movie. The second movie, Conan the Destroyer, is only slightly better. This is ironic since Conan was one of Arnold
Schwarzenegger's first movies. The first Conan movie threw every memorable scene from the stories together. Most of them lost their impact and the plot didn't resemble anything that Robert E. Howard ever wrote. The movie also stole a bit from The Empire Strikes Back with a villain, voiced by James Earl Jones, told the hero "I am your father." It didn't make much sense in Conan. The Conan movies were better than the King Kong ones and were gorgeous to look at, as well.

I don't have a high opinion of these other movies but I think that Flash Gordon is underrated. While it has a lot of the spectacle of the other movies, it also mixes in a stylized, tongue-in-cheek humor. It never bogs down the way the others do and it has aged well. Flash Gordon was made in the wake of Star Wars and was a box office disappointment but since then it has become a cult classic. Of all of De Laurentis's movies, this one shows up on cable most often.