"007: Solo" - A James Bond Novel by William Boyd

Solo is a good enough title for a 007 novel..Africa is a nice location for a James Bond adventure...but is busting a drug trafficking ring within Bond's bailiwick? For the most part, the book reads like Doctor No without Doctor No.

Another brickbat is that the Bond featured here doesn't seem like the 007..he reads more like Roger Moore as Simon Templar ( The Saint ) or Patrick McGoohan as John Drake ( Secret Agent / Danger Man / The Prisoner ) in an adventure fitting those characters better than 007. With Bond...even if you want to show him mellow out with age - his OCD-like fussy particularity, immortalized by his request for a dry martini - shaken, not stirred in the films, is mostly absent - he has to be in a casino, playing a round of Texas Hold 'em/Bridge/Baccarat/Candy Crush/golf/Go Fish with a meglomanic, and drive a more luxurious car than a Jensen - sorry, William, but I thought we all learned after John Gardner put Bond behind the wheel of a Saab, that any car replacing the Aston Martin has to rival the Aston Martin...Although I couldn't resist using that fanmade variant cover to headline this post..as opposed to the real covers used for Solo, which resemble a sequel to Norton Juster's The Hole Book ( the UK edition ) or the title sequence in Dynasty/The Colbys.

At least we get a scene with Q, who is clearly meant to be Ben Whishaw's Q, which is kind of confusing, because the novel is supposed to be set in 1969, which means we do get to choose between picturing the George Lazenby Bond of On Her Majesty's Secret Service or the Sean Connery of Diamonds Are Forever as Bond in Solo (I was picturing Connery), or, judging by the cozy gadgets offered, David Niven as Sir James Bond ( from the pseudo-psychedelic adaptation of Casino Royale ), but certainly not Daniel Craig, so why couldn't Q be written like Desmond Llewellyn if you're going pseudo-retro?

So the book isn't really bad..but it's more frog than prince.

And Simon Templar drove a Volvo in the TV series, so the Jensen would be an upgrade for him...better let The Saint Step In...

Bah, da-da, da-da-daaaa, daaahhh...

"The Sundry Scribbler - Part 5: Conclusion"

                               The Adventure of The Sundry Scribbler
                                                                  
                                            Part 5: Conclusion

                                                        By

                                              Joseph Adorno



 Sherlock's face gave off an expression that I've seen before on many occasions: it's his contemplative stare. He makes this face whenever he is offered to take on a case. The outcome is always unpredictable.

 "No, thank you," he replied to Blake.

 "Oh?" was Blake's response.

 "Yes. Oh yes. If I did not believe the matter to be in capable hands, I would have stirred into action, but oh no, Blake, you are far more capable than myself. You have read of my work; there is little to suggest that i make a habit of venturing outside feats of pure ratiocination, for that is where my true powers lie."

 "I know, Holmes - 'ghosts need not apply' - as you once boldly put. Still - I invite your input. Would you care to wager how this will play out?"

 Holmes smiled and reached into the pocket of his coat. He drew out his notepad and pencil. "Of course! I will write down a solution gathered from what I have learned today and only today. You may look at it now or - as I would prefer - lock it away until afterward to see how right I was." He tore off a page and handed it to Blake, who motioned to Blyth, who took the note from him and placed it discreetly in the reminds of a battered writing desk drawer.

 Blake faced Sherlock. "Mr. Holmes, it was a pleasure meeting you today. I hope someday we will encounter a perplexing problem that complements both of  our distinctive powers without compromising each other's dignity."

 Holmes scoffed at that remark. "That's nonsense, Blake, and we both know it. Though I do wonder if you might benefit from a talk with my brother Mycroft, who is knowledgeable in the affairs of Mr. Plummer and Mr. Ling. I doubt you would be surprised. I'll contact him if you wish to meet him."

 "No, thank you," he replied to Holmes. "I already know."


                                                                        ***

 We were settled back in our chairs at 221B, which felt odd in the sense that we had already glimpsed how it would look if an incendiary device exploded within it.

 "Holmes, what did you mean by 'I already know'? Why didn't you accompany Mr. Blake in preventing such an incredible theft?"

 Holmes struck a match and lit his pipe. "I couldn't reveal much in front of Mr. Blyth - I'm sure Blake trusts him, but he is practicing the same avocation as you, Watson - chronicling his friend's cases. Besides, the theft should carry on as Mycroft intended."

 I could not believe this revelation. "Holmes! Explain!"

 "Things are not as they seem, old friend. The disappearance of Westin Pall may seen like a faraway memory, but he is actually a known informer of George Plummer, who also works for Dr. Ferraro - another enemy of Sexton Blake. With a list of enemies as long as Blake's, it should come as no surprise that he would take such precautions to heighten his awareness. Pall's disappearance brought to light the fact that this caper must proceed as Mycroft coordinated it.

 "Dr. Ferraro and Prince Wu Ling are upstarts in London's underworld - they are attempting to keep the remnants of two distinct empires from evaporating - Professor Moriarty's and Dr. Fu Manchu. If they can be controlled into wasting their efforts on seemingly gainful ventures, then both organizations will be effectively dissolved beneath their noses."

 I spat at the mention of the letters in front of that last name. "If that devil is a doctor of any sort, then I am Colonel Blimp!!"

Holmes raised his hands. "Remain at ease - all is well. It is in Mycroft's best interests that Blake believe that Plummer is one of his arch foes, when in fact he is an agent of her majesty's new organized Secret Service. His acts of corruption allow him an established reputation and gain him access in places that even my best disguises would not allow me to enter."

"But what about Mr. Blake's vile siblings?"

"Oh, the threat from them is very real, but not as a deep organizing power - they're wild cards. Plummer has been doing his best to keep them on a short leash with the lure of the massive payoff in this caper."

 "But does this mean the diamonds and rubies are safe?"

 He nodded reassuringly. "Just as the handover was done beforehand, so was the exchange. Blake's involvement will prevent the theft from occurring - and from all the parties involved to realize that they were executing the theft of wade-made faux gemstones if they had succeeded. The fallout from that reveal cannot happen - the consequences would be monstrous."

 "So Blake is a pawn in this matter? I doubt he would enjoy his talents being wasted in such a way."

 "Sexton Blake possesses the same deductive powers as myself - it is only his love of adventure that leads him into farragoes that would bruise the dignity of someone with more pride."

 "Like yourself?"

 He smiled. "You have yet to ask what I wrote on that paper I handed to Blake."

 "That's right? What sort of note could you have written without tipping his hand if he opened it before giving chase?"

 "Two words. The name of the company involved in the gemstone exchange, which Mycroft created as a new base for his organization - Universal Exports."


                                            The End

Silver Dollars - Ducktales at 25 Part 3

In our last episode, I talked about free stickers and erased video tapes. And now, back to our story...

Season 2 (1989): Now Ducktales was going to be on a different TV station in New York - PIX11, and it would be part of an hour-long block with a new show, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers. I've got to admit that by this time, I had seen all the episodes from the first season at least three times and was watching other stuff. There was a clone of Double Dare called Fun House, which I found more entertaining because it had more of a pace to it (Double Dare tended to be show host Mark Summers motormouths play-by-play on updated versions of rounds of ring toss, frankly), but it was knocked out of PIX11's Fall schedule to make way for the new "DisneyHour". Who was going to complain? New Ducktales episodes? Not me!

But come September, I was willing to skip the Monday afternoon premiere in favor of watching an episode of The Super Mario Brothers Super Show, which had premiered a week earlier. Big Mistake. The episode of SMBSH that aired that day was a clunker, so I switched over to see what was happening on Ducktales. The were showing the "Tralla La" episode. I couldn't believe what I had missed out on! It's even more of a big deal now, because the episode has been censored - a key scene where Fenton creates a rescue flare by lighting up a bottle of Scrooge's nerve tonic was deleted from future broadcasts. If the episode is ever released on DVD, I wonder if they'll show it complete and uncut...

Anyway, the heck with Mario, I went right back to watching Ducktales. Among the notable episodes from that season:

Tralla La: Scrooge has a breakdown from too much business. The antidote is a stay at an exotic faraway land where money and greed do not exist - until he gets there and Fenton makes the discarded bottle caps from Scrooge's nerve tonic the new currency. It wasn't until I actually read the Carl Barks comic that inspired it that I understood why Scrooge specifically choose to act like a squirrel in his "fugue state". Nervous breakdowns are heavy subject matter for a weekday afternoon cartoon. As the years went by, characters plagued by stress and anxiety become recurring themes in most of the Disney Afternoon toons (Scrooge and his "worry room", Dale's inferiority crises in Rescue Rangers, Pete and his "stress level" in Goof Troop, Lucky Piquel and Sgt. Grating in Bonkers, even Darkwing Duck suffered from stress about his public image and paranoia about being usurped by anyone offering a helping hand).

Allowance Day: I included this one because the "convince-someone-else-that-today-is-payday-and-realize-that-the-whole-world-was-fooled-and-you-have-to-move-the-clouds-to-reveal-an-eclipse-of-the-sun" theme was also used in an episode of Talespin. I think it worked better on Talespin, due to the handily established Thembrians and their politics, but act 3 of this episode (with Scrooge and Fenton facing a firing squad - the one sequence that plays out better than it did on the Talespin episode) is terrific, the stuff of old Golden Age Superman comics.

The Big Flub: this episode, in which Fenton tries to get a promotion in one of Scrooge's other companies, only to wind up creating a marketing campaign for Gyro's helium-infused bubble gum prototype that makes people float into the air before and after they've chewed it, is very, very Barksian . I don't know if there's a speciffic story that inspired it, but it does seem like one of Donald's blunders.

The Masked Mallard: One of the few episodes in which Scrooge saves the day entirley on his own. I don't know if this was one possible inspiration for Darkwing Duck, but I'm inclined to think the inspiration for Scrooge's pogo cane in the Ducktales NES video game came from here. The plot: Scrooge thinks dressing up as a superhero will result in good PR. Obviously he's never read Spider-Man comics.

Scrooge's Last Adventure: another story in which a clunky 1980s computer outperforms anything we have on the market today and tomorrow, as well as a new feature for Scrooge's cane that Capcom forgot to add in the video game. The Plot: Scrooge thinks he's dying and Fenton suggests downloading his fortune into a computer. The problem is that Fenton doesn't know how to work a computer! so, obviously the best way to retrieve the data (or electric assets) is the enter the computer, TRONstyle and catch the dollar signs with butterfly nets while evading Moby Glitch. Again, we have another episode that was recycled into a Talespin story, though this time both work well on their own terms.

Metal Attraction: Gyro builds a robot maid, Robotica, who develops a crush on Gizmoduck. When Giz turns her down, she instantly decides it must be because he's overworked protecting the money bin and seems preoccupied with Fenton's girlfriend Gandra Dee for some mysterious reason, so she set both of them in range of a handy guided missile and prepares to launch. This episode is the only one where Bubba, Tootsie, Fenton and Gizmoduck appear, but not together, save for a "family photo" highlighted in one scene.

Blue Collar Scrooge: Scrooge plans to sell a skateboard factory to Donald Trumpcard (I love puns!) but then, oh, the irony, he skids on a motorized skateboard then drops him into a lake and hits him on the head. Now suffering from amneisia, he loses his looks and ...gets a job at the skateboard factory and organizes a strike! Oh, and he also gets freash and cozy with Fenton's mother, Ma Crackshell, while her son is away impersonating Scrooge. If anyone wants to see a less avuncular Scrooge, this is the one to watch.

The Bride Wore Stripes: Ma Beagle is at it again, this time posing as Scrooge's wife to fool the Justice of The Peace into thinking they are married and get his fortune. Yep, another screwball comedy episode, notable for featuring none of the new characters and only the season 1 cast. This epsiode was given heavy rotation during reruns - instead of seeing "My Mother, The Psychic" "Attack of The Metal Mites" or "New Gizmokids on The Block", we would get this one, like finding a penny on the sidewalk. It's very good, but it appeared all the time.

The Unbreakable Bin: Another Carl Barks tale gets tweaked, actually this borrows bits from two stories featuring Magica De Spell, ("Bye, Bye, Money Bin" and "The Unsafe Safe") her only appearance in the later episodes, but they made it count. Her late entrance in the second act is a neat surprise, since I had not read the comic at that time. It would have been neat if SHE had been the main villain in "SuperDucktales" instead of Ma Beagle. Sure, it's the same actress in both parts, but the characters have different bags of tricks.

Yuppy Ducks: again and again, stress, allergies, anxiety, being replaced, pests - these themes pop up a lot in the Disney shows over and over. Scrooge gets "loot lice", lice with Beagle Boy masks and has to sealed in a plastic bubble at the hospital. Huey, Dewey, Bubba (remember him?) & Louie take over running the business before everyone remembers this is a violation of child labor laws (technically, that only applies if they were being exploited, but they did come off pretty dumb, here - Fenton's not around this time, so they can't blame him). The best scenes are of Scrooge at the free clinic - holey moley, the writers did their research!

Ducky Mountain High: Glomgold was another villain that got the short end of the deal (though not as much as Magica), appearing only in a handful of episodes, but kind of, sort became the main villain in the hodge podge "3rd Season". Seeing him compete with Scrooge in a scheme to get a plot of land from old flame Glittering Goldie is a lot of fun. I would've loved to have seen a character like Brigitta MacBridge appear as a semi-regular on the show, because whenever the writers tackled screwball comedy, they did it very well. Brigitta was created by Romano Scarpa to even out the number of female characters available - she's like a "nice" Millionaira Vanderbucks (from "'til Nephews Do Us Part"), the tycoon Scrooge almost married in the season 1 finale.

The Duck Who Knew Too Much:  It's The Fenton Crackshell Show as Fenton pretends to be sick so he can go on vacation with his girlfriend and avoid an assignment from the boss - but whaddyaknow, the assignment was to go to the same be he's having his vacation! Is this a Jetsons episode? More spy high jinks, plus there's a giant mechanical Praying Mantis (I guess Jon Peters produced this episode). This is one of several episodes where Fenton saves the day without the Gizmoduck suit, though he conveniently forgets in time for another episode in which he does it again. The highlight: Scrooge gets some screen time with Gandra Dee...waitaminute, doesn't she work for him too?

My Mother, The Psychic: Fenton and his mother deserved a spinoff - maybe that was the forerunner to Johnny Bravo? Fredericka Von Strangeduck appears in a cameo as the star of a daytime soap opera playing "Erica" (draw your own conclusions on what this is referring to) and gets psychic powers from a jolt on her TV. I think this was inspired by the urban legend about the couch potato who died of a heart attack while watching TV, but as he was being lifted onto a gurney, his hand smacked the TV screen and broke the glass. He was electrocuted and revived by his TV set! Anyway, Glomgold gets to play Goldfinger, only his mansion gets to be OddJob by hurling giant discus into space (what on Earth could that have been built for before this episode?).

Part 4 will be up soon - feel free to practice your Golf swing with a Pogo Stick while you wait...

Moore Hot Dogs!

"Page 36/TRUMP 8 Panel 2. The Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.E) was a major victory for the Smurfs over the forces of Gargamel, and prevented him from conquering Oz and Wonderland."
- Jess Nevins, Annotations to The Black Dossier


There you have it. Solid evidence that Jess Nevins has gone mad from making sense out of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For the past decade, Jess has become the universal translator for every minute reference hidden in the panels and text of each installment of the series, and that reference/footnote in particular makes no sense whatsoever, yet it's on his webpage!

Anyway, I have to say I fell back in love with the League after a trial separation. When I picked up that premiere issue of the series back in the Fall of 1998, I really thought Sherlock Holmes was going to be in it. They have Mycroft in it, Professor Moriarty, Colonel Moran and a reenactment of the showdown in "The Final Problem"...there's even a couple of references to Mina Murray visiting Sherlock during his retirement, when he became a beekeeper (there are also hints that she might have found him very interesting or very dull, depending on what the postcards offered in The Black Dossier would have you believe - I suspect it's the former). Aside from these... bon-bonbonbons, I've seen little else.

There is proof that I'm not the only fan who was starving for some Sherlock-schlock - for a time, Moore had to answer over and over that Captain Nemo was NOT Sherlock Holmes in disguise. I didn't even think of that one! Anyway, something about volume 2 of the series - the second arc, which adapted H.G. Well's War of The Worlds within the context of the LOEG (or LXG, if you saw the movie with Sean Connery - Alan didn't, so be of good cheer if you didn't either) - it featured a made-up almanac that mapped-out the shape of the LOEG/LXG universe, even featuring nods to things that Alan and Kevin might never get around to, like Doctor Dolittle's post office, a young Auric Goldfinger searching for the lost city of El Dorado, The Hardy Boys, Zorro, Conan and Pogo - stuff like that. It also featured key continuity points, like introducing Orlando, Raffles and the Frankenstein monster as the royal consort to the queen of Toyland...stuff , like Mina and Allan Quatermain visiting the ruins of Dracula's castle and stuff  like Allan's rejuvenation in  Uganda. It bugged me that that was stuffed in that stuffy almanac. Obviously, they're being careful not to trip over copyright, but it made me feel as though the main arc of each mini-series was lacking...or just wasn't my cup of tea...or maybe I was just still stinging from not seeing Sherlock play a bigger role in it...or all of the above.

Of course, that's the genesis of that "Sherlock Edition" I posted a few weeks back. I had put together a reading list of pastiches - some good, some not so good, all worth a glance - offering a parallel timeline that explains his absence. I recall Roger Ebert, in his review of Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, remarking that Holmes was too quirky to mix well with James Bond-style shenanigans, but that never stopped anyone before... proper spy/sci-fi stories with Holmes would be things like "The Lion's Mane", "The Devil's Foot" and "His Last Bow" - all written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of course. It's tempting to imagine the LXG/LOEG Sherlock sitting in a corner, playing his violin/puffing on his pipe/shooting up coke/leering at Irene Adler photos/whatever, playing armchair sleuth while Allan, Nemo and Mina do all the legwork, because he would feel his dignity compromised by engaging directly in that sort of thing, following them discreetly in disguise as nondescript beggars, crippled limping booksellers, clergymen, old dowagers, etc... just in case they need someone to bail them out - they usually did. Or imagine an ancient octogenarian Sherlock, kept alive through some deus ex machina (royal bee jelly?) to join a new incarnation of the league in the upcoming 2011 installment - yes, the opening of the next big arc is set to take place in 2011.

So I delayed from getting the Black Dossier, a compilation/sourcebook of sorts, often mistaken as volume 3, because it does feature a new adventure as a wraparound (not unlike those Looney Tunes movies from the 1980s that mixed old and new footage), but got it anyway when the price was right. It was a discounted hardcover copy, still in it's shrinkwrap, with the variant "Mina in bed" cover. I didn't know if I would like it - it's considered the one that draws the line - the one where fans either got off the train or stayed on for the rest of the ride. I liked it. I still have problems with Moore's prose work - it's so exact in it's execution that it's not engaging to people who are not fans of the various writing styles he's approximating. But I don't hate any of it. I realize I won't be buying a copy of Fanny Hill or P.G. Wodehouse's books any time soon, but I doubt John Cleland ever imagined Fanny being chased by a giant erect penis while running inside a giant vagina (you really have to read this thing to believe it - you can understand why DC Comics was increasingly unnerved by it and eventually turned chicken), nor do I think James Bond was the nasty guy Moore believes he was, or whom Ian Fleming meant for him to be, or that Jack Kerouac meant for Dr. Sax to be the grandson of Fu Manchu and Dean Moriarty the Professor's descendant (but then again, who can tell when reading Beat "literature"?). I'm not too crazy about the Golliwog (I don't really understand a word he says), but I like Orlando and have taken a liking to Mina and Allan - Next to Batgirl and Spider-Woman, Mina Murray is in my top 5 of cool female comic book characters. That fact that we have seen her nude often is merely coincidental.

 I'm surprised he didn't add Paddington Bear into the soup. He's been around since the late 50's. The dolls/toyline, by the way, were launched by the parents of Jeremy Clarkson! I'm surprised there wasn't a Top Gear reference in the current Century:2009 (more on that below).

I was patient when it came to following Century, the recent 3-part arc that launched Moore's new publishing relationship with Top Shelf (it happens that LOEG is the only property from the ABC lineup that Moore and O'Neill owned and can take anywhere - due to the contract signed in negotiations for the LXG feature film - it's much more clear than the contract they signed for the Watchmen comic book, obviously; this is what the outcome should have been for that property). Timing is everything. It took about four years for this arc to end - my interest came back when it was announced that the final chapter would be set in 2009. So I got the first two installments a few months ago and brought part 3 last week.

I was not disappointed. The 2009 chapter is, in my opinion, the best installment of the series. You may not have read it yet and heard all the hype (that Moore and O'Neil skewer J.K Rowling) but the big shock is...they really don't. The Harry Potter books are high-profile, but part of an even larger target - the lack of originality and banality in pop culture. Watered-down remakes, revamps, adaptations, ripoffs, retreads...this one seems a bit more personal than what came before - certainly not a book you would have ever seen with the DC logo, or their front, the ABC star that was used for all of Moore's comics. I'm not going to give away a thing, here - if you're not buying any comics this year, reconsider and check this one out and only this one.  Yes, you'll still need Jess Nivens' annotations to help spot all the in-jokes and nods, but they're not as myopic or obscure as before. The thesis here is that our fiction parallels fact - the ups and downs, everything.

One last thing - upon reading this comic (and the issues before it, including The Black Dossier), one can't  help but notice that Moore and O'Neill are offering something new to mainstream comics - No, not the fact that their stories have influenced the last decade of superhero team comic books, but something that is very obvious and yet, not so obvious...weiners. Graphic depictions and usage of  the devil's trumpet. Usually, superhero comics focus on "Good Girl Art"/cheesecake/Boobs, but here in the LOEG, you'll probably see more raw sausage (in their natural casings) then in Magic Mike (according to Sara Underwood, this film about male strippers only offers a glimpse of one "dawg" - in a pump...I have no interest whatsoever in confirming this). Aside from the Gargantua and Pantagruel sex scene/chase I described above, most of the weenies are of average size - thankfully none were shown in the 3D sections offered in the Dossier -  we would've sued for damages to our eyes.

I see Joey Chestnut won the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest again this year...

It's Been A Pleasure...Part 1

The following are Guilty Pleasures in Pop Culture that offer an enjoyable experience in ways that must be explained:


(You'll notice that I wrote 'part 1' in the title. This post will be ongoing and yes, there is a comic book in this list)...


1. Knock Off - In 1997, Jean Claude Van Damme appeared with Rob Schneider in this action-comedy flick set during the Hong Kong Handover, in which the UK took their Union Jack off the flagpoll and let China replace it with their flag, under the proviso that the status quo in Hong Kong remain the same...ish. The muscles from Brusseles played Marcus Ray, a clothing manufacter with a shady past linked to bootleg merchandise. Schnieder played his business partner, an undercover CIA agent who was assigned to keep tabs on Marcus. Paul Sorvino played Schnieder's boss. Lela Rochon played a CIA agent working undercover as ... well, the whole point of the film is a series of double and triple-crosses concerning nano-bombs small enough to disguise as buttons on bluejeans or watch batteries, with Jean Claude being the guy who has to spot the real ones from the fakes (I'm quoting the trailer). The film is the forerunner for the Rush Hour movies, only less leaden and a better ensemble and some really good action sequences and showy camera angles using practical effects. I can watch this anytime.

2. The Life and Death of Peter Sellers - oh boy. You know the saying, "Never work with your heroes"? I knew what I was in for because I had read the Roger Lewis biography a year before seeing this, which was the source for it, as well as Ed Sikov's more sympathetic Mister Strangeglove, which I had read before the former. I had bought the DVD of this for the nice price of $1.99 last month and never regretted it, because I enjoyed it a lot. However... I must inform you that Peter Sellers, in real life, was an abusive, insecure, paranoid, egotistical, negative, drug-addled and self-destructive man-child who may have only been kind to Sophia Loren (who he was gaga over) and members of his old comedy troop, The Goons, though you'll get an argument from me that he kept them around as little more than his entourage. Once you get over that hurdle, you'll find how the screenwriters and director and the stars of the film (Geoffrey Rush actually becomes Sellers in some places, Charlize Theron and Emily Watson are terrific, Stanley Tucci awesome as Stanley Kubrick) are able to bring this actor to life one more time. BTW, I wouldn't mind seeing Rush play Clouseau in a Pink Panther film. Perhaps that Romance of The Pink Panther which was originally intended to wrap the series and was co-written by Sellers. This is not the only time an artist belied his/her own work with their personality/private life - it seems like just a matter of course, really. What's interesting is I can still watch any movie with Sellers after this. Hey, he was dead before I turned one!

3. Azrael, Agent of The Bat - I wonder if people picked this book up for kick-ass violence and superhero action. If you did, you probably didn't find it at all satisfying. That's because this book, the thinking man's Spawn , was all about a vehicle for Dennis O'Neil to tell stories. I don't think he was conciously aware of it, but over the course of 100 issues, O'Neil was reflecting on how costumed superheroes go through different incarnations and change in order to stay relevant. Azrael's various costume changes were part of the character's evolution: first as an obvious Spawn-wannabe, then a member of the Bat-family, then finally his own man before reverting back to his own form of "AzBat-Man" by choice. A lot has changed in the DCU in the decade since he was killed off, but some characters are too good to stay buried. I'm still surprised how jolly that book was. More like a dark pulp-gothic comedy than average superhero soap opera fare.


4. Victorious - There are many tv shows out there that have what is sometimes referred to as "The secret weapon" - a character played by an actor or actress whose performance makes it the reason to keep watching - often the only reason. Even if, on average, they get less than 3 minutes of screentime when they do appear - if at all! On Seinfeld, it was Wayne Knight as Newman. On Futurama, it was Bender the robot. In The Electric Company, it was Ashley Austin Morris as Francine Carruthers. In Victorious, it is Daniella Monet as Trina Vega. Every time she arrives, she gets the whole joint jumping. When she disappears, we realize how dull the show - an interchangable carbon copy of most teen sitcoms - and its main cast are. In fact, the producers should consider a spinoff: What Was Trina Doing?, which, just like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (or "The Zeppo" or "Lion King 1 1/2", for those of you who don't know), would show what Trina was doing for the remaining 19 of the 22 minutes she was kept offscreen.
It also doesn't hurt that the talented Ms. Monet wears micro-mini skirts and short-shorts in almost every scene she's in. Nice legs. She's 23 and was 20 when the show started. Of course that means that she was 23 when the show started and is 26 now - that's the way it is.

5. A View To A Kill - This was the first James Bond film I remember watching, as well as the first I remember watching in a theatre. In fact, it's actually the only one I've seen in a theatre! But this is not about nostalgia: I still find it to be an entertaining James Bond movie. It's got gadgets, locations, crazy villains (Christopher Walken before he became Christopher Walken - you know what I mean), literal cliffhangers borrowed from silent movie serials, (the finale looks like a scene from The Perils of Penelope Pitstop), some hot greasy-lipped 1980's Bond Girls ("Hey, it's the other mom from That 70's Show!") and Grace Jones, who, well, fans of Roger Moore say he gets bonus points for having made out with her and lived - few men can boast that accomplishment. It's also got an awesome soundtrack by John Glen and the title song by Duran Duran is a perfect Bond theme, even if the lyrics are ... strange. Bonus fact: if you've ever read the Bond spinoff novels by John Gardner, you'd cry deja vu after seeing this film and Never Say Never Again after reading Role of Honor. Video games and Blimps? Yes.

No $#!+, Sherlock. - Comic Book Rehab Dime Novel, Issue #1

When people talk of adapting and updating Sherlock Holmes, they're really talking about the films. Whenever you see a new Holmes film with Watson and Lestrade left in the dust, that's not Conan  Doyle, that's Rathbone and Bruce. Curiously, the only time the 'canon' was ever faithfully adapted was when the late Jeremy Brett played Holmes in the !980's and early 90's in a series for British television that found its audience here in the USA on MYSTERY!. That's the exception.

Never mind exceptions, let's talk PERCEPTIONS. The new series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations is based on that. The new films with Robert Downey Jr. are taking their cues from Billy Wilder's "The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes" by completely embracing the 'friends of Giuliano' rumors. Kingsley Amis, in his essay "Unreal Policemen", wrote that the magnifying glass and the dozen roses belong to two different worlds. Sherlock Holmes with a girlfriend gets in the way of solving the puzzle, so he has no girlfriend, but as a consequence, his "buddy" becomes more than his creator imagined. People read too much, don't they? The character and the stories were popular enough to inspire a cottage industry of imitators - all following the same approach, all stuck with alleged 'bachelors-in-the-closet' in thinly-realized worlds of their own, and the rise of the 'hard-boiled' school becomes its opposite number, with strong emphasis on the "one girlfriend a book" rule that Ian Fleming established in the Bond novels. That doesn't mean no fan hasn't tried to dig further than the surface...

Back to Holmes. The new Sherlock series with Cumberbatch (which really sounds like something you have to look for in the supermarket aisle) is not bad, even if it borrows heavily from Doctor Who - both have the hero/villain showdowns - and the use of the internet and smartphones seems forced (Holmes relied a lot more on logical inferences than that showy parlour trickof deducing a man's profile his hat, but the use of maps is acurrate). The first adventure really got rolling with the final confrontation, the second was a little too Fu Manchu-y, and I have not seen the last, in which Moriarty is revealed to be a nondescript guy in a suit with a smug smirk. Ooo, those nondescript baddies...

To be continued... (really? yeah. I'm gonna find the thrid story. Hold your breath) ;)