Great Moments In Comic Book History: The First Appearance on Ghost Rider

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Marvel Spotlight was a comic books that existed so Marvel could introduce new characters and showcase heroes who were being considered for a full time series. Think of it as being the Marvel equivalent of pilot season. In August, 1972, Marvel Spotlight #5 introduced the world to Johnny Blaze, the motorcyclist who once made a deal with the devil. Johnny Blaze was better known as Ghost Rider!

While riding through Manhattan on his motorcycle, Johnny spots two criminals committing a murder. He wants nothing to do with it and tries to drive away. The two criminals follow him and corner him in an alley. And then this happens:

The rest of the story is simple. Ghost Rider makes flames emerge from the ground. The criminals, who are named Clyde and Dingbat, run away. How does one criminal end up named Clyde while the the other has to settle for Dingbat? The rest of the issue is a flashback, telling how stuntman Johnny Blaze sold his soul to Satan (later revealed to be a disguise of frequent villain Mephisto) in order to save the life of his cancer-stricken stepfather Crash Simpson. Though Crash survives the cancer, he still dies when he attempts a dangerous stunt. Satan still wants Johnny’s soul but is vanquished by Roxanne, Crash’s daughter who is pure of soul and has been reading up on occult practices. However, every night, Johnny is transformed into Ghost Rider.

It’s nothing complicated but, from such humble beginnings, legends are born!

Marvel Spotlight Vol.1 Issue 5 (August, 1972)

Writer — Gary Friedrich
Penciler — Mike Ploog
Inker — Mike Ploog
Colorist— Mike Ploog
Letterer — Jon Costa
Editors — Stan Lee and Roy Thomas

Previous Great Moments In Comic Book History:

Sssssss (1973, directed by Bernard L. Kowalski)

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Will that be seven S’s or only six?

College student David Blake (Dirk Benedict) gets a job working as an assistant to Dr. Carl Stoner (Strother Martin). Dr. Stoner is an expert on reptiles and he is very concerned that man will not be able to survive if the Earth suffers any sort of environmental change. When he hires David, he only has two requirements for the young man. David is not to date Stoner’s daughter, Kristina (Heather Menzies) and David has to take an injection every day of a serum that will protect him from snake venom, or so Carl says.

What David doesn’t know is that Carl is a damn liar and his plan for saving humanity is to turn people into Snakemen! Snakes can survive anything so why wouldn’t human want to be more like them? Soon, David’s face is getting scaly and Kristina is discovering what really happened to her father’s previous assistant.

Sssssss tries to take its story seriously and the snake makeup is cool and creepy but the movie itself moves too slowly. It makes the mistake of worrying about convincing us that the story is plausible when it should just be focusing on snake action. There are some good scenes, like when Kristina tracks down David’s predecessor and Strother Martin is convincing as the mad scientist. If you thought Strother Martin was just capable of playing outlaws and corrupt cops, this movie may surprise you. I also liked the ending, which only seems ambiguous. It’s easy to see what’s going to happen after the end credits roll.

Richard Zanuck and David Brown produced this film. It did well enough at the box office that they decided to produce another nature-gone-mad movie. That one was named Jaws.

Great Moments In Television History: Apaches Traumatizes The UK

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

From the end of World War II to 2007, the UK’s Central Office of Information used to produced Public Information Films (known as PIFs), which would often air on television during children’s programming. These were the British equivalent of the “More You Know” PSAs that appear on American television. A typical PIF would deal with a safety issue, warning children to be careful crossing the street or while visiting a farm or when thinking of sticking a fork into an electrical socket.

One of the most notorious PIFs was first broadcast in February of 1977 and aired for several years after that. Apaches traumatized an entire generation of British children while teaching them about what not to do while visiting a farm. Danny tells the story of how six young children played “Apaches” on a nearby farm and how things did not turn out well for any of them. What made this PIF more traumatic than similar PIFs was the nonchalant reactions of both the children and the adults. Each farm accident is followed by a clinical clearing away of that children’s possessions and then the child is forgotten about. It doesn’t occur to anyone to do anything to make the farms safer.

Still, this PIF probably kept a lot of children safe while also inspiring many nightmares. Director John MacKenzie went on to direct Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren in The Long Good Friday, which is considered to be one of the finest British crime films ever made.

Previous Great Moments In Television History:

Game Review: Plane Walker (2021, Jack Comfort)

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Plane Walker is an entrant in 2021 Interactive Fiction competition. Browse and experience all of the games by clicking here.

You have just woken up on a plane. You have no idea how you got on the plane. You have no idea where the plane is going. You’re not even sure who you are. But you know that you need to figure out what’s going on and how to fly a plane!

I enjoyed playing this Inform game. The premise was interesting. The descriptions were vivid, well-written, and witty. The game was puzzle-heavy, as most Inform games are. As I’ve said before, the puzzles are usually my downfall when it comes to Interactive Fiction and some of the puzzles in Plane Walker are difficult to solve on your own. Fortunately, the game comes with a walk-through. Most importantly, the game pays off in the end. The mystery is worth solving.

Play Plane Walker.

Music Video of the Day: Time For Me To Fly by REO Speedwagon (1979, directed by ????)

Posted on October 26, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 166 unique music videos were played on MTV. Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.

The 92nd video to premiere on MTV was yet another performance clip from REO Speedwagon. This time, it was the video Time For Me To Fly, one of the Speedwagon’s biggest hits.

Enjoy!

The First Videos Shown on MTV:

The Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974, directed by Jud Taylor)

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Because of recent electrical surges aboard its aircrafts, the commander of the Whitney Air Force Base 458th Radar Test Group sends a four-man crew up in Flight 412 to try to figure out what’s happening. Colonel Pete Moore (Glenn Ford) and Major Mike Dunning (Bradford DIllman) assume that it will just be a routine flight. Instead, they find themselves at the center of a government cover-up when Captain Bishop (David Soul) and the other members of the crew spot what appears to be a UFO. When two jets are sent out to intercept the object, the jets vanish.

Suddenly, Flight 412 is ordered to land at a seemingly deserted military base in the desert. When they do, the airplane is impounded and the crew is forced to undergo an 18-hour debriefing led by government agents. The agents demand that the crew members sign a statement saying that they didn’t see anything strange in the air before the jets vanished. Until all four of the men sign the release, the crew of Flight 412 are officially considered to be missing and will not be released until they agree to deny what they saw.

Meanwhile, Col. Moore tries to learn what happened to his men but the government, led by Col. Trottman (Guy Stockwell), is not eager to tell him.

This movie was made-for-television, at a time when people claiming to have been abducted by aliens was still a relatively new phenomenon. It was also made during the Watergate hearing and in the wake of the release of the Pentagon Papers, so the film’s sinister government conspiracy probably felt relevant to viewers in a way that it wouldn’t have just a few years earlier. I appreciated that the movie took a semi-documentary approach to the story but that it tried to be serious and even-handed. The film shows how witnesses can be fooled or coerced into saying that they saw the opposite of what they actually did see. Unfortunately, The Disappearance of Fight 412 is ultimately done in by its own cheapness. The overreliance on familiar stock footage doesn’t help the film’s credibility and there’s too many familiar faces in the cast for the audience to forget that they’re just watching a TV movie. The Disappearance of Flight 412 doesn’t really succeed but it is still interesting as an early attempt to make a serious film about the possibility of alien abduction and the government covering up the existence of UFOs.. Three years after this film first aired, Steven Spielberg would introduce these ideas to an even bigger audience with Close Encounters of The Third Kind.

Game Review: Dungeons and Deadlines (2020, Miles Matrix)

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

Stressed out, you lose focus and injure yourself using a stapler. You die from an untreated sepsis, because you didn’t make time to see a doctor.

You lasted 3 days.

That was my fate the first time that I played Dungeons and Dragons, a work simulator that is all about the horror of having a job.

I was so angry about dying of sepsis, I decided to try again. This time, I said, I no stress. When the game asked if I wanted to work overtime, I said no. When the game asked if I would arrive early, ontime, or late, I picked late.

You get fired before the end of the probation period. Idiot.

You lasted 3 days.

Well, that didn’t work. I decided to try again. When you play Dungeons and Deadlines, the idea is to balance four ratings: stress, family, health, and esteem. Keep them balanced and I guess you’ll make it. Let one get too low or too high and you’ll lose your job or maybe your life. This time, I was determined to be neither too lazy nor too much of a workaholic. Instead, my goal was to just do an adequate job and keep everything balanced.

At first, my approach of showing up on time, doing the work, but spending the weekend with my family seemed to work well. I survived past the third day. On the 9th day, I was told this:

Elon Musk follows you back on Twitter. You’re so thrilled, you come too quickly when you have Sex with your spouse that night.

My family rating went down a little but my esteem rating went up. Figuring that I had figured this game out, I continued to play.

On Day 17, I was given the choice of pulling a “work card” or a “life card.” (This game not only simulates having a job but it also simulates playing a card game.) Since I was at work, I went the the work card. I made a mistake:

You finish your task faster than projected. Your supervisor is very happy with you. He also expects more from you now.

Up went my stress level.

You faint. All this stress has finally gotten to you. Your stomach ulcer bursts and you die. Ugh.

You lasted 18 days.

18 days! To win the game, you have to survive 62 days. Good luck with that. As for me, I’m going to keep trying.

Play Dungeons and Deadlines.

Music Video of the Day: Go Back Home Again by Andrew Gold (1977, directed by ????)

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 166 unique music videos were played on MTV. Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.

The 91st video to premiere on video was this performance clip for Andrew Gold’s Go Back Home Again. Previously, on that day, MTV also played the video for Gold’s deathless ditty, Thank You For Being A Friend.

Enjoy!

The First Videos Shown on MTV:

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977, directed by Don Taylor)

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

After the ship that he’s working on sinks, engineer Andrew Braddock (Michael York) washes up on an uncharted island. It’s a beautiful island but it quickly proves dangerous as another survivor of the sinking is killed by wild animals. The injured Braddock passes out and when he wakes up, he’s being cared for by a mysterious scientist named Moreau (Burt Lancaster).

Braddock discovers that the island is populated by creatures that are half-human and half-animal. Led by the Sayer of the Law (Richard Basehart), these creatures are the results of experiments conducted by Moreau and his assistant, Montgomery (Nigel Davenport). Moreau’s experiments are expected to obey Moreau’s laws. Should they fail, they will be taken to the House of Pain and punished. When Baddock objects to Moreau playing God, Moreau plots to reverse the experiment on Braddock and turn him into an animal. Even as he falls in love with a former cheetah (played by Barbara Carrera), Braddock realizes that he must escape the Island of Dr. Moeau.

This is the forgotten adaptation of H.G. Wells’s classic novel, as well as being the most faithful. The Island of Lost Souls, from 1932, is considered to be a classic. The third version, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, is a legendary disaster. This version, though, is usually overlooked. It’s also my favorite of the three but that might be because it was the first version that I ever saw. It’s a straight-forward version of H.G. Wells’s story of science gone mad with director Don Taylor not wasting any time getting the action started. Michael York, always an underrated actor, convincingly portrays Braddock’s outrage and his struggle to maintain his humanity after Moreau starts to experiment on him while Carrera is beautiful and mysterious as Maria. Probably the film’s biggest surprise is Burt Lancaster, who turns out to be ideally cast as Moreau. More subdued than either Charles Laughton or Marlon Brando, Lancaster plays Moreau as a brilliant but callous man who is too arrogant to realize that he’s become as much of an animal as those he claims to be perfecting. What makes Lancaster’s Moreau so disturbing is that he doesn’t have the excuse of being insane. Instead, he’s just too stubborn to admit that he’s potentially made a huge mistake.

It may be forgotten but this still the version of The Island of Dr, Moreau that I would recommend.

(Trailer courtesy of Classic Movie Reviews)

2021 Interactive Fiction Competition Reveiew: extraordinary_fandoms.exe (2021, Storysinger Presents)

Posted on October 24, 2021 by Jedadiah Leland

extraordinary_fandoms.exe is an entrant in 2021 Interactive Fiction competition. Browse and experience all of the games by clicking here.

This game is about a non binary teenager who gets on Discord, discovers a group of friends, and also discovers a love of coding while helping them design of wiki for their Japanese virtual idol group. Things take a serious turn when the teenager’s friend realize that the teenager is in an abusive situation. The friends come together to help them escape from their horrific home life.

This game is a tribute to the friendships that are made online and how they can change a life forever. It’s mostly made up of a combination of Discord chats and DMs and it carefully charts the path to discovering that the main character is being abused by their parents. Like many Twine games, it’s more of a short story than a traditional IF game. You do get options but mostly it’s just two different ways to phrase the same sentence. Do you say “hi” or do you say “hello?” I would have liked more choices but that’s not really what extraordinary_fandoms.exe is all about. Instead, it’s a celebration of friendship and changing lives and, as far as that’s concerned, it succeeds. Most importantly, if it’s help out anyone who is in a similar situation as the game’s main character, that’s all that really matters.

Play extraordinary_fandoms.exe.