The Sound Of Thun'da!

Thun'da King of the Congo #1 has the distinction of apparently being the only full-length comic book illustrated by Frank Frazetta. He is credited with creating Thun'da though the scripts are by Gardner Fox. Frazetta left the comic after a single issue because editorial demanded he move Thun'da from a savage "Lost World" filled with prehistoric beasts to the relatively mundane jungle of the then modern Congo. Instead of a Burroughsian fantasy hero in the mold of David Innes, they wanted yet another Tarzan knock-off. The debut cover is a classic. 

They got what they wanted in subsequent five issues illustrated by reliable comics journeyman Bob Powell. 

Thun'da King of the Congo even went on to become a movie serial starring Buster Crabbe. But there was this one issue by Frazetta. 

The first story by writer Gardner Fox and artist Frazetta is titled "King of the Lost Lands", and it tells of how during WWII Roger Drum an aviator crashes his supply plane inside the mysterious regions of Africa. 

(Thun'da Model Sheet)

He finds a "lost world" filled with beast men and dinosaurs. He battles furiously to survive but eventually goes native and is soon dubbed "Thun'da" by the Valley People and the beautiful Phra. Presumably the name is a result of the boom his gun made as he fired his last bullets to kill a giant snake. This is a rugged story told at a rapid clip and features some fantastic Frazetta imagery. To read "King of the Lost Lands" go here. 

Here are the three remaining Frazetta Thun'da stories with links so you can read the entire thing. 

The second story is titled "The Monsters from the Mists!" and this yarn finds Thun'da fighting monkeymen who have tamed shaggy mammoths. Protecting the lovely Phra Thun'da battles against the apemen, killing thier leader and escaping their lair to lead a counterattack using fire against the enemy by uniting the tribes of the valley. To enjoy "The Monsters from the Mists" check out this link. 

The third story titled "When the Earth Shook" pits Thun'da and Phra alongside a sabretooth tiger named Sabre. Thun'da killed its parent and raises the beast as his companion. An earthquake opens the lost land up and a white hunter and his black bearers find their way into the valley. They take Thun'da captive and threaten him to help them find gold. But he escapes, raises the natives and fights back. The outsiders try to take their gold, but another earthquake buries them and closes off the lost world.  To read "When the Earth Shook" visit this link. 

The fourth and final story "Gods of the Jungle" finds Thun'da operating in the Congo as yet another jungle hero. He battles against natives and white hunters, particularly two Soviet spies who use native superstition to build up a false monster-god. Thun'da reveals the deception and puts down this threat of the agitated and decived natives and the spies are turned over to the authorities. The last scene shows Thun'da, Phra and Sabre heading out into the veldt. To read "Gods of the Jungle" go here. 

(Dave Stevens Bettie Page cover evokes the Frazetta classic.)

(Austrian Reprint 1983)

(Dark Horse Reprint 2010)

(Fantagraphics Books Reprint 1987)

Outstanding stuff. It's a pity Frazetta couldn't do more and it's a pity his vision was snuffed out. I've read some of the Powell Thun'da stories in an AC reprint and they are fine but predictable and bland. Frazetta's Thun'da is dynamic and grim, if not always logical. Like the best of ERB, the Thun'da stories by Frazetta and Fox don't always makes complete sense, but they always carry you away.

In 2012 Dynamite Comics got their mitts on Thun'da and attempted to retell the story. We meet Thun'd all over again, this time he's a conflicted man with an unsavory past and he's plunked down into a world brimming with dinosaurs. The covers are by Jae Lee and they are handsome enough, with issue three having some real power. The series ran for five issues and was collected along with a complete reprint of the Frazetta classic. 

These subsequent Thun'da tales lack the potency of the Frazetta classics, but we already knew that. I imagine there might be Thun'da stories out there I'm ignorant of. Please let me know. 

More Frazetta tomorrow. 

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Buck Rogers On The Big (And Little) Screen!

Buck Rogers the classic movie serial from Universal starring Larry "Buster"Crabbe was made during his classic run of Flash Gordon movies for the same studio and it fits right in among them. The pacing, the sense of derring-do all match perfectly the tone of the Flash Gordon movies. A few times you even expect to hear "Flash" come from someone's mouth. 

But in a number of ways this movie is maybe superior to the Flash Gordon serials. While it doesn't have the sheer sense of awe of the first Gordon serial, it matches up very well against the later two. The pacing in this story is very well handled, with very few slow patches. The chapter lengths are about right for the stories told and you don't have long sections of endless corridor running which beef up weaker serials. The villains are less exotic but seem more competent making them more of a basic threat. 

The real strength of this story though is the wide array of technical details it offers up. This movie features the sci-fi concepts of suspended animation and time travel, instant molecular transport, anti-gravity belts, interplanetary spacecraft, mind-control machinery, bullet mini-trains, alongside the obligatory rayguns and ray cannons. There's even some invisibility. Things never get dull and the different things make for a varied and somewhat unpredictable adventure (at least by serial standards). Heck, Wilma Dearing even saves herself a time or two, not needing Buck to ride to the rescue. A woman saving herself was downright unique in the format, not to mention the boy sidekick Buddy who isn't really just an excuse but helps out Buck quite a bit himself. Rare indeed. All in a dandy serial. 

Buck Rogers is a curiosity in that the concept at once inspired Star Wars and was inspired by it when in 1979 Glen Larson's outfit, the fame folks who gave us Battlestar: Galactica revived the vintage comic strip hero and dressed all in white and let him dash around for the amusement of those of us hungry for every mote of science fiction we could vector in on. 

The update as seen in the "theatrical release" is reasonably true to the classic, a time-lost hero is awakened five hundred years in his future to an Earth struggling after devastating conflicts. The open racism of the classic Nowlan-Calkins strip is disappeared largely but in its place are heaping gobs of anti-feminist dross. The old comic was sexist as heck too, but by 1979 most of that was still okay. The "movie" starts with a title sequence that would've made James Bond proud, a gaggle of slinking beauties bathing in the reflected light of the logo. Among that assembly was the lovely Erin Gray who has become arguably the sci-fi sex icon of the era. 

Most of the show is pretty decent rot for the time, save for Gil Gerard's take on what passes for perseverance and mostly resembles contrarianism. There's a whole dance sequence I just ignore, so painful is it to watch that I find it a grand opportunity to get something to drink or eat. Pamela Hensley is seriously hot, but her role is cliched beyond her control. Henry Silva connects the dots on his villainy, and not do much more ain't his fault as far as I can see. 

The two things I most remember about the show are Twiki along with his medallion buddy Doctor Theopolous, and the trailer. I did see Buck Rogers in the theater, as it was a time when I saw most every show even sort of science fiction like. But I don't remember seeing it so much as seeing the trailer which was incredibly long and told the story fairly completely, less an incentive to see the movie and more a summary. I've always applied the rule that the longer the trailer the worse the movie and that usually holds up.

Buck Rogers became a television show and it was fine, something passably decent to watch with competent acting and production. But it rarely if ever rose above its upbringing, and that's a pity too. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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Tarzan The Fearless -1933!

Tarzan the Fearless is a serial starring superhero Buster Crabbe. Despite the charm of Crabbe and the beauty of his blonde co-star the movie is a bit listless in places. That's doubtless because it's a cobbled together flick from the full 12-chapter serial which seems to be a lost movie. There's likely little a seasoned watcher cannot gather from the pieces remaining, but the movie is filled with odd moments.

In this one Tarzan helps an old scientist who is researching the lost people of Zar. He gets kidnapped by them just as his daughter and her boyfriend and two villains show up to see him. Tarzan gets mixed up with them mostly attracted by the lovely woman who likes to swim with crocodiles. There are several moments of confusion and some lion fighting, but it all comes eventually down to rescuing the father and the girl rejecting her trusting boyfriend (poor guy really gets screwed in this story) and she stays with Tarzan and her father. Crabbe hardly speaks, but his charm shines through as well as his sculpted body since he's hardly wearing anything at all.

This one has most of the tropes you'd expect in a Tarzan flicker, and Crabbe makes a decent looking Tarzan. He captures a naive excitement about the world that is intriguing. 

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The Saturday Serials - Buck Rogers 1939!

There's little doubt that Buck Rogers came to the screen in 1939 as a serial because of the success of Flash Gordon. I like a lot of people I suspect just sort of consider this a variation on the Flash saga, though when you take a peek into the details there are some significant differences.

Now not unlike the comic strip itself the notion of suspended animation thrusting a man into the distant future five hundred years from his own is dispensed with almost as soon as it's mentioned. Buck just jumps into this new era with aplomb, bravery and an uncanny knack on the technology of this new era.

The anti-gravity belts are the neatest gimmick in this serial as they are distinctive and a neat twist on the classic rocket pack. The characters move in ways not exactly like any other movie I've seen of this kind. The spaceships on the other hand are just more flat and angular versions of the classic Mongo type. They all look like little darts, but they function pretty identically.  The "Hidden City" is a pretty nifty thing and seeing those ginormous rock doors open and close is good stuff.

One of the weakest parts of the story is its insistence on flying back and forth to Saturn to get allies. Maybe there's some point being made about the events of the day, 1939 being a crucial year for people of good will to lock horns with a deadly enemy. The Saturnians are a fickle lot and without the constant badgering of Buck would have gone the way of appeasement for sure.

The cliffhangers are a bit weak, with more than a few being of the just shake it off variety. Deadly crashes are just ignored and at least one instance the story was changed to solve the dilemma. But I don't really watch them for that, but for the characterizations and Buster Crabbe is in fine form. He's a more mature go-getter in this one, less awkward on screen in the action sequences and his pal Buddy is fine and appears just the right number of minutes. Wilma Deering seems to have a good role early, but diminishes as the story tumbles along. 

A really good serial and at twelve chapters not too long. Only a few partial repeat elements. Buck Rogers is a good addition to the Larry "Buster" Crabbe filmography, neatly tucked in with his Flash Gordon work. 

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The Saturday Serials - Universal's Flash Gordon!

When Flash Gordon was adapted to the big screen by Universal studios it was appropriately enough in the serial or chapter play format. Serials were commonly the domain of pulp or comic heroes and in 1936 the Flash Gordon comic strip had become very successful and had maintained that success for a few years, a good sign that interest would be strong for a film rendition. When they started looking for someone to play Flash they found the rough and tumble but handsome mug of Buster Crabbe looking at them. An inspired choice, Crabbe became one of the mainstay stars of the serial in the 30's and 40's and beyond when serials became television. He was joined by Jean Rogers, probably a bigger star at the time and Frank Shannon as the intrepid trio of terrestrials who fly to the speeding planet of Mongo to save the Earth.

They find on Mongo the deadly Fu Manchu, or the variation on the "Yellow Peril" villain designed by Don Moore and Alex Raymond called Ming the Merciless. Joining forces with Thun the Lion Man and Prince Barin the trio battle Ming and his forces again and again until ultimately prevail and return home (spoiler alert?). I've always liked the idea that Thun was played by a Tarzan actor and that he joined forces with Crabbe, a one-time ape man himself. The serial worked hard, sometimes to its detriment, to cleave to the images that Raymond had burned into the memories and imaginations of the youth of America. Universal borrowed sets sets from Frankenstein, clips from Just Imagine, and costumes from who knows where, but still they pulled it off, and with sufficient success to warrant a sequal..

Now the first Flash Gordon serial was a huge success and so a rare sequel was scheduled. But by the time it rolled around one Orson Welles had made a big star out of the planet Mars so it was decided that Flash and his allies would go there instead of Mongo in the directly titled Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. (Not all that surprisingly it looks a whole lot like Mongo.) This new adventure has more polish than the first one, more surface production value and while the first one cleaved to the Alex Raymond original to its detriment at times (do we really need to see Frank Shannon's knees?) this one felt comfortable enough to add a character.

That character was named "Happy Hapgood" a news hawk (played by Donald Kerr) who ends up accidentally along for the ride into space. Happy is added to the mix to give jokes, to be the comedy relief. He's totally unneeded and unwanted and he messes with the classic Flash Gordon formula something awful. One of the strongest aspects of  this installment is the presence of the Clay People who are cursed and as a consequence are able weirdly blend into the walls of their territory. Watching them blend in and out of the walls is seriously creepy and one of the scariest memories of my childhood. They are wraiths in nearly every sense of the word, ghosts blended with goblins to form a really unsettling creature.

Then some years later they did it again with Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (a most unwieldy but memorable title. As in the comic strip Flash, Dale, and Zarkov go back to Mongo and get involved with saving the planet from Ming yet one more time. Again the movie looks like the comic strip, but by this time the comic strip was lush and handsome indeed. This is a good looking serial and one of my favorites, because it was this serial I owned first as it has always been in the public domain for some reason. 

There is much daring-do and the serial looks great. Buster Crabbe never looked more handsome or dashing on the screen. But some of the blood and thunder was missing, and that's true of the comic strip as well. There's a sense at times of going through the motions, both on screen and on the Sunday funny supplement. More on that tomorrow. 

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Nabonga!

Nabonga is a pretty decent flick, for what it is -- a low-budget jungle adventure. The key is an above average cast led by the great Buster Crabbe. Barton MacLane is a delightful baddie and Julie London is a pretty damsel with Fifi Dorsay stealing a number of scenes. Also featured is Prince Modupe in a role as native assistant which rises above the usual racist limits put on parts like that.

But the main show is Nabonga, which according to the poster means gorilla. The gorilla in question this time is Ray Crash Corrigan, one of the great gorilla men in his suit which was larger and more dynamic than many which had come before. Corrigan's gorilla was a fantasy, a creature not real but terrifying and capable of emotions. It's an illusion in the same way King Kong is an illusion, not a real ape, but something only available on screen.

The story is simple -- a man steals money and flees with his daughter. But their plane crashes and only the girl survives ultimately -- growing to become a legendary "White Witch". She is sought by Buster Crabbe's character many years later, the son of the man who was blamed for the crime and who killed himself. With the help of Prince Modupo, he finds the plane and the Witch. MacLane and Dorsay are lurking about to steal the money but things go haywire when it's revealed that an enormous ape named 'Samson" protects the girl and the treasure.

It's a cheapo flick, but they do well with what they have and a little suspension of disbelief will carry you away. I reviewed this movie nearly a decade ago here at the Dojo and my opinion has changed -- I was very harsh to this low-budget effort.

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A Flash Of Gogos!

This dramatic but wacky cover for the fourth issue of Spacemen from Warren Magazines is clearly meant to evoke this clash between Flash and a Ming Soldier from Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars.


Actually that's Buster Crabbe of course as Flash facing off against another stalwart serial hero Kane Richmond.


But what happened that Basil Gogos, the artist of the Spacemen cover didn't gives us a magnificent illustration of Richmond as well as Crabbe. I learned the truth at BookSteve's Library.

This blurb from the Warren editors explains the downright weird situation.

"Actually the cover on our July issue was a collectors item--the first collaboration between Basil Gogos and...Jim Warren! Upon completion of the left hand portion of the painting, Gogos was suddenly stricken with Venusian Virus and ordered to bed by his physician with a 103 degree temperature. Originally Emperor Ming was to be fighting with Flash but suddenly the choice was either a half-blank cover or___? So borrowing a popping eye from Peter Lorre, a bolt from the Frankenstein monster, a swelled head from the Metaluna mutant, a horn from a triceratops and the robotic arms of a robot, your resourceful publisher himself rushed out and got a Draw It Yourself Kit and, with the printer panting down his neck, painted the "immortal kitchen sink creature" which so many of you hailed as a Monsterpuss!"

So it's the handiwork of Jim Warren himself we see and it never to be Kane Richmond on the other side. Hmm. It's a shame the great Gogos couldn't finish this image, but perhaps it wouldn't have been so memorable as what resulted. What a hodgepodge of sources. Here they are.

Peter Lorre
Frankenstein Monster
Metaluna Mutant
Triceratops of sorts & Obie
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