Emergency! Emergency!

Charlton's 1976 runs of Emergency reminds me of a time, not all that long ago when. E.M.T.'s as we call them in America (Emergency Medical Technician) were not a commonplace in society. It's quite normal now to hear the sirens and if in traffic pull out of the way to let a vehicle pass which is responding to some medical situation. I've had them at my house more than once to help with some of my late wife's emergencies. But there was a time when they didn't exist. When such dire events were handled by the cops or ambulance crews alone. Emergency the TV show documents the invention of the concept in a fictional setting. 

The magazines were written by Charlton staff such as the always ready Joe Gill and Nicola Cuti and the artwork came from Continuity Associates, a gang of up-and-coming artists also known as the "Crusty Bunkers" under the guidance of Neal Adams and Charlton veteran and former editor of the beloved "Action Heroes" line-up -- Dick Giordano. The fourth issue of the magazine was more of a Charlton in-house affair with Jack Sparling pitching in. The covers of the last two issues were painted by Earl Norem. 

The comic books were handled by completely different talent from inside Charlton's ranks.

The debut issue of the comic was and maybe still is quite collectible because it was drawn by the soon-to-be star John Byrne. Joe Staton supplied the cover for this debut effort. 

Joe Staton did the cover for the second issue well, but Byrne was gone and by the third issue both were replaced by Jack Sparling among others.

These tales of Rampart General and the two fireman who became medically competent before our eyes are a pure example of the type of TV one could rely upon in the 70's. The shows have more than a little rust on them these days, at least in my opinion, but not unlike other shows from Jack Webb's operation, showcased to some extent the workaday worlds of those we now call "First Responders".

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The Six Million Dollar Charlton Cover Gallery!

The Six Million Dollar Man was a hot property. So how does it come to pass that Charlton and not Marvel nor DC gets the license to produce comics based on the series. Who knows? Maybe it was a simple question of no one else asked. Comics were in a somewhat tough shape at the time. Charlton created a character which was synthesis of the TV Steve Austin and other elements from the original novel Cyborg by Martin Caidin. 

 They also produced two different versions at the same time, one a regular sized color comic and a black and white magazine version. Neal Adams and his boys at Continuity Associates handled the artwork on the B&W books in the beginning with Adams supplying two pretty great covers for the first two issues. The writers for the series were the sturdy Joe Gill, Nick Cuti and Mike Pellowski. Later in the series, Jack Sparling took the reins and even editor George Wildman contributed. 

Charlton's color comic version began featuring the alluring artwork of Joe Staton, but soon the Continuity Associates had a hand with Neal Adams producing one cover. Joe Staton handled the first four issues before being replaced by Demetrio Gomez. Eventually the Pat Boyette and Fred Himes duo took over the work. Jack Sparling added a cover here and there. Joe Gill and Nick Cuti were the writers for the series. 

The Bionic Woman was a second color series and Jack Sparling handled the artwork on all six issues of the series. Jack Sparling was the artist for the entire series. Joe Gill is credited with the first issue and likely wrote the rest as well. 

Charlton's efforts for the Six Million Dollar Man licenses are fairly typical of what the company had mostly done over its long history, produce comics of immediate interest for niche audiences. These were gems in their day and are even more valuable in the modern day. To my knowledge the material has never been reprinted domestically. 

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The Great Disaster!

The Great Disaster is the rather stupendous Showcase volume from DC which attempts to gather together the sundry tales which relate the retro-continuity saga of how the Earth fell victim to a rather surprising atomic war in October of 1986 and how human society dealt with that.

The book is divided into discrete sections. The first titled "Pre-Disaster Warnings" contains stories from the back of Weird War Tales concerning the "Emperor of Weehauken" by Sheldon Mayer and Alfredo Alcala, a man who travels from the future to our present day, and a Superman yarn which lays out the potential future as hinted at in pages of Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth by Jack Kirby.

The next section called "The Day After Doomsday" offers up over a dozen tiny vignettes from the back pages of Weird War Tales, The Unexpected, and The House of Mystery which give glimpses of life after society has crumbled. There's a distinct Twilight Zone tone to these brief yarns by Len Wein, Steve Skeates and others. My favorite is a trilogy of stories about the last man and woman on Earth named "Adam and Gertrude", with delightful artwork by Jack Sparling.

The third section is titled "Tales of the Atomic Knights" and reaches back to the masterfully crafted vintage stories from Strange Adventures by John Broome and Murphy Anderson. To my knowledge, all the Atomic Knight stories are here and that alone is worth the price of admission to this book. You'll believe that a profoundly average man dressed in an atomically-altered Medieval suit of armor can ride a gigantic mutated Dalmation across a surprisingly benign atomic wasteland -- you really will.

The next section titled "The Gods Return" begins with Jack Kirby's Atlas one-shot for the debut of 1st Issue Special and then offers up all twelve issues of Hercules Unbound.  The first six issues by Gerry Conway, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Wally Wood are lush and vibrant, then the series takes a turn as writer David Michelinie and later Cary Bates finish up the saga with artwork by Walt Simonson under sundry inkers, his own to great effect in the last two issue. It is with these stories that the Atomic Knights return to DC lore, though in ways very surprising.

The penultimate section is titled "More Tales of the Post-Apocalyptic World" and offers up a quartet of stories from the back pages of Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth written by Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, and David Anthony Kraft with artwork by Pablo Marcos and Mike Nasser. These tales feature a young ape named Urgall who teams up with a scheming rat named Otis and comely ape wench called Myra. And that is followed by "The Day After Doomsday" by Robin Snyder and Vic Catan which shows some poor misguided humans with a wild plot to repopulate the Earth. 

The volume closes out with "Alternate Endings" offering a post-Crisis view of the Atomic Knights from the pages of DC Comics Presents when Superman uncovers the "real secret" of the Gardner Grayle. How this one fits into the overall storyline is anyone's guess these days, but it's a snazzy story on its own as written by Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn and drawn by Alex Saviuk and Frank McLaughlin. 

All in all this is a utterly fabulous book,  a truly sprawling collection of disparate stories by some talented writers and artists from the Silver and Bronze Ages of DC. The story of "The Great Disaster" is not all here, there's more revealed in the pages of Kamandi and OMAC and elsewhere, but the thread is here for those who wish to find out more about one of DC's most clever conceits.

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Honey West!

Honey West was a TV show from the mid-60's lasting one season. It starred the gorgeous girl from Altair IV from the movie Forbidden Planet - Anne Francis. She portrayed a beautiful detective who had inherited her dad's operation along with his partner "Sam Bolt" portrayed by John Ericson. It was a spin-off of the TV show Burke's Law. There is also Irene Hervey as the sometimes ditzy and sometimes wise Aunt Meg. Another regular on the show was an ocelot named "Bruce". 

The series was based on a batch of novels by G.G. Flickling starring the detective Honey West. "G.G. Flickling" was in fact a married couple named Gloria and Forest Flickling. The first of the novels was titled This Girl for Hire and came out in 1957. There followed eight more novels ending with one titled Bombshell in 1964. 

Honey fought thugs and unreconstructed Nazis with some success. Enough to spark interest in a television show which itself sparked interest in two more Flicklng novels in the early 70's. 

I rather enjoyed the black and white TV show for several reasons. The relationship between Honey and Bolt is caring but pugnacious. There's not much reason to see them in a romantic relationship and that frees the characters up a lot. They are more like older brother and younger sister. Sam is a sometimes cautious, private investigator who uses a lot of high tech to follow his cases. His relative experience and caution is welcome because Honey herself is a bit of a risk taker and is all too ready to walk into dangerous situations and hope for the best. She is bolstered by her considerable fighting skills which often prove overwhelming even for the men who attack her at least once an episode. Sam too is pretty good with his mitts. 

Another reason for enjoying the show is the brisk pace. Each episode is only a half-hour long and that makes for smart, quick storytelling with sometimes clever transitions. As the series progressed the stories became a little less about basic gumshoe work and added a bit of sci-fi wonder. Before the show lapsed after a single season and a mere thirty episodes Honey and Sam had confronted a gorilla, a bear and a murderous robot. The pop music scene was often a part of the show's background and there were a few instances of trying to promote the character such as the presence of a Honey West doll in one episode and a dance dedicated to Honey West on another. 

Aside from the doll there is one lasting artifact from the show and that's the nigh obligatory comic book from Gold Key. This one alas features some indifferent artwork by Jack Sparling, but something is better than nothing. To read this vintage treasure check out this link. Honey West was a fun light-hearted but still exciting TV show, and I enjoyed swinging through these shows a great deal. 

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