Alice Cooper: The Last Temptation, Part Three

Alice Cooper: 'The Last Temptation'
(Marvel Comics, 1994)

Part Three

The third and final issue of ‘Alice Coper: The Last Temptation’ (December 1994) sees our hero Steven setting out on the school Halloween parade...but he soon sneaks off to the town library:

 

There he investigates the microfilm archive for past news stories on the mysterious theatre, whose Showman (Alice) wants Steven to be his newest actor…for a price. Steven discovers some unsettling information in the town archives…..

Steven decides to venture into the theatre and deal with the Showman, but the theatre’s creepy audience isn’t going to let him enter so easily….

I won’t spoil the remainder of the story save to say that Steven finds himself confronted with the Last Temptation, and any choice he makes will have its cost.

Overall, ‘Alice Cooper: The last Temptation’ is a solid, well-produced series that mixes low-key horror and fantasy in a way suitable for a young adult audience without being too watered-down or pedantic. 

But it will also appeal to adult readers who appreciate a well-executed concept revolving around a rock n' roll icon. Michael Zulli’s artwork is ideal for the books’ theme, and Neil Gaiman’s plot gives Alice Cooper a distinctive, even threatening role without lapsing into self-parody.

Ron Cobb: 'Autumn Angels' (1975)

I'll have a review of the book by Arthur Byron Cover posted shortly. 

But it's Autumn, and no reason not to have a post devoted solely to a 200 dpi image of the brilliant original painting by Ron Cobb, from the book 'Colorvision'. 

From the top: the Hawkman; the demon; the fat  man (i.e., Sydney Greenstreet from 'The Maltese Falcon'), and the lawyer (i.e., 'Ham' from the 'Doc Savage' novels).

Book Review: Dark Forces

Book Review: 'Dark Forces' by Kirby McCauley

2 / 5 Stars

‘Dark Forces’ was issued in hardback in 1980; this Bantam paperback was published in 1981. The artist who supplied the uninspired cover art is not credited.

In his Introduction, editor Kirby McCauley indicates that he conceived of the book as a sort of horror fiction version of Harlan Ellison’s landmark ‘Dangerous Visions’ anthology from 1967. In McCauley’s view, ‘Dark Forces’ would showcase all-new fiction, from shorter stories to a novelette, from both established authors, as well as newer writers. At nearly 550 pages in length, the book certainly could accommodate a variety of tales with distinctive approaches to the genre.

So how does ‘Dark Forces’ stack up ? Well, in the main, it’s rather underwhelming…

The opening novelette by Stephen King, ‘The Mist’, is the featured sales pitch on the book’s cover and the marquee piece in the collection; it is also one of his better stories. 'The Mist' features some tongue-in-cheek SF elements and flows rather well, perhaps because its length forces King to cut out the padding that renders so many of his novels a labored read.

Karl Edward Wagner’s ‘Where the Summer Ends’, to which I’ve devoted a full post at another time in this blog, is one of the best entries. Something is killing cats, dogs, and winos amid the steaming summer heat of a Knoxville ghetto, and Gradie, the elderly junkman, may have an idea about who is responsible. Stay away from the kudzu !

‘Lindsay and the Red City Blues’, by Joe Haldeman, is another strong entry, as a salesman vacationing in Marrakesh and looking for illicit pleasures gets up close, and a bit too personal, with Third World Squalor.

Manly Wade Wellman provides ‘Owls Hoot in the Daytime’, featuring his recurring character Silver John; this time the wandering balladeer confronts some evil goings-on in a cave set deep in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina.

I’m usually unimpressed with the short fiction of Theodore Sturgeon, but his entry, ‘Vengenace Is’, dealing with a violent crime and the consequences visited on the perpetrators, is well done. The biological theory underlying the tale gets more than a little contrived, but Sturgeon manages to keep the story coherent enough to deliver a memorable ending.

And while I’m not a big Ramsey Campbell fan, considering him one of the most overrated horror writers of the past 50 years, his story ‘The Brood’ is genuinely creepy. It’s rare that one of his stories has a premise, and an ending, that can overcome his turgid and oblique prose style, but somehow, someway, it happens with ‘Brood’. Even a broken clock is right twice a day !

Edward Gorey contributes one of his black and white comic strips, ‘The Stupid Joke’. The intricate pen-and-ink drawing survives the reduction to the confines of the paperback book.

The rest of the stories in the collection are not as rewarding. Some authors – such as Isaac Bashevis Singer and Joyce Carol Oates – are included, however awkward their entries, in order to give the anthology some Literary Merit.

Other authors represent the Usual Suspects in ‘quiet horror’ fiction at the time of the early 80s: Dennis Etchison, Charles L. Grant, Lisa Tuttle, T.E.D. Klein, Ray Bradbury, Edward Bryant. All of their entries are, sadly, too mannered and devoid of imagination to qualify as memorable horror tales.

[It should be remembered that in 1980, the term ‘splatterpunk’ didn’t exist, and the idea of extending an invitation to those authors - like James Herbert, John Halkin, and Shaun Hutson - who wrote graphic horror fiction would have seemed artless, even indecent, on McCauley’s part.]

In toto, then, ‘Dark Forces’ is an unremarkable horror collection that indicates how pedestrian, even bland, horror writing was at the dawn of the 80s. It would be several more years before Clive Barker (and to some extent Shaun Hutson) would arrive on the scene and inject some novelty into the genre.

For another take on this anthology, featuring the observations of 80s horror aficionado (and the author of the 'Too Much Horror Fiction' blog) Will Errickson, readers are directed to this link.

Deathlok the Demolisher Issue 1

Deathlok, the Demolisher: Issue 1
November 2009

I remember seeing the issues of Marvel’s ‘Astonishing Tales’ featuring the original ‘Deathlok, the Demolisher’ on the comic stands in the mid-70s. In a near-future USA ruled by corporate entities, a soldier named Luther Manning is killed and reconstituted as a cyborg by one Simon Ryker. While Ryker envisions using Deathlok to carry out corporate dirty work, Manning soon rebels and enters into a one-man campaign to bring down the evil forces ruling the country.

The Deathlok concept was obviously inspired by the Martin Caidin ‘Cyborg’ SF novels of the early 70s and the debut in 1973 of several successive television movies, titled the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’, based on the books. In January 1974 the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ series began, and was a ratings hit for the remainder of the year.

The Bronze Age of Blogs has a detailed post on the Deathlok of the 70s.

Marvel revived the character, and gave Deathlok his own series, at intervals during the 90s. But this current ‘Marvel Knights’ iteration of Deathlok (projected to be 7 issues) is a standalone approach that does not continue the earlier series storyline.

So how does “Deathlok, the Demolisher’ issue 1 (November 2009) fare ?

The cover illustration by Brandon Peterson is certainly well done. The interior art, by Lan Medina, is reasonably good. The script is by Charlie Huston.

Huston has decided to employ the cliché of a future world where wars are outlawed, and combat between teams of mercenaries decides ‘geopolitical differences’. The twist is that these combats are televised to a rapt public who regards them as a sanguinary combination of ‘American Idol’ and the Ultimate Fighting Championships.

Captain Luther Manning helms the ‘Roxxon Rockers’.

 

The opening book in the series shows us a vicious, to-the-death bout between the Rockers and the Brand Corporation ‘Battle Breakers’. But in a nice bit of caustic humor, before the title bout unfolds, the viewership is treated to a minor league contest between African ‘boy-soldiers’  :

 

  

I won't divulge any spoilers, but I will say that the battle between the Roxxon Rockers and the Brand Corp. Battle Breakers features some encounters with particular importance to the future of our hero, Captain Manning.

This new incarnation of 'Deathlok, the Demolisher' left me with mixed feelings. The art is good, although the monochrome tones used to color the battle scenes tends to make the action confusing and difficult to follow at times. 

Huston's script really doesn't bring anything truly novel to the character's origins, and at times the story is hampered by Huston's insistence on littering too many panels with too many dialogue balloons - some  utilizing differently-colored fonts to indicate the observations of the three TV studio personalities providing color commentary on the action. 

This is a common problem with many contemporary comics; instilled with the Intro to Creative Writing mantra of 'showing, not telling', too many writers shy from placing overarching narrative text boxes within their layouts, preferring instead to try and communicate plot points through ancillary dialogue. The limited page-length format of comic books, as opposed to novels or other lengthy texts,  forces the reader to laboriously try and piece together the backstory from fragments of speech balloons littered throughout the book.

Issue 1 ends on an inconclusive note, but you can't judge a series from its first issue, so I'm willing to pick up the next installment to see what develops. Hopefully the plot will break some new ground for a favorite character from the 70s..... ?

Alice Cooper: The Last Temptation, Part Two

Alice Cooper: 'The Last Temptation'
(Marvel Comics, 1994) 

Part Two

At the end of Part One, our hero Steven had been treated to a rather creepy Grand Guignol Theatre show by Alice Cooper in his guise as the Showman.

Unnerved by the experience, Steven rushes home...

Once he settles into bed for the night, Steven begins to have a strange dream...harkening, of course, to Cooper's album Welcome to My Nightmare (1975).

Soon Alice himself makes an appearance, atop a tower and flanked by giant rats.....?!

I won't spoil the rest of the comic, but as Steven goes through the day he encounters more than a few odd and troubling sights. Alice assures him that all can be resolved, if only Steven will return to the Grand Guignol Theatre for the final show...

What awaits our hero in Part Three of 'The Last Temptation' ?!

The interplay of Alice and the rats is a bit of an in-joke, calling to mind a scandalous incident with a chicken that took place early in Alice's career:

We played the Toronto Peace Festival with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and the Doors. While we were on, somebody from the audience threw a chicken on stage. I'm from Detroit, I'm not a farm kid. I figured a chicken had wings, it'll fly away. So I took the chicken and threw it and it didn't fly. It went into the audience. Blood everywhere. The next day, everybody's reading, "Alice Cooper rips chicken's head off, drinks blood." Zappa called me. He said, "Whatever you did, keep doing it." To this day, wherever I'm booked the ASPCA is usually there, too

In his book Rock Dreams (1973), the Belgian artist Guy Peellaert features an image of Alice gnawing on the carcass of a rabbit...not something that actually took place, but an image well in keeping with the Cooper stage shows of the period, which featured dismembered baby dolls, plenty of fake blood, and a guillotine....

Rock stars, stage theatrics, and animals.......ahhhh, those halcyon days of the 70s.....  !

Book Review: The Game of Fox and Lion

Book Review: 'The Game of Fox and Lion' by Robert R. Chase

3/5 Stars 

‘The Game of Fox and Lion’ (1986; 246 pp) was published by Ballantine and features a nicely done cover illustration by Darrell K. Sweet (the image depicts Benedict, struggling to negotiate the high gravity of the Bestial's home planet, being helped into a motorized chair for easier transit).

Things are not going very well for John Lei Chiang, head of Chiang Biosynthetics and one of the 13 Councilors of the Centauran star system. Duplicitous Council members are plotting to drive him out of business and take over his markets for themselves. Some may even be conspiring to have him assassinated. And to make matters even worse, a race of rebellious human / animal hybrids, the ‘Bestials’, have set up their own civilization in the outer planets of the Centaurus system, and are launching destructive raids on Centauran outposts.

In desperation, Chiang sets off on a quest to find one Paul Renard, last of the ‘multi-neural capacitants’, a man genetically engineered to process information arising from complex systems with superhuman ease and clarity. Sentiment against genetically engineered humans has driven Renard into hiding and his whereabouts are a mystery. But Chiang succeeds in finding Renard on the remote planet Ariel, where Renard has joined a Catholic religious order and taken the name Benedict.

With a nuanced display of power, Chiang coerces Benedict into working for him. Upon arrival back at Centaurus, the other Councilors are less than pleased to learn that Chiang has a potential ‘evil genius’ in his employ. Measures to strip Chiang of his power and wealth are soon set in motion. Can Benedict act in time to save Chiang Biosynthetics ? Can he also act in time to prevent the Bestials from ravaging the entire Centaurus system ? Does Benedict have an covert agenda of his own that guides his actions ?

‘Game’ bases its title on a phrase from Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, and Benedict behaves in a manner akin to that played by the Catholic Church clergy in providing wisdom about statecraft to sundry princes, kings, and dukes during the time of the Renaissance. This is both the book’s strength and its weakness. The novel’s emphasis on interstellar politics (along with a sub-plot about the moral issues concerning the human nature of genetically engineered people) is related in a deliberate manner, and by the time I reached the book’s half-way point my interest was flagging.

Fortunately, from the half-way point on, ‘Game’ starts to pick up momentum as the story line focuses on a series of engagements between opposing fleets of spaceships. To author Chase’s credit, these battle scenes rival those of ‘Ender’s Game’ in their intensity and excitement, and while Benedict as a formidable strategist, the conflict is never one-sided, and the outcome never assured.

I suspect that readers desiring an expansive narrative with emphasis on frequent military action, as per novels by John Ringo or David Drake, may find ‘Game’ underwhelming. However, readers looking for a more cerebral, character-driven type of space opera will find ‘Game’ rewarding despite its slowly paced first half.

Alice Cooper: The Last Temptation, Part One

Alice Cooper: 'The Last Temptation'
(Marvel Comics, 1994) 

Part One

I was a High School student from 1974 to 1978, and along with 'nickel bags', feathered-back hair parted in the middle, flared polyester slacks,  foldout album covers,  and other gems of the pop culture of the era, there was Alice Cooper.

Alice (the stage name of Vincent Furnier) was regularly featured on the covers of rock magazines like Crawdaddy and Circus, and he would come around the upstate New York region where I lived and give concerts in the medium-sized arenas. Unfortunately, I never got to see Alice in his heyday, but I did see him live when he opened for the Stones in 2006 at their Phoenix stop. Alice put on a good show.

By the early 90s Alice was looking for a new direction, in terms of trying to broaden his audience to include a younger generation, who didn't recognize that Cooper was one of the founding fathers of the burgeoning Goth, grindcore,and death metal scene.

In 1994 Alice decided to use the concept of “a young man’s struggle to see the truth through the distractions of the ‘Sideshow’ of the modern world” as the central artistic approach to a new album titled 'The Last Temptation'. He collaborated with Marvel comics, and star writer Neil Gaiman ('Sandman' ), on a three-issue series also titled 'The Last Temptation'. Part One (released under Marvel's 'Epic' imprint) was released in May 1994.

The story, which takes place in a small town in late October, involves an adolescent boy named Steven whose friends like to tell scary stories as Halloween comes near:

 

The group is surprised to find an alley alongside the Pox Drugstore.....although no one has ever noticed an alley in that location before...

Only Steven is brave enough to take Alice up on an offer to enter the 'Grand Guignol' theatre at the end of the alley:

The Show begins and Steven sees himself portrayed on stage...as a boy lost in the badder part of town. The zombie-like inhabitants of this skid row are here of their own design:

 

After viewing some other creepy performances, Alice tells a shaken Steven the show is over...for tonight. But he's welcome to come back tomorrow night...for the Grand Finale:

While not an overtly gruesome or gory comic (it is aimed at a young adult audience, after all), this first Part of 'Temptation' does succeed in setting up an atmosphere of unease. Alice is portrayed in a rather sinister light, which, of course, is how he prefers it.

I'll be posting excerpts from Part Two and Part Three over the next week, just in time for Halloween.

Book Review: The Brains of Earth

Book Review: 'The Brains of Earth' by Jack Vance

 

3/5 Stars

‘The Brains of Earth’ (1966, 108 pp) is one-half of Ace Double M-141 (‘The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph’ is the other side of the paperback). The cover illustrations are by Jack Gaughan.

Paul Burke, a senior researcher at the think tank ARPA, gets a mysterious parcel which contains a metal disk that is able to levitate via an unknown anti-grav mechanism. When Burke visits the home of the man who sent him the parcel, he encounters an insectile alien named Pttdu Apiptix (!). 

Apiptix knocks Burke unconscious, and transports him via spaceship to the world of Ixax.

Ixax, and its race of Xaxans, has recently emerged from a civil war which has devastated the entire planet.  Pttdu Apiptix reveals to Burke that the conflict has been triggered by the influence of another race of aliens – the Nopal. And Apiptix has given Paul Burke an assignment he can’t refuse: travel to the home world of the Nopal, and destroy them within 30 days. If Burke can’t accomplish this task, then in retaliation, Earth will be destroyed….

By the standards of mid-60s SF, ‘Brains’ is a reasonably well-written novelette. There is not a great deal of action; indeed, most the story is comprised of lengthy sections of dialogue carried out amongst  a trio of characters. Vance is skilled at dialogue (unlike many other SF authors of the mid-60s period), so these sections are not tiresome to read.

There is a typical Vance problem-solving element to the quasi-Lovecraftian narrative, involving apprehension of alternate dimensions, inhabited by malevolent beings who subtly control human affairs. The plot contains enough twists and revelations to make it an interesting story, all the more so considering its relatively short length. Vance aficionados will want to look for this novelette.

Book Review: Ibis

Book Review: 'Ibis' by Linda Steele

 

Gor Fanboy Score 4/5 Stars 

‘Ibis’ (221 pp., September 1985) is DAW book No. 644; the cover art is by J. Chiodo. This apparently is the first and only novel by Linda Steele.

I wasn’t aware until I had purchased this book and started to read it, that it is an SF Romance novel….?! It’s certainly one of the earliest commercially published entries in that genre, which nowadays takes up an ever-increasing proportion of DAW’s releases. I can’t say I’m a mega-fan of the romance genre, but in the spirit of adventure, I decided to persevere and check out ‘Ibis’:

A Federation research vessel has crash-landed on the planet Ibis-2, and only a few hundred of the crew have survived. Ibis -2 is an earth-like planet, with a native population quite similar in appearance  to Homo sapiens. However, the Ibisian society is constructed much like that of social wasps, bees, or ants. There is a Queen, who alone procreates; a number of lubricious younger females, who will replace the Queen should she falter in her duties; a large caste of sterile female workers and warriors; and a caste of male drones, who live in pampered idleness until such time as the Queen seeks their favors. 

After one shot at Knocking Boots, the ephemeral drones die - ! Needless to say, this depressing aspect of drone reproductive biology tends to leave the younger Ibisian woman rather….. fidgety…....

The Ibisians aren’t too pleased with the arrival of the Federation ship, and within the book’s first few pages they launch an attack that destroys the ship and kills a significant proportion of its lightly-armed survivors. The novel’s hero, Padrec Morrissey (who looks something like Pierce Brosnan) escapes the onslaught only to be captured by Anii, one of the queens-in-waiting, and a woman with the physical appearance of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.

Things get rather bizarre as Padric quickly becomes the hot-to-trot Anii’s Pleasure Slave (!) and is interred in her quarters in the hive-like ‘nom’, wherein the Ibisians make their home. In rapid succession Anii becomes Queen of the nom, and Padrec her favorite 'Love Toy'.

Although there are brief passages of violence and action, much of the narrative centers on the drama between Padrec and his alien girlfriend. There is quite a bit of pouting and angst on the part of Padrec, which in my mind made him an unsympathetic character. But then again, this is a romance novel, and the arrival on Ibis-2 of a pirate spaceship filled with the well-armed, galactic equivalent of the population of Pelican Bay State Prison simply is not going to happen…..

I won't disclose any spoilers, but the novel's denouement hinges around a momentous decision that Padrec must make. A decision either for the benefit of himself, or for the benefit of his crew. A decision that will come with grave consequences, regardless of the outcome….

Since I’m not particularly familiar with romance novels, it would be unfair of me to give this book a traditional score per se. I have, however, given it a ‘Gor Fanboy Rating’. This rating reflects the book’s appeal to that dedicated subset of SF readers who cherish and treasure the Gor novels’ fascination with proud macho men made humble and ‘forced’ (cough-cough) to serve the sick, lust-filled desires of their gorgeous female masters.

While Ibis is rated PG-13, I think that Gor Fanboys will enjoy reading it….particularly the last few pages. Hence, its exemplary Gor Fanboy Rating of 4/5 Stars !

The Elder Gods Part Two

'Elder Gods' from 'Aliens Special', Dark Horse comics, June 1997

Part Two