The Merchants of Venus graphic novel

The Merchants of Venus

by Frederik Pohl

DC Comics Science Fiction Graphic Novel No. 4 

January, 1986

 

'The Merchants of Venus' was issued in 1986 as one of the entries in DC Comics' 'Science Fiction Graphic Novel' catalog. The writers are Victoria Petersen and Neal McPheeters, with art by McPheeters.

 

'Merchants' first was published as a novelette in August, 1972 in Worlds of If. 

 

 

Protagonist Audee Walthers lives on, or rather, in Venus, in the Spindle, an immense underground cavern excavated by the since-vanished race of aliens known as the Heechee. Walthers makes a modest living by transporting tourists around Venus in his aircar. 

 

There's not much to see on the surface of Venus, but Walthers specializes in bringing his clients to see the engineering works left by the Heechee, including the underground tunnels where, sometimes, scavengers have come across valuable and precious artifacts.

Needing money, and lots of it, Walthers is intrigued when a wealthy Terran couple, Boyce Cochenour, and his stunning mistress Dorotha Keefer, arrive at the Spindle looking for adventure and excitement. Walthers convinces them that he can take them to places on-planet where there might yet be undiscovered Heechee warrens, and in those warrens, treasure.

Stuffing Walthers' aircar with gear and provisions, the trio set off. For Cochenour and Keefer, Venus turns out to be quite dangerous and unpleasant, but the lure of wealth overrides their concerns. For his part, Walther has his own - rather selfish - motives for wanting to find a cache of Heechee technology.

As the plot progresses it turns out Walthers isn't the only one with secrets and ulterior motives. Can he and his charges put aside their tensions long enough to find that one site where some digging might yield an undiscovered Heechee stash ?

I admit I had low expectations when I picked up 'Merchants,' mainly because I find Pohl to be an underwhelming author, and the bright, primary color scheme of the book gave it a cartoony aspect. But it turns out that 'Merchants' has a decent, very readable hard-sf story, one where you're kept guessing until the very last page.

 

Summing up, you don't have to be a Pohl fan to appreciate this book. With copies going for $10 for a Very Good grading, I was fortunate to pick this up for $5. If you can find it for a reasonable price, you may want to get one yourself............

Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown

Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown

Marvel Comics, 1989

'Havok and Wolverine' was a four-issue miniseries issued by Marvel, under its Epic Comics imprint, from March to October, 1989.

 

The series was written by the husband-and-wife team of Walter and Louise Simonson, and illustrated by Jon J. Muth, with assistance from Ken Williams. Bill Oakley provided lettering.

 

The series opens with a confusing prologue, involving something to do with the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown in April, 1986. The action then transitions to Mexico, where our X-Men Havok and Wolverine are enjoying some cervezas and sunshine.

 

 

That is, until a bar-room brawl ensues and out heroes have to deal out some pain to some disrespectful Mexicans.......

 

Barely have they gotten out of trouble when our heroes are accosted by Russian agents, who knock out both men and kidnap Havok. Wolverine sets out to find where his friend has gone.

 

At this point, the storyline becomes a prolonged chase sequence, as a brainwashed Havok is duped into following the guidance of a hot chick named Scarlett, who promises to take him to Europe, there to find Wolverine.

It turns out that the kidnapping has been engineered by some malevolent Russians, who want to get their hands on Havok for nefarious purposes. Scarlett is in fact their agent, code-name 'Quark.' Somehow Wolverine dies one or two more times before the three of them - Scarlett, Havok, and Wolverine - meet up in India, at the site of a disastrous reactor accident. I won't disclose any spoilers, but the X-Men have their work cut out for them.

'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' is a mediocre comic. It is very much a late Eighties production, when Marvel's Epic line was intended to give comic book creators 'artistic freedom' to do the kind of stories they wanted to do. But the Simonsons badly overwrite this series, shoveling in too many story beats, and leaving the reader to negotiate all sorts of abrupt, contrived transitions in plot and setting.

The artwork by Jon J. Muth may have been very 'artistic,' but it's so murky and abstract that I found myself scrutinizing too many panels trying to figure out what, exactly, was being rendered. For example, this panel below apparently shows Wolverine piloting a helicopter........

 

As for the eponymous villain, he is designed to look like 'Punch' from the venerable Punch and Judy puppet franchise (?!). Why Marvel editor Archie Goodwin signed off on this is puzzling, because its frivolous nature undermines the book's gravitas (whatever gravitas it was trying to achieve).

When all is said and done, 'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' is a misfire, from the age of comics when editors gave writers full leeway to release all sorts of material even if that material was underwhelming. 

 

As related by Marvel historian Sean Howe, in fact it was Louise Simonson who was among the first writers to be deposed from their position of primacy at Marvel. Early in 1991, editor Bob Harras resolved a growing conflict between Simonson and emerging superstar artist Rob Liefeld, over who was to be the creative lead on the series 'New Mutants,' in favor of Liefeld (Leifeld had grown tired of subordinating his artwork to accommodate Simonson's inane story lines and text-heavy compositions). With Liefeld in charge, 'New Mutants' was relaunched as 'X Force,' and quickly became one of Marvel's best-selling comics.

Only diehard X-Men fanboys are going to find 'Havok and Wolverine: Meltdown' to be rewarding. This is particularly true of the graphic novel compilation of the series, titled 'Wolverine: Meltdown,' released in 2003. Copies of this trade paperback are selling for $30 on up (one vendor wants $94 for a 'New' graded copy !) at amazon, so hopefully this overview lets you know what you're getting.............

Heavy Metal May 1979

Heavy Metal

May, 1979

 

May, 1979, and atop the Billboard Hot 200 chart for albums sits the Doobie Brothers with Minute by Minute. Fast rising, and soon to take over the top slot, is Supertramp's Breakfast in America. Also in the top five is Spirits Having Flown by the Bee Gees; little did anyone know that it would be the last time a Bee Gees LP ever would top the charts.........

I have gone to Gordon's Cigar Store with my hard-earned cash and picked up the May issue of Heavy Metal magazine. This is a good issue. The front cover, 'The Wizard of Anharitte,' is by UK artist Peter Jones, and the back cover, a glowing fantasy by Clyde Caldwell, titled 'Centaur's Idol.'

 

Lots of quirky material inside, material best taken in with the accompaniment of herbal substances.

While Moebius continues to contribute 'Airtight Garage,' frustratingly, Sean Kelly and Julie Simmons insist on parceling it out in very brief (i.e., two- and three-page) installments. 

Also presented in an installment is part 4 of the novel 'Starcrown,' by John Pocsik. While it got a nice treatment from artists like Gil Kane, 'Starcrown' never advanced beyond a limited serialization in Heavy Metal.

 

Perhaps the major feature in this May issue is the first installment of a serialization of the opening chapter (i.e., 16 pages) of the graphic novel accompanying the upcoming film Alien. The graphic novel, by Walt Simonson, was the first such publication ever to appear on the New York Times bestseller list for paperbacks.

Also noteworthy were some original pieces, such as 'Night Angel,' by Paul Abrams, the continuation of the 'New Tales of the Arabian Nights,' by Richard Corben, and a retro-style adventure, starring a comely female: '8 Bells; Amora,' by Grey Morrow. All good stuff !

 

 

 

The late Al Sarrantonio contributes 'Roger in the Womb,' a three-page story about a most unusual fetus. It's humorous, but also with a rather offbeat, disconcerting note at the ending. 

One of the more interesting pieces in this May issue is a black-and-white comic by Ben Katchor, titled 'A Proposed Architect.' Katchor, who would go on to produce comics and graphic novels featuring a Jewish urbanite named Julius Knipl, focuses on cityscapes and their buildings. In 'Architect,' there are no tits and no ass (rather unusual for Heavy Metal). Still, it succeeds as a memorable excursion into the surreal.

 

 

 

 

Re-read: Starhammer

Re-Read: 'Starhammer' by Christopher Rowley

5 / 5 Stars

 

From within the tent appeared a heavyset mutant. His skin was knobbed and warted and a deep brown. His head was shaved and yellow tusks curved from his mouth. He was a head taller than Jon and considerably wider. His genital pouch had been made from a human skull and he wore little else but shaggy desert boots. In one hand he held a whip made from braided human leather.

 

"What do you do talking to my meat ?"

 

"Who are you ?" said Jon, rising to his feet.

 

I am Gnush Two Tusks. That is my meat. You will be my meat too unless you go away....."

 

"You will be my meat feast. I will force-feed you for six weeks and then we will bake you in your own juices. I can almost taste it now, hot, bubbling with fat. It will be good."

 

It is nearly 15 years since I first read 'Starhammer. At the time I gave it a Five Star Rating. I later listed it and the accompanying two volumes in the 'Vang' trilogy as one of the top ten sci-fi novels of the 1980s.

 

Recently I sat down with Starhammer (this time with the UK edition, published in 1987 by Arrow Books, with a cover illustration by Tim White). Upon the re-read I concluded that Starhammer was just as good as I remembered and a legitimate Five Star novel.

 

As space operas go, author Rowley does everything right with this novel. He keeps the action flowing, his chapters short, and the locales varied and engrossing. The plot moves from one star system to another, from deep space to planetary space, before, in the final third of the novel, the narrative settles onto the desert planet Baraf. Baraf is a kind of Tatooine from Hell, populated by all manner of loathsome beings, such as Gnush, excerpted above. The action on Baraf is fast and furious and the outcome by no means guaranteed.

 

'Starhammer' also presents with periodic little episodes of graphic violence, lending an edge to the struggle of protagonist Jon Irehard to overcome the tyrannical rule of the blue-skinned laowon and their empire of cruelty, the Imperiom.

 

Sadly, the Vang trilogy is long out of print and those copies of the trilogy that come up for sale are expensive. An ebook edition has yet to be issued. All I can say is that it is very much worth your while to keep an eye out for this book on the shelves of used bookstores and to snap it up if you do indeed see it !

Book Review: Prison Ship (M. Caidin)

Book Review: 'Prison Ship' by Martin Caidin

3 / 5 Stars

 

Martin Caidin (1927 – 1997) was a prolific author of nonfiction books (mainly about military aviation) and fiction (mainly SF, thrillers, and aviation-related topics). Growing up in the 60s and 70s I read several of his military history books, as well as his novel ‘Cyborg’, which became the basis for the TV series The Six Million Dollar Man. Caidin’s fiction was serviceable, if not considered by the sci-fi literati to be noteworthy (he never was invited to contribute to the major anthologies of the 60s and 70s). But his books sold well enough for him to release them on a continuous basis from the late 50s to the mid 90s. 

‘Prison Ship’ (596 pp.) is a thick chunk of a paperback, and features cover art by David Mattingly. It was published by Tor Books in April 1989. 

 

This novel is a very clear effort by Caidin to be provocative, to shock bourgeoisie sensibilities, to offend blacks, Hispanics, Moslems, Hindus, and most of all, people who liked their aliens lovable and cuddly, like ‘E.T.’ and the Ewoks. 

 

It’s difficult to see what Caidin hoped to gain career-wise by assembling a 596-page SF ‘splatterpunk’ novel, other than the ability to direct an upraised literary middle finger to the SF publishing community. Or perhaps he simply wanted to show just how ‘macho’ a writer he could be.

‘Prison Ship’ features three main characters; two human, and one alien. The main human character is Jake Marden, a sort of secular Jewish version of Doc Savage, but with a fondness for committing crimes, not deterring them. The other character is a Bad Azz Mofo black man named Jube Bailey. Jake and Jube meet up in Old Millford Prison, a state penitentiary located in Florida. Jake and Jube, by virtue of their physical size, ferociousness, and intelligence, take command of the prison and turn it into their own unique criminal enterprise.

The third character is an alien named Arbok; once a hotshot interstellar pilot, Arbok has been convicted of murder and is sentenced, along with five other aliens, to certain death as a slave laborer on a prison planet in a galaxy far, far away. Arbok leads an insurrection aboard the Frarsk, the prison ship of the book’s title, and commandeers the vessel to a distant galaxy and one of its few habitable planets: Earth.

Arbok and Jake establish a quasi-telepathic link and soon the Frarsk touches down on the grounds of Old Millford. What happens when six homicidal aliens team up with a small army of homicidal earthmen ? Nothing good, that’s clear. There will be VERY little singing of ‘Kumbaya’ around the fire and heartfelt messages about Peace, Love, and Multicultural Understanding. There WILL be plenty of violence and atrocities.

As an action novel, ‘Prison Ship’ starts off with plenty of velocity; the first 38 pages contain more mayhem and intrigue than entire novels by other thriller writers. But after that, the book begins to lose steam. It’s too long by at least 200 pages (if not more) and suffers from uneven pacing, too many filler passages, utterly contrived plotting, and pulp-worthy dialogue. I finished the book wondering if the Baen editor assigned to handle it actually did anything more than simply sign off on the publishing contract.

‘Prison Ship’’s splatterpunk content is liberal. These semi-pornographic passages are offset by star / asterisk symbols so that squeamish readers can skip them. In my mind these passages could have been deleted without harming the novel all that much. But again, Caidin seems to have been adamant about being Transgressive, so the splatterpunk stuff crops up at regular intervals. 

 

One section towards the book’s end, supposedly representing a ‘shock’ revelation about the aliens, is so contrived, and so clumsily enthusiastic about piling on the gore, that it’s hard to come away from ‘Prison Ship’ with any attitude other than one that recognizes that Caidin knew he was putting out some major schlock. 

If you’re a fan of splatterpunk, and you can tolerate a meandering, plodding narrative if it delivers plenty of sarcastic, gruesome humor, then ‘Prison Ship’ will be your cup of tea. 

 

If you’re expecting a carefully crafted novel that uses SF tropes and graphic violence to say something unpleasant (but true) about the Human Condition (like Norman Spinrad does in ‘The Men in the Jungle’), I don’t think 'Prison Ship' will appeal to you. 

Deathlok four issue series 1990

Deathlok

1990, Marvel Comics

I've been a fan of the Deathlok character since he first appeared in the Spring of 1974 in issue 25 of Marvel's 'Astonishing Tales.'

Deathlok was offbeat, not your usual Marvel hero. His storyline took place in a dystopian, future USA of 1990, one independent of the 'Marvel universe.' Deathlok was as much an antihero as a hero; he had no qualms about killing people, either with firearms, or via throwing a knife into their midsection:

This was transgressive stuff in '74, when the Comics Code Authority still was in power and depictions of death in comic books had to meet the CCA's standards.

 

The Deathlok franchise lasted for 12 issues of 'Astonishing Tales' before being discontinued. He popped up here and there over the next two decades, in books like 'Captain 'America' and 'Marvel Team-up.'

In the summer of 1990, with the Great Comics Boom going on, Marvel decided to reboot the character as a four-issue miniseries in 'prestige' format, meaning square-bound books, printed on a higher quality of paper that was less marred by the flexographic printing presses then in use at World Color.

 

The four issues are compiled in the graphic novel 'Deathlok: The Living Nightmare of Michael Collins.' 

As scripted by writers Dwayne McDuffie and Gregory Wright in issue one, the new Deathlok started out as the computer scientist Michael Collins, who worked for Cybertek Systems, a subsidiary of the malevolent Roxxon corporation. After a series of misadventures, Collins had his brain encased in the body of a cyborg designed for military operations.

 

Wresting control of the cyborg from Cybertek and its amoral CEO, Harlan Rykker, Collins at first is devastated to realize he is consigned to life in a cyborg body. Later, he decides to use his considerable powers to fight injustice and perhaps find a way to reacquire human form.

The remaining three issues in the series see Deathlok combating various adversaries in the employ of Cybertek, while working to reestablish his relationship with his wife and son, who have been told that Collins is in a coma and receiving care from the company.

While Luther Manning, the human inside the 1974 incarnation of Deathlok, was caucasian, Michael Collins was black, as were the 1990 writers McDuffie, and penciller Denys Cowan. With the launch of the Deathlok yearly series in 1991, McDuffie would work racial issues and concerns into his plots.

 

Reflecting an intention to convert the four-issue miniseries into the launcing point for a formal series, and using tie-ins with other characters for marketing purposes, this incarnation of Deathlok took place in the Marvel universe. Thus we see guest appearances by Nick Fury, and Z-list X-Man 'Sunfire.'
 

I was, and am, always happy to see the Deathlok character appearing in the Marvel publication schedule. However, the 1990 reincarnation, while it featured some great artwork by Butch Guice, was not as good as the original Deathlok. The Michael Collins character abhorred killing, and thus one of the edgier aspects of the franchise was neutered. Placing the new Deathlok in the present-day Marvel Universe may have been sensible from a promotion and marketing standpoint, but it removed the existential, almost nihilistic quality that made the original series memorable. 

 

If you're a Deathlok fan, the 1990 edition is worth reading, but be aware it lacks the imaginative quality of its first incarnation.