The Voice Of ODD!

19 December 2017

THE Champions

Oh, sure - plenty have used the name over the years. But ever since i first saw the opening to their tv show in the late 60s, these 3 were The Champions in my eyes:

If you're going to bring someone from the USA to star in a UK series, Prince Charming is a pretty good way to go.

If you saw her playing opposite Kirk Douglas in Draw!,
you know those superhuman treatments were holding up mighty well.

If you ever look at that photo on the back of the Neuromancer manual with the three of us staring off in different directions and wondered what the hells i was doing, come back and look at William Gaunt here.
(I let Troy be the pretty one)

Readers like the Mindbender will recall that i drafted a fairly elaborate feature on them back in ancient APA days. No and Every pun intended, but i'd gladly champion a BBC/ITC effort to revive the series. In those days, it was severely hampered by a limited (BBC limited) budget, though the writers tried hard to work with what they had.
For example, Craig shows us how to make an entrance and dispose of inconvenient guards with low budget super strength:

With modern effects and a fair budget, they could do some great things with the team these days.

But - Who were the Champions, and what were their superpowers? And what the heck is Nemesis?
Let's let Joe 90: Top Secret #1 give you the quick summary:

While quite a few British stars you might recognize have appeared on the series, you won't see that old man from the mountains these days. He was seriously old - Felix Aylmer was born in 1889! (I just thought that was kind of noteworthy)

More familiar names include Michael Gough (Alfred in the Batman movies before Michael Caine), Julian Glover (Grand Master Pycelle on Game Of Thrones), David Prowse (Darth Vader), Aubrey Morris (Everywhere from Dr. Zhivago to It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. This is getting old), Paul Eddington (you know him, Yes?), Gabrielle Drake, Tony Steedman, and Donald Sutherland...

...among many others.
Sutherland gets his picture in here because he tries to dress like a supervillain...

...sort of. I can appreciate that.
He also gets bonus genre cred for having been on The Avengers and The Saint (twice) as well.

Anyway, i get carried away because i've been a fan for nearly 50 years, but this was all just introduction for some comics. After the quick summary above, here's a bit more information on the origins of Nemesis and The Champions from the Joe 90: Top Secret Annual 1969.
(You can skip right past if you're not interested in background info)

And, finally, on to our comics. We have three short comics from the first 3 issues of Joe 90: Top Secret.
If we're really lucky, one of our UK readers will know who wrote & drew the stories.

That little tease about their powers at the end was typical of the tv show, too. It eventually led to what's generally considered the best episode, The Interrogation, in which Craig is kidnapped and probed for information about their powers.

...but, we eventually learn that it was Tremayne & Nemesis who abducted him, wanting to know how they accomplish their missions - triggering a rift between the team and their boss.

I'm not sure how many issues the series ran, but i think it was about the same as the number of TV episodes - 30. After that, Joe 90 merged into TV 21 and The Champions was lost in the shuffle since it was no longer on the air. The Saint (Roger Moore version) started up in the slot instead. (but Vincent Price is still my favorite version of Simon Templar)

stills from The Champions s01e16 & e18, pages from Joe 90: Top Secret #s 1-3 & Annual '69 (1969)

18 December 2017

Dinky Wasn't (Dinky)

I've been digging through early issues of Joe 90 for those comics i mentioned starring The Champions, my old favorite TV Superhero show. Along the way i've been enjoying lots of other little things - like, remember the old '60s TV show, Land Of The Giants? They had a comic that ran in Joe 90, along with the excellent Star Trek series we've seen previously in this blog.

While contemplating how unknown Joe 90 is to most readers in the USA, i also ran into a nice toy ad to help explain. Dinky made some of the best old school TV toys, including their classic Enterprise (NCC-1701) with working shuttle bay and firing Photon Discs. And they made these toys of metal, not plastic.
Well, the photon discs and shuttle craft were plastic. But they were tough, solid toys, made for adventuring.

Here's their beauty version of Joe 90's car:

You'll have to make it bigger if you want to check out the special features.

Though the name Dinky might have sounded "rinky-dinky", the brand was anything but - those old toys lasted through many years of hard play.

Looking at the other toys advertised might give one a fair idea of what Joe 90 was. It was a supermarionation series from Gerry Anderson, like Captain Scarlet and the Thunderbirds.
(Hell, for all i know, it's been revived, like the Thunderbirds)
Joe was actually quite ahead of its time in concept - the series was about a kid who essentially uploaded skills & data into his head as needed to function as a superspy, much like cyberpunk and modern scifi stories, but back in the late 1960s. So, yeah - we'll probably do a feature on him before too long.

But that's another time. For now, it's off to hunt those Champions DVDs and see if we can't grab a few screens to go with the comics...

Dinky advert from Joe 90 #1 (1969)

Future Gaming?

I'm a fairly big gamer.

Started with the 3 basic little paper-bound booklets for Dungeons & Dragons (with a side of Chainmail) back in the mid-late 70s, and kept going into the computer era with gusto. I used homegrown Basic software to generate populations and auxiliary materials for moderating my campaigns after building my first computer back in 1980. I got involved in created computer games later in the decade - back when we only had 4 colours with which to work.

My relationship with games has continued to the present day, where half my retired life is spent gaming.

And yet...

I have to admit some small concerns over the new Virtual Pac-Man game...

NOTE: This image contains nudity and Pac Man,

and has been moved to our back room for adult content.

The text remains for context & comprehension.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive

of the original post to view the artwork.

b&w original by ??? from Gasm #2 (1977)

You'd think that comic magazines would be better at crediting comic artists by '77, wouldn't you?

17 December 2017

Not to be confused with Tony Hale, Captain Zep, Lance Lewis, or the upcoming animated movie from Swamp Media Group.

Once upon a time in the 1950s...

Though many have claimed the title over the decades, Rod Hathaway is my Space Detective. Well, technically, he's the secret identity and Avenger is the Space Detective. Teena is Teena - she doesn't need the extra name.
Together they starred in four issues from Avon in 1951:

Their first adventure was written by Walter Gibson (creator of The Shadow), and drawn by comic legends Joe Orlando and Wally Wood. That's some serious pedigree papers.
Let's go ahead and take a look at that story:

The title also featured back up tales, like this one starring Lucky Dale, Girl Detective with art from Warren Kremer:

There was also the occasional bit of silly fun...

(Actually, that was a reprint from 1938's Cocomalt Big Book of Comics)

Orlando and Wood didn't stick around long on the title, just the first issue and the frontpiece for #2. Somebody did a nice job taking over for them, but nobody knows who drew most of the remaining stories. Greg Fawcette did some nice work, as seen in the 3rd frontpiece at the top of the page, but most tales are uncredited. Up until less than 10 years ago, they had been attributed to Wally Wood, but that has since been established as incorrect. Here's a short tale from #3 for a look at the work: