Superhero Media: Gamera Vs Jiger

Although it's the 1990s Gamera films that will do the best job thus far of showing a world in which humanity has to coexist with Kaiju, Gamera Vs Jiger takes a decent swing, especially considering that this era of Gamera is intended for consumption by children. When scientists are attempting to remove an ancient statue from an equatorial African island, local royalty's intonations of a curse give the Japanese researchers pause, but the Americans bluffly continue. Gamera gets involved, trying to stop the statue from being moved, but he is shooed off and soon Jiger (pronounced 'gy-ger' rather than 'jigger') is rampaging towards Japan. At the Tokyo Worlds' Fair (called something else in the film, but is basically the same thing) officials are worried that Jiger will destroy everything, but happily put their faith in Gamera, as he's destroyed every other giant monster that's popped up over the years. 

When Gamera is initially defeated, it falls to a team of scientists to attempt to unlock the mystery of the statue and how it kept Jiger unconscious for centuries. It's up to the children to revive Gamera by traveling inside him with the same mini-sub from Gamera Vs Viras. The sections inside Gamera are charming in a Doctor Who kind of way, with smoke machines and green lighting hiding the cheapness of construction. After the children kill the baby Jiger inside Gamera, he gets back in the fight, having learned his lessons from the last encounter, as is typical for Gamera. The big fight in act three is one of the better in the classic Gamera era, with good use of space and some clever tactics from both kaiju, rather than just two men in rubber suits pounding each other awkwardly. Couple this with the continually excellent model work on the sets and Gamera Vs Jiger comes home stronger than any of the Gamera films before it. 

Jiger would make an excellent addition to any reinterpretations of Gamera, or maybe if Legendary work some magic, in the new Godzilla franchise, he retroactively fits the 1990s Gamera continuity perfectly, being a monster from Mu imprisoned for millennia. Perhaps, seeing what the Atlanteans did with Gyos and Gamera, the inhabitants of Mu created Jiger, but, much like Gyos, he got out of control and had to be buried. Did Atlantis and Mu fight a full-scale Kaiju war, and was this conflict responsible for the loss of both antediluvian continents? Is the flood mythos from the ancient world a result of retelling of this conflict down the generations? What other ancient kaiju bio-weapons are awaiting discovery? This is the great thing about Kaiju as a genre, the initial conceit is so big, throwing in aliens, ancient civilisations and mythology is pretty easy.

The Picth: Defenders of the Earth

Ok, let's do this. Last one. Can't believe I thought this was a good idea at one point. You can bet I won't be making an ongoing series of these articles again anytime soon. With a buildup of the three previous films, Mandrake, The Phantoms and Flash Gordon, the setting is established, the characters are known to the audience and we can jump straight in The Avengers style! Much like The Avengers, Defenders of the Earth is not a dense and thoughtful film, it's about getting the characters together for a run romp and the introduction of Ming the Merciless to be our overarching villain if we move forward with this. As well as pitching the film itself, this final article will deal with what the franchise could look like if it kept going; because I'm sure as hell not doing more of these myself.

"Four become eight, defending the Earth!" 

Defenders of the Earth
With a Mongo invasion fleet on the way to Earth, formerly individual heroes must unite to ensure the freedom of the entire human race. Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom and Flash Gordon are joined by Lothar, Jedda Walker, King Vultan, Prince Valiant, Princess Aura and Catman to form the Defenders of the Earth to battle Ming. 

Plot 

The film begins in media res, with Ice Robots raining down on the kingdom of Prince Valiant, the last holdout on Mongo against Ming's rule. Fleeing the invasion, Princess Aura is being smuggled through secret tunnels and is shoved onto a spaceship just moments before Prince Valiant is surrounded by Ice Robots and everything fades to black. 

On Earth, the arrival of Princess Aura is met by Vultan and Flash, she informs them of Ming's plan and asks who will stand against her father. It turns out Kit and Jedda Walker are getting the last recruit, Catman, from Melbourne, where he is a well-know vigilante, inspired by the legend of The Phantom. Lothar, using technology from Vultan's ship, has built himself a suit of armour that increases his strength and durability to superhuman levels. A small light of hope is dawning in the team when crises start to erupt over the planet, Ming's weather control machine is wracking the Earth with Storms, Floods and Hot Hail. It looks like the Earth may fall even before the invaders arrive. 

Members of the team are scattered across the globe, dealing with disasters, when Mandrake calls them back together; Princess Aura has a plan. Ming will have to abandon his conquest of Earth if a revolt happens on Mongo. The Hawkmen of King Vultan won't be enough, however, they need the Knights of Prince Valiant, with two rulers of Mongo freed, the other disgruntled Princes will join the fight. It's desperate, but it may work, so Flash, Vultan, Mandrake and Aura head off for Mongo whilst the rest stay behind to do what they can with the continuing natural disasters. The rescue goes according to plan and the kingdoms of Mongo revolt, but Ming's flagship has already left and our heroes are captured and transported to face Ming's wrath. 
Meanwhile, on Earth, Doctor Zarkhov has created a teleport device that will take the remaining heroes to the Flagship for a last-ditch attempt to stop Ming. With all the heroes freed, the Defenders of the Earth confront Ming and battle commences against the Emperor of Mongo and his elite guard. The heroes defeat Ming, the flagship is destroyed and the world is saved, but Ming's body is nowhere to be found... 

A Note
Fans of the old Defenders of the Earth cartoon will notice that I've taken quite a number of liberties with the existing characters and setting, but I hope no one will be too put out by that. Change is necessary in adaptation, not just because some ideas don't translate well between media, but also because new ideas keep the characters fresh and up to date. Changes from the previous films, like Lothar being a tech guy or Mongo being a planet are there to play to a broader audience. In this concept, adding Prince Valiant to the Mongo kingdoms and introducing Frew character Catman are to help expand the team and to provide places to go without jumping straight to having all of the children involved. This is so as to not overload the general audience with too much lore out of the gates; think about how the MCU films didn't start with Infinity Stones and time travel, same deal here. 

Tone
Pretty much the same as the previous Flash Gordon, light and fun, but with serious moments here and there to keep people engaged. Like The Avengers or Godzilla II King of the Monsters, the characters need to play their situation straight, but the audience needs to be allowed to laugh at how ridiculous the situation is from time to time. 

Cast
At least I only have to cast like three people this time, saves me a lot of work. 

Ming the Merciless:
There's no escaping the fact that Ming is kind of a racist caricature that plays on outdated ideas of "Yellow Peril", but is also a necessary part of the franchise. To counteract the unfortunate history of the character, I think casting an Asian actor with good pedigree is a must, and I can only think of one prefect candidate; Ken Watanabe. 

Worldwide audiences know who this man is, he's a brilliant actor and (when he is permitted) has an excellent grasp of English. Also, he can do the physical acting for when Ming needs to show off just how tough he is by battering Flash around.

Catman:
Frew Publications in Australia is sitting on a whole heap of IP that only every seems to see the light of day in The Phantom Annual reprints, including a whole bunch of Aussie-grown mystery men, like Sir Falcon, The Black Domino and Catman. Catman is basically your standard "caped crusader" type, with guns and a set of night-vision goggles that resemble cat eyes (hence the name). Including him is simply a way to expand the DoE brand in the future and give a nod to Australian comics, and really any of the Frew heroes would work, assuming the rights could be obtained. Anyway, as a friend once said, "When in doubt, hire a Hemsworth"; 

I think it's high-time Liam got a shot at a superhero franchise, and an Aussie-born Phantom rip-off may just be the role for him. Not much more to this one, I just kind of like the idea.

Prince Valiant:
This version of Prince Valiant is a prince of Mongo, so we can afford to stunt-cast a little and get someone more interesting than another white guy dressed as a knight. Also, I like watching man-babies getting angry on the internet when a character gets a race-change for the film. 

You may know Tony Revolori as the MCU Flash Thompson, but he was also in Grand Budapest Hotel and was brilliant there too. He does quiet arrogance quite well, very princely when he wants to be. I could easily see him swinging a sword and exposing about justice.

Crew 
The director is pretty much the big deal for this film, much like how decent direction made The Avengers work, but crummy direction scuppered Justice League. Don't at me, DC fans, you know it's true. Competency is the name of the game, which is why I can't go past Jon Favreau; 

Not only did Favreau turn a C-grade Marvel character into the most popular hero in the world, he also has a long history of making solid films outside of the superhero genre. 

Where to now? 
Obviously, the post-credit sequence reveals that Ming is still alive and that the Defenders of the Earth will return... But what about the franchise? Sequels for Mandrake, Flash and Phantom seem obvious, but we can do better than that. With Ming temporarily displaced on Mongo, how about Vultan and Valiant having to deal with the resulting power-struggle? The Frew characters like Catman, Sir Falcon, Black Domino, Jet Fury and others could well make decent films in their own right, as well as expanding the roster of future Defenders. Introducing more children of the original Defenders will keep things fresh as well, not to mention drawing in fans of the classic cartoon. The sky is very much the limit on this series, adaptations of The Last Phantom or even some kind of Flash multiverse with a digitally reconstituted Buster Crabbe. All I know is, unless a studio starts to pay me for this, I'm done.

Superhero Media: Arrow - Season 6

This will probably be something of a short one, as I'm finding that I'm pretty much done with Arrow. There were a few episodes in Season 6 that I really enjoyed, and the programme is still well-produced, but I simply don't care about Oliver Queen and his journey any more. There is one element of Season 6 that is actually stronger than those before it, in that there are no flashbacks to Oliver's life before his return to Star City. I don't know about anyone else, but I got sick of the flashbacks sometime around Season 3. No story-informing flashbacks means, however, that we can focus more on Oliver's relationships, particularly with his teammates, as Team Arrow soon splits into two rival teams, perhaps heading towards some kind of superhero 'Civil War'? Sadly nothing so exciting happens in this season, as the overarching villain turns out to just be some gangster. 

The crossover episode "Crisis on Earth X" shows some promise, but due to the nature of streaming, I have no idea what happened on the other eleven CW DC programmes to fill out the plot. I'm still way behind on The Flash, not to mention I haven't even started Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, Titans, Doom Patrol, Pennyworth or Gotham yet, which random nerds on the internet assure me are all linked somehow and that the queen is an alien Lizard Person. Evil Laurel from Earth 2 becomes a major player in this season, playing both sides against the middle and not really having much to do or any real development. The television programme that this season of Arrow reminds me of is the last few years of Happy Days, where most of the cast had left and only people under ironclad contracts are still kicking around. Seriously, Oliver has defeated the League of Shadows and Damien Dark, why is a gang boss giving him so much trouble? Except for the crossover, only the last few episodes of this season are really worth watching. 

I'm glad that I'm almost at the end of Arrow, the programme really should have finished after the defeat of Damien Dark, if not before. There's not really anywhere left for the characters to go narratively, and the 'need' to escalate the antagonist each season means we'd be staring down the barrel of Green Arrow versus Lady Styx by the time season ten rolled around. As I've said before, I like good endings, concise endings that actually wrap-up the story. Season 3 of Luther and season 5 of Supernatural have these kinds of ending, even if they weren't actually the last episodes of their respective programmes, and I feel that Season 5 of Arrow was the same, with the entire city rising up to fight alongside Green Arrow against the literal forces of evil. Arrow is done, and if it weren't for the bizarre ideal of completion that I can't help but chase, I would be done with it.

EDF IV

The Tank Factories of the Steppes have been hard at work, churning out T-34/85s to battle the Kaiju hordes. Or maybe Nazis, depends what games I get to play with them. A friend at NWA walked me through what a Flames of War Soviet Tank Company may look like, so I got onto painting up 20 T-34/85s for a learning game at some stage, once he's past his current Napoleonic fixation. 

A decent sized Tank Platoon made up of the very-nice GHQ miniatures that came from my father. 

Platoon Commander and NCOs feature infantry on the base for easy identification. 

After 20+ years of 28mm gaming, I'm getting sold on smaller scales with the excellent results that a little washing and drybrushing can give. 

I figure if I'm also using these for Kaiju, then I'll need plenty to be thrown around and stepped on. 

 Looking at these, I really think I need a Soviet Mecha, like Cherno Alpha from Pacific Rim or maybe a giant Red Dynamo? Plenty of ideas for later...

Superhero Media: Legend of the Fist - The Return of Chen Zhen

As much as I enjoyed this film, I really cannot recommend it on the basis that it requires quite a great deal of very specific fore-knowlege to understand. It is only because I just happen to have a good grounding in Chinese history, the Sino-Japanese War, Shanghai culture, superheroes and Wuxia that I was able to tell what was happening at any given point. A group of Chinese volunteers during the Great War lose one of their number, leading the great revolutionary Chen Zhen to adopt a new identity to return to Shanghai and combat the Japanese slowly taking over his country. Lacking a unified military and identity, the Chinese are losing out to the Japanese invaders, having to play along in public while running an underground resistance. Please note that essentially none of this is actually spelled out, but is there if you know what to look for. During the attempted assassination of the child of a Chinese General, Chen Zhen dons a Kato costume from a nearby cinema display and leaps into battle as "The Masked Warrior". 

For those who don't know, The Green Hornet series was marketed around Kato in Asia, especially the 1960s version starring Bruce Lee, with Green Hornet himself being made secondary through subtitles and clever narration. The martial arts sections with Chen Zhen as the Masked Warrior are brilliant, of course, with Donnie Yen in the lead role, but only happen a couple of times in the entire film. All of the advertising for the film features the Masked Warrior prominently, but he probably has less than thirty minutes of total screen time. In that, calling Legend of the Fist a superhero film is stretching things a little bit, but my search for more non-American superheroes that originate in their home country has me digging through a lot of stuff like this. Thematically, Legend of the Fist, is probably closer to Mafia/Gangster films, in terms that Western audiences would be familiar with; forbidden romance, people getting killed constantly and plenty of traitors and double agents. 

Legend of the Fist is really more interesting as a Wuxia film, or historical fiction than it is a superhero film, with the light-on sequences involving the Masked Warrior. That said, what is there is interesting enough, and could well be expanded. There is an idea of the Masked Warrior being a legend, or perhaps an identity picked up by people from time-to-time to help seek justice, it's not made too clear. Taking that concept, however, and folding it, Batman-style into the culture of Shanghai in a superhero setting could work well. Like a local Zorro or Phantom equivalent, where the person behind the mask doesn't matter so much as what the costume and identity represent to the oppressed peoples. Maybe the Masked Warrior is spotted in Shanghai, dealing out rough justice, so Super Inframan, over in Hong Kong, misinterprets what is happening and the two at set on a collision course by the evil machinations of Fu Manchu? Then we'd have Masked Warrior versus Inframan, in some kind of dawn of a justice team? It'd be better than Dawn of Justice and you know it.

From the Archives - III

A while back, I made a video for my Club's YouTube channel about writing up characters for SuperSystem 4th Edition, enjoy; 

Superhero Media: Gamera Vs Guiron

For those, like me, working through the Gamera series in order, who have found the last couple a bit underwhelming, Gamera Vs Guiron is when it starts to pick up again. Mysterious signals from space are dismissed by leading scientists as natural phenomena, rather than originating from an intelligent source, but two young boys suspect the answer is aliens. Shortly, the boys find a flying saucer and are whisked off to Earth's twin planet, on the opposite side of the sun, where two beautiful women in silver jumpsuits explain that the planet is dying and they need to escape. When the planet comes under attack from silver "Space Gyos", the women summon their guardian monster, Guiron, a lumbering quadruped with a knife for a face. Guiron quickly dispatches the Gyos, slicing it into bits with his face-knife, and the boys agree to help the women flee to Earth, but something's not right; why is Gamera trying to recuse the boys, and what are the space-women really up to? 

You'll be shocked to learn that the plot is much thinner on the ground than I've let on, but Gamera Vs Guiron is a lot of fun, with plenty of 1960s high-camp science fantasy dressing and sets, plus the film features that Gamera clip of him doing gymnastics on a building. I really like the sets, actually, all of the bubble-domes and orange plastic aren't the kind of sci-fi buildings you really see anymore and would make a great wargames table. Guiron is ridiculous to look at, but he presents a real threat to Gamera that Viras certainly didn't, and I kind of love the idea of genetically engineering a monster with a knife face and shuriken that shoot out of its head. There's kind of a Doctor Who vibe going through Gamera Vs Guiron, though probably not deliberately, with the alien planet looking like something from the 1960s Dalek films and the idea of "twin planets" being tied in heavily to the Cybermen history from the classic programme. 

As with my "The Pitch: Gamera", I could see a contemporary adaptation of Gamera Vs Guiron working for a relaunched Gamera franchise. Sexy aliens who turn out to be cannibals, a dying planet, genetically engineered monstrosities, pseudoscience and Gamera carrying a spaceship in his mouth would all still play fine, with a postmodern sheen and a bit of CGI, of course. Hell, Godzilla II: King of the Monsters made a giant moth a compelling character, why not a giant, spinning turtle? This marks me being around halfway through the Gamera Collection in my DVD rack, which I'm feeling good about, because it means I'm getting close to the 1990s films and that I'll be able to move onto another series of films soon. I love Gamera, watch the films pretty regularly, but making myself watch through all of them, in order, in quick succession, probably wasn't my best decision.

Miniatures Finished - 12/12/18

Plenty of work to keep me busy, but there's always time to slap a few coats of paint around and keep the lead pile from overwhelming me. 

Green Hornet: After watching the Batman/Green Hornet crossover episodes (featuring Adam West and Van Williams), I had to get this classic crime-fighter on my table. Copplestone

Kato: Can't have the Green Hornet without Kato, best played by the incomparable Bruce Lee. Much like other pairings in Ultimate Alliance (Doctor and companion, Booster Gold and Skeets), players will probably use both Green Hornet and Kato as a single 'character'. Copplestone 

Nick Fury (616): The Heroclix Ultimate/MCU Furies are nice, but I've never been really keen on the classic versions available. Thankfully this version, intended to look like David Hasselhoff from the 1998 film, with a more comic book paintjob, he suits well. Studio Miniatures 

Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy: I did have a Devil Dinosaur, but this new one was a bit nicer and cheap on the secondary market. Regular readers will well know that I have a fondness for obscure comic book characters. Heroclix 

Red Skull: I had to do a 20mm Red Skull for Bush Wars when I began work on African Fascists. For more information on that, take a look at the NWA Bush Wars Blog where I've done a couple of articles. Converted AB Miniatures 20mm 

The Fury: So I did eventually get around to resculpting the head of my conversion for The Fury. It looks a lot better now, though I'd really rather a proper mini that looks like the old Marvel UK comics. Converted Horroclix. 

Superhero Media: Transformers - The Last Knight

But why? Why the hell does this film exist and why does anything that happens in it happen? None of The Last Knight makes any sense, even less so than the previous films in this series, and I really struggled to get through it. After traveling into space at the end of the last film, Optimus Prime returns to Cybertron and is immediately captured and brainwashed into being 'Nemesis Prime' and sent to conquer Earth. That's about the last element of the plot that makes sense in this film, every other major turn feels like it was taken from a post-it note on the writers' room wall. Josh Dhumal comes back, at the same rank, doing the same job. Marky Mark is a Knight of the Round Table suddenly. Bumblebee fought in World War Two. Cybertron is Beast Planet from War Planets and Earth is Unicron, but this never gets resolved. What the fuck? Add the usual "Bayhem" and the fact that no one seems to be able to stay standing during an action scene, and none of this makes sense. 

Did I mention that everyone keeps falling over? Like, all of the time? It's really distracting, like there should be a laugh track over the top, or at least some kazoo music like an old Picture Hall Funny. Essentially none of the characters are interesting, even Antony Hopkins fails to deliver any gravitas, and that's kind of his thing. The Last Knight is almost Bay Transformers Bonox, taking everything dumb, over-the-top and/or nonsensical and filtering out almost everything worth watching. Any clever ideas, like Cybertron and Earth being twin planets, or Nemesis Prime are shunted to the background and barely heard of for the rest of the film. Seriously, Nemesis Prime is in, perhaps, three scenes before Bumblebee turns him good again and we have to fight the Decepticons again. Hell, the US army having to team-up with the Decepticons and releasing several from prison Suicide-Squad style is cool, but doesn't last more than one firefight.

I'm glad this is the last one of these, I don't think I could sit through another. No, Bumblebee doesn't count, it's barely in continuity with these filmic abortions, and thank Primus for that. I'd say that there doesn't really need to be any Transformers films for a few years, but that's not how the industry works anymore, and the franchise does have a lot to work with, Transformers Prime is evidence enough of that. I'm honestly not sure how this proposed "Hasbro Cinematic Universe" is meant to go, do we retroactively count Battleship? I will be disappointed if Marvel Studios can't get the rights back to Rom the Spaceknight though, even though the IDW crossover event around the Dire Wraiths does look pretty cool. I just hope any new films with these characters keep Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime and Frank Welker as Megatron for as long as they can.