Superhero Media: The Southern Squadron

Hold onto your braincells! Here come Australia's own Super-Powered Trouble Shooters, the Southern Squadron! Featuring special forces star Sergeant "Smitty" Smith, the psyhco-kinetic Southern Cross, muscle-bound Melbournian the Night Fighter and the animalistic Dingo. Published in Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, The Southern Squadron is something of a local cult fixture, though seems to have never really made its way outside of Australia the way some of our other pop culture has. First off, both The Southern Squadron comics and trades are pretty hard to come by, I only scored mine because a friend was working for a comics store for a little while and found them "out back", as it were. And honestly? They're probably more interesting as an artifact of a time and place in comics than they are high quality examples of the genre. Yes, I really enjoy The Sountern Squadron and am looking for suitable miniatures to represent them, but to say that the series and characters are generally good isn't all that honest.

What The Southern Squadron reminds me of the most, that you may have actually read, is the early Eastman/Laird Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, that was aping Frank Miller Daredevil specifically, and whilst you don't have to have read one to enjoy the other, knowing both improves the experience. The very first Southern Squadron story has them battling the "A-Men", a parody of not just the Claremont X-Men, but of the Iron Age of comics in general; the far more silly Squadron overcoming the team without too much difficulty. Although a lot of the language and ideas in the books can be pretty dated, the term "poofter" still flew in Australia at the time, there are elements of the social undercurrent to be found, be it Southern Cross' preference for curvier women, or Night Fighter's misogynistic "blokeiness" working against him when trying to pick up Kylie. Even Smitty's position as team leader is contrasted by an unnamed (and unlicensed) appearance from none other than Nick Fury, helping track down a werewolf in Tasmania. God, that's a great sentence.

So should you be trying to add The Southern Squadron to your collection? Well... probably not? The art is hit-and-miss, some of the stories are cringe and occasionally it's sexist and homophobic. But if you're an Aussie comic fan who grew up on American publications, even just seeing terms like "crow-eater" and "drongo" on the page is a nice change. I'm not that familiar with Sydney, being a superior Melbournite, but it's great to see more than Uluru and the Sydney Opera House in a comic, given the spread and diversity of locations in Australia. Of course I am currently searching through figure ranges for material to convert and kitbash my own Southern Squadron, and they will be showing up in games just as soon as I can get them done, I do want more Aussie heroes on my table, after all. There are periodic attempts to revive The Southern Squadron, but I'm not so keen on that idea, because Southern Cross, Smitty, Night Fighter and Dingo are so much products of their time, that a new take in the 2020s wouldn't really be the same thing.

Hey BBC! This is my Doctor Who pitch, hit me up, I'm avaliable! (The Pitch)

Longtime readers will know that I am a big fan of Doctor Who, specifically, the classic series and ancillary media like novels, audio dramas and comics. I initially started in 2005 with the new series, but quickly fell off due to the lack of quality in the writing and general production. Despite wonky sets, overacting and some truly dire episodes over the original run, the 1963 to 1989 series was a television juggernaut that dominated a sector of the culture for nearly 30 years and it deserves a respect that I never really felt it got since coming back in 2005. I dip in from time to time (usually with the regeneration), but I've never found anything in the current version of Doctor Who that makes me want to stick around and watch. 

With the recent announcement that the series is "on hiatus" once again, and nothing new in production, the BBC has publicised that Doctor Who is out for tender, meaning that the television series is available to anyone with the money and a good pitch. Well, I don't have the money,  crowdfunding exists, so that might help, but I can throw together a pitch for basically nothing. And whilst my ideal plan involves bringing Robert Holmes and Terrance Dicks back from the dead to run the series for me, I do have a few good ideas that are actually possible, which I can roll into my beer-mat pitch for a broadcast season and hopefully entertain my handful of regular readers. So let's get started with the first episode, shall we? 

We need to start out what is really at least the 3rd iteration of Doctor Who with a bang, so here's a multi-Doctor story to launch us. Which Doctors is the obvious question, well, we'll have a newly-regenerated Billie Piper find herself immediately confronted by Paul MacGann, Richard E Grant (in his Scream of the Shalka incarnation) and Sean Pertwee playing the 3rd Doctor. Look, I know he said he wouldn't do it, but it's one episode, throw some money at him and remind him of his dad's legacy with the series. Our three Doctors reveal that they've finally tracked down the imposter that's been messing with their timeline (Piper) and they're sending her to Shada for her crimes. The rest of the episode is something of a mash-up of Trial of a Time Lord and The Chase as we backtrack through Doctor Who history to see the havoc wrought by the new series on the classic continuity as the entire 2005-2025 run is revealed to be a member of The Faction Paradox trying to destroy the Doctor's work and good name. We also learn that the Grant 9th Doctor has been trapped in a pocket universe (like E Space) whilst this has been going on, only to be rescued by his previous incarnations. 

However, there is a twist! The 9th Doctor, through the adventures he's having, finds that he has actually been in the Matrix the entire time. After defeating Piper, he gets goodbye moments with 8 and 3 (and whoever we could get to cameo in terms of companions) and wakes up on Galifrey, with a new version of Romana to greet him and the Celestial Intervention Agency to provide the last little bit of explanation we need. Now that we've jettisoned the entire 2005-2025 continuity, pissing a lot of people off, but making me happy and getting everyone talking about the series again, the rest of the season won't be dealing too much with anything that happened in the opening story. The Doctor, now played by Grant full-time, is given his leave by the CIA and returns to an empty TARDIS to, once again, adventure in time and space. 

From there, the framework is fairly loose. Like with the New Adventures novels, I'll put out to writers to send in stories that don't have an arc or major continuity revelations, just the Doctor and a Companion, who step out of the TARDIS at the start and step back in at the end. Obviously, we'll have a good Script Editor with a solid vision for the series, but basically anything goes in terms of story. No two stories should be too similar and I want to avoid the Daleks or other iconic villains for the entire first season, but again, I want to stress, pretty much anything is on the table; no bad ideas and all that. We're going back to the idea that the TARDIS can appear anywhere and anywhen and that adventures can be almost anything. A murder mystery, a ghost story, a war, a monster story, the universe is the limit. 

A few other housekeeping things before we sign off. Ideally, I'd like to take Doctor Who back to being half-hour episodes broadcast weekly, with most stories between 4 and 6 episodes in length. I believe that the series works better as a serial, with cliffhangers and time to sketch out ideas, but I'd settle for every story being two-part with the longer episodes. Keeping the cold opens though, I think those help set the mood really well. The idea would be to have Grant do the one season only (unless he's really keen) before regenerating and getting a new actor in. Basically, I want to create a bridge between the classic series and a new one that skips everything 2005-2026 and has as close a 'feel' to the original as possible, and I personally think Grant is the better choice to do that (being more of a "blank space" in terms of continuity) than McGann. I think new fans either don't know, or tend to forget that Doctor Who was the biggest television series in the world for a time in the 1970s, getting a market share that's functionally unbelievable today, just by being solidly-written and competently produced most of the time. I believe it can be again, on the same merits. 

Well that's me done on this unless someone contacts me with money to back me up or a plan to get it. I hope Doctor Who does come back, but I also hope it's better than it really has been most of my lifetime. Until then, I have my books, DVDs, audios and comics to keep me going on one of my favourite fictional universes. 

Superhero Media: Warlock by Jim Starlin

In case you're new around here, I love Marvel Comics' Cosmic elements and characters. Although I do enjoy the newer versions of say, The Guardians of the Galaxy, my real faves are all from the 1970s and almost all written by Jim Starlin. Now, I'm not saying that Starlin was on a lot of drugs or anything, but comics like Warlock really do seem to have been written whilst under the influence of a great deal of drugs. For those who don't know, Adam Warlock was created by a science wizard to be the messiah of Counter-Earth, where he died to save a race of animal-people from Dog-Hitler and was later reborn when Starlin needed a new project. Thankfully, all that Counter-Earth nonsense is background to the story being told in this run, but it's still pretty crazy in the best ways, as classic comics tend to be. So strap yourself in for time travel, space gods, New-Age spiritualism, evil churches and buckets of "WTF". This is Adam Warlock, the best Marvel Comic you've never read.

Ok, maybe that's overselling it, but Warlock is really nothing like almost anything you would have ever read. Almost as dense in philosophy as it is in Space Opera, Warlock is has little to do with the rest of the Marvel universe at first glance, with his foes being the Magus and the Star Thief, one can forget that these comics also mark the first appearance of Gamora and form an important moment for The Avengers, with their second encounter with Thanos. The style of Starlin's writing and art can be jarring for those who have only read newer comics, with huge, sprawling walls of text punctuated with psychedelic artwork and splash-pages worthy of Jack Kirby. As Adam Warlock flies through space, the endless void is a beautiful cascade of stars, planets, nebulae and spacecraft so fanciful, they belong on a Prog Rock album cover. In the cold light of the 21st Century, the philosophy and ethics of Warlock can seem backwards and lacking intersectionality, but a lot of this was pretty out-there stuff to have in a Superhero comic back in the 1970s.

What may actually be one of the most amazing facts about the Warlock series is just how relevant it remains fifty-odd years later. The Infinity Gems, Gamora and Thanos are pretty obvious, but it's shocking how often The Universal Church of Truth, The Magus and even Kray-Tor show up or are at least referenced in current Marvel titles. Starlin remains a controversial figure in comics history, though for my money, usually seemed to be doing what he thought was right in his dealings with Marvel and Image, Warlock is an astounding legacy for any creator to have at a major publisher, and that doesn't even factor in his work on other books, Captain Marvel especially. I've been talking with one of my regular gaming groups lately about getting into some Science Fiction skirmish wargames in our own setting, and I've leapt back into my Jim Starlin to get some inspiration. As much as I love my "Hard" Sci-Fi, there is a part of me that wants some out-there fantasy in my space empire, or whatever I choose to go with. If you want to read something different, but still oddly relevant to the rest of the Marvel Universe, Warlock is hard to beat.

Force S5 - Part II

Welcome back to Force S5 - The Superhuman Soldiers of the Secret Space Service, a fun little narrative exercise based on popular conspiracy theories and related nonsense. This project is going to involve elements such as short-form fiction, roleplaying games and even some table top miniatures. In fact, right here on this blog, Force S5 will become a completely free miniature wargame released in installments that you can play at home along with the story. Think very light, "beer and pretzels" type of play that's more about mashing fun ideas and concepts together and painting whatever miniatures take your fancy than being a perfectly balanced, tournament play experience. We'll get to some actual rules and the broader design ethos, such as it is, next time, but for now let's dive back into the fiction to explain just who is fighting this secret war for the very future of humanity!

You need to understand, this isn't a straightforward war of 'us Vs them' or something like that. There are many broad groups trying to control the destiny of humanity and within each of those there are little rivalries and factions, so who really knows how this shakes out in the field? For now though, consider this a 'primer', a rough guide to what you can expect to see out there, so at least you'll have an idea of who's gunning for you in the black of the night.

The Minutemen (aka The Resistance, Humans for Humanity)
Ordinary humans taking the fight back to the alien overlords! Self-styled truth seekers, defenders of humanity and anti-alien militias, The Minutemen are the last line of defense against the scum of the universe. However, The Minutemen are also home to some of the worst humanity has to offer; their militias are home to racists, the worst conspiracy mongers and plenty of people who wear a solid layer of tinfoil underneath the camouflage caps they never seem to take off.

The New World Order (aka The Eternal Reich, Metatron, The Upload)
Authority has always descended from a central point, that is the ethos of the New World Order, or NWO, for short. Members of the NWO cultivate power, be it political, economic, military or even supernatural. The lust for power makes for strange bedfellows, however, and for every goose-stepping anachronism hiding in an Antarctic secret base, there is a progressive, Silicon Valley post-humanist wanting to save the world by uploading us all to the Matrix.

The Universal Commune (aka the Earth Embassy, the Galactic Alliance) 
The children of the Universal Commune want nothing more than the peaceful ascension of all species to a sate of pure energy and eternal bliss. Weather they want it or not. Although the Commune has a peaceful mission to unite all of creation, do not be fooled into thinking that they're purely a band of hippy peace-nicks, there is many a dangerous psychic warrior or alien hybrid just waiting to unleash their claws hiding in their ranks. 

The Veil (aka Them, The Agency)  
There are worlds beyond our own, and not just in the sky above. Beyond the thin walls of our own reality, there is something else, something darker, and sometimes it leaks through for its own sinister purpose. Some think of these creatures as ghosts, sprites or even demons, but they are the very real inhabitants of another realm, drawn to ours because here there is light and warmth. These creatures could be seeking asylum, or wanting to conquer our universe, but their motives remain their own for now.

Force S5 (aka the Superhuman Soldiers of the Secret Space Service)
Born of reverse-engineered alien technology, the members of Force S5 are gene-smithed in ultra-secret laboratories hidden around the globe to keep the knowledge of their creation hidden. For all the heroics that these future warriors are capable of, there is also a dark side to the operation. Force S5 operates at the beck and call of a shadowy cabal of individuals working their own agenda, and whilst their goals are good for humanity now, when they conflict with the greater good, who can say what could possibly stand against them?

Come back next time when we delve into the secret history of the world a little more and start to introduce the rules!

Superhero Media: Birdman

I first watched Birdman Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) a few years ago with the intent of reviewing it here, but I found I didn't have much to say, so let it slip by. Sometimes this happens with some of the media I view for the purposes of "Superhero Media" articles; I just end up with nothing much to say so I don't bother. However, after thinking on it and giving Birdman another go, I do have a few things I can talk about. First of all, Birdman is a very well made film with an excellent cast, and it's a joy to watch, so I do recommend it if you're into American independent film or want to give it a go. That said, Birdman has one fatal flaw that really undermines the entire film, essentially rendering the entire point, or one of them at least, meaningless and really robbing it of any residual impact. A big part of Birdman, which flows through the narrative, is the idea that traditional Broadway and theatre in general, is being overrun by Hollywood figures trying to use the legacy of the boards to create a false legitimacy for themselves. You know what? Completely agree. I think it fails to address the whole Andrew Lloyd Weber being simultaneously ubiquitous and shit thing, but a good start.

No, the idea espoused by Birdman is that Superhero cinema is destroying Hollywood the same way Hollywood is destroying Broadway. Ok, so there's a bit to unpack there. Although particular aim is taken at the MCU (Jeremy Renner is singled out because he's also won Oscars?) it's pretty difficult to get away from Keaton's own legacy as Batman; shifted from subtext to text by the "Birdman" framing device. Keaton was an accomplished actor before Batman, though known mostly for comedy, but his career floundered after Batman Returns, only recovering in recent years. This, oddly, was a pretty standard occurrence in the pre-MCU days, with Val Kilmer, Chris O'Donnell and even Famke Janssen kind of dropping off the radar for years after being in middling Superhero efforts. But the whole targeting the MCU thing? Aside from Edward Norton having been in an MCU film (and Keaton would be in the near future), one thing Marvel Studios has always done well is platform creators and talent. Look at Renner, I've seen his two award-winning turns, but how many people have seen The Hurt Locker and The Town compared to anything where he appears as Hawkeye?

I really don't even feel like tackling the whole "are these films valid?" question, as it really feels like a misdirect, and anyone who's still saying that Black Panther, Superman The Movie and The Incredibles have nothing valid to say as films must either be misinformed or outright dishonest. I can see that if one where a struggling filmmaker or actor, the success of the, admitted rather homogeneous, MCU series could well look like corporate moneymaking killing your "art", but as a frustrated novelist myself, I have to live with the knowledge that whatever I publish will end up read by fewer people than whatever Tom Clancy shat out over the weekend. That's the sacrifice talent makes to mediocrity, and it was felt at least as far back as the playwrights of Athens. For all the brilliance and moments of cleverness to be had in Birdman, and there are many, it gets undercut by the sheer pettiness of the premise and how it plays out. Superhero cinema isn't the bad guy, or the end of the industry or whatever panic is happening in the film press this week. Superhero stories are just as valid as any other genre, even if you don't like them yourself.

Thinking Out Loud: ...of the Zodiac!

Whilst watching the Adam West Batman series again, a thought occurred to me; where is James Gordon Junior in this timeline? The obvious, and actual, answer is that he didn't exist until the 1990s, so nowhere really. But what if he did? The Batman '66 comics expanded the range of characters to include another iconic '90s foe, Bane, so why not take a look at James Jr and see where he would fit in? For those not so steeped in Batman lore as myself, James Gordon Jr, firstborn son of Commissioner Gordon and his first wife, is a serial killer whose activities are kept under wraps by his father and is the case that haunts him the most. It's a very grim story, piling upon the misery that defines Jim Gordon's life, and honestly, the character isn't all that interesting most of the time, just another murderer knocking around Gotham from time to time, when an author is temporarily over Joker and the other Arkham crew. However, the idea that there was a version in the '66 universe and how that would impact the setting, just wouldn't leave my mind.

A small part in Season 1 of Batman that many would be forgiven for missing is Gordon mentioning that Batman and Robin have been active for a few months. Not years, months. Also, despite many jokes about how incompetent Gordon and O'Hara are made to look in the series, they're actually great at their jobs, Gotham has the lowest crime rate in the USA in this version, but the criminal mastermind types like Joker, Riddler and King Tut leave them baffled and that's where Batman and Robin come in. This version of Batman doesn't chase muggers or break up gangs, he doesn't need to, the police do that. So if Jim Gordon is such a good cop in '66, what keeps him from tackling the more esoteric cases? What if the reason is that he did once chase a colourful villain? A murderer in a costume with a gimmick that turned out to be none other than his own son? When Gordon discovered this, his instincts as a father took over and he sent his boy away, rather than to the electric chair. Gordon has PTSD and just can no longer bring himself to do the major crimes, thank god for the Caped Crusader.

Of course, Gordon is still a smart man, he'd make sure his son was as far away as possible, on the opposite side of the country, the West Coast. Ok, enough preamble; in the '66 universe, James Gordon Jr is the Zodiac Killer. He's from Gotham, so the costume, riddles and persona would appeal, even just as a way to keep digging at his father from across the country, and he was never caught because he had the police looking out for him and keeping stuff under wraps. Does Batman know? Perhaps? Was it a string of Astrology-themed murders in Gotham that finally encouraged Bruce Wayne to don the cape and start fighting crime? Letting two costumed vigilantes with unknown identities fight crime in your city is a big damn departure from police procedure, let alone deputising them, was Gordon perhaps motivated out of fear that The Minstrel or Mad Hatter would become another killer and the cycle would repeat? I'm not normally one for adding 'darker' elements where they're not needed, but this was a fun idea, so I wanted to share it.

Superhero Media: Dirty Laundry

Knowing that I still had a season of The Punisher on Netflix to get through, I decided to save Dirty Laundry for last on my little Punisher re-watch. Dirty Laundry is a short film, around ten minutes, starring and directed by Thomas Jane; yes, really. When it became clear that Jane wouldn't get to don the iconic skull-shirt again, he decided to make his own follow-up, so much did he enjoy playing the character. If you want to watch Dirty Laundry, and you really should watch it, it's great, it can be found on YouTube, though there are a few different versions and qualities going around, so be careful. There is one really low quality version that's too easy to find with a looping 30-seconds of The Dark Knight soundtrack that really grates. As, essentially, a fan-film, Dirty Laundry is a little cheap-looking and neither the special effects nor actors are always the best, but Thomas Jane and, of all people, Ron Perlman, are there to carry the narrative through.

As the name suggests, the framing of Dirty Laundry is Frank Castle needing to wash some clothes, stopping at a local launderette and getting caught up in gang violence. It's a little iffy that the local gang are all African-American and the heroic characters, Frank and the shop owner, are White, but given the team from whom this story comes (Bootleg Media), I feel that any racist messaging isn't deliberate, though you may vary on that one. Although Frank clearly wants to keep a low-profile and just do his washing, a local gang hassling sex workers and beating and robbing a child eventually force him into action, which he does, not with guns as is typical, but with a bottle of Jack Daniel's and his combat boots. Although brief, the fight is brutal and more intense than most scenes in the Netflix series, making great use of the slow build and just exploding in the climax. It's really well-directed and well worth checking out for how to do a build-up properly, rather than just having Frank sit around making soup.

Yes, I'm very much of the opinion that Thomas Jane should have gotten another shot at playing Frank Castle, and that it's not too late for the MCU to bring him back as an older, The Punisher MAX style version of the character. It's not just that the film Jane was in is one of the best versions of the character, or that he is a big fan of the character and puts his all into his performance, but because he's a fucking good actor who has never got his due. A big Disney/MCU paycheck and a series of films based on the Garth Ennis comics could really cement Jane as a great in the way he deserves, but never seems to get. The MCU has become a great vehicle for actors, directors and just about everyone in the film-making process to get out into the public consciousness and get to deliver on their own passion projects. As much as the homogenisation of popular media under Disney is not a good thing, that it helped launch the careers of Ryan Coogler, Taika Watiki and Tom Holland to new heights is a great boon to the medium.