Superhero Media: Escape from New York

Fun fact, I bought my DVD of this film in a little hipster boutique in Paris; I can't turn the French subtitles off and the film is called New York 1997. No matter what you call it, Escape From New York is a cult classic, with a killer cast and plenty of tension from start to finish. In the distant year of 1997, the island of Manhattan has been isolated and turned into a prison for the worst offenders in America, with the bridges guarded and the rivers mined. When the President's plane crashes on the way to a vital peace conference and the biggest gang lord on the island, The Duke (Issac Hayes), holds him hostage, the only choice is a deniable, and disposable, rescue party. Enter Snake Plissken (Kurt fuckin' Russel!), former special forces soldier turned criminal, recruited by his former CO (Lee Van Cleef), Snake is sent in to save the President, only after having a bomb placed into his neck, giving him a ticking clock for his mission. Along the way, Plissken meets the inhabitants of New York, including Cabbie (Ernest Borgnine) and Brain (Harry Dean Stanton), surviving encounters with colourful gangs and barely escaping New York with his life. 

So Escape From New York is a great film, why bother talking about it in a blog about superheroes? Well, because I have used Snake Plissken in plenty of games already, but also because Escape From New York is the best Suicide Squad film ever made. Make no mistake, Snake faces death if he chooses to not go on the mission, he'll only live if he succeeds, and the chances are slim, but everyone's backed into a corner and options are limited. The Duke, with his fanatical followers and chandelier-decked Cadillac, is right out of a Batman comic, especially with his plans to lead an army of criminals out of New York to conquer the USA once the war with the Soviet Union starts. There's so much fodder here for supers games, I'm pretty shocked I'm the only supers gamer I've seen with a Snake in their collection. Seriously, send the Suicide Squad into No Man's Land Gotham to extract Luthor, or have the Thunderbolts perform a hit in decaying Robocop Detroit, both filled with fun gangs and a ticking clock until the protagonists' heads start exploding. 

Hell, really want to mash genres like in my Ultimate Alliance games? Snake Plissken is the leader of the Suicide Squad, trying to earn his freedom leading c-grade villains on wetwork assignments for the CIA. Because Snake is more of a freelancer than an outright villain, the friction generated when he's working alongside characters like KGBeast or Bullseye would make for great storytelling. Sadly, the "Escape From" series would never reach the dazzling heights of New York 1997 again, even with an expanded universe of comics and a couple of indy video games. Still, if you've never sat through this classic, chase it down on streaming or even DVD and give it a watch, it's a hell of a film.