Make Your Creations Kount

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Listen to Nic and Mousa discuss Adaptaions! Everything from what makes them good or bad, to the best and worst of the bunch!

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Finally got around to seeing this season’s fourth episode, , and I have to say the most exciting thing about it, more so than Supergirl’s Futures End armor, was the introduction of Manchester Black. From the way that he walks in on J’onn’s investigation to how he’s less afraid and more offended that J’onn would try to intimidate him with powers, to just Manchester’s actor, David Ajala, being very charismatic, I see Manchester Black becoming a quick fan favorite. Plus, with the episode ending with Manchester taking up arms and J’onn seeking to be more pro-active in his new non-violent light, it only seeks to make theme of xenophobia this season that much stronger.

What isn’t so strong is that the episode wound up bringing back Fiona, J’onn’s friend and Manchester’s fiance, only to kill her off so as to motivate both men to do what they do. First off, we’re still fridging women in the year 2018? Second, I must’ve forgotten about how Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X became civil rights icons because a girl they both knew was killed. Third, it just generally sucks that this show seems to have a problem with either killing off POCs (Fiona/Tiya Sircar this episode and Agent Demos/Curtis Lum last season) or having them play irredeemable villains. I really hope nothing bad happens to Nia Nal, or at least she’s not killed off to motivate Braniac 5.

The Quadruple-Header, or:

Why Two Heads Are So, So Much Worse than One

By M.G. Marshall

American International Pictures likely has one of the most interesting back catalogues of any low budget studio around, because looking through it you can basically pinpoint what the B-movie trend of the day was between 1954 and 1980. Drive-in monster movies are the big thing? AIP made hundreds, from I Was a Teenage Werewolf to Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters. Hammer Studios has brought artsy, gothic horror movies back onto the cultural landscape? AIP has a response for that in Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe cycle, and they even distributed a few Mario Bava movies here in the United States as well. Biker movies are the new fad? Well, look no further than AIP for gems such as The Born Losers, or Corman’s The Wild Angels. Bonnie and Clyde was a huge hit and Depression-era bank robber movies are all the rage? AIP has got you covered with Bloody Mama, A Bullet for a Pretty Boy, and Dillinger. Hell, in the early to mid-70’s, they were basically the premiere studio for the Blaxploitation boom, with stars such as Pam Grier, Fred Williamson, Isaac Hayes, and Jim Brown in their stable, and numerous classics of the genre under their belt. Yes indeed, if AIP knew one thing at all, it was how to ride a trend.

And I bring all of this info to your attention merely as a preface to the following question: Were two-headed monster movies a trend at some point…? They must’ve been, because AIP apparently had enough confidence in this concept to devote two whole movies to it. Oh yes, that’s right- there’s two of these things. It’s a double-headed double feature that I’m quite certain nobody ever asked for. First up is The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant.

The movie centers on Dr. Roger Girard (Bruce Dern, in what has to be a career low point), a brilliant, obsessive surgeon who spends all of his time locked away in his laboratory with his creepy assistant Max (Berry Kroeger), attempting to perfect his theorized head transplant operation, where the head of one subject is grafted onto the shoulder of another subject, before the  original head is removed and the transplant head overtakes the body. How exactly this operation would be useful is really anybody’s guess. Despite essentially being a hermit, Dr. Girard has a loving wife Linda (Pat Priest, of The Munsters), a concerned best friend Ken (Casey Kasem, of literally every Hanna-Barbera cartoon ever), and an enormous estate with a live-in groundskeeper who’s assisted by his hulking, mentally disabled son, Danny (John Bloom).

Dr. Girard’s idyllic mad scientist lifestyle is interrupted one day when escaped serial killer/rapist Manuel Cass (Albert Cole) happens upon the grounds, murders the groundskeeper, and makes off with Linda. Dr. Girard and Max are quickly able to rescue her, shooting and mortally wounding Cass. But with his father dead, Danny is left in a near-catatonic state, refusing to leave the corpse’s side. For some reason, Girard decides that it would be a great idea to graft the head of the homicidal rapist onto the body of the mentally disable giant and decides to make Danny and Cass his first human test subjects. Upon waking, Cass takes it shockingly well that he’s now a disembodied head sewn to another man’s shoulder, and almost immediately convinces Danny to escape so the two of them can wander the countryside, murdering necking teenagers and random biker gangs.

This is not a very good movie. It should be noted that this was produced in the post-Roger Corman, drive-in schlock era of AIP’s output. Yeah, that whole Blaxploitation boom I mentioned earlier really gave these guys a shot in the arm they desperately needed, because their horror output at the time was pretty atrocious. This was the same era when they were putting out notable Mystery Science Theater 3000-fodder like The Bat People (featured on MST3K as It Lives by Night) and The Incredible Melting Man. And, honestly, it’s kinda hard to see why the Bots never got around to The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant.

Normally intense and smarmy, I can’t overemphasize how low-key and unhappy-looking Bruce Dern is in this movie. He is just dead-eyed and devoid of energy for the entire duration. Interestingly, Dern would later claim that he was never paid for his services in this movie. I believe him. Pat Priest brings all the acting talent you’d expect out of the second Marilyn Munster. I kid, but in all seriousness, she does fine for a role that mostly calls for her to scream in terror and be held captive by her bored mad scientist husband. Casey Kasem does a good job of playing Casey Kasem, although the filmmakers make the weird cost-saving decision to have every radio announcement that plays throughout the movie voiced by Kasem as well, and his character isn’t a radio announcer. Did they just think nobody would notice?

As half of the titular monster, Albert Coles is probably the most fun thing about the movie in all of his wide-eyed, gap-toothed glory. Although once I noticed that he really resembles a young Cheech Marin, it was kinda hard to unsee. As the unfortunate Danny, John Bloom is serviceable at hitting the one childlike note the movie asks of him, but he’s clearly no great shakes as an actor. He is really large though. I can’t take that away from him.

Another thing of note is the weird, trippy 70’s editing the movie employs in a few scenes. It’s hard to describe without actually seeing it for yourself, but it’s sort of an odd, crosscutting between scenes where the beginning of a scene will be rapidly intercut with the ending of the previous scene. It’s interesting and eye-catching at first (although the first time I saw the movie I thought the DVD was skipping) but it gets really old as the movie goes on, and there’s never really any rhyme or reason to its use. It just keeps happening every now and then out of nowhere.

Hullo internet! New post by Bones about how to kill a superhero. Check it out!

"We’ve all been there right? You’re happily reading your favorite comic when all of a sudden, BOOM, the hero gets killed by some happenstance or villain plot. It doesn’t hurt for long though. At most you wait for 2 years for the next big event where they’ll be resurrected. It’s happened time and time again in comics, to the point it has formed its own tropes, some good and some bad. I am a firm believer that most any idea can be weaved into gold, including the Death of a Hero."

                We’ve all been there right? You’re happily reading your favorite comic when all of a sudden, BOOM, the hero gets killed by some happenstance or villain plot. It doesn’t hurt for long though. At most you wait for 2 years for the next big event where they’ll be resurrected. It’s happened time and time again in comics, to the point it has formed its own tropes, some good and some bad. I am a firm believer that most any idea can be weaved into gold, including the Death of a Hero.

                There are several prime examples of how to kill a super hero. Supergirl’s death in Crises on Infinite Earths is a great way to give a heroic “end” to a hero, same with Barry Allan’s Flash in the same story line. They are allowed to have their moment of heroism before being snuffed out. In an event book like that, you have to have them go down swinging. It raises the stakes while keeping the reader emotionally invested. You can’t cheapen a long time characters final moments. It has to breathe as a whole scene, climaxing into the heroes fall, not a moment and then “everything’s changed”.

                Death of Superman is another good example, giving major time to the building of tensions until Superman’s final moments. Doomsday (a brand new villain, created by the writers to have someone to kill Superman) has several fights with the Justice League, kicking their collective butts until it’s just Superman and Doomsday left standing. When the comic gets to this point, it switches to only two page spreads, each punch being an epic mural of the earth shattering battle. It’s a classic storyline not because of Superman’s death, but because the emotional impact of his death leaves the reader.

Death of Superman made national real life headlines. CNN ran a piece on it, The New York Times had several stories in the fall of ’92, the time of original release for “Death of Superman”. With all this attention I think it was the right move that a new villain was the one to take the man of steel out. In the aftermath of his death, we see Superman’s friends and foes process the loss. There is no satisfaction of victory for the villains, and no revenge seeking for the allies (Doomsday and Superman kill each other simultaneously). We get to see everyone connected to Superman grieve in their own way.

                But the best “death of” story line was Death of Spider-man in Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. It has an entire five issues to build the stakes, but more importantly let Peter’s supporting cast have moments with him. Even if you have never read the series, you get the feeling of everyone’s relationship to Peter. Iceman and Human Torch being his comrades-in-arms, Gwen and May being his adopted sister and mother and Mary Jane as his significant other. The weight of Peter’s death at the end of the story is felt by the audience because we connected to him through the other characters. This makes the whole story about Peter, not just one scene in a larger story, allowing for a more epic feel. We even have Peter get injured in a fight with the Ultimates (the Ultimate Universes Avengers) but the story never concentrates on the Ultimates. It doesn’t need to. All we need to know is he swings in trying to help, and then gets shot protecting Captain America (who gave Peter a hero speech towards the beginning of the story, another moment that adds to the overall story).

                To dig a little deeper into this moment, this is where it could’ve fallen apart. There have been events where this is where Peter would’ve died. A sudden semi-heroic, but also semi-stupid, death. A footnote in the plot of the story. A frustrating way for a long time popular character to go out. If Peter’s death had been part of this Ultimate’s event, it should have been handled like the Flash and Supergirl deaths in Crises on Infinite Earths. Those were used to raise the stakes, yes, but still in a heroic way. They gave it their all, two of DC’s most powerful heroes, and it still wasn’t enough. A dive in front of a bullet to save someone else is a more “realistic” way to die, but not an emotionally satisfying story for a 10 year old character* with a massive fan base.

                What IS emotionally satisfying is having an injured Spider-Man racing to stop not one, but SIX of his enemies rampaging across the city towards his house in Queens. The final battle is a slugfest with his greatest enemies, desperately trying to keep Aunt May and Gwen Stacy safe. The last villain left standing is Green Goblin. An injured Peter, barley able to stand, finally defeats Green Goblin and collapses. May takes her dying nephew in her arms, weeping “Oh god! Not him too! Please! Not him too!” and his last words to her are “Don’t you see…It’s ok. I did it. I couldn’t save him. Uncle Ben. I couldn’t save him…No matter what I did. But I saved you. I did it. I did…”

                The reason this is such a great story is because it shows the heroes connection to the world that has been built around them. We see the villains’ hatred of Spider-man, the other heroes thoughts on him, and what Peter means to his family and friends. But most importantly we get a wrap up on the theme of Peter and Spider-Man. Peter tries to be utterly selfless, even to the major detriment of his personal life. He must save everyone he can because he couldn’t save his Uncle Ben, and his last act is rectifying that by saving his Aunt May, dying finally at peace with his conscious. That my friend is how you kill a beloved superhero. Tie up the relationships and themes into a nice big, heart wrenching bow that tops the package of the characters history.

Check out @mycknic s break down of #eddiebrock and #venom on our site!