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Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes (1977) #255
In a genuinely startling event, it turns out when it comes to Joe Staton, sometimes you have to fight fire with fire—this issue features Staton’s most successful work. His inker? Vince Colletta. It’s not good art by any stretch, but it’s far more competent and consistent than Staton’s been on the book. Will Colletta be back to save the world from Staton’s pencils? Who knows, the issue feels like a fill-in.
The end of the last issue promised a Brainiac 5 resolution. This issue also promises a Brainiac 5 resolution… for the next issue. Instead, it’s a very Superboy story for Superboy and the Legion. He’s back home in Smallville, trying to be a regular kid in the fifties or sixties or teens, except he’s just too darn super. Lana Lang is on to him, so he’s got to do hijinks while helping out at Pa Kent’s store.
The Smallville sojourn doesn’t last long, with the Legionnaires coming back in time on a mission. Someone robbed the Superman Museum in the future, and they need Superboy’s glasses, except the future villain already came back in time and stole the glasses while he was distracted at work. They go back to the future, fight, fail, then go back to Krypton before it explodes to swipe some more Kryptonian glass, which is renowned around the galaxy.
Why couldn’t the bad guy go back in time to Krypton himself, maybe even head to a glass factory? Don’t ask.
There’s a funny moment when the Legionnaires ask Superboy to suit up–they wouldn’t want anyone seeing Clark Kent with some scantily clad exhibitionist time travelers. It’s unfortunately not self-aware; writer Gerry Conway keeps the plot moving, but there’s nothing to it. Clark’s bored in Smallville because it’s dull, and he’s not wrong; Conway writes a dull Superboy solo story.
It’s a mediocre narrative, but the not-horrendous art gets it through. Staton and Collettta. I’d never have guessed it.
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My Life Is Murder (2019) s03e04 – The Village
I think this “My Life is Murder” is the most empathetic episode ever. When Lucy Lawless gets to the solution to her murder mystery, there’s a lot she doesn’t like about it and has feels. She also has feels because her brother, Martin Henderson, has gotten out of prison and hasn’t contacted her. He’s the gardener at her latest investigation, a suspicious drug overdose in an elite retirement community. The victim’s a former judge, introducing assassination potential, and her son, Kelson Henderson, is an entitled prick.
Luckily, Kelson Henderson’s only got the one scene. Lawless is really investigating because Rawiri Jobe gave her the case, promising an interesting mystery—the victim died of a heart attack while on LSD. Tatum Warren-Ngata is back helping Lawless out, but like last episode’s teaser promised, Ebony Vagulans makes her return. Vagulans doesn’t have time to help out with the case; really, it’s mostly wrapped up by the time she arrives from Paris (which the show seems not to be explaining). Having Martin Henderson participate in the investigation—Lawless’s reluctant man on the inside–also changes the chemistry.
It’s a more ensemble “My Life is Murder,” which is fine; the cast is more than enough fun to sustain it. Though Jobe doesn’t get much to do—he and Lawless are apparently on the outs, she won’t even go for coffee with him as the show continues to shroud their extra-professional relationship in bemused secrecy. The revelation of previously unknown brother Martin Henderson also causes some relationship bumps.
However, there’s a weird scene with Joseph Naufahu and Warren-Ngata in his café; he pesters her to buy something or stop using his WiFi. I sort of assumed if you worked with Lawless, you got to hang out at Naufahu’s. It just seems like an excuse to give Naufahu a scene, but he’s setting a weird boundary with Warren-Ngata.
All of the suspects are good. There’s husband Temuera Morrison (in a charming, brief cameo—they got him for an afternoon, it looks like), next-door neighbor Elizabeth Hawthorne, drug-dealing nurse Jessie Lawrence, and bent community manager Blair Strang. Any of them could have a motive, but having Henderson on site—doing more than gardening, it turns out—complicates Lawless’s investigation when he’s found out.
Lots of good acting. Strang’s hilariously put out once he realizes Lawless is a cop, and then Hawthorne’s fantastic. She and Lawless have a nice character arc. Lawless handles the more emotional stuff well—her scenes with brother Henderson, for instance; it’s probably her best performance this season.
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P106
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American Gothic (1995) s01e01
I was happier than I should be to discover executive producer Sam Raimi didn’t direct this pilot episode of “American Gothic.” Raimi and Rob Tapert’s Renaissance Pictures produced the series (for Universal and CBS), so I just figured Raimi directed the first one. But, no, it’s Peter O’Fallon. Instead of talking about Raimi being unable to direct a TV show, I just get to say O’Fallon’s an exceptionally mediocre TV director. It’s not entirely his fault; it’s the mid-nineties, and it’s TV. There’s hacky CGI to shoot for, there’s some video footage split in, and there’s whatever’s going on with Ernest Holzman’s photography. Hopefully, O’Fallon won’t be the show’s template but given his bare competence doing a genre show with supernatural special effects… it’s kind of amazing when the show gets great.
The show doesn’t get great and stay great; it just has enough great scenes, sometimes cut short by commercial breaks (still the bane of narrative flow), sometimes just gone wrong. The show gets through its rocky but compelling start by the halfway mark. In time for Paige Turco’s graveyard exposition dump to be forgiven, even as O’Fallon misses they’ve dressed Turco in a Southern Gothic hooded cape thing, and he doesn’t know how to shoot for it. “Close-ups O’Fallon” is not an inappropriate nickname.
Thank goodness he’s not back directing.
Shaun Cassidy gets the script and creator credit for “Gothic.” He’s responsible for the episode’s considerable successes, though it’s all about getting it to the right actors. Just one episode in and “Gothic” has four outstanding performances. Top-billed Gary Cole’s murderous Southern sheriff, garbage human being Nick Searcy as his conflicted deputy, Sarah Paulson as the traumatized, non-verbal girl Cole murders in the third scene (which Searcy witnesses), and Lucas Black as Paulson’s little brother. Paulson has the best moment in the episode; now a spirit, she’s called Black back to their house (and her murder scene), so she can show him Cole rape their mother ten years ago, watching his own conception.
The mom’s long dead, their dad (Sonny Shroyer) cracked in the first scene and went after Paulson with a shovel—Cole was being opportunistic in killing her—and Black’s got to know the truth if there’s going to be a show.
The episode also introduces the good guys—Jake Weber as a town doctor, a Yankee moved down South to better the place, and Turco. Turco is Black’s adult cousin (we don’t get the family tree just yet) who left town when her parents mysteriously died in a fire… their bodies discovered by Cole, who must’ve been a teenager or something. Unclear at this point.
Then Brenda Bakke is Cole’s femme fatale accomplice. She’s the good girl school teacher by dawn, Southern vixen by night. Weber and Bakke are both quite good; they’re just quite good for 1995 television. They’re not transcending like the four top-tier performances.
Turco’s just okay. It’s not a great part this episode. She’s literally inserting herself into the plot, and there’s not room. She’s got some good moments, though. Unfortunately not the graveyard monologue… Five Easy Pieces it’s not.
At the start of the episode, I was more than a little concerned with the nineties Renaissance Studios mise-en-scene (i.e., brightly lighted, artless action sequences and lousy CGI), but “Gothic” comes through thanks to writing and casting. I do hope future directors are a little better with composition, establishing shots, and spotlighting performances; the cast shouldn’t have to hoist the whole thing up, regardless of their ability.
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Tomb of Dracula (1972) #22
I got halfway into this issue, until Quincy Harker shows up after Lilith attacked him in Giant-Size Chillers, and stopped to go read Giant-Size Chillers, as it seems to have taken place before this issue.
But then the end of the issue says go read Chillers and then you’ll be ready for next Tomb. Dracula goes from the U.S.S.R. to England in record time, even for a Marvel comic.
Drac’s still in the Soviet Union after his encounter with Roger Corman’s James Bond villain Doctor Sun. He gets into a regional squabble with a local vampire who won’t bow to Dracula’s commands. It’s an ego trip for Dracula, who then becomes the Soviet vampire’s suffering widow’s de facto protector. The Soviet vampire, Gorna, has been terrorizing his wife since he died, feeding on her, killing her suitors, and just being a general pest. Her parents knew Gorna was a vampire but didn’t tell her, so when she thought he was dying, the wife told him off.
So now he’s torturing the wife more than he would’ve otherwise, dragging out her vampiric conversion.
Outside a very awkwardly written flashback, the wife’s not even as big a character as her parents. They’re the ones who finally confront Gorna (it’s unclear why they waited so long to actually intercede), and they have the best moments with Dracula. He’s vicious to them, but the comic can’t help but play it like a comedy beat.
The parents are also the ones who bemoan how godless Communism has made Russia ripe for vampires and all sorts of other evils, as they’ve abandoned God. It’s unclear what writer Marv Wolfman’s going for—obviously, somehow, U.S.S.R. bad, but the parents are also numbskulls. And they enabled their daughter’s abusive marriage; the husband used to lock her up for weeks on end, which the parents must’ve known about. Basically, it’s a horrible situation for the wife from every angle.
Even before her dad and his town council buddies form a lynch mob and put on skull masks to go kill the vampire. It’s entirely unclear if the family tells the town they’ve got the Lord of Vampires, Count Dracula himself, on their side.
Good art, obviously; it’s Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, and the story’s engaging. It’s a little ho-hum, especially Quincy’s whiny C plot, but an okay TOD.