Author: Robert Greenberger

Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon (1947-1988) was one of the most celebrated adventure comic strips of the 1950s. The blond, square-jawed hero was on the cutting edge of action as he took to the skies and had adventures around the world. Caniff populated the strip with memorable supporting characters and adversaries so it was a rich reading experience.

The strip was so popular that when Captain Action was introduced in 1966, Canyon was one of the first heroes he could turn into. Somewhat earlier, Canyon also served as inspiration for an NBC prime time series that, sadly, bore little resemblance to the strip (a common problem back then).

In 2008, John R. Ellis brought us this forgotten gem with The Complete Steve Canyon on TV Volume 1 and followed up a year later with Volume 2. The silence until late last year when the anticipated Volume 3 finally arrived, completing the run. Thankfully it came with a cardboard sleeve to act as decorative box for all three volumes.

Ellis and his production team were able to use the original 35mm broadcast masters resulting in sharp images. As a bonus the bumpers and some advertisements are replicated as well, giving you a real feel for what TV was like during its first decade.

Across the 34 episodes, airing during the 1958-59 season,the series changed direction and tone as a result of the participation, or lack thereof, from the Air Force. Lt. Colonel Steve Canyon (Dean Fredericks) was depicted as a troubleshooter which allowed stock footage from the military to be put on display. In time, though, the Air Force disliked seeing airmen in anything but perfect light and withdrew their support.

As a result, Canyon was reassigned to be commander of Big Thunder Air Force Base which required no stock footage and could focus on the men and women living and working there. You can watch shift and scramble in volume two but by the third volume, the producers got a handle on what to do with the new status quo and the writing improved. Sadly, though, Canyon never takes to the air again.

The public’s concerns with the Red Scare, the atomic bomb, and foreign spies are woven into several of these episodes to good effect. It’s a shame there are few interesting supporting players for Canyon to bounce off, which could have enlivened the single season. Instead, we are given a nice assortment of guest stars. In this volume, you can see Werner Klemperer, Celia Lovsky, Jerry Paris, Ted de Corsia, Ross Martin, Roy Thinnes, Amanda Blake, John Anderson, Virginia Christine, Dabbs Greer, George Macready, James Drury, William Schallert, William Allyn, Claude Akins, Ron Ely, Harry Townes, and Paul Frees.

The last 10 episodes are contained on two discs and thanks to the source material (a mix of NBC masters and ABC masters when they reran the show), they look and sound terrific. When Ellis couldn’t find masters for “Blackmail” and “Operation Towline”, the original unaired pilot, he was able to use 16mm prints from Caniff’s personal collection. You will see Caniff onscreen introducing the pilot. The pilot is a nice bonus here as is the commentary for each episode this time around. There’s additional DVD-ROM content that includes the unproduced script “Project B-58”.  With so few of the original cast and crew still left alive, the audio commentary comes from Abel Fernandez, an actor, and director Arthur Marks, supplemented with remarks from Ellis, aviation film historian James H. Farmer, artist/historian Russ Maheras, archivist Bob Burns, TV historian Peter Greenwood, and television historian Brad Ulvila.

Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel
By Paul Levitz
Abrams ComicArts, 224 pages, $40

It took me a while to figure out that Will Eisner has been a part of my comic reading life since I was perhaps seven or eight. Mom found Jules Fieffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes at our local library and brought it to me to read. I understood these were older works but I still recognized the main characters in the book. The final story, though, threw me. I didn’t get it, didn’t like it. I was clearly too young and not yet sophisticated enough to appreciate the Spirit section reprinted there.

But he was important enough for Feiffer to include and a few years later, when I was reading Steranko’s History of the Comics, I began to understand how important Eisner and his creation were.  By the time I got to meet Eisner, he had established himself as the premier graphic novelist and educator in our field. It was during the 1982 San Diego Comic Con when we were introduced and two days later, I was in the audience to hear his panel when I was suddenly asked to fill in for moderator Shel Dorf and interview Will on stage. We chatted about, I believe, The City and some of his other works and considering there was no time to prep, it went well enough. As he was with most everyone working in the field at the time, he was always friendly and welcoming whenever we saw one another.

It’s a real shame, though, that despite his pioneering efforts and visionary faith in the power of comics, Will Eisner has eluded the mass media fame he deserved. While there have been a few biographies (including a YA one I wrote in 2008) about Eisner, this book is the first exploration of his role in the birth of the modern day graphic novel.

Former DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz and I have known one another for over forty years but I have always admired his keen intellectual approach to the business of comics. Here, in his first work unrelated to DC, Levitz walks the general reader, not the fan, through the evolution of both Eisner as a creator and of the graphic novel. There had been many attempts at long-form graphic stories prior to 1978’s A Contract with God, but as he argues here, it is the first work that captured the admiration of his peers and encouraged them to follow his lead. Later in the book, there is a transcript of a panel discussion that examines why Feiffer’s Tantrum¸ released at almost the same time, didn’t attract the same level of interest.

We watch as Eisner drifts from making most of his living from comic book material, but never gives up on the medium entirely. While he focused on other projects, including a lengthy run producing P*S Magazine for the army, the comics field was evolving, first with the arrival of the Marvel Age of Comics and then the rise of the undergrounds. By the time Eisner discovered them, he was lured back at a time he was needed the most. He saw what was currently happening, jumped right in with a revival of The Spirit, but more importantly, took a teaching role at the School of Visual Arts, training and influence the next generation of major creators.

By 1978, when Contract was released, the direct sales distribution channel was gaining importance so as Eisner was encouraged to produce more, a growing sales channel was ready for him, setting the stage for the graphic novel and collection edition (two separate types of books but treated as one by the masses) explosion that followed. If anything, I had hoped to read more detailed explorations of Eisner’s 1980s output which sometimes get lumped together.

Levitz, though, does his homework, getting collaborators and friends to help him trace why Eisner has endured and how his efforts helped shape the publishing world we currently live in.

The book measures 11.5” x 11”, an odd size to be sure, but one that allows Wisner’s work to be examined without crowding the words.  Designers C.S. Fossett and John Lind get credit for selecting a handful of the most familiar images and then stuffing the book with many other examples of Eisner’s strong storytelling and design. Much of it is shot from the original art and printed on heavy stock, looks wonderful.

Although Eisner died eleven years ago this month, his works remain in print and his influence can be found in monthly periodicals and the plethora of sequential stories aimed at all ages, covering all manner of content. The book does a fine job celebrating Eisner’s contributions and is written in a way that fans and the general public can appreciate.

Nnewts Book Two: The Rise of Herk
By Doug TenNapel
202 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $19.99 (hc)/$10.99 (pb)

I admire Doug TenNapel’s imagination and productivity. A new year and a new book from the cartoonist. This year’s offering is the second instalment in his new Nnewts universe, a follow-up to last year’s Escape from the Lizzarks.

It’s a colorful, imaginative world of varying races and creatures but the basic battle between good and evil remains recognizable to readers. The Nnewts are one of the predominant races and poor Herk was intentionally born with weak legs, all part of some master destiny. He gains magical powers and is called upon to use them to protect Amphibopolis from the threat of the vile Snake Lord.

The story is also about family, the one made from blood and the one made from love. He’s been separated from his brother Zerk, raised by Pikk and his mother but Zerk found by their sister Sissy. When the three meet up late in this second volume, it’s an explosive confrontation.

In the meantime, the Snake Lord is back, but stuck in the form of a radish (don’t ask, Doug’s not explaining) and manipulates events to bring about the Spell of Spells, using the Blakk Mudd to turn everyone in the city into Lizzarks, cementing his rule. Of course, Herk and his newfound magical abilities, stand between him and victory.

The book moves along at TenNapel’s usual frenetic pace, mixing action with comedic bits, and never lingering too long on one set or set of characters. It moves quickly which is probably why his work does so well with the 8-12 year old it’s aimed at.  His visual design, aided by Katherine Garner’s excellent color work, no doubt entices readers. The finale between the bestial Megasloth and the Snake Lord’s avatar is pretty cool.

As with most Graphix series, I feel there need to be recap pages since readers may not recall key details or characters when there’s a year between volumes. TenNapel does fill in the background in the book’s first third so does better than some of his compatriots.

On the other hand, like the other series, there’s a cliffhanger so it’s not a complete story with several threads leaving readers hanging until 2017. For the price, there should be a more complete tale and fewer threads.

Secret Hero Society: Study Hall of Justice
By Derek Fridolfs and Dustin Nguyen
Scholastic, 176 pages, $12.99

DC Comics and other companies with rich libraries, have decided to slice and dice their properties to fit whatever audience they think they can service.  Fidelity to the source material has become increasingly irrelevant so to enjoy most adaptations, you have to accept that, sit back, and enjoy the work for what it is. Such is the case with the latest offering from the team of Derek Fridolfs and Dustin Nguyen, who produced the youth-oriented Batman: Li’l Gotham for DC and are back with the first in a series of YA graphic novels under the Secret Hero Society umbrella.

Study Hall of Justice is set at the Ducard Academy and Bruce Wayne has just been accepted as a new student. Upon arrival, his keen senses already tip him off that things are not what they seem and throughout this book he pieces the clues together although long-time comic readers will figure it out long before.

The school is run by and populated by an all-too familiar cast of characters, heavily taken from the Batman mythos although the gym teacher is Zod and his homeroom teacher is Mr. Grundy. You chuckle at the notion of Vandal Savage as the history teacher or Siobhan McDougal (a.k.a Silver Banshee) as the choir director.

The students are drawn from around the world with Diana from distant Themyscira and Bane from South America although little is made of the international population. Instead there’s Joe Kerr as the class clown and other students are identified as Oswald and Circe. What’s interesting is that despite a blur suspected to be a student, no other hero is among the middle school population, It falls to Bruce, Clark Kent, and Diana to band together, despite all odds, to figure out why they’re being carefully evaluated for a place called Nanda Parbat.

The humor is gentle and the characterization is surface only as Fridolfs and Nguyen hurry us from September through June in 176 pages with asides for schedules, maps, and chat sessions taking up prime real estate. Fridolfs gets the basic right for the varying personalities, sandpapered down to the 8-12 year old readership. Similarly, Nguyen’s pleasing art makes everyone just recognizable enough although sometimes his characters seem drawn for elementary school not middle school.

Frankly, shoving a year into a single volume deprived the creators from a chance for doing anything fresh or unique with the characters. Instead, the archetypal personalities are on display and yes, they don their familiar outfits for the first time as part of a Halloween event although it makes their later adult secret identities superfluous. I wish more time was spent actually developing the characters from main to supporting so was more engaging.

No doubt the target audience will enjoy these but as a gateway to DC’s collected editions or periodicals, it fails since there is nothing between this and those remotely in common.

Young Adult novels tend to work best when they are metaphors for their readers’ lives. James Dashner’s Maze Runner trilogy certainly applied the zigs and zags of an adolescent’s development to that of a maze where the wrong turn can have devastating consequences. The books sold well and in the wake of The Hunger Games’ success, they were naturals for screen adaptation.

The first, 2014’s Maze Runner, was nowhere near as engaging with flat characters and a dumb, unsustainable society of teens. We were left with the gaggle of teens getting out from the maze and into its inner workings.

The Scorch Trials, out now oi Combo Pack from 20^th Century Home Entertainment, immediately picks up from that moment as we trace the Gladers: Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), Teresa Agnes (Kaya Scodelario), Frypan (Dexter Darden) and Winston (Alexander Flores) as they go exploring unchartered territory.

Once they find Mr. Janson (Aidan Gillen), they are told their safe so we know long before they do that the gang is anything but safe. Right there is the film’s problem as the worldbuilding is flabby, the character development is nil but the action quotient is high, trying to mask weak storytelling. It’s a shame screenwriter T.S. Nowlin and director Wes Ball, returning for a second trip to dystopia, didn’t take the time to deepen the players and make the audience care. Instead, they do a fine job with the running, jumping, and exploding but that reduces the cast and Dashner’s story to the plot of a video game.

We learn the Flare virus remains a threat as does Ava Paige (Patricia Clarkson), representing the evil WCKD (get it?) but we are also introduced to The Right Arm, the resistance movement led by Vince (Barry Pepper) and a gaggle of others who will work with Thomas and Teresa to overthrow the bad guys in the third installment, The Death Cure, due in 2017.

At 131 minutes, the film could have used some tightening that would have allowed the characters to feel like people like chess pieces. The bloated production needed some nipping and tucking to help with a slow first half and better second.

Still, the high definition transfer at AVC encoded 1080p in 2.40:1 looks just swell so you can watch things blow up just fine, paired well with the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix.

The combo comes with Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD so they have you covered. The Blu-ray comes with a nice assortment of extras starting with Audio Commentary from Ball, Nowlin, producer Joe Hartwick, Jr. and editor Dan Zimmerman; Janson’s Report (Classified) (4:57) , an assortment of “confessionals”; Deleted and Extended Scenes (17:58) with optional commentary by Ball, Nowlin, Hartwick, Jr. and Zimmerman; Secrets of The Scorch (52:15) , a compilation of featurettes with the standard behind the scenes footage and cast and crew interviews; Gag Reel (15:02); and Visual Effects Breakdown (1:06) with commentary by Ball; Visual Effects Reel (29:55).

One unique touch is a Maze Runner comic book being included.

You have to begin by asking yourself, do we really want an origin story for Peter Pan? J.M. Barrie certainly didn’t seem to think we needed it when he first wrote the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up in December 1904. The book we’re more familiar with, Peter and Wendy, didn’t arrive until 1911.

However, we have been conditioned to expect to understand everything there is about a character and too often we’re given origin stories that dilute the action. So, one has to wonder why Warner Bros and director Joe Wright felt we needed Pan.

The overwrought, over-produced production got bumped from summer to fall only to flop big time and is out now on Combo Pack from Warner Home Entertainment.

The idea of the boy who never grew up, who had wild escapades in Neverland should be sufficient lure for audiences. It certainly worked for Disney and Mary Martin but today, that’s not good enough.  Rather than a story to enchant children, this is aimed squarely at those of us to achieve adulthood and long for simpler days of youth.

The action is, we’re told, tamped down for younger audiences but it’s still in your face with a riot of colors, sounds, and frenetic energy that diminishes a script by Jason Fuchs (Ice Age: Continental Drift) once considered so strong it made the infamous Black List of great, yet-unproduced screenplays.

Working from the familiar set pieces we’ve come to love, Fuchs takes the youngster Peter and sets him on the classic hero’s journey taking way too many liberties from the source material to satisfy.  Young Peter was abandoned by his mother, Mary (Amanda Seyfried), leaving him to be raised by the cruel Mother Barnabas (Kathy Burke).  Even though Barrie’s story was set at the turn of the century, we’re somehow told its World War II and the London Blitz is on. Peter (Levi Miller), now 12, and his friend Nibs (Lewis MacDougall) find out Barnabas has been hoarding food and there’s a letter from Mary foreshadowing how “special” Peter was meant to be.

Peter escapes the Nazis, snatched up Bishop (Nonso Anozie), aboard his flying pirate ship. The man is collecting orphans to work as slave labor. Upon arrival, Peter meets the infamous Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), the mine’s overseer. Now Fuchs wrote the part for Jackman and used the pirate because Barrie established it was he who trained Hook – so what’s a sea-faring man doing in a mine? Jackman’s plays the part as if it were a Broadway production, chewing his beard or the scenery.

What are they mining? Pixum, or crystalized fairy dust. Uh huh.

We quickly meet the other denizens including Princess Tiger Lily (Mara) and her father (Jack Charles). Then there’s James Hook (Garrett Hedlund), cast in the swashbuckling role one expects from true pirates of yore. Hook is not Peter’s arch enemy yet but all the warnings are in place.

You get the idea. The movie is overstuffed with sets, characters, and anachronisms galore which spoils the sense of wonder the movie should have created. Wright’s a capable director but not here. Instead of something special, like Peter was meant to be, this movie can’t make up its mind what it really wants to be and who its audience should be. As a result, it leaves children overstimulated and parents shaking their heads in disappointment.

The Blu-ray transfer is just lovely, which is needs considering the visuals.  The 1080p, AVC-encoded result maintains the rich colors just fine. There’s a 3D version but this was not screened for review. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is strong.

For a film boasting so much effort, the special features prove disappointing. You start with Wright’s commentary which shows his head and heart were in the right place, although his defense of using “Smells Like Teen Spirit” fails to convince. There’s also Never Grow Up: The Legend of Pan (10:50), which does a nice job showing us how Barrie’s story grew from stage to book; The Boy Who Would Be Pan (6:07) introduces us to Miller, who at least looked age appropriate for Pan; The Scoundrels of Neverland (5:49), explores the pirates and Blackbeard’s origins; and, Wondrous Realms (5:01), a promotional tour of Neverland.

Say what you will about Tom Cruise as a person but as an actor and producer, he is one of the strongest performers in Hollywood. For the last 19 years, he has been responsible for Paramount Pictures’ Mission: Impossible franchise and has turned it into a goldmine. The fifth installment, Rogue Nation, arrives tomorrow in a combo pack from Paramount Home Entertainment just as people worry about the granddaddy of espionage franchises, James Bond.

I was not alone in feeling disappointed by Spectre, a lax story, a waste of Monica Bellucci, and boring set pieces. In comparison, the three major action sequences in Rogue Nation are fresher, more exciting, and still works on repeated watching.

Cruise set out at the beginning to honor Bruce Gellar’s creation but also add new flavors by insisting someone different direct each movie.  Brian DePalma set the stage and satisfied fans while John Wu had a misfire but then they came back with J.J. Abrams, Brad Bird, and now Christopher McQuarrie. The latter, it seems, was an uncredited writer on the previous film, Ghost Protocol and has been a frequent collaborator with Cruise so seemed a natural to become the next director. It should be noted that the film was so successful McQuarrie will be the first repeat director.

Whereas M:I 4 isolated Ethan Hunt and the IMF team because of things going awry in Russia, the new film takes things a step further, echoing Spectre’s thread that such agencies have outlived their usefulness. Without government support, Hunt cannot hope to uncover their shadowy duplicate agency, Spectre, er, the Syndicate despite the global consequences for failure.

The team is fractured as Hunt recruits Benji (Simon Pegg) to leave his dead end desk job and join him in Europe. Meantime, when Hunt and Benji go silent, IMF Chief William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) seeks out Luther (Ving Rhames) to come to their aid. In the mix is Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who may be working for the syndicate, some other agency, or out for herself. All Hunt knows is that she’s very good at what she does and comes to trust her when others remain suspicious.

The story, credited to Drew Pearce and McQuarrie, takes us around the world, uses inventive technology, and rarely lets up the pace while leavening the drama with some genuine humor and warmth between the characters. If there’s flaw, it is that Hunt remains a bit flat as a character, especially without any hint of his private life, which made Mission: Impossible III, a richer experience.

McQuarrie does a great job moving things along and the action sequences – Hunt on the airplane, the mandatory car/motorcycle chase, and the underwater computer bit – all work. While newcomer Ferguson has garnered the majority of the raves, a deadpan Alec Baldwin as CIA Director Alan Hunley should be credited with keeping things interesting. The final moments with the downfall of Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) is pitch perfect, replicating how many of the classic episodes ended.

The Blu-ray transfer is just swell, perfect for revisiting the film at home matched well with the Dolby Atmos soundtrack.

The film comes with several featurettes, all just long enough to give you the basics without getting boring. In some cases, I wish there was more, especially about the franchise as a whole but I suppose leaving them wanting more is better than boring us.

We open with Audio Commentary from Cruise and McQuarrie and you can sense how comfortable they are with one another, which transfers neatly into the film itself.

Lighting the Fuse (5:57) focuses mainly on McQuarrie’s involvement, as partner and director; Cruise Control (6:33) shines the same spotlight on Cruise’s role in the filmmaking process; Heroes… (8:06), profiles the recurring IMF agents plus Ilsa; Cruising Altitude (8:23), so how did they film that plane sequence; Mission: Immersible (6:45) is all about the underwater sequence with emphasis on the physical training required; Sand Theft Auto (5:35) explores the high speed vehicle chases; and, The Missions Continue (7:08) where cast and crew reflect on the franchise’s staying power.

The combo pack comes with a DVD and Digital HD code.