Tagged: Sherlock Holmes

The Law is a Ass #463: Sherlock Takes the Law for 2000

What do I have to say about a Sherlock Holmes story that’s hard to swallow? That’s alimentary, my dear Watson. I say:

“The Adventure of the Innocent Murderess,” the June 30, 1947 episode of the radio show The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, was a gripping tale of murder and intrigue. Gripping because it was a fevered mess.

The episode involved Igoru Priscop, an official of the People’s Party of the European country of Grotznia, a fictional country that, like most fictional European countries, was smaller than Liechtenstein but bigger than a bread box. The People’s Party of Grotznia had been deposed by the Royalists. Now the International Committee of Power was meeting in the Hague to decide whether the Royalists or the People’s Party were the rightful rulers of Grotznia. Where did The International Committee of Power meet, the International House of Pancakes?

Priscop was in London to meet with exiled leaders of the People’s Party. Because Royalists dominated the Grotznian, Priscop had to keep his presence in London a secret. Sherlock Holmes agreed to shelter him in 221b Baker Street.

While hiding in Baker Street, Priscop ordered some wine. After it was delivered, Priscop proceeded to drink it. While he did, tragedy struck. Tragedy and a bullet. A young woman stormed into Holmes’s flat and shot Priscop. Priscop was dead.

Shortly thereafter, the Hague ruled the People’s Party was always the rightful government of Grotznia. Because Priscop was dead, Carlo Tarfush of the People’s Party became the Grotznian ambassador to England. Tarfush’s fiancée, Ladri Mikelto was the young woman who shot Priscop, which, we learned later, she did to insure her fiancé would become ambassador.

During Ladri’s trial, defense counsel produced evidence that Priscop had died of cyanide poisoning, which had gone undetected, because everyone assumed he died of gunshots so didn’t look for poison. (Or so the story said. I can’t think of a way to explain the unprofessional gaff of a coroner who didn’t perform a complete autopsy. Seems a little slipshod tomb me.) Anyway, Ladri was found not guilty.

After the trial, Tarfush challenged Holmes to discover the real murderer or become the laughing stock of England. (By the way, what is a laughing stock anyway, a soup base prepared from hyena meat?)

Holmes tested a wine stain left in his flat and found it contained cyanide. No one could have doctored the wine after it was delivered, so he tracked down the boy who delivered the wine. The delivery boy told Holmes that a woman, one the boy later identified as Ladri, approached him and offered to buy him a cake in a nearby tea shop. Holmes deduced that while there Ladri switched the original wine bottle for the one she had doctored with cyanide.

Holmes confronted Ladri with his proofs. She freely admitted her guilt. Then she gloated that under England’s double jeopardy law, she couldn’t be tried for murdering Priscop a second time.

Holmes brooded and thought and read. Then he had the solution to the problem.

At a formal party in the embassy, Holmes accused Ladri. He reminded everyone that the Hague had ruled the People’s Party was always the rightful ruler of Grotznia. So when he and Watson were harboring Priscop, their lodgings at 221b Baker Street became the true Grotznian embassy. Holmes also pointed out that embassies are extra-territorial and anyone in the Grotznian embassy was on Grotznian soil, not British soil. So any crime committed in the embassy was subject to Grotznian law, not British law. And, as Grotznia didn’t recognize double jeopardy, Ladri could be tried for murder a second time in Grotznia.

But when Ladri switched wine bottles, she was in a tea shop not in 221b Baker Street. So when she committed her crime, she wasn’t in the Grotznian embassy, she was firmly on British soil. After all, can anything be more firmly British than a tea shop? That means British law and it’s annoying double jeopardy rule would apply to her crime. You may wonder, was Holmes correct. Or was he talking through his deerstalker?

Despite this apparent flaw, I can think of a way to get Holmes out of this Inver-mess he was cloaked in. Two, actually, and I won’t even charge him extra for the second one. Sherlock-y for him that I happened along.

Yes, Ladri switched the wine bottles in a tea shop, but she performed another key part of her plan in 221b Baker Street, shooting Priscop. Ladri shot Priscop to obscure the cause of death and keep the coroner from checking for poison. If the police knew Priscop was poisoned, they would realize the poison came from the wine bottle and trace the poison back to her. So, the shooting was a key part of her plan, both because it kept the police from looking for poison and because it set up her double jeopardy plot and the shooting was committed in 221b.

Ladri could be tried in any jurisdiction where an important step of her murder occurred. In England, where the tea shop was, or in Grotznia, where the embassy was. Grotznia did have jurisdiction over her case, including its law not recognizing double jeopardy.

Remember I said I had two ways out for Holmes? I do. The first is the dual sovereignty argument you just read. The second is that Ladri couldn’t invoke double jeopardy, because it didn’t apply in her case.

Ladri was tried for murdering Priscop by shooting him. She was never tried for poisoning him. Poisoning Priscop and shooting Priscop were two separate and distinct acts. Double jeopardy wouldn’t preclude her second trial, because criminal prosecutions put a person on trail for what act the person committed, not for the crime’s name. Let’s look at a hypothetical.

Suppose a man commits a robbery and then later robs the same victim second time. The man is tried for the first robbery and acquitted. In that scenario, double jeopardy would not prevent that man from being tried and convicted of that second robbery, because the man wouldn’t have been tried for the same offense twice. Rather he’d be tried for two different offenses both of which happened to violate the same law. The crimes would have the same name. The victim would even have the same name. But the two crimes were different acts.

It would be folly for any court to rule that once a person was acquitted of a robbery, that person could never be tried for any other robbery in the future. Judges aren’t paid with Monopoly money, so wouldn’t give out that kind of a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card.

In the same way, Ladri’s poisoning Priscop with wine was a completely separate and distinct criminal act than was her act of shooting Priscop. Yes, the name of the crime and the name of the victim would be the same in both trials, but the two acts were wholly distinct and she could be tried for each separately irrespective of the results the first trial.

In Ashe v. Swenson, the Supreme Court established a double jeopardy test that could apply here: In a subsequent trial, would the prosecution have to prove any of the same facts already proven in the first trial which resulted in an acquittal. If yes, then double jeopardy would bar the prosecution. If the prosecution did not have to relitigate any of the facts from the first trial, double jeopardy would not bar prosecution.

In Ladri’s second trial, the Crown would not have to introduce any evidence about her shooting Priscop. It could secure a conviction solely with the evidence of how she doctored the wine and poisoned Priscop.

Leastwise, that’s how it would work in the United States. I’m not completely familiar with how double jeopardy works in British law. But it would be pretty stupid of them to use an anal interpretation of double jeopardy that centered solely on the name of the crime charged and not the nature of the criminal acts being charged.

Some might say such a legal analysis was ill-advised. Others might say it was ill-ementary.

Irene Adler Gets a Comic

Irene Adler gets her own League of Extraordinary Gentlewomen

  • News
  • December 2, 2019

Titan Comics has announced Adler, a five-issue miniseries starting in February 2020 starring the only woman to ever best Sherlock Holmes, teaming her up with “famous Victorian heroines from science, history, and literature… such as Jane Eyre, Lady Havisham, Marie Curie, Carmilla, and Ayesha” to defeat Moriarty.

Comics Worth Reading has a preview and a recap of who’s who:

Irene Adler, the only woman to outwit Sherlock Holmes, appeared in one 1891 story, “A Scandal in Bohemia”. She’s been a favorite ever since, particularly with people who want to pair Holmes up romantically in a traditional fashion.

Lady Havisham is from Great Expectations, the crazy spinster in her wedding dress in a ruined mansion. Carmilla is a vampire who appeared 26 years before Dracula. Ayesha is the She written by H. Rider Haggard.

If you need me to explain Jane Eyre or Marie Curie to you, you are clearly not the audience for this story.

Originally at comicsworthreading.com

Go click through and see the preview.

Mike Gold: The Great Superhero Movie Backlash

trinity-walter-simonson-3426251

baby-groots-dynamite-1-6020170Over the millennia, I’ve written enough reviews to denude the Shoshone National Forest. My fellow commentators here at ComicMix have as well, and some of my best friends have been critics. So, as you read the following rant, please keep in mind I am not referring to those people… but I am referring to damn near every other critic practicing their arcane craft these days. From reading their recent criticism, I have come to the following conclusion.

Most critics seem to be sick to death of superhero movies and teevee shows. Even many of those who are enthusiasts of the superhero genre.

composite-superman-bvs-1-9969902It’s not hard to understand this. Even if you have seen 90% of all the superhero movies and teevee shows released in the past decade and enjoyed most of them, there’s an important difference: you made the choice to see them. For critics, it’s their job. They are more-or-less forced to watch these productions, usually in exchange for a paltry paycheck. I am sympathetic to their plight, although I do not believe anybody is writing criticism to fulfill their court-mandated obligation to community service.

If this was a reaction to Batman v Superman or the Fantastic Four movies or Amazing Spider-Man 2, I’d be more understanding. Now that the embargo has been lifted, I’ve read the “advance” reviews of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 and, while it did garner some very good notices, it is clear to me that a rather large gaggle of such critics really went far out of their way to put some hate into their criticism. The comment most typical to these writers is some variation of “Well, yeah, it’s fun and entertaining and the performances are solid, but it’s too much like the first one.”

supermanmolemen-1-5699050By this, I gather they mean that Star-Lord, Rocket (he will always be Rocket Raccoon to me), Drax, Nebula and Groot are in this movie as well. Well, they are the Guardians of the Galaxy, so they’re in the movie. That’s the deal. National Periodical Publications once made a Superman movie without Jimmy Olsen and Perry White; that was as wrong as it was cheap. Critics who feel Guardians 2 was overcrowded with already-seen characters are missing the point… and went to extremes to damn it with faint praise.

iron-man-stick-up-ass-1-4383344If you think Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 sucks, fine. You’re the critic; tell us why. But if you think a movie is “fun and entertaining and the performances are solid,” then don’t hold your dissatisfaction with the quantity of superhero movies against any one movie. It is obvious that professional critics have minimal impact on box office – at best – and by putting a movie you found to be enjoyable in a negative context, you are doing absolutely nothing to reduce your forthcoming superhero movie burden.

Besides, I doubt anybody ever told John Wayne there were too many westerns. Well, maybe John Ford, but I certainly doubt anybody ever told John Ford there were too many westerns.

Are superhero movies a fad? I don’t think so. We’ve always had a lot of them, but the passage of time has painted them with a nostalgic afterglow. Zorro, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, James Bond and their ilk have been in the theaters for over a century, and the industry is still making movies about these same guys.

Each movie should be evaluated on its own merits. If it’s a remake of a great movie, okay – the bar is higher as the filmmakers must justify why they’re remaking a great movie. But the argument should be about quality and not quantity. When it comes to sequels, let us remember that there have been quite a number that many critics define as superior to the original. Godfather II and From Russia With Love come to mind. Rotten Tomatoes gave Spider-Man 2 (the one that was good and not Amazing) four points over its well-received predecessor.

There’s a more direct way to say all this.

Before sitting down to watch a movie, pull that stick out of your ass. And don’t get wrapped up in the capes.

Dennis O’Neil: PI’s

black-mask-sam-spade-9867766Now as I was young and easy and gentlemen still trod the Earth and politics still made sense (a little… sometimes) I held that private eye fiction was about righteous men who had the courage to be alone. I was, at the time, living by myself in a small Manhattan apartment and so I guess I was seeking identification with heroes (and maybe seeking an excuse for my isolation.) But I was, I now think, wrong.

Which fictional gumshoes did I have in mind? My two favorites were Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe and they were, indeed, solitary beings walking the mean streets seeking truth. And there were others sprinkled through the pop culture regions of pulp magazines, radio, B movies. (Comic books? Patience, please, we’ll get to them.)

If you’re looking for antecedents, cast a glance at the King Arthur stories. Arthur’s knights mostly roved without companionship on their quests for the holy grail or whatever. But they did have a whole posse of clanky buddies waiting for their return at that round table, not to mention the odd fair maiden.

And from the very beginning of detective fiction, the heroes often had assistants, sidekicks, companions, homies – you pick the terminology – and these did a lot more than wait at home for the questers return. Edgar Allen Poe published the first private eye story way back in 1841. His hero was not a cop; he was a gifted amateur sleuth and here Poe established a much-imitated prototype, and not the only one. His good guy was a Gallic dilettante named C. Auguste Dupin whose exploits were related by an anonymous narrator whose name Poe did not share… and a mere 46 years later behold!

auguste_dupin-5054500Dr. John Watson delighting us with the wizardry of his roommate and constant companion, the world’s first “consulting detective” and by now you know that I refer to the master, Sherlock Holmes. Then, a lot of others, some lone wolves, some with healthier social lives.

Comics have not been congenial hosts to the consulting detective crowd..There have been a few, including a pre-Superman toughie named Slam Bradley who, by the way, had a sidekick, Shorty Morgan. Slam was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the team much better known for Superman.

Superman did not have on-the-job companionship, at least not in his early days, when he was supposed to be the only survivor of a doomed planet. (That changed. Considerably.) But Batman, the character Superman’s publisher commissioned to repeat his success, though originally a loner, had, within 11 months of his debut, an official assistant, Robin The Boy Wonder. Costumed vigilantes thereafter often came equipped with young acolytes.

And that brings us to now. These days, the superheroic genre is evolving a new paradigm. There is a kind of boss hero and several attractive helpers who take an active part in the quelling of antagonists. They aren’t gathering dust at that stupid table, they’re doing stuff! This, I think, is to accommodate the needs of television, which reaches a much bigger audience than print media ever did , specifically, a certain demographic, millennials old enough to have disposable income and young enough to identify with having lots of friends and getting involved with romances and disapproving parents and such woes. Of the five comics-derived weekly shows, only Gotham violates this pattern; its creators are going with the earlier Holmes-Watson template.

And say! Did you hear about Sherlock’s girlfriend? Elly Mentary?

Yes. Inexcusable. Bye.

Emily S. Whitten: Curtis Armstrong, Sherlock Holmes and Me

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This past weekend I attended the annual Sherlock Holmes fandom celebration, a.k.a. the BSI Weekend in New York City; a time I always thoroughly look forward to and enjoy. The weekend is great both for the setting (so much to see and do in NYC, both Sherlockian and otherwise) and for the friends (new and old) that attend.

One of the Sherlockian highlights of this year’s weekend for me was the Daintiest Thing in a Dressing Gown Pyjama Party, put on by the Baker Street Babes. I always get a kick out of costume parties, and this one featured lots of fun and creative pajama costumes, both Victorian and modern, and took place in the uber-cool and historic setting of The Players NYC (seriously – read their history page. So cool). It was a blast!

A non-Sherlockian highlight of my weekend was getting to see the current production of The King and I on Broadway. I was especially happy to be able to see Hoon Lee in the title role of The King of Siam, as I was already familiar with and had been privileged to previously discuss with him his excellent portrayal of Master Splinter in Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a voice acting role that requires an actor with both excellent sense of comedy and timing, and a broad emotional range. Both main roles of The King and I, i.e. The King of Siam and Anna Leonowens, fall into this category as well, and I was delighted to see both Hoon as The King and Kelli O’Hara as Anna absolutely killing it in their respective parts.

Both actors ably embodied the show’s by turns humorous and poignant or serious elements, and brought immense presence to the stage; and the other characters were also incredibly well acted. The sets, costumes, and choreography were beautiful, and the music and singing was phenomenal as well. I highly recommend seeing the show if you have the opportunity.

And finally, a huge highlight of my weekend which ventured into both Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian territories was the opportunity to sit down for a chat with actor Curtis Armstrong (of Revenge of the Nerds, Risky Business, The Closer, Dan Vs., American Dad, King of the Nerds, Supernatural, and much more).

During our interview we got to discuss the new Amazon series, Highston, in which Curtis plays a main role as Uncle Billy (and the first episode is already available to watch here). We also talked about his role as Metatron on Supernatural, and what it’s like to work on an established and ongoing TV series. We chatted about how Curtis prepares for roles; and about his experiences with fandom. And, of course, we talked about being Sherlockians, as Curtis is a big fan of Conan Doyle’s clever consulting detective, and that’s how we met in the first place! (Sherlock Holmes, bringing people together since 1887.)

I had a great time talking with Curtis, who is an absolute delight; and I’m sure you will think the same if you give the full interview a listen right here.

So check it out! And until next time, Servo Lectio!

 

 

Dennis O’Neil: Happy Endings

For a while, my favorite way of paying the bills was by writing Batman stories for DC Comics. But that was over. I’d accepted a job with Marvel, DC’s arch rival, and so the story I was working on would be my final visit to the Batcave. Well, no  problem.  I was a pro and a pro, I probably thought,  keeps emotions away from the workdesk.

As the splendid Alfred Bester said, “Among professionals the job is boss.”  But still…farewell to Batman? Forever? So I wrote a final panel with a final caption that could have ended the Batman saga, which had been going on for decades.  I knew that it wouldn’t, of course.  Editor Julius Schwartz would  employ another writer and Batman would continue with nary a beat missed. But I would know that my Batman, the only one that counted, would have ended his career with that closing caption.

I wonder how Arthur Conan Doyle felt when he sent Sherlock Holmes over Reichenbach Falls to what he apparently believed would be the great detective’s final exit.

Holmes didn’t stay dead and after some seven years at Marvel, neither did my own private Batman. I returned to DC and, power-mad ogre that I am, assumed editorship of the Batman franchise, which at the time consisted of two comic books. No hardcover novels, no megamovies, just two flimsy comic books. (Plus a number of non-bat related titles, but never mind them.)

And why, you might well inquire, if you are still with me, am I blathering on about such ancient (ancientish) history now?

Cast your mind back to last week’s televised Arrow, which you must have watched, the season’s last episode  and what could have been the finale for the whole series. Arrow, whose birth name is Oliver Queen, has just vanquished his supreme enemy and restored peace and tranquility to his city. He has assembled his cadre of  assistants (disciples?) and proclaimed them his successors. His task is done and they are more than capable of dealing with future tasks. We next see him cruising along an open highway in an open-top convertible, the lovely Felicity Smoak by his side, vanishing into what will surely be the happiest of happy endings.

Except that the series has been renewed and will rise again come fall. So what will Oliver (and let’s not forget the lissome Felicity) be up to in the chilly months while their cohorts kick ass and take villainous names? To just have them leave the series forever would be gutsy, but maybe not commercially prudent. Or maybe they can be more or less absent for a bit – we could look in on them occasionally – and eventually find a reason to return to the fray.  Or maybe they’ll never reach their happy-ever-after destination because of an unforeseen crisis that demands their attention.  (Are they carrying cell phones?)

Or maybe – here’s hoping! – those clever scribes in tv land will devise something breathtakingly original  that will leave me sprawled on  the couch, awed.

I’ve got a whole summer to hope that’s what happens.

 

Emily S. Whitten: The Music of Sherlock Holmes

This past weekend, Sherlock Holmes fans from all over the world gathered in New York City to celebrate Holmes’ birthday at the annual BSI Weekend, hosted in main part by The Baker Street Irregulars, a Sherlockian literary society founded by Christopher Morley in 1934. As a longtime Holmes fan myself, this was my third year attending, and, as before, I had a great time with Sherlockian friends old and new, discussing and honoring the great detective, his faithful chronicler Dr. Watson, and the peripheral cast of characters (including the original BSI, Holmes’ group of street urchin informants) created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

 

I first attended the BSI Weekend in January 2012 after organizing a Sherlock Holmes Night at The National Press Club and learning in the process about our local Sherlockian scion society, The Red Circle, and the BSI Weekend celebrations. And in honor of the BSI and Sherlock Holmes, today I figured I’d share something I put together while organizing that party – to wit, a little soundtrack of music that Holmes could conceivably have been listening to in the midst of his adventures, based on mentions in the canon of musicians and concerts he enjoyed.

I’ll be the first to admit that there are other fans around who are probably more serious Sherlockian scholars than I, and in fact, before I even realized that the BSI was out there as a Sherlockian society, I was using some of its work as a resource for compiling my little playlist (thank you, Baker Street Journal online archives). However, thanks to a little sleuthing and deduction of my own, despite there being more serious discussions of Holmes and music to be had, I am able to here provide a quick-and-easy list of compositions that are actually available and easily acquirable by anyone via, e.g., iTunes. So if scholarship is all well and good but what you’re really in the mood for is an efficient means of acquiring tunes that Holmes may have enjoyed as he processed clues while you snuggle up with your favorite bit of the canon on a snowy day, I can recommend the list below for your Sherlockian music needs.

  • Violin Concerto No. 7 in e Minor, Op. 38: II. Adagio – Takako Nishizaki, Capella Istropolitana & Libor Pesek
  • Song Without Words – Felix Mendelssohn
  • Sonata in D Major, Op. 1 No. 13 (HWV 371): I. Affetuoso – Andrew Manze & Richard Egarr
  • Sonata in D Major, Op. 1 No. 13 (HWV 371): II. Allegro – Andrew Manze & Richard Egarr
  • Sonata in D Major, Op. 1 No. 13 (HWV 371): III. Larghetto – Andrew Manze & Richard Egarr
  • Sonata in D Major, Op. 1 No. 13 (HWV 371): IV. Allegro – Andrew Manze & Richard Egarr
  • Barcarolle from the Tales of Hoffmann (Act 2) – Jacques Offenbach
  • Airs Ecossais, Op. 34 – Adele Anthony & Akira Eguchi
  • String Quartet in C Major, Op. 29: I. Allegro Moderato – Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble
  • String Quartet in C Major, Op. 29:II. Adagio molto Espressivo – Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble
  • String Quartet in C Major, Op. 29:III. Scherzo: Allegro – Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble
  • String Quartet in C Major, Op. 29:IV. Presto – Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble
  • Nocturne No. 18 in E, Op. 62, No. 2 – Vladimir Ashkenazy
  • 24 Caprices Op. 1 for Solo Violin: No., 18 in C – Nicolo Paganini
  • Barcarolle in F Sharp Major, Op. 60 – Alwin Bär
  • Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108: I. Allegro – Nikolaj Znaider & Yefim Bronfman
  • Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100: II. Andante Tranquillo – Nikolaj Znaider & Yefim Bronfman
  • Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100: III. Allegretto Grazioso (quasi Andante) – Nikolaj Znaider & Yefim Bronfman

Enjoy! And if you are of a more scholarly bent and are curious as to why these songs were chosen, here are a few of the resources I used in compiling them: Music, Musicians, and Composers in The Canon, The Avant-Garde Sherlock Holmes, and Sherlock Holmes and Music.

 

Until next time, the game’s afoot – so Servo Lectio!

 

John Ostrander: The Essence

ostrander-art-130804-3794866A week or so ago I was talking about how in the Man of Steel movie they had Superman kill someone. No spoiler alert: if you haven’t seen the movie yet, it’s your own damn fault. It did violate one of the traditional tenets that marked Superman as Superman – he doesn’t kill. Lots of innocent bystanders must have also died during his battle with Kryptonians in Smallville and Metropolis but hey – collateral damage.

I did note, however, that characters that have been around a lot need an updating to keep them relevant to the times in which they are being read/watched. The question to me is – how much change is acceptable before you’ve altered the character so much that they are no longer really that character. What defines each character? What are the essentials?

I read in a recent Entertainment Weekly that Andrew Garfield, the current movie Peter Parker/Spider-Man, suggested that the next Mary Jane actually be a guy. Have Peter explore his sexuality with a guy. Even the director, Marc Webb, when asked if he had heard Garfield’s idea, seemed to do an eye roll.

That idea certainly isn’t traditional Peter Parker and got some discussion, but is it that far off? I’m not saying I endorse the idea but wouldn’t it make Peter more contemporary, something to which younger readers/viewers might relate? Would a bi-sexual Peter Parker be any less Spider-Man? Would a Peter Parker in a lip lock with a guy be more shocking than a Superman who kills?

The comics’ Spider-Man has taken it further. In the book, Spider-Man’s old foe Doctor Octopus has taken over Peter’s body and life and identity of Spider-Man with Peter looking real dead and gone. Otto Octavius is now Spider-Man. WTF?

The powers are the same, but the character sure isn’t. Is it the powers that define who Spider-Man is or is it the man behind the mask? If the latter, is this really Spider-Man?

This isn’t the only character to which this has happened. Iron Man has had people other than Tony Stark in the armor. Batman has had a couple of people under the cowl. And let’s not start on Robin. Or Batgirl.

The stories of Sherlock Holmes have also lent themselves to numerous interpretations. There are currently two TV series that put Holmes into modern day. I only really know the BBC series, Sherlock, but despite changing the era it feels so Holmesian to me. It feels like they got the essentials right.

I did it myself with my own character GrimJack. First I killed off the main character, John Gaunt, then I brought his soul back into a clone of himself and then, eventually, I had him reborn into another person, James Edgar Twilley, although again, it was the same soul. Munden’s Bar remained but the supporting cast was different and I had bounced the whole thing down the time line a hundred years or so and the setting of Cynosure was also changed.

I knew why I did it at the time. I felt my writing was getting stale and the character was as well. We hadn’t been around all that long but I felt we were getting tripped up on our own continuity. Sales were eroding. My editor asked me to come up with some way of making the book dangerous again.  That’s how I chose to do it.

Was it still GrimJack? Yes, I felt it was – in its essentials. An alienated and violent loner in a strange city living by his own code. Same soul, two lives. It still felt like GrimJack.

I’m willing to bet that most re-examinations of a given character or concept stems from that – to look at it all with fresh eyes, to make the reader/viewer do the same. To me, that’s trying to get to the essentials.

Maybe we aren’t all agreed as to what the essentials are in any given character or concept. That may vary from person o person, fan to fan. I think that’s why there are quibbles right now about Man of Steel; if Superman not killing is essential to the character, there’s a problem with the newest version. On the other hand, if “do not kill” rule is just like wearing red trunks, then it’s not essential. Is the Man of Steel Superman?

That comes down to you.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

Holmes Goes to Germany

The German-language edition of Philip Jose Farmer’s Sherlock Holmes und die Legende von Greystoke (The Adventure of the Peerless Peer) is now available as an ebook, featuring a new afterword by New Pulp Author Win Scott Eckert. You can pick up the ebook here. Trade paperback and hardcover editions coming soon.

John Ostrander: Improving On The Legends

39583-5830384There’s a constant desire these days, it appears, to try to improve on existing works. That’s not a bad idea except when it is a bad idea. A good character, a good concept, that’s been around for a while needs to have the barnacles taken off every so often to make it fresh and work better. Movies adapted from comics have to take a good look at the source material and then tweak and change it to make it work for the big/small screen.

For me, the problem comes when the concept is changed willy-nilly until you can no longer recognize it. When J.J. Abrams re-booted the Star Trek franchise a few years back, I was dubious but I genuinely enjoyed the result (as of this writing, I haven’t seen the sequel). I can understand many hardcore Trek fans not sharing my enthusiasm. For them, Abrams wandered too far from the zeitgeist of Star Trek. I think it was nephew Bill who said to me, “I love Star Wars. But if I wanted to watch Star Wars, I’d watch Star Wars. This is Star Trek.” (He’ll get his opportunity to see an Abrams Star Wars film in the future, if he’s so inclined.)

We see it all the time in comics. Characters are re-imagined on a constant basis. The only constant is change, it would seem. Change for the sake of change, however, is not always a good plan.

I’ve been as guilty of it as the next writer. Years ago, Marvel approached me with coming up with a new pitch for The Punisher. The fans had gotten burned out with the multitude of Punisher titles and the concept was moribund.

I’ll be honest; I wasn’t much of a Punisher fan. I felt he was one-dimensional and Frank Castle had wiped out enough Mafiosi over the years to populate a small city. I told them I’d try to come up with something and what I came up with was – Castle joins a Mafia family. I thought they’d never go for it, but they did.

Different? You bet. Wrong? Yup. Did the readers buy it? Nope. It wasn’t The Punisher. I had wandered off the essential concept.

I wasn’t on the book all that long (18 issues) and, late in the run, the concept of Castle switching sides was dropped and we played a different game – Castle, as a result of an explosion, had lost his memory. He didn’t know he was the Punisher, he couldn’t remember his family being killed, but he still had the same skills, the same instincts. Frank Castle was still The Punisher although he didn’t know it. This worked better but the series was cancelled before we could get too far; in fact, we wound it up in Heroes For Hire that I was scripting at the time. Perhaps if we had gone with the amnesia angle from the start, it might have worked better.

A revamp or a remake works if you can define what makes a given character to be that character. You want to get down to the basics, not ignore them. For example, we’ve seen in recent years three different versions of Sherlock Holmes, two set in modern times. They all work more or less because they all keep key elements of the concept.

Sometimes a revamp can be quite radical. Late in my run on GrimJack, I booted the character down his own timeline and into a new body, a new persona and a whole new supporting cast. His soul was the same but it gave me, and the reader, a chance to look at the character with fresh eyes. To my mind, it stayed true to the concept of the character and the location.

My rule of thumb: if you look at a character after a revamp and you could simply give the character another name, then you’ve wandered off the concept. So long as you remain true to the basic ideas that makes a given character unique until him/herself, then it doesn’t matter how radical their evolution. First, they have to be true to themselves.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Emily S. Whitten

 

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