RAR #81: LITTLE POCAHONTAS

 

I found this feature in the first couple of issues of the DC Comics title TOMAHAWK. It's as mediocre as all the other half-page humor features DC used to run, but I assume it's the only one ever centered upon a female Real American. For a time, TOMAHAWK included not only stories of the titular Indian-fighter, but also backup strips about Indian culture.

ALLOMYTHS AND ISOMYTHS PT. 4

"LOW ALLOMYTHICITY-- This would apply largely to what I've " called a "monster of the month" situation. Godzilla faces a number of one-shot monster-opponents-- Ebirah, Megaguirus, Biolante-- and although they are allomythic in comparison to Godzilla, their stories end in their debut tales, and so they do not sustain their allomyths beyond a low level of intensity." -- ALLOMYTHS, pt. 2.             

                       

As I've looked over the various entries I've made since starting this project, I see that I've tended to emphasize three types of monster-mash. The first emphasizes a group of monsters who occupy superordinate status, what I've called Primes. The second deals with a group of monsters who occupy subordinate status, what I've called Subs. (An interstitial category involves both groups in opposition to one another, as in the TV cartoon DRAK PACK.) The third opposes two monsters from separate franchises, as seen in FREDDY VS. JASON and ALIEN VS. PREDATOR.                                                   

In the essay quoted above, though, I did account for the existence of a low level of allomythicity in simple one-on-one conflicts between monsters, usually where one of the freakazoids (Godzilla, Gamera) is the star of a series. Yet I've also devoted posts to one-off encounters of two disparate monsters like "Full Moon," wherein the two opposed monsters not only don't generate franchises or histories beyond their generic identity; they don't even have proper names. Surely, even if a Godzilla-foe like Biolante only has one go-round with the Big G, just being part of Godzilla's gallery of grotesques earns him more mythicity than a one-off vampire and werewolf. At this time, I don't know that I'll start posting that many more examples of monster mashes comprised of just a continuing mon-star and a one-shot enemy, if only because there are so many of them. But I'll probably start working in a few just for consistency's sake.  ADDENDUM: This post invalidates my statements in the first two "anti-mashup" posts that a couple of one-shot encounters, respectively in the "Gamera" and "It the Living Colossus" serials, were not true "monster mashups."    

RAR #80: ARROWHEAD

By chance I stumbled across the adventures of ARROWHEAD in the pages of Atlas's early 1950s comic THE BLACK RIDER. I've only read two of them and don't have an overview as yet. The format was that Arrowhead was a renegade perpetually on the run from the law like the familiar Kid Colt, and just as perpetually got mixed up in other people's troubles. Both stories I saw were signed by Joe Sinnott.                   

      

MONSTER MASHUPS #114

 In some ways the post-apocalyptic world of Gold Key's MIGHTY SAMSON is pretty typical. However, one has to appreciate that when Samson and his buddies encounter a series of monsters controlled by Oggar-- who's the "Mister Hyde" to a human "Doctor Jekyll"-- each monster gets a well-defined cognomen.                                                     

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In ADVENTURE COMICS #155 (1950), long before it was routine for heroes to "meet and instantly fight," The Shining Knight got to contend with the Greek hero Bellerophon, whose flying horse Pegasus was the model for the Knight's own mount. It's a nice little yarn, apart from the distinction of Frank Frazetta's evocative pencil work.                                             

   

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 One of the lesser aspects of Howard Hughes' notorious 1943 THE OUTLAW is its status as a crossover, spinning a fictional story about the encounter of two western legends, Billy the Kid and Doc Holiday. In real history the two men were contemporaries but there's no record that they ever met, much less quarreled over a horse and a woman (in that same order of importance.) A fictional version of Sheriff Pat Garrett appears in the movie as well, but I consider him ancillary to the legend of William Bonney.                                                                                            

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 In keeping with my idea that time-travelers meeting with "legendary" historical figures *may* count as icon-crossovers, one possible source of same is the long running JUMBO COMICS backup feature STUART TAYLOR. I've never paid it much attention because it's very dull. But the title-less story I call "Ghost of Sleepy Hollow" from JUMBO #35 departs from the usual routine of time-traveler Stuart Taylor showing up in historical periods to mess with people from the past. In "Ghost," Taylor believes for some reason that the purely fictional characters of Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" are historically real, so he and his girlfriend travel to the past to meet Ichabod Crane and Brom Bones. Taylor champions Ichabod by exposing Brom's pose as the Headless Horseman. The girlfriend does nothing but sneer at Ichabod for being a wimp.