THE TARZAN THAT WASN'T by Dave Goode

When pole-vaulter Don Bragg won the gold medal at the 1960 Olympics in Rome he thought he was on his way to fulfilling a lifelong dream. That of playing Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan of the Apes on the silver screen.


After all swimming
champions...

Johnny Weissmuller



















and Buster Crabbe

 used their gold medal victories
as a springboard into the role.

And Herman Brix

 who was the world record holder in the shot-put and won the silver medal at the 1928 Olympics was handpicked by Tarzan's creator Edgar Rice Burroughs to play the Lord of the Jungle in a movie he produced.


And then there was Glenn Morris

who won the decathlon at the 1936 Olympics earning the title of the "world's greatest athlete". Something Burroughs often described Tarzan as being.

It was while in Rome for the Olympics that LIFE magazine did a photo shoot of Bragg clad only in a loincloth among the Roman ruins. And if anyone looked like Tarzan it was the 6' 2" , 200 lb. Bragg. Growing up Bragg watched Johnny Weissmuller movies and played Tarzan climbing and swinging on ropes near his home. He also was blessed by great genetics. His father had done some professional wrestling. And Bragg grew into an all-around athlete who specialized in pole-vaulting.






In 1964 Bragg was given the chance to portray the king of the jungle in
TARZAN AND THE JEWELS OF OPAR produced by Sandy Howard and filmed in Jamaica. But almost as soon as filming started the production was shutdown. ERB Inc. won an injunction against Jamaica Pictures Ltd. headed up by Sherman S. Krellberg and Sandy Howard. I wonder what the finished product would have looked like? Would the script have had Bragg "aping" Weissmuller? Who would have portrayed La of Opar? Who would have played Jane? It's too bad that the film wasn't completed. Maybe changing the hero's name to Tyger or Zantar or something else. Just looking at pics of Bragg you can see he would have made a great jungle hero of some sort.


  Speaking of low budget jungle flicks, let's see what the Golden Adonis is up to in this brand new strip by Dave Goode and Vance Capley:

See more of the Golden Adonis' exploits in Judo Comics! Available at lulu.com

Watch artist Vance Capley draw a Golden Adonis strip!

Alias... Dick Grayson by Dave Goode

I had just started reading Batman and Detective comics a couple of years before the Batman television series premiered. I was introduced to Batman through a crossover story in one of the Superman titles and thought the character was pretty cool. So I started picking up titles that featured this other " caped crusader ". When I did I discovered a character that over the years would become my favorite comic book/comic strip hero. Robin, the Boy Wonder...alias Dick Grayson. Actually I liked him as Robin, Nightwing, or just Dick Grayson. As a kid when playing Batman with friends I got to be Batman because I was the tallest. But I secretly wanted to be Robin.

Honor student, top athlete and wholesome boy next door. Dick Grayson was the ultimate big brother even if there was no Tim Drake or Jason Todd during the Silver Age to look up to him. Seriously I imagined Tony Dow portraying him.

That is until the Batman series premiered.

There is a certain gold standard when it comes to casting comic book /comic strip heroes and heroines. It starts with Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon and continues with Irish McCalla (Sheena of the Jungle) , Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman) and Burt Ward as Robin , the Boy Wonder. Actor Burt Ward as Robin looked like artist Carmine Infantino's  Boy Wonder come to life. Burt Ward (born Bert Gervis Jr.) was a sort of " boy wonder " in real life. At age two he was billed as the world's youngest professional figure skater.








The publicity department for the Batman show had put out some press releases describing him as as a brown belt in karate. As part of his audition he demonstrated some ukemi and tameshiwari techniques so these claims might have had some validity.

The funny thing is that in a 3-part story that ran in Batman No.234 (Aug.1971) , Batman No.235 (Sept.1971) and Batman No.236 (Nov.1971) written by Gary Friedrich and illustrated by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano Robin gives a karate demo at a commune where writer Friedrich describes Robin as being a karate brown belt. Hold the phone! Robin was only a brown belt in karate? This was as bad as Barbara " Bat-Girl " Gordon in her first appearance in Detective Comics No.359 (Jan.1967) written by Julius Schwartz and drawn by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson being described as a brown belt in judo.

I can't understand why any writer would depict someone fighting a guerrilla war against crime in the streets as being anything less than a 5th dan black belt. Perhaps this was writer Friedrich's way of of paying tribute to Burt Ward's martial arts skills. I wonder if there was some story during the Silver Age where Robin was described as a black belt?

Love the good old days of comics? Then grab JUDO COMICS by Goode & Capley
Here's the link: LINK

The Mystery of Death by Dave Goode

As a lifelong comic book reader I've developed a certain affinity for circus movies. Much in the same way I've developed a certain affinity for professional wrestling. And pretty much for the same reasons. In Phillip Wylie's novel Gladiator the hero , Hugo Danner , a Superman prototype spends a bit of time working as a carnival strongman. And remember when Superman made his first appearance in Action Comics No.1 (June 1938) his costume consisted of the colorful tights of a circus acrobat and Roman sandals of a strongman. As a little boy I would love going to the circus to watch the acrobats , dressed much like comic book heroes , perform. I'm also reminded that Fred Hembeck once wrote that the " Fantastic Four " sounded like the name of a circus act. Which leads me to my favorite Mil Mascaras movie...Enigma de Muerte.

Directed by Federico Curiel from a screenplay written by Ramon Obon Enigma de Muerte found pro wrestler and part-time superhero Mil Mascaras tracking down a group of Nazi war criminals. The Nazis are led by B-Movie icon John Carradine and are masquerading as carnival performers. And so Mascaras puts together an act to join the show and ferret them out. This flick features everything you would want in a carnival / circus mystery. Clowns hiding evil secrets behind their make-up. A sharp-shooter , a knife-thrower, a strongman (who matches his strength against Mil's) and a bevy of beautiful showgirls. Everything except for a man in a cheesy gorilla costume to fight the hero. More's the pity.

The bad guys in this flick always reminded me of Marvel Comics' Ringmaster and the Circus of Crime from the Silver Age of Comic Books. Carradine might have been a good Ringmaster. Though I might have cast Vincent Price in a movie.

By the way there was another Ringmaster who appeared during the Golden Age of Comics in Captain America No.5 ( August 1941 ) in a story from the team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

The Silver Age Circus of Crime first appeared in The  Incredible Hulk No.3 (Sept. 1962) in a story credited to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

 

 

But to me the best Silver Age Circus of Crime stories came from the team of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in Spider-Man No.16 ( Sept. 1964 ) and Spider-Man No. 22 ( March 1965 ). It's Steve Ditko who I imagine drawing a comic book adaptation of Enigma de Muerte with inks by Wally Wood.

 

Below is a Dr.Judo comic book cover drawn by Vance Capley to give you an idea how that might look.

Where Would You Place Him? by Dave Goode

I think most people enjoy Top 10 Lists. It's fun to see where exactly your favorites fall. And they're usually the subject of spirited debates when your favorites don't make a list. Or aren't as high as you think they should be. For instance when it comes to the subject of television theme songs a dozen from the western genre pop into my head before I can think of any other genre. There are the themes to RAWHIDE and BONANZA at the top. And they're followed by themes from HAVE GUN , WILL TRAVEL and Warner Brothers westerns like CHEYENNE , MAVERICK , SUGARFOOT, BRONCO and LAWMAN. And let's not forget the songs Happy Trails and the William Tell Overture. In the end these lists are just the opinion of the people who compile them. If you agree with one cool. If you don't the sun will still come up tomorrow. As for myself there's only one list that bothers me.And largely because it omits Adam West as Bruce Wayne / Batman.

To me Adam West as Batman / Bruce Wayne was the epitome of cool. Sinatra use to say of Dean Martin that an H-Bomb could go off in back of Dino and the coolest member of the Rat Pack would just shrug and ask , " What was that? " . That was Adam West's Batman. Nothing phased him. Think back to the 1966 BATMAN movie starring West.Think of all the scenes with West in a tuxedo. He was Euro-Spy cool. Maybe he wouldn't have been a great James Bond. But I can imagine him as a Bond type. I'm surprised that he never turned up in a Bond movie as C.I.A agent Felix Leiter.

But I'm getting away from my original thought. My apologies. The list that Adam West never seems to appear on no matter who compiles it is for the Top 10 Television Fathers. My own favorites are Hugh Beaumont as Ward Cleaver and Chuck Connors as Lucas McCain. But I think there should be space on a list like that for Bruce Wayne / Batman. As I grew older one of my favorite parts of the old BATMAN television series was when Bruce Wayne and his young ward Dick Grayson played by actor Burt Ward were seen at stately Wayne Manor. Bruce was always giving teen-aged Dick some life lesson. Or he was teaching him some skill , mind expanding experiment or moral lesson before they were summoned by police Commissioner Gordon to solve some crime perpetrated by one of Gotham City's seemingly endless supply of super-criminals.

I'm just hoping that the reason that Batman is omitted from these lists is because Bruce Wayne was Dick Grayson's guardian and not his biological father. Sometimes a foster parent can be a better parent than a biological parent. Or maybe it was because of something we never gave much thought to as comic book reading or television watching kids. We all identified with Robin , the Boy Wonder. We wanted to be him fighting a war against crime alongside Batman. But the truth was Batman was committing a crime with the "reckless   endangerment of a minor"  every time they went into action.

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