He Could Have Been A Contender by Dave Goode

Showcase No.66 told the origin of B'wana Beast.After graduating from an American university,Rupert Kenboya the son of the great Kilo of the Zambesi tribe of Africa is determined to return home and go into government service to help his people. Kenboya's friend and classmate Mike Maxwell declined his millionaire father's offer to join the family business to go to Africa with his friend to become a game warden.When the private plane Maxwell is piloting is struck by lightning it crashes on Mt.Killmanjaro. Kenboya drags the injured Maxwell into the cavern home of an oddly colored gorilla. Kenboya tries to aid his friends recovery by giving him rainwater that had been filtered through the cavern walls. Attacked by the gorilla Kenboya attempts to protect Maxwell from the creature and gets tossed around the cave like a rag doll for his trouble. A recovered Maxwell,who has mysteriously grown six inches and gained ninety-five pounds of muscle,subdues the gorilla with the same wrestling hold he used to win a college championship with.

Acknowledging the American as his master the gorilla retrieves a stylized helmet from deep inside the cave and places it on Maxwell's head. Through the helmet Maxwell can now communicate with the animal and learns his name is Djuba.He also finds that through the helmet he can communicate with and control all animals. Maxwell theorizes that the helmet was created by "some ancient civilization with knowledge and science beyond ours". The helmet also gives Maxwell the strange ability to combine two animals of different species into one large mutated creature which exhibits the greatest strength of both. Kenboya and Maxwell agree that Maxwell's new abilities should be used for the good of the African continent and Maxwell creates the costumed identity of B'wana Beast to become Africa's super-powered trouble-shooter. In his only Silver Age appearances in Showcase No.66 and 67 he battles villain Hamid Ali and his minions. By the end of issue 67 he also acquires a Lois Lane-like romantic interest in the person of Eve Corstairs,a reporter for the All-Africa Press. 

The sci-fi aspects made the story different enough from other jungle heroes to make B'wana Beast interesting. But the story seemed kind of rushed.And felt like like they were making it up as they went along.And then there was Mike Sekowsky's art which is an acquired taste.I've grown to appreciate his style over the decades. But the ten year old me really wish the story had been illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson.If nothing else it would have given Infantino the opportunity to draw Djuba the mutant gorilla. To a lot of comic book readers B'wana Beast is pretty much a joke.But I kind of like him .Even if he never got the chance to fight gladiator style in an arena. He had a really cool costume. And his alliterative name had a ring to it. It fairly sings. Given a better story and a different artistic team he could have been a contender.

Funny thing is as a ten year old I thought the name B'wana Beast and his costume would have been perfect for a professional wrestler. Years later when the character's origin was revamped for the Batman:The Brave & The Bold television series the writers in fact made Mike Maxwell a pro wrestler before he became the Jungle Master.

Dinosaur Comic Books Are Cool by Dave Goode

As cool as it was to read a comic book where a super-hero went up against a prehistoric predator there were some other dinosaur-fighters who were just as cool.

Turok,Son of Stone was one. The character first appeared in 1954 in FOUR COLOR No.596 from Dell Comics. His second appearance came in FOUR COLOR No.656 in 1955. Finally the character would receive his own title in 1956 and the feature would run for several decades. First published by Dell. Then by Gold Key. Then finally by Whitman.

The feature told the story of Turok and Andar to Native-Americans trapped in a deep canyon in the Carlsbad section of New Mexico where they encounter prehistoric forms of life that had disappeared from all other parts of the world. Except for maybe Dinosaur Island.

I imagined a Turok movie starring Jay Silverheels and featuring stop-motion dinosaurs courtesy of Ray Harryhausen. Heck! I'd have settled for a Turok movie that starred Michael Ansara and Sal Mineo as Turok and Andar.

Borrowing a bit from Edgar Rice Burroughs' book THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT writer Robert Kanigher along with artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito created what would become a cult classic among comic book readers.The War That Time Forgot first appeared in Star Spangled War Stories in 1960 from DC. It ran for eight years until 1968. The stories featured groups of American soldiers stranded on an uncharted island in the Pacific during World War Two that was populated by dinosaurs. This island was sometimes called Monster Island. But most of the time it was known as Dinosaur Island.  As a boy I made several "shadow boxes" inspired by the covers of these comics using toy dinosaurs and those bags of green plastic soldiers that have been a part  of every boy's childhood for years. But most of the time we just created our own Dinosaur Island adventures in our backyards.

Art by Vance Capley

America's Cheesiest Super-Hero by Dave Goode

America's Cheesiest Super-Hero 

by Dave Goode

One of the strangest things to come out of the era of Batmania (1966-1968) was the movie Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. This psychotronic classic is one of those ultra low-budget flick that seems like it was being written as they were going along. And that just may have been the case. It starts out as a rock & roll/juvenile delinquency flick hybrid and, about 40 minutes into the movie, it morphs into a parody of the Batman television show starring the great Adam West. It even has an obviously tacked on prologue to lead you to believe it was intended as a spoof to begin with. But I don't think anyone was ever fooled.

     Ron Haydock stars as Lonnie Lord, R&R star turned masked mystery man. And if anyone ever deserved his status as a cult star it was Haydock (1940-1977). Haydock was a recording artist, editor and writer for monster movie magazines and author of several pornographic novels under the name Vin Saxon. Oddly enough Haydock is billed as Vin Saxon in the credits for this movie.

Carolyn Brandt, a cult star in her own right, plays damsel in distress Cee Cee Beumont, and Titus Moody plays the hero's sidekick. The movie was directed by Ray Dennis  Steckler, who along with

Haydock,wrote the story. At the time Steckler and leading lady Brandt were man and wife. 

 

     

 I first learned about this flick from an article in Castle of Frankenstein. I instantly fell in love with the total cheesiness of the whole thing starting with the hero's costume. However, I didn't see the movie until I bought a VHS copy two decades later. I wasn't disappointed. But then again, my sites weren't set that high.

Good cheesy fun.

   And speaking of fun....Bob Burns as Kogar, the Swinging Ape was an added plus. It makes you wonder why none of the villains on the Batman TV series never had a "pet gorilla" to be unleashed on the Caped Crusader. Gorillas in comics were all the rage during this era.Of course in the alternate universe that runs through my head, there was a comic book adaptation of the movie and a series of comic books that ran for an additional 24 issues starring the ersatz Dynamic Duo.

Retro style comic art by Vance Capley