Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

By John J. Joex

The 2008-09 Season is over (and watch for my wrap-up of that next week), but Science Fiction and Fantasy television fans need not fret as the Summer Season kicks off this weekend and brings us a decent number of offerings to keep us entertained throughout the hottest months of the year. Last Summer had pretty slim pickens with the writer’s strike truncating and delaying several shows. This Summer brings us a bit healthier slate, even if it does include some regular season cast-offs.

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This coming Saturday gets things kicked off when, after a six month wait, fans of the lovable and quirky show Pushing Daisies will finally get the chance to see the last three episodes of that show. ABC cancelled the show late last Fall and yanked it from the schedule leaving these episodes unaired. But now, for three more weeks, we get to visit with Ned the pie-maker along with Chuck, Emerson, Olive, and the rest of the gang. Unfortunately, the show did not get the opportunity to film a wrap-up episode, so the finale will leave us hanging (though series creator Byran Fuller promises to give us a better conclusion in a spin-off comic book). After Pushing Daisies finishes, Eli Stone, which ABC also yanked last Fall, will take up its 10 PM EST timeslot and burn off its remaining episodes. And while we are on the subject of regular season cast-offs, NBC’s Kings will get the chance to air its final seven episodes on Saturdays at 8 PM EST starting June 13th.

Unfortunately, ABC Family decided not to bring back last Summer’s delightful superhero comedy The Middleman. That light and witty series seemed to fit perfectly with the warm Summer weather. However, the Sci Fi Channel’s Eureka will be back, so we will have to rely on that one to keep us laughing this year. Also, HBO’s vampire series True Blood kicks off its second season starting June 14th, and since it is set in Louisiana, the hottest and most humid place in the universe, it will fit in well with the Summer months.

We will get several new series this year, most of which look interesting. NBC brings us two imports, the Canadian The Listener about a telepathic paramedic (!?) and the British Merlin about a young Merlin and Arthur. Both should provide at least a decent distraction through the Summer months. And the Sci Fi Channel will give us Warehouse 13, about two FBI agents assigned to a warehouse which stores mysterious and powerful artifacts. Sounds a bit derivative, but the preview trailer I saw made it look somewhat promising. Also, BBC America will bolster is Science Fiction and Fantasy offerings this Summer as it adds the supernatural Being Human and the post-apocalyptic Survivors to its schedule which already includes such genre imports as Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Primeval.

Lastly, for some reason NBC decided to throw two mini-series in the disaster vein at us this Summer with Meteor and The Storm. Neither sound too exciting to me, but Meteor has Christopher Lloyd, so it will at least be worth a look.

Check out our full list of Summer 2009 Science Fiction and Fantasy television offerings with information on when and where each show will air. And we will continue to make updates to this if new entries pop up later in the Summer.

By Sam Christopher

The current issue of Angel—number twenty-one in the series, collect ‘em all—begins with a memorial to Andy Hallett, the actor who played Lorne on the show. I saw this and went online to check it out and sure enough, there it was. This very talented, very funny man apparently died of heart failure at age 33 back at the end of April. Heart failure. At 33. I don’t know what Mr. Hallett’s personal habits were. I… resist… my inclination to think the worst of celebs—Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Layne Staley, Kurt Cobain, Anna Nicole Smith, River Phoenix, Savannah, along with many others have all taught me that celebrities dying young is far too often self-inflicted—simply because I never heard anything along those lines with this man, and I think we have enough of that anyway. Whatever the reasons, Mr. Hallett died far too young and I just wanted to extend my condolences to his family. Sorry this is so late but there is so much news and so little time I have to look at it. I didn’t even realize that Darren McGavin (The Night Stalker, A Christmas Story) died until a few minutes ago and that was over two years ago (although I find it hard to believe I never heard it somewhere). And then there’s Dom DeLuise—Captain Chaos himself.

And on to the comics…

Amazing Spiderman Family #6 hit the streets this week and it was better as a whole than last issue, which was my first due to the inclusion of Spider-Girl. This ish starts off with Jackpot, a character I’ve never heard of honestly, starring in the very Twilight Zone-esque “Exit Interview”. This story should be read with Iron Maiden’s “No More Lies” playing in the background. Next, in “Who Killed Gwen Reilly?”, The Spectacular Spider-Girl and her “cousin” April (because April always comes before May) hunt for the killer of the woman who claimed to be Ben Reilly’s daughter. We also see the Black Tarantula’s relaxation techniques, Darkdevil makes an appearance (natch), and the new and improved Bionic Don Silvio goes “Bowling for Retribution” after hiring an old “friend” of The Spectacular Spiderman to teach May a lesson in respecting one’s elders. And speaking of Mayday, the woman she was named after stars as The Amazing Spider-Ma’am in “Litter Bugged Out”, a cute story about the futility of neighborhood watches and the comeuppances of snotty teenagers. And, finally, The Private Life of Peter Parker takes us “Between Flights”. Pete gets trapped in an elevator on his way to a job interview with two young boys, one of whom makes up stories in which he is Spiderman’s sidekick. Then we find out something about the kid’s father and the story becomes touching.

Next, in The Complete Dracula #1, Leah Moore (Wild Girl, Albion) and John Reppion (Albion, Raise the Dead) adapt a little-known horror tale by this obscure author… Okay, I know this story’s been adapted and re-done and re-worked and re-imagined a whole slew of times. And that’s without even taking into account the huge amount of horror fiction that uses it in one way or another as a take-off point. This story was in many ways the birth of the modern horror story and was told in what feels like a very modern way, as Moore and Reppion themselves remind us in their notes at the end of this ish. They also say that Kim Newman (Anno Dracula), Warren Ellis (Ignition City), and Paul Cornell (Wisdom) all read this and loved the work they did here. So let me add my voice to the above three (since I know everyone’s waiting with bated breath to know what I think) and that this appears to be an instant classic. This first issue begins with the Stoker short story “Dracula’s Guest”, which I have no specific memory of having read but seemed familiar, used as prologue to the novel, which is apparently some taboo among Dracula purists; all I can say is that it sure seemed like a perfect fit to me. It then proceeds to adapt the first five chaps of the novel. I won’t waste space here telling you the story—you just need to read it (both the original and this comic). Oh, and if I could just use one word to describe artist Colton Worley’s work on this issue? Perfect. Absolutely, positively, slam-dunk perfect for this story.

The Brave and the Bold #23 was also put out this week, as DC has apparently decided not to wait for Joe Straczynski’s (Supreme Power, Midnight Nation) help in continuing the series and brought us writer/artist Dan Jurgens’s (Superman, Thor) “Shadows of Tomorrow”. Booster Gold, who was created by Jurgens (which I guess I knew—I have the complete first series of BG from the late ‘80s—but had forgotten), goes into the future to find out what happened to the badly injured Rip Hunter who appears on the time platform at the beginning of this story. He goes to the last known location in space/time for the Time Master where he finds clues which, along with evidence provided by Skeets, lead him to believe Hunter to have been attacked by Magog, the soldier raised from the dead and given great power by Gog in the recent “In Gog We Trust” JSA storyline. Magog, in the present, is in Kahndaq attempting to rescue a school full of children from terrorists. The leader of these terrorists has a “dead man switch” rigged to explosives the group has planted in various buildings around the area—if he lets go of the button the bombs go off. Magog has the perfect solution to this problem and I won’t say what it is—other than that it’s a “bloody good show”—but Booster’s less than thrilled with it. Booster, BTW, has been admonished by Rip not to delve into Magog’s future but decides that keeping tabs on M in the present isn’t all that bad an idea. All in all, a very cool little story that looks to spill over into BG’s own title and/or lead to JSA involvement. And that’s before we get to Kingdom Come time.

And, finally, Marvel has released another in its anniversary line, Marvel Mystery Comics 70th Anniversary Special #1. This ish shows why they’ve so studiously avoided the Human Torch-Submariner battles of Timely’s early years. “Prject: Blockbuster”, by Tom DeFalco (The Amazing Spider-Girl, The Mighty Thor) and Chris Burnham (X-Men: Divided We Stand, Moonstone Monster Volume One), stars Subby, Torch and Toro, along with other, lesser known, characters of the past The Angel, The Ferret, and Electro. They all get together to do battle with Nazi saboteurs. Herr Gaufman, an Aryan operative evidently answerable directly to The Fuehrer himself, enlists the aid of Dr. Manyac, who invented the Green Flame suit which radiates intense cold. The two then kidnap Professor Zog, inventor of “Electro, The Marvel of the Age”, and force him to help them in combining these ideas to create Blockbuster, a giant robot which uses the green flame as a shield. This story is set in Spring of ’41, before the US joined the war officially. Reprints in this issue start with “The Human Torch” by Carl Burgos (Adventures into Terror, All-Winners Comics), which gives us the original appearance of Dr. Manyac and his Green Flames from Marvel Mystery Comics #4 in February 1940. And the ish winds up with “The Ferret”, from March of ’40 in MMC #5, Stockbridge Winslow and Irwin Hasen (Sensation Comics, Detective Comics). This is the first I’ve seen of him but The Ferret’s kind of like Boston Blackie with a rodent on his shoulder (you know Boston Blackie—“Enemy to those who make him an enemy, Friend to those who have no friends”). The rat does contribute.

Other comics:

Angel #21- Not thrilled with the art, so I won’t embarrass anyone by mentioning names, but the Kelley Armstrong story is all right.

Batman: Battle for the Cowl #3- Nightwing battles Jason Todd, while Tim Drake reveals the cheat that was the end of last ish. And a new Batman emerges. And he’ll probably be Batman until Bruce Wayne recovers from the “death flu”.

Fantastic Four #566- At Last! Doom’s Master! Meh.

Dark Reign: Fantastic Four #3- The alternate Earth quest continues.

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance #1- Not sure about Joe Casey’s (Godland, Deathlok) story, but Chriscross (Slingers, Firestorm), whom I have slammed on occasion, does a very good job on the art here. So… when does Booster Gold join this team?

The Greatest American Hero #3- The zaniness continues as Ralph and Pam finally really talk. Oh, and Ralph uses the suit to halt an attempted assassination of the President by terrorists.

Hulk #12- When this Defenders vs. Offenders thing started I thought it was cool. And even when Red Hulk killed Hulk I thought it would be all right. But then “Winner Takes All” gets here and it’s stupid. All the way through the ish I’m thinking we’re going to find out all these characters are from different realities or Gamester and Collector would just bring them all back to life. Which is actually pretty much what happened but the ending was just much dumber than I expected from Jeph Loeb (Cable, Superman). The Ed McGuinness (Superman, Superman/Batman) art was fine.

Mysterius the Unfathomable #5- The leader of the witch’s coven is revealed, Blake makes a comeback, and Ella Tamblyn speaks some harsh truths. A very enlightening issue—and that’s before the Wicker Man, coming next ish.

Olympus #1- This tale of Castor and Pollux in the modern world… don’t know yet. The story by Nathan Edmondson looks interesting, and the Christian Ward art grows on you. Looks like more of Image’s Amateur Hour, which I applaud whether I like the stories or not.

Planet Skaar: Prologue One-Shot- This was just okay, until the end. Completely unexpected (to me) and welcome.

Star Trek: Alien Spotlight: Romulans- Ian Edgington (2000 AD, Sojourn) and Wagner Reis tell a suitably Machiavellian tale. One thing though: The Romulans here seem awfully human.

Supergirl #41- Kara fights Lucy to the death—literally. I just want to know what happened to sweet little Lucy Lane that turned her into the wanton murderer we see here.

Vigilante #6- Deathtrap: Conclusion. Wasn’t sure how this would work when it all started. I know why it happened: If a Vigilante, written by Marv Wolfman (The Champions, Tomb of Dracula), was going to meet any superteam it was going to be the Titans. I just wondered how this Vigilante would work with a team of metahumans. And with this ending I’m now wondering how easily this Vig will stay ahead of a rabid pack of metas who are determined to capture him. Tom Lyle (Starman, Punisher) does a very good job with the art. Too bad Joe Wilson can no longer see it. Whew!

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