Green Hornet Review

The new Green Hornet movie starring Seth Rogan as the Hornet, Jay Chou as his sidekick Kato and Cameron Diaz and Edward James Olmos opened about a week ago and I guess has been doing pretty well at the box office. I went to see it in 3D, which was OK, but didn't have anywhere near the impact of the 3D in Avatar. I think seeing it in 2D wouldn't have altered my opinion of it. For those of you who don't know the full story behind the Green Hornet, the character began in the mid-1930s as a radio show back when radio dramas were very popular. It followed the Lone Ranger radio show and was really envisaged as a contemporary version of the Ranger and Tonto. My first exposure to the character was in the mid-1960s with the Green Hornet TV series that ran for one season starring Van Williams and the incomparable Bruce Lee in the role of Kato. In the current movie Seth Rogan plays Brit Reid, the wastrel son of the editor and publisher of a newspaper. When daddy dies and leaves Brit the paper he doesn't really seem to care. During the course of the movie he decides to take up the mantle his father left, using Kato (who was working on cars for the old man right under Britt's nose) and Lenore (played my Cameron, who is savvy about criminology despite the fact that she's only a temp with the paper) to help him in his quest. I don't want to spoil the plot for anyone who hasn't seen it, but basically there's a lot of misadventures as they try to track down the big crime boss in town, with Kato supplying all the high tech equipment and Seth acting the buffoon. As action/adventure movies go it's serviceable and reasonably entertaining. The funniest part of the movie is when Kato creates a gas gun and Brit shoots himself with it, which has been in one of the trailers. There's a lot of stunts and general mayhem, but I didn't really take the villain too seriously and I could see the "mystery" villain coming from a mile off. Fans of the original Green Hornet (and even the Williams/Lee TV series) may find this a little trite, but it's probably worth a look. It's certainly not as bad as the worst of the genre.

The Bell Master - A Real Ding-a-Ling

 
I must confess that as much as I always liked the Blackhawks they did have some lame villains. This one - real name Paul Peale - get it, peale like the sound a bell makes - decided to get even with the world for no particular offense that we're shown in the story. He feels he's been hounded by bells all his life so he adopts the identity of the Bell-Master. This is one of those theme criminals that show up a lot in comics - Batman and the Flash especially had a whole rogue's gallery of them - but then so did the Blackhawks at times. The Blackhawks are on to the Bell-Master from the beginning of the story and pursue him and his henchmen to the finale, where Blackhawk comments, "The next bell you hear will be the one in the prison block." This was the one and only appearance of the Bell-Master and I confess I'm not unhappy about that, but I did his action figure anyway. He was made from various GI Joe and similar type military figure parts and painted appropriately. The only thing I didn't give him was a bell to ring... but maybe....

Fly Like an Eagle

 
 
The Eagle is another Blackhawk villain from issue #132, January 1959, and one who manifests the same feeling in me about why someone with the resources he has available to him is committing crimes in the first place. In the beginning of the issue the Eagle and his gang are heisting some large golden models of familiar buildings from Washington, DC, like the Capital, White House and Lincoln Memorial. The Eagle's gang is loading the models into their planes, which are about the size of B-52/Stratofortresses with eagles heads on the front - now who could afford planes like that?? In 1959 they probably weren't even surplus B-52's. Anyway, the Blackhawks arrive and Blackhawk orders the team to take up a blocking position with their jets, but Chuck instead manages to scatter the models with the backwash from his jet so the Eagle gets away empty handed. Blackhawk chews Chuck out for disobeying his orders and there seems to be some real tension between the pair. In the next operation against the Eagle Chuck once again saves the day but not the way Blackhawk had ordered him to. As a result Blackhawk grounds Chuck and the rest of the team departs for patrol. Blackhawk decides to check out an island, leaving the team to continue their patrol, which is when we find out that this particular Blackhawk is not the real deal - he's a ringer who the Eagle discovered and had a plastic surgeon finish the job. Blackhawk himself is caged on the island and just as the Eagle and fake Blackhawk are having a good laugh about it Chuck parachutes into their midst followed quickly by the rest of the team. Turns out Chuck had figured out the substitution because of a rip in his jacket Blackhawk had sustained shortly before he was switched. When doing the Eagle I realized I needed to have some henchmen so I think at first I did two. Then later I added a few more and also a substitute Blackhawk just for good measure. The bodies were made from Star Wars AT-AT drivers and the heads were assembled from my extra heads box. I also did four of the Eagle jets - see the bottom panel where the four of them are streaking off. You might also notice one of the things that keep us customizers heads in a whirl. If you look at the top two panels with the jets you'll notice in the one at left the front of the eagle plane is brown all the way up to the beak and then the beak is white, while in the panel on right there is clearly a white area in the forward part of the plane ending in a yellow beak. When I was trying to decide which to use I picked the more traditional look of an eagle to be my guide. There was also a difference in shading in different sections of the story with the Eagle uniforms. Some places they are more red while in another they are closer to a Burgundy. I ended up choosing the latter simply because I liked the look more and several other Blackhawk enemy teams have had red uniforms.

Ever Feel Ganged Up On?

Of course you have. Like the guy in the cartoon, sometimes it seems that the forces are aligning to pick on us personally. Last week I had too close an encounter with another kidney stone - my second in a couple of months. Then Saturday afternoon my computer suddenly stopped working. Now I have a backup laptop but this was a problem with my service and I don't have a backup for that. Long story not so short - no posts for a few days. Good news is that I apparently passed the stone and my service provider overnighted me a new set of equipment and I am back up and running. I have a new post in the hopper and it will be up later today. Hope you enjoy it. Now maybe I can resume my life pain free and computer equipped.

Happy New Year with Blackhawk Villain Thunderbolt

 
Happy New Year to all. I thought I'd start off the new year with a Blackhawk villain named Thunderbolt. The story is from Blackhawk #173, June 1962 when a character named Jasper Weems who has started up a newspaper named the Blackhawk Gazette makes himself known to the black knights. To help Jasper out with the accuracy of his stories the Blackhawks fill him in on some of their exploits, the details of which Jasper has gotten wrong. Then they are called away to confront the villain Thunderbolt who uses a gun that sends out electric charges. The Blackhawks have invented a weapon to cancel out the Thunderbolt's gun, but when they confront him their weapon doesn't work. Turns out Thunderbolt read all about their plans in the - you guessed it - Blackhawk Gazette. As the Blackhawks are trapped in an electronic containment field Jasper shows up and - accidentally - distracts Thunderbolt long enough for Blackhawk to take the bad guy out and save the day. The Thunderbolt figure was made using various parts from GI Joe and similar type figures with the addition of a sculpted mustache and the cape.

Blackhawk Villain - The Deadly Lensman

 
In Blackhawk #145, February 1960 the deadly Lensman shows up to frustrate the Blackhawks. Using a strange machine that can use light rays in various ways he manages to frustrate all attempts to capture him and his gang. He can project illusions of alien monsters, or focus the sun's energy to form a beam capable of slicing through steel. The Blackhawks finally manage to figure out where the Lensman's hideout is and confront him in his lair. The Lensman tries to blind the Blackhawks with intense light so his henchmen and sneak up on them, but the Blackhawks throw off their jackets and reveal vests covered with bicycle reflectors that shine the light back at the criminals. Then the Lensman tries an infrared heater on Blackhawk but he has a handy spray-gun which fires black paint, blocking the Lensman's lens. So of course the Lensman proves not to be as deadly as he believed himself to be. For the action figure I used a 3 3/4" DC Infinite Universe Green Lantern (how appropriate, right??) first painting it white and then dabbing all those tedious little red dots of paint. I made the white collar from a piece of fabric - sometimes I'll sculpt features like collars and sometimes I'll use fabric, depending on my mood I guess. I also placed a couple of small crystals in his eyes to simulate the Lensman's goggles. As to whether I'll ever take on the task of doing seven Blackhawks with reflective vests - only time and the fates can tell. Woof!!

Riddle of the Sphinx - or Smoking really is hazardous to your health

 
From the pages of Blackhawk #150, July 1960 comes the story of the Riddle of the Sphinx. The Blackhawks are pursuing a criminal mastermind called the Sphinx who, with his gang, is plundering an unnamed city. The Blackhawks step in but the gang manages to escape their first encounter. The next thing we know a man in a bus terminal is tripped by a dog and his valise falls open (can't get a decent lock for those things) and diamonds fall all over the floor. Other material in the valise links the man named Bates to the Sphinx robberies and he is quickly tried (wouldn't happen that fast today) and incarcerated. He pleads his innocence with the Blackhawks who agree to investigate. They quickly stumbled upon the Sphinx and his gang but are trapped and the Sphinx lights the candle in a barrel of gunpowder with his cigarette lighter. However, the Blackhawks escape and trail the Sphinx to his hideout where the Sphinx apparently jumps into a raging river committing suicide rather than be captured. Later they catch up with the man who was actually masquerading as the Sphinx, who had thrown a dummy into the river. The man is a smoker, even though it was established early in the story that the real Sphinx didn't smoke. It is finally revealed that Bates was really the Sphinx all along and the elaborate deception was designed to make the authorities believe he had been framed. So in this case smoking led to every one's downfall. The action figure was made using a Remco Dracula figure to which I attached a GI Joe Cobra Commander head. I then sculpted the side parts of the mask. The cape was cut from an old T-shirt. I really like the Blackhawk villains because they allow me to use a lot of different types of action figures and techniques.