Rip Hunter... Time Master #28 (2026 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Noted time traveler Rip Hunter has an ever changing problem on his hands: lately he's been ever changing into huge monstrous creatures!

When a historian colleague finds evidence of a wizard, Rip and company travel 18th century Poland. Once in the past, the time sphere crew are captured by a trio of unusual creatures. The time travelers are taken to an actual wizard! Named Kraklow, the man has in his possession of a clay with special properties. Whenever the wizard uses the magical mud to make an image of a person, that individual comes under Kraklow's spell. A few adjustments later, the wizard turns the human character into a monster., of which years later we would refer to as 'Kaiju'. As soon as Kraklow finishes, the enslaved person transforms into the monstrous creatures of the wizard's imagination.

Using brawn over brain, Rip overpowers the mage and destroys the sculptures, freeing the people of Poland from Kraklow's thralls. The magician claims that he has no more clay which satisfies Rip. However, once back in the 1960s, Rip suddenly turns into a gigantic beast that runs amok. Once his team is able to administer a an antidote, everything seems to have a happy ending. That is until Rip turns back into yet another monster once again! It looks like Kraklow was lying about having run out of his mystical clay and is enacting his revenge on Rip from the past. It appears that another trip in the time sphere is in order to save Rip Hunter from a lifetime of terrifying changes...

This was the penultimate issue of Rip Hunter... Time Master. I don't think that the creative team of writer George Kashdan and artist Will Ely had an idea at this point in time that the writing was on the wall for the series because there's a tease at the end of this issue that this might not be the last we've seen of Kraklow. (Note: it isn't as he'll pop up years later to give the Teen Titans headaches.)

With a publication date from 1965, I think you can accuse the team at DC of ripping off an idea from Marvel. The Fantastic Four's nemesis, the Puppet Master using a radioactive clay of his own to put his does under his power. I guess you could say that Kraklow is an ancestor of the Puppet Master, since the FF character did obtain his clay from somewhere in Central Europe. Perhaps the magic behind Kraklow's clay was radioactivity. It would fit the modern day saying Rip Hunter and the Legends of Tomorrow that 'magic is just science that we don't yet understand.' Plus with radiation experts the Curies coming from Poland, who knows?! It's definitely an idea that got merit for an obscure crossover between the DC and Marvel universes.  

Hey, Big Two! I'm available to help write this script up! 

I loved Rip Hunter... Time Master. My dad had a few issues of the time travelling series in his collection that I later obtained. It was a fun little series that fell under the category of DC's more obscure characters. And for me, the obscurer the better.

Not the best dialogue. Clever plot that just got better the more I reflected on it. A great trip down memory lane as happy memories with my father are few and far in-between. If I could find the other 28 issues, I would snap them up in a heartbeat. 

Completing this review completes Task #2 (Comic from the Silver Age (1956-1970)) of the 2026 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Bonanza #13

How was the West won? It's a question I once asked my grandpa to which he responded 'You know, that's a very good question.' So good, that he never answered me. Well, if you are to believe this issue of Gold Key's adaptation of the hit Western TV series Bonanza, the West was won thanks to the use of bicycles!

Thieves steal the horses of all 4 Cartwright men: Pa, Hoss, Little Joe and Adam! The only way to get after these varmints is to use this new contraption called a bicycle! But we're not talking about a single bike or even a two-seater. Oh, no! Instead, they all mount up on a 4-person tandem bike!

This has got to be the goofiest Bonanza story of all-time. The family can't use their 2-horse wagon as the animals are too tired. Got to use a bike instead! The Cartwrights at one point rode the bike across an icy pond. One of the sons decides it's faster to use roller skates, but falls through the ice because clearly he's too heavy than a bike with 3 people on it! And for some reason, you have to show how stupid the Indians are and include a scene of the Native people thinking a bicycle is some force of white man magic. 

I'm not making any of this up folks. This all really happened in a title story dated from 1965. 

There are two follow-up stories included in this issue. The middle story doesn't appear to have any characters from the TV show that I recognize. Instead it stars a weary prospector called Bedrock Barnes. Is he like a recurring character? Was he regular filler in the Bonanza books? Not sure. All I know is that Bedrock finds a wrecked ship in the middle of the desert; a ship that contains a valuable lost shipment of gold. Only when he brings help to bring back more gold, it appears that the desert has reclaimed the fabled relic. 

Story #3 does have the Cartwrights in it. It's a very unusual tale about a Mexican grandma who packs heat. It's not as silly as the bicycle story. History has produced some bad ass grannies. I find the story more confusing as the lady is trying to fund a revolution down in Mexico and yet when she reaches her family (which might just be members of her gang), it seems like the Abuela's intentions are a lot more selfish. 

And where do the Cartwrights fit into all this? Adam Cartwright just happens to be on a stagecoach that the old lady robbed. Now she's got him at gun point, forced to carry the gold back to her hideout. Naturally, instead of calling for the Sheriff or US Marshalls, the rest of the Cartwright clan decide to take vigilante justice into their own hands. 

37 issues of Bonanza were released by Gold Key from 1962-1970. While there are some much more attractive covers out there, perhaps filled with less far-fetched stories in them, I found this book in a bargain bin for only a dollar. A sucker for Dell/Gold Key/Whitman comics based on old TV shows, I could not pass this one up. It will stay a part of my collection. This book will also be listed as containing one of the weirdest, wildest, implausible Western tales of all time.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars.

Dong Xoai, Vietnam 1965 (2023 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

In 1965, the United States Special Forces (USSF) A-Team designated A-342 was assigned to be advisors to a rag-tag bunch of Vietnamese farmers, tribesmen, 'draft dodgers' and neighboring Cambodians. It was the soldiers' mission to train these volunteers into fighters against the forces of the National Liberation Front. Due to their location, these trainees would be among the first line of defense against the Vietcong Army.

Stationed at a makeshift base in Dong Xoai, the USSF team were getting very high indications of an attack. Several spies were caught around the base perimeter and nearby smaller villages were being raided by the VC. The advisers made a request for further reinforcements. They were granted a grand total of 9 Seabees, Navy personnel whose expertise is in building temporary and permanent military infrastructures. 

At nearly midnight of 9 June, VC forces began their attack of the Dong Xoai compound. Artillery and ground forces numbering anywhere from 2-4,000 VC troops swarmed the combined forces of American and South Vietnam troops (50 years later and both sides still can't confirm the exact number of soldiers or fatalities). The first attack lasted until late morning the next day. As it appeared that the Communists were going to win the battle, nearly all of the native and Cambodian forces fled the base leaving a handful of Americans to battle for their lives until their extraction, around 2pm.

After nearly 13 hours of fighting, 3 of A-342 and 2 Seabees lost their lives in the battle. The remaining American soldiers were taken to the relative safety of the Phuoc Vinh Base Camp. Every survivor required medical attention ranging from minor to critical. A fourth member of the USSF team died of their injuries in transport. 

The slew of South Vietnamese forces aided by American 'advisers' retook Dong Xoai just a couple of days later. The battle was considered a turning point in the Vietnam conflict and resulted in President Johnson increasing the number of military trainers to be sent to the region. At least 4 of the members of A-342 returned to active duty. The team's Executive Officer, Charles Q. Williams earned the Medal of Honor, with 3 members receiving distinguished service crosses. Numerous Bronze and Silver stars were awarded and every American soldier involved in the first night of battle earned purple hearts. 

In the late 2000s, war art legend Joe Kubert decided to chronicle the battle. Dong Xoai, Vietnam 1965 features artwork that is very much like and unlike the numerous works of Kubert devoted to the history of the fighting forces, both real and imagined. Every pose is action packed and the faces of the characters bear that Joe Kubert trademarked pained look of 'war is hell'. However, Kubert decided to not ink this book. Instead all 166 pages of story are penciled sketches with some images still bearing the establishing marks artists use to frame faces and physiques. 

At the end of this book, surviving members of A-342 crafted an extensive dossier on the events leading up to the battle of Dong Xoai, along with an hour-by-hour narrative of the attack and a brief follow-up into the post-Vietnam lives of the veterans. These pages are filled with dozens of photos and charts that make the reader feel even more familiar with these heroes. (When I learned that one of my favorite characters in the book died in 2008, I was heartbroken.)

Before one gets upset that I refer to these real life members of American history as characters, it's important to point out that in Kubert's narrative, the participants in Dong Xoai really are characters. None of the soldiers' real names are used in Kubert's account. Like with a 'based on a true story' movie, some of the events are edited or condensed to make for a more cohesive story. Some actions that one soldier performed are given to another, possibly to make the artwork or script a bit more polished. There are literally dozens of names floating around in this historical graphic novel and truly it is an undertaking keeping everyone straight. Especially if you try to read the dossier simultaneously with Kubert's story.

The Vietnam War is a complicated subject in American history. There are still citizens that adamantly despise anyone who fought in the conflict even though hostilities ended way back in early 1975. For those veterans who are still alive, the scars of the war still bleed. Love them or hate them, the men of A-342 and that tiny group of Navy Seabees were heroes. Grossly out-numbered, this small handful of men did not back down nor did they stop fighting until they breathed their last breath. And 5 of those men did this very thing in the battle of Dong Xoai. 

For those who served in not just Vietnam but at any point during wartime and peace- thank you for your service.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Completing this review completes Task #24 (A War Comic/Graphic Novel) of the 2023 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

A Classic TV Christmas- Advent 2017 Day

When is a Christmas TV episode NOT a Christmas TV episode? When it's the gang of Hogan's Heroes, of course!

Hogan's Heroes started in 1965 and ran for 6 seasons until 1971. It was a sitcom about a group of soldiers in World War II, made prisoners in a Nazi POW camp. These guys could have broken out any time they wanted but they decided that they could do more damage to the Axis powers by sneaking out at night and doing covert missions. Well one night, Hogan and his men entered their secret tunnel only to emerge in Hollywood, 1965! 

The soldiers exited an escape tunnel onto the set of an ABC show called Hollywood Palace. This show had a rotating cast of hosts. So why was Hogan's Heroes crossing over with Hollywood Palace? It turns out that the producer of Hogan's Heroes was the one and only Bing 'White Christmas' Crosby. Crosby, who was hosting the show's Christmas episode (December 25, 1965), decided he was going to plug his new sitcom that night.

Instead of having just the actors come on stage as themselves, Crosby had them emerge from a tunnel onto the stage in full costume acting as their characters from Hogan's Heroes. It was a weird time travel kinda episode that got even weirder when a couple of Nazis later emerge from the tunnel!

John Banner and Werner Klemperer, appearing on the show in the characters of Sgt. Schultz and Commandant Klink, recaptured the escapees and try to get them back to the Stalag. But once Bing offers to let them sing later, they all decide to have a nice Christmas in America- if only for one night!

Later, Bing Crosby fulfills his promise by letting Banner and Klemperer sing Silent Night in their native German. Only, this time, they wore tuxedos and were never referred in character. The same happened for actor Robert Clary, who played French Resistance fighter LeBeau on Hogan's Heroes. He was brought up to sing a French carol and not referred to in character either. 

To my extensive knowledge, this is the one and only 'Christmas' episode to star the cast of Hogan's Heroes. They never had an episode on the actual show set around Christmas. A lot of snow. But nothing festive. But then how festive can you get in a Nazi POW camp?

(OKAY- That's not quite true. There is an episode from October 1965, in which Hogan tells Klink that one of his men is dying and will not see Christmas. Thus, they throw a big party for the guy. But it is not a Christmas episode and was more of a prank than anything else. So I do not count it! But I did use a couple of photos from the episode in this post!)

One of the oddest holiday episodes ever, as my Advent gift for you all today, I present to you the original 1965 episode of Hollywood Parade, complete with original 1960s commercials. Enjoy and until next time- Merry Christmas!

A Classic TV Christmas- Advent 2017 Day 5

You know that song 'It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?' There's that line in the song about during Christmas, there will be:

'Mashmallows for toasting
  and caroling out in the snow
    There'll be scary ghost stories
      And tales of the glories of the
        Christmases long, long ago'

Well, I'm on board with 80% of that. But where are the scary ghost stories? The only Christmas ghost story I know of is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Yeah, there's ghosts, but I wouldn't exactly called it a SCARY ghost story.

So for today's Advent, I want to focus on a Christmas episode about a group of people who are considered a little scary. It fact, they're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, They're all together ooky. That's right, today is all about The Addams Family. (Sorry, no ghosts however...)

Back in the mid-sixties there were two sitcoms based on the macabre. You had The Munsters, about a family of Monsters starring Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis. But if you were a little more sophisticated in your humor, you watched the other show- the Addams Family!

Wednesday and Pugsly prepare the fireplace
for Santa.

The creation of cartoonist Charles Addams, the Addams Family debuted in the pages of the New Yorker magazine in 1938. In 1964, ABC produced a TV series based on the cartoon starring John Astin as Gomez and Carolyn Jones as the sultry but droll Morticia. They have two kids, Pugsly and Tuesday and live with a few relatives in a huge mansion.

The premise of the show was that despite how odd and bizarre the Addams Family were, they were a loving family unit. Unfortunately, it freaked the rest of the world out. But what does this have to do with Christmas? Be patient, I am getting there...

On December 24, 1965, in the shows' second season, ABC aired the holiday themed episode 'Christmas With the Addams Family.' In this episode, one of the neighbors tells little Tuesday Addams that there is no Santa Claus. Appalled but not wanting to ruin the holiday, Uncle Fester dresses as Santa. However, he gets stuck in the chimney to which all of the other family members dress as the Jolly Old Elf. 

I love Cousin Itt's outfit!

The kids are on to the scheme. But in the chaos, it appears that the real Santa Claus snuck in as the house is magically decorated for the holiday. True- the decorations are more traditional for the Addams' taste, but it's the magic of Christmas that reveals itself and saves Christmas for the children.

Unfortunately, I am not able to post this episode online. Yes, it's that pesky copyright again. So, I have the next best thing, a video of several Addams Family cartoons. Some of which, such as Morticia decorating the tree, were used in the original episode.

Enjoy... and until next time, Merry Christmas!