HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And that's another (calendar) year in the books, folks! It's hard for me to believe, but I'm still going after ten years of this thing! Yes, it's true -- I stopped making blog anniversary posts some time back, but if I hadn't, I would've celebrated a full decade of NOT A HOAX! back in August. I started this site in 2013 as a way to "discuss" comics I was reading, even if it meant hollaring into a void (but thankfully I've had many readers and commenters in all this time, so that hasn't been the case). First it was Marvel's CAPTAIN BRITAIN and EXCALIBUR, then it was IRON MAN by Michelinie, Layton, and Romita Jr., then Spider-Man by Roger Stern, and then on and on and on, running a gamut of creators, publishers, and content.

Now, I hesitate to say at this point that I'm still "going strong" after ten-plus years. There have been points, particularly when my son was a newborn and toddler, where I was barely able to hang on by a thread! And I've long since moved away from more than a single post a week; even when I think I'll be able to manage more, something always happens to prevent it. But I'm okay with that! I'd rather be going one post a week after ten years than not at all.

So as usual for these year-end posts, let's have a quick rundown of what we covered in the past year, as well as the now-annual tradition (down from once a month many years ago) of The Unboxing.

The first part of that is pretty straightforward, of course. It was the Avengers. That's pretty much it. I started reading the Bob Harras/Steve Epting/Tom Palmer run late last year and it carried us through November of this year as well. Then we wrapped things up with James Bond in December, closing a hole which has bothered me for several years, as the Bond newspaper strips were my only cancelled/unfinished series in all this time.

JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 8

"THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS" | "OCTOPUSSY"
"THE HILDEBRAND RARITY" | "THE SPY WHO LOVED ME"
September 12th, 1966 - November 12th, 1966 | November 14th, 1966 - May 27th, 1967
May 29th, 1967 - December 16th, 1967 | December 18th, 1967 - October 3rd, 1968
Written by Peter Lawrence | Illustrated by Yaroslav Horak

"The Living Daylights" was a short story by Ian Fleming, loosely adapted and greatly expanded into a 1987 film of the same name starring Timothy Dalton as Bond. As usual, the comic strip adapts the original story far more faithfully than would the eventual film. The story is simple: a British agent in East Berlin plans to cross the Berlin Wall with Russian nuclear secrets, but the Russians' best Sniper, "Trigger", is tasked with stopping him. But MI6 gets wind of this, and Bond is dispatched to West Berlin to snipe Trigger before the Russian can snipe Agent 282. Bond realizes Trigger is actually a beautiful woman, and rather than kill her, simply shoots the rifle from her hand. But she's killed in the end anyway, in an "accident" arranged as punishment for her failure.

And that's it! The film version of the story uses this entire sequence, in modified fashion, as its cold open. The short story is finished before the opening credits roll, save for Trigger's death, and the remainder of the movie is an original story about Bond locating her and eventually working with her to take down a drug lord.

"Octopussy" was another short story by Fleming, but the newspaper adaptation is quite long, running just over six months in length. In it, Bond is approached by Trudi Oberhauser, the daughter of a man who was like a second father to him. The elder Oberhauser's body has been found with a British service revolver's bullet in his head, two decades after he disappeared in the Swiss mountains. Bond plays detective, working this personal mission with Trudi, following a trail from London to Jamaica, where he reunites with Mary Goodnight for assistance. Eventually, Bond determines that Oberhauser was killed by a British officer over some Nazi gold in the final days of World War II -- and the officer, Major Smythe, now lives on a seaside estate in Jamaica. But Bond fails to capture Smythe, as the villain instead meets his end at the hands of his own humongous pet octopus, which he has nicknamed "Octopussy" (a much better way to integrate the title into the story than in the motion picture, where "Octopussy" was a nickname Smythe gave his daughter).

The various adaptations are a little weird on this one. All versions of the story begin basically the same way, with Bond seeking to investigate someone's murder -- only in the film, that deceased party is agent 009 -- while in the short story and newspaper strip, it's Trudi's father (though so far as I can tell, Trudi herself does not exist in the source material). The original version sees Bond corner Smythe and take pity on him, allowing him to choose suicide over arrest. This is referenced as backstory for the character of Octopussy in the film, which otherwise goes off in its own, typically over-the-top direction, sending Bond to India to investigate a cult led by Smythe's daughter, who is involved in a scheme to steal Russian nuclear secrets.

JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 7

"YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE" | "THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN"
May 17th, 1965 - January 8th, 1966 | June 10th, 1966 - September 9th, 1966
Written by Henry Gammidge & Jim Lawrence
Illustrated by John McLusky & Yaroslav Horak

As Bond's next adventure begins, eight months have elapsed since the murder of his bride, Tracy. Bond is in bad shape, and M decides to snap him out of it with a new, extremely difficult mission: he is to purloin a Japanese code-breaking device. Bond travels to Japan and links up with his contact there, an Australian MI6 diplomatic agent named Dikko Henderson. Soon after, Bond meets M's opposite number in the Japanese secret service, Tiger Tanaka. Right off the bat, the film adaptation differs from the source material. As usual, Fleming's original work is much more down-to-earth. Bond is simply trying to obtain a decoder device, and in order to do it, he agrees to a favor for Tanaka -- breaking into a compound where a Westerner named Doctor Shatterhand has set up a sort of amusement park of suicide, and assassinating Shatterhand. Compare that with the film, where Bond travels to Japan to try and find the source of a giant rocket that swallows space shuttles!

(I don't know what to make of the premise, by the way, that scores of Japanese people are flocking to Shatterhand's castle so they can kill themselves in interesting ways. It's very clearly presented as a common shared interest among the Japanese; it's not a few odd apples out to off themselves. This is possibly one of the biggest instances of what I once saw described as the commonplace "weird racism" in Ian Fleming's works.)

However in both versions of the story, the villain is the same: Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. Though SPECTRE no longer exists here; indeed it's notable that in Fleming's original works, the organization only existed in THUNDERBALL, where it was basically disbanded by the end. The stories then followed Bond's search for Blofeld in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, and his final encounter with the villain here, in YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE -- and that's it. One story with SPECTRE proper, followed by two more with Blofeld more or less alone. Meanwhile in the films, SPECTRE exists as an organization in four installments: DR. NO, FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, THUNDERBALL, and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, with Blofeld operating solo or with a pared-down organization in two more films, ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, afterward.

JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 6

"THUNDERBALL" | "ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE"
December 11th, 1961 - February 10th, 1962 | June 29th, 1964 - May 15th, 1965
Written by Henry Gammidge | Illustrated by John McLusky

THUNDERBALL has the peculiar distinction of being the only James Bond story developed by Ian Fleming himself with the intention that it would become a movie. In the 1950s, Fleming worked with producer Kevin McClory on a project to bring Bond to the silver screen. When the project fell by the wayside, Fleming went ahead and adapted the story they had come up with into a novel. Years later, when Bond finally did make it to the movies, producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman adapted the novel THUNDERBALL into the fourth film in the series. So essentially, THUNDERBALL was a movie treatment adapted into a novel, which was then adapted into a screenplay!

As such, one might expect the original THUNDERBALL, adapted into this comic strip, to sync up fairly closely with the film -- and at least initially, that's true. Both versions open with Bond declared unfit for field duty by M, and sent to recuperate at a spa called Shrublands. There, he encounters a mystery man named Count Lippe, who tries to kill Bond when the agent shows too much interest in the Count's Tong tattoo. Bond reciprocates, giving Lippe a near-death experience, and then returns to work at MI6. Meanwhile, the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion -- SPECTRE -- holds a meeting to discuss their latest plot: stealing a NATO plane transporting two nuclear missiles. SPECTRE's agent on the inside, co-pilot Giuseppe Petacchi, kills the plane's crew and hijacks it, ditching it in the Atlantic ocean near the Bahamas after SPECTRE takes the bombs.

LOOK UP! LOOK DOWN! LOOK OUT!

JAMES BOND IS BACK!

(With all due apologies to the THUNDERBALL movie poster.)

Back in 2018, I started looking at the James Bond newspaper strips originally syndicated in Britain's Daily Express in the 1950s and '60s. I got about halfway through the series, and then was forced to stop due to a number of factors in my life at the time. It was the first retrospective series I ever failed to complete, and it has bothered me ever since. I vowed at the time that I would finish my originally intended run (all of the strips that adapted Ian Fleming's original novels) someday. And now, five-and-a-half years later (seriously?!), it's time.

There are eight storylines left, but a few are based on short stories -- so I've broken it out to three posts in total, which will take us right up to the end of the year. And I know we're going to sail right through to the end of this thing, because unlike last time, I've already written up all the posts! As previously, the main crux of these posts will be to compare and contrast the quite faithful newspaper adaptations with the typically more loosely adapted (or in some cases totally made up) films.

For those who need a refresher, or perhaps weren't even born yet those many years ago when I started this project, here are the first five posts in the series:

JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 1
JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 2
JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 3
JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 4
JAMES BOND NEWSPAPER STRIPS PART 5

And with that, we'll reconvene next week to get to it. See you then!

BLACK KNIGHT: EXODUS

Stan Lee Presents: Dane Whitman, Master of the Ebony Blade
"THE BOND"
Writer Ben Raab | Penciler: Jimmy Cheung | Inker: Andy Lanning
Lettering: Richard Starkings and Comicraft | Colors: Tom Zuiko
Editor: Kelly Corvese | Editor in Chief: Bob Harras

The Plot: In another dimension, Sersi attempts to open a portal to bring herself and the Black Knight home. They're both enveloped by light and then awaken in the twelfth century, where the Black Knight inhabits the body of his ancestor, Sir Eobar Garrington, in Egypt searching for an "Eternal Pharaoh" alongside his best friend, Bennett du Paris. Sersi catches up with the Knight and he recognizes her. That night, one of Garrington's men informs him that Paris has left. The Black Knight and Sersi head out to find him.

Meanwhile, Paris battles a humanoid/insect creature in the desert, and he unleashes his mutant power to defeat it -- then he vanishes. Sersi, meanwhile, fills Garrington in on her past with his descendant, Dane Whitman. Garrington realizes that he must turn his body over to Dane, and so allows his spirit to depart. Dane assumes control of Garrington, then he and Sersi are attacked by one of Garrington's former allies, Sahreed -- who reveals himself as a mutant in the service of the Eternal Pharaoh. Then a gigantic citadel appears, from which emerges the Eternal Pharaoh himself, Apocalypse. Apocalypse says that he has rewarded Paris with great power, and then later inside the citadel's dungeon, Paris -- now calling himself Exodus -- visits with Sersi and the Black Knight. He challenges the Knight to a duel and takes him away, leaving Sersi behind. But she immediately breaks free of her bonds and follows the pair.

As Apocalypse watches, the Black Knight and Exodus begin their fight. Exodus outmatches the Knight, but Sersi appears and mindblasts him. He overcomes her power and takes her down, and Apocalypse orders Exodus to kill them both -- but Exodus refuses to serve his new master and attacks Apocalypse instead. The villain then vanishes, and Exodus disappears with him. But six months later, the Black Knight and Sersi, along with two of the Knight's crusaders, find Exodus in suspended animation inside a tomb created by Apocalypse. The Knight's allies swear to guard the tomb with their lives forever, then the Knight and Sersi embrace and disappear, apparently bound for home at last.

AVENGERS ANNUAL #23

Exciting news! I had wanted to cover AVENGERS ANNUAL #23 as part of this project -- even though it's not by Harras/Epting/Palmer/Deodato/etc. and really has nothing to do with their run, it was published during the "Gatherers" saga and is written and drawn by the legendary AVENGERS creative team of Roy Thomas and John Buscema -- but at the time I wrote up all the posts we just finished, it was not yet reprinted anywhere. However, just this past August, Marvel relesed the AVENGERS EPIC COLLECTION: THE GATHERING volume, which includes the Annual, and published the issue to Marvel Unlimited as well. So, as we wrap things up, here's one final little gem from the era:

"STRANGERS ON AN ASTRAL PLANE"
Writer Roy Thomas | Artist: John Buscema
Letterer: Susan Crespi | Colorist: John Kalisz
Flake: Ralph Macchio | Assistant Flake: Matt Idelson | Snowflake: Tom DeFalco

The Plot: Somewhere in an empty dimension, the visages of Loki and Pluto meet and hatch a plot for revenge on Odin and Zeus by killing their respective sons, Thor and Hercules. Pluto agrees to kill the former while Loki deals with the latter. At Avengers Mansion, the Avengers -- Hercules, Giant-Man, Vision, and Crystal -- conduct an impromptu trianing session while Captain America takes a nap. Eventually, Hercules leaves to go on a date with a pair of beautiful women. Meanwhile, Loki heads to the realm of Tartarus, where, at Pluto's suggestion, he liberates the villain called Typhon, along with three of Typhon's fellow prisoners.

The villains ambush Hercules at the restaurant, but his communicard is inadverently activated as he falls unconscious. The Avengers arrive; however Typhon and his cohorts escape with Hercules. Vision suspects that Typhon's hatred of Zeus means he will try to execute Hercules in front of his father, and Thunderstrike uses his enchanted mace to attempt to warp the Avengers to Mount Olympus. But Typhon makes a stop in Hades, where he dunks Hercules in the River Lethe, which renders the Lion of Olympus an amnesiac. Typhon tricks Hercules into believing Zeus is his enemy, and then the group heads to Olympus, where Typhon makes a beeline for the Promethean Flame. He plunges into it and retrieves a magical axe, causing the flame -- and the lives of the Olympians -- to snuff out instantaneously.

The Avengers arrive on Olympus and battle Typhon's cohorts, but Captain America makes it past them and challenges Typhon himself. Hercules comes to Typhon's defense and fights Cap, forcing the super soldier to taunt Hercules into plunging both of them into Olympus's river -- which somehow restores Hercules's memory. He rescues Captain America from the roiling waters and then returns to battle Typhon. Cap grabs Typhon's axe and passes it to the Avengers, who arrive just in time to throw the axe back into the enchanted brazier which reignites the Promethean Flame. Reborn, Zeus banishes Typhon and his friends back to Pluto's realm, and Pluto soon plans to carry out his half of his bargain with Loki by making an attempt on Thor's life. Meanwhile, the Avengers return to Earth.