Highlander

I wrote and revised this a half dozen times, but nothing I came up with could do this film justice. If you have never seen it, go rent it or better still buy it. You won’t regret it, I promise.

Suffice to say, its the only case where I will admit to, or indeed be, a denier.

There were never any sequels to this movie. Oh, and there will never be a remake (also see Sleuth)

Oh and that poster. That poster. It had pride of place in my room at home for the back half of the 80s and some of the 90s.

Or to be more precise, Tudor Pickled Onion crisps.

Let me paint a picture for you. A young boy; healthy and happy, working his way through secondary school. No real vices (yet) but with two addictions. The Matt Houston TV show and Tudor Pickled Onion Crisps. Okay, maybe addiction is a little harsh and probably not the right description. Lets say he has a ritual.

Each Monday evening, he would finish his dinner and homework, before retiring to his room where he would play some darts or snooker (on the second tiniest table available). Come 8pm, he would settle down in a chair to watch the adventures of the titular Texan private detective, accompanied by a packet (or two) of Pickled Onion crisps.

I don’t know if the show made the taste better, or the taste made the show better but they seemed a match made in heaven. 50 minutes or so of fun and junk food before the 9 o’clock news and more darts.

Of course over the years, Matt Houston disappeared into his open to the belly button denim shirt, but the love affair with the crisps seemed to last a lifetime. The boy and his savoury confectionery enjoyed many more trysts over the years, even dreaming of one day owning a complete box of 24 (with a promotion, sometimes 36). However, he eventually grew out of them (girls could have been the stimulus for that or the realisation that darts isn’t truly a sport) or the evil Walkers corporation retired the Tudor brand. Either way, they parted around the late 80s and never met again.

But sometimes… just sometimes, he can see that white box sitting in the corner of his room, its circular maw wide and packets spilling out onto the sanded floor.

Why will the X-Men fall when Kitty Pryde leaves? Because she’s got all the furniture in that case? Or maybe its the 10 speed racer thats up for grabs.

 Boy does Yellowjacket look like he’s in a funk or what? But wait, if he hurries, perhaps he can win a 10-speed racer. That’ll put a smile on his face.

Freud would have had a field day with this I’m sure. Of course now I’m thinking of that scene from Johns’ Avengers run with Wasp and Yellowjacket in Vegas.

Nice to see the Justice League spent a lot of their time being beaten way back when which proves its not a new phenomenon. Also, Superman looks more as if he’s swooning than beaten to a pulp by the Ultrahumanite. Also, not lack of 10-speed racer winning potential in the DC world. Shame.

Firestorm The Nuclear Man

Yeah, thats telling them.

I first read about Firestorm in DC Comics Presents #17 where he helped Superman defeat Killer Frost, who was using her power to seduce and manipulate the Man of Steel. The story, written by Gerry Conway and drawn by the amazing Jose Garcia Lopez (check out the scene where Superman has Firestorm pinned down in the centre of the Earth if you don’t believe me) ended with Superman pretty much offering Firestorm membership of the the Justice League and that was about it. I vaguely remember some comment box or similar saying that the follow up would be in the aforementioned team book, but back then it was a cliffhanger.

Firestorm, for those of you who don’t know, is/are the fused personalities of Professor Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond whose paths crossed during a student demonstration at a nuclear facility where Stein worked. Raymond went to impress a girl, but found that the protesters wanted to blow up the place. He rushed to save Stein who had been knocked unconscious but both were caught in the bomb blast. They fused into Firestorm and due to Stein being unconscious at the time he acted as an influence and the brains behind the operation, whilst Raymond provided the brawn. This of course led to Firestorm effectively seeming to talk to himself when in fact he was conversing with the Stein element.

Anyway, he was a great character with a nicely fleshed out rogues gallery (Yeah Black Bison! You wanna make something of it?) and extremely powerful with the abililty to manipulate anything inorganic. However, he was always looked on as a rookie, even though he had the powerful mind of Stein providing direction. Interestingly, the banter often led to Raymond effectively learning from Stein, with various levels of success.

So in Justice League of America #179 he joined and saved the team. As you do.

It was some months later though when Firestorm truly shone in Justice League of America #205. Classic Green Lantern villain Hector Hammond, while trapped in his body, used his mind to recruit and manipulate a new Royal Flush Gang who then battled the Justice League until all of the heroes were in a coma. While Firestorm was also incapacitated physically, Professor Stein was able to detect Hammond and battle him in something akin to the astral plane. He demonstrated a good understanding of the Marquess of Queensbury Rules and battered the spirity Hammond into submission.

Following his rise in popularity, Firestorm began his own ongoing series (he had managed 6 issues previously) which this time ran to #100. I must admit though that I got lost somewhere around #48.

Still, it was a good run and the character was used sparingly over the years, mostly because the fused Raymond/Stein version was the first of many incarnations including a Fire Elemental. However, he did make it back into Joe Kelly and Doug Mahnke’s JLA as part of The Obsidian Age storyline and stayed until he was killed by the Shadow Thief in Identity Crisis.

While the new Firestorm, Jason Rusch, is a fun character and shows some of the same qualities of the original, it’ll always be the Raymond/Stein Firestorm that’ll have a place in my heart.

Today, I turn 40.

Okay, thats that out of the way. I haven’t posted for a while, and so after some recent soul searching and even the implementation of an ancient and strange mathematical calculation, I thought that I would set myself a challenge which would also get me back to posting. Taking the fact that I am now 40 and that (including today) there are 40 days until Christmas, my challen is to list 40 awesome things, one a day. These all mean something to me, and I’m sure at least one person out there will like each one (but not all) so sit back, relax and enjoy.

The Persuaders

Perhaps my favourite TV programme of all time, The Persuaders was a 70s show starring the double hander and quadruple fist of Tony Curtis and Roger Moore as rich, self made men who also happened to be detectives. Queue intrigue, exotic locations, casinos, fighting, dodgy accents, foppishness and lots and lots of bikini clad women. For a boy in his formative and pre-teen years you can see why it would be a magical world, and not a lightning bolt on the forehead in sight.

Unfortunately it only lasted on of your Earth TV seasons, but while there were only a limited number of episodes, each one was packed to the gunnels with what I can only describe as “The Good Stuff”. Add to that a cracking theme tune by the legendary John Barry and truly wonderful opening titles – detailing how both men grew up in very different social backgrounds but ultimately were able to have women swooning and the chins of hairy eastern europeans bruise their knuckles – and I would have to reclassify as “The Awesome Stuff”.

Click on the link below for the stunning, stunning titles.

Persuaders Titles