The Mighty Return of the Green Lama

Briefly in the 40’s, the Green Lama was a multi-media star. Starting out as a pulp hero, he branched out briefly with a radio show and two distinct comicbook runs. Since then, he’s languished in relative obscurity. Mention his name in a comic book store, and people are liable to think he’s a parody hero by the name of the Green Llama.

While the upcoming SUPERPOWERS is supposed to use the Green Lama in a big way, for awhile now, AC Comics has made some minor use of the Green Lama in the past as part of their vault of heroes (various public domain golden-age heroes that had been kept in suspended animation) and has also reprinted a few of his adventures. Like SUPERPOWERS, their version of the character in the present day is as a magician type hero when that's not really true to any of his past incarnations. Some time back they had put into the works a mini-series and it has been done for about a year I believe but only now just being solicited as well as a "0" issue. As I provided the writer with background info on the villain Stopwach (from GL's last appearance in PRIZE COMICS, the cover to which is ironically the image of the Black Owl and Yank & Doodle used here in my Hero Goggles logo), I have a little vested interest in it. The solicitation for it is as follows (with some minor editing for length):

"Title: Green Lama, Man of Strength. Writer is James Ritchey, artists are James Ritchey and Loki Dolza Intended Audience: All-ages fans of thoughtful, character-driven modern style superheroics and Golden Age character revivals. Format: Standard comic book size, 40 pages, b&w with color covers; saddle-stitched. Retail Price: $6.95 (maximum discount 50%) Ship Date: March 5, 2008

“Synopsis: An unsuspecting college student falls heir to the powers of The GREEN LAMA, in a darkly contemporary version of the AC Universe. World War III has come and gone, demons run free in the streets- and only The GREEN LAMA can restore order. Guest-starring The FEMFORCE and GOLDEN LAD.”

“Special Notes: Almost seven years in the making, this "Elseworlds" - style take on the classic Golden Age hero created by Ken Crossen is the product of hot new writer/artist James Ritchey. Refined in consultation with Kendra Crossen Burroughs, daughter of (and executor to the literary estate of ) Ken Crossen, this intro to the smart new series gives a darker, edgier, more modern take on superheroics, and should appeal much more easily to current comics readers. Unlike AC's normal "classic" approach to heroes & storytelling, these characters are more ambiguous, with unknown agendas hidden around every corner. In addition to guest-appearances by Mr. Ritchey's versions of mainstream AC heroes, see the revival of other costumed characters from Crossen's Spark Publications group of the mid-1940's; each with it's own unique spin.”

I give them big props to working with the creator’s heir though the character has apparently fallen into public domain. Although, I’m not a big fan of the reincarnation/legacy angle, I prefer to just see a story with the original characters. And, I find it interesting that the term “Elseworlds” has apparently entered the public lexicon enough to be used in advertising. The term originally was a type of story that DC published, familiar characters and archetypes in non-continuity stories. Another slipping trademark is the term DC uses for their hardback reprint line, “Archives”. I use it for my online reprints of the Fighting Yank, and Dark Horse not only uses the term but the whole look & package for their hardback reprint line they’ve done of classic characters such Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom and Magnus. And they are using it again for a 2 volume reprinting of golden-age Green Lama tales: “THE COMPLETE GREEN LAMA FEATURING THE ART OF MAC RABOY
On sale Apr 30 FC, 208 pages $49.95 HC, 6 1/4" x 10 1/4"

"Chanting 'Om Mani Padme Hum,' the wealthy Jethro Dumont transformed into the Green Lama--a flying freedom fighter made famous in comics by the distinguished and imaginative artist Mac Raboy (Captain Marvel Jr., Flash Gordon). A unique 1940s Buddhist superhero, the Green Lama used special powers gained in a pilgrimage to Tibet to fight master criminals, monstrous dictators, and inequality across the globe. He made his debut in April 1940 in the pulp fiction anthology Double Detective, but he is most well known in his comic book incarnation--especially the stories drawn by Raboy in the eight-issue Green Lama series. Dark Horse Archives presents the entire Green Lama run in two high-quality hardcovers, starting with these first four issues. In addition to Raboy's classic covers and stories, these issues contain entertaining and adventurous bonus stories following the adventures of Lieutenant Hercules, Rick Masters, Angus McErc, and others!
• Our first volume also features an introduction by free speech activist and patron saint of comics collecting Chuck Rozanski!
• Long-deserving archival treatment, these enchanting, historic Golden Age tales are now available to fans who can't spend thousands of dollars on original issues!”

BE WARNED and read that solicitation carefully. See, while it’s titled “The Complete Green Lama”, even if you ignore his pulp series and radio show, the Green Lama ran from issues 7 to 34 in PRIZE COMICS before he was re-invisioned by Raboy for Spark which aren't part of this set. Also, they are only doing 4 issues of his comic each in the archives. If the GCDB is correct, there is only one story, 12 pages, in each issue. So, out of the 200+ pages in each archive, only 48 pages in each is Raboy's Green Lama. 3/4 of the $50 book is actually non-Green Lama material. Raboy's beautiful stuff, and one of the other strips contains work by Mort Meskin but, still, their advertising is more than a little misleading. They could have easily added about 60 pages, and done one volume with all of the Green Lama’s PRIZE COMICS appearances as well as Raboy’s work. Also missing, is the story that takes Magga, a supporting character from his pulp appearances, and turns her into a distaff version of Raboy’s take on GL. Wait and get it cheap on Ebay is my advice. If you don't want to spend thousands or even $50 bucks, here's a sample of Raboy's take for free:
http://members.fortunecity.com/goldenyears1/AAC1-1-1.html

And to sample his radio show:
http://www.radiolovers.com/pages/greenlama.htm


The Green Lama's original pulp adventures have been getting reprinted by Adventure House over the past year. They are interesting. A bit pedestrian in some ways but still have a charm of their own. Stories aren't static either, the aides he starts off with aren't the same as he ends with as romantic subplots unfold.

So, just who is the Green Lama?

Green Lama: 1940, Double Detective pulp (created by Kenneth Crossen). After graduating Harvard, Jethro Dumont went abroad and studied in Tibet. In the pulps and early comic appearances, he had ventriloquism, various mesmeric abilities, disguise skills, able to generate electrical shocks due to radioactive salts he digested, and above average but not super strength as well as some scientific knowledge in addition to his philosophies. His adventures in the pulps, he was aided by a few assistants that were unaware of his true identity. He seemed to go through some pains to keep his identity a secret. While Jethro Dumont was known to be a lama, he did most of his investigating as a Dr. Charles Pali and was usually disguised as him when operating as the Green Lama, so if anyone did suspect the Lama’s identity, it would be as Pali. In fact, his first two aides Gary Brown and Evangl thought just that, despite being well aquainted with Jethro Dumont, who served as best man at their wedding after which they shortly retired in September of 1940. However, his true identity was uncovered by a mystery woman who also was a student of Buddhism, who would slip him clues and information, giving as her name Magga. Possibly, his servant Tsarong knew his secrets as well. Magga seems to have been a woman by the name of Pat Dell, though it’s a bit unsure if Dumont figured that out.

His adventures were also chronicled in PRIZE COMICS #7, Dec. 1940 – 34, 1943, though one didn’t see his aides. It had been a few months, so one can assume that Gary and Evangl retired from adventuring to lead a respectable life as farmers. Along the way he had attracted the friendships and aid of Ken Clayton and adventuress Jean Ferrell as well as the mystery woman Magga, but they seem to have moved off scene as well. Maybe there were other unrecorded cases somewhere that explains their absence from this period of adventures. Likewise, Dumont seems to have shedded the Dr. Pali identity. These cases were covered apparently by the same man who did his pulp adventures. His foes were getting more powerful such as Stopwach, the man who was also a master of Tibetan hypnotism and helping the heroes Black Owl, Yank & Doodle, and Dr. Frost take down the Frankenstein Monster.

In 1944, another publisher would take on publishing the Green Lama’s adventures, starting off with a slight retelling of the origin. Though this too is supposed to be from Ken Crossen, the Lama had undergone some mighty big changes. He still wore a green hood, but instead of the green robes, his costume was green tights complete with cape and his meditative phrase (Om! Ma-ni pad-me Hum! “Hail! The Jewel in the Lotus Flower!”) now gave him super-strength and flight as it telepathically linked him to monks in Tibet who echoed the phrase. It all looked very good as done by Mac Raboy. By this point, Tsarong definitely knew his identity.

Around this time, Magga would re-appear, only in a solo adventure sporting the powers and Raboy designed costume of the Green Lama and called Magga the Magnificent {April, 1946, Atoman Comics #2 (Spark)}

A few of his adventures got reprinted, but he wouldn’t be seen again fighting crime for several decades until he was brought out to help FemForce and a bunch of other golden-age heroes to fight the Black Shroud in the mid ‘80s. Strangely enough, he had undergone yet another transformation. Still wearing the tights version of his costume, he now displayed not the physical superpowers, but mystical abilities to cast various spells and such (though still able to fly), something he hadn’t shown any talent in before. He’d hang around a while lending mystical aide when Nightveil or Dr. Weir aka the Purple Claw were unavailable. The Green Lama of SUPERPOWERS seems to also follow this vein as he’s being talked up as being akin to Dr. Fate. There’s also the AC mini-series that will look at a modern day Green Lama in a different reality, a descendent and possibly reincarnation of the earlier hero who had fallen in battle with Magga and other allies.

Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks

While on vacation, I hit a used book-store that I hadn’t seen in the area before, and at the store were quite a few Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks for a buck each. Several of them were his more obscure (ie non-series books) that I had never gotten around to buying or reading. So I picked them up and bought them, anxiously awaiting enough time to delve into them.

The first up was THE LAD AND THE LION. And before I get any further, it further underscores something that reading many of the pulp reprints that are prevalent nowadays have made me aware of. My growing disenchantment of comics these days has almost everything to do with the nature of what passes for superhero comics at the companies. I still get that same feeling reading a “new” pulp or hero like THE LAD AND THE LION that I did when I was younger, maybe even better as my tastes have sophisticated enough to actually accept the outrageousness of an ERB novel or a Shadow, Spider, or G-8 novel instead of turning my nose up at them. I enjoy stories with larger than life heroes and vile villains, bizarre worlds, princesses of lost worlds, etc.

THE LAD AND THE LION actually prompted me to do some research on the novel as it’s a bit of an oddity. At first, it is what it seems, a Tarzan riff. A young prince is smuggled out of the country as it falls to revolutionaries and then during a terrific storm, he loses his memory and is presumed dead. Shortly after coming to, he is “rescued” by a sadistic epileptic mute on a drifting derelict and his only friend, a caged lion cub. Eventually boy and lion find themselves in Africa, hunting the jungles and deserts and various villains and beautiful women. There are inevitable similarities in the relationship between this boy and lion and the later pulp Ka-zar, reinforced by the paperback cover making him a long-haired blond. Other covers suggest the lad to have dark hair, the text says nothing one way or another.

But what makes this book interesting is that it is actually two parallel stories. There’s the traditional story of the jungle hero. And then there’s the story that’s more like something out of Dumas, where Burroughs tells the history of the kingdom after the revolution. The lad’s uncle is put on the thrown who then does not live up to his agreements with the revolutionaries for a constitution. And we see his son, the prince growing up spoiled, corrupt, and desirous of power as the lad grows up more noble though uncivilized. And the leaders of the revolution continue to plot. You have people whose motivations are unclear, simple folk caught up in big events beyond their control as they all strive to impart their will on the direction of the kingdom, all heading towards bad endings. Even the people you want to root for. And as you progress through the novel, one cannot help but wonder how this is going to dovetail with the story of the real prince, amnesiac and having adventures in Africa with a lion as a brother.

So, I did a little research. I discovered some interesting tidbits. When this was written (after BEASTS OF TARZAN), it was much thinner, only half a book, the adventure story of the lad and the lion. As this novel was the first of ERB’s to be filmed, even before Tarzan, it may have been written as an eye towards being a screenplay. Reports are conflicting on how accurate the film hewed to the story, and it’s apparently lost. It was only later when the story was being collected and released in book form that Ed Burroughs went back and wrote the other half. I think it was the freedom of having already written the romantic heroic adventure half, he was able to write something a little bit different, with more shades of gray and a bit of cynicism about the nature of governments, of power, of leaders that claim to be serving the greater good and just how free and ineffectual individuals can be against that kind of corruption. And, in the end, almost every decision is based on people having more personal agendas for their action, even those that you would say are good people.

So, it’s a schizophrenic small novel, in a way it’s like reading a very thin Dumas novel, with political intrigue, action and daring heroes and villains. H. G. Wells apparently used this novel to denounce Burroughs as being insane according to one online source. It’s also striking in that the book contains a true inter-racial relationship, touching on the differences in class and religion as our hero falls for and pursues the daughter of an Arabian sheik. But, despite this review, don’t think this book is a “deep” read. Instead, it’s just deep enough, full of those touches that gives the world that the lad operates in a context, making it three-dimensional and real enough for the book. And wishing that Burroughs had revisited this particular jungle-lord and his brother, the lion.


Next book… THE ETERNAL SAVAGE.

Special Effects is No Substitute for a Good Story

The past two nights I've gone to the movies. The first night was to see Ghost Rider, and the second was to see Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark again on the big screen. Wow, what a difference!

Ghost Rider was mildly entertaining, and I liked the nod to the western comic character, but just wasn't as good a movie as it could have been.

Movie Plot Outline:
1. In keeping with the traditional comic book style, the hero must first defeat the big baddies henchmen. Cut!

2. Then he must defeat the big baddie himself. Cut!

3. Then he must make a speech about how he'll always be vigilant should a similar threat arise. And .....Cut! That's A Wrap People!

My 3 chief complaints about the movie:
1. The henchmen were too easy; There just wasn't enough conflict! Ghost Rider took them out one by one with no problem. They could have easily remedied this by either having them gang up on him at first, leaving him for dead, and have him actively go out to take them on individually or have him learn his own limitations and apply them to defeating the villains. Which brings us to point #2.

2. The character didn't "grow." You just didn't know anything about the character so you really didn't care. Wasn't it a curse? He never seems too broken up about it. I believe they tried to cover this by showing how Blaze has stacks of books about the occult but it just didn't stick. You didn't see him as being desperate to find a loop-hole. I know, you can argue that he just wasn't sure the deal he made really happened, but there wasn't any indication that he was actively trying to find out (questioning priests, mediums, etc.) Which brings us to point #3.

3. The "I'll never rest until I stop you" speech at the end was completely out of character. They showed that Blaze had all these books on the occult, and that he enjoyed watching National Geographic, but they never showed that he was intelligent. If the Lady-in-Distress hadn't been named Roxanne, all of Cage's lines might have been mono-syllabic. Once again, easily fixed perhaps by showing him translating the occult text from latin, or by showing that he put on a dumb adrenaline-junkie act for the press.

All-in-all I was disappointed in the movie. The special effects were very cool and well done, Ghost Rider is just a cool looking character and its great that movie technology can do it justice, but there has to be more than just special effects.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Raiders came out in 1981; that's 26 years ago (I know that's obvious but until I stopped to do the math '81 just didn't seem to be that long ago!) Oddly enough Raiders is also based on a comic book (Disney's Uncle Scrooge comics that had Scrooge, Donald, and the nephews searching for lost treasures) that both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had read. But the movie has more of a pulp novel feel. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that Lucas and Spielberg applied Lester Dent's Master Plot to the script, particularly the varied fight scenes (sure Indy wins 'em, but he takes a beating in the process: "It's not the years, it's the mileage!") The movie stands on the solidity of the story. In fact the only real special effects are in the last ten minutes of the movie.

Now I'm not in the movie industry, but it seems to me if you take a good story, with good characterization, and good acting and then add to that modern day special effects if you must, you'll be left with a great movie that is long remembered and people will watch over and over when it comes on TV (I've seen Jaws hundreds of times, but when I'm flipping channels and stumble across it I usually stop and watch it to its end, and thats saying something considering how often its on TNT and AMC), and will probably want to own on DVD. Wouldn't that create more residual income for all involved and be a good reason to not rush an unfinished project. Not to mention the added potential for sequels, prequels, re-makes, and franchise options.

I mean, who's not going to watch the forth-coming Indiana Jones movie?