Post Apocalyptic Heroes

The future, who really knows what it holds in store for mankind.  However, some very creative comic book writers and artist's have their versions.  Read on and see possible post apocalyptic earths and their heroes...


Killraven Marvel Comics 1973

First appearing in Amazing Adventures, Jonathan Raven is a future rebel named Killraven who believes in freedom and preserving mankind against the aliens who have taken over the world in 2018.  Killraven, along with the resistance group known as the Freemen, slash and fight their way through war torn America in search of his lost brother Deathraven with hopes to overthrow the alien invasion.  The Killraven character, a weapons expert, had exceptional fighting and wrestling skills honed in the martian entertainment "gladiator" rings in which he escaped from. He also had the mental ability to resist martian commands.  He was a master of military tactics.  He teamed with future rebels known as M'Shulla, Old Skull and Hawk and even had time for a future fling with sultry Volcana Ash.  Don McGregor took over the title and saved it from being cancelled and P. Craig Russell brought along an artistic vision which exemplified Killraven's  war of the worlds.


Hex DC Comics 1985
Jonah Hex is a western gunfighter from the 1800's who is transported to post-apocalyptic america where he teams with sexy and deadly Stiletta in order to save the human race from being wiped out altogether.
   Hex is a Clint Eastwood, man with no name type, who is an expert marksman and does not give a damn about much, sans himself.  He temporarily fights alongside the Road Reapers if only to get the hell out of Dodge.  In this future world, soames a water purification tab, created by Reinhold Boersten, is the most valuable commodity as all sources of water have been contaminated.  Accompanied by Stiletta, Reinhold’s daughter and warrior women with a vendetta against her father, Hex fights against man-eating worms, cyborgs, and other futuristic beings in order to save the world from extinction as well as get himself back to the 1800’s.


Slash Maraud DC Comics (1987) 

The six issue mini-series written by Doug Moench and drawn by Paul Gulacy is a Mad Max comic with aliens.  The road warriors of the comic led by Slash are up against an alien race of hairy shape shifters called Shapers.  The shapers co-habitate with the humans (humans who partake willingly are known as "fuzz lickers") and soon plan to make them extinct by converting the earth's atmosphere to their liking.  The resistance plan, invented by one Mr. X is put into action by Slash, his part-time gal Wild Blue and a band of women in revved up vehicles known as the Damazons.  As usual, Maraud has the obligatory i-don't-give-a-shit attitude to go along with his killing prowess.  The ending is not atypical and the series has the grit and violence born for this time period. 


Scout DC Comics (1985)
A Native American who takes peyote, speaks with a talking groundhog known as Gahn and has the combined escape abilities of Houdini and Geronimo, Scout (real name- Emmanuel Sanders) is the soul rebel of the next generation.  That generation is a poor man's America.  An America who has lost all it's allies and fights to keep peace.  Run by a corrupt government official known as Loper, who controls both the media and the President (through drugs), this future America has stolen resources thus becoming ostracized and left to rot.  Scout is the most political of all the stories included here.  Scout is a loner and only teams with Rosa Winter to rid the world of the monsters he sees, both in mythical drug-induced visions and reality.  Timothy Truman, the creator is attune to the Native American lore and brings a music piece to the series by naming each chapter after a song.  He even gives a playlist in his letters column. The songs are primarily old blues songs by the likes of Howlin Wolf, Lightning Hopkins and T Bone Walker and with names like "Hellhound on my Trail" and Me and the Devil Blues" Truman adds a personal touch to this story arc which lasted 24 issues.  

Film Noir

Gats and gams, broads and bullies, bullets and babes, crooks and cons, dark and deadly, fateful and fatal.
All these words refer to film noir.  They are all elements of the noir film and the style which makes noir, noir. There has long been a dispute over what noir is or isn't.  But one thing is for sure, it is cool.
     The term, coined by the french was used to explain the new american films of the mid forties.  The films made in post war america were done on the cheap and because sets were not elaborate minimal lighting was used.  Hence the term "black film". Yet not only were the pictures dark, the themes were dark.  Be it the rise of existentialism or the popularity of pulp fiction or the emergence of B movies, noir was a motif and style which told the story of flawed characters and their inherent demise.  These immoral heroes and villains were not easily recognized as noir blurred the lines of right and wrong while defying convention.
As fate would have it those born to lose would lose and if these poor souls showed any virtue it was lost on the sins of lust, betrayal, revenge and greed.

"Fate or some mysterious force has put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all." Final lines spoken by Tom Neal in the movie Detour.
With their absence of a moral code these fools are driven to act with instinct and these actions come with consequences. Desirous to be free form the conformity of the masses it is their freedom which drives them to their undoing.  Born of noir is the ultimate anti-hero.  They have a code to which they will uphold no matter the cost.  And the cost is often death.  These men and women represent the id of human nature.  They are cowards, drunks, bullies, violent, sexually deviant, and maniacal.  Driven by  pleasure (dames, booze, money, kicks) and a personal freedom which flaunts style over matter and the inability to develop any relationship of depth.  The era of noir lasting roughly from 1945-1957 gave us gritty characters, dark images, contrasting shadows and light, dialogue drowned in neorealism, moody men and women, defeated souls and charged sexuality.  They gave us black and white cool.

The noir film perhaps is best summed up by the nature of the  characters to drive themselves toward their destined defeat, either by action or non-action they inevitably lose to the overt unpredictable enigma of life.  Some noir films to see: Out of the Past, Double Indemnity, Touch of Evil, Kiss me Deadly, Detour, M, Vertigo, The Killing, Raw Deal, Somewhere in the Night, Blonde Ice, Naked Alibi, I Wake Up Screaming, The Asphalt Jungle and many others.
Some noir reading: A Girl and a Gun by David N. Meyer, Dark City by Eddie Muller, The Film Noir Reader by Alain Silver and James Ursini, and many others.
Some comic book noir: 100 bullets by Brian Azzarello, Sin City by Frank Miller, Criminal by Ed Brubaker, Cross Bronx by Michael Avon Oeming, Marvel Noir-various titles

"This is the end, my only friend, the end.  The end of laughter and soft lies, the end of nights we tried to die"- Jim Morrison

Stuntmen for life

Here is a tribute to stunt performers all over the world with some info on movies made about stunts and stuntmen and women.  Stunt players don't get (nor  do they want) the glory.  Being a young stuntman on CA stunt team shortly after this movie came out we understood and we lived like these guys lived...This is to recognize those movies made about us stuntmen and how few there are tells the story...Let's go for it!

Hooper (1978)
Well this is the best of them for many reasons (Burt Reynolds, Buddy Joe Hooker, Stunts Unlimited, Jock Mahoney, and all those stunt references).  The movie is about a stunt man named Sonny Hooper (Buddy Joe Hooker?), played by Burt Reynolds (who actually got his start as a stuntman) and how he deals with being an aging stuntman.  "if we don't watch out they will blow us right outta the water" He is referring to the new young up and coming stuntmen, one of whom is played by Jan Michael Vincent (Ski) Burt hires Ski on the movie within the movie called "The spy who laughed at danger" and the kid comes up with all these gags and gets the director, played by Robert Klein, all fired up to do stunts at any cost.  Sonny has back problems "Ive seen my x-rays they look like a map of L.A." and quits/gets fired before taking on a crazy car jump "that's 282 feet!".  Of course he returns and pulls off the stunt with Ski and saves the picture.  There are high falls, car gags, body burns and plenty of brawls to keep every stunt performer busy. There are references and nods to some names and stunt teams (Bobby Bass, Stunts Unlimited) and Brian Keith plays legendary stuntman Jock Mahoney (known in the movie as Jocko Doyle)  Directed by fellow stuntman Hal Needham this movie has it all...This short video tells the story of most stuntmen and stuntwomen who dreamed of doing stunts for a lifetime...

In 1985 a group of us stuntmen were breaking into the business anyway we could and we emulated the stuntmen in the movies and this movie was our mantra.  "Want not good times?"

Stunts (1977)
When a stuntman dies on the set his brother (also a stuntman) shows up to investigate and take on the stunts.  Two other stuntmen die before Glen Wilson, played by Robert Foster, and B.J., played by Fiona Lewis find the saboteur.  The stunts are good and performed by top stuntmen in the biz (Gary Davis, Dar Robinson)  The 70's feel and look are great and the actors portraying stunt performers speak about the bond between stuntmen and stuntwomen.  The line repeated a number times is "are we making a movie or are we making a movie?"  It speaks to the core of moviemaking and how important the film is.  The stuntmen know the risks involved and do their professional best to make the gag look real while also being as safe as possible.  However, stunts need to look dangerous so there is always an element of risk that is unavoidable.  As Robert Foster says to one stuntman before the stunt, "Sweet Luck, Charlie!"

The Stunt Man (1980) 
Directed by Richard Rush and stars Peter O'Toole and Steve Railsback.  Railsback plays a fugitive named Cameron who hides on the set of a movie as a replacement stuntman.  O'Toole palys the eccentric and possibly crazy director Eli Cross who may or may not be trying to film Camerons death.  As the stunts get more dangerous Cameron gets more paranoid (being a war veteran does not help his delusions)

Eli Cross is the an "auteur" and in film criticism, the auteur theory "holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision" (Francois Truffaut).  The plot thickens as reality and fiction are merged.  The movie had it's release problems (actually filmed in 1978, but released in 1980) and did not fare well at the box office.  The stunt co-ordinator was Gray Johnson.  the most significant stuntman was A.J. Bakunas, who would die that very year from a high fall gone bad. Some great stunts of course and a sort of surrealistic plot.


Death Proof (2007)

This one makes it because of Stuntman Mike the character played by Kurt Russell.  He is the 1970's/80's stuntman with his satin stunt jacket, turquoise jewelry and pompadour hairdo.  He tells of his credits in stunt work and has the scars to prove it (even though the young girls have never heard of any show he mentions).  His car is the machine that kills, but the character portrayed by Russell is the stuntman Tarantino envisioned for the movie.  That stuntman everyone knew who worked some and was this great character.  The stunts in the movie are all driving stunts and are some of the best ever recorded on film.  Consequently they are performed by some of the stunt greats of the 70's and 80's Buddy Joe Hooker, Terry Leornard, Tracy Dashnaw and Steve Davison.  It has the grittiness of 70's cinema and the realistic car sequences are reminiscent of such great chase films as "Vanishing Point" and "White Line Fever".  The character Stuntman Mike, not his psychotic persona, is truly a tribute to the stunt greats of decades ago.