TALES FROM THE VAULT: Marvel Team-Up #96 (1980)

Chronologically this tale recounts the second meeting of Spider-Man and Howard The Duck (although Peter Parker isn't quite sure if their first meeting, in Howard The Duck issue one, wasn't just a bad dream).

In Marvel Team-Up #96, from 1980, Howard is working as a taxi driver and has driven a slightly kooky fare from Cleveland to New York, a former librarian and now self-taught orator who now goes by the soubriquet of Status Quo.

Status Quo is violently opposed to "fads" (from jogging and frisbees to roller-skates and disco music), which he believes are undermining the backbone of America.

Quo gets Howard to drive him to Central Park where he starts whipping up the crowds into a riotous frenzy.

Peter Parker sees what's going on on the news - and spots Howard in the background of the broadcast - and so swings over to make sure things don't get out of hand.

Status Quo is a typical Howard The Duck antagonist from the classic Steve Gerber era (even though this issue was written and drawn by Alan Kupperberg)

He's a fruitcake with a political point to make and - sudden and inexplicable - access to high-tech weaponry (exploding frisbees and jet-propelled skateboards!) who is ultimately defeated by dramatic irony.

Although the resolution involves - of course - fisticuffs, it comes down to Howard giving him a stern talking to in front of the assembled media that spells the end for Status Quo.

Among the many nutty moments of this issue, Spider-Man gets very serious (and references Hitler):

And Howard gets naked (and spends about half the issue in a state of undress!):

As an aside, I'd just like to point out that, to my mind, this is definitive Howard The Duck look... you know, like a duck, not that that strange elongated, scrawny appearance he developed after Marvel had a run-in with Disney over his supposed similarity to Donald.

Not really Howard The Duck...

That was my only real disappointment with the original Guardians Of The Galaxy movie, the Howard who popped up at the end didn't look like my Howard.

And, yes, I am one of the handful of people who likes the 1986 movie.

Given that Disney now owns Marvel isn't it about time they let Howard get his proper look back?

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Published In A Dark Horse Comic

My first published contribution to an American comic book saw the light of day in August, 2007, ... a letter in that month's Dark Horse's Conan And The Midnight God issue 5 (see above). It refers to a story in issue 37 of their main Conan title, that came out several months ago.

I was so excited when I discovered it that I had to show Rachel. She brought me back to Earth with the very sage observation: "It's another letter complaining about something. Couldn't you write a letter of praise sometime?"

However, the way I look at it, many famous comic book authors refer back to letters they had published (admittedly usually when they were kids, not 40-year-olds) and so I'm seeing this as my first step on the road to comic book greatness!

What my whinging letter did lead to through was an investigation into who was being homaged. Turns out there's this Robert E Howard character called Sailor Steve Costigan that I'd never heard of before.

I started to read what Costigan stories I could find... and was (right) hooked. In no time at all, Steve Costigan became my favourite Robert E Howard character and quite possibly my all-time favourite pulp era character.

So, something good did come from my complaining!

Infra-Man (1975)

Hong Kong's first superhero movie, Infra-Man (aka The Super Inframan or Chinese Superman) is everything you would expect from a mid-70s Asian martial arts/sci-fi mash-up.

The Earth is threatened by the subterranean Glacier Empire of Demon Princess Elizebub (Terry Liu), also known as Princess Dragon Mom, recently awoken from 10 million years of hibernation and now keen to conquer the Earth with her legion of monstrous henchmen.

Earth's best defence is China's Science Headquarters, run by the genius Professor Liu Ying-de (Hsieh Wang).

Using "science" he transforms one of his staff, the heroic Rayma (Danny Lee), into the superhero Inframan - using bionic-like implants, hormone injections, and high-tech gadgets.

Princess Elizebub's legion of rubber-suited monster lieutenants

China's Superman then uses a variety of powers to take on Elizebub's monsters, so the wicked demon queen kidnaps the professor's daughter, Liu Mei-Mei (Man-Tzu Yuan), in an attempt to blackmail him into making her an Inframan of her own!

The iron-willed professor refuses to capitulate, meaning that he and his daughter end up frozen in ice... and it's left to Rayma and the Science Headquarters' army to storm Elizebub's underground base, rescue their colleagues and save the world.

The frenetic pace with which the story moves suggests that Infra-Man could easily have been storyboarded by a six-year-old kid and their box of action figures.

From the film's fit-inducing psychedelic title sequence,  Infra-Man is a brilliantly bonkers blend of 1970's Doctor Who and Power Rangers, with cheesy, cheap and cheerful special effects slammed up against campy rubber-suited monsters.

Given the slightly garbled English of the sub-titles, a particularly magical thing about this movie, directed by Shan Hua, is that you could watch it without any dialogue at all and still follow what's happening. 

It's the spoken words of the script by Kuang Ni that lead to all the head-scratching and misunderstandings.

Witch-Eye (Dana Shum)

We don't actually need all the ridiculous, mumbo-jumbo scientific gobbledegook explanations of how Inframan's powers supposedly "work" because they are pure technobabble and bafflegab.

On the other hand, I cannot tell a lie, I was rather distracted by Princess Elizebub's second-in-command, the scantily-clad Witch-Eye (Shu-Yi Tsen aka Dana Shum), who was able to shoot green beams from the eyes embedded in the palms of her hands.

For a film presumably aimed at a young audience, her fate was one of the most unexpectedly shocking.

In fact, while there's a lot of talk by the villains about 'killing', I'm pretty certain they only actually kill one person onscreen, whereas Infra-Man gets quite brutal in his treatment of the monsters from the get-go, blowing them up, melting them, severing limbs etc

Produced and distributed by Shaw Brothers Studio, the martial arts fight sequences - which are plentiful - are top notch and help distract from the largely nonsensical, yet wonderfully over-the-top, plot.

Apollo 18 (2011)

As we all know 1972's Apollo 17 was NASA's last manned mission to the Moon (to date).

Or so we were led to believe.

My latest bargain Blu-Ray purchase, Apollo 18, posits a top secret mission in December 1973 to plant Cold War listening devices on The Moon, but something went wrong and that's why the Americans have never been back.

Then apparently in 2011, a whistleblower dumped 80 hours of video footage from the mission online, from which this 'found footage' style, faux documentary, was assembled.

Now, I thought I was over the 'found footage' craze shortly after the market was saturated with ill-conceived Blair Witch Project knock-offs, but recently I've stumbled upon a couple (this and the superb As Above, So Below) that have made me reconsider my prejudices.

One thing Apollo 18 gets right straight off the bat is that it doesn't hang around. Within minutes of introducing the three astronauts we're going to be following they're in space and then on The Moon.

And the speeding train doesn't slow down. It's not long after they've landed that the weird shit starts happening and, given the speed with which events unfold, you find yourself wondering how director Gonzalo López-Gallego is going to keep Brian Miller's script running for the film's 75-minute duration (it's listed as 86-minutes, but the balance is just the closing credits).

But fear not. The pacing is superb throughout, and, barring a couple of lukewarm jump scares (one's played for laughs anyway), the story is somewhere between a modern Doctor Who and Event Horizon in its atmosphere.

In fact, I would make an argument for Apollo 18's possible inclusion in an unofficial headcanon of the Alien film franchise timeline.

After all, it manages to keep the incident (except for the 2011 'leak') under wraps, with only the Department of Defence being in the know, and takes a very measured approach to the possibility of an extraterrestrial lifeform.

Already plagued by communications interference, the astronauts of Apollo 18 discover evidence of a heretofore unknown Soviet mission to The Moon, but then begin to suspect that there's also something 'inhuman' up there with them as well.

The film's footage looks, for the most part, as though it's aged, period stock, encapsulating López-Gallego's eye for authenticity that - to an untrained, unscientific eye like my own - feels as though the 'found footage' could have been genuine.

Except for the unfortunate fact that - and this is no reflection at all on the actors, who are all wholly convincing - I recognised the men playing the three lead characters: Capt. Ben Anderson (Warren Christie, from Alphas, Batwoman etc), Lt Col John Grey (Ryan Robbins, from Riverdale, Arrow etc) and Commander Nathan Walker (Lloyd Owen, from The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones).

But, let's be honest, the story is ultimately so far into tinfoil hat conspiracy theory land that no one is really going to believe it's real.

That said, it appears to have been convincing enough that NASA felt the need to put out a disclaimer.

Apollo 18 does a smashing job of maintaining its verisimilitude, right up to the denouement where we get the "official" explanation of what happened to the three men.

Within the context of the story, I bought the reason for NASA never returning to The Moon one hundred percent.

If you can accept the movie's premise, of being 'lost footage' from a classified American space mission, then you should love this.

As Above, So Below (2014)

A reckless treasure hunter (Perdita Weeks) leads a team of explorers into parts of the Paris Catacombs where tourists aren't allowed, in pursuit of Nicolas Flamel's legendary Philosopher's Stone.

As Above, So Below is a bit disorientating to start, with a segment of illicit Indiana Jonesing by Weeks' Scarlett Marlowe in the Middle East to get a glimpse of a hidden effigy that works as a Rosetta Stone for translating the clues to the Philosopher's Stone.

However, things settle down once Scarlett arrives in Paris with cameraman Benji (Edwin Hodge), who is shooting a documentary about her quest (which ties in to her father's tragic suicide).

Very quickly the subterranean expedition descends into a seemingly doomed old school D&D-style dungeoncrawl, as the team battle their way through environmental hazards, traps, and obstructions that seem to take on increasingly mystical aspects.

I'd avoided this film for years, knowing it was shot all POV, with hand-held shaky cameras, an annoying style of film-making that should have died out years before.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised by As Above, So Below, written and directed by John Erick Dowdle, as, once the action shifts into the catacombs, it's actually quite easy to accept this style of cinematography in this tight and oppressive setting.

There's a sequence reasonably early on where one of the party gets stuck in a narrow tunnel full of human bones, and it is genuinely terrifying and intense.

The hand-held camera actually brings you into the moment, and you will feel claustrophobic watching it.

For me, this film was a contemporary Dungeons & Dragons expedition, with a large, well-equipped party that manages to get out of its depth, and gradually sees its numbers whittled down in gruesome ways.

Without a score, the movie's atmosphere hinges largely on diegetic sound, which gets suitably funky in places, as the protagonists blunder from encounter to encounter trying to find their way back out.

However, the deeper they are forced to go into the underworld, the more mythic and surreal events become.

The smart script blends real beliefs about magic and Hell, with a hefty dollop of movie-making license to create a genuinely memorable horror flick.

While As Above, So Below doesn't quite reach Baskin levels of madness, the movie skirts very close to that style of Lovecraftian insanity in places, and there are some very clever visual tricks along the way.

Would I have preferred it if it had been shot "properly"? Of course. But as shaky-cam films go, this is one of the best.

Django Unchained (2012)

 

While it may not be replete with quotable dialogue and obvious pop culture references, Quentin Tarantino's bloody revenge Western Django Unchained is his best work since the glory days of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

Two years before the American Civil War, dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) frees enslaved Django (Jamie Foxx) to help him identify a trio of outlaws he is after.

However, the German soon discovers that Django has a knack for bounty hunting and the two team-up.

Django isn't just interested in the money though, he wants to track down - and free - his wife Broomhilda von Shaft (Kerry Washington), a fellow slave.

The bounty hunting duo track her to an infamous plantation run by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), who has a penchant for "mandingo fighting" - brutal, to-the-death, bare-knuckle contests between slaves.

Arriving at the plantation, and posing as a pair of businessmen interested in buying a fighter, the duo arouse the suspicion of Candie's house-slave Stephen (Samuel L Jackson), who senses a connection between Broomhilda and Django.

Reinventing the Spaghetti Western genre for a modern audience, Django Unchained's daunting two hour 50 minute running time shouldn't discourage anyone from watching - it's thoroughly engrossing and while packed to the gills with vile and obnoxious characters, be assured they get their comeuppance. For all its modernity, this is still a classic Western after all.

And there are a lot of foul characters in this movie, as it is depicting a disgraceful time when racial prejudice and slavery was common place and people were treated as property to be disposed of as their owners saw fit.

But this state of affairs is never glorified - it is there to be reviled and, in one laugh-out-loud scene, ridiculed (the lynch mob with their ill-fitting masks is a classic and would not have felt out of place in Blazing Saddles).

Being a Tarantino film - and a Western - there are, of course, gun fights, which become increasingly bloody as the number of participants increase and the Grand Guignol factor is ramped up. While the violence is shocking in parts, much is so over-the-top as to be cartoon-like.

Such a great film, it's almost churlish to highlight its one low-point, but it's a frequent flaw in Tarantino's movies: his cameo.

In the final act of Django Unchained, Tarantino pops up looking like an uncomfortable 21st Century dude in fancy dress - rather than a 19th Century cowboy - with an accent that travels all around the world before you realise he's supposed to be Australian.

Thankfully, his time on screen doesn't last long, but eventually someone needs to sit him down and tell him that while he's a brilliant writer and director, he really can't cut it as an actor.

Seriously, one day, his ego is going to demand he take a more central role in one of his films and he could sink it single-handedly.

Ad Astra (2019)

When, late in the 21st Century, the Earth is bombarded by disruptive electronic waves seemingly emanating from Neptune , the U.S. Space Command contacts unflappable astronaut Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt).

It turns out his legendary father, Dr Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) disappeared in that area decades ago.

He had been leading an expedition to the edge of the solar system in pursuit of proof of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

SpaceCom reveals to Roy that they believe his father is actually alive and they want him to travel to Mars to send a message to where they think his father's craft is, to try and find out what is going on.

However, upon reaching Mars, Roy discovers that the story he grew up believing about his father's heroism might not be the truth, and darker things are afoot.

Very quickly, the cineliterate will realise that Ad Astra is Apocalypse Now in space.

Roy's journey into the heart of darkness of space is a a series of vignettes, random encounters (to borrow a gaming phrase) with people and incidents that echo Willard's journey into Cambodia (there are no tigers in space, but there are experimental primates).

This connection is heightened by Roy's inner monologue and, later, the playing of random excerpts from Clifford's log, when he's seeking to justify his actions.

As the film strives to present a realistic view of space travel (more Gravity or The Right Stuff than Firefly or Star Wars), this throws up some bizarre incongruities along the way, like the moon buggy chase with gun-totting space pirates and the utterly preposterous sequence when Roy "breaks in" to a launching rocket.

Ad Astra could also have benefited from more time with Clifford in its last act, giving Tommy Lee Jones a chance to go full Marlon Brando and start mumbling about "the horror, the horror".

Conversely, the whole sub-plot about the "power surges from space" hitting the Earth felt, ultimately, redundant.

Even though it served as the inciting incident that sent Roy off on his melancholic solar quest to find the father he had long thought dead, it added a level of confusion to the story that just wasn't really needed.

Especially when it seemed, in the end, the problem was essentially solved by flicking a switch.

There are also inevitable 2001: A Space Odyssey vibes from Ad Astra and the Chekhov's Gun feeling that there's going to be a big twist, or some major surprise, in the final act.

Spoilers: that there isn't actually plays to the hard science message of the story, and I'm not one to quibble over what a film isn't about as writer-director James Gray and co-writer Ethan Gross clearly had a point they wanted to make about man's place in the cosmos.

And they made it. I'm just not sure how well they made it.

Underwater (2020)

What a year 2020 was for movies inspired by the works of the father of modern horror, HP Lovecraft.

First we had Richard Stanley's incredible Color Out Of Space, directly based on one of Lovecraft's stories, and now we have the undersea action-horror Underworld, which - although not based on any particular story - certainly has a very strong connection to his broad oeuvre of cosmic nightmares.

An unexpected earthquake disrupts the integrity of the world's deepest mining operation, almost seven miles below the Pacific Ocean, in the Mariana Trench, causing the structure to start collapsing.

The few surviving crew members - including Captain Lucien (Westworld's Vincent Cassel), engineer Norah (Kristen Stewart), Emily Haversham (Iron Fist's Jessica Henwick), Laim Smith (The Newsroom's John Gallagher Jr), and Paul Abel (Deadpool's T.J. Miller) - have to find a way to safety.

With the escape pods lost, the survivors realise the only way out is to go down to the sea bed and walk to the drill head, where there are additional escape pods.

Only, they soon discover that there is "something else" in the water, something from deep below the ocean floor, that has been disturbed by their drilling.

Underwater is a phenomenal action horror flick, with an all-star cast and a genuinely terrifying scenario.

Directed by William Eubank, who brought us 2014's brilliant The Signal, from a script by Adam Cozad and Brian Duffield, there's an old fashioned quality about the movie, in that it doesn't hang around before getting to the inciting incident.

In fact, it came so fast and without warning that at first I thought Norah was dreaming, but then I suddenly realised this was real, shit was going down.

I know Kristen Stewart can be a controversial figure in some quarters, but she is magnificent in Underwater, selling her role completely and making us really care about her fate.

If you only know her from the flaccid Twilight flicks, put your prejudices aside and enjoy her cracking lead performance here.

There's no avoiding the fact that Underwater presents its horror DNA loud and proud, with obvious nods to the Alien franchise (the control room some of the characters are first encountered in looks very Nostromo-esque), The Abyss (of course), and Pacific Rim, but also films like The Descent and even 1970s disaster movies.

However, what elevates it above all - and makes it my current contender for the "film of the year" - is the monstrous Lovecraftian aspects sown into the final third of the movie.

Nothing is stated outright - it would make no internal sense to do so - but if you're a fan of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos you'll know what's going on.

There are few better set-ups to a Lovecraftian tale than man poking his nose where it doesn't belong.

And even if you're not a Cthulhu aficionado, it's still one hell of a monster movie.

I can imagine Underwater will be a somewhat acquired taste, though, as the intense horror is heightened by the fact that for extended periods of time we - the audience - can't tell what exactly is happening, echoing the state of confusion and disorientation of the characters.

We just have to surrender ourselves, and accept that William Eubank knows what he's doing and will get us where he needs us to be to grasp the full-extent of the story.

The director is superb at maintaining the internal reality, the verisimilitude, of the dreadful situation the underwater scientists find themselves in.

And this obfuscation and vaguery only accentuates the Lovecraftian influences on this tale, with the protagonists stumbling upon indescribable entities whose motivations are wholly alien to them.

In my books, Underwater definitely demands repeat viewings and should be regarded as an instant monster movie classic

Joe Bob's Going Back To The Drive-In

I guess it's fair to say that most adults have a book from their formative years that helped shape their life and thinking going forward.

However, as I've said before, mine wasn't full of fairy stories, but rather delightfully grungy reviews of even grungier movies.

My life-changing book was 1989's Joe Bob Goes to The Drive-In.

You can read here about how this book kindled a spark in me to review movies, which, of course, then propelled my life in a whole new direction, going to university, then heading into public relations, meeting Rachel, getting married etc.

The good news - no, great news - is the long-out-print Joe Bob Goes To The Drive-In is getting a funky reprint this October, courtesy of Dark Horse, in "a brand new updated and expanded art book-sized hardcover edition."

Scheduled for an October 14 publication, the 2025 edition will include "... new writing, movie reviews, and fan letters not seen in over 40 years, plus new artwork by comic book artist Mike Norton and an introduction by Stephen King".

Mike Norton is, of course, the genius creator of one of my all-time favourite comic books: Battlepug.

As well as Norton's new art, this 200-page tome boasts features "Joe Bob Briggs’ writing on beloved horror classics ranging from Basket Case to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to The Evil Dead, [and] is essential reading for all drive-in cinema and Joe Bob Briggs fans".

This is very exciting news for me. I haven't read Joe Bob Goes To The Drive-In for decades (and I discovered I actually had two copies the other year when sorting through my shelves), but the prospect of getting hold of an expanded, new edition fills my ragged little heart with glee.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Mighty World of Marvel - This Is Where It All Began!

Despite my stroke-addled brain I've always retained a vivid picture of the comic book image (and its subsequent story) that hooked me on superheroes - and particularly the Fantastic Four - as a youngster.

It was the cover of Fantastic Four #17, which I managed to acquire back in 2016 and that now sits proudly framed in our lounge gallery of key (to me) comic book covers.

But, of course, it wasn't actually that comic I read all those decades ago, but a British reprint of the 1963 tale.

Me with my "holy grail", back in 2016

For the longest time, though, I was convinced that the reprinted version of the story had been printed with green ink.

But I was totally unable to prove it, and I'd begun to doubt my memories... until I spied a random post on Threads the other day, by a gentleman called geekyolhog, talking the British '70s reprint title called The Mighty World of Marvel and its use of green spot colour!

The green was primarily for the benefit of the main Hulk stories that ran in the weekly title, but was applied to other contents as well, such as the Fantastic Four backup strip, the letters' page, pin-ups etc

This was the breakthrough I'd needed (having completely forgotten about The Mighty World of Marvel as a title).

From there, it only took a bit of investigation to track down the issue that reprinted Fantastic Four #17: The Mighty World of Marvel issue 35.

A search on eBay, a modest investment (£8 for two issues), and it was in my hands.

Here's the crucial page (scanned from my copy) that proves I was "right" all along:

I can't say for certain that this was the very first American superhero comic book adventure I read, but it's definitely the earliest that stuck in my mind (and spawned my undying love for the Fantastic Four).

With a cover date of June 2, 1973, I would have been six at the time my parents bought me this magazine.

That tallies perfectly with my few remaining memories from that time, paving the way for my hand-drawn Monster Mag comic (issue one and issue two) three years later and my unwavering passion for the superhero genre and comic book medium since then.

George A Romero's The Crazies (1973)

Watching George A Romero's original 1973 version of The Crazies it's easy to see where the idea for Danny Boyle's "is it a zombie movie or isn't it?" 28 Days Later came from.

After a military plane crash (which happens before the movie even begins), an experimental bio-weapon - codename: Trixie - gets into the water supply of Evans City, Pennsylvania.

Trixie eventually drives those it infects to acts of extreme violence, either against others or themselves.

These aren't the normal mindless zombies we are used to from Romero's oeuvre, they retain any weapon proficiencies they may have had before infection and gain an amoral knack for turning anything they can lay their hands on into a tool of destruction.

The Crazies opens in media res with a farmer having already killed his wife, then torching his house and attacking his two children.

The fire allows us to meet the main protagonists of the film - ex-Vietnam vet and Green Beret turned high school coach and volunteer fireman David (Will MacMillan), his pregnant girlfriend, doctor's secretary Judy (Lane Carroll) and David's old army buddy and fellow firefighter, the neanderthal Clank (Harold Wayne Jones).

The air is thick with Cold War paranoia and general anti-establishment sentiment as the army moves in - all faceless in their gasmasks and white NBC suits - to try to control matters, but their heavy-handed approach quickly rubs the locals the wrong way and brawling and gunplay ensues.

If the metaphors weren't ladled on heavily enough at one point an infected priest sits down in the road, pours gasoline over himself and sets himself alight - mirroring the acts of Buddhist monks' protesting the Vietnam war.

Meanwhile the scientist dragged in to help the military concoct an antidote is continually hampered by bureaucracy and the top brass have their finger twitching over the nuclear button - to blast Evans City off the face of the planet from a bomber circling above, at a moments' notice if matters get too out of hand.

Throw in the increasing number of infected - driven to insane acts of violence as the man-made virus takes hold - and the military's attempts to maintain order break down as quickly as they are put in place.

David and his posse team up with hippy chick Kathy (Lynn Lowry) and her father Artie (Richard Liberty), who are more a liability than a help in David's mission to ensure the safety of his girlfriend and their unborn child.

While indisputably tense, the special effects of The Crazies are rather dated for a modern audience with most gunshot wounds looking like little more than hits with a paintball pellet, but I suspect it is the psychological nihilism of the story, with its pessimistic ending echoing that of Romero's earlier Night Of The Living Dead, that earned it its 18 certificate.

There certainly isn't the harsh language or graphic gore of the 15 certificate Kick-Ass to worry the sensibilities of any Daily Mail readers who may have accidentally slotted this little grindhouse/drive-in cinema gem into their DVD player.

Memory: The Origins Of Alien (2019)

Let's clear one thing up right from the start: writer/director Alexandre O. Philippe's Memory - The Origins Of Alien is not a "making of" documentary about Alien, and anyone picking this DVD up thinking that is going to be very disappointed.

The clue is in the title, if people could be bothered to think about it. This hour-and-a-half documentary is a a film studies course thesis on a reading of the influences that fed the original story and shaped - consciously or otherwise - the visual iconography of key moments, which have made the film so enduring in the collective psyche.

Rather than picking apart how the film was made (I'm sure there are plenty of DVD extras dealing with that topic on the many releases of Alien), it traces the development of the script by Dan O'Bannon, movies, authors (such as HP Lovecraft) and comic books that paved the way for the story, the impact of H.R. Giger's work, and then Ridley Scott's aesthetic, cultural and artistic themes that influenced the tone of the piece etc

Then, heightening the thesis approach, we have various readings of the picture, what it meant (beyond the straight horror/haunted house in space angle).

While its doesn't go quite full-on academia, Memory - The Origins Of Alien is not a documentary for the casual horror movie fan who wants to know how much blood they squirted out of John Hurt during the chestburster scene.

Rather it deconstructs subjective readings of what the film could be telling us on a deeper level and how this all ties back into archetypes found in Ancient Greek myths (The Furies), the art of Francis Bacon, and the real-world body horror of parasitic wasps.

Fascinating viewing for someone who likes that sort of thing (such as me, who would have loved to have had this while reading essays during the film studies elements of my university course), but bound to irritate those who mistakenly thought this was something else (just check some of the IMDB reviews).

However, film geeks and aspiring writers could do worse than absorbing this in-depth examination of the roots of the story that, eventually, became one of the most memorable horror/sci-fi films of all time.

If I have a criticism, it's that Memory - The Origins Of Alien is only 95-minutes long. I'm sure there's so much more to discuss on the mythological origins of Alien and what the film "means" (be it in the shot framing or the bio-mechanical design of the central creature).

It's also a shame that Scott's input is only through second-hand footage, but a lot of key people (in-front and behind) the camera of Alien have their say, even those who've passed (such as Giger and O'Bannon) are included via old interviews, complementing the many other commentators involved.

TOP OF THE PILE: Marvel Mutts #1

My fortnightly pull-list is usually planned out weeks, if not months, in advance as I try to stay abreast of forthcoming releases from The Big Two and my favourite indies of the moment.

However, every so often something slips through the net and I don't spot it until Andy (from Paradox Comics) sends out his weekly list of what's due in that Wednesday.

Marvel Mutts #1 was one such title that had totally escaped my notice, but a quick Google suggested it would be something I might enjoy... and my initial feelings were proved 100 per cent correct once I got the comic in hand.

A print collation of several online Infinity Comics, this gorgeous - and near dialogue-free - anthology of short stories opens with Ms Marvel's adoption of a young cockapoo called Mittens from the Best Buds Shelter in New York City (after she crashes into it during a fight with Kraven the Hunter). 

The subsequent short tales are Mittens' "adventures" with a pack of other Avenger-adjacent dogs that hang out at the Avengers' Mansion, including Lockjaw (of The Inhumans), Lucky The Pizza Dog (Hawkeye's friend), Cosmo (from The Guardians of The Galaxy), and Bats (Dr Strange's ghost dog).

To anyone who is a dog owner there are so many relatable moments in this comic, even if exaggerated through the lens of superheroes, from dogs being afraid of the sound of fireworks to canine expressions of loyalty and love. Even something as simple as playing fetch becomes a global odyssey with the involvement of America Chavez and her portal travel. 

Beautifully written by Mackenzie Cadenhead, with gorgeous art by Takeshi Miyazawa (coloured by Raúl Angulo), Marvel Mutts #1 gets you in the feels with every story, always delivering an upbeat ending perfectly capturing the joy of having a dog in your life.

An uplifting one-shot that contrasts with the general association of violence with the superhero genre, this book is the perfect all-ages title for those wishing to experience the majesty of the medium, grounding the weird science and way-out magic of the superhero genre with the relatability - and responsibility - of pet ownership.

Curse Of The Demon Mountain (1977)

Curse of The Demon Mountain aka The Shadow Of Chikara is another of those films that I saw as a kid that blew my tiny, impressionable mind.

This was the first film I consciously recall that blended two distinct genres - in this case Western and Horror.

In subsequent years, it has been notoriously difficult to get hold of on DVD and so eventually, a few months ago, I caved and picked up off eBay - for only a couple of quid - the infamous "Dead Of Night" version... which has to be the worst quality DVD I have ever seen.

The hissing, tinny soundtrack nicely complements the blurry imagery (and this is even 'upscaled' with our blu-ray player) that resembles a sixth generation VHS pirate copy. Any hint of strong language has been brutally excised from this edition ("get away from her, you (silence)") and there are a number of dreadful, unsubtle scene cuts (almost as though they were heavy-handed advert breaks).

But then subtly is not the name of the game in Curse Of The Demon Mountain, suspicious minds will figure out the twist within minutes.

At the tail end of the American Civil War, a pair of veterans - Captain Wishbone Cutter (Joe Don Baker) and half-Indian scout Half-Moon O'Brien (Joy N. Houck Jr) - turn treasure hunters when they leave of a cache of diamonds stashed in the mountains. They bring along a geologist to assay the rocks, Amos 'Teach' Richmond (Ted Neeley).

Along the way they stalked by an unseen enemy that shoots black arrows at them, have a run-in with a trio of inbred bushwackers and rescue a damsel in distress (Sondra Locke) from the aftermath of a massacre.

There's even some pretty decent torch-lit cave exploration scenes that ooze with Dungeons & Dragons-ness and there's probably a half-decent movie (at least worthy of a remake) hidden behind the appalling presentation.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

For me, like many sci-fi fans I imagine, the original Blade Runner is one of those films as near to perfect as we can hope for... so I wasn't that sure it really needed a sequel.

After Denis Villeneuve's almost three-hour magnum opus had washed over me I still wasn't wholly convinced that we needed a Blade Runner sequel, nevertheless, Blade Runner 2049 is a mighty impressive piece of work.

While it may lack the finesse and subtlety of the original, it has an interesting and challenging story to tell, woven around the spine of a techno-noir thriller.

Ryan Gosling stars as K, a replicant blade runner whose job is to 'retire' rogue replicants (artificial life forms created as a 'slave' class to do the jobs humans didn't want to or couldn't do).

What should have been a routine case leads K to discover a hidden box, which contains clues to a shocking revelation that will "break the world".

Soon, he is following a trail of breadcrumbs, pursued by shady forces, and on the hunt for long-vanished blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and maybe answers to questions he has about his own creation.

Blade Runner 2049 does an amazing job of extrapolating forward 30 years the technology we were shown in the first movie, rather than simply splicing in whatever shiny effects the computers of 2017 can create, compared to the film-making tools of 1982.

This allows for creative use of holographic technology (such as K's beautiful 'girlfriend' Joi, played by Ana de Armas, and cameo appearances from Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and Frank Sinatra) while still relying on print photography to play a major role.

Villeneuve's mastery of Hampton Fancher and Michael Green's smart screenplay means the 164 minute film never drags; nothing feels like padding, even when we are simply revelling in the mise-en-scene (which is almost as beautiful as the original, but not quite) and cyberpunk atmosphere rather than cracking on with solving the mystery.

Had this, somehow, been a standalone movie, it would have been churlish to pick holes in its splendour, but Blade Runner 2049 will always be compared to its predecessor and always comes up that tiniest smidgen short (none of the villains, for instance, are as rounded and interesting as Roy Batty; there are no speeches quite as magnificent as "tears in rain" etc).

That said, aided no doubt by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch's soundtrack that strikingly evokes Vangelis along with plenty of visual nods to the original, Blade Runner 2049 is an amazingly absorbing film that does a damn fine job of entertaining its audience.

Galaxy Of Terror (1981)

Recommended to me by my good mate Paul, Galaxy Of Terror is a slightly bonkers, early '80s Alien-wannabe, produced by the legendary Roger Corman and resplendent in that "they're making this up as they go along" feeling that he always brings to his movies.

In an alien galaxy, there is a world ruled by a glowing-headed dictator known as The Master (a very natty special effect, it must be said, and a character that has nothing to do with Doctor Who), who hand picks a miss-matched team of astronauts to embark on a rescue mission to the desolate planet Morganthus - where an earlier ship has crashed.

The rescue team boasts a host of well-known performers: Erin Moran (Joanie from Joanie Loves Chachi and Happy Days), Robert Englund (Nightmare On Elm Street, V etc,) David Lynch-stalwart Grace Zabriskie, horror-movie veteran Sid Haig and familiar TV faces Ray Walston and Bernard Behrens.

Throw in some rubbery monsters and an unpleasant assault by a giant rape-maggot that ranks with the original Evil Dead's animated tree as just plain wrong, and it's no wonder this has become a cult classic.

To be fair it quite quickly shakes off its Alien aspirations as it heads more into pseudo-psychological territory somewhere between Shakespeare and Space 1999.

For a low-budget schlockfest, Galaxy Of Terror has some very impressive visuals: as well as the storm-lashed surface of Morganthus we are treated to the sci-fi/Dungeons & Dragons delights of the massive, maze-like interior of a pyramidal structure the adventurers have to explore to turn off the energy beam that caused them to crash-land as well.

And if that isn't enough of an incentive to track this B-movie treasure down (as long as you can stomach the giant maggot scene and a squirm-worthy moment involving a shard of crystal sliding under someone's skin) there's the added bonus that the film is only 81 minutes long.

Look Out For The Little Guy!

This morning, Rachel and I exchanged Valentine's Day presents and cards. She had very kindly got me the superb Ant-Man trilogy on Blu-Ray and a pack of Colin & Connie The Caterpillar mini rolls for us to share.

Her wheelie bin-themed card was a stroke of genius as she is always mocking me for my obsession with ensuring the right rubbish bins are out on the right morning. And, of course, today not only happens to be Valentine's Day but it's also green bin day... so winner!

I gave Rachel a mushy card, a pair of biographical novels (Cilka's Journey and The Tattooist of Auschwitz) about life in Nazi concentration camps (not very romantic-sounding, but the genre interests Rachel) and a handbag that she'd been after for a while.

Colin (left) and Mister Mind (right)

While tidying all this up from the dining room table so Rachel could resume her work day, I noticed that Colin The Caterpillar bears more than a passing resemblance to my favourite classic Captain Marvel comic book villain, Mister Mind.

Coincidence, separated at birth, or secret identity blown?

You decide...

TALES FROM MY SPINNER RACK: Marvel Romance Comics of the late ‘60s!

Tales From My Spinner Rack! returns with Episode 16, a special Valentine’s Day episode featuring a look back at Marvel’s Romance titles from the late 1960s, titled “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”

At the end of the Silver Age, Marvel had a brand new distributor who didn’t care how many books it put out each month. Stan Lee and company introduced two new horror/mystery titles with Tower of Shadows and Chamber of Darkness and two new romance titles, My Love and Our Love Story, in the summer of 1969. All but forgotten today, these romance titles featured incredible art by the likes of John Romita, John Buscema, Gene Colan, and even Jim Steranko on one memorable story, My Heart Broke in Hollywood!. And all the stories were written by - or “as told to” - Stan Lee!

Tales From My Spinner Rack Episode 16 takes an in-depth look at some of these issues featuring new romance stories by some of Marvel’s greatest artists of the Silver Age. Even if romance comics aren’t your thing, you’ll want to see this artwork-filled new episode, which also features a look back at the surprising origin of the genre.

Visit www.innocent-bystander.com for over 35 Tales From My Spinner Rack! posts featuring nostalgic essays loaded with art and info about the comics I loved growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s!

Please like, comment, subscribe, and turn on notifications for more Tales From My Spinner Rack! videos here on YouTube!

Thanks to Gary Sassaman for this fascinating deep dive, part of his excellent on-going series of comic book history documentary features.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: It's A Tough Job, But...

Before I went to university, I did a two-year stint as news editor of a couple of trade magazines, one of which was Airports International.

As part of that job, in March 1994, a group of airport-related journalists were flown out to Al-Ain in the United Arab Emirates to report on the opening of a new airport.

The actual opening, and work-related tours etc, took up barely a day of our visit and for the rest of the time we were ferried around and spoiled rotten.

A particular highlight for many of us was being driven out into the desert - in four-by-fours - for a meal in a tented encampment, complete with camel rides and authentic belly dancers.

BEST. WORKS. OUTING. EVER.

Born To It: I love camel riding...

 

The Al-Ain International Airport: The reason we were in the UAE

The Dark Tower (2017)

I've only read the first three of Stephen King's Dark Tower books - and that was many, many years ago (pre-stroke), so don't have particularly enduring memories of any of them beyond the first, The Gunslinger, which I have returned to a few times.

But I thought that lack of investment in the source material might be a benefit when coming to the cinematic adaptation, as I understood this was to be a 'different take' on the story, possibly a sequel or an alternate world view of the epic events of the multi-book mythology.

While I really liked the occasional Easter Egg nods to other works of Stephen King, what I wasn't expecting was a very generic, stereotypical teen adventure (with shades of The Mortal Instruments, The Neverending Story, Maze Runner, Hunger Games, and even the Star Wars Prequels with their demystifying of The Force through the introduction of midi-chlorians).

Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is a troubled New York kid, living with his mum (Viking's Katheryn Winnick) and douche-bag step-dad (Nicholas Pauling), but plagued with dreams of an otherworldly Dark Tower and an ongoing battle between the Man In Black (True Detective's Matthew McConaughey) and the last of the gunslingers, Roland (The Wire's Idris Elba).

Jake runs away from home, to find a house he dreamed of, which contains a portal to Mid-World - a post-apocalyptic world-between-worlds.

There he discovers that not only were his dreams real and that he is gifted with something called The Shine (the same psychic power as evidence by little Danny in The Shining), but also that the magic-using Man In Black aka Walter O'Dim believes Jake's powers are strong enough to topple The Dark Tower.

Teaming up with Roland, Jake also learns that the Dark Tower is keeping the Multiverse safe from the demonic hordes that live on the outside, and Walter wants to bring the tower down and welcome in these murderous creatures.

The story jumps from Mid-World to our world, place to place, with the brevity of a CW hour-long drama, and even as it stands, The Dark Tower clocks in at less than an hour and a half duration - a fine length for a trashy, direct-to-DVD movie, but way short for a modern Hollywood blockbuster.

Going from zero to hero in no time at all, Jake manages to master The Shine (quicker than Luke Skywalker masters The Force in the Original Trilogy), and then is handed one of Roland's hefty pistols and appears to be a crack shot with that as well (again, with no background in firearms and, you know, being a kid and all).

It's as though all The Dark Tower's character development moments were trimmed down, or cut out completely, leaving just a framework of action-driven set pieces featuring people we know (or care) little about.

Although incidental characters are killed off (with no lasting emotional impact on the main characters), Roland is frequently injured (but seems to shake it off within a scene or two), and Jake does get captured by Walter, there's no real sense of jeopardy and grand scale in the goings-on.

There are moments where the action is quite thrilling, and Roland's various bullet tricks are neat, but the story never really engages beyond a superficial level, even with such talented and charismatic leads as Elba and McConaughey.

This is not the opening salvo of an epic to rival Lord Of The Rings or Star Wars that we were promised.

I understand that Mike Flanagan is currently pushing on with plans to develop an (unrelated) The Dark Tower series for Amazon Prime Video, but there's generally been tumbleweed on the news front as far as that's concerned lately.

At least, horror maven Flanagan has opted for a reboot, presumably learning from the mistakes of this movie, and returning to the source material that's held in such high esteem by legions of Stephen King fans.

Predators (2010)

The biggest surprise in this addition to the Predator franchise is how well Adrian Brody can pull off the 'hard man' act. Beyond that, no matter how exciting the film is, and it is, we've seen it all before.

Brody is Royce, a tough mercenary, who awakes in freefall over - what he soon discovers is - an alien jungle. He's been dropped in among a group of similarly bewildered and confused strangers, who all turn out to be soldiers, psychos, gangsters or criminals.

They have been snatched from Earth to be hunted by the Predator aliens on a planet-wide 'game reserve'... and that's about it as far as plot goes.

There's running, there's fighting, dodging traps, tangling with Predator-hounds and Predators, references to the original Predator movie, more running about, more fighting, a surprising cameo, some more running and finally some more fighting.

Of course, there's also a bit of crafty trickery along the way, but from the opening scenes it's pretty easy to single out which of the gang of hard nuts will survive until the final conflict and which will be fodder for the planet's killing machines.

Never dull, Predators is competently directed by Nimrod Antal, and the script by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch takes a stab at expanding the culture of the Predator aliens, while using them as dark mirrors for the 'predatory' nature of the humans, but it's simply not meaty enough to generate more than a shrug of passing interest.

Disappointingly forgettable, with no memorable set pieces, Predators - pedestrian as it may be - is perfect beer and pizza fodder for an undemanding audience who just want to wallow in some mindless, and ultimately pointless, sci-fi violence.

PROJECT 60: Border Teasers

After 50+ years of gaming: my first cavalry unit!

Ahead of their imminent arrival, my figure painter of choice these days, Matt, emailed me this collection of preview shots of my Border Reivers figures.

Primarily from Flags of Wars, there are a few Colonel Bills and The Assault Group figures in there as well as some Giants in Miniature from Wargames Illustrated magazine (I'm not sure Great Darcy of The Pale "the tallest man in Ireland" is totally compatible, but I might be to squeeze him in with a party of Fighting Irish/Gallowglass).

Going forward, I expect these will be the primary companies I draw upon as their products are all generally of a compatible size.

While there's probably enough figures here for a simple skirmish, I'm already looking at investing in a second "family", although I'm very tempted to go for The Broken Men faction, outlaws without the stability of a family name to call upon. The gentleman with eyepatch (see below) would make a grand Broken Man character (y'all know I have a soft spot for eyepatches!). 

And I'll need some more livestock and civilians, as well as buildings.

"I have a cunning plan, m'lord!"

Little Jock Elliot, Great Darcy of The Pale, and Lord Flash(heart)! 

I always like to include some livestock in my orders

The Burrowers (2008)

Two families of settlers are snatched in the Dakota Territories, the badlands beyond civilization in the 1879 wild west - including the sweetheart of ranch hand Fergus Coffey (Karl Geary).

The blame is immediately put upon hostile Indians and a posse sets out, led by veteran Indian fighters Will Parcher (Lost's William Mapother) and John Clay (Carnivàle's Clancy Brown). For a while they team up with a group of cavalrymen, but eventually strike out of their own when they hear that a tribe called "The Burrowers" are to blame.

Only, in time, they discover to their cost, that "The Burrowers" are not a tribe of Native Americans; they're not even human.

The Burrowers, written and directed by JT Petty, is a tense and engrossing Western horror, making use of the varied terrain and the circumstances - and prejudices - of the late 19th Century to sow the seeds of confusion and mistrust within the various groups.

The critters themselves are simply part of the natural food chain, driven to hunt fresh prey after the white men killed off their traditional source of food: the buffalo.

Slick cinematography, naturalistic performances and creepy monster effects (no CGI here - all puppets, model work and rubbery costumes, but the verisimilitude is never broken), help make this a top class creature feature with the added bonus of a period setting.

Venom - The Last Dance (2024)

Back from his brief sojourn on the MCU's Earth-616, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien symbiote, Venom, find themselves pursued across America by both the military and extra-dimensional symbiote-hunting monsters called Xenophages.

The military want to study Venom in their underground base, concealed beneath Area 51 in the Nevada desert, while the monsters serve Knull (Andy Serkis, director of Venom: Let There Be Carnage), the god-like creator of the symbiotes.

With nebulous goals of universal suppression, Knull needs "the codex", part of Eddie and Venom's bond, to free himself from Klyntar, a space prison built for him by his rebellious symbiotes.

While on the run, Eddie meets up with a potentially-irritating family of hippies (Rhys Ifans is the alien-mad father, Martin Moon, and Alanna Ubach is his wife, Nova) whose aggravation quotient mellows as the story unfolds. Rather than being just amusing cameos, the Moon family ultimately prove pivotal in the film's third act.

Eddie eventually runs out of luck, is captured by General Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and transported to the subterranean base, where Stephen Graham's presumed-dead Detective Patrick Mulligan is also being held.

But the Xenophages are still on Eddie's trail, leading to a final - grand scale - showdown at Area 51.

While the Venom trilogy peaked with its second chapter, The Last Dance has an easy-to-follow, straight-forward "chase-and-fight" plot that makes its 110-minute duration bounce along at an engaging pace.

Don't get me wrong, The Last Dance is a chaotic mess - full of extraneous, undeveloped characters - but it simultaneously manages to finely balance absolute silliness and existential cosmic horror.

The scenes featuring Knull look as though they were lifted direct from the comic book source material, and the fact that his menace is never fully realised only adds to the overwhelming sense of dread he exudes.

Although it seems certain that this film is the end of Tom Hardy/Eddie Brock's involvement with Venom, it does leave the door open for an MCU symbiote (just with a new host) and the potentially multiversal threat of Knull and his legions of Xenophages.

As dumb as it was, I actually really enjoyed Venom: The Last Dance, and was genuinely surprised by the main movie's downbeat ending.

There's (of course) a mid- and a post-credit scene, but neither really add much to the story (except to remind us that Knull still very much exists in the Sony'verse, and possibly leaving the door open for further adventures).

Until I discovered the movies, I was never really that interested in Venom as a comic book character, but it's been Tom Hardy's passion for the character and this trilogy that really sold me on it.

I'm not sure, as it stands, how bothered I'd be about future cinematic outings for the character if Tom Hardy wasn't playing the lead.

• Venom: The Last Dance is now available on Blu-Ray in the UK.

Venom - Let There Be Carnage (2021)

We first met serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson) in the mid-credit scene of 2018's Venom, but he steps into the spotlight for the sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

The imprisoned killer, now shorn of his fright wig hairdo from Venom, has a fascination with washed-up journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), little realising that Brock is host to the alien symbiote known as Venom.

However, Venom manages to unearth a clue in Kasady's cell that leads to the buried remains of many of his victims.

This development cements Kasady's fate and propels Brock's career back to its previous heights.

When Brock pays a final visit to Kasady in San Quentin, the killer manages to take a bite out of him... accidentally ingesting part of the alien symbiote.

Kasady's execution by lethal injection then stimulates the creature in his blood, transforming him into the brutal, tentacled monstrosity Carnage.

They break out of the prison in a grand set-piece of mass destruction and murder, and set about tracking down Kasady's childhood sweetheart, Frances, as part of a deal that would see them ultimately killing Carnage's "father", Venom.

Frances Barrison (Naomie Harris) is a mutant codenamed Shriek, with powerful sonic abilities, who is being held in a secret research facility, but Kasady makes short work of its defences and the couple slip away into the night.

However, the seeds of romantic disharmony are sown quite early on as symbiotes are extremely vulnerable to loud noises and so Carnage isn't at all impressed by his host's paramour.

Frances and Kasady immediately plan a wedding, which involves kidnapping police detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham), who cost Frances her eye during an earlier escape attempt, Eddie, and Venom.

To get to Eddie, the bad guys grab his former fiancée, Anne Weyling (Michelle Williams), who is now engaged to Dr Dan Lewis (Reid Scott).

Directed by Andy Serkis, from a script by Kelly Marcel and Tom Hardy, Venom: Let There Be Carnage tries to temper the potentially brutal reality of a character like Kasady bonding with an almost omnipotent creature like Carnage with a tsunami of screwball comedy antics and bizarre attempts at black humour.

In all honesty, it shouldn't work... but somehow it does, thanks in no small part of the hard-boiled charisma of Tom Hardy.

There are echoes of Woody Harrelson's earlier performance in the divisive Natural Born Killers in the romance between Kletus and Frances, but these characters, drawn with broad, pulpy, brushstrokes are nowhere near as well-developed as Mickey and Mallory Knox.

Upon first viewing the original Venom movie was a disaster, and yet there was something about it that drew me back to it on its home video release and I've not only found myself enjoying it more on repeat viewings, but have been drawn into the world of Venom in Marvel Comics as well.

This is something I never thought would happen, as the whole idea of a murderous anti-hero really turned me off the character.

But thanks to Tom Hardy's performance in that first movie and then Donny Cates's phenomenal run on the comics in recent years has really won be round to both the character and its potential... in the right hands.

An overview of the plot makes you realise that Venom: Let There Be Carnage is actually a surprisingly small, and contained, film with the antagonists only being free to sow chaos in the wider world for, seemingly, less than 24 hours.

There is no great hunt for Carnage and Shriek, as they tell Eddie where to find them soon after they've torched the abandoned reform school they were both held in as juvenile delinquents.

The grand finale in the cathedral where Kasady and Frances are getting married, is reminiscent of many similarly-staged climactic confrontations, from the Quatermass Experiment to 2003's Daredevil, but this has the added cachet of battling Lovecraftian abominations... and a surprise cameo by the League of Gentleman's Reece Shearsmith.

Talking of cameos, though, the biggest 'shock' and dollop of fanservice comes - once again - in the mid-credit scene, which sets up Venom's potential appearances going forward with a most exciting development.

This 'squee' moment is almost worth the price of admission alone.