General thoughts: -
The eye-catching cover depicting the dinosaur attacking the military contingent's jeep leads one to believe that the lead story is a Sci-Fi story which involves a time machine. It is extremely frustrating to find out that the time machine story has no connection with The Cretaceous Period. That one mistake by the publisher could turn off thousands of prospective readers to that publisher's books. It made me angry and frustrated. The artwork in all the illustrated stories was slightly above average (certainly good enough, and helped carry the stories). They were all entertaining enough to want to read them to their conclusions. As the book's editor, I'd have included only 2 text pages (required to qualify for the significantly reduced US 2nd Class Postage rate), and I'd have left out the grizzly bear hunting tips page (which I doubt impressed young boys into thinking they vicariously "experienced" MORE adventure by reading at the cost of losing one page of "two-fisted swashbuckling" by Typhoon Tyler or Danny Danger).
Typhoon Tyler: -
An interesting adventure story about Indonesia just after that new nation received its independence from The Netherlands. I grew up knowing several native Indonesian families who had worked with The Dutch Colonial officials or East India Company, and benefited from it enough to more or less have been forced for their own safety, to move to The Netherlands when The Dutch pulled out by 1949.
The story's scenario is reasonably plausible. The writer knew something about that part of The World. Usually, American comic book stories about distant parts of The 3rd World, where I have lived and worked, visited frequently, or have strong 2nd-hand knowledge, are researched extremely poorly, if at all; and the author bases his/her setting and storyline on the typical extremely inaccurate American romanticised or legend-based image of foreign lands. This story was, on the other hand, a mild and welcomed surprise.
The plot was fairly reasonable, interesting, and paced fairly well, considering that the author had so few pages with which to work. The story would have been better paced at 20 or more pages. Not enough room for all the action, and too short a time to keep some suspense, and reveal information more slowly, to let the reader "live in the story" to some degree. A nice, plausible touch, that the jewels were hidden inside a drum of a tribe that placed no value on them. I like the patriotic Indonesian woman risking her life to help her new country.
Swamped!: -
A very short text story based on an ironic final switch, that the local victim overcomes his criminal captor by his knowledge of home area (swamp and quicksand). The young male reader can identify with the boy hero being challenged, and being brave and rising to the occasion using his wits to save his own life. And he gets the reward of imagining himself being a hero, as well as seeing that justice gets served by the bad guy (bully) getting his just reward.
Adventurers Into Peril: -
A 2-page quasi-historical, glorified and exaggerated account of explorer and backwoods "Mountain Man", John Colter's part in helping Lewis and Clark's western expedition through The U.S.A.'s newly-acquired Louisiana Territory from 1803-1805. The main points are historical fact, but his individual exploits are grossly exaggerated to appear very manly and adventurous to young boys, so they can vicariously "live out" these adventures, and feel brave and heroic. I hope that he, himself, didn't massacre as many native Americans as implied in the "story's" panels.
Danny Danger(Sing A Song Of Murder):
The obligatory private detective murder mystery was surprisingly plausible, and given a surprisingly apropos and timely Cold War spy plot, based on the then-fairly recent late Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. I was impressed that the American writer built his story around The Western-oriented Czechs trying to get their valuable secrets to The US before they would fall into The Russians' hands during The Communist takeover of their country. The action was good, and fast-paced, due to the short page count with which the author was saddled. Nevertheless, the pacing was okay. Too much focus on him being a ladies man in this short story. I like the use of the cigarette case to add curiosity and suspense. I like the use of the American female agent trying to keep the information out of The Soviet Russian's hands. Silly, heroic-type names for the hero in a semi-realistic story turn me off. It seems to trivialise the otherwise good work of the author and illustrator. I do, however, like the silly, symbolic names for funny-animal characters.
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Perilous Crossing: - Very good extremely short tale (1 text page). It built up the feeling of imminent danger in a good pacing. The description was quite good. I felt as if I were living in that scenario, feeling the heat, feeling the time pressure to beat the flames, and feeling myself dashed against the sharp rocks, by the
wild waves.
Blackbeard, The Pirate Peril:-
Nice to learn a bit of history. I never had any idea that his career as a pirate covered only a short 2 years.
Wild Ride: -
Brakes on a bus not working on an extremely steep downhill ride for several miles is an automatic interest-grabber, and supplier of suspense. The fact that the hero's own daughter is the recipient of the needed help causing him and the rest of the bus riders to risk their own lives to provide it is a nice twist.
The Time Travelers: -
For being this book's alleged cover story, it was a disappointment for Sci-Fi fans, who want at least SOME science in their Science fiction, and also to historically-based legend fans, who would have wanted to see more of Atlantis, and learn more about its people. There was not the slightest attempt to explain about the time travelers needing to travel extremely fast to be able to pass through the time barrier. We didn't see them inside a safety chamber, so their bodies could avoid being torn apart by the tremendous G-Force. They just sat in a "rocket", that acted something like a normal jet airplane. We were never told in which part of the 860 B.C. World, the time travelers arrived.
Was it on a large continent in the middle of The Atlantic Ocean??? Or was it in the ACTUAL place where the real Atlantis of ancient Mediterranean Man's long-term memory most likely existed, - the Eastern Mediterranean islands included in the ancient Minoan commercial empire (Thera, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, etc), which suffered various levels of destruction with the rising of Mediterranean Sea water levels 9,000 to 7,000 years ago, with the worldwide melting of The Earth's glaciers after the end of the last ice age cold period, and with the severe earthquake and resultant tidal waves in the Thera-centered super-strong quake of 1560 B.C.E.??
As an author of children's adventure-related literature, I am also amateur historian and buff of ancient legends. I have done a lot of historical research on The Legend of Atlantis, and I believe that Solon's dating of 9,000 years ago for the ending disaster, relates to ancient Mediterranean people's word-of-mouth recorded long-term memory of the rising sea waters from the ice melting, and mixing that with the ancient memory of The Thera (Santorini)-centered earthquake and tidal waves disaster which destroyed The Minoans' civilisation. That is why I was very impressed that this story had a Queen on the throne of Atlantis (a throwback to a time when women were more highly regarded in society (matching the early farming period after the end of the ice age), and the author giving her the name, "Thera" (matching the name of the island with the most likely spot for the empire's capital city (where its inner circular canal-ringed harbour seems to have been(Akrotiri), as described by Solon.
Unfortunately, the comic book story's plot and action are not as satisfying as those surprising connections to history. Emperor Ego seems to be a silly character whose madness is so irrational that he would seem harmless. But Adolph Hitler matched that description, and he was VERY dangerous. Ego's plot to take over The World through going back into time and soliciting whole armies from warlike states into his own command, bringing them into his own time to fight current political entities is interesting, but very impractical. I'm not sure I feel that our heroes in this story would even believe that is a real danger to today's World. I also had trouble believing that "on their way home, from THE PAST, Dr. Redfield now again entering the present time, flies his supersonic jet just above Emperor Ego's desert headquarters (vast building complex), in a straight line, so low to the ground that the super hot exhaust from his tail pipe incinerates all the buildings and people to cinders, and yet he doesn't crash! Amazing aircraft and pilot!
A story with such a plot needs a 500-paged novel, or at least a 10-comic book series (something like EC's "Land Of The Lost") to show all that the reader's would want to be shown, and to tell such an epic story. The pitifully short page count of this short story couldn't even show a very abbreviated setting, let alone tell an epic story with fleshing out of the main characters and laying out the villain's plot and motivations. No chance for the reader to learn much about Atlantis, or live in the epic adventure story this topic deserves.
A story idea like this is wasted in a small section of a short comic book. It should have been used as an entire series under its own title.
Hunting The Grizzly: -
This can't really be of any help to a prospective "big game hunter". It is just a poorly-disguised way to allow a pre-teen boy to imagine himself being brave, and conquering one of the biggest, most dangerous animals he could hunt in his own country. A waste of a valuable non-advertising page in this book, in my opinion. So was the 3rd text story. I'd have used those 2 extra pages to give Typhoon Tyler and Danny Danger one more page each, to show more of their stories, improving their pacing and flow, so them feel so they wouldn't feel quite so "choppy".
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Topic: #218--Operation Peril #6 (Read 2179 times)
