Tuesday, 28. February 2006, 13:07:14
Aggressors, Books, crossovers, Tomb Raider
Sadly this was not Lara Croft teaming up with Doc Savage as some may have hoped, but rather is a rather fun adventure and third in the original Lara Croft Tomb Raider novel series, there is also the novelisation of the 2 movies and a technical manual and 2 series from Top Cow Comics (Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider Journeys) and of course the games. Lara becomes involved in an ancient fued between two androids (kinda sorta, its all very vague) one silver, the other bronze. It turns out that the silver robot is a fugitive and the bronze robot is chasing him, but millenia ago Silver dismantled Bronze and scattered him around the world (thus being the origin of the Osiris story). Lara ends up helping regain several of the pieces which have had a remarkable effect on the local fauna.
So we see Lara fight a mastadon, a sabretooth tiger and a giant crocodile.
The action of the novel would translate into a game quite well.
One of Bronze's fingers was in the possession of the Croft family for several generations, implicitly Lara is as gifted as she is due to the influence of the bronze finger, which was part of a hand shared with her ancestor's ship mates, Greystoke, Holmes, Quatermain, Templar and Bond, thus explaining their extraordinary descendants (implicantly Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Allan Quatermain, Simon Templar The Saint and James Bond 007).
Now that was cool but there is a scene where Lara is leaving one of her battles before the police arrive, because if the police find her ther before she knows it she'll "be paragliding into Beijing to steal the Sacred Sword of Sinaju or some such nonsense" p42 The Sword of Sinaju which Chuin left in China at the end of Chinese Puzzle. How's that for a crossover?
Monday, 20. February 2006, 11:02:22
Aggressors, Novels, Destroyer, crossovers
Okay this is the book where Sapir and Murphy figured out jut how The Destroyer Series was going to work. Chuin comes to the forefront as a equal partner to Remo in this adventure (from a Wold Newton standpoint Chuin probably started feeding Sapir and Murphy information about his adventures).
Chuin explains Sinanju's history to Remo including the Sword of Sinanju, which past masters used to execute prisoners and other undesirables which the Chinese currently hold.
Remo and Chuin are called in to find General Liu, a delegate from the Chinese Government who has gone missing. Chuin is less than impressed with the American Government's overtures of peace to China as one of China's Emperors didn't pay for Sinanju's services way back when and kept the Sword of Sinanju so naturally all Chinese are thieves.
Chuin teases Remo as Remo attempts to figure out what happened to the General, refering to Remo as Charley Chan, Ironside and Perry Mason.
Chuin ferrets out the traitor in the Chinese delegates and uses the Sword of Sinanju to execute the traitor. He then collects that ancient debt but leaves the sword in China.
This is what the Destroyer is about, the legacy of Sinanju, the relationship between Remo and Chuin and some kick ass adventure.
Wednesday, 15. February 2006, 11:14:50
Wold Newton, Aggressors, crossovers
So how do the Aggressors link into the Wold Newton Universe? When Philip Jose Farmer posited the Wold Newton Family in 1972 he was able to explain how many pulp heroes were genetically connected to each other. Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Spider, the Avenger, and G-8 were all shown to be related to each other and descended from those riding past Wold Newton in 1795.
Win Eckert expanded that notion to include those who had interacted with Wold newton Family members and devised the Wold Newton Universe, in that many more pulp and pulp type heroes were connected to the Wold Newton scheme of things.
It is therfore appropriate that the Aggressors, who are the next generation of hero pulp characters be brought into both the Wold Newton Universe and Family. It was that line of thinking that suggested that Richard Camellion, the Death Merchant was in fact the son of Doc Savage and the idea that Mack Bolan, The Executioner is the son of Richard Wentworth.
From there it's a small step to The Destroyer, The Executioner and Tomb Raider all battling disguised versions of Cthulhu, The Destroyer and The Spirit having empty graves next to each other, the Executioner being compared to The Shadow and the Phantom. James Bond, Mr Moto and Hercule Poirot all appear in a Destroyer novel.
It's not surprizing that Mack Bolan knew Niles Barrabas in Vietnam, Remo making reference to Mack Bolan, Mack Bolan founding Able Team and Phoenix Force, Dan Track and Josh Culhane teaming up for an adventure.
In my next few posts I'll be reviewing these meetings and other references and parodies.
Friday, 10. February 2006, 13:38:25
Aggressors, Girl Factory, Novels
The first of 2 novels in the Girl Factory series serves as a good adventure as well as an introduction to Su-Lin Kelly. Su-Lin is the daughter of adventurer Chinese Kelly and his mistress at the Shan Tal Cloister. After the death of her parents, Su is raised at the Cloister and trained in the arts (scholarly, martial and erotic). She then leaves as a companion for Rene Cartes, who marries her on his death bed.
Wealthy from this union, Su-Lin avenges her husband's death and discovers he was a top intellegence agent. Su-Lin then takes over his network and becomes a freelance agent. In this adventure Su-Lin is between assignments when she is contacted by an old friend who alerts her to a cloning technique called Quantum Growth which can make a full grown copy of any person which is up for sale.
Su-Lin evading hitmen and making sexual encounters, discovers that Quantum Growth is connected to the Shan Tal Cloister.
I won't spoil the ultimate surprise but Su-Lin discovers much about herself as well as stopping a plot to clone the world's leaders. The novel is also known as Man Made Woman.
Tuesday, 7. February 2006, 10:42:13
Black Samurai, movies, Aggressors
This movie was based on the series of novels by Marc Olden. There seven books in that series and I haven't found any of them yet but I did fnd this movie. Most likley the movie compares to the novels in much the same way as the original Bob Kane Batman comics compare to the Adam West Batman TV series.
The movie is interesting in that it's the only movie based on an aggressor series that was made in the 70's. Jim Kelly is a good choice for the lead role but sadly the script and direction let this movie down. Jim Kelly is Robert Sand, The Black Samurai, but the movie offers no explanation as to why he is called that and where he was trained as a samurai. Sand is the top agent of D.R.A.G.O.N. but Sand takes a lone hand in dealing with Janicot a voodoo priest who has kidnapped Sand's girlfriend.
There are several fights which are quite good but the decision to dub smart alec remarks over the fights allows for much unintentional humour. Sand kills about six midgets in these fights.
This movie was goofy fun to watch but it was sadly a lost opportunity for a great aggressor movie.
Saturday, 4. February 2006, 14:17:52
Books, Aggressors, Introduction
Howdy and Welcome to Aggressor Brad's Aggressor's blog.
I should thank my mate Dave Aubrey for putting me onto Opera.
I've playing around with the notion of making my own blog devoted to one the overlooked genres The Aggressor. So what is the Aggressor? In the late 1960's there was a renaissance of the pulp hero, Doc Savage was being reprinted by Bantam, there were new Shadow novels, and Nick Carter was revamped as The Killmaster. (We seem to be going through another renaissance at the moment.)
The Aggressor was the logical next step, original characters who had no real ties to earlier heroes and continuities. Blame Don Pendleton and his creation Mack Bolan - The Executioner. Others had seen the writing on the wall and were making their own characters but Pendleton got there first.
And history was made. Nearly every series were paperback original novels.
I plan on posting on individual novels I read as well as providing overviews for series. I may also look at books that aren't Aggressors but are influenced by the genre.
WIDGETIZE