Aggressors - The new hero pulp

The first of my October Halloween series of The Aggressors meet the supernatural. In this adventure of the Penetrator Mark Hardin meets Vlad Dosadan Magarac, Count Dracula. Magarac claims to be a descendant of the original Count Dracula, who was cruelly defamed by Bram Stoker. Upset by this, Magarac has decided to use a vibrating weapon to set off earthquakes which activates a volcano chain.*

The Penetrator arrives to stop this madman, who claims to be a true vampire. He discovers that several bodies have turned up around the site of the first tremors totally drained of blood.

As if this isn't bad enough the Mafia has also arrived to stop Magarac who is disrupting their activities and there is an uprising of the local indians. The Penetrator is certainly a busy boy.

After wiping out the mobsters, who decided that killing The Penetrator would be a nice side benefit to their mission. Mark manages to subdue the Indian rebellion by getting them to help him storm Magarac's headquarters.

There is nice touch where a corrupt ATF agent working for Magarac is killed by the attacking forces is surprised that The Penetrator and his allies have automatic weapons because automatic weapons are illegal in that state.

Magarac flees and is followed by the Penetrator and the pair eventually battle using chainsaws in a forest. The image of the Pentrator and the black cloaked vampire dueling with chainsaws lopping tree limbs struck me as a very cool image and would be cool to see on film. This was the one image I had kept from my first reading of this book two years ago.

**Spoiler** to head just highlight the next bit.



Not surprisingly Magarac is killed by impalement on one of the lopped tree branches through the heart.

**End Spoiler**

So it is never clarified if Magarac is a real vampire or just one sick puppy.


A very groovy work.

* This was the same weapon seen in Penetrator #21 The Supergun Mission, now nowhere is this explained in the book. Whilst the footnote can be overused by other writers (Joseph Rosenberger to name one) it can be really handy to direct us to other books like in this case.

Okay, I didn't really get aggressive but I did go for 2 reasons: Wold Newtonry and Aggressors and come back happy with the results so I can't complain. I didn't get everything I wanted but I got a heap of cool stuff none the less.

Wold Newton - well to kick off the con I participated in the Wold Newton Panel with my good mates (funny how people I'd only met in person a few hours before can be some of my best mates in the world) from left to right Win Eckert, Me, Chuck Loridans, John Small, and Pete Coogan(Thank you Dennis for taking the photos at the panel)The panel went really well except for the very nervous Aussie, the questions presented at the end were interesting and showed that the audience were listening.

I managed to get my hands on the first four issues of Farmerphile Magazine, which presents some previously unpublished short fiction by Philip Jose Farmer as well as serialising an unpublished novel. It also offers articles offering perspectives on Farmer, including Win Eckert's Wold Newtonry articles.

I also got the new edition of Tarzan Alive signed by Win Eckert. I already have a copy but this edition has a couple of bonus features, new material by Win Eckert and Mike Resnick as well as the addition of "An Exclusive Interview with Lord Greystoke" and "Extracts from the Memiors of Lord Greystoke" both by Farmer.


Whilst delving through a paperback stall looking for Aggressor novels I found "Escape from Loki" A Doc Savage novel by Farmer and "The Adventure of the Peerless Peer" Tarzan meets Sherlock Holmes by Farmer

And I got to meet and hang out with the Wold Newton gang

Left to right Chris Carey, Chuck Loridans, Dennis Power, Me, Win Eckert and his wife Lisa, John Small and his wife Melisa and sons Joshua and William. Henry Covert and Rachel crouching (Thank you to Andre for taking the photo)

We sat around discussing Wold Newtonry, exploring crossovers and comparing theories and writings.

Aggressors-
Stack of Aggressor comics, The Punisher, Vigilante, Huntress, Tomb Raider, Buckaroo Banzai were purchased most to reviewed at a later date here.

I visted the Gold Eagle booth where I got hold of the first book of the Rogue Angel series. I'll fully review the book later but it seems that Gold Eagle is getting out of Men's Adventure and focussing on the Silhouette Bombshell Women's Adventure line. Perhaps it's more that the bombshell line is new and hence the heavier promotion.


Lionsgate had a booth and they tell me that the Punisher 2 is still being scripted and that will be going ahead, later on I had a chat to Tim Bradstreet (Punisher cover artist) who mention that he's been busy on an animated prologue for the director's cut of The Punisher.

I met Valerie Perez, who is playing Lara Croft, in the fan movie Tomb Raider: Tears of the Dragonand she was wonderful lady even being nice when I turned into gushing fanboy. We did discuss the Lara Croft Challenge, the Australian version was run by FHM magazine, the American version is run by Maxim.

Whilst I wasn't able to get autographs I did get photos of Marv Wolfman and George Perez co-creators of Vigilante.

I also met The Huntress

Whilst not at the Comic Con I did ring and speak to Chet Cunningham, who wrote the Penetrator, The Executioner (7 novels) and The Avenger. He's a really nice guy who encouraged me to write more and tald me he was busy on a new series titled Scream (not connected to the movie series) So I'll be keeping an eye out.

In closing I had a blast and a half and I've needed a week and a half to get back into the swing of reality but it was sooooooo worth it.

A Sherlock Holmes novel on an Aggressor page! Has Aggressor Brad gone mad? Actually yes but that happened a long time ago and isn't relevant to this review. In this instance I'm not reviewing the novel but rather the introduction by the anti-Godfather of the Aggressor movement Don Pendleton (calling him the Godfather just seemed wrong).

In the 70s Ballentine reissued the Holmes books with introductions by other authors such as Ellery Queen, Joe Gores, Nicholas Meyer, P.G Wodehouse and Ed McBain. Pendleton opens his with this rather short dream he had:

The tall man in combat black paused in the open doorway, icy eyes probing the cluttered interior of the upstairs flat at 221b Baker Street. A huge weapon in flat-top leather miltary web rode at his right hip. Other belts crossed the chest, bandolier fashion to support various munitions of war. A small but impressive automatic weapon dangled from a neck cord to rest at waist level, the grips inches removed from powerful hands.

Across the room near a small desk by the window stood a rather ascetic looking man of unimposing mein, toying with an unlighted clay pipe which he held loosely in both hands. Tall, spare, he presented an almost indolent figure as he gazed dreamily into the bowl of the pipe, head bent, hawklike nose twitching delicately. But then that head swiveled into a confrontation with the figure in the doorway, the eyes suddenly sharp and piercing, an air of alertness and decision radiating from that chisled face to belie that earlier impression of indolence.

The visitor visibly relaxed, shoulders slumping forward with an almost relieved motion. The eyes went from ice to cautious warmth as he announced in flat tones, "You are not the enemy."

"An obvious deduction, my dear fellow." the man at the window quietly replied.

"Stay clear. I'm blitzing ."

"To be sure," said he of the hawk nose. "I shall remain clear, I should say, by at least one half a century."

"Live large," the other said. "Live long." He spun on his toe and was gone, as quickly and as silently as he had appeared.

"Halloa!" cried another man who had just entered from a rear bedroom. "Did you see that fellow, Holmes?"

"You may rest assured, my dear Watson, that I did indeed."

"Who the blazes is he? Such an outlandish costume! Is the poor fellow berefit of his senses?"

"Not at all, Not at all," Sherlock Holmes muttered,"That fellow and I, old friend stand but a pair of parables apart."

"What nonsense is this, Holmes?" Dr Watson spluttered. "will you forever set me to chasing enigmatic pronouncements? Which pair of parables have you in mind?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson," the great detective said quietly, returning again to the dreamy introspection of his pipe. "Entirely elementary."

Pendleton then talks about how he had this dream just after he agreed to write this introduction and he felt there was a deeper meaning which was eluding him.

Holmes and Bolan have more in common than it would appear at first glance - Holmes has no offical standing he has set himself up as a consulting detective, Bolan has no offical standing he set himself up as an avenger, both men are more concerned with justice rather than the law.

Pendleton then goes on to talk about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, making a point to reference Doyle's spiritualism and to defend it. According to the official Don Pendleton website Don along with his wife Linda wrote TO DANCE WITH ANGELS about mediumship.

Perhaps the pair of parables Holmes refered to are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Don Pendleton.

This was the finale of the fourth season of the A Team. What an episode!

The episode opens with Gen. "Bull" Fulbright attempting to capture the A-Team as he has for all of this season, but there's a twist Fulbright wants to hire the A-Team. It turns out that Fulbright has recieved intellegence that Col. Morrison is alive.

Morrison is the man who sent The A Team to rob the bank of Hanoi, to take money from the North Vietnamese war effort. Whilst the A Team is doing this, Morrison and his Headquarters are bombed destroying all of the evidence that the mission was sanctioned. So in 1972 the A Team was court marshalled for robbing the Bank of Hanoi. They escaped from the stockade and became soldiers of fortune aiding the oppressed and downtrodden.

The A Team and Fulbright fly to Viet Nam (in a nice touch Fulbright mentions that in Viet Nam he's a war criminal) and we quickly discover that Morrison is dead and Fulbright has tricked the A Team into helping him find his son, the son he never knew he had. But a young girl tries to kill him and we find that she's Fulbright's daughter, who spun the story of a son to lure Fulbright to Viet Nam.

The Vietnamese Army discovers that war criminals are in the country and try to capture. Fulbright dies in the fight making the dying declaration that the A Team were good soldiers and that his daughter is beautiful. The A Team escape and take Tia, Fulbright's daughter to America.

It is suggested that Tia will be joining the A Team for their future adventures, since Tia was played by Tia Carrere (Relic Hunter) this would have been very cool, but Tia was unable to get out her contract to General Hospital.

There are some beautiful moments as the various members recall their time in Viet Nam and the flashbacks in sepia are accompanied by the sound of helicopters.

I've recently been rewatching the A-Team on pay TV and this would have to be one of my favourite episodes (now I just need seasons 3 -5 to be released on DVD)

Oh yeah this is the stuff. The Hunter is John Yard a former Green Beret who served in Viet Nam, retired when his great uncle died and left him a large inheritance.

Yard became a hunter in Africa leading safaris of rich tourists to hunt animals. The story open with Yard on a hunting trip and his client has lung shot a lion. Yard follows the lion into a thorn patch and kills it becaus he knows that wounded lions are dangerous and need to be killed.

When he returns to camp he hears gun shots and discovers his friend Moses Ngala, a private eye in a gun battle with poachers. It appears the poachers might be working for Maurice Lavelle. (altough nothing comes of this information) Yard helps capture the poachers

Returning to camp, Yard receives a letter from his old army buddy Joe Algar. Joe is a broken man, his first child was affected by the drug Moricidin, and had no brain, scaly skin and claws. Joe's wife drowned the baby and jumped out of their 10th storey appartment.

Yard immediately flies out to his friend and discovers that Moricidin was developed by Maurice Pharmaceuticals owned by Maurice Lavelle. It appears that Lavelle knew about the side effects and bribed a FDA offical to let it on the market, just to make a quick buck. With the drug banned in Europe and America, Lavelle is now planning on peddling his drug in Asia and Africa.

Yard decides that Lavelle is like a wounded lion to dangerous to let live peddling his death drugs and along with Ngala they hunt down and kill the multimillionare.

Oh this is good stuff, if you can get hold of this series.