The Serial Vigilante Blog

I got really excited when I heard about this series – the promos looked great. It was a plot I ate up with a spoon, good cop framed for crimes he didn’t commit adopts the identity of The Cape, a superhero comic he read with his son.
Then the series aired and the reviews were less than stellar, the order of 13 episodes was cut to 10 and the finale only aired online in America.

The show aired in Australia on digital channel 7mate where it was banished to the wastes of 2am fairly quickly.

Did it deserve its rapid death? Well I feel it didn’t. One of the problems with modern life is we want instant hits, if a show doesn’t rate through the roof from day 1, it gets cancelled. Some shows need to build up an audience, look at Law & Order or Star Trek. Both were initially low rating but built an audience in reruns and became very successful franchises. 9 episodes is a very short period to build an audience.

Another criticism that I’ve heard is that The Cape was unoriginal, ripping off a number of other superhero /science fiction properties. Robocop, Heroes and Batman are the main examples cited. Nothing is totally original. C. Auguste Dupin inspired Sherlock Holmes who in turn inspired everyone from Sexton Blake to House, The X Files was inspired by Kolchak: The Night Stalker, The Shadow begat a slew of imitators such as The Spider. This blog is devoted to the series that The Executioner inspired.

Another problem was that people had a lot of expectations for this series. NBC aired this the season after Heroes was cancelled so many saw it as a replacement to that series.

I really liked the premise Vince Faraday (David Lyons), one of the few honest cops in Palm City, is framed as the local crime lord Chess. In the chase there is an explosion and Faraday is believed dead.

Of course he survives and is rescued by a circus troupe who are also criminals. They train Vince in various martial arts, including Baritsu*, hypnotism and stage illusion and provide him with a costume including an impenetrable vest and a cape made of spider silk. The cape is able to stretch and retract and has incredible strength. (frustratingly in one of the later episodes there is a hint of just why a criminal team would help train a vigilante, which won't get expanded on now)

Faraday then creates the identity of The Cape, based on his son’s favourite comic book. The Cape is also aided by a hacker named Orwell played by Summer Glau.

The big arc for the season is Faraday attempting to reveal Chess’ real identity as Peter Fleming the head of the Ark Corporation, a private security firm that has taken over the police duties for Palm City.

The other villains were interesting, a collective of assassins known as The Tarot who identify themselves by tarot cards who are hired by Fleming to kill business rivals and The Cape, a crime boss known as Scales.

The episode Dice has The Cape protecting Fleming from a precognitive. Another episode has a former owner of the cape trying to get it back.

The Cape was a really pulpy character that calls to mind The Shadow. Hopefully someone will take the character and make a comic series or series of continuation novels.

* Bartisu is a martial art first mentioned by Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Empty House and was mentioned in the DC Doc Savage/ Shadow Crossover and one of the Victorian era Tales of The Slayer stories

I got a kindle for Christmas and when I saw that the first book in the series was available for free, I downloaded it right away – yep I’m buying the next book.

I really enjoyed this book. Dillon is a mysterious character who is very good at what he does and we learn a few hints about his unusual background and training. Dillon is an adventurer/ retrieval expert.
I really enjoyed the book, Ferguson gives us a hero who adventures with the best of them and an adventure that hits all the good stuff (you know I’ve never seen a suspension bridge that has survived an adventure) and offers some surprises and plot twists.

Ferguson also litters the story with references to other adventure books and series that had me smiling. Dillon and The Voice of Odin is written in an easy style that makes this a joy to read.

If I had any complaint it would be that the ebook is taken from a text version an retains all the formatting and there are words split in the mid- dle of a line and no altering of the text size lines matches these words up.

So about a week ago I went to Supanova comic con on the Gold Coast. After three hours on public transport I went in and lined up for autographs.

I started with Summer Glau. Her line was one of the longer ones (the actors who played the Weasley Twins in the Harry Potter movies had a longer line). I think that Summer Glau is a very attractive woman on the screen but in real life she took my breath away. I was lucky that I was about 12 people back so that I had a some time to compose myself. I rocked up with the cover to The Cape for her to sign. I said that I was really disappointed when I heard that was cancelled – she agreed and looked wistfully at the cover for a few seconds. “sorry” she said, “I was just reminiscing” So that made my day.

Next up was Jim Kelly – probably most famous for appearing in Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee (and later that night he was introducing a special screening for The Gold Coast Film Festival – which I would have to attended). Kelly was also the star of The Black Samurai movie as well as the Black Belt Jones movies.

Nearly forty years later, he still has a presence. Perhaps if he had continued making movies he might be better known but he retired in the late seventies to focus on playing tennis. Sadly most of the people at the convention had no idea who he was and I was able walk right up for my autograph. I had the cover to The Black Samurai signed. “the Black Samurai” he said with a grin (I imagine most of the stuff he had signed was Enter the Dragon related). I think there was a little chit chat and wish I had said more. I shook his hand.

Had I finished th ere I’d have been happy but I headed over to see Christopher Sequeria and Paul Mason.

As I mentioned Sequeria has two stories in Sherlock Holmes: The Crossover Casebook – The Scion of Fear and The Adventure of the Lost Specialist. He also writes the Australian Comic book The Dark Detective: Sherlock Holmes published by Black House Comics. He also has a story in the next Avenger anthology from Moonstone.

We chatted a bit and I pulled out my copy of The Crossovers Casebook, we talked about Howard Hopkins, Win and the Wold Newton Universe. (I can’t believe he recognised my name) I picked up issues 5-8 of The Dark Detective which is the current story (issue nine will conclude the story)
Chris signed both stories in Crossovers Casebook and The Dark Detective issues I bought.

I then moved onto Paul Mason where I pulled out all the issues of Soldier Legacy and he signed them. The Soldier Legacy is about two adventurers one in 1943 fighting the Japanese in New Guinea and the other his grandson in 2011 fighting gang crime in Brisbane. In the past I thought their fighting name was The Soldier but the most recent issues refer to them as The Soldier Legacy.

I just discovered that Jim Kelly who played Robert Sand in the movie version of Black Samurai, as well as Black Belt Jones, and appeared in Enter The Dragon, will be appearing at the Gold Coast Film Festival on Sunday 22 April where he will be introducing a screening of Enter The Dragon.

He will also be at the Gold Coast Supanova Pop Culture Expo on 21-22 April at the Gold Coast Exhibition Centre.

I'm planning on going and getting my copy of the Black Samuari autographed.

Welcome to Conversant USA, the premier counter industrial espionage agency. This private agency was founded by Vanessa “Nessie” Court. Ms Court became a world class scientist working with her first husband Roberto Bandini who died in a lab accident and wealthy after the death of her second husband and son by terrorists from Chechnya. Vanessa Court found and killed the men responsible for the death of her family and found that she enjoyed the action and excitement and formed Conversant USA to use her unique skill set.

Vanessa Court is joined by her team:
Tancredo “Dodo” Cardoso – Brazilian born MMA master
Kate Li – Psychologist and communications expert
Rich Blaine – Electronics expert
Web Singh – Computer expert
Pascal – German Shepherd who can mind link with Nessie through SQUID (Superconducting QUantum Interference Device) allowing Nessie access to his impressions of clients and suspects.

In Hot Rail to Hell, Conversant USA tracks down the person responsible for stealing the blueprints of a new hot rail gun for use by the United States Military. The Conversant Team races around the world to prevent the blueprints from being delivered to a foreign power.

I was really impressed by this book, Robert Vardeman has turned out an exciting and sexy new story that calls to mind the best of Modesty Blaise and The Baroness and is hopefully the first of many books. Vardeman is an ideal writer for this type of series, he contributed an unpublished Baroness adventure back in the seventies and he discussed with fans of The Baroness what they liked about the series.

While Baroness Penelope St John Orsini and Vanessa Court share very similar backgrounds, Vanessa is her own character. While The Baroness dealt with devices that were science fiction back in the day, some devices are everyday items now, Vardeman takes Nessie and offers similar cutting edge scientific devices.

I purchased the deluxe edition which features an essay by the author about how the book came about and a short story “Deserts, Death and Drugs” showing an earlier adventure of Conversant USA chasing down stolen medicines. There is a neat twist to just who is the bad guy in this scenario.

There are sex scenes in both Hot Rail to Hell and “Deserts, Death and Drugs” but there were part of the plot and not tacked on like similar scenes I’ve found in similar works. (I felt that some of the sex scenes in The Baroness #1 The Ecstasy Connection were merely there for the sake of a sex scene).

Vanessa Court is a worthy “granddaughter” of Modesty Blaise and well worth reading.