Jul 12, 2012 ... TOR: YOUR ALLY IN THE EXPANDING HALO UNIVERSE. THE KILO-FIVE
TRILOGY. THE FORERUNNER SAGA. TOR: the premier publisher ...
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TOR: the premier publisher of
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Science Fiction and Fantasy “John Scalzi sets his imagination to STUN and scores a direct hit. Read on and prosper.” —Joe Hill, New York Times
Tor proudly presents A Memory of Light, the final book of The Wheel of Time®, completing the struggle against the Shadow and bringing to a close a journey begun over twenty years ago. The conclusion to the preeminent fantasy epic of our era, created by Robert Jordan and completed by Brandon Sanderson, arrives on January 8, 2013.
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bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box
From the bestselling, award-winning author of Old Man’s War, a novel that answers the question: What happens when all the expendable ensigns on the exploring starship start comparing notes?
Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times
In hardcover and from Macmillan Audio January 8, 2013
Inside Rhys Ifans’ reptilian brain
In hardcover and eBook now
The British actor imbues his disturbed scientist in “The Amazing Spider-Man” with a soul. Now about that lizard ... PAGE 6
TOR: YOUR ALLY IN THE EXPANDING HALO UNIVERSE
He’s having a killer of a time It’s a hectic season for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who will walk the Batman beat, go cycling for thrills and time travel. PAGE 8
Hey, who are you calling ‘princess’? The latest heroines to hit the big and small screens aren’t waiting for Prince Charming; they’re too busy saving the day. PAGE 10
Jaimie Trueblood / Columbia Pictures
The No. 1 trombonist on the Enterprise Jonathan Frakes was relieved when he got to loosen up as Riker on “Star Trek: TNG” — and was delighted to direct. PAGE 17
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From ‘Sherlock’ to warp speed Scene-stealing sleuth Benedict Cumberbatch tries out his dark side in Part 2 of “The Hobbit” and the new “Star Trek.” PAGE 18
The riddle of Ridley Scott Many science-fiction movies quickly seem out of date, but the director’s “Alien” and “Blade Runner” still wow. How? PAGE 20
You say ‘King of Comics.’ He says ‘Dad.’ Neal Kirby has vivid memories of his father, Jack Kirby, creating legendary characters and stories in the basement. PAGE 22
Disney / Pixar
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File photo
On the Cover Mr. Spock isn’t the only intrepid scientist on our list of 50 essential characters who made sci-fi TV what it is today. PAGE 12
BOOK ONE now in hardcover, trade paperback, eBook, and from Macmillan Audio
BOOK TWO in hardcover, trade paperback, eBook, and from Macmillan Audio October 2012
THE KILO-FIVE TRILOGY
BOOK ONE now in hardcover, trade paperback, eBook, and from Macmillan Audio
BOOK TWO now in hardcover, eBook, and from Macmillan Audio. In trade paperback December 2012
THE FORERUNNER SAGA
Quizzam: The Next Generation It’s been 25 years since “Star Trek: The Next Generation” launched. Let’s see what you’ve learned, Ensign. PAGE 26 FOLLOW TOR BOOKS! on Facebook and Twitter | tor-forge.com
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MORPHED: Rhys Ifans says his “Spider-Man” scientist is a moral man.
LIZARD’S LAYERS By Steven Zeitchik
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fter making a splash as Hugh Grant’s space-cadet roommate in 1999’s “Notting Hill,” Rhys Ifans took some forgettable studio roles, made a raft of independent films and was barely seen by American moviegoers. But the Welsh actor, 43, is back in a big way. Last year he tackled the lead in Roland Emmerich’s period drama “Anonymous.” This spring he played an unctuous professor — and romantic rival — opposite Jason Segel in “The Five-Year Engagement.” And as the creepy scientist Curt Connors in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” Ifans morphs into a villainous lizard. Hero Complex talked with him about rebooting Spidey and the Shakespearean overtones of the film.
A lot of people heard about a new “Spider-Man” film that would retell the hero’s origin story and thought, “Didn’t we just see this?” What was your reaction? I did think that for a second. But when I heard Marc Webb was directing, I kind of got it. I said, “They’re going to come at it from a different angle.” Marc has a forensic attention to human relationships and I thought that would elevate “Spider-Man” to something very present. Not necessarily darker, but I guess you could say realer than the way we’d seen it before. How much pressure did you feel
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to prove the naysayers wrong? I don’t think it’s pressure. I certainly feel a sense of responsibility because this guy has been in people’s lives for so long. That’s the wonderful thing about SpiderMan. He’s not a millionaire who lives in a dark tower on a hill and keeps his car in a cave and hangs out with a scantily clad boy called Robin. He’s not some deity like Superman who lives on another planet. He’s the kid next door, he’s you and me. We’ve all been there. We’ve all felt the weight of the world on our shoulders. In the comic book, Connors was a friend to Peter Parker. What did
you see as the main differences between Connors as he was then and how you’ve portrayed him? Well, in the comic book he’s portrayed as a mad scientist. The guy’s unhinged; he’s mad. I don’t think he’s mad in our movie. He is a man of high morals and ethics — there’s just an emotional blackmail that [shadowy corporation] Oscorp has him in. Connors also holds answers to all the questions that Peter is asking, like “Where’s my dad?” When Connors, who’s apparently a man of integrity, morphs into a lizard, the movie seems to suggest that science can corrupt
Jaimie Trueblood / Columbia Pictures
even those with good intentions. Technology and science are moving at such a rapid pace that often only the corporations and the scientists involved realize the benefits and drawbacks…. Connors realizes that it is possible through cross-species genetics to enable him to re-grow a limb. What he doesn’t figure on is that the moral fiber of a reptile met with a human is not a great marriage. It gives him this superhuman strength, this great euphoria, a sense of hubris, in the same way as a crystal-meth user, when they feel that God-like quality. And when they feel like that, they want everyone to feel like that, regardless of whether it’s beneficial to the human race. Did you think of the character that way — as a crystal-meth user — when you were shooting the transformation scenes? I had to find a tangible reference to modern life. I mean, I had to run with the ball that the comics give us and be true and faithful to that, but also say, “Let’s apply it further.” Are you concerned that this sort of modernization might turn people off? I like to push the boundaries and shake it up a little and if that means setting [off] a few people then so be it. All the great Hamlets I’ve seen there have been several walkouts during the performance. It’s your duty in the material to write it into whatever century you’re doing it in. Disney.com/Frankenweenie JULY 2012
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TIME OF HIS LIFE By Geoff Boucher
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QUICK CHANGE: From beat cop to assassin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s a wanted man.
Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
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oseph Gordon-Levitt has 500 things to fill his days this summer — including filming his directorial debut (which stars Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore), tending to his record label and ramping up for the release of several new films — August’s bike-messenger thriller “Premium Rush” and September’s promising sci-fi film “Looper,” in which he and Bruce Willis play the same contract killer at different ends of a time-travel adventure, among them. And then there’s the topic that everyone wants to hear about the most but Gordon-Levitt wants to talk about the least: “The Dark Knight Rises,” the final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, which arrives on July 20 with Gordon-Levitt as one of the stealth weapons within its allstar ensemble. If you approach Gordon-Levitt now you’ll get the same answer he offered last year during an on-theset interview between scenes filmed at the University of London. “I’ve been asked not to say anything,” said Gordon-Levitt who (according to a Warner Bros. press release) plays John Blake, a Gotham City beat cop assigned to special duty under the command of Commissioner Gordon. Nolan is notoriously protective of his plots, but Gordon-Levitt said that shows a deep understanding that modern mythology films rely on tension and revelation, which can be undermined in this era of information saturation. “Chris is very savvy in the way that he knows the story begins before you reach the theater,” Gordon-Levitt said. “What you know and don’t know, what you expect and the way a story unfolds … I will
say this movie is very much a conclusion. This feels like a final chapter; it’s not just another one in a series.” Time will tell — that could also be the motto of “Looper,” which reunites Gordon-Levitt with “Brick” director Rian Johnson. GordonLevitt plays a mob hit man who specializes in killing people in the future, but problems arise when his next assignment is the incarnation of himself 30 years from now. Gordon-Levitt studied Willis to find his rhythms as a speaker and in his body language. For Johnson, watching his two stars morph into different versions of the same man was startling. “Once we cast Bruce we knew that we would be taking the cues from him and Joe started working on this transformation,” the filmmaker said. “Joe’s an incredible actor, so I never worried that it would be just imitation. I knew it would go deeper. But it was still shocking to watch it happen.” Gordon-Levitt also will be seen later this year in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” (he plays Robert, the son of the 16th president) and beyond that, in “Don Jon’s Addiction” (on-screen he’s a porn addict, off-screen he’s the writer-director of the indie film). These are chameleon seasons for the former child star who has covered a lot of ground since his breakthrough role in the TV comedy “3rd Rock From the Sun.” “On some level, we as human beings can be who we want to be,” Gordon-Levitt said. “Our identity and our nature can be in our control. I don’t just mean the presentation of our identity. Look at Gary Oldman ... you can’t be as good as he is by doing it just on the surface. We have the power to be who we want to be, whoever that is.” JULY 2012
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Disney / Pixar
PRINCESSES PACK A PUNCH
has been cause for celebration for some. But princesses carry cultural baggage, too, and many modern audiences primarily associate them with the pink ghetto of the toy aisle. “I’m pleased to see more females on screen and more strong protagonists,” said Peggy Orenstein, author of “Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From the Frontlines of the new Girlie-Girl Culture,” a book about the pervasiveness of princess culture. “But I feel very mixed about it. There was a time when a princess was the only fantasy you could have as a female.... You’d like to think there’s another option in today’s world.” “Brave’s” filmmakers, led by directors Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, sought to create a character who was more grounded — Merida is the first Disney princess who snorts when she laughs. And rather than waiting to be kissed, she is waiting to run a kingdom. Merida’s gender, “Brave” producer Katherine Sarafian said, was not at the forefront of the filmmakers’ minds: “We tried to treat her as a relatable teenager with a rebellious streak, but because she’s adventurous and athletic and outdoorsy, her gender is not the most important thing about her.”
Universal Pictures
Jan Thijs / Relativity Media
Paul Schiraldi / HBO
GRITTY: Kristen Stewart’s damsel leads an army in “Snow White and the Huntsman.”
SHARP: This Snow White (Lily Collins) mixes whimsy and swordplay in “Mirror Mirror.”
FIERY: Emilia Clarke’s princess commands baby dragons and fire in “Game of Thrones.”
In an era of female-centered blockbusters such as Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games,” princesses provide an appealing metaphor for power for filmmakers. “A princess adds stakes to the story,” said Evan Daugherty, who wrote “Snow White and the Huntsman.” “It becomes more than just about any girl off the street and about leadership. Maybe being a princess isn’t so great after all.... It’s not just wearing fancy dresses and going to parties.” Daugherty broadened Snow White by expanding the role of the huntsman, a minor character in the fairy tale who is played in the
film by the meaty hero from “Thor,” Chris Hemsworth. The idea of amplifying the action is designed to attract male moviegoers to female-centric stories. “Having ‘Snow White’ in the title gets people’s attention, but then they have to determine whether they want to see it,” said Joe Roth, who produced “Snow White and the Huntsman” and “Alice in Wonderland.” “It’s probably off-putting to a 14-year-old boy and you have to earn your way back in.” In the case of “Snow White and the Huntsman,” the action appeal seems to have worked — the film grossed more than $100 million at the box office in its first two weeks
of release. Future film projects signal a continuing evolution of the princess archetype — an action-driven sequel to “Snow White and the Huntsman” is in the works; Reese Witherspoon’s production company is adapting the forthcoming children’s series “Pennyroyal’s Princess Boot Camp,” about a school that trains warrior princesses; and Roth began shooting “Maleficent,” a reworking of the Sleeping Beauty tale from the point of view of the evil sorceress (played by Angelina Jolie), in June. No word yet on whether the slumbering princess will wake and rise to slay her own dragon.
Save the kisses. These fairy-tale heroines have enemies to slay and kingdoms to run.
By Rebecca Keegan
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TAKING AIM: “Brave’s” Princess Merida, above, isn’t one for tradition or ladylike behavior.
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princess never lays her weapons on the table. A princess never raises her voice. A princess strives for perfection. A princess, in other words, is a royal bore. At least that’s how it seems to Merida, the bow-and-arrow wielding teen at the center of the latest Pixar film, “Brave,” upon hearing her mother’s precepts for ladylike behavior. Merida would prefer to live a more adventuresome life than the tightly scripted one into which she’s been born as the daughter of a 10th century Scottish king. Merida, the animation studio’s
first female protagonist after 12 features centered on male heroes, is one of a growing band of pop culture princesses whose defiance, athleticism and pluck would shock their Disney ancestresses. These new screen princesses mix equal parts fantasy and female empowerment. In the dark, PG-13 action film “Snow White and the Huntsman,” Kristen Stewart plays the classic fairy tale heroine as a Joan of Arc-like figure who commands a ragtag army in a suit of armor; in “Mirror Mirror,” a more whimsical Snow White adaptation that hit theaters this spring, Lily Collins trades her skirts for pantaloons and learns to swashbuckle
from the seven dwarfs. Small-screen princesses have evolved too — Ginnifer Goodwin’s Snow White on ABC’s family friendly “Once Upon a Time” is a self-reliant elementary schoolteacher, while on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” princess Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) is the leader of a race of nomadic warriors who hatches baby dragons, walks through fire and eats the heart of a stallion. At a time when male characters outnumber females 3 to 1 one in family films, according to the Los Angeles-based Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the emergence of these warrior princesses JULY 2012
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sci-fifty BEHOLD, EARTHLINGS, THE
t
The invasion from above began on June 27, 1949. On that evening, a strange new entity whizzed
The Hot Shot
across national airspace: “Captain Video and his Video Rangers,” television’s first live-action sci-
James T. Kirk “Star Trek” (1966)
ence-fiction series, didn’t look like much (the props were clearly wooden, so was much of the acting) but it was the vanguard of a force that would become the most vivid and varied sector of television drama. ¶ Only a time traveler could have stood on the set of “Captain Video” and predicted
a future that would see the likes of Syfy’s “Battlestar Galactica” and its knotty philosophical debates or the sleek “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and its interstellar ethics lessons. Still, there were hints there if you looked hard . ¶ An early “Captain Video” episode, for instance, gave liveaction television its first robot portrayal with the mechanical man TOBOR I. His name in the script had been ROBOT I but, at least according to lore, the costume department bungled the stenciling on his chassis so he greeted the world with a clanging identity crisis. And yes, somewhere in the future, Number Six and Data bowed their heads in synthetic sympathy. ¶ Television executives viewed sci-fi as overheated, cornball stuff for kids and for years they got what they expected (it was a different story on the bookshelf; the same month “Captain Video” premiered, George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published in England). There were exceptions, of
A restless seeker and cold-space warrior, an interstellar tomcat and loyal friend, James T. Kirk was an Iowa gambler who was never neutral but always in the zone. William Shatner’s character taught us the meaning of warp drive as he chased alien threats (and Starfleet miniskirts).
Lt. Kara “Starbuck” Thrace “Battlestar Galactica” (2003) She began the series as a hard-drinking hotshot pilot, but Kara Thrace became something much more complicated and fascinating over the run of the landmark Syfy series. Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) easily fends off Cylon raiders in outer space dogfights, but, in the end, the fearless female warrior must make the ultimate sacrifice to protect mankind.
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds “Firefly” (2002) Capt. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) helms Serenity, a spaceship whose ragtag crew
course, with the higher ambitions of “Tales of Tomorrow” at the start of the 1950s and “The Twilight Zone” at the decade’s close. ¶ Today, though, sci-fi television is where big names take audacious risks and deliver their most memorable work. Characters — not special effects — are the sands of those fans will be attending Comic-Con International this week in San Diego to celebrate, curate and debate those passions. To give them one more thing to talk about, we’ve come up with wherever you are, you made the list because we remember your name, backward and forward. 12
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Capt. Jack Harkness “Torchwood” (2006) In this “Doctor Who” spinoff, Capt. Jack Harkness leads Torchwood (an organization that fights alien threats) with as much style as substance. The former time-traveling con man, now an immortal (and at times morally ambiguous) hero, is full of flash and flirtation.
The Truth Seeker Fox Mulder “The X-Files” (1993) Special Agent Fox “Spooky” Mulder (David Duchovny) became a television icon for the skeptical ’90s with an obsession with the paranormal and conspiracy. At the root of it? His sister’s alien abduction. His willingness to believe in the possibilities of the universe led him to find the truth that was indeed “out there” on the Fox TV series created by Chris Carter.
Number 6 “The Prisoner” (1967)
reason sci-fi shows possess the most ardent audience in all of scripted television. Tens of thou-
The Sci-Fi 50, a list of characters that made television sci-fi what it is today. And, yes TOBOR,
keeps it flying by thieving, smuggling and scavenging. In Joss Whedon’s short-lived sci-fi western, Mal protects his crew and says he just wants to go his way, free of the meddling Alliance. But when up against the wall (or on Unification Day), the captain isn’t afraid to showboat and revels in the moments when he and his crew can be “big damn heroes.”
Michael Lavine / Fox
HOT SHOT: Mal’s not above showboating.
Shards of information, inscrutable faces, slippery moments of perception and long dark riddles that lead to … where? We don’t know the names of the men, just their numbers, and Patrick McGoohan’s Number 6 is a British agent who walks away from the job — or tries to; he’s promptly ensnared and exiled to a
Mark Seliger / Fox
TRUTH SEEKER: Fox wants to believe. creepy resort village that could be Orwell’s summer getaway or Kafka’s mini-Coney Island. McGoohan’s eyes show the desperation to understand it all, but the 17 episodes of the original “The Prisoner” are a tale phrased in the form of a question.
Carl Kolchak “The Night Stalker” (1971) The story is out there — and Carl Kolchak is the relentless newspaperman who wants to believe his editor will put it on the front page. The cranky Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin, first appeared in a pair of television movies (1971 and ’74) set in Las Vegas but in the ABC series that launched in 1974 he was a Chicago reporter in a seersucker suit who matched his wits against the threat of werewolves, witches, mummies, zombies, marrowsucking aliens and a cynical editor.
Logan Cale “Dark Angel” (2000) In this series created by James Cameron and Charles Eglee, Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) is an underground cyber-journalist who [Continued on Page 14]
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Benjamin Linus “Lost” (2004)
went to a place that Kirk (with 79 shows) had never been before: triple-digit episodes.
The enigmatic leader of a group of natives ( “the Others”) who occupy the island on which Oceanic Flight 815 crashes, Ben (Michael Emerson) is ruthless in pursuit of his mysterious goals (the main one seemingly to protect the island itself).
The Homesick Castaway Dr. Sam Beckett “Quantum Leap” (1989)
Michael Courtney / The CW
SECRET ALIEN: Clark Kent comes of age sans cape and tights. [From Page 13] uses his technological skills to fight corruption after an electromagnetic pulse destroys computer systems in the U.S. and thrusts the country into poverty and barbarism. He also helps Max Guevara (Jessica Alba) find other escapees of a government biotech facility that turned children into soldiers and assassins.
David Vincent “The Invaders” (1967) In the pre-dawn hours of a foggy Cold War morning, a weary architect named David Vincent pulled off the road to close his hooded eyes. When he opened them he was staring into a glowing nightmare. The UFO landing, he soon discovered, was part of a vast, well-cloaked invasion, but Vincent (Roy Thinnes) is made an outsider by his beliefs — and a target for the secret invaders from above.
The Secret Alien Clark Kent “Smallville” (2001) Tom Welling was the farmboy who would become Superman on the show that followed a “no tights, no flights” rule for most of its run.
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Dr. Dick Solomon “3rd Rock from the Sun” (1996) Dr. Dick Solomon (John Lithgow) leads his crew on a research expedition to Earth, where they disguise themselves as a human family. Dick is the High Commander in the guise of the oldest family member and a physics professor.
Martin O’Hara “My Favorite Martian” (1963) Ray Walston is an anthropologist from Mars who crash-lands on Earth and poses as the uncle of a reporter, played by a Hollywood newcomer named Bill Bixby.
The Noble Leader John Sheridan “Babylon 5” (1994) In a way, the first season of “Babylon 5” was a preamble leading to the arrival of John J. Sheridan, the man called Starkiller by his foes. Brought back from the dead (twice), Sheridan seems anointed by destiny, but he’s no saint. He can be impatient and has a withering temper. All those layers make Bruce Boxleitner’s captain (and eventual president) a star man with a killer arc.
Beldar Conehead “Saturday Night Live” (1977)
Capt. Jean-Luc Picard “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987)
So, uh, what’s with that head? “We’re from France.” That was good enough for most of the casually curious back in 1977-79 when Beldar Conehead (Dan Aykroyd) and his brood from the planet Remulak tossed their senso-rings at “Saturday Night Live” viewers. After “Close Encounters” and “Star Wars,” that audience felt the power of the farce.
You can’t “out-Kirk” Kirk. That was the thinking leading up to the launch of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and it was sound. But the notion of an Enterprise captained by a tea-sipping, bald native of France with patrician civility? A bad joke then, it now ranks among TV’s most inspired gambles. Patrick Stewart’s Picard engaged audiences for seven seasons — meaning he boldly
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In a time travel experiment gone wrong, Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) finds himself awakening in other people’s bodies. With the help of his holographic pal Al and his odds-calculating gizmo Ziggy, Beckett must decipher what is about to go terribly wrong in the person’s life and find a way to make it right.
The Intrepid Scientist
John Crichton “Farscape” (1999)
Col. Samantha “Sam” Carter “Stargate: SG-1” (1997)
After American astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) accidentally flies his space module Farscape-1 through a wormhole to a distant part of the galaxy, he finds himself part of a fugitive crew aboard Moya, a living, sentient spaceship.
Astrophysicist, engineer, Gulf War pilot and (according to her boss) a “natural treasure,” Samantha Carter (Amanda Tapper) has a world-class noggin — and also happens to project a seemingly effortless beauty while sizing up the latest alien tech.
David Lister “Red Dwarf ” (1988) David Lister is going nowhere in life before he signs up for a menial job aboard a mining ship called the Red Dwarf. After a radiation leak, Lister is left in stasis — for 3 million years. He awakens as the last human (by all appearances) and what follows is the U.K.’s most subversive cosmic misadventures.
Capt. Kathryn Janeway “Star Trek: Voyager” (1995) Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) was the toughest boss in Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi future. While some couldn’t help chattering about her changing hairdos, Janeway stands out for her ability to beat back everyone who crossed Voyager’s path, be they Borg, Hirogen or Species 8472.
Paramount Brian McKenzie / Syfy
INTREPID: Spock fascinates.
CASTAWAY: Crichton’s lost.
Mr. Spock “Star Trek” (1966)
anointed prophet. Baltar’s limitless capacity for slippery selfpreservation made him loathsome, but Callis’ performance was masterly.
The Master “Doctor Who” (1971) A recurring villain in the longrunning British time-travel series, the Master (most recently portrayed by John Simm) is a fellow Time Lord and a Professor Moriarty-type villain for the Doctor. Turned mad by looking directly into the vortex of time as a child, the Master longs to control the universe and destroy the Doctor.
Diana “V” (1983) The Visitors land on Earth offering peace and shared knowledge, but Diana (Jane Badler) and her lizard-people impose military rule and perform mind control and biological experiments on humans. Diana returns in the 2009 reboot of “V,” and she continues to plot and scheme, though this time against the new High Commander, her daughter Anna (Morena Baccarin).
Dr. Zachary Smith “Lost in Space” (1965) At the start, Dr. Smith was a true villain. An enemy agent, he sabotaged the Jupiter 2’s systems and then (trapped aboard) he was a victim of the navigational misad-
venture he caused. But as episodes passed a new Smith took shape — haughty, insincere, bumbling and shrill, he was unlikable but no longer evil. Actor Jonathan Harris was tilting the character; he knew a true menace couldn’t last but an irritant was invaluable for a writing team.
The Weary Fugitive Sarah Connor “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (2008) Set after “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) is the mother of John (Thomas Dekker), who will eventually (hopefully?) become leader of the resistance movement. Sarah decides the only way to protect her son is to destroy Skynet, but her plans are complicated by enemies from the past and the future.
Laura Roslin “Battlestar Galactica” (2003) When we meet her she is the secretary of education and reeling from
Gene Trindl / NBC/Getty Images
SCHEMER: Don’t trust Diana. a cancer diagnosis — she feels like the end of the world is coming. She’s right. A mechanical plague called the Cylons descends on humanity and Roslin (Mary McDonnell) is sworn in as president. The tale that follows — her triumphs, defeats, tears, love, loss and faith — showed a soulful and honest leader.
David Banner “The Incredible Hulk” (1978) A lab experiment gone wrong bombards Dr. David Banner (Bill Bixby) with gamma radiation, causing him to transform into the [Continued on Page 16]
Is Spock the greatest alien in TV history? Our tricorder readings say yes. The Vulcan gets it because he was a pure TV creation and the work of a single actor, Leonard Nimoy.
Dana Scully “The X-Files” (1993) The skeptical, rational, redheaded foil to Fox Mulder, Gillian Anderson’s medical doctor proved a dedicated ally to her oddball counterpart.
Quinn Mallory “Sliders” (1995) Physics graduate student Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell) creates a machine that allows him to travel, or “slide,” between parallel dimensions. But the gateway becomes unstable, sucking Quinn, his best friend, his professor and a passerby through a wormhole to another dimension.
The Relentless Schemer Dr. Gaius Baltar “Battlestar Galactica” (2003)
Elliott Marks / Paramount Pictures
LEADER: Picard engages.
Gaius Baltar (James Callis) travels a treacherous path from unwitting Cylon accomplice to calculating politician and then selfJULY 2012
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FAR BEYOND ‘FARPOINT’
lates the foolish Gaius Baltar into giving up the information that ends civilization on the planet Caprica, Tricia Helfer’s slim seductress (and her signature red dress) took on additional depth as the series evolved.
By Geoff Boucher
TOBOR I “Captain Video and his Video Rangers” (1949) CBS Photo Archive
WEARY FUGITIVE: Better not make David Banner mad. [From Page 16] 7-foot-tall, green-skinned Hulk (Lou Ferrigno) when he gets angry. Banner hits the road, assuming false identities, hoping for once to do less damage than good.
The Wild Card The Doctor “Doctor Who” (1963) The Time Lord first graced the small screen in 1963. Since then, 11 actors (most recently Matt Smith) have portrayed the twohearted extraterrestrial, each time reincarnating as the same lonely soul but with a new face, wardrobe and set of eccentricities.
Rod Serling “The Twilight Zone” (1959) Rodman E. Serling was born on Christmas Day 1924 in Syracuse, N.Y. — doesn’t that disqualify him from this list? Well, gray areas were the specialty of a show that pioneered an elevated sort of sci-fi, and its greatest character was the eccentric narrator with a dual citizenship in the real and in the imagined.
Q “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987) Q (John de Lancie) is an omnipotent alien creature that’s part of
an extra-dimensional plane of existence known as the Q Continuum. Though he’s never been forthcoming about his true motives, he’s appeared to several human Starfleet captains to tease, taunt, manipulate and generally irritate them.
September/The Observer “Fringe” (2008) Pale, bald and fedora-wearing, the Observers are present at events the Fringe team encounters — like celestial Kojaks or “Adjustment Bureau” versions of The Watcher from Marvel Comics.
River Tam “Firefly” (2002) River Tam (Summer Glau) is a graceful dancer, a deadly assassin and a brilliant psychic, but nearly incomprehensible. The unpredictability of her actions make her the wild card aboard Serenity.
The HardWired Soul Lt. Commander Data “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987) Who’s the strongest, smartest, fastest, sturdiest and most curious crew member in Starfleet history? You don’t need a positronic brain to know it’s Data, played by Brent Spiner.
The first robot to appear in a live-action American television series, TOBOR was a big, blocky fellow with a heavy helmet for a head and pincers shaped like horseshoes, but his squared shoulders were strong enough to carry history.
Col. Steve Austin “The Six Million Dollar Man” (1974) A nasty crash destroyed the body of red-blooded Air Force officer Steve Austin but, as Oscar Goldman of the Office of Scientific Intelligence told weekly viewers of “The Six Million Dollar Man”: “We can rebuild him, we have the technology...”
Max Headroom “Max Headroom” (1987) In a dystopian world governed by television, journalist Edison Carter (Matt Frewer) crusades against the networks, but after a motorcycle accident, his memories are downloaded into a computer and a pop-culture symbol was cr-cr-cr-created.
The Heritage Warrior Worf “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987) Worf (Michael Dorn), the chief of security for the USS Enterprise-D and E, was orphaned at a young age and raised by humans. Large and largely humorless, he
Cameron Phillips “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” (2008) Sent by future resistance leader John Connor to protect his younger self, Terminator Cameron (Summer Glau) is closer to human than any other cyborg seen previously, capable of mimicking human behavior, eating food and perhaps even feeling emotions like jealousy.
Adrian Rogers / BBC
WILD: It’s the Doctor. Cool.
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Number Six “Battlestar Galactica” (2003) The sexy blond Cylon who manipu-
Michael Grecco / Getty Images
Carole Segal / Syfy
WARRIOR: Kira in conflict.
HARD: Adama refuses to bend.
was played by Michael Dorn, a major “Trek” fan growing up.
Bill Maxwell “The Greatest American Hero” (1981)
Kira Nerys “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (1993) A victim of the Cardassian occupation of her native Bajor, Kira Nerys struggled to balance her anger at the universe with her duty to Deep Space 9. The Bajoran outsider often clashed with Capt. Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks). Nana Visitor slowly revealed Kira’s inner vulnerability, culminating in a fan favorite romance with Odo (Rene Auberjonois).
Hawk “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century” (1981) How is Buck Roger’s birdman buddy (Thom Christopher) on this list with just 11 appearances, all in 1981? There are two reasons. It’s not how long you stay on the air, it’s how high you fly. And the power of feathered hair can never be discounted.
The Hard Case Adm. William Adama “Battlestar Galactica” (2003) Edward James Olmos played the proverbial strong, silent type. His silence and emotional distance create trouble with his son, Apollo (Jamie Bamber), but his interactions with Laura Roslin reveal his unwavering conviction and shopworn heart.
Military vet, John Wayne fan and world-weary lawman, Bill Maxwell is often seething behind his G-Man sunglasses and ready to pop off. Typical line: “Either I get what I want or I get to feed you to my cat, one or the other.”
The Mad Scientist Walter Bishop “Fringe” (2008) Walter Bishop (John Noble) is the archetypal mad scientist in “Fringe.” The fragility of his mental health and trapdoor gaps in his memory lend him a quirky, forlorn air of tragedy.
Dr. Miguelito Loveless “The Wild Wild West” (1965) Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless (Michael Dunn) is a brilliant nutjob and arch-enemy for secret agents James West (Robert Conrad) and Artemus Gordon (Ross Martin). Known for inventing gadgets and technology far ahead of his time. Compiled by Geoff Boucher, Noelene Clark, Patrick Kevin Day, Ben Fritz, Elena Howe, Gina McIntyre and Joy Press.
Walter Skinner “The X-Files” (1993)
File photo
SOUL: Max Headroom snaps.
In the annals of management history, Fox Mulder would have to be the least appealing employee possible. The consistently insubordinate special agent was the charge of one Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), a tough-as-nails boss who was forever frustrated by talk of aliens and cover-ups.
Liane Hentscher / Fox
MAD: Walter’s reality is shaky.
It was the most challenging mission that any Starfleet crew would ever face but, somehow, the ship’s first officer was oblivious to the true nature of the peril. “I didn’t really understand what we were getting into,” actor Jonathan Frakes says now as he reflects on the earliest days of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which launched 25 years ago with the ambition of filling up the Federation space left by the original series. “I didn’t know at that point the cultural phenomenon that ‘Star Trek’ was. But, believe me, I learned pretty quick.” Frakes, in the role of Cmdr. William T. Riker, was there when the broadcast journey began with the two-hour television pilot “Encounter at Farpoint” in September 1987 and, 15 years later, he was there when the credits rolled on “Star Trek: Nemesis,” the 2002 feature film that marked the end of the “Next Generation” era. The crew logged 178 episodes (which were honored with 18 Primetime Emmys and a Peabody Award) and also beamed over to the silver screen in four feature films. More impressively, perhaps, the show succeeded in carving out its own distinct identity in a universe that had belonged to the original “Star Trek” series. “It was amazing to be part of it,” said Frakes, whose character left the Enterprise behind and accepted a command of his own near the end of “Nemesis.” “Riker evolved and changed over the years and that was a real gift for me.” The gifts keep coming, too. The series is premiering on Blu-ray in July and, for the first time, getting a special theatrical release. (Two episodes, “Where No One Has Gone Before” and “Datalore,” will beam into select movie theaters across the country on July 23.) In April, at CalgaryExpo, Frakes and his old “Farpoint” colleagues — Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Denise Crosby, John de Lancie and Wil Wheaton — enjoyed a memorable on-stage reunion. “There were thousands of people who … were hooting and hollering and shrieking,” the 59-yearold said. “It got very emotional.” When it comes to camaraderie, Frakes says the ensemble didn’t have to act. The chief of their actor tribe was Stewart, who played Capt. Jean-Luc Picard as a sort of statesman with a starship. “By the virtue of the bar that he set, we all came incredibly well-prepared,” Frakes said. “And because of that you can also have a lot of fun. Things are loose when everybody is on their game.” The relaxation wasn’t there for Frakes in the early days of the show, however. Show creator Gene Roddenberry wanted a taciturn Gary Cooper-type who exuded devotion to duty for Riker. That was a challenge for Frakes, but over time the actor found there could be more of himself invested in the man known as “Number One.” “I looked very, very stiff in those early seasons,” said Frakes, who got a reprieve when he mentioned
Paramount Pictures
NO. 1 GUY: Jonathan Frakes says that he’s sillier than William Riker was allowed to be.
his musical hobby to one of the show’s writers. “All of a sudden, Riker was playing the trombone, and they let a little bit of the playfulness in.” The trombone-playing dated back to his high school days in Bethlehem, Pa., and he said the work ethic of the steel town remains part of his career rhythm today. On the set of “Next Generation,” the stretches of idle time didn’t sit well. “I loved my job, I loved the people I was working with, but I just felt antsy,” Frakes said. “So I looked around and asked: What’s the best job on the set? To me, the best job on the set appeared to be the director’s job.... So I started rolling around this idea.” The actor took his thoughts to “Trek” producer and guru Rick Berman, whose reaction was to give Frakes all he could hope for — and perhaps even a bit more than that. Frakes would direct more than a dozen episodes of “Next Generation” and the other assorted “Trek” spinoff shows. More recently, he’s directed episodes of shows including “Burn Notice,” “Castle” and “V.” There’s been feature film work, too, some involving the Enterprise — “Star Trek: First Contact” (1996) and “Star Trek: Insurrection” (1998). These days, Frakes seems light years removed from “Farpoint” and the role of Starfleet novice. “The universe is still a mystery to me,” Frakes said, “but I think I’ve got a pretty good bead on ‘Star Trek.’ ”
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SMOKE SCREEN: Cumberbatch is keeping mum on his “Star Trek” role.
HE’S CLUED IN Benedict Cumberbatch rockets from master sleuth to space villain amid growing star power By Geoff Boucher
I
f the title character of television’s “Sherlock” ever went looking for Hollywood’s Holmes, it would be the quickest case in the history of scenery-chewing sleuths. That’s because Benedict Cumberbatch — who plays a modern-day version of fiction’s greatest detective on PBS’ “Masterpiece Mystery!” — lives in a vintage Venice, Calif., wood-frame house that sits less than two blocks from the sleek offices of Robert Downey Jr., the American star who keeps it Victorian on the big screen. “It’s just right over there,” Cumberbatch said with a nod of his chin. “I should go throw eggs or do something. I’ve never met him. I think he got a few [press] questions and then after a few more he was like ‘Who is this kid Cumberbatch?’ ” You won’t hear that question in Britain, where “Sherlock” is a full-tilt primetime sensation. With its brilliant but quirky misanthrope, it can be thought of as the metric conversion of “House,” although the detective’s caseload concerns the newly dead of England instead of the recently sick in New Jersey. The series, created by “Doctor Who” veterans Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (and, working separately, Arthur Conan Doyle), costars Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson, an army doctor who was injured in Afghanistan and finds himself as the only true friend to the eccentric “consulting detective.” “If he’s charismatic, it’s an accident of who he is,” Cumberbatch said. “He’s an odd entity. He’s sociopathic, and there is a vicarious thrill you get watching someone who carves his way through bureaucracy and mediocrity like a hot knife through butter.” Americans are getting clued into “Sherlock” — more than 3 million viewers tuned in to the second season premiere that aired on PBS — but the import’s strongest domestic endorsement has come from CBS executives with their announced plans for a pilot called “Elementary” that also puts Holmes in the here and now. Except the “here” is Manhattan, not Westminster. Word of that new show sent Moffat into a tizzy (he had met CBS about an official stateside adaptation), but Cum-
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Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times
Colin Hutton / Hartswood Films/BBC
ELEMENTARY: Benedict Cumberbatch is earning raves in England and the U.S. as the eccentric detective on “Sherlock.”
berbatch projects only mild interest in the topic and has nothing but warm wishes for star Jonny Lee Miller as he looks for clues on American television. Cumberbatch is accustomed to seeing Miller as a sort of British-lit doppelgänger: The two actors starred in Danny Boyle’s stage adaptation of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” at the National Theatre and alternated roles each night, taking turns as the heretical scientist and the patchwork monster. “I view it like any of the classical characters in the canon of Shakespeare or Chekhov; there will always be new interpretations,” Cumberbatch said. “I think Holmes is the fictional character who has been [in screen incarnations] the most. I’m 76th or something? People compare you to others and that’s fine, I can deal with that.” Yes, but how long will this Sherlock stay at the scene of the crime? More and more, the actor is hearing the siren call of larger screens and a wider world. There was, for instance, the call Cumberbatch received from Steven Spielberg, who had seen the actor’s television work and wanted him for “War Horse.” Cumberbatch earned strong reviews for his work in “Tinker Tailor Sol-
dier Spy,” which added to a film résumé that already included “Amazing Grace” and “Atonement.” Moffat says that Cumberbatch was a star just waiting for a spotlight when he arrived at his “Sherlock” audition. “He was already one of the most admired actors of his generation,” Moffat said. “We were the lucky ones who gave him the breakthrough part. The challenge of Sherlock Holmes is to play a show-off, self-obsessed egotist and yet still be loved, and actually very few people have pulled it off. I may be prejudiced, but I don’t think anyone has pulled it off as well as Benedict.” The next phase of Cumberbatch’s career will take him into Federation space and Middle-earth — in other words, he’s going to Planet Comic-Con. He’s set to reteam with Freeman on “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” the concluding half of Peter Jackson’s two-film adaptation of the Tolkien fantasy classic. Freeman stars in the two films as Bilbo Baggins, while Cumberbatch will voice the Necromancer of Dol Guldur and then do the voice and motion-capture performance for Smaug the Golden, the great dragon. Cumberbatch is also at work on a project that could transform his career at warp-speed — he’s playing the villain in the new “Star Trek” feature film. The notoriously secretive director J.J. Abrams is keeping the film beneath a cloaking device, but the Internet is certain that Cumberbatch will play the tyrannical Khan — Ricardo Montalbán’s famed role on 1960s TV and the 1982 feature “The Wrath of Khan.” Cumberbatch flinched at the topic, as if he isn’t allowed to hear the question, much less utter an answer. Looking ahead, he said his goal is to steer away from typecasting and repeating himself (“I want to be able to play trailer-bound fatties in a Judd Apatow comedy”) and keep a balance in his own life. He flipped up the locks of hair on his forehead where the skin is mottled in patches — a remnant of his days as a laboratory creation in “Frankenstein” and the makeup process that burned and ripped at his skin. “I have actual acting scars,” he said. “The sunshine here just makes it worse if I’m not careful.”
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THE RIDLEY SCOTT EXCEPTION
ONE DIRECTOR’S SCI-FI FILMS LAST
SURVIVORS: “Blade Runner’s” Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford, top) and “Alien’s” Ripley (Sigourney Weaver, right) continue to capture fans’ imaginations. Both films were directed by Ridley Scott (far right). His latest is “Prometheus,” with Michael Fassbender as the android David.
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T
he topic had been making the rounds in cinéaste circles, so it’s probably not surprising that it reached the cafeteria at Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, Calif. Three of the studio’s directors — Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo,” “Wall-E”), Lee Unkrich (“Toy Story 3”) and Bob Peterson (“Up”) — sat down for lunch and began chewing on a Hollywood mystery: the Ridley Scott Exception. “We started talking about it because Lee mentioned how he had just shown both ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘Alien’ to his teenage daughter and that she loved both of them,” Stanton recalled in a phone conversation. “Typically every [science-fiction] movie, no matter how good it looks, is ultimately betrayed in the end by the limitations of whatever current technology was used. But ‘Alien’ and ‘Blade Runner’ are the exceptions to the rule. On every level of aesthetics, they defy Father Time.” The riddle of Ridley is timely again with the release of “Prometheus,” Scott’s 20th feature film. It’s a familiar corner of the galaxy this time too: “Prometheus” is a quasi-prequel to “Alien” (1979), and both stories follow a human crew (accompanied by an android with an agenda) to a planet that holds dark secrets coveted by the Weyland Corp. “Alien” was Scott’s international breakthrough and he followed it up with the futuristic film noir “Blade Runner,” starring Harrison Ford as a retired L.A. cop hunting down synthetic humans known as replicants. “Blade Runner” was a dud upon release, but as it reaches its 30th anniversary, the
movie and its influence are more alive in the pop culture conversation than ever. That influence can be traced through dozens of films, among them “The Terminator,” “The Matrix,” “Brazil” and “Inception” — and the upcoming “Looper” and “Total Recall” are new candidates for the list. Then there are video games, TV shows and music videos, as well as echoes in fashion, advertising, design and architecture. One other place you can find “Blade Runner” is under the artificial skin and philosophical sinew of “Prometheus.” The release is a hybrid of Scott’s past sci-fi films, and it appears that he might keep the laboratory open for business — he says a “Blade Runner” sequel is moving forward and would again search the souls of creators and creations. “Unlike other films of the period, no amount of digital manipulation would have improved Scott’s two seminal genre films,” says author Scott Essman, who teaches cinema studies at Cal Poly Pomona. “In this way, Scott’s work stands among the best that the genre has ever produced.” “Blade Runner” just finished first in an SFX magazine readers ranking of the 100 greatest sci-fi, fantasy and horror films; the movie also edged out “2001: A Space Odyssey” in similar sci-fi lists by the Guardian of London, IGN and New Scientist magazine. Critics didn’t love “Blade Runner” at first. “The end of the film is both gruesome and sentimental,” Janet Maslin wrote in a New York Times review in 1982. “Mr. Scott can’t have it both ways, any more than he can expect overdecoration to carry a film that has neither strong characters nor a strong story.” Only Scott knows if such re-
Photos, clockwise, from top, by the Blade Runner Partnership; Kerry Brown / 20th Century Fox; 20th Century Fox; Robert Penn / 20th Century Fox
views affected his career: He left sci-fi after “Blade Runner” and turned toward historical epics and contemporary tales of honor with films including “Thelma & Louise,” “Gladiator” and “Black Hawk Down.” “Prometheus” began as a pure prequel to 1979’s “Alien” — the script by Jon Spaihts was called “Alien Zero” — but that changed when Scott brought in Damon Lindelof, co-creator of “Lost.” Over three weeks, the two met in Scott’s office for long sessions. Lindelof began transforming the screenplay into a different creature, one tethered to “Alien” but sharing circuitry with “Blade Runner.” “I think one of the reasons that ‘Blade Runner’ didn’t make a lot of money when it came out is the same reason that it has endured; there are multiple interpretations,” Lindelof said. “That’s frustrating for some, but it’s the kind of storytelling I love.” “Prometheus” stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron, and the pathways back to “Alien” are plain (Guy Pearce plays Peter Weyland, the founder of the corporation that sent Sigourney Weaver and company on their fateful mission). The rough-and-tumble crew questions the plan of seeking out their creator — the same could be said of the replicants in “Blade Runner.” The “Prometheus” mission is funded by the old mogul Weyland who — like the defiant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) in “Blade Runner” — isn’t ready to shed his mortal coil. Lindelof said that parallel was on his mind as he wrote scenes later in the film. Fassbender also looked back to 1982 for his portrayal of David, the android among the human crew in “Prometheus,” who might be an ancestor of sorts of Ash (Ian
By Geoff Boucher
Holm) from “Alien.” Despite that, it was the work of Sean Young in “Blade Runner” that Fassbender used as a compass point for “otherness” (along with HAL of “2001” and David Bowie in “The Man Who Fell to Earth”). “I liked the idea of David being a sort of walking question mark,” he said. “You just never know if he’s following programming or if he’s developing his own motivations.” To Scott, now 74, “it was simply the right time” for him to the return to deep space with “Prometheus,” and he was invigorated by the prospect of shooting with 3-D cameras. The public responded: “Prometheus” took in $143 million worldwide in its opening weekend in June, the second best of Scott’s career behind “Hannibal” in 2001. It was certainly better than “Blade Runner,” which finished its opening weekend with $6.2 million. One person who did see “Blade Runner” in theaters was author William Gibson, whose “Neuromancer” (1984) is viewed as one of the most important sci-fi novels of the last 50 years. “About 10 minutes into ‘Blade Runner,’ I reeled out of the theater in complete despair over its visual brilliance and its similarity to the look of ‘Neuromancer,’ ” Gibson told Details magazine in 1992. Scott’s plan to add a new chapter to “Blade Runner” has stirred up excitement as well as anxiety — many sci-fi fans view the movie as something close to sacred. But Fassbender said there’s no reason to doubt that the Ridley Exception would hold in the 21st century. “The thing Ridley does is that he can put you in these fantastical worlds, but you always relate to the people there,” Fassbender said. “You feel you’re in the shoes of the characters that are walking through these places.”
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MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE COMPLEX... The Marvel Comics universe reached a new plateau with “The Avengers,” which unites heroes from four film franchises — Thor, Captain America, Iron Man and the Hulk — to save Earth from a cosmic threat. The only person who had a hand in creating all of those characters was the late Jack Kirby, a titan figure in comics, but his heirs weren’t invited to the film’s red-carpet premiere; their presence would have been awkward considering their legal quest to reclaim the rights to hundreds of his Marvel creations. That leaves Neal Kirby, Jack’s only son, on the outside looking in, but in this guest essay he writes about the days when the Marvel Universe was as close as his family basement.
E R E H W Y R E V E E R A S E O R E H winning blog, rd a w a r u o it . vis talent and more ve screenings, iv i p s to t lu l s c ’ x d e o o d n w e y ll tt A ith Ho watch videos w
GROWING UP KIRBY I By Neal Kirby
THE KING:
Jack Kirby helped create the Marvel universe from a studio in a Long Island basement.
Ray Wyman / Kirby Family Collection
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n 1961, I was the luckiest damn kid on my block — or maybe any block. My father worked at home. Everyone else’s dad had to drive into Brooklyn or take the train into Manhattan. And it was not some boring old desk job; my father was Jack Kirby, the King of Comics, and — though his humble personality would have him cringing to hear this — he is regarded as the greatest comic book artist and creator ever. (Sorry, Dad.) Of course back in 1961, though well-regarded in his field, he wasn’t yet crowned. He was just Jack Kirby — “Dad” to me, “Jack” to his wife, Roz; “Jacov” to his mother, Rose; and “Jankel” to his brother, Dave. Wanting a better life for his family (the overriding theme of his life), he packed us into the Studebaker in 1949 and we left Brooklyn for the green suburbs of Long Island, which would be home for the next 20 years. Sixty-three years later, memories of [Continued on Page 24]
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E R U T L POP CU UNMASKED ery day,
Photographs by Marvel Comics
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“THE AVENGERS”: The first issue had Jack Kirby drawing several Marvel stars.
“FOXHOLE”: This comic and others reflected Jack Kirby’s World War II service.
“CAPTAIN AMERICA”: Jack Kirby co-created him in the 1940s and drew this 1968 cover.
“FANTASTIC FOUR”: Jack Kirby said he named Sue Storm after his daughter Susan.
[From Page 22] that house are still vivid, but what I remember most is my father’s studio. Buried in the basement, “The Dungeon” was tiny (just 10 feet across), and the walls that separated it from the rest of the cellar were covered in tongueand-groove knotty pine with a glossy varnish. Dad’s drawing table faced a beautiful cherry wood cabinet and a 10-inch black-andwhite TV. To the left was a beat-up, fourdrawer file cabinet that was stuffed with Dad’s archive of picture references to, well, everything. For hours I would mull through musty folders with bayonets, battleships, cowboy hats, skyscrapers — countless files, countless subjects. And — much out of character for my father — that metal cabinet sat beneath a stuffed and mounted deer’s head. I can’t remember where he said he got that damned thing. The things you remember… My father finally got his first color television in 1963. The first color program I ever saw at home? The Kennedy assassination in Dallas reached me, there in the Dungeon; in more ways than one, the world was no longer black-andwhite. Dad handed me the old TV so I could take it apart and explore. I heard something inside — my jaw dropped when I fished out a heavy disc. It was a 2,000-year-old Roman coin. Dad, I knew the TV was old, but… He had no idea how the coin got in the television, but he did know how it reached America. Back in 1944, he had been pulled from combat with a dangerous case of frozen feet and sent to a hospital in Britain. English farmers would plow
up ancient coins by the dozen, and while they kept the gold ones, they gave the lumpy lead to “the boys in the ward” as souvenirs of Europe. Ancient artifacts didn’t seem out of place in the Dungeon, which felt like a time capsule — and, come to think of it, the walled-in square of Dad’s office was not much bigger than the Time Platform in Doctor Doom’s castle, which in a 1962 issue whisked the Fantastic Four back to the days of Blackbeard. Two walls in the Dungeon were covered in bookcases. Dickens, Shakespeare, Whitman, Conrad were names I remember seeing, and one of his favorites, Damon Runyon. The door to Dad’s studio was usually closed. That wasn’t to keep noise out, it was to keep all the smoke in. It wasn’t so bad if he was smoking something good, like a Garcia Vega. Unfortunately, that happened only around his birthday. When Dad was buying, it could be rolled-up skunk cabbage; to him a stogie was a stogie. (And, yes, Dad paid for his passion with esophageal cancer later.) There were a lot of cigarchomping characters in Marvel Comics and Dad was one of them — he and other writers and artists popped up in stories in a quirky trademark of the “House of Ideas,” as it was called in the 1960s. His life often crept into his work. Dad’s war experiences, which he would rarely discuss with me in that era, sometimes surfaced in the comics. “Foxhole,” a Mainline series that began in 1954, was a favorite, and I would sit and read old copies I found on the shelves. For Marvel, of course, he created Sgt. Fury — and he was Dad, the only difference being about 9 inch-
es in height and 50 pounds of muscle. These days there’s a view that a Democrat can’t be fiercely patriotic, but my father was exactly that. Captain America, Fighting American and “Foxhole” were all born of that powerful love. I wonder if Michelangelo had a kid watching him paint? Extreme example, maybe, but the emotion that I experienced watching my father at the drawing board would have been the same. Starting with a clean piece of Bristol board, he would first draw his panel lines with a T-square. Then the page would start to come alive. He told me that after he framed a story in his mind, he would start drawing at the middle, then go back to the beginning, and then finish up. Everything seemed to come naturally. He worked fast
ities. Having read through every book in his library, I thought I was pretty smart when I asked how Thor could even hold his head up with two big, iron wings attached to his helmet. “Don’t forget,” Dad said, nodding toward his creation, “superhero.” When I reached high school, my time in the studio grew less and less. In 1966, I was off to Syracuse University, and in 1968, my parents did one step better and moved to California. The drawing board, table, chair and taboret went west to Thousand Oaks. Everything remained there, together and in place, even when Dad died in 1994, but after my mother passed in 1998 the inventory scattered. My father’s drawing board and small taboret table now reside in my den, where they provide a basis for stories for Jack’s great-grandchildren. I wish there was some way I could borrow Victor Von Doom’s Time Platform and take the kids back to visit the secret headquarters of my father’s imagination, that smoky bunker of ink, creativity and love. I’m a teacher living in Orange County and I think about Dad a lot lately, especially when I see Thor, Magneto or the Hulk on a movie poster. Dad drew comics in six decades and filled the skies of our collective imagination with heroes, gods, monsters, robots and aliens. For the first half of the 1960s, Dad delivered masterpieces on a monthly basis. I treasure the fact that I had a front-row seat for that cosmic event. People ask me all the time how one man could have dreamed so much. The best answer I can offer is one I heard about 50 years ago: “Don’t forget: Superhero.”
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Dad’s office was not much bigger than Doctor Doom’s Time Platform but smoothly. In 1962, I remember, I was standing over the drawing board as Dad created a truly cosmic hero — but I was confused when I heard his name. Thor? The story was “The Stone Men From Saturn.” My first reaction, before opening my mouth, was “Why the hell is a Norse god fighting rock-pile aliens?” Dad explained the origin story to me and how he would work in the entire pantheon of Norse de-
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Q UI Z Z A M !
TO BOLDLY KNOW Paramount Pictures
By Adam Tschorn and Geoff Boucher
I
t was 25 years ago this September that “Star Trek: The Next Generation” introduced a new captain and crew — a bold enterprise considering the long shadow cast by the original series. “The Next Generation” delivered, though, with 178 episodes, 18 Emmys, two Hugos and a Peabody Award — as well as four feature films. But how much Data do you remember? Beam back to the future with our “Star Trek: The Next Generation” edition of Quizzam. 1. Which cast member from
the 1960s “Star Trek” series returned to a classic role for a cameo appearance in “Encounter at Farpoint,” the 1987 pilot episode that introduced the crew of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”?
A. Nichelle Nichols B. DeForest Kelley C. James Doohan D. Walter Koenig
3. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” had dozens of notable guest stars including some actresses who are well-known for their roles in high-profile superhero projects. Which of the following famous women did NOT appear in the Starfleet series?
B. Worf C. Beverly Crusher Columbia Pictures
A.
Kirsten Dunst
Associated Press
20th Century Fox
B.
C.
Teri Hatcher
great spent hours in a make-up chair for his Klingon guest role in a 1993 episode?
A. Kobe Bryant B. James Worthy 2. What was the name of
Brent Spiner’s 1991 album, which included a vocal backup group composed of fellow “The Next Generation” cast mates?
A. “Sunspots”
tion” crew member did Gene Roddenberry name in honor of a quadriplegic fan of the original “Star Trek” series?
A. Geordi La Forge
4. What Los Angeles Lakers
Paramount Pictures
8. Which “The Next Genera-
C. Shaquille O’Neal D. Kurt Rambis 5. Before the Enterprise,
Jean-Luc Picard served as first officer — and later captain — of which starship?
Famke Janssen
Warner Bros.
D. William T. Riker
D.
Maggie Gyllenhaal
6. Which “Next Generation” cast member wrote a book called “Dancing Barefoot”?
A. Wil Wheaton B. Patrick Stewart C. Whoopi Goldberg D. Michael Dorn 7. Which member of “The Next Generation” cast made an appearance in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” portraying an ancestor of his usual character?
B. “Positively Positronic”
A. USS Pegasus
A. Jonathan Frakes
C. “Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back”
B. USS Constellation
B. LeVar Burton
C. USS Farragut
C. Colm Meaney
D. “Twisted Spiner”
D. USS Stargazer
D. Michael Dorn
Sam Emerson Paramount Pictures
9. The term “Picard maneu-
ver” was an in-house joke for the cast and crew. What Patrick Stewart habit did it refer to?
A. Learning the lines of the entire cast
B. Playing a musical
instrument during an episode
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C. Quoting Shakespeare in an episode D. Adjusting a Starfleet uniform shirt with a sharp tug
ANSWERS: 1) B. DeForest Kelley 2) C. “Ol’ Yellow Eyes Is Back” 3) D. Maggie Gyllenhaal 4) B. James Worthy 5) D. U.S.S. Stargazer 6) A. Wil Wheaton 7) D. Michael Dorn 8) A. Geordi La Forge 9) D. Adjusting a Starfleet uniform shirt with a sharp tug.
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