Catching up with Thanagar

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

A couple of panels from the Hawkman story in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD# 42, June-July 1962. Art by Joe Kubert, story by Gardner Fox. It's a tradition in science-fiction to use advanced alien civilizations to show how our own progress might go. Let's see how Fox did.



Wellll, we're still not flying around our towns wearing anti-gravity belts and big artificial hawkwings. No "central cooking" delivering meals by pneumatic tubes, either. The closest to that might be if you're residing in a hotel and order room service, but dumbwaiters have almost vanished entirely and instead an employee brings you your order. The "identi-cards" are on target, though. I don't think debit cards existed all in 1962. By the late 1970s, there were such things but not in common usage. (Thanks for the exposition, Katar. Do you explain everything like that everywhere you go? "As you know, after we digest food, we have to eliminate it from our intestines. This is what I intend to do now. Excuse me for five to six minutes.")

Of course, Earthwomen are not interested in fashion and would not want to go shopping for clothes after being away six months. I don't know where Fox got such an idea, except maybe to show how odd Thanagarian culture is. It sure looks to me like Shayera is shopping online; although she might just be watching a show, the caption uses the word shopping in quote marks, so it's ambiguous. Then we see the Hols lounging about and watching the news which was recorded for them. We actually are ahead of this ourselves, what with YouTube and NPR archives. I do like the way Shayera is nibbling on a grape (or whatever) and that they seem to be watching a Mad Scientist.Then there's the Weather Control. This was a popular prediction in old school sci-fi. Nope, we haven't got that yet. The best we're doing is producing global climate change and that wasn't exactly a project we undertook consciously.

Comments

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

I don't think debit cards existed all in 1962. By the late 1970s, there were such things but not in common usage.

Credit cards were around during that period, but were strictly a middle-class thing (lower class couldn't afford them, the rich didn't bother with them).

[alschroeder.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, but they were actual credit cards, a la AMERICAN EXPRESS. I.E., you had an account you could draw money against, but they didn't draw directly out of your bank account. That was in the future.

[thebat_man.insanejournal.com]

Great Joe Kubert art. Very stylized and unique.

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

That wasp-waist looks like it hurts.

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

I like Katar's seemingly-illogical-given-the-context exposition. It makes me feel like I'm watching a Thanagarian home ec class film strip ("And as you know, unwanted pregnancies became a thing of the past, after our centralized world government gained remote-control access over our female citizens' ability to ovulate!").

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

It's such a Silver Age thing. Instead of putting the information in captions, Gardner Fox often had the characters telling each other things they both knew. It doesn't bother me, it's part of the sci-fi flavor, but it is odd.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

The "explanations for the hard of thinking" are common in any historical, esoteric, or sci-fi fiction scenario.

As in the immortal exchange in "The Great Muppet Caper", as Diana Rigg's character explains the entire backstory of her family's wealth and her ne'er do well brother to Miss Piggy, who she's just met for the first time.

Piggy (Puzzled) - "Why are you telling me all this"

Diana (Offhandedly) - "It's plot exposition, it has to go SOMEWHERE"

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

It's sometimes called "infodump" and has brought many a story to a halt.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Mmm. The only Hawkman comics I like are the ones Kubert drew about this time, and only for the art. Which is suh-weet.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I want to post some pages just for the art. Kubert drew in such a non-stereotypical superhero style, the results are amazingly moody and rich.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

>>Wellll, we're still not flying around our towns wearing anti-gravity belts and big artificial hawkwings.

Maybe YOU aren't.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Not that I haven't tried.

[kenn_el.insanejournal.com]

The Hawks were plugged into the Absorbascon quite frequently back then, so one can fanwank that it might have altered their speech patterns and made them more expository.
And, no, 'we' are not bringing about 'global climate change'. Maybe you are. But a change in diet should rectify that.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

What do you mean by that?

[btravage.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

We Earthlings actually have the ability to control weather to a very limited extent. We've been successfully seeding the clouds in Nevada with rain for decades. On the other hand, China's experiments to redirect rain for the Beijing Olympics were less than successful.