THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE

Maintained by Win Scott Eckert

ARTICLES

Part IX

The Wold Newton Articles pages contain several types of articles, ranging from pure information about the Wold Newton Universe (such as Lou Mougin's The Continuing Crossovers Affair and Brad Mengel's The Edson Connection), to more speculative pieces (such as Chuck Loridans' The Daughters of Tarzan), to a mixture a both. The presence of an article on these pages does not necessarily constitute an integration of that article's theories and speculation into the history described in The Wold Newton Universe Crossover Chronology. Rather, the purpose of the articles pages is encourage free thinking, theorizing, hypothesizing, and research into the mysteries of the Newtonverse.

Search The Wold Newton Universe

Mark Brown's Wold Newton Chronicles follows the tradition of featuring the very best in scholarship and articles on Wold Newton topics ranging far and wide.

Dennis Power also presents erudite Wold Newton speculative research on his site The Secret History of the Wold Newton Universe.

From now on, please forward your articles to Win, to Mark, and to Dennis. We will consider submissions and coordinate for posting on one of our sites.

• Undying Love: The Eternal Romance of John Carter and Dejah Thoris by Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan

• The True Story of the Defenders of the Earth: A Further Look by Greg Gick

• Gullivar of Mars IS Ulysses Paxton! by Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan 

• A Review of “Final Menacing Glimpses” by Art Bollmann 

• Partners in Crime: Fu Manchu and Carl Peterson by Rick Lai 

• The Enduring Adventures of Jonny Quest by Matthew Baugh

• Woldnewtonry by Dr. Peter Coogan

Undying Love: The Eternal Romance of John Carter and Dejah Thoris

by Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan

Part Three in a series of articles by Coogan and Power about the life and influences of John Carter

"Eternal love." This phrase is often one of those hyperbolic terms used to describe emotion that is deep, strong and intended to last a lifetime, or perhaps beyond.

In the case of John Carter and Dejah Thoris, the term eternal love is not mere hyperbole but an accurate description of a love that truly transcends the boundaries of life, death, time, and space.

In 1866, a flash of red caught John Carter's eye and his life was forever changed.  "My attention was quickly riveted by a large red star close to the distant horizon. As I gazed upon it I felt a spell of overpowering fascination--it was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron."

What really drew John Carter to Barsoom? The answer lies in his distant and forgotten past.

This is the third of several articles focusing on the history and influences of John Carter. The two previous articles in this series are, John Carter: Torn from Phoenician Dreams and The Lives and Times of John Carter. "John Carter: Torn from Phoenician Dreams" established that John Carter began his existence as Phra, a Phoenician trader who was born circa 88 B.C. Phra lived from 88 B.C. to 1588, although only consciously for about a dozen years. Between 63 B.C. and 1588 he had five periods of hibernation of several centuries each. Yet he was awakened more often than he believed as discussed in the aforementioned article and in "The Lives and Times of John Carter". "The Lives and Times of John Carter" provided detailed timeline of John Carter's various identities throughout out history. In most of his various identities he would meet a woman with whom he fell swiftly and passionately in loves, just as John Carter did for Dejah Thoris

The reason for the swift and sudden passion for these various women begins in 58. B.C. A flash of red caught Phra's eye and his life was forever changed.

Phra was the master of a Phoenician trading ship, circa 58 B.C. On one trading mission his ship put to shore to take on supplies. The secluded cove where they had chosen to anchor was already occupied by a pirate ship, which had anchored for the same reason. The pirate ship and its crew allowed Phra's vessel to anchor unmolested. The pirate ship already had a full hold of fresh slaves. Not wishing to risk his cargo and because Phra's ship and complement was larger than his own, the pirate ship ignored Phra and his men.

The pirate's slaves were ashore being exercised. Phra saw a flash of red among them, the hair of a red-headed woman who was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Immediately he knew that he had to possess her and quickly made arrangements with the pirate captain to buy her. Noting Phra's great interest in the beautiful slave, the pirate tried to gouge him. Phra signaled for one of his crewmen to slip behind the pirate captain and throw a noose around him. The pirate captain was choked until he agreed to a reasonable price. Phra left the pirate captain bound and gagged but with the agreed upon price at his feet.

Phra's account is rather silent about the specific dynamics of the initial relationship between Phra and Blodwen. This may have been due to Phra's lack of memory, due to the pain that remembering the early passion of his lost love caused, or it may be due to Phra's Victorian editor Edwin Arnold who would have been reticent about detailing such "sordid" details and make his main character as less than virtuous. It is almost certain that Phra and Blodwen entered into an intimate relationship while aboard the ship, although it would have been unlike Phra to have forced his attentions onto an unwilling female despite owning her. It is probably almost certain that Blodwen knew why she had been bought and considering the alternative to become the captain's woman or the crew's, she chose the former.

Phra was handsome (throughout the ages women have fallen for his looks) so Blodwen may have been as immediately physically attracted to him as he was to her. There is also the additional factor that she may have looked upon him more as her "rescuer" than her new owner.

As Blodwen's time on the ship passed, she became more a part of the crew, learning much of the ship's activities and labor. She taught Phra the language and customs of her people and told him of the riches that he could find if he began to trade with Britain. As happens in many couples, she began to take control of their relationship, despite her legally subservient role.

After a few months, Phra decided to follow Blodwen's advice and sailed from Marseilles to Britain. The ship became caught in a ferocious channel storm. Blodwen offered to steer them into a safe cove. Phra and the men readily agreed. The safe cove turned out to be Blodwen's home village, where she was the princess of that particular tribe of Britons. Landing upon the shore, Phra and his men soon discovered that the tables had turned, they became the captives of Blodwen's people. Blodwen was now ruler of the tribe, her father having been killed in the same raid that taken her as a captive. Blodwen's ascendance angered her cousin Dhuwallon, a druid and also the next in line to become chieftain. He had in fact been chieftain until her arrival. He planned to wed her to continue his rule, but Blodwen had other plans.

Blodwen was grateful to the Phoenicians for having rescued her and she was also deeply in love with Phra. She convinced him to become her consort until he departed. She used her influence to gather trade goods from the surrounding areas to fill his ship's hold. This process took several months during which time Blodwen gave birth to Phra's child. On the day before Phra was to sail away, he discovered that his crew and ship were gone. They had abandoned him in Britain. Phra was not certain but believed Blodwen had something to do with their departure. In truth he was not that upset for he had been torn about leaving her. Phra settled down to become the warrior princess' consort and protector.

In a few years word came that ships had once again arrived on their shores. It was quickly ascertained that these were not Phra's fellow Phoenicians but rather Romans, who had decided to make Britain part of their republic. Phra and several of Blodwen's warriors were dispatched with warriors from other tribes to drive the Romans back to the Continent. Dhuwallon accompanied Phra. As Phra and his men approached the Romans, Dhuwallon threw his javelin at Phra and struck his horse in the throat. Phra was thrown from the dying horse and captured by the Romans.

Because of his swarthy coloring, Phra was interrogated by the Romans, including being interviewed by Julius Caesar.

During the time Phra was held captive by the Romans, the combined British defensive force failed to drive the Romans away. Phra escaped and returned to his tribe. Dhuwallon convinced the Britons that Phra had turned traitor and so was the cause of their defeat. The ruling council of druids and leaders from the various tribes sentenced Phra and three others to be sacrificed to a deity Phra calls Baal. This was probably Belatu-Cadros, the Celtic god of war and of the destruction of enemies.

Dhuwallon whispered to Phra that he should not worry about Blodwen, he would take care of her. Phra saw two of his fellow sacrificial victims decapitated and saw the bronze adz descending towards his head when the Roman cavalry and soldiers rode into attack the Britons. For whatever reason, the adz did not decapitate Phra but left a deep cut in the back of his neck that probably went into his spine.(1)

In a few days it was noticed that the body of Phra did not corrupt. Since Phra's body did not decompose, plus given the fact that the Romans had attacked as Phra was being sacrificed, Blodwen convinced the Druids that the gods had rejected Phra's sacrifice because Phra was innocent of the charges laid against him by Dhuwallon. She also convinced them that Dhuwallon had overstepped his authority and that Phra needed to buried in a cairn that befit his station as her prince-consort.

In her audiences with the druids Blodwen received some devastating news, although she had Phra's body returned to her, he was forever lost to her. Since Phra was a Phoenician who had followed a false religion and Blodwen was a Celt and had followed the true religion, they would never again see one another, not even in the afterlife. When Phra finally expired from his wound, he would be consigned to whatever hell was reserved for unbelievers.

Blodwen seemed to resign herself to this fate and began to create a tattoo upon Phra's body that would detail her life, the lives of their children and the village. It began in the small of his back and covered his chest. Her reasoning was that when he awoke in the afterlife, he would at least know what had happened to his wife and their children. The Druids' council acceded to her wishes in this matter.

Yet Blodwen was more than merely a princess, she also had some druidic training and used this for her own purposes, which would have been forbidden had the druids known about it. Into the design of the tattoo she worked the ogham symbols of Saille (willow) for love, Huathe (hawthorne) for binding, Nion (ash) for rebirth and regeneration, Ioho (yew) for death, and Ur (heather) for passion. In addition to working the tattoos into the design of her large outer tattoo, Blodwen also tattooed Phra in secret places on his body so that even if her outer symbols were discovered and somehow altered, these would be hidden. She tattooed him on his inner eyelids, his armpits, his anus, inside his nostrils, the underside of his tongue and the underside of his scrotum. These special tattoos were burned into his flesh with a pin that had been soaked in a combination of Blodwen and Phra's blood; the burned symbols were inked over with an ink consisting of a mixture of Blodwen and Phra's blood and ashes; the ashes were derived from pieces of Phra and Blodwen's hair, nails, and skin being burnt to ash.

Yet had Blodwen had complete druidic training she would have known that many of the symbols that she had used also had meanings opposite of what she wished to accomplish. She used the symbols of Nion (ash) Ioho (yew) and Ur (heather) slightly more than the other symbols. Ash was the symbol of Gwydion, the Celtic trickster god; whether this played in the outcome of this ritual is anyone's guess. In addition to its positive meanings, ash can also mean hidden influences and false appearances. Ioho (yew) also has negative meanings of loss, discord and grief. In addition to being the symbol for passion, Ur (heather) can also mean futility.

There was also a complication in Blodwen's plan for them to be forever joined in the afterlife, Phra did not die. Phra had become immortal. (2) Although it seems unlikely that her ritual had anything to do with his immortality, it did successfully bind their souls. As a consequence because Phra did not die, Blodwen was never allowed entrance into the afterlife. It is perhaps fortunate that in addition to using the symbols to bind their souls, she also used symbols that called for renewal and rebirth. Had she not, Blodwen may have been consigned to an existence as a mere spirit forever bound to this immortal man; as it was she was sent on a journey of many life times as she was reincarnated numerous times.

We cannot be certain as to how the process worked, whether she reincarnated when Phra awakened, if her reincarnations triggered his awakenings, or if she was reincarnated in a cycle not necessarily tied to his sleep cycle and so had reincarnations when he was asleep. It does appear that when she was reincarnated and he was awake some confluence of events managed to get them together. Only in a few reincarnations did she seem to be aware that she was Blodwen and then most often not until she was dying. These awakened reincarnations seem to have coincided with Phra being consciously Phra and not suffering from his periodic bouts of amnesia.

The ancient Celts believed in a form of reincarnation in which people were reincarnated in their descendents. While this is possible, since Blodwen and Phra had children and since Blodwen's reincarnations were primarily in Britain, the lack of any familial link between many of these women and to Blodwen makes this seem a distant possibility. There is however one definite connection between the various incarnations of Blodwen that may have been overlooked or else attributed to Phra due to male gender bias. One of the main themes in Edwin Arnold's edited version of Phra's manuscript is the fact that Phra seems to awaken on the cusp of a monumental change in Britain's history. Phra had four major periods of consciousness, which correspond to times of a change of government or of a threat against Britain: 408-410 AD, corresponding to the fall of Romano-Britain; 1066, corresponding to the Norman Invasion; 1346, during the midst of the Hundred Years War and on the eve of the battle of Crecy; and 1586-1588, corresponding to trouble with the Spanish.

Yet one is prompted to ask why would Phra be "called" to defend Britain in these times of distress? Phra was British only by marriage, he had no real blood connection to the land. Yet his wife Blodwen did have a strong connection to Britain. She was a British Queen; although not queen of all of Britain, her connection to the land was strong. The connection between the blood royal is believed to be strong, and Blodwen's spell of binding may have bound her fate to Britain as well as to Phra. (3) The explanation may simply be that in each case that Phra awoke when Britain was threatened, but it may have been Blodwen who was called by Britain to defend it. She awoke to a semi-aware state, but it took Phra's arrival to fully awaken her. In other words, when Blodwen reincarnated while Phra slept, he awoke and was conscious of being Phra. When Phra was awake but in an amnesiac state, Blodwen would be reincarnated but would not be conscious of being Blodwen. They would, however, be drawn to one another, and when they met their passion and love would be instantaneous.

When Blodwen was awakened, so was Phra because of their binding. He was compelled to seek her. In each case that Phra awoke, he usually awoke in time to affect some great change in Britain's destiny. In 410, he had the chance to rally the defense of the Roman population against the Saxon invaders yet faltered. In 1066, he could have saved the life of King Harold and prevented the end of Saxon England yet did not achieve this goal. In 1346, he had the opportunity to prevent the loss of the French possessions of the Plantagenet Kings through his heroic example on the field of battle yet left the war before it was completed. In each case his failure was caused in part by Blodwen.

In 410 Numidea (Blodwen) fell into a raging torrent, and Phra opted to try to save her rather than continue with the Roman retreat. In 1066, he could have saved King Harold but was prevented by the circumstance of being sent away from the field of battle by a well-meaning hermit who sent him to get reinforcements. During the same period he also had the opportunity of placing his wife Editha (Blodwen) on the throne of England by leading a rebellion against the Norman conquerors, yet he opted to flee with his family rather than risk them. But this flight appeared not to have saved them either. In 1346, Phra was well on his way to rallying the English troops to a general victory against France after their victory at Crecy. However, fate and Blodwen once again got in the way. Blodwen's incarnation in this instance, Isobel Oswaldton, had accompanied Phra to France in the guise of Flamaucoer, a man-at-arms. When Isobel was killed defending Phra, he felt compelled to let her family know the tragedy that had befallen her. He returned to England but never made it to her family, once more entering a sleeping period. Time and again he failed to change Britain's fate.

In 1586, Blodwen realized that despite the great threat that the Spanish represented, she and Phra would not be needed, England had reached the pinnacle of her power and could emerge victorious without their aid. Yet their union was not to be a happy one for she died a young and violent death, apparently poisoned by a Spanish servitor.

There seems to be a cycle of love, loss, and failure connected with each of the Blodwen and Phra incidents. He was taken from her with a violent death, although the death was not permanent. After the cycle of reincarnation and death began, in each of her awakened incarnations she predeceased him, usually dying young and in a violent fashion. As Numidea she drowned in a raging torrent, as Editha she may have been cut down by Norman soldiers, as Isobel Oswaldton she died in battle, and finally as Elizabeth Faulkner she was poisoned.

This pattern was carried through in Blodwen's unawakened reincarnations as well, although to a lesser degree.

The unawakened reincarnations of Blodwen that can be identified are Igraine, Empress Matilda, Maid Marian, and Bertrade Montfort.

As Uther Phra felt a great passion for Igraine upon seeing her. Their passion resulted in a tryst that can be viewed as adulterous but considering that her husband died on the battlefield moments before they actually began, it was not technically adultery. Their passion was however short-lived because Igraine gave birth to a stillborn child whom Merlin buried. She became convinced that Uther had given their child to Merlin, and Igraine left his court. Despite their great love for one another, they remained apart. As Uther Phra was not as effective as he had been as Ambrosius Aurelius or as he would be as Arthur. The difference seems to be the presence of Igraine (Blodwen)

The Empress Matilda was the daughter of Henry I of England. Phra was at the time using the name Ferraut and was attached to the King's guard. He accompanied Matilda to Germany when Matilda was married off to the Holy Roman Emperor. Although there was an unspoken passion between Matilda and her guard, they kept their relationship platonic and professional. Ferraut had one recorded tryst with Judith of Swabia, the result of which was the future Emperor Frederic Barbarossa. After the Holy Roman Emperor died, Matilda was summoned back to her father's court. Matilda believed that as a widow she had the right to take Ferraut as her lover, which she did. Matilda's father married her off once again to the fourteen-year-old heir of the Anjou provinces of France. Theirs was not a happy marriage. Matilda continued her affair with Ferraut, considering him her true husband. The child Henry was actually that of Ferraut and Matilda, although the other two children were Geoffrey of Anjou's.

When Matilda's father died, she was the designated heir, but the barons balked at being ruled by a woman with a foreign husband; so they had her cousin Stephen crowned king instead. Matilda, Ferraut, and Geoffrey of Anjou spent years attempting to wrest the crown from Stephen and finally succeeded, only to have Stephen return and become king once more. Ferraut was wounded during the final phase of the civil war and disappeared.

As Maid Marian Blodwen did not meet Phra until some time after his identity as Robin of the Woods was established. She was already married at the time to one of the sheriffs of Nottingham, but when Marian and Robin encountered one another sparks flew and she left her husband. Marian's husband was killed shortly thereafter in single combat by Robin, and Marian was free to marry him. Although this episode in their lives was relatively stable, their relationship was beset by separation and turmoil because of their lives as outlaws. In the end Marian died from violence inflicted upon her during captivity from the Sheriff of Nottingham appointed in 1247. She predeceased Phra once again, although he shortly afterward fell into a comatose state due to wounds.

Blodwen's incarnation as Bertrade de Montfort was a brief one. As usual, when she and Phra met sparks flew; even though they remained unaware of their previous existences, the attraction was immediate. Their initial courtship was stormy and fraught with peril as Norman of Torn (Phra) fought against the king's forces and against Betrade's brother Simon de Montfort's forces, as seen in Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Outlaw of Torn. Eventually Norman was taken off the lists of the outlaws, and Bertrade and he were married. Their marriage was however short lived as she died in child birth the year after their marriage took place.

The pattern seems too specific to be mere coincidence. Almost in every case Blodwen dies an agonized death, but those in which her Blodwen persona seems to have been awakened the death is all the more tragic and violent. There are a few possible explanations for this. In her binding spell, by unwittingly using the ash symbol Blodwen invoked the god Gwydion. Her name might have caused Gwydion to play a mischievous trick upon her. (4)

Another possibility is that her cousin Dhuwallon played a role. Dhuwallon was a druid and he was also sacrificed, due in no small part to his attempt to rid himself of Phra and his rival Blodwen. Just prior to his death Dhuwallon may have laid a curse upon Phra and Blodwen so that any happiness they might have had in the afterlife would eventually turn to tragedy.

Another possibility is that their recurrent separation and the violent deaths of the various incarnations of Blodwen was an unforeseen price Blodwen had to pay to ensure the effectiveness of her ritual. They got to be together eternally, but only at the price of continually losing each other and suffering the pangs of death and separation.

After the death of the Blodwen in her Isobel Oswaldton incarnation, the dynamic between Phra and Blodwen began to change. Blodwen had noticed some distinct patterns in their recurrent incarnations that prevented them from achieving a lasting happiness or peace. The first of course was her pattern of violent death, the other was the periods of amnesia that both she and Phra experienced. On Phra's part this seemed to be the result of his inability on a psychological level to deal with the trauma that their pattern of love and tragic loss entailed. She also noticed from remembering her various incarnations that when Phra was not consciously Phra he was often stronger psychologically and often had a more dynamic personality. She may also have realized that it was her presence as an awakened Blodwen that triggered the weaker Phra personality to emerge from its shell. Even in his stronger personas her presence seemed to have a detrimental effect as he became less effective in her presence or made bad decisions, which led to lives of constant turbulence, although it may be more likely given her original personality that she believed he was less effective because she was not giving him her conscious guidance.

When she incarnated as Igraine and met Uther, Phra as Uther was less effective than Phra as Ambrosious Aurelius had been. By the time Igraine had left Uther, the damage had been done and it took several years before he regained his confidence to emerge as Arthur. Arthur was effective but ultimately failed because of Uther and Igraine's relationship as Igraine's daughter resented Arthur and trained her son to bring about his down fall.

As Sir Ferrault, the Empresses Matilda's bodyguard, Phra never achieved his full potential but was content to guard and wait upon Matilda. It was as if having lost Blodwen in previous incarnations he chose to use this lifetime to guard her from as much harm as he could.

Although he was successful in keeping her from harm, he was unable to secure her position as Queen of England and the struggle eventually cost him his life.

Although Phra’s existence as Robin of the Woods seems to have predated Blodwen’s reincarnation as the woman known as Maid Marian, her presence would be disruptive. Although Robin would fight for the often down trodden rights of the yeoman and underclass by absentee, corrupt, or uncaring aristocrats, he would never be able to coalesce this resistance into any lasting form as a body politic, a social change, or even a successful rebellion against a weak king.

As Robin Phra's life was spent mostly as an outlaw and so without any stability, except for his relationship with Marian. In this incarnation Marian does not seem to have borne any children, although as with all of the Robin Hood legends accounts that differ can undoubtedly be found.

Blodwen next reincarnated as Bertrade de Montfort, the daughter of Simon de Montfort, the second most powerful man in Britain. Phra's persona in this instance was an odd one; he had been convinced by the dastardly Jean de Vac that he was de Vac's son and had become the notorious Norman of Torn, an outlaw knight. Prior to having met Betrade, Phra as Norman had been well on his way in making his outlaw band the most powerful army in England and by this fact Norman was close to becoming the de facto King of England by eliminating both the King's forces and the rebel forces under Simon de Montfort. Having met Bertrade, Norman's loyalties became divided; he doubted the rightness of his path and lost his focus. Instead of becoming the preeminent power in England, a power that may have brought about some measure of social equality albeit under an autocratic rule, Norman of Torn allied himself with Simon de Montfort, weakening the power of the King. This would ultimately lead to Norman's downfall, as Prince Edward, the heir to the throne, would nurse a grudge against Norman, especially when it was revealed that Norman was the long lost Prince Richard. Prince Edward never believed this but kept his peace for his parents' sake.

In this incarnation Blodwen's time with Phra was very short; she died in childbirth a year after their marriage.

Although Norman continued to live and even achieved a measure of stability through having his name removed from the outlaw list and marriage to a nobleman's daughter, he would eventually be outlawed again and hunted down. The cause of his being outlawed again and the subsequent manhunt originated with his choice to fight on the side of Simon de Montfort because of Bertrade. So once again Blodwen had unwittingly caused harm to Phra.

Blodwen next reincarnated in Isolde de Oswaldton. During this incarnation Isolde eventually became aware of being Blodwen because Phra was consciously Phra. By this time the many incarnations of Blodwen each with their own special tale of love-won-and-love-lost-to-tragedy was bearing heavily on Phra's mind. Although he was drawn to Isolde almost from their first meeting, Phra convinced himself that he was in love with Isolde's older sister, the unattainable Alianora. He ignored Isolde's obvious instant attraction for him. When Alianora rejected his troth, Phra felt despair and decided to forget her by losing himself in glorious combat. He joined King Edward III's war against France as an unattached knight. He was joined in this quest by a young man named Flamaucoer, who became his boon companion.

Having distanced himself from the presence of Isolde, Phra realized that it was she he had loved and vowed to return to her and woo her once the war was finished. During the Battle of Crecy, Flamaucoer saved Phra by intercepting a lance charge meant for him. As Phra stripped off Flamaucoer's armor to tend to the wound, he discovered that Flamacoer was none other than Isolde in disguise.

She died and he realized that she had also been Blodwen, as had so many of his loves before that.

Phra requested of King Edward that he be allowed to return to England and tell Isolde's family what had become of her. King Edward granted this request but gave Phra the mission of also delivering a message to the queen.

Phra's ship foundered in a channel storm and he was nearly drowned. He climbed into a sea cavern for shelter. The cavern's roof collapsed under the fierce tides and sealed Phra inside the airtight chamber. The near drowning, the lack of oxygen, and the tragic loss of Blodwen caused Phra to once again fall into one of his sleep periods. (5)

Something odd happened after this. Phra experienced two of his awakened but amnesiac states, yet in neither one does he meet the reincarnated Blodwen. There are a few possible explanations for this. Blodwen's tragic and traumatic death may have affected her to the extent that she resisted being reincarnated because she did not want to go through the pain and agony once again. It may also be that she realized that their pattern of love won and love lost, of life and death, would continue unless a dramatic change happened to the cycle. Although it is possible that she might have realized that her presence was a root cause of Phra's continuing psychological problem of amnesia and ineffectual behavior, this seems to be improbable. What person really wishes to admit that their existence causes problems for their lover?

Another possibility is that Blodwen may have indeed reincarnated but that Phra refused to heed to the siren call of her reincarnated presence. Had he not been amnesiac, it is probable that he would not have been able to avoid being drawn to her, so close was the binding between Phra and Blodwen. But by convincing himself that he was not Phra, he found a way around the siren call. Why he did it is not too hard to guess. The tragic death of Blodwen as Isolde was a devastating blow to Phra, compounded with the realization that all of his lost tragic loves had been Blodwen made Phra wish to avoid any romantic entanglements at all.

To avoid meeting Blodwen in her reincarnated state, Phra left Britain for an extended time. He even went into one of his hibernative periods far from Britain in a cavern near Ephesus. Eventually, however, the draw back to Britain was too powerful to ignore, as was the draw towards Blodwen. After Phra in one of his temporary identities fought in the Battle of Flodden Field, he was drawn towards Southern England to the site that had been the village of Blodwen. The village was long gone and all that remained were the stone tombs of ancient chieftain. He did not know why he had traveled there but took shelter in a tomb for the night. Climbing inside he knocked a keystone loose and was trapped inside.

In 1586, Phra awoke and was conscious of his identity. This was his final awakening as Phra. Shortly after awakening, Phra was drawn to the incarnation of Blodwen. This was Elizabeth Faulkner—the daughter of Sir Adam Faulkner, a scholar who had spent much of his wealth on building a machine that would "run, walk and fly and haul and pull and hew wood and draw water." From Phra's description it seems to be some sort of basic internal combustion engine that could be altered to be used in many ways.

In his creation of the great engine Adam Faulkner had studied in many disciplines, including the occult and alchemy. Faulkner possessed a huge library filled with arcane books, scrolls, and objects from all over the world.

Faulkner's great creation turned out to be a calamity—the mechanical marvel had no guidance system and its ungoverned locomotion nearly killed Faulkner and Phra before Phra succeeded in wrecking enough of the machine's moving parts to bring it to a halt.

After this debacle, Faulkner returned to his study of ancient lore with the idea of replenishing his depleted fortune. The manuscript of a Brother Ambrose provided Faulkner with the location of a buried Roman fortune. Faulkner and Phra followed the instructions that led straight to an abandoned Roman villa. Phra recognized the place as belonging to Lady Electra. As Faulkner and Phra neared the hills where the villa was supposed to be located, they were greeted by a man wearing a cape, hood, and wide slouch hat. Faulkner paid the local man to guide them to a certain hill. Yet as Phra fell asleep in the presence of the cloaked and hooded figure with a shepherd's rook he saw a mysterious man who told Phra he had been waiting for him for centuries. He directed Phra to drink from a mysterious fountain before fading away. Faulkner seemed unaware of any of this mysterious behavior on the stranger's part.

Faulkner and Phra found the body of a Roman centurion whom Phra "recognized" as an old friend of his. After he and Faulkner returned to Faulkner's mansion with their finds, Phra was seized by a desire to revisit his past by writing his memoirs. He had also fallen in love with Elizabeth Faulkner, Adam's young daughter. Elizabeth was also quite intelligent and learned far beyond her years. Although there was no physical resemblance, Phra saw much of Blodwen in her.

Since he was unaware of them, Phra's memoirs naturally enough do not contain any information about his amnesiac wanderings. In writing his memoirs he glossed over any incongruities such as the disappearance of his tattoo, his instant facility with languages and cultures, his ability to blend into new social eras without raising eyebrows, and his martial training. Had his life occurred exactly as recorded in his memoir, he would have moved from being a bronze-age warrior to a man familiar with the arms of the 16^th century almost in the blink of an eye (he spent a mere fifteen years "awake" as Phra during these many centuries).

The appearance of the mysterious figure who seemed to have spurred Phra's need to write his memoirs is intriguing, especially in the light that Faulkner did not perceive anything mysterious about this figure. The mysterious hooded figure told Phra to remember. Yet as the memories began to flow, Phra immediately began to organize and tailor them into a focused narrative. The hooded man was merely a local man; any mysterious behavior associated with him came from Phra's unconscious mind. Faulkner and Phra's search for the Roman villa was inspired by a manuscript from a Brother Ambrose. This name triggered memories in Phra that he did not realize he possessed, and this disturbed him. At the same time he was falling in love with Elizabeth Faulkner and realizing she was Blodwen. He knew or must have known that they were doomed to repeat their tragic cycle once more. He did not wish to lose her again. Without realizing it his unconscious mind provided him a possible way of breaking the cycle. (6)

The tragic cycle of life and love between Phra and Blodwen may have been a curse, or it may have been a price for her binding of their souls. Yet Phra merely acquiesced to the situation and did not attempt to find a solution to their dilemma. Although he was outwardly brave and at times heroic, at his core Phra shrank from confronting the emotional pain that resulted from the double traumas he associated with Blodwen. These were the pain and agony of death, which he equated with Blodwen because it was her people and their culture that had "killed" him in 68 B.C., and the emotional pain Blodwen's demise always caused him once she had perished and he lived on. Almost on every occasion when Phra was consciously aware of his identity, he would fall into hibernative state shortly after "Blodwen" had perished, and in most of these cases he was not seriously wounded. According to his memoirs, in 410 A.D. he expired from his exertions attempting to save Numidea, in 1072 he inexplicably fell into a coma after having escaped Norman soldiers, in 1366 he accidentally sealed himself in a tomb, coincidentally in Blodwen's old village.

What we believe the mysterious figure meant when he told Phra to remember was to remember all of his lives. The mysterious figure was a subconscious hallucination was triggered by the name Ambrose. This name had been used by Phra in the days of his first period when he was awake yet amnesiac, as Ambrosius Aurelius. This was also the name of Merlin as Merlin Ambrosius. The name Ambrosius means immortal. The hooded figure with the shepherd's crook unconsciously reminded Phra of Merlin, and so it was a memory figure of Merlin imposed upon the real form of the local shepherd that gave Phra the advice to remember. If Phra remembered all of his lives, those he was conscious of and those he was not, there was a chance that his accumulated knowledge and experience of the ages could instill in him a stronger character that might be different enough to cloud the tragic consequences of their curse and yet similar enough to remain bound to Blodwen.

Phra's conscious mind did not understand the message his unconscious mind was attempting to tell him or perhaps he understood it too well, and as Phra could not deal with the traumas of Blodwen's deaths he also could not deal with the idea that he had periods of amnesia. His sudden urge to write his memoirs may have been his psychological response to deal with that very notion. Writing his memoirs allowed him to order his memories as he needed them to be and by writing them they became truth.

Finally when Elizabeth Faulkner and he were poisoned, Phra convinced himself he would also die, rather than deal with the trauma of their love and death cycle any longer. So he went into one of his hibernative comas again. When he awoke a few years later, he was again amnesiac. He unconsciously sought Blodwen but could not locate her. His attempts to find her would take him all across the globe, yet he would never find her anywhere on Earth.

As seen, Phra's manner of dealing with his and Blodwen's cycle of love and death was to essentially be reactive to it and to avoid dealing with the trauma. Blodwen was, however, a more proactive person as seen in how she took charge of Phra's vessel and then took charge of Phra's life when she made him her consort. She also attempted to control their afterlives but was not entirely successful.

Blodwen's cycle of reincarnation contained wakened and unawakened incarnations, when she was aware of being Blodwen and also not aware of being Blodwen. These wakened and unawakened states appear to have coincided with Phra's self knowledge and amnesia. However in most of Blodwen's wakened states she did not realize she was Blodwen reincarnated until she was dying or else she died before she could attempt to change the cycle, as happened in her Isolde Oswaldton identity.

When Phra's past lives were unconsciously triggered, so were Elizabeth Faulkner's. Although Phra immediately suppressed any memories that threatened his self-created self-image, Elizabeth did not. She became aware that she was Blodwen, that she was destined to fall in love with Phra, and, if matters progressed as they always had, to die tragically. She resolved to revise her spell, or create a new one that would negate the tragic effects of the original binding spell, or remove the curse that Dhuwallon had placed upon them. Elizabeth Faulkner studied her father's occult and arcane tomes and developed a plan to drastically alter their eternal lives.

In the novel, Phra and Elizabeth Faulkner drink poisoned wine at their wedding feast. Elizabeth perishes almost immediately. Because of his greater stamina Phra is able to chase after Emanuel Marcena, the suspected poisoner. Phra then seals himself in a hidden chamber inside the Faulkner Mansion and puts the finishing touches on his memoirs before expiring.

A careful reading of the story however demonstrates that although Emanuel Marcena was jealous of the love affair between Phra and Elizabeth, there is only Phra's suspicion that Marcena had poisoned them. Marcena is never seen doing it and never admits to having done so. When Elizabeth falls dead, Phra's face lights upon Marcena's face and knows him to be guilty by his expression, however Marcena's expression could have been one of mere shock and horror. While it is true that he ran when Phra chased him, Phra had come at him screaming and drawing his sword, so Marcena's flight could also be seen as more of a defensive mechanism than one of guilt. Phra chased Marcena up a tower where he jumped to his death. Again, perhaps not a wise decision but not necessarily an admission of guilt. So if Marcena did not poison Phra and Elizabeth, who did? The answer seems to be Elizabeth.

For her plan to work she needed Phra and herself to die on the same day.

Using Faulkner's books and her own Druidic sorcery, Elizabeth concocted a spell that would grant her a thousand years of life. We do not know how Elizabeth went about creating her spell, we do not know what sources she used, what materials were involved or the language or wording she used. Given some access to the Faulkner estate and having some knowledge of what books were on hand in Adam Faulkner's library, we can make a few conjectures. Although we personally believe that only two of these are the likeliest explanations, lacking solid evidence we shall merely provide the possibilities that our research has uncovered. Our learned colleagues are free to accept or reject any or all of these theories or postulate their own.

• • The poisoned wine killed Blodwen too early. She died before the national crisis for which she had been summoned to this life had arrived (the Spanish Armada). In dying she failed her duty to Britain and lost her ties to the land. Her soul was cast adrift and she was born into the next human female born in the radius of the sun. She thus ended up on another world..
  • The spell required that she die in order to be reborn in the correct body. However she had to die at a precise astrological time, but her poisoning threw off her timing and she died when Mars was in ascendancy and so was drawn to the planet most influenced by this sign.
  • The spell required that she die in order to be born in the correct body. Marcena did not poison them as Phra had believed but Elizabeth had, knowing he would once again go to sleep and that he would awaken when she did. However she made a mistake in the ritual that caused her to invoke Mars, and so she was drawn to the world under his aegis.
  • The spell used ancient Atlantean lore which may have had ties with the Cult of Issus. The spell caused her to be reborn on a world where this cult held full sway..
  • The spell used Old One lore and she was drawn to Barsoom for some unknown reason. There is some speculation that the Kaldanes were offshoots or a related species to the Mi-Go. The Plantmen and Sarmak also seem to be related species but as to their connection to the Mi-Go this has yet to be verified.
  • In the Faulkner section of the book, Phra mentions having found an Arabic manuscript. Later Edwin Arnold would trace an Arabian carpet as having belonged to the Faulkner estate. It is possible that Elizabeth/Blodwen may have discovered a passage that described how to summon a djinn. He granted her wish for a thousand years of life, but in the cruel method of such wishes he did so in such a fashion that made the wish into a curse. He incarnated her into a race of beings who lived a thousand years naturally but also placed her on another world, millions of miles from the love of her life.(7)

NOTES

 
1. Although many accounts of the Druids are filled with their use of human sacrifice, these source materials are often Roman or Christian who have a biased view. Druids seem only to have carried out human sacrifice against convicted criminals.

2. As shown in the extensively researched in Transcending Death: An Examination of Immortality by Dr. Peter Torres, immortals seem to need to experience death, however minor, before they become immortal. It seems to be part of each of the variant forms of immortality, even though the various forms of immortality seem to be unrelated. Examples besides Phra would be the Highlander type immortals that must experience death before they are quickened and never age beyond their age at death. Vampires, even though they become vampires by various methods, in almost all cases they must die prior to their vampirism being initiated. Although vampires are undead, this can be argued to be a form of immortality. Tarzan's original transformation by the witch-doctor was unpleasant and may have brought him closer to death than Burroughs reported. Flint the Immortal fell in battle with a spear in his heart and he became immortal. Novelist Alfred Bester recognized this phenomenon and in his novel The Computer Connection, which is set in a fictional future, used some very real immortals as characters, although effectively disguised. His immortals were connected to one another through their shared experiences. Each suffered a tragic situation that should have killed them. One of Bester's characters Ned Curzon had a hobby of attempting to grant worthy individuals the gift of immortality. To do this he arranged for the worthy candidates to experience painful and tormented deaths. In almost every case Curzon's attempts however were failures.

3. An extreme example of the connection between the land and the king can be seen in the Arthurian legends, most dramatically in the motif of the wasteland, as in the film Excalibur where the land becomes sick and wasted because the king is sick and wasted.

4. In Welsh mythology, Gwydion is the uncle (and by some accounts also the father) of Dylan, who is a sea god and the Spirit of Darkness, and of Llew Llaw, the Spirit of Light. Gwydion is a mighty wizard, able to change shapes at will, and a bard with wonderful ability to recite poetry and ancient lore. His most famous magical exploit was to turn a pile of fungus into twelve greyhounds, twelve stallions, and twelve golden shields—temporarily—which he swaps for wonderful new creatures called swine, just arrived from the underworld. This trickery starts a big war and gets Gwydion in trouble with his uncle Math, who is an even more powerful wizard. Later Gwydion makes many trips to the underworld to retrieve creatures for the benefit of humanity: the deer, the dog, and the lapwing. Gwydion is the druid of the gods, which presumably means he looks after their trees. He is hostile to the niggardly gods of the underworld who hoard Fertility, which they keep buried under the earth until he, as beneficent trickster, uses his warm sunrays to free it. He is credited with originating April Fool's Day when, on the first day of April, he conjured up magical armies to trick his sister Arianrhod. Gwydion had links to the underworld, and the route taken by the deads' souls was named Caer Gwydion, now called the Milky Way. Gwydion told Math of Arianrhod's imposition upon Lleu, and together they contrived to make a woman from flower blossoms, called Blodeuedd. She committed adultery and planned to murder her husband, Lleu. At the moment when Lleu was struck, he turned into an eagle and flew off. Gwydion tracked him down and found him starving in a forest treetop. Gwydion nursed his nephew back to health and avenged Lleu by converting Blodeuedd into an owl. The coincidence of the similarity of Blodwen's name to Blodeudd's may have prompted Gwydion to mischievously curse her reincarnations.

5. This account differs from the original tale edited by Edwin Arnold and published as The Wonderful Adventures of Phra the Phoenician. In the novel Phra's ship founders and he swims to shore, coincidentally landing on shore at the place where he landed some thousand years before. Seeking shelter in a tomb that closed behind him, he fell into one of his sleeps. For the explanation for this discrepancy, please see John Carter: Torn From Phoenician Dreams or The Lives and Times of John Carter by Power and Coogan.

6. See The Lives and Times of John Carter by Power and Coogan

7. Arnold's search for the mysterious Arabian carpet and the tale he would find are discussed in the forthcoming article "Gullivar of Mars IS Ulysses Paxton!" by Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan

SELECT SOURCES

Arnold, Edwin, The Wondrous Adventures of Phra the Phoenician, New York: A.L Burt

Burroughs, Edgar Rice, A Princess of Mars. 1912. New York: Ballantine, 1963.
---. The Outlaw of Torn. 1914. New York: Ace Books, 1968.

Celtic Oghams, 31-Aug.-1999 <http://web2.iadfw.net/davegers/oghams.htm>

Coogan, Peter. "John Carter is Phra the Phoenician!" The Wold Newton Universe. Ed. Win Eckert. 2001. <http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Articles5.htm#PHRA.>

Davis, Karen "Gwydion" Encyclopedia Mythica, 2002 <http://www.pantheon.org/articles/g/gwydion.html>

Eckert, Win Scott. The Worlds of ERB Timeline. 11 Dec. 2001. <http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Tarzan_Chron.pdf

Farmer, Philip Jose. "The Arms of Tarzan." Burroughs Bulletin. 22 (1971). The Wold Newton Universe. Ed. Win Eckert. 2001. <http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/Farmer_articles.htm#ARMS. >
---. Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.

Geoffrey of Monmouth. History of the Kings of Britain. Trans. Sebastian Evans, revised by Charles W. Dunn. New York: Dutton, 1958.

Hughes, David. "The Age of Arthur." David Hughes Website. <http://hometown.aol.com/rdavidh218/kingarthur.html.>

"Monarchs of Great Britain." Britannia .2001. <http://www.britannia.com/history/h6f.html.>

NicEilidh, Hester. "The Legend of Robin Hood." Hester's House. 2002. <http://hesternic.tripod.com/robinhood.htm>

Roy, John Flint. A Guide to Barsoom: The Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs. New York: Ballantine, 1976.

Turner, Ben. Robin Hood. 30 Apr. 2002. <http://www.benturner.com/robinhood>

 

All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2003-2004 by the authors, Dennis E. Power and Peter Coogan. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.

top

bottom

The True Story of the Defenders of the Earth: A Further Look

by Greg Gick

It was with the greatest of pleasure and academic interest that I read the latest report on Wold-Newtonism by Dr. Art Bollmann, The True Story Behind the Defenders of the Earth. As always, Dr. Bollmann's work was superb. I do, however, think it did not go far enough. So I have taken it on myself to further research the situation, and have come across certain data that, I feel, will further expand and explain the events behind Dr. Bollmann's research.

I do not wish, by doing this, to imply that my colleague Dr. Bollmann's research was in any way inferior or slapdash. Having read almost all of his work over the years, I can honestly say that Bollmann's work is, and always has been, thorough, painstaking, and, to the best of his knowledge, complete. BUT--even professors of Wold-Newtonianism are human: there are sources they either do not know of, cannot access, or, simply, cannot believe. This is little wonder--in a world where, as we are discovering, the square-cube law can be occasionally overturned, giant apes roam the jungles, and small alien invasions seem to happen every week, some stories that are said to have “occurred” to our sources of study often seem to have no other course than be completely fictitious.

And, indeed, some are. But, as Dr. Bollmann's work shows, even a silly 1970s cartoon such as POPEYE AND THE MAN WHO HATED LAUGHTER had its germ in a very dangerous situation almost forty years before. He simply didn’t go far enough in his research. Based on his notes, which he kindly lent to me, however, I feel that I not only can further explain some puzzling discrepancies in his paper, but also, if not pinpoint an actual year of occurrence, then at least roughly show WHEN the actions of the true events take place.

Furthermore, through sources I am not allowed to disclose, I intend to show that the animated series DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH had--or rather has--its origin in this time, but, unlike Dr. Bollmann's apparent belief, MIGHT ACTUALLY OCCUR. For those who doubt any man can predict the future, I refer you to the work of Dr. Jess Nevins, and his statements of the future lives of the entity known only as “Mr. Am.” It IS possible. Whether or not it WILL occur, with the constant flux between alternate futures, is, however, another story. 

But to the subject at hand. As mentioned in his article, “the true story” behind the Defenders of the Earth got its start with the hijacking of the ocean liner the Hilary by the mysterious Dr. Morbid Grimsley. On this ship were various people, many of which would, incredibly, find semi-fictitious comic strips built around their lives at one time or another.

One might think that, due to the very “nature” of these guests--inspirations for comic strips--that there was some sort of “reunion” going on. But there is no evidence that these people knew about each other or even met while on the liner--if they did, they certainly would have some things to talk about! Besides, there were literally hundreds of passengers on the ship at the time; to have them all encounter one another would be unlikely. It seems to have been a case of amazing coincidence; just as the presence of such luminaries as Sherlock Holmes, a young Indiana Jones, and, if research is right, the alien time-traveler known only as the Doctor on the Titanic at the same time was. Still, let us review these special passengers:

1). KING KLINE II OF ID, better known as “the Little King.” Although forgotten today, in the 1930s King Kline was considered a beloved “character” in America, which, despite its democracy, has always been fascinated by royalty. Although his kingdom, Id (1), was of almost no importance at the time (and eventually was subsumed into Yugoslavia, if I recall correctly), King Kline, a deeply eccentric man, was nonetheless beloved for his kindness and generosity--as well as his odd whimsy and childlikeness. He was known, for example, to wash the dishes in the swimming pool when the Royal Dishwasher quit. According to Dr. Bollmann, it was believed by the Italians that the Royal Family of Id owned “the Spear of Destiny,” purportedly the spear that pierced Christ’s side during the Crucifixion. They didn’t.

2) CONNER BRIGGS, or “Jiggs” to give him his more well-known moniker. A self-made millionaire, Briggs was an important figure in Irish-American communities. He also possessed a VERY social-climbing wife, Maggie, while he himself never forgot where he came from, preferring to eat corn beef and cabbage to caviar and seeing his old friends at the pub. A “friend,” George McManus, heard about his frequent attempts at sneaking out and created a comic strip about him, Bringing Up Father, in 1913. Briggs was not amused. Neither was Maggie.

3) SNUFFY SMITH, a crude, uneducated backwoodsman from Tennessee, yet an acquaintance of famous race-horse owner Barney Google. Having won the cruise in a sweepstakes, Smith and his wife Louisa--along with Barney Google--were making their first cruise (2).

4) DAGWOOD AND BLONDIE BUMSTEAD--the couple Chic Young made famous in 1930. (3).

5) GEORGE AND GRACIE ALLEN--the world-famous entertainers. Little needs to be said about these two. Dr. Bollmann also mentions that Gracie had a cousin along who would inspire the “legend” of Sad Sack.

6) POPEYE--in point of fact the most important person ON that ship, although you would never know it from the appearance of the plug-ugly sailor. Popeye’s presence, as well as the truth of his mysterious relationship with the mystery-man known only as the Shadow, will be dealt with later in this article.

7) THE KATZENJAMMER KIDS--Hans and Fritz; Dr. Bollmann says these are the sons of the original Fritz Katzenjammer, whom Rudolph Dirks wrote about starting in 1897. More about these two later.

Oh, yes--some sources indicate the presence of New York millionaire LAMONT CRANSTON on board as well, but as he apparently spent the entire experience seasick in his cabin, we can write him off as having any effect on the events whatsoever.

According to the original story, once the Hilary, had been hijacked, a group consisting of adventurers Mandrake the Magician, the Phantom, Flash Gordon, Steve Canyon, and young Tim Tyler set out to rescue them. Dr. Bollmann's researches claim that, while Mandrake, Flash, and the Phantom were indeed involved, the presence of Canyon and Tyler were fictitious. Their parts were, in fact, played out by adventurers Terry Lee and Pat Ryan. I agree--to an extent. While Steve Canyon was indeed NOT part of the team, he was not, as Bollmann states, totally fictitious. There was a real Steve Canyon. BUT--as any historian of comic strips know, Canyon’s exploits weren’t recorded until 1947--far AFTER the events of the Hilary. Canyon wasn’t there simply because he hadn’t started adventuring yet! He was alive, of course, but nowhere near the Atlantic when these events took place.

Tim Tyler, however, poses a problem. Although at first I agreed with Dr. Bollmann's assertion that Tyler was totally fictional, the more I researched the more I realized something was amiss with the witnesses’ recollections of events. As I looked into the situation, I began to realize that the descriptions of the “boy” involved in the rescue--believed to be Terry Lee--did not quite match up all the time, although they were very similar. And there were occasional reports of a dark-haired “youth”--not adult, as Pat Ryan was--who was seen with one of the varied descriptions. This would tally with the identity of “Spud,” Tyler’s dark-haired companion, who was only a few years older than he. But Bollmann was correct--FDR recruited Pat Ryan into the fold (Terry came WITH him; FDR wasn’t enthused about putting a boy in danger), not Tim Tyler. So what was I to make of this?

With further research, I have come to a theory--BOTH Lee and Tyler were involved with events. Due to the similarity of their ages and blond hair, witnesses mixed the two up--especially plausible when you consider two of them were the daffy Gracie Allen and Dagwood Bumstead. But how was this possible? I feel that it all comes down to the timing of the events--but first, there are a few other things to deal with.

To begin with, we must discuss the activities and involvement of Mandrake, the Phantom, and Flash Gordon. According to Dr. Bollmann, Flash had returned to Earth from the “Rogue Planet” crisis, and, it is intimated, was involved in the downplaying of events into belief they were a hoax. But further recorded
exploits of Flash, if they are to be believed, show him remaining on Mongo. How do we reconcile this?

It is my belief that Flash DID, temporarily, return to Earth after the first overthrow of Ming--to marry Dale Arden officially in the beliefs of her own church. According to rumor, the famed adventurer Jungle Jim Bradley even witnessed this event, although I have yet to confirm it. (4) Apparently, Zarkov’s rocket was able to make more than one trip back and forth to Mongo while the planets were in relative range of each other; afterwards, Flash probably made his home on Mongo. More research needs to be done on this, however.

Dr. Bollmann also states that Mandrake had, at one time, been posing as another jungle explorer, “Congo Bill,” and it was at this time, during an adventure with the 19th Phantom, that he met his partner Lothar. This is so--but not the intimation that there was no real Congo Bill. The actual Bill had returned temporarily to the States, letting Mandrake pose as him for whatever reasons were actually behind the imposture. Dr. Bollmann states the stories of “Congorilla,” which came much later when Bill’s adventures had become totally fictional, were based off this exploit. I see no reason to doubt this, much as I love the idea of a magic ring that transfers a human mind into a gorilla body (5).

It was this encounter that lead, through a statement of Roosevelt, for this group to dub themselves, facetiously, “The Defenders of the Earth.” In fact, they liked it so much most of them (Lee and Ryan bowing out) decided to keep in contact over the years, to see if they could assist each other in their cases if necessary. Flash, of course, returned to Mongo by all reports, and was lost to them for many years. But--as my sources indicate--Mandrake and the Phantom(s) kept in touch over the years. Did they have any other adventures as a team during that time? Were there other adventures of the “Defenders of the Earth?” We know that Mandrake and the Phantom often teamed together when
necessary. Perhaps there was a whole slew of adventures of the “Defenders” that were never recorded--America’s version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. We will never know.

But, this is where the “Future” Defenders of the Earth come in. If my sources are correct, sometime about 2015, a descendent of the original Flash will return to Earth with his son , Rick (6), and warn that Ming--possibly the original, possibly a descendant--is returning. The Phantom active then--who
MUST be the father of the 2040 Phantom--will then team up with Mandrake and Lothar (who have kept themselves young through Mandrake’s mysticism; what happened to the magician’s wife Narda is unknown) and the Gordons to stop him. Amazingly, however, two others will be there--Lothar’s son, L.J., and Jedda, the daughter of the Phantom (7)!

But we know from other sources that the Phantom’s son will take over the role, in 2040! We can only presume that, on the birth of the new Kit Walker, Jedda’s claim to future Phantomdom went out the window. Or, possibly, she died, as she was never mentioned in the recorded (to be recorded?) exploits of the 2040 Phantom. We shall never know.

At any rate, we must return to the 1930s, and the hijacking of the Hilary. As said before, the famed “Popeye the Sailor” was on hand for the adventure--and, if records are correct, his arch-enemy Brutus was working with Grimsley to steal the boat! But there’s a problem here--readers of Popeye’s recorded adventures will know that Brutus was never named Brutus--he was originally named Bluto, and had, in fact, only shown up in one adventure of Popeye! It was not until he was adopted for the cartoon series--totally fictional--as the regular “villain” that he entered the public eye--and he was never called Brutus until the 1960s (8).

The true story, of course, is that Bluto’s hiring as a thug by Grimsley was a total coincidence. But we can imagine Bluto was more than happy to launch in once he found out his old enemy was on the ship. It just worked out in that funny way things in the Wold-Newton Universe seem to do.

Another oddity about the story is that Mandrake apparently summoned up a hypnotic illusion of the legendary Prince Valiant to fight Bluto. This seems to have been based on a real event (9). Bluto was apparently threatening some of the hostages with a sword (why he didn’t have a gun is unclear) and
Mandrake, feeling amused, hypnotized him into thinking Prince Valiant was there to keep him busy in a “duel” while he moved the hostages to safety. 

And a quick word on Popeye’s relations with the Shadow--my sources tell me that the sailor man was NOT a full-time agent, but rather a courier used when the situation demanded it. The rough-and-tumble Popeye was simply too argumentative and aggressive to make a good agent; the Shadow used him mainly as a paid message-deliverer. But he got the job done, so the Shadow kept him
on as an occasional. The rest of the time, like Lee and Ryan, he was a free agent. Popeye may never have known who he was working for; as long as the money was good, he was good for it.

But of course Grimsley couldn’t have just up and hijacked an entire ship by his lonesome. And the truth was, he didn’t. That was where the Katzenjammers came in.

For I’m sorry to say that Hans and Fritz were completely and totally committed National Socialists; they were being used as spies in America and were the ones operating as Grimsley’s agents on board the Hilary. To cover their tracks, they pretended to be captives along with the others and apparently got away with it, but their true purpose was to help Grimsley grab the object of his quest. Poor Mama! Even the original Hans and Fritz weren’t THAT bad. Later, it seems, a shadowy member of the Defenders did, indeed, learn the truth…and, according to the report, there wasn’t much left to do autopsies on.

And the object of the game? Dr. Bollmann states it was a green railroad lantern. If this hint is what I’m thinking it is, I am afraid Bollmann is slightly incorrect. If I’m right, then this item was in fact a CHINESE
lantern; it would not be shaped into a railroad lantern until much later. But that is for another article. It seems unlikely the Nazis would go to so much trouble and expense to kidnap an entire boat just for the sake of some lantern--surely it would have been easier for the Katzenjammers just to steal it--but Grimsley intended to hold as many of the hostages for ransom as he could, just to earn a little extra pocket change. The “Little King,” and possibly “Jiggs,” would have been either killed or taken to Germany for political gain. Burns and Allen, of course, as famous entertainers, could have been held for ransom (although Burns’ Jewishness may have ended up costing him his life if the Defenders hadn’t involved themselves), and possibly even the Bumsteads could, technically, be held for ransom once Grimsley discovered who they were. Whether or not Dagwood’s father would actually have paid to free
his disowned son and despised daughter-in-law is another story. As for the rest of the hostages, not famous and “just plain folk” as most of them such as Smith were--well, perhaps we’re better off not knowing what the plans were. Rumor has it that the Miskatonic-taught Grimsley was in touch with more than just the Nazis….

And so we come to the end--the actual time all this took place. Once again, while I cannot pinpoint an exact date, I feel I can come very close to a year, based off these simple dating records:

The Phantom’s recorded adventures began in 1936, Mandrake’s in 1934. Flash Gordon’s recorded exploits also began being published in 1934. The adventures of Terry Lee and Pat Ryan began to be published in October, 1934.

The adventures of Tim Tyler began being recorded in 1928. BUT--in 1932, he and Spud moved to Africa, where they became members of something called “The Ivory Patrol,” a jungle policing group. The Phantom, on the other hand, was in charge of something called “The Jungle Patrol” which had much the same function. Ivory Patrol. Jungle Patrol. Were they the same organization, just disguised? Did the Phantom witness one of Tyler’s African adventures and recommend him for his own organization? While at first I debated about Tyler and his companion acting as stowaways, the timing I have come up with doesn’t work. So my theory is that Tyler and Spud were on the Hilary, possibly on assignment, more probably on a short vacation (as the ship was moving from Europe to America, rather than Africa). Knowing two of his officers were on the ship being held hostage would certainly have been incentive for the Phantom to get involved, even beyond his family’s vow to fight piracy of all sorts.

A further clue comes from the marriage of Blondie Boopadoop and Dagwood Bumstead--recorded on February 17, 1933. While this probably wasn’t the actual date, it gives up a rough idea of when the marriage did take place--in the early years of the 1930s. And it is well-known Bumstead was the son of a millionaire cut off without a cent due to his marriage to Blondie. But wouldn’t Bumstead have still had a little money on him--after all, they did move into rather a nice house and have two kids later. I think this trip was actually the Bumsteads’ honeymoon rather than a vacation; they were blowing what little they had to stick it to Dagwood’s daddy.(10)

So what does that leave us with? 1936, 1934, 1934, 1934, 1932, and 1933. And, of course, both Hitler and Roosevelt were elected to the various leaderships of their countries in 1933--a good, round average of the years mentioned above. It certainly couldn’t have taken any time sooner. So I am
going to state that the true events of Popeye and the Man Who Hated Laughter probably happened at the earliest in the year 1933. It certainly couldn’t have happened any later than 1936. That leaves us, then, with a three-year period, 1933-36, in which these events, and the founding of the Defenders of the Earth, could have taken place. Perhaps further research will specify an exact date.

APPENDIX

1). Try as I might, I cannot find any kingdom in any atlas from the time known as “Id.” According to Dr. Bollmann, this is the same country that comic historian Johnny Hart writes about in his comic strip The Wizard of Id--albeit this original King Kline, a tyrant, lived sometime during the Middle Ages. I suspect that Id is NOT the country’s real name, and whatever it was has now been lost in the mist of history.

2). Barney, according to Dr. Bollmann, mysteriously disappeared en route to the ship. For those with a nasty, conspiratorial state of mind, be assured that Google had just wandered away into a crap game and missed the boat.

3). I have been unable to verify Dr. Bollmann's claims that Blondie Boopadoop’s cousin is Betty Boop. Seeing as how it is very unlikely that Blondie would actually have had such a ridiculous surname; I suspect her real last name was more “foreign” and Young simply altered it into a similar-sounding name that emphasized her personality. If Betty and Blondie ARE cousins, however, and the cartoons based on her are even half-true, Betty may have met Popeye herself at one point--see the cartoon Popeye the Sailor Man for details (the rest of the Popeye cartoons are, however, as we noted above, totally fictitious).

4). The Flash Gordon radio show apparently led into the Jungle Jim radio show when Jim attended Flash’s wedding on Earth.

5). Possibly the events of The Whispering Gorilla and its sequel, where a man’s brain was placed into a gorilla’s body, may have also inspired these tales. Hey--at least it wasn’t B’wana Beast.

6). According to the cartoon based on these sources, Dale Arden was killed and turned into a computerized artificial intelligence. This is untrue. This “Flash” had married a native Mongoite, who was Rick’s mother. It was SHE who became the computer that advised the Defenders.

7). Mandrake, too, had a young apprentice, but he was not related, serving as the boy’s guardian.

8). Much later he returned to the comic strip, but by then it was mostly a “gag-a-day” thing instead of continuity adventure. I view these reports of Popeye’s activities as mainly fictitious.

9). It is a manner of keen disagreement whether Prince Valiant was an actual living person or not in the Wold-Newton Universe. Research has shown, however, that there was obviously someone who inspired the legend; whether or not all the adventures ascribed to him are true or not is another story.

10). It should be noted that, despite appearances in the comic strip and movies (and television programs) based on his activities, Dagwood Bumstead wasn’t QUITE the dunderhead presented. He certainly was not the brightest bulb in the light store, to be sure, but if even half of some of the work incidents portrayed in the comics were true--especially falling asleep on the job--Bumstead would have been fired (especially working for a man like J.C. Dithers, who did indeed tend to get into fistfights with his employees). Bumstead, for all his stupidity in other matters, actually did possess a decent head for figures, and was able to support his wife and two children fairly comfortably for years. Chic Young simply took a few funny incidents that had happened early in Bumstead’s “adjustment” to the working world and created endless variations on the theme for years. And since Blondie is still going quite strong based on them, who are we to argue with success?

SOURCES

1). Bollmann, Art. “The True Story Behind the Defenders of the Earth.”

2). Goulart, Ron (ed). The Encyclopedia of American Comics: From 1897 to the
Present. Facts on File, New York, 1990.

All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2003-2004 by the author, Greg Gick. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.

top

bottom

Gullivar of Mars IS Ulysses Paxton!

by Dennis E. Power and Dr. Peter Coogan

Part Four in a series of articles by Coogan and Power about the life and influences of John Carter

 

NOTES

 
1. As explained in the articles "John Carter: Torn from Phoenician Dreams" and "The Lives and Times of John Carter."

2. The novel Lt. Gullivar Jones states that Gullivar Jones was an officer in the United States Navy. This was in part a bit of disinformation placed there by Edwin Arnold to obscure the trail of the true person Gullivar Jones was based on. Gullivar's, or rather Ulysses', true branch of the service was disclosed in Creatures on the Loose Vol. 1, No. 16. Marvel Comics March, 1972. written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Gil Kane. After two issues the rest of the six-issue run was written by George Alec Effinger. Although many changes were made by the comic version of Gullivar of Mars that were at great variance with even Arnold's version, the writers often sneaked in tidbits of true information. George Alec Effinger's source for Barsoomian lore may have also been at fault. This seems to be one Maureen Birnbaum, a time and space traveling debutante whose grasp of historical events was not always that firm. Muffy gave Effinger the manuscript that became "Mars: The Home Front," although the account had been originally transcribed by Matthew Carter. That it remained unfinished reflects Matthew Carter's discipline as a writer. "Mars the Home Front" is in War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, Kevin Anderson editor. This tale is accurate so far as editorial concerns would allow.

3.  Lupoff and others have remarked on how much the Hither and Thither people of Gullivar of Mars resemble the Eloi and Morlocks from H.G. Wells' The Time Machine

4.  Lemuel Gulliver was, of course, the protagonist of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. What connection, if any, exists between the Gulliver family and Ulysses Pierpont are unknown. The Pierponts were an old Virginia family; this led Arnold to the Carters of Virginia and thence back to New York to John Carter's Hudson home.

5. In the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume II, No. 1, the Hither are supposed to possess a ray cannon, although a search of the text does not seem to turn one up. Perhaps Alan Moore obtain the idea of the ray cannon from this passage, although in reality the globe was predicting the future including the imminent arrival of a meteorite and the great heat that accompanied it. Another erroneous depiction in this series was that of Gullivar flying across the Martian sands upon his carpet as if it were a flat airplane. The carpet had to be activated by a wish and it wrapped the rider up inside it like a sausage in a skin. Further he did not have possession of it while on Mars.

6. These giant bats were also depicted in "The Amazons of Mars," the third annual of John Carter, Warlord of Mars from Marvel Comics.

7. Little did Arnold know that M.N. Carter was in fact John Carter's son, although M.N. Carter himself was unaware of this fact at the time of their meeting. See Peter Coogan's "Burroughing Beneath the Page" (forthcoming).

8.  "A Letter," Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Mastermind of Mars.

9. It is unknown from what dimensional realms this carpet had taken this former passenger.

10. Arnold refers to the two peoples as the Hither and Thither people. Since he actually did not know that much about the true customs and origins of these people, he borrowed heavily from H.G. Wells. The Time Machine.

11. Arnold calls this goddess Isis.

12. See "Lost in Translation" by Dr. Peter Coogan and Dennis E. Power (forthcoming)  for more details

13. The Sarmak are the Martian creatures from H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Although some accounts state that the Sarmak were native to Barsoom and were related to the same root species from which arose the Kaldanes and the Plantmen, other accounts differ and state they were alien to Barsoom. If this alien origin is true, then perhaps the Kaldanes and Plantmen were also alien in origin, despite what the legends of the First Born and the Kaldane state. This large asteroid or meteorite appears to have been the Mothership of the Sarmak. The Sarmak are like locusts, leapfrogging from planet to planet, solar system to solar system, stripping planets of life and sustenance. When traveling extremely long distances the Sarmak combine their vessels into a single sphere, when traveling relatively short distances from planet to planet in a solar system they launch single vessels. Upon entering the atmosphere of Barsoom the Sarmak ship divided into two sections. One section landed near the south pole the other not too distant from Toonal.

14. Although Arnold does not even have a character who resembles John Carter, or Burroughs never mentions the Sarmak some accounts have Ulysses, a.k.a. Gullivar Jones, working side by side with John Carter during the Sarmak incident. See The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2, No. 1 comics mini-series written by Alan Moore, with art by Kevin O'Neill, America's Best Comics, 2002. And also "Mars: The Home Front" by George Alec Effinger in the anthology War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches, Kevin J. Anderson, ed.

15.  "The Musgrave Version" was a tale edited by George Alec Effinger that purported to be the first meeting between Sherlock Holmes and Fu Manchu. See Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, DAW, 1995 Mike Resnick and Martin H Greenberg (eds.) Most of the action in the Musgrave Version takes place "off page" and is alluded to as occurring in a forthcoming tale that never materialized. As seen in the previous footnote, George Alec Effinger also edited "Mars the Home Front" and was the author for several issues of the Gullivar of Mars storyline in Marvel Comics' Creatures on the Loose.

16. Aard calls Saar "her" but it could be that even though Kaldanes as a species are bisexual that they identify with one gender. This choice is reflected and reinforced by the sex of the rykor they ride

17. Ghek, one of the main characters of Chessmen of Mars, was considered to be defective because he liked the sound of music and also felt friendship towards Tara of Helium.

18. The events of Ras Thavas' experimentation and the near destruction of Barsoom are recounted in The Synthetic Men of Mars.

19. The appearance of the Sorn are rather problematic since their presence on Barsoom and their participation in the Sarmak War is at odds with the Utopian society of Malacandra as depicted by C. S. Lewis. The three species of Malacandra do not know conflict or war; rather they live together in harmony under the guidance of an Archangel. Moore's use of the Martians from the C. S. Lewis series seems to be more out of a desire to be inclusive of several types of Martian literature than their actual presence in that reality.

20.. Yet not all of the Sarmak had perished. They hid in fertile valleys and proved to be a persistent menace. One traveler named Tercer traveled from Earth to Mars in 1924 using a modified plane. This is described in "Our Distant Cousins" from The Travel Tales of Mr. Jorkens by Lord Dunsany. Landing upon Mars he discovered a facility where human beings were being kept like poultry behind wire cages. He shot and killed one of the Sarmak guards after it had wrung the neck of a small girl and boy. Tercer's description of the Martians is very close to Gullivar's description of the Ha-Thern. Tercer's description of the region in which he visited also has marked similarities to the account related by Arnold. The population of the Ha-Thern may have survived the earlier assaults by the Thathor and Sarmak only to be rounded up by some surviving Sarmak and used as chattel. After killing the Sarmak Tercer had to quickly return to his plane and took off once again. Tercer's account was related to Mr. Jorkens and his biographer several years after the incident took place. How Tercer managed to cross the dimensional barrier and travel to Barsoom in a modified plane is unknown. Evidence that he traveled through dimensions can be seen by his account of his return trip. Slightly off course due to his hasty departure from Mars he landed on a swampy area on an asteroid. The asteroid had a breathable atmosphere yet its gravitational pull was so slight that he was able to lift his one ton plane and carry it for several miles to a dry place for him to take off. He also found elephants the size of mice and attempted to capture one. Part of Tercer's tale of his trip to Mars may have found its way into the Marvel Comics version of Gullivar of Mars, in this quite transformed version, Gullivar's hair turns stark white from the result of his passage to Mars, as does Tercer's in his tale.

Seven years after his return to earth, he received a radio message from the Sarmak directed at him, challenging him to return. This would have been approximately 1931. Tercer returned to Mars in an improved ship, loaded with weapons. Jorkens and his biographer received a message that simply said "Victory, Victory." This is recounted in "The Slugly Beast" from Mr. Jorkens Remembers Africa by Lord Dunsany. They assumed that it came from Tercer. However it may not have been Tercer that sent the message. He may have been in fact captured by the Sarmak and forced to work for them. Using his technical expertise, the labor of the Ha-Thern, and the limited mineral resources of the area, the Sarmak might have been able to been able to build some tripod, traveling spheres and a launching cannon in the next seven years. In 1938, their smaller invasion force landed in the East Coast of the United States and was fairly quickly defeated by the United States Army.

Tercer may have used the distraction of the launch to stage a rebellion that succeeded in damaging the launch cannon. The rebellion may have resulted in the destruction of Tercer and the remnants of the Ha-Thern or the rebellion may have been aided with support from Helium, whose scientists had remained vigilant for signs of further Sarmak activity.

The Sarmak remained quiet for several years. They launched one more invasion attempt in 1952. This time they took advantage of the ongoing war between Sasoom and Barsoom and they had more powerful weapons. After their failed attempt in 1938 the remaining Sarmak once again used enthralled captives as spies. They learned of the powerful devices of the scientists Fal Silvas, Gar Nal, and Phor Tak. They used every effort to capture the slaves and assistants of these scientists. They managed to capture a few along with a couple of working models of the various devices of these scientists. They were able to reverse engineer a powerful disintegrating/heat beam and force fields for their new invasion of Earth. Although this invasion did manage to cause some damage to California, especially the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco, they were defeated by germ warfare.

21. The false religion and horrid deception that was the Cult of Issus had been discredited by John Carter and several of his family and friends in The Gods of Mars and The Warlord of Mars, which occurred circa 1886- 1888. The strength of the grip of the Issusian religion on the people of Barsoom can be seen in the devotion of the Jeddak and people of the city of Kaol to this religion in Gods of Mars.

22.  For a bit on the Paxton family history please visit The Paxton House website http://www.glenmaurypark.com/paxton/history_paxton.htm

23. How can the magical carpet be understood? Its activation via a wish enables us to divine its nature. The magic carpet was actually a Djinn. The Djinn were spirits of great power, considered to be demons by many Arabic scholars. Their powers may be supernatural in origin or the Djinn may merely be powerful creatures with the ability to manipulate time, space, energy, and matter within limits. Whatever the source of their power, the end result seems like magic. During the reign of Solomon many of the Djinn were imprisoned, their forms conjoined to objects such as lamps, rings, or carpets (for an example of one such Djinn attached to a carpet, see the X-Files episode "Je Souhaite."). The particular Djinn inhabiting the carpet that Ulysses came into possession of must have been limited to granting wishes made in great pain or emotional anguish. Since Djinn are mischievous spirits and often malevolent, this requirement may have been part of this particular Djinn's set of instructions for the hope that a person in great pain or emotional anguish would make a stupid wish that the Djinn could use to cause great suffering to the wisher. The carpet seems to have accompanied the person who was the recipient of its wishes until all three wishes had been granted, hanging about in a limbo state but manifesting when needed. There was a bit of malevolence involved in each of the outcomes of Ulysses' wishes. The first time he was transported to Barsoom it was to a decadent city that he considered at odds with his notions of civilized behavior. The second time he was returned to Earth after an absence of several years, which ruined his reputation and his military career and landed him in prison. The last time he was transported dying to rest at the feet of the greatest surgeon on Barsoom who was seconds away from being killed himself.

Partial evidence for the carpet being a djinn may be seen in the Marvel Comics Creatures on the Loose No. 19, "Gullivar of Mars. " The six-issue mini series depicts the story of Gullivar of Mars by Edwin Arnold in a very loose fashion. Gullivar's travels were updated to the 1970's and he is said to have fought in Viet Nam. He was whisked away to Mars on a magical carpet that had originally been ridden upon by a creature named Lupov who seemed to possess magical powers.

SELECT SOURCES

All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2003-2004 by the authors, Dennis E. Power and Peter Coogan. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.

top

bottom

A Review of “Final Menacing Glimpses” 

by Art Bollmann

            We are all familiar with Cordwainer Bird’s landmark anthologies, “Menacing Glimpses” and “Wider Menacing Glimpses.”  In the 1960s, Bird published some of the most controversial works by some of the biggest names in speculative fiction, permanently changing the contours of the field.  The biggest and last volume in the series, “Final Menacing Glimpses” has been delayed for decades.  Many of us had given up hope of ever seeing it, and have wished that Mr. Bird would spend less time feuding with the producers of “Galaxy Quest” and more time proofreading and writing introductions.

            But now, after several decades Winton House has finally brought forth the final volume.  FMG is, of necessity something of a period piece, since most of the stories were written decades ago. We cannot help but be saddened by the fact that many of the writer in this volume are now dead, but we are glad to have this volume of stories, which, for the most part, put most current literature to shame. In light of the fact that the majority of these authors are dead, it would be both depressing and repetitive to continually use the honorific “the late.”  We trust the reader to know who is alive and dead.

            The volume begins with a personal introduction by Isaac Asimov.  Asimov recounts his long running feud/friendship with Bird, and reveals that his novel, “Murder at the ABA” was based on an actual murder case that Bird solved. (Bird is referred to as “Darius Just” in the novel.  We are perplexed, however, about Asimov’s story regarding Bird and a talking dog.  We suspect that Dr. A may be pulling our leg.

            His own story in this volume, however, is also an exercise in “documentary fiction” as Asimov recounts as actual mystery that he solved in the presence of a club called “the Black Widowers.”

            Pure fantasy follows, with the only known speculative fiction work by mainstream titan T.S. Garp.  “The Bear Men of Ursus Five” deals with some ferocious looking but oddly domestic aliens.  Or are they domestic…

            Noted western writer Matt Helm also works outside his groove, in a story about a government spy.  Frankly, this one lacks credibility, and we hope Mr. Helm sticks to horse operas.  Write what you know, Matt.

            Likewise, R. Questor, a writer unknown to me, has written a story from the p.o.v. of an android in “I, Robot.”  The story is unconvincing, and almost as bad as the title.

            Things pick up as Peter J. Frigate offers up a story about the afterlife written in the style of “Finnegan’s Wake.” Highly entertaining, if a bit farfetched.

            Mr. Bird’s own story, “Redjac and Back” is a special treat, as he completes an unfinished fragment by Robert Blake, the horror writer who died under mysterious circumstances in the 1930s.  The story concerns an alien entity that is responsible for the Jack the Ripper murders, and a number of others.  This entity is almost captured by an undercover police officer with a cockatoo, but instead the alien frames the policeman for laundering money.

            Simon Moon, the well known sixties activist, has supplied what may be his only short story.  A broad sexual farce about an U.S. President who faces impeachment because of an affair with an intern, it is alternately hilarious and disgusting, yet compelling.  We have a feeling that this will cause many raised eyebrows among Mr. Moon’s current colleagues on the New York Stock Exchange.

            Ellery Queen offers a classic whodunit set in space and burdened with an unreliable narrator.  Mr. Bird affirms that this was actually written by Queen, and not by Kilgore Trout, his occasional ghostwriter.

            There are other gems in this volume, including a humorous story of first contact by Luke Devereaux, an early poem by Gallinger.  Most interestingly, a short story by Brady X. Donaldson anticipates some of the themes he would later explore in his posthumous masterwork.

            Two stories, however, stand out as the volumes major contribution.  The first, of course, is a long novella by Alan Watts. Watts, of course, was the recipient of the first Grandmaster of Fantasy Award.  An immigrant from England, he was familiar with the spiritualist scene of London, and drew upon it for a series of terrifyingly convincing stories for “Weird Tales” and Campbell’s “Unknown.” For a while he even wrote the successful hero-pulp “the Green Lama.” Of course, he soon broke out of the pulps and attracted considerable attention for a series of historical novels set in the Far East.

            The rise of the New Wave seemed to attract him back to science fiction, and during the sixties, he wrote a series of sf novels that won the praise of figures as disparate as Pynchon, both Burroughs and Jerry Brown . His novella, “Stranger In A World I Never Made” offers a vision of a new society that may well be as relevant today as it was when originally written.

            “Wolders Live in Vain” by Kilgore Trout closes the volume, and offers the most menacing glimpse of all.  Trout imagines a parallel universe in which computers have linked every household, providing instant communication.  In this world, such famous historical figures as Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes and Doc Savage are actually fictional characters.  (In a sly in-joke, Trout actually postulates that Cordwainer Bird as a fictional character as well.)  However, a group of fans on the "Internet" begin playing a game in which they pretend that these characters are real.  Although we only know them through their computer messages, many of these characters are well drawn, and emerge as real people. (Fans of the “Masked Savage” will get a chuckle at the name of one of these Wolders.)

            This game hits a snagging point when the players cannot decide whether to pretend that comic book characters are real.  Oddly enough, they have fierce, vicious arguments about this topic, on a weekly basis, for years and years.  Trout is at his most Swiftian in describing these battles, creating characters that are at once incredibly thin-skinned and incredibly confrontational.  One particular fight, between a stubborn English professor and an equally stubborn research scientist, is obviously intended to illustrate C.P. Snow’s thesis about the two cultures.

            This story, and the entire volume, is highly recommended.   

            Afterward: 

        This piece was written with the idea in mind that Cordwainer Bird, the WNU version of Harlan Ellison, must have edited an anthology in the WNU that resembles Ellison’s landmark “Dangerous Visions” anthology.

         On one hand, there is nothing more annoying than someone who feels compelled to explain all of his own jokes.  On the other hand, it can be equally annoying to read a piece that contains nothing but obscure references.  I’ll split the difference, and explain some but not all of them.

       In addition to Ellison, Robert Bloch and Theodore Sturgeon both contributed to “DV” and both have analogs in the WNU.  Bloch and Ellison collaborated on two stories about Jack the Ripper, so it makes sense the Blake and Bird should collaborate on a story about the Redjac entity.  Kilgore Trout was based partially on Theodore Sturgeon.  Since Sturgeon ghosted books for Frederic Danny and Manfred B. Lee (the creators of Ellery Queen) it makes sense to me that Trout must have written for the actual author Ellery Queen in the WNU.

      Alan Watts was a figure in the 1960s counterculture.  I speculate that his WNU counterpart might have used his knowledge of Eastern religion to become a popular author.

       For my most obscure references, Luke Devereaux is from Fredric Brown’s “Martians Go Home.”  The poet Gallagher is from Zelazny’s “A Rose for Ecclesiastes.”  Brady X. Donaldson is from PJF’s “Father’s In the Basement.”  Simon Moon is not an author (insofar as we know) but is a recurring character in the work of Robert Anton Wilson.

      Nobody knows the true identity of the Masked Savage.

      This afterward is in the tradition of the numerous afterwards to every entry in “Dangerous Visions.”

All rights reserved. The text of this article is © 2003-2004 by the author, Art Bollmann. No copying or reproduction of this article or any portions thereof in any form whatsoever is permitted without prior written permission and consent of the author.

top

bottom

END OF ARTICLES PART IX

Go To

ARTICLES, PART X

ARTICLES TABLE OF CONTENTS

SITE NAVIGATION