Even a toyline can become a classic work of science fiction
Transformers, My Little Pony . . . Sectaurs, anyone? Toys often become comics, even good comics, but it isn’t often they become great comics, much less represent the best the medium has to offer. And yet the Micronauts did just that. At its pinnacle, the comics were an imaginative and intense exploration of life, death and all the changes in between.
Toys Before Fiction
The Micronauts began as toys. In 1974, Takara in Japan began producing the Microman line featuring smaller versions of its Henshin Cyborg toys. The central conceit was that the action figures, which were roughly three to five inches tall, were life-size representations of tiny cyborg beings known as Micros who live on Micro Earth. Many of them had interchangeable parts and clear plastic revealing their internal workings. Microman products are still readily available in Japan, where they demonstrate a staggering variety of forms and names, from the winged Micro Sister Theon to the transparent Machine Kong, who operates a large transparent machine with a long transparent lever. …
I’m not saying these are the best, but they are
My Top 10 Heavy Metal Albums of 2020 simply didn’t do justice to how alive the scene was in 2020, so I’m back to satisfy my demons with a list of the best EPs and singles I ran across this year. You may choose to overlook shorter releases in favor of full-length albums, but you do so at the peril of your metal soul:
- Mourning Beloveth / The Ruins of Beverast, Please Don’t Walk on the Mass Graves (Ván Records)
When the going gets weird, the weird get metal
It was the weirdest of times, it was the weirdest of times, and holy hell was 2020 weird. Some would say it was simply bad, but look on the bright side: At least the soundtrack was good. Read on for my top heavy metal picks of the year.
1. Myrkur, Folkesange (Relapse Records)
Start complaining about my list now, because my Album of the Year is one of those albums that isn’t technically metal. There aren’t any growls, thunderous drums or wailing guitar solos. This is the type of metal that’s metal in spirit, like something from Dark Sanctuary’s discography or like Winterfylleth’s The Hallowing of Heirdom (2018). …
After battle come unsettling visitors.
The battle between the United States Army and Modoc Tribe raged across the lava beds, leaving behind the flotsam and jetsam of war. Moaning horses lay in troughs of churned earth. Dead hands gripped fallen standards. Bodies lay in a litter of spilled cartridges, bayonet shards, fragments of clothing, and bits of photographs and letters from home. And onto this field stepped three gunmen in black.
Bo “Bronco” Riley hit the dirt. The hell’d they come from? he thought as he wriggled behind the body of a dead horse and peeked around for another look.
All three of the figures were tall and moved queerly, loosely, like wind chimes affixed by their skulls while the rest of their bones dangled underneath. They formed a knot, heads down, brims of their broad black hats and black bandannas obscuring their faces. Then they separated, fanning out through the detritus. …
To one unholy victor go the spoils.
From his cover in the darkness, Bishop Diclux watched the witches cavort in the light of their bone-fire. Breasts shook and trembled. Sweat flew from tossed hair. Mouths ejected grunts and spewed wild ululations. Within the flames, a massive form hunkered, turning its shaggy, horned head from side to side in slow, baleful arcs. Diclux, Christian priest in public and diabolical warlock in secret, wrapped a hand around the hilt of his sword.
This was going to be a hunt to remember.
Diclux’s companions this night were his Hammer, eight warriors chosen from his enclave for their loyalty, cunning and appetite for blood. They had hunted together before, but never had their endeavors promised such gains. The extermination of the coven before them tonight would be a great victory against their age-old rivals in the service of dark powers. …
People thought the Beatles were back
One of rock’s obsessions since April 10, 1970 has been identifying the “next” Beatles. The music industry has heralded Badfinger, Oasis and others as the second coming, but these bands never reached the same heights in musicianship or cultural impact. One band to arrive on the scene in the seventies, however, was so impressive that people thought it was actually the Beatles come back under a pseudonym. That band was Klaatu. And yes, it was that good.
Klaatu Lands
Klaatu was from Canada — not Liverpool. John Woloschuk and Dee Long founded the band in 1973 and were soon joined by percussionist Terry Draper. They named the band after a being who visits Earth in the classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). The alien Klaatu and his robot Gort represent an interplanetary organization worried about humanity’s penchant for war on ever more destructive scales. If Earth’s nations won’t change their ways, Gort will use his death ray to exterminate the human race so it can’t pose a threat to its neighbors in outer space. So soon after two World Wars, in a world now under the threat of nuclear war, audiences must have felt that they too faced the choice presented by…
Jazz-rocker Donald Fagen’s futurescape is only utopian on the outside
Everyone knows road movies, but there are also road concept albums. The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking by Roger Waters, Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age and A Fine Day to Exit and The Optimist by Anathema are examples. Steely Dan visionary Donald Fagen’s Kamakiriad (1993) is another example, but one more dialed back. It’s perfect for lowering the top, donning your shades, and putting on the appearance of simply cruising through your mid-life existential crisis.
The Future Is Bright
Kamakiriad is set twenty minutes into the future and that future looks bright. According to the liner notes, the narrator’s new car is a multinationally produced Kamakiri, which means “praying mantis” in Japanese. It’s “steam driven, with a self-contained vegetable garden and a radio link with the Tripstar routing satellite.” This dream car runs on clean, renewable steam of the sort that may actually power our future if we get our act together enough to have a future. The lyrics, as on Fagen’s previous solo release The Nightfly (1982), are often optimistic, making this album an example of solarpunk before solarpunk was a thing. …
A Heavy Metal Inquiry: “Wicked Witch” by Demons & Wizards.
The heavy metal band Demons & Wizards released Touched by the Crimson King in 2005. It’s one of my top five heavy metal releases of all time, but my favorite track on the album, the ballad “Wicked Witch,” has always intrigued me. What exactly are the lyrics about?
Who Is Demons & Wizards?
Demons & Wizards is a heavy metal supergroup composed of Jon Schaffer, rhythm guitarist of Iced Earth, and Hansi Kürsch, vocalist of Blind Guardian. Each band was formed in 1984 and had achieved legendary status by the new millennium. The band’s first release was self-titled and showed that supergroups can be better than their members’ original bands, which is saying a lot in this case. …
Fantasy fiction has given each one a sword of her own
“When in doubt, start a brawl.” With these words, Alias in the fantasy novel Azure Bonds by Kate Novak and Jeff Grubb shows her descent from a venerable line of redheaded, short-tempered warrior women. These women are on fire and they rarely leave a room — after a brawl or lovemaking — without making a mark.
Sheena Easton’s hi-NRG cover album — fierce or fumbling?
Sheena Easton comes out of that old tradition that values cover songs. Accordingly, her discography is full of them, and her final studio album Fabulous (2000) was composed almost entirely of hi-NRG renditions of soul and R&B hits from before her own career took off. It’s a hybrid that promises fun — but cover albums are tricky. Like dance floors, they’re prone to get blood on them, and it’s usually the covering musician’s.
Sheena Easton debuted in 1981 with Take My Time. The album had hits in “Modern Girl” and “9 to 5,” but she would go on to have many more, releasing an album almost every year for a decade. Working with legends like Prince and Nile Rogers, she explored a constellation of pop styles, appeared regularly on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and appeared in film and television. There she is as herself on ALF . . . There she is mashing lips with Don Johnson on Miami Vice . . . By the end of the nineties, she no longer commanded as much attention, but she was still releasing albums and still lending her voice to hits by other artists. …
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