Thanks to the Duras sisters, we had a new version of the Genesis torpedo, designated NTD-1701, to test. It had been suggested that, in order to elimnate competition from our greatest nemesis, both in battle and surfing, we go back in time to the early 21 st Century on the Terran’s star.

There we were, preparing for a wild ride using that G2 main sequence star to generate a wave worthy of being called the Mother of all Kowabungas.

“Sue’La, is that new torpedo ready?” I asked my Executive Officer.

“Everything is set. Just give the wod,” she responded.

“Let her rip. Surf’s up!”

The torpedo launched, making it’s way towards the Terran star, our ship was in position to catch a super wave. The Genesis torpedo hit the star dead center and…nothing. No explosion, no wave. Nothing.

“Very strange. B’indi, analysis. What went wrong,” I demanded of my science officer.

“There seems to be a disturbance in the Force. Seems to be some temporal anomaly caused the NT-1701 to fail,” responded Commander B’indi from her science station. “There also seems to be some unusual activity on the Terran homeworld causing the anomaly.”

Odd. Time to investigate. “Okay, pin down the coordinates. I am beaming down. Sue’La, you have the bridge. Engage cloaking device after I beam down. B’indi, provide the coordinates to the transporter room”

Minutes later, I was on the Earth. I found myself standing in the middle of small park. In the middle of the park was a playground for Terran children. None were about. I checked my chronometer. It gave me the local time and date. June 27 th, 2025, a little after 1PM local time. Geographically I was in a town called Riverside in the ancient Terran State of Iowa. Something familiar about name, but I couldn’t quite pin it down. The star shone bright above me. And then I saw it. In the middle of the playground was a gold Star Fleet emblem as a decoration, laid upon the ground. “What the heck?” I was, of course, puzzled by this.

An old Terran ground transport roared by, and I looked up as it passed, and across the road the vehicle was on was a building. I was shocked by what I saw in front of the building. I miniature Federation starship, much like the Enterprise. It had blazoned on it U.S.S. Riverside. More questions cropped up as I crossed the steet and saw that the building had a sign on it that read “The Voyage Home Riverside Visitor Center”

I pulled out my communicator and called up my ship. “Sue’La, check the history files, specifically Riverside Iowa. Query, what is significant about this place?”

“Birthplace of Captain James ‘The Tiger’ Kirk, born in the year 2228,” came Sue’La’s response.

I signed off and began walking around the town. I only went a few blocks when I saw it. A monument proclaiming this town as the FUTURE birthplace of that Denebian Slime Devil, Captain Kirk. How was this possible. The obvious answer was that this is why there was a time anomaly. This place was a focal point for the future of the Terrans and the Federation. But why? I decided to go back to the building designated as a visitor center. My communicator began buzzing, demanding my attention.

“nuqneH!” I demanded.

“Kahuna,” it was Sue’La, my executive officer. “A Federation task force has just warped in.”

“Impossible!” I responded.

I could hear my science officer in the background chime in. B’indi said “It appears to be of a strange composition. Federation ships from different eras. There is even an Orion trader coming in. And, of all things, a Gorn Battlecruiser just turned up.”

At that point, I spotted them. Several Starfleet officers had appeared near the visitor. Looking aruond, I could see more of them showing up. Different uniforms, different eras. They were mostly Terrans, with a few Vulcans amongst them. Even a couple of Andorians. None of them were attempting to blend in, pointy ears visible. And then there was The Gorn. Not just any Gorn, but The Gorn. The one that Kirk fought. He appeared to be ready to party, instead of looking like he was ready to fight. ‘What’s next?’ I thought. ‘Metrons? Organians? And Tholians? Oh, my.’

One of the Feddies spotted me, pointed, and called out, “Hey look. A Klingon.” He sounded a bit surprised, but definitely non-hostile. Perhaps the way I was dressed had something to do wht his reaction; swim trunks and floral print shirt common amongst us wave riders. “Where’s the beer?” he asked of me.

One of his buddies interrupted, “Beer tent is at the big park. Common, let’s go get a couple of beers. Hey Klingon, are you here for TrekFest, How about having a beer with us?”

I figured, what the Stovokor. I called up the ship and advised Sue’La and B’indi to beam down and join me as it was looking like it was shaping up to be quite a party.

As it turns out, the NTD designation on this new Genesis torpedo stands for “Not Today, Dude”.

Kahuna out.

Editor’s Note

TrekFest in Riverside Iowa is a great event to attend and a must
for all Star Trek fans.

This year, at Trek Fest 40, the guests included Bobby Clark,
one of the two stuntmen in the Gorn rig fighting Captain Kirk,
as well as Conner Trineer and Dominic Keating of Enterprise.

For more info, checkout the website at trekfest.org

Sqotty

If you have never read Perry Rhodan before, then this miniseries is a good place to start, and if you have read the Ace books editions from the ‘70s (something I have done), then you will see that there is a substantial difference in tone and style of writing, and not because these were written by writers who came along decades after those early Rhodan adventures were originally published (Germany, 1961 to about 1964). Look at this miniseries like individual Star Trek episodes. You can jump into the miniseries and not be lost in where the history of the series is as this set of six novels were designed to be a standalone series. You don’t have to have read any Perry Rhodan adventures (my God, there’s currently over 3200 novella length booklets in the series) in order to understand what is going on, and the background of Perry Rhodan (the character) that you may need is nicely filled in, as is the character of Icho Tolot who has played a role in the mainline series for a number of years (and he was a new character for me).

The first book buls up with a mystery to be solved as Perry Rhodan, traveling on a mining exploration ship, runs into a cosmic storm, and one of the auxiliary craft is lost. What they find during their search is a clue that leads them to an interstellar generation ship that has been in flight for over 50,000 years. That’s the opener. There is some interesting twists and turns as Rhodan learns about the inhabitants in this Ark as it is referred to in the series, and we also see insights to the culture that has developed in this generation ship over the centuries (shipboard time as it is a dilation flight, travelling at close to the speed of light).

The story continues in the second book, The Sleeper of the Ages, as a second such generation ship is discovered, in which the culture had developed differently than on the first generation ship. The mysteries deepen as we find that the system, and planet that the bulk of this book takes place on is inhabited by strange energy beings. The Perry Rhodan series is great at coming up with all kinds of interesting, and sometimes bizarre, alien beings.

Then we hit the third novel, Exodus to the Stars, gives us more background on the Arks, why they were built, and about the war that was raised against the ancient Lemurians, as well as the Lemurian who built the generation ships. There is also a lot more going on in the star system it takes place in other than finding Ark number 2 and the strange energy beings, including one heck of a mysterious space station. Good stuff!

The fourth novel, The First Immortal, provides a lot of additional background on the arks as yet another generation ship is found, and it gets a bit weird as that third generation ship is really different on how it developed during its flight, but is important to read as some of it plays a significant role in the last two novels. Also, I think the writer of this fourth novel must have been a bit short on his word count as a couple of chapters seemed to me to be unneeded filler that didn’t serve any purpose other than word count. When you get to this book, you’ll probably figure out which parts I am referring to. But don’t skip this book as it has some events that are critical to the whole story arc in this miniseres.

Book 5, The Last Days of Lemuria provides a heck of a lot of background on Lemuria, as well as Levian Paronn, who is the driving force for much of the plot. It predominantly focuses on ancient Lemuria, focusing on the war with the Beasts, or, as the Beasts call themselves, The Righteous Ones of Time, who considers the Lemurians to be Time Criminals. It also focuses on Icho Tolot and his role he plays in the dilation flight of the Lemurian gneeration ships. Lots of action in this one, and darn well written.

The final installment, The Longest Night is an action-packed thriller as Rhodan and his team explore a Beast base on a remote planet that had a Lemurian Time-teleporter and some Beasts that have been in sleeper mode for over 50,000 years, and preparing to restart the war. There is a lot of mystery for a good chunk of the novel as Rhodan and his team explores the base that is slowly coming to life, and as the new Beast War begins to fire up on all cylinders.

Overall I found the Lemuria miniseries be a darn good read, with some fascinating alien and cultural developments, as well as some really good engineering on how generation ships could work, at least in regards to some current and near future technology, such as generating gravity for the inhabitants in these space craft using centrifugal force. The propulsion system is a bit far-fetched, but, hey, this is science fiction! It is also a good place to start reading Perry Rhodan, which is still the longest running science fiction series in print.

The film opens with a race featuring Kovack having visions, then wiping out his car, and initially thought dead on the scene, but, thanks to Spock having nine lives, walks away from the smash-up. After the race, Kovack is in an interview on a television show, discussing the race and the visions he experienced that led up to the accident. Michele is shown to be watching the interview, and reveals that she is a student of the occult. She reaches out to Kovack, meeting with him. Kovack dusts Michele off initially, but then after experiencing a very weird vision, decides to head to London and meet with her and look into the visions he experienced more deeply.

This pretty much sets the stage for the story, and they meet Andrea and her daughter, Jennifer (Jewel Blanch) at Hanover House, and the plot thickens. Suspects galore and intrigue abounds as Andrea falls victim to the murder plot, with Kovack and Brent attempting to prevent her death.

The only real problem with the film itself is the green screen shots of Nimoy driving a race car were really bad looking. Maybe it held up okay on a smaller screen typical of the ‘70s, but clearly obvious matte shots. Unfortunately those shots are necessary to set the story in motion. Upside, long shots of the actual cars racing looked good. Other good points – the story focuses on paranormal experiences, rather than on supernatural beings being at play; no vampires or demonic forces, just psychic phenomenon and some form spellcraft at work.

The cast was predominantly good, especially Jewel Blanch as Jennifer, who makes a rather spooky shift from delightful 12 year old, to snotty 15 year old virtually overnight, She pulled off the switch in age portrayal to creepy effect. In some ways, I think she may have been the best of the supporting cast.

Overall, I found Baffled! to be a fun film to watch on a Saturday evening. Not scary, not overly creepy, but fascinatingly logically paranormal mystery (how’s that for word jam) with just the right touch of humor. If you haven’t seen it, look it up. We found it on Tubi, and it may be available from other streaming services. Look it up on IMDB.

There are a lot of battles taking place between the various members of both groups, some started unintentionally, some deliberately, while the Defenders gather the components of the Evil Eye from various places around the world. All seems to be going well with Dormammu’s plans, with the help of Loki, despite the Avengers interference. Once Dormammu’s hand in the affair is revealed, the combined forces travel to the Dark Dimension to confront Dormammu and prevent him from taking over our Dimension. I don’t want to give away too much of the story for anyone who is interested in reading, but has yet to do so. NOTE – the entire run is on Marvel Unlimited, which is handy for those who subscribe to it. Otherwise, it may take a bit of time to dig up good reading copies of the comics, but it will be worth it.

On the side of the Defenders, we have Doctor Strange, The Silver Surfer, Hulk, Namor, Valkyrie and Hawkeye who wandered into their fold after leaving the Avengers in a hissy-fit.

For the Avengers, we have Thor (facing off against the Hulk), Ironman (versus Hawkeye), the newly (re-)recruited Swordsman (facing of against the Valkyrie, with an interesting resolution to their battle), also new Avenger-hanger-on Mantis with the Black Panther (against a really Strange dude, er, Sorcerer Supreme), Wanda and Vision (meeting the Surfer), and Captain America (meeting up with Namor in Japan).

The creative talent for this story line includes Steve Englehart (writer); Sal Buscema and Bob Brown (pencils); Frank McLauglin, Mike Esposito, Frank Bolle, and Frank Giacoia (inks); Petra Goldberg and George Rousos (colors); Charlotte Jetter, Gaspar Saladino, June Braverman, John Costanza, Artie Simek, Tom Orzechowski (letters). (I think that’s everyone except cover art.) Both Buscema and Brown are darn good artists and combined with the other creative talent provide some very nice visuals. Englehart being the sole writer of the saga helped ensure cohesiveness throughout the adventure.

Indeed, it is the visuals of the Dark Dimension as the story heads to its climax that has been one of the lasting appeals to me for reading doctor Strange. I guess it is the rather psychedelic presentation of the Dark Dimension, and other mystic realms that has drawn me to these Strange Tales (pun intended – Doc Strange first appeared in Strange Tales #110, and that is also worth reading). Kind of brings out the inner hippy in me I guess.

All in all, good stuff, and worth the time to check out. For me, it was a trip down memory lane, rediscovering one of my favorite team crossover adventures.

Thanks for reading.

Comic Book Info
Series:  Uncle Scrooge and the Infinity Dime     
Issue:  1
Publisher:  Marvel Comics    Release Date:  June 2024 
Writer: Jason Aaron          Editor: Mark Paniccia
Art: Paolo Mottura           Colors: Arianna Consonni
     Francesco D'Ippolito
     Lucio de Giseppe
     Alessandro Pasrovicchio
     Vitale Mangiatordi
     Giada Persissinotto
Letters: Joe Caramagna       Cover Artist: Francesco Francavilla
Note - includes reprint of the story Christmas on Bear Mountain by Carl Barks

Being a slow reader with not a lot of time for fun reading (there’s this thing called making a living and raising a family that takes priority), it took a few days before I got to read this new Uncle Scrooge adventure. The gist of the story is that Uncle Scrooge, on one lonely Christmas, finds that a magic mirror he had acquired on his adventures from Magica de Spell has the ability to serve as a doorway to alternate universes. You can probably guess where what Scrooge does next, and if not, read the book! It’s worth it.

Before I get to far into the comic itself, I feel it is important to note that Jason Aaron included a one page article talking about his passion for, and motivation to bring us this whole new story. The article is well worth reading as he gives a bit of background on Carl Barks who wrote and drew all of those marvelous adventures way back in the day.Until I read Jason’s intro to the comic, I had no clue who made those original comic books for Gold Key.

Jason Aaron wrote a very compelling story about Uncle Scrooge and the Multiverse he finds himself in, complemented with his alternate self. The line-up of artists providing the pencils and inks, colors, and letters kept the look and feel of Uncle Scrooge consistent throughout the book, with touches of their own unique styles. The art is a lot of eye candy, with some gorgeous panels.

As noted above, the book includes a reprint of Carl Barks story “Christmas on Bear Mountain”, which Aaron points out in his intro has a direct relationship to how his story opens.

Even better, at the end of the book there is an announcement for two issues of What If… featuring Donald duck to look forward to.

That’s about it. It’s been a long time since I have posted on my own blog, I figure it is about time to start doing so again, and what better way to do so than with talking about one of my childhood favorites that is seeing new life in comics.

Thanks for joining me here, and see you next time.

I am not sure why I got the wild burr to read this story line from 1983, but I am glad I did. I’ve always been a fan of The Mighty Thor and had been working (okay, more like slogging) my way through Journey Into Mystery with Thor, then decided to skip ahead to the Beta Ray Bill story line. The story begins with Thor #337 and runs for four issues, written and drawn by Walt Simonson. Simonson’s art for Thor is gorgeous, well worth checking out for that reason alone. The writing is also top notch, which is why I like comics from this era the best.

The background is SHIELD dispatches Thor to intercept a strange spacecraft as only Thor can do, and there Thor encounters the ship Scuttlebutt, and automated AI controlled battleship. When Thor enters the ship, it releases the deep-sleep guardian, Beta Ray Bill, who battles Thor to a standstill, and inadvertently picks up Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. This marked the first time in the history of Thor that Mjolnir has found another being to be worthy of its power.

Many battles, and a lot of backstory, Odin determines that both Thor and Beta Ray Bill are worthy of the power of Mjolnir, and so has a new hammer fabricated for Bill. Long story short.

There is also backstory on the doings in Asgard with Balder the Brave and another new character Lorelie (but that’s another story).

Thor continues to be one of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. Along with Doctor Strange, Nick Fury, and a host of others. If you have access to these issues of Thor, give them a read. Check it out on Marvel Unlmited if you have access, or look for good reading copies somewhere.

For several years I had been using CBI – Comic Book Inventory – on iOS. It was pretty nice and did everything I needed it to do for inventory management. Well, thise days are gone. Looks like the developer decided to no longer support it, and it is no longer in the app store, nor would it work for downloading covers. I found this out when I went to sync my collection up on my new phone. Dagnabit – the app wouldn’t load.

So, now I am on an adventure to find a new app to manage my collection. There are a few.

CLZ from collectorz seems pretty good, and more importantly, it has an import feature so I can get my collection loaded into it. It features manual input and barcode input. Could be handy-dandy for updating my collection. Nifty neato. Barcode scanning is new for me as CBI did not have that feature. Importing my data from CBI to the Comic Connect website worked okay, but the collection came up as being “unlinked”. Weird. I was then able to load a set of comics to the iOS app, however only very little data shows up. There is a feature on the iPhone version of the app to update the data from the core. Supposedly it exists on the iPad as well, however the app layout and function is a bit different, and getting to the point where I can sync to the core database is not as intuitive. Be that as it may, on the iPhone, it doesn’t work, probably because my data is “unlinked” Email sent to their support on this issue. The import database process could use some over-hauling.

Adding new comics is, quite frankly, a breeze. Go to the add issue, enter in a title, and it pulls up a list of issues, just select the ones you want to add, and poof, they’re in your database. This will also make it a bit easier to get my data from the old CBI app loaded if this “unlinked” comics issue can’t be resolved. A bit time consuming, but, not too bad.

Barcode scanner – well, like everything else I have used barcode scanning, takes getting the camera angle right, but once it pics up the barcode, poof, item is added. Slick!

Next up – iCollect

There seems to be two versions on the Apple App Store – one labelled iCollect, the other Comic Book Collector Database, both from iCollect, and both are pretty poor compared to CLZ. My adventure at this point is looking pretty grim.

iCollect – well, it has a nice look, but the interface to enter comics manually is pretty kludgy. Also, the import database from a different app requires sending a file to their support desk, and they will, supposedly, convert it to the correct format for their app. Say what? Really didn’t like the initial pass on this app.

Comic Book Collector isn’t much better, and seems to be specifically designed for iPhone, not iPad, which is wonky. The manual add is similar to iCollect, as is the process to import your existing data. The database to manually add issues seems to be a bit better, but, wow, kludgy as all get out as you have to add cover images before you can save it to your database. Say what? Yeah, really.

All three of these apps cost a few bucks to unlock so you can add more than a few comics. For me, no biggie. I have no issue paying for software that I will be using. And as they supply cloud support for syncing across multiple devices, then definitely worth the bucks.

Final note – this is my take on these apps. You should test them for yourself, and any others you run across and see which one floats your boat. Right now, I am looking at CLZ as being new comic inventory app. The only hangup I have with CLZ is the import my old data process. Assuming that can get hammered out, it will be a major win. And even if it isn’t I think I can fairly easily get all of my current data loaded in a few hours (I have several thousand comics spanning roughly 60 years).

The synopsis is – Frankie’s parents are in Europe for the summer. He and pal Bogie meet vampire Count Erik Von Zipper, aka Moondoggie, at the beach. Bogie invites von Zipper and his entourage to come party and Frankie’s house. The vampires move in, along with their ghoul, Bruno. Frankie now needs help to rid himself of these troublesome vampires. To accomplish this, he turns to the Big Kahuna, Professor von Helsingmeister. No wonder Stoker shortened the name!

Oh, and Von Zipper’s ghoul, Bruno (Sydney Lassick), really gave us a case of the creeps. Unlike the vampires, who were very neat and clean vampires, taking their dinner out, Bruno made huge messes in the kitchen.

Overall, a pretty good film, although some of the dialog is not suitable for young ears (like my daughter’s). It has fun with the beach movie connection, with Frankie and DeeDee, Erik Von Zipper, who also uses the name Moondoggie from the film Gidget, and Adam West as the Big Kahuna. Oh, and least I forget, Dick Dale, the King of the Surf Guitar, puts in a cameo playing at the beach with his son on drums.

Count Erik Von Zipper was played by Johnny Venocur, and he carried the Von Zipper role quite well, even looking a lot like Harvey Lembeck, the original Von Zipper.

Also of interest, this was Carmen Electra’s first film, and she really vamped it up as one of Von Zipper’s vampire girls.

If you have never heard of it before, don’t be surprised. I ran across mention of it quite by accident and was intrigued because of the beach movie connections, Adam West, and Dick Dale.

So, if you really dig the beach movies of the ’60s, give this film a shot. Maybe Bruno the ghoul won’t wig you out as much as he did us.