Thursday, May 21, 2026
THE MUMMY'S TOMB: A CLASSIC MONSTERS OF THE MOVIES TRIBUTE
The Mummy's Tomb is the second chapter in Universal's Kharis franchise. Thanks to scholars Nige Burton and Jamie Jones, it receives the royal treatment in a 36-page, Classic Monsters of the Movies tribute.
Though Tom Tyler portrayed Kharis in The Mummy's Hand, Lon Chaney Jr. (hot off of Man Mad Monster, The Wolf Man and The Ghost of Frankenstein) seized the moldy reins of the anguished prince who was mummified alive (with tongue severed), due to a reckless attempt to resurrect his cherished Princess Ananka.
For this 1942 sequel, vengeance is in full swing, as Kharis (thanks to the lure of tana leaves) is dispatched to track and kill those who dared to disrupt Ananka's tomb, while eliminating others who dare cross his path.
Burton & Jones assess the sequel at length and share biographies on its prime cast, which along with the headlining Chaney, includes George Zucco, Wallace Ford and Dick Foran and Frank (King Kong/House of Frankenstein) Reicher (all four returning from The Mummy's Hand); Turhan (The Amazing Mr. X/Arabian Nights) Bey; Elyse (Joe Palooka/Arabian Nights) Knox; Harry (The Black Cat '34) Cording; and John (One Million B.C.) Hubbard. Additional credit is given to director Harold (The Frozen Ghost/Jungle Captive) Young; writers Griffin Jay, Henry Sucher and Neil P. Varnick; composer Hans Salter; and makeup maverick Jack Pierce; among other superb contributors.
The Mummy's Tomb is a significant installment in the Kharis saga, with its success having inspired further, Chaney sequels. If you're a Kharis disciple, this Classic Monsters salute is one to possess.
THE MUMMY'S HAND: A CLASSIC MONSTERS OF THE MOVIES TRIBUTE
Long before reboots became fashionable, The Mummy's Hand inaugurated the concept, as Universal moved from Boris Karloff's Imhotep to Tom Tyler's Kharis.
To commemorate the landmark switch, Classic Monsters of the Movies' writers/researchers Nige Burton & Jamie Jones analyze the 1940 revision, The Mummy's Hand.
At the outset, Prince Kharis' tale mirrors Imhotep's, with the heartbroken noble attempting to resurrect his beloved Princess Ananka. However, due to the his sacrilegious act, he's mummified (with his tongue removed), becoming the abiding sentinel of the princess' tomb. Centuries later, when an expedition comes upon Ananka's resting place, a high priest awakens Kharis through tana leaves, prompting the mummy to pursue the intruders.
The authors give a thorough, academic assessment of the movie, as well as tossing the spotlight on Kharis actor and western/movie-serial star, Tom Tyler. Bios on his costars include George Zucco, Wallace Ford, Dick Foran, Peggy Moran, Cecil Kellaway, Charles Trowbridge and Eduardo Cianelli. Burton & Jones give equal veneration to the movie's director, Christy Cabanne; its producer, Ben Priva; its writers, Griffin Jay and Maxwell Shane; its composers, Hans J. Salter and Frank Skinner; its cinematographer, Elwood Bredell; its legendary makeup man, Jack Pierce; among other talented contributors. (There's no question that their efforts ushered an influential, if not eternal, effort in the corridors of creepy cinema.)
The illuminating, 36-page, photo-packed edition is a must for horror fans and reboot historians; so say a little prayer to Amon-Ra, get those tana leaves stoked and order Classic Monsters of the Movies: The Mummy's Hand for your collection.
https://www.classic-monsters.com/shop/product/mummys-hand-1940-ultimate-guide-magazine/
LARRY JOHNSON'S THE COMPLETE LEW BROWN
I think of Lew Brown as the alter ego of the artist/writer Larry Johnson. Lew (who's been featured in Johnson's Tales of Fantasy and the novel, The Hand) is a man (a reporter) who finds himself in the most extraordinary places, meeting the most extraordinary individuals, with each path steered by Johnson's venturesome imagination. In other words, Lew sees through Johnson's mindful eyes, and I believe it's safe to say that he reacts to situations just as his creator would.
In the black-and-white, 187-page The Complete Lew Brown (Vol 1), Johnson offers a satisfying smorgasbord of his counterpart's 1984-1993, comic-strip exploits. The stories feature a Harryhausen-ish skeleton; a jarring tryst with a bird man; a magical, aboriginal reverie; a hypnotic visit to "paradise"; a sojourn to a static-laden dimension; a wrestling match with the exotic Eltaur; a matter of fortune-telling and possession with the conniving Madame Boogala; a time-traveling trip spurred by Lew's neighbors, Joe and Francine Carbone; the fiendish fate of a bicycle thief; a fictional monster made real; Joe's "image rectifier" and the seductive gorgon it summons; Joe turning Lew invisible; the emulating antics of Joe's robot butler, Ambro; the mystical effects of Francine's memory-inducing tear-drop gem; Lew's crazy crossover with Space Cat; and last but not least, Boogala's bold return for the collection's metamorphic epilogue.
As one can infer, Johnson gives readers much to absorb in The Complete Lew Brown, and the brief descriptions above don't convey the vast intricacies that each story holds. Nonetheless, Brown's sojourns would please any fan of The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Amazing Stories and One Step Beyond, where commoners slip into uncommon situations.
On second thought, perhaps it's a tad inaccurate to categorize Lew as common. In fact, Johnson makes his reflected self an "everyman" conduit for the outlandish, though in such a way that his bizarre scenarios feel credible. Perhaps that's why these fantastic tales work so well. Yes, they're phantasmagoric, but at their core, they emblemize the familiar highs and lows of any visionary life. (BTW: Johnson ruminates on Lew's genesis in the volume's pensive preface.)
There's no question that Johnson's fictional confidant has become one of my favorites. I believe that if you give The Complete Lew Brown a whirl, he'll become one of yours, too.
The Complete Lew Brown (Vol 1) can (and should) be purchased at
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GXTLP6HM?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
I SAW THE BOYS: SEASON 5
It's been a long run, sometimes enthralling, more often than not unnerving, but for better or worse, The Boys has come to a close, or so that's the declaration. (As one knows, franchises never die. They just get revived. Give this one time. It'll resurface in some form or another, even beyond a Gen V sequel or the anticipated, Soldier Boy/Bombsight/Stormfront-led, Vought Rising prequel. Say, maybe Homelander will be resurrected and seek revenge. Well, it's not out of the realm of possibility.)
Anyhow, this "final" season didn't strike me as repugnant as the others. I'm grateful for that. (I'm still distressed by that revolting, Hughie Campbell/Webweaver, cake display in "Dirty Business," and as for Homelander's "One More Pallbearer"/Fudgie the Whale escapade in "Wisdom of the Ages," well, it remains the irrevocable stuff of nightmares.)
This season struck me as more comedic than previous ones, with its humor more unpretentious and surface-level, as when the Deep had his big, "Fredo" moment and Noir II auditioned as Barry Gibb for an off-Broadway, Bee Gees play.
However, most of the guffaws came from the buddy-movie tropes. The banter between Homelander and Soldier Boy (father and son, no less) sealed such (and was a major highlight, in fact), even as it continued to insert traces of lewdness: in this season's case, their shared flings with Firecracker and Soldier Boy's cringy, Shari Lewis fixation.
I did enjoy Paul Reiser's the Legend and liked him more than I realized, enough so that the reputed, Stan Lee-inspired, fast talker made "Though the Heavens Fall" my favorite chapter of the series. Wish there had been more of him in the series. Ah, well, it is what it is.
But that's the damn thing. The Boys tended to tease a lot, rather like Daredevil: Born Again, Season 2. In other words, it dangled concepts without delivering many payoffs. The series was, in reflection, a string of wise-cracking, gory interludes, underscored by that familiar, Brightburn aim, often rounded off by Ashley Barrett's frantic, duplicitous refrains. Yeah, the dots were connected, but for what cause?
Maybe the show was trying to say there's no real good or bad in the world, that political parties are all one and the same, nationalism is designed for compliant dummies and ambition, whether among the Supes or the saga's titular troop, is just a means to a self-serving end. For those viewers who felt compelled to identify with (i.e. root for) a faction, it came down to picking the perceived lesser of two evils, if evil (by example or exposition on this show) even exists. In The Boys' ambivalent context, it was damn hard to tell.
O Father's bling-over-humility sure didn't help much in that regard, but nor did Firecracker, with her misconstrued contradictions. In truth, all of the series' pro-American Holy Rollers were two-faced (and far more than Barrett ever was, ha ha), though none were as extreme as Homelander, who sought validation by becoming the faux Christ of a sanctimonious ruse called the Democratic Church of America.
Beneath the ethereal glitz, the church was the epitome of despair, filtered through an ironic promise of hope. Perhaps then, this constitutes The Boys' paramount point. Without virtue, hope is a vain pursuit, even among the Boys' members, whether it be Billy Butcher, Hughie, Starlight, Mother's Milk, Frenchie, Kimiko, the "unreal" Joe Kessler (who never did belong), the Johnny-come-lately Sister Sage and the waiting-in-the-wings Marie Moreau. In their broad, magnanimous strand, they were all full of shite (as Butcher would say), and that's a shame.
Call me naive, perhaps uncool, but I like a dose of optimism in my superhero lore. I prefer the idea that good and bad aren't indivisible. That's because I've seen the evidence. Such cut-and-dry factions do exist, with blaring example upon example emerging time and again, day after day, with enough clashing, philosophical contrasts to make one's head spin. That The Boys dismisses the staggering proof only demonstrates how full of shite the saga is.
And yet I watched this satirical shite. It held my attention. I wanted to see where it would go, even if I knew I wouldn't like where it went.
With that said, if I ever get a craving for a superhero fling (and those cravings do strike me a lot), The Boys won't be my prime, revisited pick. I'll likely choose Superman and the Mole Men, Superman: the Movie, Batman '66, Batman '89, Captain America '79, Captain America '90 (either cut), Spider-man '77, Spider-man '02 or perhaps if I'm feeling a trifle moody, I'll work in The Dark Knight or The Watchmen, maybe do a double feature of Logan and The Winter Solider. It's just the way I'm made, and it's clear that The Boys, though a devilish diversion, was never made for me or those who hold my positive, stuffed-shirt perspective.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxEPV4kolz0
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