SUMMER OF ACTION! -- A Savage Beauty Holds the Key to World Survival

Sometimes the Trap Catches the Trapper

SERIES: Nick Carter, Killmaster
VOLUME/TITLE: #31/Macao
AUTHOR: Manning Lee Stokes
PUBLISHER: Award Books
YEAR: 1968
OPENING LINES: London sweltered. It was the last week of July and for days now the thermometer had been bushing near to eighty. In Britain that is hot and it was only natural that the consumption of beer, mild and bitter, and nut brown ale should increase in direct ration to the degree Fahrenheit.
CLOSING LINES: He went back to the booth where Miss Benita Dawson, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was waiting for him.

Nick Carter, Killmaster, was not the first American attempt to emulate the trademark spy adventures of Ian Fleming's creation James Bond 007, but if NICK CARTER, KILLMASTER #31: Macao is any indication, it may be one of the best. At least in terms of hitting all the right notes.

Carter – Agent N3 of AXE, a super secret and lethal spy agency of the United States – is a suave ladies man who is vacationing in London when he comes to the "rescue" of the out-of-control Princess de Gama, a Portugese beauty with a dark secret in her past that she medicates with drugs, booze and the attention of the opposite sex. Or, as AXE chief David Hawk puts it, "she is an international tramp with an appetite for booze and drugs and not much else". Meow!

Pretty soon Carter's act of chivalry finds him mixed up in a pornographic blackmail plot turned into a grisly murder scene, complete with a mutilated corpse whose mouth is stuffed with its own genitals. Seizing the opportunity to put the pretty princess to work for Uncle Sam, Hawk sends Carter and her to Macao on a mission to trap Colonel Chun Li, head of Chinese Counter-Intelligence.

Did I mention that Chun Li has set out a trap to capture Carter in order to put his own nefarious scheme into motion?

By the time Macao came out in 1968 the series most definitely out-Bonded James Bond to paraphrase a popular Killmaster series cover blurb of the day. Fleming was dead and any original Bond books from his pen were kaput. The film series had slowly but surely detoured away from the more espionage-oriented books into the somewhat cartoonish villainy of films like THUNDERBALL and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE. Fans of Fleming's original novels could take solace in the world of the Killmaster complete with its super secret government agency and a gruff but fatherly boss who looked upon his deadliest agent as more than just a government assassin. (Other books in the series would further complete the bizarro Bond comparison thanks to a flirty secretary for Hawk and a Q-ish tech expert named Poindexter of all things.)

If you've read even one of Fleming's 007 novels you'll probably find yourself enjoying Macao much like I did – as a cut-rate Bond effort, right down to the hilarious description of a disguised Carter (whose cover image looks like a young Robert Wagner as pointed out by card-carrying Man of Action John Grace) pretending to be a nose-picking, cross-eyed coolie who shouts "No sabby. Want Hong Kong dolla now!" at a clerk he's just about to karate chop into submission. (I couldn't help but recall a giant, paunchy Sean Connery trying to pass for a Japanese fisherman in the unintentionally hilarious YOLT.)

The storyline globe hops in typical Bond fashion, our hero and heroine find themselves chained naked in a basement dungeon awaiting a fate worse than death, the villain gladly shares his evil scheme with a chained Carter, and there's a shifty ally who were never quite sure we can trust.

Unlike SWAG and THE CHAMELEON, the KILLMASTER series would prove to be one of the most durable and long-running of the men's action series. Dragon Slay, the 261st (!) Nick Carter adventure was published in 1990. We'll be back with more Nick Carter coverage as the Summer of ACTION! continues.

Summer of ACTION! -- The Chameleon is Mad as Hell!

Like You, He's Mad As Hell And Not Gonna Take It Anymore!

SERIES: The Chameleon
VOLUME/TITLE: #1/The Wrath of Garde
AUTHOR: Jerry LaPlante
PUBLISHER: Zebra
YEAR: 1979
OPENING LINES: The rock passage was closing in. Off to the left, it tapered into a thin vanishing crack. My fingertips reached no more than a foot from my prone body before they wedged into solid mountain.
CLOSING LINES: "Balls." I bent over, holding mine in agony.

When I was a kid I'd usually accompany my Mom when she would go grocery shopping or make a trip to the Moorestown Mall (at that time the bastard stepchild of area malls). Since it was the late 1970s/early 1980s and nobody seemed really aware of things like child abduction and milk carton "missing" pics she'd usually drop me off in the book and magazine section while she went off to double- and triple-coupon the store into the red.

When we went to K-Mart or Pathmark I frequently found myself thumbing through the tie-ins for horror flicks like THE OMEN or AUDREY ROSE – stuff I wasn't allowed to see but could piece together in my mind thanks to "16 pages of black and white photos!". For any of you kids reading out there, trust me, the movie you make in your mind is probably gonna be waaaayyy better than whatever the filmmakers dish out.

But my favorite place was the little independent bookstore that sat at the end of a sad little branch of the Moorestown Mall. It might have been called Moorestown Books, though I can't be sure. What I do remember was that they had row upon row upon row of the men's adventure novels of the day... from hair-raising spy sagas featuring Nick Carter, Mack Bolan and Remo Williams to "sexy" adult westerns featuring Longarm. (I also seem to remember that there was a Roy Rogers across from it.)

These books were like forbidden fruit. For some reason my folks would never let me buy them, even though I'd burned through pretty much every James Bond book two or three times. I suppose the frequently lurid covers didn't help (not to mention double entendre-packed names like "Longarm"!) and, unlike the 007 novels, didn't come with my brother-in-law's stamp of approval.

And so, I'd stand there flipping through the latest from Killmaster, Executioner or Destroyer, always on the alert for my Mom. She'd already installed household bans on KISS and PLANET OF THE APES and I didn't want to queer the deal on my bookstore dalliances.

These days, venturing out to a used book sale is like being that 12-year-old kid again – except this time I get to buy whatever the hell I want! Like CHAMELEON #1: The Wrath of Garde (Buy at Amazon), which I grabbed immediately upon spotting it on a table littered with more popular examples of mass market literature.

Were James Bond to head up Q division the resulting hero might be something like Vance Garde, a "mild-mannered, scientific engineering genius" who uses his brains and the resources of his firm to, well, not so much fight crime as exact revenge against those who he feels have wronged him and/or his family.

Garde leaps into action when his young stepsister Sharon dies of a drug overdose thanks to a low-rent dealer nicknamed "The Oregano Kid". Spurred on to "don't get mad... get even", Garde creates a division known as VIBES (Vindication against Injustice, Bureaucracy and Ensconced Stupidity) and enlists the help of the beautiful Ballou Annis to ferret out the upper rungs of the drug pushing ladder that killed Sharon. Along the way he uncovers clues to the identity of his father's murderer, experiences multiple bouts of blue balls with Ms. Annis, and dispenses with more than one villain in colorful fashion that would make James Bond blush.

Little more than "Bond Lite" with more graphic sex and rougher violence, The Wrath of Garde is a breezy read thanks to Zebra's typically easy on the eyes font size and the check-your-brain-at-the-door plotline. You'll figure out most of the twists and turns long before the "brilliant" Garde but you won't hate yourself for going along for the ride.

The cover copy and art might actually be more entertaining than the book itself. The artist's rendition of Garde (resplendent in white jacket and burgundy turtleneck!) appears to clearly be based on a young Tony Curtis, though my wife suggested that there might be a little MANNIX-era Mike "Touch" Connors in there as well. As for the sheet-covered Ms. Annis? Sure looks like Elizabeth Taylor to me.

More challenging than figuring out the reference art is deciphering the cornucopia of pop culture references used to sell the reader on the book, not to mention the most perplexing of all questions: Why the hell is this series called The Chameleon?!

Both The Incredible Hulk (?!) and James Bond get name checked on the back cover copy while there's even a reference to NETWORK's Howard Beale ("Like You, He's Mad As Hell And Not Gonna Take It Anymore!") that appears atop all three books in the series. The colorful "Chameleon" logo is prominently displayed all over the covers despite the fact that – as Marty McKee keenly points out at his blog Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot – "[he] isn't a master of disguise or a cat burglar or anything like that".

Alas, the adventures of Vance Garde and Annis Ballou never really caught on and the series ended after two more books – In Garde We Trust (Buy at Amazon) and Garde Save The World (Buy at Amazon).

Barry's Bond Legacy

I've gone through a ton of various phases in my lifetime – tennis nut, conspiracy buff, thrift store addict, hopeless Atari collector, PLANET OF THE APES-phile, you get the picture – but I'd venture that the World of James Bond was one of, if not the first, that I really immersed myself in.

My brother-in-law had original paperbacks of all the Fleming Bond books and as soon as I could appreciate them he started letting me borrow them so I could read the series in order. This was also around the time of the release of THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, arguably Roger Moore's finest moment as 007, and I remember trekking up the street to the local theater to see it a handful of times during the summer of 1977. Couple that with ABC's frequent airings of the earlier Connery classics and I was totally hooked on Bond.

It didn't hurt that my older brothers had already been through this phase, so our garage was littered with vintage Bond board games and not one, but two of the gadget-packed attache cases that sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay. My friends and I played with them till the cases fell apart and the guns, rubber bullets, soft plastic knives, cap bombs and booby-trapped notebooks broke or were buried in my backyard. Only a couple decoders survived my childhood.

So it was sad to hear the news that legendary soundtrack composer/conductor John Barry passed away earlier this week. Though his legendary career truly runs the gamut (the man did the score for the amazing STAR CRASH for god's sake!) I think most folks will remember him as the man behind the music of Bond. And rightly so... the oft-imitated, never duplicated 007 theme has become a cinematic music icon, copied, ripped-off and parodied to the limit.

Luckily, one small piece of my Bond collection that has survived eight moves is my cache of Bond-related LPs. While I think I only own one or two original soundtracks (including the LP for the underated ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE featuring the great "All the Time in the World" written by Barry and sung by Louis Armstrong) I've never been able to pass up an album of tracks "inspired by" the soundtrack contributions of Barry and Co.

In Barry's memory, here's a sampling of tunes that will forever cement his legacy as the Man Behind the Bond Theme. (You can right-click and download any of the MP3s to your computer for listening at your leisure or click and play them now.)

Once United Artists realized they had a hit on their hands with the James Bond film franchise there was no stopping the spin-off machine. In fact, the explosion of 007 merchandise in the wake of GOLDFINGER's release is simply amazing to behold.

One of the many offshoots was the 007 album, in this case an authorized United Artists release featuring songs from the first three flicks as well as "interpretations of the Bond scene" by artists like Sir Julian, The Leasebreakers, Dick Ruedebusch and others.

This particular selection – entitled 'Golden Girl' – comes courtesy of LeRoy Holmes who left MGM for United Artists in the 1960s. He became a staple of their movie-oriented LPs and has several tracks on this slab. I'm not sure what mood LeRoy was trying to evoke here, but 'Golden Girl' is more "bawdy strip club" than "action-packed spy affair". It also flirts with the revved up music that accompanied the late-1960s 'Spider-Man' animated series that warped my fragile little mind.

United Artists must have been in a hurry to get this one out as nobody noticed the back cover blooper that suggests taking a tip from 007 and settling back with a "tasty martini, gently stirred and not shaken."

The success of GOLDFINGER inspired many other record companies to get in on the action, including RCA whose "GOLDFINGER AND OTHER MUSIC FROM JAMES BOND THRILLERS" features naturalized British subject Ray Martin and his Orchestra interpreting 007 soundtrack standards such as the super-spy's theme as well as title tunes from GOLDFINGER and FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

The back cover of this particular classic features some fine LP copy from one Mort Goode...

James Bond is the inspired 007: Sir Hocus-Pocus; Lord Hokkum; Duke of Deviltry; a combination of the Royal Marines, the FBI, the Rangers and Houdini; a name that makes Casanova sound like a Brazilian supper club. He scales super-heights in the erasure of inhuman Bondage and sparks romantic ideas for the timid, the tiresome and others who can't even entertain an option.

Wow! Keep that in mind as you enjoy the cut 'Girl Trouble' from the magnificent FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE.

Here's a couple choice cuts from the Springboard Records release: "Music from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME & Other Great JAMES BOND THRILLERS As Performed by the Film Festival Orchestra". I've had this album since I first snagged it in a grocery store back in the late-70s and it was probably the first piece in my Sounds of Bond collection, as well as the first of many Springboard records and tapes I would own (and sell or trade) over the years.

Looking at the cover now I wonder how I was expected to resist it – curvy babes, cars, helicopters, explosions and sharks! Even at 10 I knew this was super cool and that I was helpless against the power of cheesy ads.

Enjoy two tracks from this great release: the theme from ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (arguably my favorite 007 flick) and Barry's historic "James Bond Theme" from DR. NO.

The "Sleepwalk" Guitars of Dan and Dale may be – along with Chubby Checker – one of the few accurate names in the history of recorded music. Never has surf guitar inspired so many naps on my part. Check out this surf- and western-influenced take on the theme from GOLDFINGER.

I love these split LPs with seemingly-disparate movies like GOLDFINGER and ZORBA THE GREEK getting the knock-off soundtrack treatment. Another favorite in my collection features FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE coupled with Henry Mancini's iconic score for THE PINK PANTHER. It might not make sense for everybody, but Bond and the Panther were probably the first two cinematic tunes I ever identified with and that LP feels like it was made just for me.

Last but not least, the world of Bond has inspired plenty of gentle and not-so-gentle parodies over the years. Matzoh jokes and politically incorrect schtick are the trademarks of the borscht belt 007 spoof, JAMES BLONDE: THE MAN FROM TANTE. In this sequence, Blonde confronts matzoh maker and master criminal Goldflaker on the set of his latest commercial, gently tweaking both Bond and Barry's tunes along the way.

New 007 Novel Arrives in Style

The new James Bond novel – Devil May Care – arrived in style today as the first copies were treated to an escort by Royal Navy helicopters and delivery by a cat-suited supermodel. To be honest I can't even remember the last Bond book I read, but I know it was one of the John Gardener efforts. Those books started off well enough but eventually degraded into predictable efforts that made some of the Roger Moore scripts seem like high art.

The new book is written by author Simon Faulks who says that this will be his one and only 007 effort.

Bond Producers Unveil Incredibly Bad Title of New 007 Flick

Didn't we learn anything from the LICENSE TO KILL/LICENSE REVOKED debacle? Apparently not as 007 producers unveiled the title of the new Bond flick today.

(Drumroll please)

QUANTUM OF SOLACE.

Sounds like a Merchant/Ivory film directed by Darren Aronofsky.

UPDATE: Apparently I'm not alone in my dislike of the new Bond flick title.