Article #21

 

THE TERMINATOR MEETS DOCTOR FATE!

 

It’s the month of the harvest, and also the month when kids (and some adults too) dress up and go out, trying to act scary (or be scared) while seeking their treats or turning tricks… I mean doing tricks.  Heh, slip of the type there.

 

It’s a time to celebrate the scary, including psychopaths, ghosts, goblins, monsters and the living dead.  Many of you may think I’m referring to the corporate world we work in and the creatures that inhabit it, but really I was talking about Halloween.  Aheh.  Okay, it was funnier before I typed it, so sue me.

 

Well, being a child of the 80s and early 90s, another trendy horror item has to be killer robots, such as this fellow:

 

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Doesn’t he just have the kind of face that just makes you want to bring him home to mother?  What you’re looking at is Arnold’s alter ego, the Terminator.  Creepy looking cuss, ain’t he?

 

Interesting side-bar about the Terminator movie, shortly after it came out, well known author Harlan Ellison sued the makers (i.e. James Cameron) for, well, basically ripping off his idea from a couple of his earlier (1960s) projects (pop on over to Wikepedia for the details if you’re interested).  They settled, and Ellison actually got credit on the first movie.

 

But of course, the idea of killer robot armies rising up to crush humanity is nothing really new – it seems to be about as old as the Industrial Revolution.  And like any good idea, it is used over and over and over again until run into the ground.  For instance, here’s an interesting image taken from a 1940s comic book, More Fun #62:

 

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Doesn’t our mechanical friend look a lot like our old friend the Terminator above?  Heck, they could easily be brothers, except that the More Fun Robot is wearing a metal skirt.  Want more proof?

 

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1940s Terminators, meet 1990s Terminator.  Honestly, aside from the snazzy skirt, antique rifle, bolts and giant elbows and shoulders, there’s not much difference between the two.  They both seem to be doing a good job of kicking humanity’s ass all over the place, and they both have that stylish bare bones skull faced look to them, making it seem like a skeleton army has risen up and declared war.

 

And when you’ve got trouble with creepy ghosts, who you gonna call?

 

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Man, it’s like Terminator, man vs. machine, with machine kicking ass!  Much like the Terminator, it’s man that creates the instrument of his downfall.  One thing I never could figure out in these stories, however, is how exactly a lone nut can afford all the parts and labor and supplies and power to create these obviously VERY EXPENSIVE instruments of death.  Many countries can’t even feed their troops, yet this guy can arm an entire army on his own!

 

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This is like a summer blockbuster!  Of course nowadays no one would mistake an army of killer robots for a Martian invasion.  That’s just silly.  Thanks to in depth analysis, we know what to expect the Martians to look like when they finally land and take over our humble planet… all hail our future overlords!!!

 

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Of course, the robots are wearing skirts too, so I can see how they could be mistaken.  But I digress.  How could any alien force hope to conquer us when we have Doctor Fate?

 

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Geez!  What the hell is Inza thinking?  Hasn’t she ever heard of SURPRISE?  It’s a good thing the robot’s deaf!

 

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Okay, point #2, the More Fun Terminator Robots are also gigantic.  And also, apparently, very easy to take apart by hand.  It’s funny, guns, bombs, shells, nothing else stops them – but you can disassemble them with your bare hands.  I wonder why they didn’t try that in the movie?

 

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And apparently they aren’t rustproofed either.  There’s another strategy gone to waste in the movie!  They could’ve just lured the robot with a giant magnet and then sprayed the darned robot with water, and poof, he’d be done for.  Now there’s a blockbuster of an ending!

 

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You don’t want to piss off Doctor Fate, that’s for sure!  It also seems that one of his other fantastic powers, is the ability to make his cape disappear and reappear at will (notice panel 4 and 8 and page 4 panel 6).  Freaky!  When science goes wrong, it’s always good to know that the mystic master has our backs!  Science, bah!  Magic makes the world go round!!!

 

Until next time!

 

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