The Space Guys Adventure, Part 15!

 It's the end of a bad week, and I decided to get one post in. Naturally, what that left me with is yet another installment of the Space Guys. Hey, this is actual space stuff. As usual, the table of contents is at the end.

The last and largest delivery was a 50-meter xenon tank straight from Jupiter, to be launched Europa, the next major moon inward from their holding orbit over Ganymede. “It’s so big, none of the tenders could handle it,” the captain explained. “They finally decided to attach it to another tank full of ice wired with thermite. The charges will vaporize the gases and blow it into a suitable orbit. The Pegasus will separate to pull into a matching trajectory, then two crewmen will descend from the main hold of the Pegasus to secure it with tethers. Moxon has volunteered. We need one more.”

Jax agreed to be the second person, without any objection. Jason and Alek were assigned to the Pegasus cockpit/ command center. Old Yuri was in charge of the communications, from the rear station. The ship’s course kept a blind side to Jupiter. It did offer a good view of the moon Io, still further in. Its surface made Jason think of a pear in a still life painting: Faded yellow, covered in pores and pockmarks that were in reality immense mountains and craters. From over 200,000 kilometers range, he could see the flare of an ongoing eruption. “There was a plan to put our main base on Io instead of Ganymede,” Yuri remarked. “It has the highest gravity of any satellite. The downside is, it has over 400 active volcanos. It’s a nice enough place to visit, not so much to stay.”

Europa came into view ahead. It was the gloomy gray of a weathered ball bearing. The surface was rock and ice, much of the latter actual solidified dihydrogen monoxide. That was novel enough to justify a base with a whole fifty crew, normally employed in carving out ice to supply ships and other settlements. A video feed showed the final preparations for the launch. Two tracked crawlers pulled the enormous tank assembly on what amounted to a trailer, on four balloon-like tires as big as the crawlers themselves. A third crawler was finishing scraping a flat surface for a launchpad. When the tank reached the center, a dozen crew raced out. They quickly attached cables that led to a titanic crane. The camera pulled back to show the improvised rocket pulled upright. In the near distance, the base could be seen, a single dome with two adjoining half-cylinders that looked just like Quonset huts from a war movie.

Yuri’s voice cut in. “We have an audio feed from the hold,” he said. “It must be a mike that turned on automatically when Moxon and Lightower came in. I can patch it through or shut it down; what’s your call?”

Alek spoke up before Jason could decline. “Send it through,” she said.

The feed began abruptly with Jax in mid-sentence: “-ing is okay. Jill will probably have the baby in another week, maybe two.”

Moxon spoke then: “How do you feel about that?”

“I’m happy, of course. I’m glad everything is all right.”

“That’s happy for them, not you. How do you really feel about having a kid with her?”

Jason cut back to Yuri. “Yuri, are you hearing any of this?” he said.

“No,” the old spacer said, quite innocently. “The circuit goes directly to the cockpit. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering,” Jason said. He switched back to the feed. Whatever Jax had said, Moxon was talking again.

“-Course, you want to take care of the woman who gave you a son. Just remember, that doesn’t mean your options aren’t open. These are enlightened times, and that runs both ways.”

After a moderately long silence, the officer changed subjects. “You know, I can see why you and Jason are friends,” he said. “I do like him, really, even if he doesn’t like me.”

Jason turned to Alek. She glanced pointedly at the switch that would kill the feed, then reached for it. “He has to know,” he said with a shake of his head. She shrugged and withdrew her hand.

“You and me, I think we understand each other,” Moxon continued. “Between you and me, I think you could be a Jain one day. Maybe a Brahmin. The ones who do always know the way, even if they haven’t been taught.”

That got a laugh from Jax. “Do all Brahmins quote their own TV show?” he said.

Moxon laughed in turn. “Trust me, the High Brahmin would have done the same thing,” he said. “He loved cartoons, Sparky, Mickey, Jasper and Jinx. He worked them into his sermons all the time. He said that wisdom was everywhere. You could say he was a grandstander, only grandstanding out the other end. He would preach in the streets in just a jockstrap; he only wore the jockstrap because he would have been arrested without it.”

There was a pause. “You know what you and your friend Jason have in common?” Moxon resumed. “Neither of you have asked about the scar.”

“Okay,” Jax said. “Did you want to talk about it now?”

Moxon laughed. It was his natural, braying laugh, which had long since become unnerving to Jason. “You could say I’m used to it,” he said. “I can usually see it coming. They almost always wait till things are private, like now. Now, here’s the difference between you and your friend. Jason wouldn’t do it, because he’s too honest. If he has a question, he will ask in the open, like Donald tried to. You wouldn’t do it because you know when to ask questions and when to just listen. I appreciate that. It’s usually a survival trait.”

 

“Okay,” Jax said. “Maybe I heard about it from someone else. Maybe I heard about it from a few people.”

That got another laugh, this time a short, sophisticated bark. “You are good at listening. You could call that an experiment. I tried telling the truth, at first. I still do, sometimes. Later, I tried coming up with different stories. I made sure it was never the same one twice; it started as a way to know if they ever talked. I have enough mates I let in on it to keep track; Harrison is one of them. Most of them don’t. Later on, I made it into fish stories, just to see what people would believe. The funny thing is, the stories I tell don’t account for half the ones that get back to me. I’ve overheard people I didn’t know from President Kennedy tell lies sillier than I ever thought to try that they insisted they heard it from me.”

“What do the people you tell the truth say?”

“They’re the ones who never talk. Literally, not one, leastways that I ever heard of. Of course, I’ve gotten to be a pretty good judge of that beforehand. The thing about that is, they never react any differently than the rest. Ever notice how stories are always about why people are the way they are?  That’s what people want when they ask about the scar. They see it, and they think the story is going to tell them who I am, why I am who I am. Once they hear it, they know there isn’t an answer, so they just kind of forget about it. I can tell, most of them still haven’t learned. They still treat people like questions with an answer, even if they couldn’t tell you why they had eggs instead of cereal for breakfast.”

Jax laughed at that. “The stories weren’t always like that,” he said. “Nobody in a Solomon Kane adventure ever asks Solomon Kane why he’s Solomon Kane.”

“Exactly.” There was silence. “You know, here’s something to think about. You know what it costs Gaia to keep the Mars colonies going?”

“What do you mean?” Jax said. “It’s not expense, it’s investment. We’re close to all our goals for self-sufficiency. We’re even sending raw materials back to Gaia. That’s not even counting what the asteroid miners are bringing back.” As he spoke, Jason found himself nearly saying the same thing verbatim.

“I know, I’ve seen the numbers,” Moxon said. “If you could triple them, our spending would only be $1 million US dollars per colonist… per day.”

Jason did speak out loud. “That… that can’t be,” he said. “We’re out here. We would go it alone if we had to…” Even as he spoke, he looked to Alek. She only shook her head.

“It is worse than he says,” she said in a flat tone. “Much worse. Worse than he could know. His numbers are for the Union only. I have seen the Federation’s spending.”

“So what?” Jax said. That jarred Jason more than what Alek had said. “What else were they going to do with the money? Build ballistic missiles again? Make a bigger F Bomb? Send another intervention to Indochina?”

That made Moxon bray long and loud. “That is thinking like a Gaian,” he said. “If we didn't waste money on one thing, what else would we waste it on? Just don’t say it like that.”

Jason looked at Alek. “You never told me,” he said. “We never talked about it.”

Alek shrugged. “You never told me your father was in the Baton Rouge Intervention,” she said.

He shook his head. “That was different,” he said.

She looked back at him almost blankly. “Why?” she said.

They both started at the sound of Moxon’s voice. “You know, I can tell you a story,” he said. “About the time I was a firefighter.”

“Really. What city?”

“Not a city. We were the kind of firemen that fight forest fires. We were called the Mogollon Smoke Jumpers.”

There was another silence. “I’ve heard of them. I thought they were all dead.”

“It was a close thing, believe me. Thing is, we were good at our job. We were just like the Corps, putting out little fires before they got big. We didn’t think about how there were more and more little fires every season. We didn’t think about the dead trees that weren’t cleared out, the underbrush that wasn’t thinned, the secondary growth that would go as dry as beef jerky at the first sign of a drought. When the big one came, there were places where it went faster than our helicopters. All told, a tenth of the state burned. We were dropped right in the middle of it.” As they listened, Jason looked at Alek. She nodded, wide-eyed.

“The real story, though, was what happened before. There was an old native who helped out, we called him the Shaman. You could say he was our chaplain. I suppose the way we treated him was more like a mascot. There was one day when the captain was showing us a map of all our stations, the observation posts, the fires we had put out, all the contingency plans for putting out the next one. In the middle of it, the Shaman stood up. That was enough for the captain to stop talking; we had that much respect for him. He only shook his head and said, `Sometimes, the forest just wants to burn.’ He walked out. He knew then what was coming. But when the day came, he still went out with us. He was the reason I made it back.

“So, here’s all you need to know about the Motherworld, farmboy. Gaia is a forest that just wants to burn. It’s been that way for a long, long time. In the Corps, we did just enough to stop the big one. The price was leaving the real problems unfixed. We propped up rulers who deserved to be overthrown. We kept people who hated each other under one government when they wanted to go their own way. We made dead institutions stand when they should have been cut down and carved up. We all did it because we knew, as bad as it was, what was coming would be worse. The fire is coming. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I’m telling you this now. We’re headed for the only place that’s far enough away not to get burned.”

Jason finally looked back to the feed from Europa. The spacers had withdrawn to a safe distance. The countdown was at 10 and dropping. Alek suddenly swore. She hastily unlimbered her microphone and said, “Hey everyone, all hands are go go go!” As she spoke, the camera tumbled and twisted as if in freefall, then went dead. Jason could make out the expanding cloud of vapor on the rapidly approaching moon.

“Opening bay doors,” he said. The payloader shook as the atmosphere departed in a rush. There was a noise like the snap of a sail from the microphone. For better or worse, there would be no more sound.

“Preparing for a drop,” Moxon said over the radio.

“Ready,” Jax affirmed. A moment later, there was a howl as he jumped. From Moxon, there was only silence.

Jason looked at Alek. “What do you think?” he said. “What do you really think?”

“I think,” she said in her flat voice, “that I know madness better than people think. It takes one kind of madman to make money building bombs to blow up the world, and them and their money along with it. It takes another kind, like your father, to drop it. They are the first ones that Gaia sent out here. Why not? We made a deal with the Devil, so what to do when you do not need the Devil anymore? Pay him even more, to go far, far, far away.”

She took his hand. “But it is not all bad,” she said. “Really not bad at all. Maybe you are mad, to them. It is because you can see things in a way they don’t. That is why I love you, farmboy. I think I love you even before you love me. I came out here, to be with you.” 

As she spoke, she turned off the cabin lights. He squeezed her hand tightly as they gazed at the stars.

Table of contents

Part 1. The demo!

Part 2. The villain!

Part 3. The world-building!

Part 4. The romance!

Part 5. The killer robot!

Part 6: The shuttle ride!

Part 7: Alternate universe pop culture!

Part 8: The launch!

Part 9: The girl talk!

Part 10: The domestic disturbance!!!

Part 11: The Space Nazis!!!

Part 12: The inevitable geography lesson!

Part 13: The wedding!!!

Part 14:  The spicy chapter!

Mid-Sized Marx: Star Wars scale Japanese soldiers!!!

 

It's Monday and I still haven't done a weekend post. Fortunately, I have something I've been using the time to examine. It's a new acquisition that I wasn't sure existed before I actually got it, and now I'm still not completely satisfied it is what it's supposed to be. The one thing that is sure is that it's not like anything else I've got, including the set they are literally identical to. Here are my new 3.75 inch Marx Japanese soldiers, a scaled-down version of the figures I wrote about in my very first Marx post! And how about a comparison shot with one of the originals?

Now for the backstory, I first encountered Marx figures in "action figure" 3-4 inch scale when I picked up my first pair of the evil Space Guys. I followed that up with more acquisitions, including a whole bag, but in all that time, I never found compelling evidence that Marx had manufactured any more in that scale. If anything, it appeared to be a one-off experiment, left behind by the ludicrously huge nominal 6-inch figures that proliferated in the 1960s and '70s. Still, there were passing mentions here and there of Marx figures larger than the 70mm Space Guys but still under 5-6 inches. From what information was at hand, they could have been any number of things if they existed at all. Maybe they were "real" Marx figures that never got to full commercial circulation. Maybe they were a vintage experiment from the Mexican Plastimarx or a foreign outlier like the one that made the Ukrainian figures. Or, they could have been just scaled-down copies or loose tributes from long after Marx bit the dust. Once I saw a batch on sale, clearly based on excellent figures I already had, I decided it was worth the money to get a look at them firsthand. Here's pics of most of the lot.

It was immediately clear from inspection that these were not simple imitations. These are virtually identical to the Marx 6-inch sculpts, with a fully comparable level of detail. If these weren't from Marx molds, which I never doubted after getting a good look at them, they were made by someone with direct access to them. Here's more detail shots.

If anything, the real Japanese pistol looked less effective than this.

And here's one that's... different. Well, presumably, some Japanese officers had glasses. I don't recall anyone suggesting they had machetes, though.

The one further question was whether they came before or after the 6-inch figures. I can't easily rule out that these were a prototype of the larger figures, but the law of economy (aka Occam's Razor) dictated that the far more prolific 6-inch line came first. A non-trivial piece of evidence is the bayonet, which I covered in detail the first time around. I don't recall if I mentioned that I had to repair my original infantryman about a year ago, which might or might not have had something to do with bending the bayonet into a horseshoe shape. (Just in case, if it comes up, don't do that.) At any rate, the bayonet on this guy is a lot bigger that the shiv on the Mexican copy, but it still looks proportionately smaller than the 6-inch figure. Since Marx already had trouble with bayonets (more on that in a moment), it's very safe to say the biggest one is the oldest. Here's a lineup of all 3 versions.

And here's the officer, with a 4-inch Space Guy (aka Jason) for comparison. It will be evident from this photo that, alas, these don't "scale" well enough to be easily integrated with the Space Guys adventure.

One more loose end was how many other Marx figures got this treatment. In the inquiries that led to this purchase, I considered a comparably sized set clearly based on the German/ Nazi 6-inch figures (which would have been more relevant to the current and planned Space Guys adventure arc). I declined to buy them partly because I would have nothing to compare them to, and partly because I have found that set far less interesting and attractive than other Marx figures, an opinion that did not improve on seeing them in a smaller scale. It's safe to assume that Marx also at least planned to release similarly sized US troops for them to fight, and perhaps a version of the Soviet set as well. One further datum is that the set had already replaced a discontinued figure shown making a semi-graphic downward thrust with a bayonet, offering the most conclusive proof that the 6-inch line came first.

A further loose end I considered was whether these were in any way part of the evolution of the "standard" 3.75 inch action figure. These definitely are of the same size. Here's a few further comparison shots with Bossk and Sidekick Carl. (I know, Carl's adventure has been postponed a long time...)

As can be seen, these can be considered among the precursors of the 1970s-'80s action figures, assuming they weren't made in the late '70s as a bid to make Marx figures semi-compatible with Star Wars and Adventure People. However, they certainly would not have been the first figures to settle on this size. Here's a lineup with the Archer Space Woman, Ajax Space Guys (plus non-binary person) and the Marx Onion Head alien.

With that, I'm bringing this post to an end. It's another Marx lineage I just might pursue further, if I can do so at a good  price. It may be shrouded in mystery that we probably wouldn't care about if we actually knew, but it's what makes this fun. And to wrap this up, here's an oldie with the Truckstop Queen.

Yeah, this guy didn't even get to the "friend zone"...

And that's all for now, more to come!

No Good Very Bad Movies Finale! The other one with Eddie Murphy

 

 

Title: The Adventures of Pluto Nash

What Year?: 2002

Classification: Parody/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

As I write this, it’s the start of a new year, and most of what I’ve been looking at is simply wrapping things up. For this feature in particular, I have been ready to finish for a long time, without letting go of my goal of getting to a solid 50. I reached 48 cleaning out odds and ends. For the last 2, however, I decided the only option was to wait for the right ones to come to me. I knew I had one when I watched Super Inframan. I remained patient for one more, until as often happens, it landed in my lap. It’s truly a film that would be all but obligatory for a feature like this, a legendary critical and financial bomb whose reputation reached even me. I present The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and what I can say off the bat is that what it made at the box office is about what it looks like it cost.

Our story begins in a middling-future lunar colony, at a nightclub whose proprietor performs accordion music in a kilt. Then we meet our hero, an ex-con named Pluto, because there isn’t a buzzsaw the backside of this movie could miss. When he discovers the actually interesting character is in debt to an interplanetary gangster, he intervenes and time-skips to become the new owner of the now-successful establishment. He makes a new lady friend, only to discover that a mysterious space mafia boss named Crater has decided to kill him rather than collecting actual money. Pluto makes his escape, with help from his mother and his android bodyguard Bruno. But he’s still on the run, and he still doesn’t know who the boss is. It’s robots, AI cabbies, Moon suits and wacky hijinks all the way down. The real mystery is, how did this cost $100 million dollars??!!

The Adventures of Pluto Nash was a 2002 science fiction/ comedy film directed by Ron Underwood (see Tremors 2, kind of), starring Eddie Murphy (see The Golden Child, and I will get back to that). The production had reportedly developed from a story and script optioned in 1983, with Murphy ultimately being given significant control over the final script. The eventual cast included Rosario Dawson as the nominal romantic interest Dina, Randy Quaid as Bruno and Joe Pantoliano of The Matrix as the goon Mogan. The film was an unquestioned commercial failure, earning a worldwide box office of $7.1 million against a budget estimated at $100M before marketing costs, and was subjected to widespread ridicule including multiple Razzie nominations for Murphy’s performances as both Nash and (spoiler) Rex Crater. Pantoliano publicly claimed that he and others involved in the production expected that the movie was “going to be sh(*)t”, though he described the finished film as “better than I thought it was going to be.” The film has received some reappraisal, without achieving “cult” status. It remains available in digital formats.

For my experiences, this one first came not my radar sight unseen when I reviewed The Golden Child, and it definitely figured in my vocal frustrations with that film. Beyond that, the context comes down to what I have already laid down about my conflicted experiences with genre films by “mainstream” filmmakers. At their best, you get subversive satire and genuinely fresh ideas like Hancock and An American Werewolf In London. More typically, you can expect unusually polished films that can break new ground even if they don’t go as far as they think, like A Quiet Place and Frozen (one last time, not the Disney movie…). Then at the low end, you get the likes of The Hand and The Space Between Us, which simply combine the worst cliches of genre and “mainstream” films with few if any of their good points. With all that laid out, this film immediately stands out as peculiarly unremarkable, not inept, not offensive, and in most respects not interesting apart from its quite spectacular commercial failure.

Moving forward, most of the observations to be made can be counted as obvious. The production values, story and especially the acting all hold at a high standard of mediocrity, which the film really had no excuse not to reach given the talent and unfathomable cost involved. The penalty is a plot that tends to feel even more predictable than it is. I can personally attest that at the big “twist”, I fully expected to see a completely different character revealed as the villain, which would absolutely have been more interesting. What keeps the proceedings in the realm of watchability are the actual leads, Murphy and Randy Quaid as the android. Murphy’s protagonist is at least consistently likeable and generally competent, especially compared to The Golden Child, which I can credit to the actor as holding out for dignified material. Quaid, whom I did not recognize, offers one of the most intriguing AI characters on record. What’s most impressive is that he gets into the “uncanny valley” without a single special effect apart from a very slight distortion of his voice. This leads to a still better payoff as underlying intellectual and emotional complexity gradually emerges. It all culminates in a no-win survival situation, as the bot forges on to the heart-breaking end. Of course, the emotional impact is promptly wasted as the narrative punts with a deus ex machina cop-out.

The real “con” side of all this is the unaccountably weak effects, particularly in the exterior lunar landscapes of the “chase” sequences. There was tremendous potential in putting the light-comedy cast in a realistic space environment. Instead, we get a gray backdrop that is as dull as it is fake. Now, this is something where I could second-guess myself, and allow that there was a lot of bad CGI in the 1990s and early 2000s. But this was 4 years after A Bug’s Life, and the visuals don't come close to AntZ. Even syndicated shows like Deep Space 9 had work at least as good well before this came out. The only movie I can think of that might offer favorable comparison is Sky High, which cost less than half as much. Even then, in the areas that matter, it’s like comparing The Wild to Over The Hedge (which led to the most violent language I have ever used in an animation review). The real difference is that Sky High was effective as both a genre deconstruction and a “straight” take, with enough energy to sustain an intentional “camp” factor that this film rarely even tries to achieve. This gets right to an already pervasive observation: This not only should have been better, but could have been more entertaining if it was worse.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the opening. Right after the credits, we get a pan of the lunar colony exterior, which is just interesting enough to make the drab effects seem tolerable. Then we cut to the nightclub, where the above-mentioned owner is singing an irreverent and cynical ditty to his own accompaniment on accordion. That would be Jay Mohr, an accomplished character actor long before and after this. And yes, he’s wearing the kilt. Alas, I wasn’t able to find a clip of more than a few seconds of this for a second viewing in the course of this review. Even so, I can attest it is a surreal high point of the movie that, after Quaid/ Bruno, is probably the main reason I can muster any measure of good will for this film. What’s truly noteworthy is that there’s a quite seamless transition as he finishes the act and starts a conversation with Pluto. It’s wacky, it’s creative, and per the usual refrain, it’s everything the whole movie should have been.

In closing, I could give my usual defense of the rating. But this is one time I feel my decision is self-explanatory. It may not “deserve” to have the same rating as Frozen or Cross Of Iron, but if I could let The Space Between Us go with 2/3, I have no problem letting this one pass on the technicality that I don’t actively hate it. What I really find worthy of comment is my classification as Anachronistic Outlier, which I have long since admitted to be my most overused subcategory. In fact, this is just about the most literal example I have ever encountered. It is truly a movie that history left behind long before it hit theaters, a 1980s story developed as a 1990s movie that came out 2 years into the new millennium. Given that backstory, the question is not why it failed but whether there was any point in the timeline where it might have been successful, let alone good. The final lesson is that we can never know what might have been. That’s enough for me to count this review as ending on a high note. Punch it, Bishop!

Fiction: The Space Guys Adventure, Part 14!

 It's Tuesday and I haven't done anything this week, so here's another installment of the Space Guys, specifically a chapter I revised more than anything else, which is the "spicy" chapter. As usual, a table of contents is at the end.

Within 12 hours of the ceremony, preparations were begun for the most complex operation of the voyage, refueling. The ship pulled into orbit over Ganymede, the largest planet’s largest moon, where almost 300 people lived in the sprawling settlement of Minerva City. A flotilla of ships gathered, always flaming desperately to match the speed the Janus held by momentum, while the great ship released its own little fleet of 3 medium shuttlecraft and 6 utility pods. Jason and Alek were chosen to pick up a load of volatile hydrogen tanks. It was Harrison who discretely told them, “Some of the crew were concerned you might be having trouble. The captain has offered to reassign you, or take you off duty.”

“No,” Alek said, as if genuinely puzzled. “We are fine.”

They passed Anastasia and Donald. The former was bolting the latter into a barrel-like hard suit that the engineers had repurposed as radiation gear. As she calibrated a mechanical accordion arm, her husband tried to pinch her. She screeched and gave the headpiece a sharp rap with her tool. Alek smiled; Jason shook his head and kept walking. He paused as they passed Moxon, leaning against a bulkhead with one leg propped against the wall. His lips were moving; Jason realized that he was humming the Major Maxon theme. He almost called out to the officer. Then he took a closer look. Only then did he realize that Moxon was asleep. He backed away before hurrying to catch up with Alek.

The shuttlecraft was really quite large in comparison to anything but the Pegasus and the Janus itself, 8.4 meters long and able to carry either 8 passengers or a metric ton of cargo. It launched from a double docking port on either side of the Mission Fuselage, an arrangement that allowed loading and unloading at the same time. Because of the airlock configuration, there was usually one moored on the left facing backwards or turned sideways as theirs was. They entered through the belly airlock and climbed into the cockpit. Harrison joined them at a communication console at the rear. The cockpit was a panoramic half-ovoid that seemed to suspend the pilots in space. What they could mostly see was the Janus, an impressive sight on its own. As they unmoored, Alek took Jason’s hand. They drifted to the side for a few moments before the thrusters kicked in. The craft wheeled about and headed for the moon.

Through the return trip, they remained in surprisingly comfortable silence. As they approached the dock, Jason turned to Alek. “We should talk to someone,” he said.

“Who?” Alek said.

They started with Anastasia. She went with them to Dr. Cahill. They had barely begun to talk before she sighed and said, “Talk to Tanya.”

They found the officer in the communications cabin with Smith, the American. The Union officer amicably left to make room as they entered, with Anastasia tagging along. Tanya swiveled to look over Alek and then Jason. “You may not have noticed,” she said, “but you two are getting more talk than any other couple on the ship.  So, what brings you here?”

“Well, ah, they told us you used to help people with, um, this sort of thing,” Jason said. “Ah, what is it you do?”

Tanya smiled. “I gave my husband five children, to start with,” she said. “That scandalizes the enlightened people more than you three ever have. A while later, I was made the head of the Federation’s health and education program, along with another woman, Abakumov. It was really to increase birth rates. We had slogans, `shells for the Motherland’, ‘the pleasure of duty’. We were the laughingstock of the Federation and the Union. We let them laugh, they knew we were getting results.”

“All right, that makes sense,” Jason said. “Wait… You said there was another. Was that Sasha Abakumov?”

“That’s right, if she didn’t finally drop her married name,” Tanya said. “She took a ticket to Mars when she fell out with the Party. Did you know her?”

Alek smiled at that. “You could say that,” she said. “He’s told me about her.”

That made Anastasia gape. “Why in the heavens would you tell an Earthwoman about- Damn. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

“It is funny story, really,” Alek said, grinning. “I tell him at beginning, there are things you do for me, things I do for you, and things I do for myself. But he tells me, there is a crazy Federation woman on Mars who shows men how to take care of a woman. Finally, I tell him, you can try. I will tell you when you fail. Should have let him do it much sooner. After, I tell him, you have very enlightened women.”

“It was my parents’ idea, actually,” he said. “They paid for, well, private sessions. Jax’s folks chipped in, too.”

“Well, that’s different,” Tanya said. “How did you get from there to here?”

“So, I wanted to do my part,” Alek said. "Maybe give him a few ideas. I got a special record to show Jason…”

“I hate to say it, but I heard,” Ana said.

“So did I,” Tanya said with a curl of her lip. “About the record, anyway. So how badly did that go?”

“He watch for maybe 5 minutes,” Alek said, holding Jason’s arm. “It started with a woman walking. She passes a man, he tries to talk to her, she tells him to get lost, he follows her. Then he asks her to come to his apartment, she says yes. So he tells her to take her clothes off, she says no… then Jason walks out. I find him when he walk all the way back. I try to make him tell me what didn’t no work…”

Jason nearly walked out then and there. “I did tell you,” he said. “He hit her. That’s never okay. Good boys don’t hit girls…” He trailed off with a blush. He calculated leaving the cabin. The first thing that stopped him was that Anastasia was in the way. The second was Tanya’s genuinely kind gaze.

 “She could have told you, it wouldn’t work,” she said with a cool glance at Anastasia. “Not on a man who had been to Sasha. Things like that are made for men by other men, which really means men who know what they want. A man with nothing but that will have more to unlearn than learn. On Mars, things are different. Why is looking for a needle in a stack of needles. We investigated, when the Federation was still enforcing morality rules. Things like that had always come in with the offworld spacers. It wasn’t catching on with the Martians, and it was virtually non-existent with the ones who were born on-planet. The people who wrote up the report decided that the conditions had removed the demand: Good education, close-knit families, and older, progressive women raising children. They gave all the credit to the Party’s progressive policies, of course. It was as good an explanation as any, really.”

Anastasia snorted. “There’s progressive women here and there, mostly on the Union side,” she said. “In the Federation sectors we still have old women who say, a man is good enough if he only hits you with an open hand and only when he is drunk.”

“It’s not that complicated,” Jason said. “The whole time I watched that film, I just kept thinking it wasn’t real. I’ve talked to Martians who saw things like it, and they all said the same thing. Really, I almost got space-sick watching it. I couldn’t even tell if the girl looked that good. They just kept doing closeups of things, like nobody ever walked in on his sister before…”

“It’s the camerawork,” Ana affirmed. “I looked at a few myself. Most of them are made with cheap equipment by people who barely know how to use it. If they do know what they’re doing, they still shoot what the men on Gaia care about. And of course, with our enhancements, any movie is at three-quarter speed and 5 to 10 times magnification....”

Tanya nodded. “We never even thought about that,” she said. “Figures.” She looked intently at Alek. “So, why did you really show him that?”

Alek crossed her arms in a pout. “I want him to act like a man’s man,” she said. “When we are making love, he is always talking, talking, talking. I keep telling him, why don’t you just grab me and violate me?” She glanced at Anastasia. “Like you and Donald.”

“All right, I don’t want to be here,” Anastasia said.

“Then go,” Tanya said in bemusement. Again, she looked intently at Alek. “What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t understand what it means,” Jason snapped. Inside, he was fighting an urge to recoil. “We’ve talked about this. Making love isn’t about what we do, it’s about doing what we both want. I keep telling you, anything you ask for, it isn’t- that!”

“Then why don’t you listen to what I say?” Alek fumed. “Why won’t you listen when I am not talking? Be boss to me! Stop asking me what I want to do when what I want is for you to be quiet!”

“Hold on,” Tanya said. “He doesn’t understand. Neither do you. There are men who hurt women, really hurt them. He’s not like that, neither is Donald. You don’t know what a bad man is like until you meet one. Honestly, I’ve never met another woman your age who hasn’t.”

“You’ve definitely got the wrong idea about Donald,” Anastasia said. “I let him be a wolf when we are out in the open. I like it, I love him for it. But when we are alone, he is a lapdog. I teach him his tricks, and reward him when he performs. Sit, beg, roll over. If he ever bit the hand that feeds him, he would be wishing he was fixed.”

 “Let me tell you what a man’s man is like,” Tanya said. “When he was young, my man was handsome as a movie star. He never raised a hand. He hardly raised his voice. But he would whisper to me what he wanted. He could give me a look, and I would know. He would carry me to bed with the children watching. And he never did a thing to me that I didn’t enjoy as much as he did.”

Alek’s lips curled into a wicked smile. “So what do the farmboys go for?”

Tanya grinned back. “Oh, we looked into that,” she said. “We found out about boys and men trading for things we would never have thought to restrict. Most of it was pretty obvious. You know, animal films cut down to just the parts about mating behavior. The thing that was catching on was animation. We looked at stuff the farmboys made themselves that was really impressive, I mean technically. God, there must have been a hundred with Sparky the Squirrel alone; we barely stopped a Party minister from accusing the studio of being involved. Then there was the stuff that was just weird…”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Anastasia chimed in. “They’ll watch anything with animals. There’s plenty of ways to leverage that. Another thing you’ll see just from that, they are good with body language, if you can get them to look at you.”

Alek looked at Jason thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said. “When you put it that way, I can see that.”

As the women turned toward him, Jason broke his silence. “Okay, there was one thing,” he said. “It was one of the educational films, like Tanya was talking about. So, it was about whales…”

They all continued to talk, and laugh, until Anastasia blushed as she giggled. Finally, Alek said, “There is something I still do not understand. I talk to old woman in my hometown. She said to me, when you are grown, you may meet man who will say he will hurt you if he cannot have you. She said, do not fear that man, because he will not really hurt you, at least not so bad he cannot have you, or have you again. But there is another kind of man who would rather hurt you than have you. Run from a man like that if you meet him, because that man is mad. I did not understand, I still do not understand. Is that what this is about? What a man like on the disc is like?”

“No,” Anastasia said. “Not really. But I can understand.”

“Look at it this way,” Tanya said. “Think about Moxon.”

Alek’s frown became a scowl. Jason saw Anastasia visibly stiffen. “What about Moxon?” Alek said. “He would no never do that. He would not care about that. Any woman can see that.”

“Yes,” Tanya said. “Now just think, what might a man like him do instead?”

Alek considered, and paled. Anastasia did the same without delay. “Moj boze,” she said. She took Jason’s hand. “You are a good boy, my farmboy. I’m done trying to change you.”

They finally left the cabin when Tanya’s shift ended. Alek offered Jason her hand. He waved for her to go ahead. She did so without hesitation, still talking and laughing with Tanya. Jason remained seated, gazing at Anastasia. “I need to know,” he said. “What really happened?” Anastasia only shook her head. “Moxon said something, didn’t he?”

“He came to me, right after I talked with the captain,” she said. She gazed past him at the banded orb of Jupiter. “It’s still not like you think. He said I was going to marry Donald. I knew that, so did he. That wasn’t the point. What he told me was that I’m going to be a faithful wife. He told me I wasn’t going to spend time with Jackie or any other man again, even if Donald told me I could. He said if it came to that, I was to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble either.”

“Did he threaten you?” Jason pressed. “Did he say he would do something to you?”

“No,” she said. Suddenly, she threw her arms around Jason’s neck. Only then did she whisper: “He said he could make Jackie do it.”

Table of contents

Part 1. The demo!

Part 2. The villain!

Part 3. The world-building!

Part 4. The romance!

Part 5. The killer robot!

Part 6: The shuttle ride!

Part 7: Alternate universe pop culture!

Part 8: The launch!

Part 9: The girl talk!

Part 10: The domestic disturbance!!!

Part 11: The Space Nazis!!!

Part 12: The inevitable geography lesson!

Part 13: The wedding!!!

Mid-Sized Marx: Evil Space Guys Unbagging!

 

As I write this, it's a brand new year, and I haven't made my first post. As it happens, I had content ready for a Mystery Monday post except, of course, it's Tuesday Wednesday. For catch-up, I'm making this a Mid-Sized Marx post, on something I already have a video up for. Here is my brand new (to me) bag of 4-inch Space Guys, now stars of their own meandering adventure, delivered straight from Mexico. To kick things off, here's a couple pics of the bag.

For the backstory, I found this listed for sale online, bag and all, from a seller south of the border. For all my usual disdain for packaging, I was very interested to find a set in the bag. I was all the more intrigued to see the same name and card art as the item that started all this, the day-glo Captain and Knife Guy (aka Jason... wow, I did not plan that). The name is Juguetes Dinamicos, a company listed as active, apparently specializing in Marx reissues. The artwork looks about right for the 1980s or early 1990s. The condition of the bag looks like something the original patchisaurs came in, except that you can actually see through the plastic. As can be seen, the condition was poor enough for arms and legs to stick right through (a fact already evident in the online listing). The upside is that this let me remove a couple without technically opening the bag. Here's a pic with the most famous of the lot, the Onion-Head Alien!

As evidenced by the fact that it has a name among collectors more than 60 years after the fact (more on that momentarily), this is a very popular figure. When I followed up the original pair with a set, this was conspicuously absent. At the time, I did not miss it. Like most of the Marx aliens/ robots (see the 35mm alien, very suspiciously resembling the improvised suit of Robot Monster), I did not find it a match for the style or quality of the vividly detailed human figures. Neither did it fit the grim visions that came to mind when I first considered a storyline for them. On first-hand examination, I was happy to admit that this was better than I had judged it to be. It's weird and psychedelic, like most Marx creatures, yet there a touches that now look more realistic and forward-thinking than the designers are remotely likely to have intended. I especially like the eyes, which look like they could be night vision goggles, set in a possibly mouthless face. I still don't get the webbed, scaly feet, which were clearly easily damaged (more on that in the video). All in all, this guy is definitely getting at least a small part in the adventure ahead (once I get through the impenetrable exposition). Here's pics of him in full glory, times two!

The most interesting prospect was getting more specimens of the figure that became Moxon, complete with the scar. I assumed that something so hideous (yet extremely difficult to photograph) had to be a one-time manufacturing defect. I expected to find the same underlying mold lines, not as pronounced. But nope, they all looked exactly the same, despite being molded in a clearly different color. Here they all are, as if one wasn't disturbing enough.

"Do you feel lucky? Too bad, this thing is solar-powered."

And here he is with the alien...

"You realize, for all you know, you're pointing that at my hat."

Now for the history. When I first wrote about these guys, I quite casually suggested that these figures were originally produced in the 1960s, perhaps as late as the middle of the decade. I have long since concluded that this is far, far too late. (The 1962 Moonship/ shuttle thingy was a pretty good tip-off how far Marx had progressed.) Per actual research at Marx Wild West, the Marx space guys were introduced from 1952-1954, starting with licensed Tom Corbett playsets. I am now completely satisfied that the 4-inch and 70mm Space Guys were introduced sometime in that time frame. There is also consensus that they were part of the Rex Mars line, usually considered the "generic" successor to the Corbett sets, which ended with the loss of the license in 1953. (The show itself continued until 1955.) The manner in which they were distributed remains a big null-gray Wall Of Nothing, with hard data limited to a near-hearsay report that the 4-inch guys were sold with "satellite" disc launchers. The plausible harmonized timeline is that these were indeed a late entry to a probably declining line, which is believed to have ended around 1957, or by more pessimistic accounts as early as 1955.

But because I must have revenge on those who completely rightly correct me, I have found two plot holes in this scenario. First, the proper authorities have long reported that certain Rex Mars sets were made in 1953 or as early as 1952, which means that it was never just a substitute for the Tom Corbett name. Second, there is the incredibly gigantic supply cabinet, previously featured in the accessories post linked to above, which was completely out of scale except with the 4-inch figures. This isn't conclusive, but it does strongly suggest that Marx was at least considering large-scale figures from the beginning. Here's a reused photo to show the astonishing bigness. Yes, this is almost as big as the Robby the Robot large-scale figure (aka Chopper).

Now, here's more pics. Here's the one I was looking forward to getting extras of, the one I think of as the Rifle Guy, which of course turned out to be one of the ones that the bag held only one of. I find the pose generic enough to turn into a troop build figure. He's also one of two (the other being the crouching guy, who didn't get his own pic this time) that I consider possibly Asian, or at any rate racially ambiguous. (If this discussion seems uncomfortable, I can always roll out the Japanese soldiers...)  Here is my pair, along with their 70 mm counterparts.

And here's the Captains! By the way, it turns out he's got his own "scar", which greatly varies in visibility.

And here's Jason!

Now, here's one more thing I've had a little fun with. I've tried matching up the 4-inch figures with 70 mm ones (see my round 2 post) that might represent the same characters. The best match turned out to be for my favorite, the Space Guy Who Doesn't Care, aka Harrison.

Another pretty good fit was for Jackson Lightower, aka Jax. Not getting respect is pretty much his personality.

"I still think this is a thermometer..."

And we're back to Jason. He's the tallest guy in the 4-inch set, which was enough to offer a decent match. I considered the TV Aerial Guy (I know, it's "supposed" to be an air hose) as an alternate match, but it's not quite there.

And that's enough for now. I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do with these. I'm glad to have gotten these, and as usual, I have no regrets about opening the bag. If it comes to that, I would recommend getting these if you can. That's all for now, more to come!