Andyland, USA

Today, the box office is driven by superhero movies, but before 1978 there was no such thing as a “serious” superhero movie. The biggest thing to happen to the genre was the 1966 Adam West “Batman” TV series--which I love with the passion of a thousand suns--but no real attempts at doing anything beyond “kiddie fare” with the genre existed prior to the landmark “Superman” movie of ‘78. A few years back, I talked about the 1994 Alec Baldwin starring film adaptation of “The Shadow,” a pulp hero and precursor to Batman. Much of modern superhero fare has it roots in the hero pulp fiction that peaked in the 1920s and ‘30s.  Along with The Shadow, one of the most popular heroes to come from the world of pulp is Doc Savage, created by the same publishing house as The Shadow, Street & Smith, and driven largely by writer Lester Dent. No less an authority than Stan Lee has called Doc Savage the forerunner to modern superheroes. In the 1960s the Doc Savage stories were repub...

A friend of mine is dating this guy who is a bit, well, super earthy. He’s an alright person, generally speaking, but the patchouli can be detected before he enters the room. He also claims that he can interpret dreams. When the group gets together for a gathering, like a game night, he’ll ask us all if we had any memorable dreams lately. “The memorable ones are the ones you’ve gotta look out for” he says.  At a recent game night, while I was pondering my hand for my turn at Scrabble, Dreamweaver asked me about my recent dreams. I hadn’t had any out of the unusual dreams lately, just that recurring one where I keep getting a dollar on The Price is Right wheel--Dreamweaver doesn’t own a TV, so I never tell him about this one. I decided to see just how far Dreamweaver could go with this skill set and started making up dreams on the spot.  “Oh, well the other night I dreamt that I was swimming in a pool full of gelatine while being given swimming advice from the pet Go...