Darkman by Randall Boyll

 

(pb; 1990: movie tie-in novel, based on a screenplay by Sam Raimi, Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin and Joshua Goldin.)

From the back cover

“Once he had a normal life, a beautiful girlfriend, and a brilliant medical career─creating synthetic skin for accident victims. Then he was a victim himself, brutally attacked by sadistic criminals─his face and body burned beyond recognition.

“Now he walks the night, searching for the woman he loves. A man who looks like a monster, he hopes to salvage his scorched flesh. . .and take revenge on those who destroyed his life.”

 

Review

Darkman─like its counterpart film─is a fun, pulpy, comic book-y action flick with over-the-top, quirky characters and big, explosive, gory action as well as more than a few quotable lines. If you’re looking for a fast-paced, entertaining, sometime darkly funny, sometimes sad action-flick book, this is one worth reading, close enough to its cinematic version to reflect it whilst adding plenty of character-deepening and character-linked wrinkles to the R-rated superheroic storyline. Followed by four book-only offshoot novels, the first of which is Darkman: The Hangman.

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The film version was released stateside on August 24, 1990. Sam Raimi directed it, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Chuck Pfarrer, Ivan Raimi, Daniel Goldin and Joshua Goldin.

Liam Neeson played Peyton Westlake/Darkman. Frances McDormand played Julie Hastings. Nelson Mashita played Yakitito Yanagito.

Jessie Lawrence Ferguson played Eddie Black. Colin Friels played Louis Strack, Jr. Larry Drake played Robert G. Durant.

Rafael H. Robledo played Rudy Guzman. Dan Hicks, billed as Danny Hicks, played Skip Altwater. Ted Raimi, billed as Theodore Raimi, played Rick Desmond. Dan Bell played Smiley (a.k.a. Sam Rogers). Nicholas Worth played Pauly.

Aaron Lustig played Martin Katz. John Landis played “Physician.” An uncredited Jenny Agutter played “Burn Doctor.” Joel Coen played “Oldsmobile Driver.” Ethan Coen played “Oldsmobile Passenger.” Bruce Campbell played “Final Shemp.”

The Amazing Spider-Man: The Death of Gwen Stacy by Stan Lee, Gil Kane, John Romita Sr. & Gerry Conway

(pb; 1971, 1973, 2001: graphic novel. Introduction by Ralph Macchio. This graphic novel collects The Amazing Spiderman issues #96-98 and 121-122.)

From the back cover:

"Gwen Stacy was Peter Parker's first true love. In her arms, he forgot the pain and responsibility of being Spider-Man. But now, pain is all he knows, and the responsibility weighs heavily on his shoulders - because Spider-Man wasn't there. . ."


Review:

This is one of my all-time favorite comic book reads. I remember collecting and re-reading the issues, all the while being affected in a holy-cow-that's-raw, emotional way - like few, if any - comic books had, or have, moved me (since).

Stacy is an excellent, pitch-perfect blend of emotional volatilty and super-hero/villain action.

Worth owning, of course.

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The resulting film, titled Spider-Man, was released stateside on May 3, 2002.

Tobey Maguire played Peter Parker/Spiderman. Willem Dafoe played Norman Osborn/Green Goblin. Kirsten Dunst played Mary Jane Watson. James Franco played Harry Osborn.

Rosemary Harris played Aunt May. Cliff Robertson played Ben Parker. J.K. Simmons played J. Jonah Jameson. Bill Nunn played Joseph "Robbie" Robertson. Joe Manganiello played Flash Thompson. Stanley Anderson played General Slocum.

Ted Raimi, brother of film director Sam Raimi, played Hoffman. Bruce Campbell played "Ring Announcer". Elizabeth Banks played Betty Brant.

Lucy Lawless played "Punk Rock Girl". Scott Spiegel played "Marine Cop". Randy Savage played Bone Saw McGraw. Macy Gray played herself. Jim Norton played "Surly Truck Driver". An uncredited Stan Lee played "Man in Fair".

Sam Raimi directed the film, from a script by David Koepp.

In the Flesh, by Clive Barker

(pb; 1986: story anthology)

From the back cover:

"In the depths of an abandoned steam bath, strangely beautiful women seduce two businessmen into a ritual of macabre sexuality; in a Greek asylum, wise men race frogs to decide the fate of the world; a petty convict's cellmate reveals to him the gruesome birth of evil; a young woman's slum research leads her into the hook-handed grip of The Candyman, a vicious supernatural killer."


Overall review:

This is one of the few perfect anthologies I've read. Barker's writing is word-tight, character-memorable and idea-wild, its themes relevant and relatable, with many of its lines quotable.

In the Flesh is easily one of my all-time favorite anthologies, as well as one of my favorite Barker reads.

Worth owning, this.


Review, story by story:


1.) "In the Flesh" - Cleve Smith, an incarcerated felon, gets a new cellie (Billy Tait), a young man whose quiet manners conceal a harsher, gorier world.

Perfect, gripping, exemplary read that references one of Barker's other stories, "The Books of Blood" (collected in the anthology Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volume One).


2.) "The Forbidden" - A woman (Helen), writing a sociological theme paper, happens upon a shadowy urban legend that may be far more relevant than she ever imagined.

Thought-provoking, wise (in its roots-of-fear way), exciting and unique - not to mention (again), perfect.

Two directly-linked films resulted from this story.

The first, a 36-minute short titled after the story, was released in 1978.

Peter Atkins played Faust. Doug Bradley, Julia Blake, Phil Rimmer and Lyn Darnell also acted in the short, though their roles aren't named on imdb.com.

Clive Barker, who scripted and directed the film, also acted in it.

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The second version, Candyman - this one a full-length work - was released stateside on October 16, 1992.

Virginia Madsen played Helen Lyle. Tony Todd played The Candyman (aka Daniel Robitaille). Xander Berkeley played Trevor Lyle. Kasi Lemmons played Bernadette 'Bernie' Walsh. Vanessa Williams played Anne-Marie McCoy. Ted Raimi played Billy. Rusty Schwimmer played "Policewoman".

Bernard Rose scripted and directed the film.

Two sequels, both of them starring Tony Todd, followed: Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and the direct-to-video Candyman: Day of the Dead (1999).


3.) "The Madonna" - An abandoned bathhouse is the site of damnation or salvation for two men, a wealthy thug (Ezra Garvey) and his business partner (Jerry Coloqhoun).

Gripping, distinctive and science fiction-wild take on the themes of masculinity/femininity, religion and motherhood, with a story finish that is reader-resonant.

In 1989, Eclipse Books published a comic book mini-series, Tapping The Vein, that is based on Barker's writings.

Fred Burke adapted, and Stan Woch, Fred Von Tobel and Mark Farmer illustrated "The Madonna" in issue #4 (its front cover is seen below). This same issue contains an adaptation of one of Barker's other stories, "Hell's Event" (published in Clive Barker's Books of Blood, Volume Two).




4.) "Babel's Children" - Vanessa Jape, an insatiably curious, roadtripping woman, stumbles upon a long-held, world- and life-changing secret on a backroad.

Fun, relatively light work, that's as fascinating and relatably weird as the other stories in this anthology.