Friday, April 24, 2020

The Spectre and Sherlock Holmes



Robert Downey Jr. has completed his run as Iron Man, and his hopes for another franchise in Dolittle were dashed by a very poorly received first outing as that character.  Hopefully that means he will once again step into the role of Sherlock Holmes for the long rumored third film in that series.  I'd prefer that Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman return to Netflix' Sherlock, but I'll take what I can get.

15 comments:

  1. Yes!!! A collaboration of excellence achieved.

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  2. With many Sherlocks to pick from to take home, my favorites are Rathbone and Benedict. These two are very different from each other's interpretations, but there is in each a special quality that simply resonates for me.
    While Benedict is too busy doing the Marvel movies to go back to do a Sherlock tv story, there is a possible solution. There's a company in England called "Big Finish" that does audio CD adventures with tv series actors, in full radio style. That would be a great opportunity to get new Sherlocks from the full creative team.

    To the Spectre...Jim Aparo is a major treat for the atmosphere of Jim Corrigan's adventures, but Alex is right next to him in quality. I often wondered, since different people have been in the driver's seat of the Spectre's body and powers, what might be the result if it were Wonder Woman or Batman in control?

    A fantastic cover Ross.

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  3. Bioluminescence HorsefeathersApril 24, 2020 at 7:38 AM

    Ross, way cool cover. But enough with Blaze. Add 1990's Spectre series by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake cover #304, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013 to a cover with the original Ghost Rider like you had in 1466, MONDAY, APRIL 18, 2016. That would be a pair to meltdown almost all of the bad guys. (Especially if it were a glow in the dark cover.)

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  4. I was about to start proofreading our upcoming anthology Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives when I saw your post. Perfect! A Holmes/Corrigan team-up would have been so much fun!!

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  5. As Jim Corrigan was a police detective of the 1940's, I imagine any meeting between his spectral self and Sherlock Holmes would entail the latter being a namesake descendant. Such was the purported back story for Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's characters in every WWII-era sequel they starred in following "Hound of the Baskervilles!"

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    1. Or it could have been with one of its previous hosts.

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  6. I saw the names in this pairing and thought, "What a divide between these two -- they have virtually nothing in common! What could Ross have come up with to bring them together?" And then this story... Seeing it on the shelves, I'd be thinking, "What the dickens?" and be wanting to read it right away. The cover itself is nigh-seamless, so I can only call this yet another of your best.

    I do recall reading about how the set of Infinity War/Endgame was filled with Sherlock Holmes references any time Robert Downey and Benedict Cumberbatch were on set together -- they jokingly turned the character into a faux rivalry between them. (That's probably overstating the actual fact, but it's the general sense of things that I got from the report.)

    Still, to me, Jeremy Brett will always be the definitive Sherlock Holmes.

    PS: This image of Holmes looks like it might've gone well with the Tangent Universe Green Lantern.

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  7. Wow! Amazing image here Ross. It conveys a dark atmosphere that truly does justice to both characters.

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  8. A really great cover. It looks as if it's real enough to hold in your hands, open up and start reading...

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  9. Ah, that's right: I thought Holmes always found a way to debunk the supernatural, bad day for it this time I guess.

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  10. @Bigby: Wouldn't it be ironic if that previous host was one of Dr. Thirteen's ancestors?

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  11. At least your guess was numerically appropriate.

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  12. A Young Orson Wells as the Spectre/Jim & Basil Rathboone as Sherlock Holmes.

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