The Ultimate Classic Radio Collection

 

A friend told me recently that he finds himself reading and rereading older short stories and novels instead of newer ones. He wondered if it was an age thing, a security thing, or if the older stuff really is better. 

I don't know, but I can relate. While I still read, watch, and listen to plenty of contemporary works, I also find myself drawn back to older times. This is especially true with old-time radio from the 1930s through the 1950s, an era I loved when I was much younger and have rediscovered in the last few years, largely thanks to the Radio Classics channel on Sirius XM.

Enter The Ultimate Classic Radio Collection, with 400 shows on 200 CDs, released in 2024 by Carl Amari and the Classic Radio Club. The set is a sampler of everything that makes OTR so terrific—voice acting, sound effects, and multiple genres (suspense, humor, drama, detective, variety—it's all here). 

Some fans may prefer collections centering around a particular show, and plenty of these sets exist. The more popular shows—Jack Benny, Suspense, Fibber McGee & Molly, and Gunsmoke, among them—have multiple collections focusing solely on them. But the beauty of a set like The Ultimate Classic Radio Collection is that it introduces the listener to dozens of shows. At least that's how it has worked in my case. 

I doubt I would have ever sought out and listened to, say, Father Knows Best or The Kraft Music Hall (featuring Bing Crosby) without this set, but I ended up enjoying both. And many series that were only names to me before (Let George Do It, Bold Venture, Red Ryder) are now more familiar because each had at least two episodes in this collection. 

Each installment is remastered and sounds great. Original commercials are included for network programs, but not for syndicated shows. The commercials themselves are time capsules—cigarette promotions that extol the benefits of the habit, appliance pitches made directly to wives who want to please their husbands.

I received the set at Christmas and over the last six months, I've listened to about half the shows. Yes, the usual suspects are well represented. The previously mentioned Jack Benny, Fibber McGee & Molly, and Gunsmoke have multiple discs devoted to their contents. I also got a kick out of The 21st Precinct (especially "The Virtuoso"), Big Town, and The Black Museum (with Orson Welles' sonorous voice adding gravitas to the proceedings). The Damon Runyon Theatre was intriguing enough that I am now reading the author's short stories. 

Controversially, the set includes episodes of Amos 'N' Andy, a wildly popular show in its day that is now considered verboten because two white actors played the Black leads. The modern listener has to decide how to process these works, along with the realization that few—if any—shows of the period represented minorities and women fairly. 

The Ultimate Classic Radio Collection includes a generous book of background information about each show in the set. Photos of many of the performers are included on the last four pages. I wish more images had been included throughout the book; plenty of promotional materials for these programs still exist and would have been a nice addition. 

The last 32 discs in the set are devoted to Christmas episodes. That's a lot of Yuletide cheer! At the rate I'm going, I should get to those episodes in November and December, so I'm right on target. 

The elephant in the room with a set like this, especially one priced at $399 for physical discs (and half that price for digital downloads), is why the listener wouldn't just find all or most of the episodes for free on the many online archives devoted to the hobby. It's a fair question. For me, the answer lies in having complete episodes, digitally remastered, compiled in one place. Even if I had the time to do this (which I don't), I don't have the skills to remove the various scratches and hisses as well as Amari and his team. (Amari, the host of Hollywood 360, a radio show dedicated to OTR, answered the phone when my wife ordered the set and personalized my booklet, which was pretty cool.)

Bottom line is this is a great set with 200 hours (more than eight days!) of enjoyment. Even if you don't like every episode, it's still a bargain. 

Concerning cuts to Ohio public education

I originally shared this piece regarding cuts to Ohio public education as a Facebook post on June 12. It's not too late for legislators to regain their sanity and properly fund public education in the Buckeye State. 

Reporters are often accused of ginning up readership by painting issues in the darkest ways.

However, no news outlet has done enough to call attention to the gloomy forecast for public education if Ohio lawmakers don’t make big changes to the Ohio budget proposal.

It’s not hyperbole to call the new budget a game-changer for public schools. Or even an extinction-level event.

That’s because both the House and Senate versions of the bill include problematic proposals, many of which were explained at a recent rally hosted by Stark County school administrators at the Canton Civic Center on June 10.

Among these proposals is a requirement that school districts return any “rainy day” funds to voters if the amounts exceed a certain percentage of each district’s budget. The only difference between the House and Senate versions on this issue is the percentage that triggers the reimbursement.

Taxpayers with long memories may recall that rainy day funds exist because earlier lawmakers chided districts for not having such emergency funds. Current critics cite the balances as examples of how schools are allegedly flush with money. But, as any homeowner can attest, most budgets are only one roof-replacement estimate away from disaster. Taking the meager average household slush fund and scaling it up to school-budget level demonstrates that most districts’ “savings” are hardly an example of largesse. Instead, they’re a reasonable nest egg in case of a disaster.

Just as alarming is a provision that would force school districts to close buildings at less than 60 percent capacity and sell them to charter schools at less than market value. A district can have less than 60 percent capacity for many reasons, including the need for extra space to educate students with special needs or to house equipment necessary for specialized career programs, such as cosmetology, auto mechanics, or culinary arts.

I teach in a building that offers—or will soon offer—all three. These are in-demand professions, and public schools that offer such courses are setting students up for success. But if it all comes down to bodies per square foot, how will kids in such classes gain the knowledge and experience they need for success?

Worst of all, in this teacher’s opinion, is how the new budget subverts the Fair School Funding Plan (FSFP), a bipartisan approach “based on the actual cost of educating kids, sharing that cost between the state and local communities by considering communities’ ability to cover the costs through local taxes,” according to Policy Matters Ohio.

So, while headlines may tout that the budget proposals increase funding for Ohio’s public schools ($226 million more from the House proposal, for a total of $534 million; $326 million more from the Senate, for a total of $634 million), this is not nearly enough to fund public education in the state.

The FSFP, by contrast, would have provided an additional $3 billion for public education over the next two years.

Tellingly, both the House and Senate proposals (and Governor DeWine’s, for that matter) provide huge increases for voucher programs, which allow public taxpayer money to fund private, charter schools. The House’s proposal, for example, would allocate $500 million for voucher programs, almost twice the increase it allotted for public education.

Charter schools don’t play by the same rules as their public brethren. They do not have to accept all students and do not need to test and report results for the ones they do accept. They can cherry-pick the best (or the best-paying) and leave the rest for the public schools, who must still provide the transportation to and from. And who, remember, may have been forced to sell the very facilities these new charter school students are attending.

“Follow the money” was the Watergate-era dictate. It’s still true today. Many lawmakers, it seems, view public education as one of the last remaining financial frontiers for their wealthy business allies. Public education, a public good, is ripe for for-profit entrepreneurs to exploit. And if it doesn’t work out (i.e., not enough profit), don’t worry—the government will bail them out.

Meanwhile, the money the legislature is saving by cutting education is enough to give the Browns a new stadium as a reward for the team’s many winning seasons and to provide tax cuts for folks already making six figures. Insert copious eyerolls here.

Various officials and superintendents at Tuesday’s rally made it a point to say the budget proposal isn’t a Democratic or Republican issue, but rather an issue for everybody concerned with properly educating the next generation of workers and leaders in the Buckeye State.

And, yeah, that’s true, but only from the taxpayers’ perspective. Because you must look at the letter that follows the names of the politicians who have a majority in the House and Senate (along with the party of the governor) to realize that some of this, at least, is most assuredly political.

These budget shenanigans are, in part, a clapback for the culture wars that critics say are playing out in our schools. The distorted belief that just because teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators care for and value all students, we are somehow grooming them to make nontraditional lifestyle choices and subverting parents’ rights.

I can assure you we are not. I’m busy teaching kids to think, research, and write. My colleagues are busy teaching them to calculate, to weld, to build homes. We are also teaching them to be informed citizens, to know for whom and why they pull the lever at the ballot box.
Not to tell them how to vote, but to teach them why it’s important to vote and to encourage them to do so.

If that’s indoctrination—well, I’m guilty.

The Senate passed its budget bill on Wednesday, June 11. Now it goes back to the House to reconcile the two competing versions. This process must be completed by June 30.

This would be a great time to reach out to your elected officials and let them know how disappointed you will be if they weaken our communities by weakening our public schools. Disappointed enough to vote for somebody else the next time, perhaps.

Maybe it’s not too late to reverse a gloomy forecast.

The Kents 9-12—"To the Stars By Hard Ways"

 

The saga of Superman/Clark Kent's ancestors ends with this last arc, "To the Stars by Hard Ways." 

As with the previous two storylines, it is told as a series of old letters ("epistolary style" is the technical term) sent from Pa Kent in Kansas to his son in Metropolis. These letters are written by either Jeb Kent, the bad seed of the Kent family; Jeb's brother, Nathaniel, who treads the straight and narrow as a lawman; or Mary Glenowen, a victim of the government's constant moving of Native American tribes.  

Not surprisingly, the focus here is on the two brothers and their disagreements, which have reached a breaking point. Jeb, who fought for the Confederacy, now rides with Jesse James and his gang. Nathaniel, who fought for the Union, is now a lawman with Wild Bill Hickok. A confrontation is inevitable, and the story doesn't disappoint. 

The art for this final act is from Tom Mandrake. His style is similar to Tim Truman's (who penciled the first eight issues), so the change is not as jarring as might otherwise be. What Mandrake lacks in Truman's attention to detail, he makes up for with a more fluid sense of movement among the characters. Swapping artists for the last part of a mini-series is often seen as a sign of deadline problems; however, Ostrander announced the change in the first issue, so it was obviously anticipated and part of the overall plan. Maybe Truman could only commit to part of the project, or Mandrake wasn't available for all of it. Decades later, all that matters is that the series ends strongly. 

True to his word, Ostrander avoids the temptation to show readers Superman in costume, even though there is a moment on the last page when such an appearance would not have been out of place. Readers would only recognize this as a Superman-adjacent project if they recognized the Kent reference in the title or noticed the stylized "S" worked into each cover. (With the latter, Mandrake is more subtle than Truman.)

The letters page in issue 11 provides the sources Ostrander consulted. On the same letters page, he states that he wants to tell more stories of the Kents (even if the conclusion of the arc feels, to this reader, like the important elements of their story have concluded). Obviously, those additional stories never came (or haven't come yet), which is a shame. Western comics were as rare as hen's teeth in the late '90s and are equally scarce today. 

Regardless, the twelve issues of The Kents are solid and enjoyable. A reader on Facebook opined that he doubts DC will ever reprint the book (even digitally) since it didn't sell well initially. The company also has plenty of other Superman stories to reprint that are more audience-friendly, as the character makes his way to the big screen again this summer. And that reader is probably right. 

Still, if you're haunting the back-issue bins and come across The Kents, it's worth the time. 

 

The Kents—"Brother Versus Brother"

 

 

 

The second arc of The Kents, issues 5-8 ("Brother Versus Brother") continues the excellence of the first four issues. Again, writer John Ostrander demonstrates his skills at turning copious research into compelling historical fiction. Penciller Tim Truman and inker Michael Bair again provide excellent visuals, capturing the gory intensity of the Civil War to complement Ostrander's scripts. 

Much of the groundwork from the first arc, "Bleeding Kansas," bears fruit here. Clark's ancestors, siblings Nathaniel and Jeb Kent, find themselves on opposite sides of the war. Nathaniel is a scout and spy for the North, while Jeb fights for the Confederacy and Confederacy-adjacent causes. The arc opens with Jeb's letter home to his sister, confessing that he's killed Nathaniel. (Spoiler alert: He hasn't.) 

Ostrander presents Nathaniel as conflicted. Yes, he wants to kill his younger brother since Jeb tried to kill him, yet he realizes that such vengeance is hollow. In a moment of retribution for a separate incident, he burns down the house of slavers who captured Sarah Freeman, a Black woman who lived next door to the Kents in Kansas. This fiery action alerts Nathaniel that no solution may be too extreme for his hatred and rage. 

Mary Glenowen, Nathaniel's love, has her own hardships, as this arc gives her a larger role than in previous issues. She faces prejudice not only because she is biracial, but also because her neighbors believe that she is sleeping with the young Black man she is helping to raise. Added to these trials are the continual advances of Jim Lane, a powerful politician, who wants Mary for his own lecherous purposes and will go to any lengths to have her. 

Highlights of the four issues are the depiction of Jeb's hellish first military battle; Lane's Order No. 11, basically a scorched-earth policy of retribution against Missouri (demonstrating that atrocities occurred on both sides); and cameos by John Wilkes Booth and a DC Western hero whose appearance is one of the few times I smiled during a grim storyline. 

In the present, Pa Kent and Clark discuss via mail why these old missives are best commented upon in print instead of by phone. Such commentary is necessary to the epistolary style of the story, of course, but it's nice to see Ostrander addressing the rather old-fashioned communication choice (even for the 1990s).  

My only complaint is the font size. This may sound like a "me" problem, but I have to believe other readers were similarly impacted by the struggle to read some of the text boxes. It's not only the size of the various fonts involved, but also the italics and the faux-script look to differentiate among the narrators. I have decent-ish vision, and I was often challenged by the size of the text. If DC ever gets around to reprinting this—and I hope the company does—using a larger, Absolute size would be helpful. 

On to the third and final arc of the series. 

The Kents—"Bleeding Kansas"

I've been wanting to read The Kents (1997-1988) for years, and thanks to a sale at my Local Comic Book Shop on Free Comic Book Day, now I can. 

The Kents is the story of Clark Kent's mid- to late-19th-century ancestors. The framing story shows Pa Kent, on his Kansas farm, unearthing an old box of letters, journals, and artifacts buried a century earlier. These items tell the story of Silas Kent and his sons, Nathaniel and Jebediah, Boston residents who relocate to the Kansas territory in 1854 to support the abolitionist movement with their presence and printing press. They are embroiled in the showdown between pro-slavery and free-staters incited by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. 

Silas Kent is the crusading reporter in the Kent family tree. At one point, he reprints the entire Declaration of Independence on the front page of his newspaper and rails against "border ruffians" from Missouri who cross into the Kansas territory to raise hell, stuff ballot boxes, and harass the Black populace and anybody who supports them. 

Nathaniel Kent is the Clark/Superman proxy, in appearance, action, and moral code. Accused of being against slavery but without personal acquaintances among the Black community, he sets out to rectify this character flaw by building a friendship with Tobias and Sarah Freeman and their son, Joshua, who live next to the Kent farm. He also falls in love with Mary Glenowen, the daughter of an English father and a Delaware tribe mother. Mary is also the betrothed of Wild Bill Hickok, one of several real-life individuals who mix with the fictional Kents. 

Jeb Kent is the problem child. He questions whether slavery is immoral and pummels his father with hypothetical questions about taking the law into one's own hands when the law itself is unjust. In response to one of his scenarios, Nathaniel points out, "It's not that [breaking the law] is right! It's that it is sometimes necessary." Jeb's preciousness—if that's what it is—foreshadows later events when he joins with the Missouri faction to terrorize abolitionists. Meanwhile, his frequent misspellings in letters to family back in Boston underscore, perhaps unfairly, his moribund thought processes and impetuousness. 

In the first four-issue arc, Luther Reid, about as hissable a villain as a reader could want, leads the pro-slavery faction. He takes lethal action against one of the Kents, inciting the remaining two to seek revenge. 

Writer John Ostrander dedicates The Kents to his wife, Kim Yale, who died before it was completed. It is obvious the book is a passion project for Ostrander, whose blending of history and fiction is seamless. One incident—the caning of Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist, by Representative Peter Brooks, in the Senate chamber after Sumner gave a speech criticizing two of Brooks' fellow senators—sent me scurrying online for corroboration. It was true, and just as horrific as Ostrander's account. 

To Ostrander's credit, the first arc shows more nuance to the opposing points of the slavey issue than the reader might expect. While anti-slavery forces are clearly shown as being on the wrong side of history (and morality, and common sense ...), their argument—that the government was guilty of overreach in demanding they divest themselves of "property"—is presented. And abolitionist John Brown, martyred for the cause, is shown to be too extreme in his methods to be effective at changing any minds. Of Brown's abortive attempts at Harper's Ferry, Ostrander has Pa Kent note, "The operation was a fiasco and Brown was captured and later hanged for treason, achieving with his death far more than he ever did with his life." 

Even Jeb Kent, firmly embedded on the wrong side of the issue, is shown to have second thoughts. When the posse Jeb runs with ambushes some free-state supporters and executes them, Jeb refuses to participate, provoking Reid's ire. 

Ostrander studiously avoids appearances of Superman in costume, content to have Clark and Lois Lane read the letters Pa Kent sends from Smallville to Metropolis. Only one incident, an Iroquois blanket with a symbol that looks very similar to the Man of Steel's stylized "S" logo, overtly calls the reader's attention to the bigger DC Universe connections. 

Based on past work, penciller Timothy Truman is obviously at home in the Western genre and contributes his typically detailed artwork here. Each character is delineated carefully, and the buildings, clothing, and landscapes feel true (whether the characters are in New York, Boston, or the Kansas territory). Inker Michael Bair delineates Truman's pencils to perfection. 

One bonus to reading the book in single issues is the letters pages. In the first issue, Ostrander explains how his original intent was to feature Deadshot's ancestors in the story. Publisher Paul Levitz suggested using the Kents, instead. It was a good call. While the book would tell the same story, it resonates more with Superman's adoptive family as the focus. 

"Bleeding Kansas" is a terrific first arc for this maxi-series and has me anticipating the rest of the story. Highly recommended. During this Summer of Superman, I'm surprised DC isn't reprinting The Kents, which would appeal to an audience beyond the usual superhero crowd. 

 

Superman vs. Shazam! is a missed opportunity

 

Of the treasury reprints that DC has offered in the last year or two, Superman vs. Shazam! is the first that has disappointed me. Where the other two '70s team-ups (Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, Superman vs. Wonder Woman) feel like event books, with ambitious stories that match the oversized artwork, Superman vs. Shazam! feels disjointed, crowded, and padded. 

Some of this disappointment comes from the script. Gerry Conway, who hit the tabloid Supes/Wonder Woman meeting out of the park, fumbles here with an overcomplicated story awash in DC continuity. It opens on Mars, in the castle of Karmang the Evil (yep, that's his name, a downgrade from his previous sobriquets: Karmang the Good, Karmang the Scientist, and Karmang the Sorcerer), who plans to destroy two different Earths and use the energy to bring the population of Mars back to life. 

Central to Karmang's plan are Black Adam, one of Captain Marvel's oldest foes, and Quarrmer, the alien doppelgänger for the Man of Steel, best known from Superman (original series) #233. Karmang transforms Black Adam into a replica of Captain Marvel, sending him to battle Superman on Earth One. He then sends Quarrmer, already a dead-ringer for Superman, to battle Captain Marvel on Earth S. Meanwhile, both Black Adam and Quarrmer have hidden "space-time engines" on both planets, which will "drive both Earths into collision," according to our Big Bad, thus creating the energy he needs to restore his people. 

Meanwhile, the real Superman and Captain Marvel, still partially under the thrall of Karmang's disruption rays (to which they were exposed in their battles with the fake versions), meet on Earth One to battle one another. It's a fight that takes most of the book, and yet is only peripheral to the plot. Mary Marvel and Supergirl must do the real heavy lifting, not only sussing out the threat of Karmang but also giving readers story-stopping exposition about Black Adam and Quarrmer. 

It's no spoiler to say that everything ends up the way it's supposed to, with the bad guys soundly defeated and both Earths safe, but getting there is awfully convoluted. As if this isn't enough, Conway also juggles silly subplots about Mary Marvel's crush on Superman and the toxic masculinity of Steve Lombard, one of Clark Kent and Lois Lane's co-workers. 

The artwork does the story no favors. Artists Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano are doing their best to channel Neal Adams, but the imitation—much like that of Quarrmer for Superman or Black Adam for Captain Marvel—doesn't work. Instead, the reader is left wishing that Adams had drawn the story himself. 

It doesn't help that the artists have a penchant here for bungling big action moments. For instance, we don't get a full-on view of Superman's face in his first appearance. Instead, we see his neck:

And then his neck (again) and his back:

And then a couple of profile or near-profile shots:

The scenes of Karmang on Mars are better. An interlude that provides the villain's backstory is drawn more dynamically than anything else in the book. But as soon as the story shifts back to Earth (either one), the clunkiness returns. 

My favorite missed opportunity in the multi-sequence Superman/Captain Marvel brawl is this one, which certainly belongs in the Awkwarded Posed Panels Hall of Fame: 

Thankfully, Superman's fist is visible, lest the reader believe that the Man of Steel has just hit Marvel in the family jewels. Yet somebody at DC thought this angle was splash-page worthy. 

And maybe it's just my copy, but the entire book looks muddy and dull, unlike the crisper reproductions in other DC tabloid reprints so far.

This is the first issue that wasn't worth my $14.99. Your mileage may vary, certainly, but it's hard to walk away from this without thinking of it as a missed opportunity to team these two iconic characters. 

Earth X ... at last

I bought Earth X four years ago, but only this May did I manage to read it all the way through. 

This says more about my eyes being bigger than my stomach, reading-wise, than about the quality of the work by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, and John Paul Leon. 

Still, the book is dense, both in concept and execution. Readers weaned on more pedestrian crossover events (oh, all the villains have escaped from Arkham ... again!) may be surprised by how ambitious Earth X is. Its goal is nothing less than a unified theory of the disparate events at the bedrock of the Marvel Universe, encompassing the Celestials, Inhumans, and Asgardians, along with Uatu the Watcher and Galactus thrown in for good measure. And those are just the cosmic players. The book is also chock-full of the typical suspects—Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Captain America, Spider-Man, the Thing, et al. 

So, this is a book that swings for the fences. It doesn't quite get there, but it still offers much to recommend. 

First, the world-building and continuity bridges are impressive. Krueger, as writer (sharing story credit with Alex Ross, who also designed the futuristic landscape and characters), has set himself a Miltonian task (to "justify the ways of God to men," as the poet announced in Paradise Lost) by teasing out "a purpose to the throng of accidental heroes that Stan [Lee] and Jack [Kirby] created so many years ago." Earth, it seems, is home to a gestating Celestial, protected through the years by mutations implanted in the indigenous inhabitants. Said mutations present themselves as superheroes, but only after traumatic events, such as World War II (for many of the Invaders) or radioactive spiders (for ... well, you know), germinate the deeply buried seeds. 

Second, this may well be John Paul Leon's masterpiece. I haven't yet read The Winter Men, which some readers declare his finest work. Yet it's hard to imagine any other artist organically working so many heavy hitters into one story. The climactic battle between Galactus and the Celestials rivals any big-budget superhero film, and that's just one sequence among dozens that are equally jaw-dropping. 

It was also gutsy of Krueger, Ross, and Leon to use Aaron Stack, aka Machine Man, aka Mister Machine, as the story's protagonist. Outside of hardcore fans in 1999 (when Earth X was first published), who even remembered this character from Kirby's short-lived 2001: A Space Odyssey series? But Stack makes the perfect vehicle to observe a Watcher's dissolution into madness. That the creative team also worked in an appearance by the Monolith, the hunk of extraterrestrial stone that gave humanity's ancestors the edge over their enemies in Kubrick's original film, is a bonus. 

However, Earth X's biggest assets are also its biggest flaws. The ambitious plot is sometimes too convoluted. A teenaged Red Skull skulks about the periphery, a new Daredevil's origin remains fraught with mystery (if it was revealed, it flew over this reader's head), and a major plot point—all of humanity gaining superpowers—isn't explored in nearly the detail that it could (or should). 

A series that relies so much on the audience's previous knowledge of the Marvel Universe doesn't need origin recaps for the major players, but the book overflows with them. Worse, these summaries of Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four don't provide any new analyses or breakthrough observations. 

And the ongoing battle of wits between Stack and Uatu becomes tiresome, especially when extended to text pieces at the end of each chapter. These could uncharitably be described as filler, something to fill the empty spaces around Ross's concept sketches. A better use of the pages comes in the appendix to Chapter Twelve, when Captain America offers an insightful analysis of his relationship with the Red Skull and with America itself. More insights like this would allow the words to compete with Ross's sublime designs.  

In the end, Earth X is a book that commands attention. It transcends the tired rationales for most large-scale events and delivers a carefully considered vision of the Marvel Universe's past and future, along with some slices of philosophy suitable for our own time. Despite flaws in pacing and an overabundance of underutilized characters, it's a book that deserves to be revisited.

Even if it takes some readers four years to do it.