Scientists claim that we’re currently doing a reasonable job at a mass extinction but not nearly as good as the huge rock that struck Mexico around 65 million years ago. Regardless of what the top five extinctions tell us, the planet is fine, always has been, probably always will be. It appears to have a fairly nonchalant response when it comes to mass extinction. Before you start frantically commenting on why a mass extinction is bad, if they had never taken place, today we would not have sharks and cars, two of my favourite things.

Corvette Mako Shark

That being said, we have to enjoy our short but sweet time here and so far we’ve been pretty busy. Thankfully for me, fellow curious human beings make movies about sharks and cars. Obviously I’m not here to talk about sharks but I was thinking about my favourite retro motors in movies.

Without doubt in my mind Anton Furst’s Batmobile is one of the coolest retro on screen motors of all time. His design work on the bleak metropolis of Gotham was second to none and to have produced a very striking and timeless Batmobile was no mean feat. With inspirations from war machines, aircraft and art deco styling, the final result was the perfect driving machine for a super goth. Batman was charismatic and cool back then, the car was purely an extension of that. With a turbine driving the midnight black machine, it looked every bit intimidating as it did sexy, with its winged rear end and the aircraft like cockpit in the centre.

Twin browning machine guns mounted at the front, armour plating and a grappling hook, need I say more?

The Bat Bastard

In George Millers depiction of the future in Mad Max, a massive percentage of everything has died (Probably including sharks) with the exception of humans and cars. Not just any cars though, modified beasts with armour, guns, spikes and flamethrowers. Whilst there is something refreshing about a world without the Nissan leaf, tax returns, governments and police. The world in which Max lives is rather bleak and unforgiving. What better way to see the day through than mowing down members of a tyrannical biker gang with an armoured, nitro fuelled V8, a Ford Falcon to be exact.

The interceptor was the product of Barry, the seemingly mentally challenged mechanic in Mad Max. Despite his impairment he was quite handy with a spanner and put together what is arguably the meanest looking vehicle for a protagonist. “She’s the last V8, she sucks Nitro!”.

I could go on and mention all the most obvious super star cars, The Back to the Future DeLorean, Ecto 1 or the five hundred bond cars but as a car guy, I think we should all take a moment to remember those unsung heroes of the big screen. Those cars that got people from A-B or a car you saw only for a few seconds before it was blown up by an overzealous director. Knowing what kind of money these relics go for now, I watch some scenes through my fingers.

Take the Ford LTD for example. A large lumbering “yank tank” from as far back as the 60’s, which, in all of it’s variations, ran until the end of the 80s. If you’ve seen any films within this era, you’ve seen many of these land boats smashing into other cars, people, chasing criminals dressed as a smokey or simply driving entire families around in it’s vast expanse of an interior.

For the fans of the synthwave community I guess the go to movie is The Terminator. Kyle Reece came from a future war and needed some muscle. What better vehicle to steal than a sixteen foot long, two and a half ton V8 sedan. With a 0-60mph that could be measured on a sundial, 12 mpg and all the handling of an abused shopping cart, I guess the only bonus was that it was incredibly comfortable. The sheer size and weight was probably Kyle’s saving grace, because if Sarah Conner was born in Europe, Kyle would have stolen a Fiat and subsequently the Austrian death machine would have picked it up and thrown them in the sea.

In a sort of car “cos-play” the Ford LTD has been most memorable in retro movies as the Crown Victoria, in fleet use they were used for primarily police or taxi markets. Again you may remember it as the cop car used to getaway from the T1000 in Terminator 2, similar cruisers in Universal Soldier or from the hundreds of scenes of taxi rides in your favourite movies. The LTD is truly an on screen icon, from action films to crime thrillers, the LTD was stuntman, sidekick, for good guys and bad guys.

Throughout the 70s and 80’s car wrecking was a big draw for Hollywood. Ron Howards Grand Theft Auto (now overshadowed by the multi million dollar gaming franchise) was a wrecking-fest. Dozens of cars, now considered cherished automotive icons, were rolled, crushed and launched into untimely deaths.

If you want to see some of the best chases and stunts, check out Junk Man. Henry Blight Halicki, nickname, Junkman. A stuntman, director and a bit of a lunatic. Using his own vast collection of vehicles, he wrote and starred in Gone in 60 seconds, Junkman and also made a sequel to Gone in 60 seconds, aptly named Gone in 60 seconds 2.

Grab a copy and some popcorn and enjoy some automotive carnage!

This months Retro Motors looks back at some of the best cartoon vehicles. Again the 80’s and early 90’s were the host to an abundance of all action vehicular combat based cartoons; ranging from the absolutely absurd, to some of the finest animated work to date. Taking a look over what people consider “The best cartoons” today, it’s clear to see that we have moved away from the more classic storytelling and instead opted for balls out, physiologically unsettling and surreal. Back then it was good vs evil, David vs Goliath, man vs machine- or a mix of all three. Not only did the majority of these cartoons tell of a great adventure or explore some primal instincts but they also looked damn cool.

A group I wholeheartedly feel should exist in real life is M.A.S.K (Mobile Armoured Strike Command). If money were no object I’d mobilise a team akin to M.A.S.K and chase ivory poachers with a flying Camaro that shoots rockets. People like Elon Musk think they’re doing the world a favour by producing silent cars and an underground tunnel, but I feel if I was wealthy enough, people would much rather watch a live feed of me in a flying Camaro bombing Japanese whaling boats.

Thunderhawk

No list of the coolest cartoon vehicles could end without mentioning Transformers, although my favourite robot was not only a bad guy but was never a vehicle in the first place. Sound wave, for me, always stood out for the fact he decided to talk through a vocoder and his arsenal consisted of a massive cannon and weaponised cassette tapes.

Yet no other cartoon character made such an impact on me than Optimus Prime. I seem to remember entering a Video Nest here in the UK and choosing a film for Friday night with my dad. From Thundercats to HE MAN, Jason and the Wheeled Warriors to Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles. What could go wrong with a full feature length film about these mighty metal heros? Optimus Prime could go wrong, that’s what.

Optimus Prime

There are some people who still believe that certain human beings, deceased yet period correct, still wander the earth as ghosts. It is believed that certain spectral entities come back with such tasks as moving trinkets, walking without purpose or simply switching on and off the lights. They may be one of the most underwhelming myths of the natural world but the Ghostbusters on the other hand are real and the film is a masterpiece. The Real Ghostbusters was the name of the animated series and what a series it was- exploring further into the characters whilst retaining all the fun and bizarre ghost stories of New York City.

Ecto 1 is a Cadillac- in case you didn’t know. Miller-Meteor, the famous coach builder, designed and manufactured modified versions for businesses who required a classy looking vehicle as big a boat. It had been used as an ambulance-come-hearse in some states of America and became infamous when it starred in the Ghostbusters film. The unforgettable wail of the siren and the bright colour scheme are as iconic as that silver car from Back To The Future.

Ecto 1

The best Batmobile has been and gone when Michael Keaton drove it back in 1989. Long, black, sleek and sexy, complete with mounted guns, turbine and armour plating. Since then the Batmobile has gone from looking like it runs the city, to something that looks like Super-Goth is trying to compensate.

A little later in 1992 Batman the animated series was launched. A beautifully animated, well scripted; timeless, moving comic, also featuring its very own Batmobile. In keeping with the gothic art deco style of the series, the Batmobile of this era is a brutal looking, four wheeled slab of a car. Housing what appears to be a monstrous V12 and with all the essential gadgets like teargas, bullet proof armour and missiles. The dark deco style was inspired by Tim Burton’s work and in my opinion deserves a live action version someday, if only to see the car for real.

The Batmobile

Not exactly a cartoon, more like an animated schizophrenic episode- Akira is an extraordinary masterpiece of technical ability, eccentric storytelling and cult imagery. Any New Retro Wave fan will tell you, the Neo-Tokyo setting is an unnerving mix of real world imagery and sci-fi elements that blend in such a brutal way, it’s going to leave a mark.

My lasting memory of the film however was not the face melting fight sequences but the bike. Kaneda is a young teen with a bad attitude. He’s also the leader of a biker gang who take no shit when it comes to the open road. His chosen chariot is renowned even before you get to see it. Rumour has it this thing was a 200mph, electronically driven sports bike. Whatever it is, it’s one of the coolest animated vehicles to date. Some die hard fans of the franchise have spent thousands creating exact replicas. It has even inspired Honda to create something that closely resembles Shotaro Kaneda’s iron horse.

Kaneda’s bike

These vehicles were at first animated, then became toys and now in some cases would become a reality. I may not be able to have my very own Batmobile but I’ve always thought cars and bikes bring adventure and can become a very real emotional attachment. I hope that even with the decline of fossil fuel burning vehicles, we could see a revival of memorable characters and and equally as memorable vehicular concepts.

Here’s a fun game: What makes a good Batman story? Is it Bruce Wayne? There have been good Batman stories with the cowl being carried by former Robin and usual Nightwing Dick Grayson, and beyond that, several Batman comics have had a primary focus on one of his iconic rogues. The common thread of Batman comics is the atmosphere.

That atmosphere is Gotham.

Gotham is such a pervasive aspect of Batman stories that it’s often overlooked, but unlike real life cities in other comics or other fictional cities like Metropolis, Gotham never seems incidental or interchangeable. The seedy, gothic noir of Gotham is so well established and, for lack of a better word, characterized that it transcends the typical idea of a setting. There’s a reason the Fox show is called Gotham and not Rogues. Gotham is the connection to the idea of a Batman story more than anything else. And do you know which Batman comic might paint the best portrait of Gotham, in all its gritty, seedy glory?

That’s right, Year One.

We see the city that molds Bruce Wayne, further shapes James Gordon and Selina Kyle, and the way it weighs on every character from start to finish, with the difference between heroes and villains being the difference between those who fold under that weight.

2. A Sign of the Times

1986 and 1987 are interesting years in comic history. Maus had been released in ‘86, which changed the critical perception of the levels to which comics could aspire, while Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, and Walter Simonson were arguably at creative peaks with their respective roles in writing Marvel’s “Mutant Massacre” arc, as well as Frank Miller’s revamp of the Daredevil comic, which in 1987 was somehow pushed to the character’s peak by writer Ann Nocenti. Over that two year period of time, Frank Miller and Alan Moore each delivered what is likely the trinity of 80’s comics in Miller’s Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, while Moore’s Watchmen has a reputation that rivals novels in the literary canon.

Of this pulpy trilogy, Year One is easily the most accessible and grounded. A lot of Dark Knight Returns’ strength lies in the way that it builds on expectations of Batman and Gotham as a setting, while Watchmen can get a little too cerebral at times with its ambitions feeling daunting. Year One is more welcoming, as its status among those other two titles is more of a affirmation of the shifting tone of comics than the powderkeg blowing the entire things up. Its indicative of the changing climate and themes involved in comics from that point forward, and if you’ve picked up a comic published after that time, you’ve seen the DNA of Year One.

3. James Gordon

What might be most surprising for new readers is the way Year One presents its secondary protagonist, James Gordon. Year One follows a Gordon who is new to Gotham, not yet a commissioner, and perhaps above all deeply human. Gordon is exceptionally competent and more than a few times is Miller’s badass star, but he isn’t perfect, and we see his personal life in shambles as he slips into an affair while his wife is pregnant.

His personal failings only make him that much more interesting to read, as he is often more compelling than Bruce Wayne — partially due to Gordon’s much more readable handwritten narration. His hard-boiled persona also keeps the comic squarely in the noir roots that it needs to create the atmosphere. Gordon might not be a Gotham native, but he is more essential to the city’s oppressive presence than Batman.

4. Despite Being Retconned, It Still Stands as the Thematic Origin

When the New 52 retconned much of DC’s history, Batman writer Scott Snyder served up the new official origin for Batman in Zero Year. While Zero Year is undoubtedly a good story from one of Batman’s best modern writers, you can even see in the title why it will never feel definitive, even if it is canonical. Year One is such a remarkably strong comic and origin that sets up everything you really need to understand future Batman stories that even the comic that was supposed to replacement had to title itself in reaction to Year One.

And Zero Year itself is deeply indebted to Year One in terms of actual plot, as is much of Batman’s presentation in film, with Christopher Nolan appearing to be the comic’s biggest fan. It’s pretty hard culturally to avoid Batman’s origin story, especially if you’re reading this, but what makes Year One perhaps the best starting point more than anything is the way that it gives readers exactly what to expect from any Batman comic after it.

Here’s a fun game: What makes a good Batman story? Is it Bruce Wayne? There have been good Batman stories with the cowl being carried by former Robin and usual Nightwing Dick Grayson, and beyond that, several Batman comics have had a primary focus on one of his iconic rogues. The common thread of Batman comics is the atmosphere.

That atmosphere is Gotham.

Gotham is such a pervasive aspect of Batman stories that it’s often overlooked, but unlike real life cities in other comics or other fictional cities like Metropolis, Gotham never seems incidental or interchangeable. The seedy, gothic noir of Gotham is so well established and, for lack of a better word, characterized that it transcends the typical idea of a setting. There’s a reason the Fox show is called Gotham and not Rogues. Gotham is the connection to the idea of a Batman story more than anything else. And do you know which Batman comic might paint the best portrait of Gotham, in all its gritty, seedy glory?

That’s right, Year One.

We see the city that molds Bruce Wayne, further shapes James Gordon and Selina Kyle, and the way it weighs on every character from start to finish, with the difference between heroes and villains being the difference between those who fold under that weight.

2. A Sign of the Times

1986 and 1987 are interesting years in comic history. Maus had been released in ‘86, which changed the critical perception of the levels to which comics could aspire, while Chris Claremont, Louise Simonson, and Walter Simonson were arguably at creative peaks with their respective roles in writing Marvel’s “Mutant Massacre” arc, as well as Frank Miller’s revamp of the Daredevil comic, which in 1987 was somehow pushed to the character’s peak by writer Ann Nocenti. Over that two year period of time, Frank Miller and Alan Moore each delivered what is likely the trinity of 80’s comics in Miller’s Batman: Year One and The Dark Knight Returns, while Moore’s Watchmen has a reputation that rivals novels in the literary canon.

Of this pulpy trilogy, Year One is easily the most accessible and grounded. A lot of Dark Knight Returns’ strength lies in the way that it builds on expectations of Batman and Gotham as a setting, while Watchmen can get a little too cerebral at times with its ambitions feeling daunting. Year One is more welcoming, as its status among those other two titles is more of a affirmation of the shifting tone of comics than the powderkeg blowing the entire things up. Its indicative of the changing climate and themes involved in comics from that point forward, and if you’ve picked up a comic published after that time, you’ve seen the DNA of Year One.

3. James Gordon

What might be most surprising for new readers is the way Year One presents its secondary protagonist, James Gordon. Year One follows a Gordon who is new to Gotham, not yet a commissioner, and perhaps above all deeply human. Gordon is exceptionally competent and more than a few times is Miller’s badass star, but he isn’t perfect, and we see his personal life in shambles as he slips into an affair while his wife is pregnant.

His personal failings only make him that much more interesting to read, as he is often more compelling than Bruce Wayne — partially due to Gordon’s much more readable handwritten narration. His hard-boiled persona also keeps the comic squarely in the noir roots that it needs to create the atmosphere. Gordon might not be a Gotham native, but he is more essential to the city’s oppressive presence than Batman.

4. Despite Being Retconned, It Still Stands as the Thematic Origin

When the New 52 retconned much of DC’s history, Batman writer Scott Snyder served up the new official origin for Batman in Zero Year. While Zero Year is undoubtedly a good story from one of Batman’s best modern writers, you can even see in the title why it will never feel definitive, even if it is canonical. Year One is such a remarkably strong comic and origin that sets up everything you really need to understand future Batman stories that even the comic that was supposed to replacement had to title itself in reaction to Year One.

And Zero Year itself is deeply indebted to Year One in terms of actual plot, as is much of Batman’s presentation in film, with Christopher Nolan appearing to be the comic’s biggest fan. It’s pretty hard culturally to avoid Batman’s origin story, especially if you’re reading this, but what makes Year One perhaps the best starting point more than anything is the way that it gives readers exactly what to expect from any Batman comic after it.

In film:

The mostly forgettable, though enjoyable, Phobia premiered in theaters. It stars the guy that played Starsky in Starsky and Hutch and was directed by John Huston. Time for a bold statement: John Huston is responsible for film noir as we understand it today. Decades earlier he made The Maltese Falcon and The Asphalt Jungle, as well as the not noir though still excellent The African Queen. Noir may have originated much earlier than the 80’s, but it winds up having an influence on 80’s film in a lot of surprising little ways throughout the decade. There’s a good reason that most movies with a predominately synthwave soundtrack have noticeable noir influences.

 Ever hear of Tom Hanks? He made his feature film debut in (of all things) a slasher flick called He Knows Your Alone. And though I want so badly for this to be a Santa Claus themed slasher film (and therefor the second Santa Claus themed slasher film of 1980), it is simply a Halloween­­-inspired without much worth note. Tom Hanks will of course pop up in films throughout the 80’s, but they tend to have more whimsy than this one.

In music:

Solid Gold premiered with host Dionne Warwick. This show, which ran for much of the decade, had a very 70’s-esque aesthetic at times. And then the hair of just about every dancer reminds you how 80’s it truly was.  Solid Gold has reached an interesting point of reference in pop culture where it is recognized in parody by more people than have probably ever seen the show.

The Dead Kennedys made their debut with Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, a blistering punk album clocking in at just above 30 minutes. This album established everything that the band would come to represent: sardonic lyrics that combined radical political thought with a youthful charisma. It’s what makes songs like “Holiday in Cambodia” powerful when thought about and wicked fun when moshed to.

Billboard #1 Song of September 1980: “Upside Down” by Diana Ross, which I definitely want a vaporwave version of now. Please and thank you!

In comic books:

In the realm of DC comics, Lex Luthor deactivates all nuclear weapons on earth, repairs the ozone layer, and helps Superman fight some aliens. Seriously. That’s pretty much more overall good than any superhero has accomplished. Don’t worry though, this Good Guy Lex thing is temporary. In a separate comic, Batman winds up severely drugged and is being seriousy psychologically broken down by Professor Milo. This issue has some pretty stellar cover art.

In 1989, Warner Brothers released the blockbuster film, Batman. A merchandising storm ensued, with both movie-related and general Batman-themed items flying off shelves. Around this time, the NES was at the dizzying height of its popularity as a home console, and it only stood to reason that a game be made. DC Comics dropped the license to Sunsoft, and one of the NES’s better late-era games was the end result.

I’ve wanted to do a Sunsoft NES game for a while now, and I may eventually do all of them… but this one was the first Sunsoft title I recall playing as a youth. I always loved the company’s style of presentation; they often found ways to inject color and vibrance into even the most gritty, drab themes. Sunsoft is undeniably late 80s/early 90s to the core. Batman: the Video Game is no exception.

A watchful eye on Gotham City. A huge, looming, watchful eye. Massive and constantly staring at Gotham City. Damn, Batman, cut us some slack.

The game is loosely themed after the 1989 film, though prototype graphics show that this wasn’t initially a priority for the development team. In the end, it was mostly graphics that tied the game and the film together anyway; I don’t recall Batman fighting a flying beetle-man or two separate malevolent AIs in the film. All things considered, the basics are the same: you, as Batman, must stop the Joker from dominating Gotham City with his campaign of poison and terror. Batman must travel through the Axis Chemical Factory, an abandoned laboratory, and other locales to reach Joker atop the Cathedral for the final battle. The game plays similarly to many action platformers in most ways, but one function you will be using often is Batman’s wall-jump. I mean, you have to become PRECISE with this move to get through the mid to late stages. Well-timed wall-jumping can also be used to avoid harm from certain enemies perched in hard to reach places… while you make your way over to punch them to death. Half of the game’s respectable challenge is simply navigating a level without dying, and the enemies only play a part in that. There are plenty of static hazards you have to avoid touching, such as ooze, grinding gears, and electrified surfaces. Batman: the Video Game is challenging, but thankfully, as the Dark Knight, you’re prepared for the challenge.

Batman can not only punch (quite rapidly, in fact) but can also use 3 different weapons. He gets his trusty batarangs, a triple-shot “dirk,” and…a gun. I mean, it shoots little missiles, but it’s a gun. Didn’t Batman have a thing about guns?

Anyway, you’ll need these weapons, since Batman’s up against some pretty varied and tricky opponents. Your regular baddies include little spiky toaster-ovens, dudes who look kind of like French Legionnaires, ninjas, hopping giant mutants, very slow-walking androids with claws, and dudes who squat in place with flamethrowers. Fighting most of these enemies involves either careful timing or simple blitz tactics, depending on how they move and how far they can reach with their attacks. You’ll find bad guys posted on narrow ledges pretty often, and it will usually be while you’re trying to do the wall-jump to climb vertically. When you kill an enemy, you almost always get some kind of small reward; hearts give back health, the missile icons give you ammo for your weaponry, and the “B” icon just gives you 1000 points.

A sprite rip of most of the common enemies in the game. Found at www.spriters-resource.com

The bosses are as colorful as the array of underlings, and two of them are actually machines. The first boss you fight, right outside City Hall, is a flying fireball tosser who seems daunting until you realize you can just stand to one side of his blasts and then boomerang his stupid face when he swoops down toward you. Axis Chemical Factory contains the first of the two electronic bosses; Batman must first shut down its outer defenses before blasting away at its energy core. At the end of the underground level, you fight Electrocutioner, a mohawked Mad Max extra with a claw for one hand and a deadly lightning gun for the other. (It is worth noting that most of the bosses, including him, are based off actual minor villains in the comic books.) If you’re patient, you can literally get this guy to attack the wall while you nuke him from the other side of the room. Level 4 is an abandoned laboratory that ends in a fight against another robotic boss. This one is a bit more straightforward; Batman must defeat two large and very dangerous cubes that move about the room and try to destroy him.

Level 5, the Gotham Cathedral, has two bosses: Firebug and The Joker himself. Firebug looks and behaves a lot like someone you’d expect to see in Fist of the North Star, and his routine is a pretty scary pattern of anime jumps and massive fireballs. The Joker is, well… a joke. His elaborate strategy consists of shooting you, running away, and pointing to the sky to summon lightning bolts that you can avoid by standing about one arm-span away from him. Once you defeat Joker, you get to watch one of the coolest cut scenes I’ve seen outside of Ninja Gaiden.

Batman: the Video Game has some really cool graphics, which manage to be both colorful and suitably drab for the setting of Gotham City. The background graphics are especially good; while they are undeniably 8-bit, some of them, namely the first stage, look surprisingly realistic. There are also some truly delicious cut scenes; these loosely follow the film and add a good dramatic element to the whole experience. The music was composed by Naoki Kodaka, and it is probably my favorite part of the game. The title screen music is completely flat, but every other track makes up for it. The level music is all pretty rock & roll. It’s as intense as it should be. I particularly like how mean the boss music sounds, and I especially enjoy Level 4’s music.

There was also a game for the Sega Genesis, which most consider to the better game; it’s not only on a more advanced system, it stays much truer to the film. Eventually Sunsoft also released a sequel (of sorts) for the NES, Batman: Revenge of the Joker. I have taken a cursory look at it, and it’s not a terrible game… but it’s very silly. There have been a multitude of other games released during the Caped Crusader’s more prominent periods on TV and the big screen; to list them all here would not make for interesting reading. I will say, however, that most of the ones based on the later films… well, they suck just about as bad as those films did. 

When the newer series of Batman films began a few years back, there was an outcry among hardcore comic/Batman fans. This says more about how good the 1989’s Batman was than it does about the new series. As a kid who sat wide-eyed in the theater during the Batwing scene and the cathedral fight in the ’89 film, I can relate to the feeling that they did it right the first time around. I also poured a lot of hours into this game as a kid, and enjoyed it enough to surmount its considerable difficulty.

See you mid-month, RetroManiacs!

No car is as cherry as the 1989 Batmobile. Look at his face. He knows he’s fly as hell.