Save the Adventure (7)

By: Joshua Glenn
October 11, 2013

I’ve previously identified the all-for-one, crackerjack, and Argonaut Folly themes in Argonautica-type adventures. In this post, I’ll list a few examples of another (final) Argonautica theme: beautiful losers. By which I mean: adventuring teams composed of (sympathetic, non-evil) outlaws and criminals, rag-tag survivors of a catastrophe, deeply flawed would-be heroes, aging heroes, and so forth.

Thanks! To the nearly 400 adventure fans who kickstarted the SAVE THE ADVENTURE e-book club.

MEDIEVAL

* The legend of Robin Hood! With Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Alan a Dale, and Maid Marian. Also an avenger-type adventure.

NINETEENTH CENTURY

* Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula features (to use terminology from the “Five-Man Band” trope): Jonathan Harker (the leader), Arthur Holmwood (the lancer), Quincey Morris (the big guy), John Seward (the smart guy), Mina Murray (the chick), and Abraham Van Helsing (the mentor).

TEENS (1914–1923)

* Rafael Sabatini’s 1922 adventure novel Captain Blood, in which the unfairly imprisoned Irish physician Dr. Blood escapes with fellow convict-slaves — former shipmaster Jeremy Pitt, one-eyed giant Edward Wolverstone, former gentleman Nathaniel Hagthorpe, former Royal Navy petty officer Nicholas Dyke, former Royal Navy master gunner Ned Ogle — and becomes a successful pirates/buccaneer in the Caribbean. Also an avenger-type adventure. Adapted as the 1935 Errol Flynn movie.

TWENTIES (1924–1933)

* Leslie Charteris’s 1927 novel X Esquire (1927) — Charteris’s novels tend to feature a group of colorful adventurers-slash-criminals.

FIFTIES (1954–1963)

* Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 period adventure movie Seven Samurai.

* The Oldest Confession is a 1958 novel, the first of twenty-five by Richard Condon. A museum heist gone wrong. Sardonic inversion, or ironic homage?

* The Doomsters is a 1958 mystery novel written by Ross Macdonald, the seventh book in the Lew Archer series. It marks the fixing of Lew Archer’s character as a man more interested in understanding the criminal — in this case, doomsters whose lot is fated — than in catching him.

* Not an adventure novel, exactly, but: Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids is a 1958 novel by Japanese author Kenzaburō Ōe (his first). A collection of outcasts — reform school kids, an army deserter, an abandoned girl — are barricaded in a village afflicted by the plague.

* The 1960 western Seven Samurai remake, The Magnificent Seven.

* Victor Canning’s 1960 novel The Burning Eye in which a shipwreck strands a group of seven Europeans on the Somali coast, where they accidentally learn about Sultan Ali Yacquibi’s secret supply of oil. Forced to flee the Sultan are: Wellard, ship’s doctor; a blackguard who achieves the promise of a blind eye for his past misdeeds; a minister whose guilt is appeased by a little girl of mixed blood whom they save; a painter who finds his match in the girl who wants Wellard — but doesn’t get him; and Juliet, whom Wellard wants.

* James and the Giant Peach is a popular children’s novel written in 1961 by Roald Dahl. James and the insects are beautiful losers.

* DC’s Doom Patrol superhero team — who first appeared in My Greatest Adventure (June 1963) — are an argonaut-type crew. Some comics exegetes claim that Marvel’s The X-Men is a ripoff of this group.

* The Legion of Substitute Heroes, a group of rejected applicants to the Legion of Super-Heroes who banded together, hoping to prove to the Legion that their powers were not as useless as the Legionnaires claimed, are closer to the argonaut-type team than are the LHS themselves. The Legion of Substitute Heroes — Polar Boy, Night Girl, Stone Boy, Fire Lad, and Chlorophyll Kid — first appeared in Adventure Comics in March 1963.

SIXTIES (1964–1973)

This theme takes off in the Sixties.

* Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s The Inhumans, who first appeared in Marvel’s The Fantastic Four in 1965.

* Noel Behn’s 1966 espionage novel The Kremlin Letter, and the 1970 movie adaptation directed by John Huston.

* The Inferior Five, a parody superhero team that premiered in the DC title Showcase (1966), is a sardonic subversion of the bland, tension-free, middlebrow version of the argonaut-type adventure… which means that, despite the satirical schtick, they’re true argonauts! The team — Merryman, Awkwardman, The Blimp, White Feather, Dumb Bunny — was created by E. Nelson Bridwell (writer) and Joe Orlando and Mike Esposito (artists).

* The 1967 WWII movie The Dirty Dozen (dir. Robert Aldrich). The team includes: Slow-witted Vernon Pinkley (Donald Sutherland); Robert Jefferson (Jim Brown), an African American soldier convicted of killing a man in a racial brawl; Samson Posey (Clint Walker), a gentle giant who becomes enraged when pushed; Joseph Wladislaw (Charles Bronson), convicted of shooting his squad’s medic; A.J. Maggott (Telly Savalas), a misogynist and religious fanatic; and Victor Franko (John Cassavetes), a gangster who has extreme problems with authority. Movie adapted from E. M. Nathanson’s 1965 novel of the same title.

* Not an adventure story, but: S.E. Hinton’s 1967 YA novel The Outsiders — featuring Darry, Dallas and Soda, Two-Bit, Steve, Johnny, and Ponyboy. Adapted into a 1983 movie by Francis Ford Coppola.

* Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 western The Wild Bunch, about an aging outlaw gang.

* The 1969 exploitation movie The Devil’s 8.

* The Losers was a war comics team whose adventures were set during World War II. The team — Captain Johnny Cloud, a Navajo pilot who always destroyed his planes after a mission; Gunner and Sarge; Captain Storm, a PT Boat Commander — was created by Robert Kanigher (in G.I. Comics, in 1969) and became a regular feature in DC’s long-running war comic book series Our Fighting Forces in 1970.

* Jack Starrett’s 1970 biker/military movie The Losers. Inspired by The Wild Bunch.

* Richard Adams’s 1972 rabbit adventure novel Watership Down. Featuring Hazel, Bigwig, Blackberry, Pipkin, and Fiver.

SEVENTIES (1974–1983)

* Not an adventure story, but: The 1974 football/prison movie The Longest Yard.

* Not an adventure story, but: The 1976 Little-League comedy The Bad News Bears, and sequels. Sardonic inversion of the theme?

* The 1978 TV show Battlestar Galactica.

* Not an adventure story, but: The 1978 movie Animal House. Sardonic inversion of the theme?

* The 1978 movie The Wild Geese, in which mercenary commandos are hired to free a deposed African ruler. The only trouble is, they’re not as young as they used to be.

* The cult 1979 movie The Warriors.

* Not exactly an adventure, but: The 1979 Bill Murray vehicle Meatballs.

* The seven unlikely heroes in the 1980 Roger Corman-produced science fiction movie Battle Beyond the Stars.

* The 1981 made-for-TV movie Return of the Rebels, in which an aging motorcycle gang assemble to help out former member Mary Beth (Barbara Eden), the widowed operator of a popular campground threatened by young hoodlums.

* The 1981 Bill Murray vehicle Stripes.

* The A-Team, in the 1983–87 TV show The A-Team.

* The ragtag band of Vietnam vets in the 1983 movie Uncommon Valor, who fly into Laos in search of MIA soldiers.

EIGHTIES (1984–1993)

* The 1984 Bill Murray vehicle Ghostbusters. Sardonic inversion of the theme?

* The 1985 movie The Goonies.

* Not an adventure story, but: The 1989 baseball comedy Major League. Sardonic inversion of the theme?

NINETIES (1994–2003)

* Tim Burton’s 1994 movie Ed Wood.

* The animated Pixar movies Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999), and Toy Story 3 (2010). Sardonic inversion of the theme?

* The 1996 Brian De Palma adaptation of the Mission Impossible TV show. But maybe not the next ones.

* Wes Anderson’s 1996 movie Bottle Rocket is a sardonic inversion of the argonaut-type movie. It’s a prison break movie (in the beginning), and later a caper movie.

* The 1998 animated Pixar movie A Bug’s Life (1998). More a remake of Battle Beyond the Stars than of Seven Samurai or Magnificent Seven. Sardonic inversion of the theme?

* The 1999 George Clooney vehicle Three Kings.

* The 2000 George Clooney vehicle O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

* The 2000 George Clooney vehicle The Perfect Storm.

* The misfit crew in the 2001 animated Pixar movie Shrek. Sardonic inversion of the theme?

* The crew of Serenity in Joss Whedon’s 2002–2003 TV series Firefly. Ironic homage to the theme.

* Dumbledore’s Army in J.K. Rowling’s 2003 book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — maybe?

OUGHTS (2004–13)

* The 2004 Seven Samurai anime TV series remake Samurai 7, directed by Toshifumi Takizawa.

* The 2004 Owen Wilson vehicle Starsky & Hutch.

* The 2004 TV show remake Battlestar Galactica.

* Wes Anderson’s 2004 movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (with Bill Murray and Owen Wilson) is a sardonic inversion of the argonaut-type movie.

* The 2006 Owen Wilson-voiced Cars.

* The 2008 George Clooney vehicle Leatherheads.

* The 2008 Owen Wilson vehicle Drillbit Taylor.

* The 2009 Quentin Tarantino WWII movie Inglourious Basterds. Ironic homage to the theme.

* Wes Anderson’s live-action 2009 movie The Fantastic Mr Fox is a sardonic inversion of the argonaut-type movie.

* The 2009 movie Old Dogs is a middlebrow version of this theme.

***

Save the Adventure (7)

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