Tag Archives: science fiction

Superlamb

Bunty, , ,
  • Superlamb–  Bunty:   #1469 (08 March 1986) – #1485 (28 June 1986)
  • Artist: Matías Alonso

Plot

A girl named Mary, of course, has a pet lamb. Lenny the lamb gets injured and is rebuilt by vet scientists. They have the technology, the capability to build the world’s first bionic lamb. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster. Along with being super fast and strong, Lenny has heat powers, x-ray vision and once after being hit by lightning he became super magnetic for a  while. He gets Mary into trouble sometimes but usually everything works out for the best in the end. In one instance he gets trapped in a school oven, he breaks out destroying the oven. Luckily the Home Economics teacher, Miss Dixon, is glad as she can get the school to invest in a new cooker!

superlamb_.01

Lenny gets into trouble again when he gets hold of a hang-glider, Mary grabs hold of him to try and stop him but they are both swept up into the sky. They crash into a tree and Mary is left hanging on for her life. Lenny cuts the tree down and takes the brunt of the tree falling in order to save Mary. She takes him to the vet who says he has exhausted his bionic powers and he’ll just be an ordinary lamb now, though never growing old. But as Mary walks him home, Lenny turns invisible. It seems that he has gained other powers to make up for his lost ones! So the story ends on the possibility of more adventures with Lenny.

superlamb_.05

Thoughts

Making a character, bionic, was a popular way to gain powers. Supergirl (Bunty’s version, not Superman’s cousin!) also had a similar origin. At times Lenny gets to be a hero, he helps capture some burglars and joy-riders.

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For the most part though Lenny’s powers are not used for super-heroics.  He is often just mischievous. Causing trouble in the first place. It is a fun story and ridiculous (in a good way).  The ending doesn’t really make a lot of sense, as super strength, speed and even x-ray vision seem possible after bionic enhancements, but I’ve never heard of  bionic invisibility! But this is a world where you leave all thoughts of reality behind and just enjoy the fun.  The lamb is cutely drawn, and the art throughout is good.

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Mary’s main purpose seems to be tying to keep Lenny, and herself, out of trouble and giving exposition on his powers. So she doesn’t get a whole lot of character arc, but she shows how much she cares about Lenny, when she tries to protect him and is concerned when he is sick. She also knows when to use his powers to his advantage, such as helping her carry newspapers and with mowing the lawn.  As well as that she continues the tradition of being a Bunty character, that reads Bunty!

superlamb_.04

List of Appearances

  • Superlamb–  Bunty:  #1469 (08 March 1986) – #1485 (28 June 1986)

Other Appearances

Annual Appearances

  • Superlamb –  Bunty Annual 1987 [Artist: Matias Alonso]

Summer Specials

  • Superlamb –  Bunty Summer Special 1990 [Art: Matias Alonso]

Picture Story Library

  • Superlamb – Debbie Picture Story Library #174

“I Want to Dance!”

Bunty, , , , ,
  • I Want to Dance!”–  Bunty:  #1275 (19 June 1982) – #1291 (09 October 1982)
  • Artist: Cándido Ruiz Pueyo  (also used the pseudonym Emilia Prieto)

Plot/ Thoughts

These comics were known for their ballet stories, so I thought it was about time I talked about one. The title may suggest this is the type of story where a young girl is forbidden to dance by her bitter aunt/guardian/whoever, but actually this is set in the future where everyone is forbidden to dance or listen to music.

Yes, music damages your life by encouraging slothful behaviour…so in the year 2082  I guess there’s no TV shows, films, humorous websites, social networking or any other thing that people use these days to procrastinate instead of study/work.

Our  protagonist Denny Dacre, feels different to to her friends and family.  She wants to rebel against study and work and this worries her. Her closest friend is a robot named Miki.

It’s amusing to see in the 80s what the world was imagined to be like in the future. Films like Back to the Future II and even Blade Runner, while being over optimistic in some aspects, in other ways could not guess what technological achievements would be made. Even though we’re still 70 years away from the  setting of this story, there are no Kindles or iPad type devices instead it is imagined that we will have robots to carry our heavy paper books.

So Denny discovers why she feels so different when she finds an old cassette player at some market. When she takes it home and plays it she discovers the music of Swan Lake and she is enthralled by its beauty and wants to learn how to dance to it.

She gets into trouble at school when she can’t concentrate on her work. Later she hears a group of teens talking about wanting to dance. She sneaks out to meet them but is disappointed when they play some illegal disco music and “stamp” around the place.

After listening to one piece of music, already she’s a critic!

Luckily when she’s sent to a boarding school, she finds people who like to dance ballet and is admitted into a secret ballet class that takes place in the basement at night time. The class is run by the mysterious Alana and everyone wears hoods to protect their identities. Hence this kind of creepy image:

Denny figures out who one of the other girls is when she sees a burn on her hand. She thinks that Joanna is a spy as her mother is the Minister for Juvenile Education. She confronts Joanna, but discovers that she is genuinely passionate about ballet too.

There is a lot of sneaking around to try and keep things secret, but Miki learns of the Ballet class. As he is programmed to protect Denny, his logical conclusion is that he must know more about the class. As he is also programmed to obey Denny, she commands him to block out what he knows. This causes him to overload.

 

 Later at the ballet class, the basement floods during a storm, Denny is nearly swept away but luckily Miki revives himself and comes to rescue her. The whole class are brought to the creepy caretaker, Alice’s room. Everyone’s identities are revealed and Denny figures out that Alana and Alice are the same person.

When Joanna goes home she develops pneumonia and ends up blurting out everything about the dance class and who is involved in it. Her mother proceeds to arrest everyone involved and says that her daughter will be punished along with them.

On the day of the trial Joanne takes a turn for the worse and is asking for Denny. So the trial is suspended while Denny goes to see her.  So we never find out what the punishment was going to be, were they going to  be imprisoned, exiled, shunned from society? Joanna is going to die as there is nothing to live for in this world, but Denny gets the idea to save her with the power of dance!

This actually works and the mother is so impressed that the power of dance has brought her daughter back from near death, that she reconsiders the value of music and dance. Just hope she’s not considering it for medical purposes! So the girls are set free and they now have a minister behind them to help overturn anti-music laws.

Ballet, robots, mysterious teacher, oppressive governments, what’s not to like in this story!

Nina and the Nerons

Judy,

Plot

In the year 2009, the Nerons, a race from a planet in Outer Space, plan to take over Earth by invading it with an army of plastic robots—all modeled on the Barrett family, who were kid-napped by the Nerons for that purpose. The Barretts manage to smuggle themselves aboard one of the spaceships and land on  Earth with the invasion force .. .

Notes

Appeared

  • Nina and the Nerons – Judy: #458 (19 October 1968) – #473 (1 February 1969)

The Trouble with Iris

Mandy, ,

Plot

After being injured in an accident, orphan Jo Ashton was given a new lease of life by Dr Mabe, who placed his invention, the ” Increased Reflex and Intelligence Stimulator “, in her brain. The stimulator. known as ” Iris ”  for short, gave Jo super-human strength and intelligence. When Dr Mabe decided to tell the world about his miracle patient. Jo realised that the Welfare Authorities would discover she was an orphan, and put her in a home—so she ran away.

Notes

Appeared

  • The Trouble with Iris – Mandy: #565 (12 November 1977) – #575 (21 January 1978)

Ella and the Electrids

Mandy,

Plot

Ella Gibson, a pupil at Cragmere Grange, was struck by lightning  on the moors. She was unhurt, but on her right wrist was the print of a horseshoe from a chain bracelet given to her by Josh Jessop. He was the village blacksmith, who said it would protect her from evil.  During another storm, a weird whirling shape formed out of the rain and entered the school’s sick room, but when Ella thrust out the horseshoe, the thing disintegrated. Later, Ella found she attracted metal object – like a human magnet. The swirling shapes that Josh named the Electrids, took control of several people at her school.

Notes

Appeared

  • Ella and the Electrids – Mandy: #551 (6August 1977) – #556 (10 September 1977)

The Lillies of Arkon

Mandy, , ,

Plot

Thirteen year old Sharon Jackson was trying to carry out a very strange task. She had to find a dozen lily bulbs from the planet Arkon which had accidentally become rooted on Earth. The juice from the plants gave superhuman powers to anyone who tasted it, so Sharon had to stop the plants falling into the wrong hands.

Notes

  • Artist: Guy Peeters

Appeared

  • The Lillies of Arkon  – Mandy: #371 (23 February 1974) – #380 (27 April 1974)

The Gifts of Gala

Nikki, ,

Plot

Kathy Donovan had been told by Gala, who came from the planet Orphides, that she had been chosen to receive Gala’s super powers, as Gala only had one year to live. Kathy had agreed to receive the, powers, but she had to keep it a secret.  Kathy’s twin brother, Alan wanted to find out what was going on.

gifts-of-gala

Notes

  • Artist: Claude Berridge

Appeared

  • The Gifts of Gala – Nikki: #146 (5 December 1987) – #162 (26 March 1988)