WINGMAN #13 DEATH ORBIT BY MACK MALONEY

Copyright 1997.

Hawk Hunter has taken off in the Zon space shuttle to capture the archterrorist Victor II and bring him back to justice. On Earth a lot of strange things are happening. Planes and people are disappearing and turning up other places. There are sighting of ghosts. The Kennedy Space Center becomes the target of the alliance of the Asian Mercenary Cult and the Fourth Reich. They have a base in Cuba that has thousands of nuclear weapons. Their plan to use the space center to launch them into orbit and threaten the entire Earth. Hunter and his crew eventually come on Victor holding up in a giant Swastika in space. Only a visit by the ghost of his girlfriend Dominique warns of an impending catastrophe. A giant 350 mile comet is headed to Earth. All life is about to be destroyed. So the Nazis and America call a temporary truce to deal with this threat. Their nuclear weapons are launched into space where Hunter and his friend Elvis Q will go on a suicide mission to destroy the comet. They also decide to take Victor with them.

This was a strange book. It basically had three story lines going on. One was Hunter in the Zon tracking down Victor II. (This is how Victor Robotov was referred to in this book.) Another was the battle for the Kennedy Space Center. We have various Nazis fighters and Cult Mercenary battleships attack. We even get the appearance of the Vikings for one chapter. The third takes place at Hunter’s farm in Cape Cod. Dominique gets visitors during a large hurricane including Hunter’s other girlfriend Chloe. Lots of mystical mumbo-jumbo goes on that eventually leads to the death of Dominique. This of course alerts Hunter to the comet and the alliance with Victor. At the end when he goes to see Hunter off and gloat, his friend decides to take him with them on the suicide mission. Now I dropped out of reading this series with the last book. So this is the first time for me in reading this. If I did read it new I would have assumed that this was the final book. It had a clear feel of ending with Hunter sacrificing himself to save the Earth. Of course I know this isn’t the last one. I will say that Maloney does take this series in a whole new different direction. More on that in the next review.

RIFFTRAX LIVE: AMITYVILLE THE EVIL ESCAPES

So this Tuesday was another Rifftrax Live. First off we start with a short called “Its your Accident.” Another one about the horrors of workplace accidents from the sixties. This one has Mike who works at a factory and is having a bad day. So bad the machine he works on cuts off some of his fingers. So he gets shamed by some guy who posted a mirror on the wall. Luckily his daughter salts tomatoes for him to eat. Ends with some horsing around with a forklift and I guess we are now all aware of the possibilities of workplace accidents.

Then we get to the main movie. It starts at the famous Amityville house. A group of priests come armed with holy water and bibles to cleanse the place of Satan. They seem to have succeeded but one young priest gets thrown into a wall by some godawful tree lamb.

One evil lamp.

So in celebration they have a yard sale and sell all the furniture. An old woman decides to pay $100 for this ugly lamp to give to her sister in California. We then cut to this nice house on a cliff where Jane Wyatt the sister lives. At this time her daughter Patty Duke and her three kids arrive. She is staying with her mother after her husband recently died. They all arrive just in time to see the new lamp gift. Needless to say this lamp is still possessed by Satan and starts it’s evil ways.

OOOHH!! An ugly lamp. Hope it’s not possessed by Satan.

It starts off by working on the youngest daughter who is vulnerable by coming to her in the guise of her deceased father. Then it starts some other fun. Like taking the pet bird and roasting it in the toaster oven. Then the dull witted son almost kills his grandmother with a possessed chainsaw.

Help! I’m too dumb to figure out a chainsaw.

Then other fun stuff starts to happen. The garbage disposal doesn’t work and a helpful teen gets his hand ground off while fixing it. A plumber gets in the crawlspace and a beam collapses on him. Then the pipe bursts and drowns him in black sludge. Although he does find the missing hand.

Literally gives a hand.

Plumber dies in the line of duty. They never found the body.

The evil lamp continues it’s reign of terror by then killing the grandmother’s friend. The young priest gets out of the hospital and comes to help out. By then it is too late for the lamp has taken possession of the young daughter. A big fight ensues with the possessed daughter floating around and stabbing the priest in the shoulder. All ends well when the grandmother picks up the lamp and tosses it over the cliff. Everything goes back to normal except they never did figure out the plumber was still down in the crawlspace. I suppose the smell would eventually attract their attention. Oh yeah and the cat Pepper gets possessed so it leaves open the idea of another sequel.

I could see Satan possessing a cat.

This was the fourth Amityville in a series of about 20 or 30 done so far. I never seen the original but I hear it is a well respected horror film. Needless to say any success in the entertainment industry is beaten to death. For a made for TV movie in the late eighties this wasn’t that bad. It does have a charm to it. This was a great idea to riff over the Halloween week. The idea of this evil lamp that was just ugly as hell was a perfect fit. I really am glad that Rifftrax is back and look forward to new movies next year.

Priest smacking down Satan.

Here is the trailer.

WINGMAN #12 TARGET: POINT ZERO BY MACK MALONEY

Copyright 1996.

Hawk Hunter has arrived at Baikonur in Kazakhstan just in time to see Viktor take off in the Zon space shuttle. So he destroys the airfield and takes a fuel truck to travel to the Swiss Alps. He calculates that is Point Zero or the best place to track the shuttle. In Austria he comes on a town at war with the neighboring town. He gets involved in helping out this town which is lead by a Canadian mercenary. They only have a squadron of rebuild WWI biplanes but manages to defeat the neighboring town’s forces. Then the Zon shuttle lands and it is being piloted by Elvis. Here is where Hunter wakes up and discovers this was a dream.

He continues on to the village of St.Moritz in Switzerland. This village is a haven for the superrich and they spend their time having parties and kinky sex. Hunter meets the beautiful Chloe and falls in love with her. After a small adventure with some of Viktor’s men they find a tracking station and Hunter now knows the flight path of the Zon. So begins a journey to destroy all the airfields in it’s orbital path where the shuttle can land. They stop an attempt to take over Malta. Then destroy a field in southern Iraq. The fields in Pakistan and Rangoon are next. This all leads to a final confrontation on a small atoll in the pacific called Lolita Island. There the United Americans and the mercenary forces of Viktor clash in a big confrontation for control of the Zon shuttle and it’s advanced Star Wars weaponry.

So the old Zebra imprint was discontinued in the early nineties and Wingman found a new home with Pinnacle. This felt like three different books. The first was this dream of a war between two towns. It had some surreal stuff like dinosaurs and UFOs in it. Of course we find out at the end with Elvis piloting the shuttle that it was just a dream. The second quarter of the book dealt with Hunter and his adventures in St. Moritz. This felt more like a Fifty Shades of Grey type book. His new girlfriend likes to have all types of sex including having Hunter watch her do other guys. In fact she has sex with everyone but Hunter.

Finally we get to the second half and it read more like a traditional Wingman book. Hunter, Chloe and a sidekick from Malta named Baldi steal a Tu-95 Bear and travel around the world destroying airfields. Along the way we are introduced to the wide range of goofiness that is the world of the Wingman. A big battle ends in Hunter getting the Zon shuttle and at the end taking off to get Viktor who is still up there on the Mir spacestation. His new girl Chloe goes to a monastery in Tibet. This was a real strange book.

WINGMAN #11 THE GHOST WAR BY MACK MALONEY

Copyright 1993.

The United Americans have successfully liberated the country and defeated the army of the Asian Mercenary Cult. Yet their fleet of battleships is still out there causing trouble. Hawk Hunter gathers an expeditionary force made up of a fleet of C-5 transports and heads off to Asia. Hearing distress calls from Vietnam they arrive and find a huge war going on for the southern part of the country. The Capitalist Communist Inc. or CAPCOM for short is trying to conquer the southern part. Hawk and his C-5 are shot down and forced to land at Khe Sanh. This outpost is defended by a small garrison of French Foreign Legionnaires and other assorted mercenaries. Thanks to the vastly superior firepower of the Americans they successfully fight off the Viet Minx(what the CAPCOM army is known as). Then building from parts of other planes manage to escape to Da Nang.

At Da Nang they are reunited with the other members of the expeditionary force and the various foreign mercenary contingents fighting for the democratic south. Once again the firepower and ingenuity of the United Americans defeat the Viet Minx armies trying to take the city. Yet they have to face the facts that the Viet Minx are overwhelming and will soon overrun the south. So Hunter devises an ingenious plan to destroy the central bank in Hanoi and thus deprive CAPCOM of financing their mercenary army. Apparently combining Communism with Capitalism they don’t know the idea of diversifying their assets. Anyway the south is free and Hunter manages to track down where the leadership of the Mercenary Cult is located. He arrives in a C-5 at Baikonur in Kazakhstan and sees the terrorist Victor Robotov take off in a space shuttle.

The goofy series continues with them now refighting the Vietnam war. This time against this combo Capitalist Communist organization. Apparently they sell individuals an army and they are responsible for conquering territory and get reimbursed for losses. You can even get a free toaster oven if you purchase 5,000 soldiers. What a goofy way to run a war. You do find out why they are mounting this expedition. Seems Hunter gives a speech after someone asks if they should be the world’s policeman. He says that as long as someone in the world isn’t free then they have to get involved. It is what Americans do to a teary eyed crowd. Yeah that didn’t age well.

So you get plenty of goofy over the top action with C-5 transports armed with Gatling guns, cannons and air to air missiles fighting off MIG-25’s, sinking battleships and blowing apart whole armies. Basically your typical kooky action in this post-WWIII world. We find out at the end that the evil terrorist Victor is still alive and going into outer space which is setup for the next adventure.