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subplotkudzu) wrote2009-03-28 10:14 pm
Doctor Nostalgia
Doctor Nostalgia was one of the first costumed heroes, a time traveler operating out of North America during the 1930's and 40's. Claiming to be an agent insuring the occurrence of his utopian future, he was actually a eugenically-bred policeman from 23rd century in a world where the Nazis won the war. Renegade uberjager badge ident 4ST-AKM uses prototype time travel equipment and standard gravity gear to prevent his future from coming to pass, saving the glorious, chaotic polyglot world of the present from Nazi domination. During his first visit to the past he befriended members of the Ad Astras, a club of Scientifiction fans, radio enthusiasts and general science geeks across Canada who act as his agents and helpers in his war against fifth columnists, saboteurs and Nazi super-science.
Race - Parallel (Potency A, Versatility 2): the rigid Nazi hierarchy has given 4ST remarkable training. His facets are Prowess (+3 to hit with unarmed combat and baton) and Focus (Potency increase to Uberjager career, as he has been trained since age 6.)
Career - Uberjager (Potency B, Versatility 4) Uberjagers are trained in a variety of hypnotic and perceptive techniques to solve crimes, ferret out plots and maintain rigid personal control. His facets are Visual Forensics (+8 on rolls to detect clues), Lie Detection (+8 on rolls to detect falsehoods), Hypnotic Blocks (a defense worth 30 points of AC) and Hypnotic Education (a stat increase giving +9 Cha, +6 Int and +3 Agi, for +18 total).
Hobby - Historian (Potency X, Versatility 2) 4ST was drawn to save the past due from his History reading. His history is sometimes our future, so his knowledge is a little sketchy. Facets are 20th c Nazi plans (+2 on rolls) and Archaic (i.e. 20th c) technology (+2 on rolls, but this is mostly so he can operate in the 1930's w/o any penalty, as he is more used to 23rd century tech.)
Time Travel Device (Potency C, Versatility 4) Doctor Nostalgia has access to a time travel platform in the 23rd century, connected to a recall device on his wrist-band. This only has a range of 325 years, can’t go further forward than the last use of the platform and can only target the immediate vicinity of his last return point or a hard target point near Alberta (renamed “Eva” by the 23rd century, the location of Nostalgia’s hidden 23rd century base). Within those limits, he has the facets of Travel (the basic back and forth jumps), Spare Time (leaping home, recovering, researching and returning to the second after he left), Gemini (jumping back to a few moments before he left as a form of self duplication) and Battlefield Manipulation (leaping back to before the ‘current’ crisis to place items he’ll need in places where he can get them). Nostalgia will take 1d8 damage if he violates his own continuity or changes things he’s already seen, so if he sees his Gemini he must remember to go back and be that Gemini.
Gravity Gear (Potency B, Versatility 6): Anti-gravity is common in the 23rd century, so Nostalgia is outfitted with an Uberjager’s anti-gravity flying harness and a grav-pistol. These devices combine with the facets of Flight (225 mph flight), Gravity Lift (Treat his carrying capacity as x10 normal when moving things, but not for damage, he can ignore structural forces when lifting items), Gravity Ray (each shot from the gun adds or subtracts one multiple from the target’s G forces (a potency A effect), attacks w/ +3 bonus), Gravetic Shear (Gravity gun does 1d12 damage by stressing the object with uneven gravity pulls), Gravetic Stun (Biological attack for stun by messing with target’s equilibrium, DC to resist is 16) and Attractor Ray (target of Gravity Ray has 1 g of pull yanking them to Nostalgia). These devices have sufficient charges for a day of operation without needing a recharge.
The Ad Asrta Society (Potency B Versatility 4) Doctor Nostalgia’s allies in the 20th century are the Ad Astra Society, a group of scientificition fans, radio enthusiasts and technology buffs. Scattered across Canada and the Northern US, Nostalgia can call on the Ad Astrans for advice, support and resources. The facets are Backup (local Ad Astrans will arrive within a dramatically appropriate time period when called, or will drop their private lives to ride shotgun), Contacts x2 (the Ad Astrans have diverse interests, and can provide a +8 on rolls for a wide variety of science, technical, legal and investigation checks), Wealth (several of the Ad Astrans are independently wealthy, and can outfit Nostalgia with long term use of middle class gear or short term rental of pricier items and Investigation (the Ad Astrans work independently to find out thing Nostalgia would need to know at a +8, so he doesn’t have to do his own research.
Publication History: Dr. Nostalgia first appeared in 1929 in the Alberta Sentinel. The strips creator, David Jamison, felt that world needed a hero that emphasized society's strengths in the face of the Depression, and to provide the promise of brighter days ahead. Hence someone with a yearning for 'old fashioned values' while hearkening from a brighter future - Doctor Nostalgia. If the contradiction of his premise (why yearn for the past if the present is better?) ever bothered him he never let on. The strip featured Nostalgia futuristic super-detective fighting crime with his jetpack, ray gun and a couple of plucky 20th century teens Jimmy "Buzz" Buzznek and Lee Grainger, under the identity of "Forrest Grail", a Niagara Falls electrical engineer.
The strip was a success, and the Sentinel expanded his exploits into a comic book in 1932. Originally just a collection of Jamison's daily strip, in May 1934 they hired a writer artist team of Lee Sergeant and David Kronenburg to write original, eight page stories to supplement the dailies. By January 1936 Sergeant and Lee were producing the entire monthly comic, often without consultation with Jamison. The comic focused more on the flashy aspects of the character over the detective work both to showcase Kronenburg's dynamic art, and to hide Sergeant's inability to plot good mysteries. Sergeant expanded Granger and Buzznek into the full Ad Astran society, whose interactions became a major part of the book. Doc also became a world traveler, meeting the intelligent apes of the Congo and the Permafrostian aliens of the arctic tundra.
In July of 1936 the Sentinel (and chief editor Tracey Armbruster) licensed the Nostalgia rights to the CBC, making him the star of a weekly radio show. The show focused on mysteries solved by Nostalgia and the Ad Astrans, with the tech elements pushed into the background. The stalwart voice of Harry Badecker (whose baritone sounded as if it had a chin that could crack bricks, but was actually emanating from a plump, unassuming fellow) brought Dr. Nostalgia to life, and while Jamison never enjoyed the comic book he worked closely with script writers Lisa Todd and Michael Riley to make sure they captured the good Doctor and the mysteries worked.
When Canada entered the war in 1939 Sergeant and Kronenburg revealed that Nostalgia's future was actually a Nazi dominated world that 4ST was trying to prevent. Kronenburg had relatives that had died in Germany, and Sergeant had moved to Canada as a child and still had relatives in Britain who were under direct attack. Jamison threw a fit at the damage to his character's utopian future. Mr. Armbruster, seeing that the comics made much more money than the dailies, mollified Jamison about the changes and downplayed them in the radio show. Jamison stayed on the newspaper strip until 1941 but never accepted the change. A lackluster writer/artist named Kevin King took over the daily, but it was never as good again.
Canadian reticence towards the war and the slow growth of their armed forces made the new direction a bit of a gamble, but with Jamison out of the way Sergeant spiced the comic up with the flashy costumed villains that Jamison had abhorred, and started making use of the time travel device as a plot point to draw in new readers. After Pearl Harbor the comic's sales in the United States spiked and the money came rolling in. Unfortunately Kronenberg was conscripted in '43, and the succession of artists who followed him didn't live up to his work: by the end of the war the book's sales had dropped again, with the Canadian hero being eclipsed in the US by home grown ones. Sergeant left the book in '45.
By 1947 the comic book and radio show were finished and the daily was still limping along. That's when Jamison brought the Sentinel syndicate to court for control of his creation. The court battle took eight years, but eventually the Canadian courts invalidated the Sentinel's original Work Made for Hire contract and awarded Jamison full control of Doctor Nostalgia. Unfortunately, without the Sentinel syndicate he had nowhere immediate to publish, and with the arduous controls Jamison insisted on for the character, no Canadian publisher was forthcoming.
Fortunately fate took a hand: the Buck Carlson, the president of the small Universal Comics Line, had been an avid fan of the 1940's radio show, and when he heard that Nostalgia was available he jumped at the chance. At Carlson's insistence the Nazi future was included, but as something that Nostalgia had beaten, turning his world into Jamison's originally conceived utopia. Jamison, now aware of the horrors of Nazi Germany and having reconciled with Kronenberg when the artist testified on his behalf in the trial against the syndicate, agreed, including plotlines where rogue surviving Nazis had to be kept at bay to protect the future. Starting in 1956 the book was solid, family oriented fun, once again featuring mysteries solved via detective work, old fashioned values and the Ad Astran science community (and well within the dictates of the Comics Code Authority
Jamison had shifted to being the books executive editor in '57, leaving the writing and art to a stable of younger creators. His death in '62 was barely noticed as the book continued, bridging the gap between super hero books of the silver age and the humorous "Archie" and "Glenda, Fairy Princess." With the start of the Silver Age Doctor Nostalgia fell further out of the mainstream comics market, finally being true to his name in harkening back to a different era. The book was finally cancelled in 1974.
In 1978 Jamison's grandson, Scott, pitched a big budget, SF spectacular about the ray gun toting, futuristic detective fighting time-travelling Nazis to capitalize on the current SF trend. No one bit, but he did manage to get a pilot made that turned into the Doctor Nostalgia TV show starring Blake Rockwell and Yves St Cyr as a leggy sidekick from the future. The show was a hit with the kids, but insanely expensive due to the flying, ray guns, anti-gravity and space ships. To save money the show shifted gears in the second season, opening with an episode where the Nazis were defeated, but where Doctor Nostalgia is trapped in the past.
From then on each episode consisted an Ad Astran radioing the good Doctor about a local injustice - sometimes a science fiction one, sometimes a Nazi agent, but most often some local crime lord or "social ill of the week". Nostalgia then flew in (using stock footage from season one) and helping the injured parties find justice via science, detective work and old fashioned values. The show became a prime time standby for family viewing, lasting another 6 seasons (and forever in syndication). Poor Ms. St. Cyr was written out of the show and can still be found at SF conventions, where at 48 she still looks pretty fine in her "the future has no shame" 24th century costume.
Universal began publishing the comic again in 1980, sticking to the 1950's formula under writer Sam Kozinsky. In 1985 the new managing editor Ronald McEvily decided to merge all of Universal's various acquisitions into one shared universe. Doctor Nostalgia was a key player in this, with some creative shake ups that returned the book to the feel of the Sergeant/Kronenberg comics. The new writer, Quentin Pollack, also made strong use of the time travel device: almost all of Nostalgia's time tricks come from this era of the book. Fans of the last 25 years hated the change, but the facelift brought the character in tune with the times. Unfortunately the multiple timeline, multiple dimension, sprawling cast of Ad Astras made the book insanely complicated. Trying to start reading 1993 was an exercise in frustration. By '97 it induced madness. With sales falling Pollack was ousted from the book in '98.
The new creative team of Wagner Phillips and Maddie Roach burned down everything by taking the book retro: they abandoned all current plots and set the action back in 1929: murder mysteries, Nazis and pulp era SF. It was a welcome change of pace, but after 5 years they had run out of stories and the book foundered. Doctor Nostalgia hasn't had his own book since, though he is a frequent guest star with the UC's flagship super team.
Of course, most kids now recognize him from the 2004 movie "Doctor Nostalgia: Time Enough". Released in the new wave of Super-Hero stories Time Enough appears to be a standard summer blockbuster, but the last third of the movie is spent jumping back to previous, unexplained instances in the first two thirds and Nostalgia faces off against a rival time traveler. The tricky, convoluted plot wowed critics and SF fans but left the larger audience cold. It has a cult following on DVD, where Shawn Kryzinski's extended directors cut has even more twists and Gemini events - one can find multiple varying flow charts of the movie on line.