Marvel's Musical Failure: Nightcat!

foreign [Music] hello welcome to Comic tropes I'm your host Chris when you look at Stanley's life it's interesting comic books didn't seem to be enough to make him content and in some ways this was a good thing because it drove him to be this incredible hype man you know he really pushed Comics like crazy because he was driven to be successful uh and that was good for comics and in other ways it's kind of sad because you'll see him doing interviews where he's talking about wanting to actually write the Great American novel for instance and in the 70s through the 90s he was especially involved in trying to get his comic books adapted into another medium uh like movies with mixed results at best Mr President thanks now one of the ways that Stan Lee was always trying to get some mainstream acceptance was to move Marvel Comics into music and that led to some interesting results for instance in 1967 Marvel released a record for its fan club members which featured songs like the Marvel Superheroes have arrived [Music] and also on that same record you belong to the merry Marvel marching Society that record remains a unique novelty another early foray into audio experiments was the 1975 attempt to adapt Fantastic Four into a radio show with a full cast and of course Stan Lee served as the narrator now for years and years that one was really obscure and tough to come across fortunately in today's day and age it's as simple as a little YouTube search we'll leave Dr Doom for your imagination to the heart of New York City towering skyscrapers empty their working day population into the streets one by one the lights flicker out except those at the top of the Baxter building the headquarters of the Fantastic Four wow this is neat what are you reading Johnny a great new comic magazine hey look doesn't this Mazda remind you of Ben you mean our own bashful blue-eyed thing oh yeah give me that you spoil hey that's my book update you to compare me to them comic book monsters look how lumpy it might get too hot for you yeah you little punk I'm gonna get you this time flame on come back here you matched it come and get me Big Boy 17 episodes were produced but it never gained traction and is now remembered if at all as an early job for Bill Murray just before he joins Saturday Night Live he played the young Johnny Storm aka the human torch but then Marvel tried to create a character who had actual albums in 1979 Marvel put a concerted effort into making a new musical star they teamed up with Casablanca Records who had big names at the time like Kiss Cher and the Village People former editor-in-chief Jim shooter says that Marvel employee Alice donenfeld came up with the idea based on the success of the song Sugar Sugar by The Archies [Music] shooter work with employees like Tom DeFalco John romita Jr Roberta McKenzie and Roger Stern to come up with the idea of disco dazzler initially based on the looks of model and actress Grace Jones however Casablanca kept vetoing Marvel's ideas and Marvel knew that disco was a fad with a limited lifespan by the end of the year Casablanca records was in financial trouble and that whole deal fell apart but it got revived by producer John Derek who was looking for a project to Star his wife Bo Derek after her movie 10 was a hit dazzler was re-envisioned as a white woman but Bo Derek's 1981 movie Tarzan was a bomb and the record idea went away eventually dazzler appeared in X-Men I've given you a highly condensed overview of some of these audio experiments because I want you to understand some of the pitfalls involved and you'd think that after several failed attempts Marvel would have learned their lesson and said hey let's just stick to comic books but no in 1991 Marvel tried again to create a musical Superstar tied to a comic book involved a busload of talent but it resulted in an album that failed to chart a comic book that failed to sell and basically just an embarrassment all around I think we're gonna have a blast looking at this one it involves the supposedly real life person Jacqueline Tavares sing as the superhero character nightcat let's take a look now there's nothing to really complain about when you look at the cover of this comic book Marvel hired Joe justku to paint that and he did a fantastic job I think that it's an exciting look at nightcat it's a little strange that these little cute kittens are dancing around at the bottom but whatever it ties into the theme and that artwork was even used on the cover for the album before I go too far let's look at the credits here and we can see that a lot of people were involved Jim salicrup and Barry dutter are accredited with the plot Stan Lee himself wrote the script so expect a little bit of outdated clunky dialogue Dennis Cohen did the pencils Jimmy palmiotti did the inks it's one of his first jobs Janice Chang did lettering Gregory Wright is the colorist Tom breivort who is still working as an editor at Marvel this is an early job for him as assistant editor Bob buddianski was the editor in charge of special projects at the time and Tom DeFalco is listed as editor-in-chief According to Jim shooter Tom also helped create the idea for this character the comic book itself starts with nightcat running across a rooftop a big splash page that gives us a look at her outfit and I want to mention here that I am not going to really complain about the artwork Dennis Cohen was the artist Jimmy palmiati was the anchor in one of his first jobs in the industry but my understanding is that this comic was made in a very short amount of time it was rushed and I don't think it's fair to hold that against the artist the outfit itself is very early 90s we've got huge shoulder pads we've got huge long wavy hair we have a tiny little Night Cat symbol on both the breast and the headband we've got a staff and boy do we have cleavage but what's really interesting is to know who created this outfit it was designed by Jim Lee Jim Lee today is very well known as a superstar artist and the president of DC Comics but in 1991 he was still breaking in it's very interesting to see that one of his first jobs was designing this character for a special project Harry then jumps back 10 years ago to show little Jackie Tavares reading a comic book her father is obviously a police officer and he says that I told you to put those Comics away and go to sleep kitten you're just like your mom always doing what you want what a weird kid doing what she wants doesn't she know that she's supposed to obey Jackie's father whose name is Lou then goes to talk with his wife Beth and he's surprised to learn that she's going out so late at night she says I have to Dear they're holding a new audition at the rock candy Lounge but you haven't been well Beth and all that stress together with your drinking please Lou you know how much this means to me Lou instead slams the door on his wife this wakes up Jackie who's surprised that her mother's going out so late at night but it's because her mother is going to an audition to sing and she says Sing Me a Song Before you go out I think you're the best singer in the whole world and we get treated to her mother singing This is actually a song that nightcat sings on the album I'll give you a little taste yeah don't change change involves a character Arc or Evolution or something interesting happening we want everything to stay the same in the very next panel Beth is dying from her drinking the doctor doesn't have any comforting words he says we did everything possible Mr Tavares you mustn't blame yourself failing as a singer she lost the will to live I'm sorry but your family member is dead in my medical opinion they failed at too many singing auditions if you fail at your creative Pursuit you might lose the will to live and just die folks I'm going to give this video my Supreme effort I just don't want to die Lou has an interesting at best reaction saying it was the music that killed her the pressure the disappointment it must never happen to you I won't let Show Business kill you too we jump ahead a few years and Jackie is disobeying her father by daring to sing and we get treated to another song from the nightcat album of course it's not quite as exciting to just read the lyrics As listen to this masterpiece love me we'll be together Comics are an amazing storytelling medium you can do so much with them but one thing that is very hard to convey would be anything auditory anything oral it just doesn't really come across these days you can do interesting things you could have say a QR code to a video but this was 1991. they were really counting on you buying both the album and the comic my guess is nobody bought either we cut back home and Jackie heads upstairs after doing well with her report card the phone rings that's a rotary phone by the way which would have been pretty outdated even in 1991. Lou picks up the receiver it doesn't even have time to say hello before he hears Jackie did you rehearse the song we wrote it'll be a smash Jackie hello Jackie so those are the dates you've been having you've been singing against my orders that is one of my favorite panels in this whole book you've been singing against my orders what a conflict folks how dare she right uh if you think that this might go in some sort of footloose-esque Direction where she's going to inspire people with her singing uh no it gets way more convoluted than that we cut ahead another few years and now Jackie is at college and she's studying criminology her professor points out that your turn paper was excellent Miss Tavares have you studied criminology before no but my father was a cop he must have been a great influence in your life you might say so and I guess she doesn't look that happy although the guy saying thing right behinder's happy the teacher's happy it's really hard to tell what's going on here Jackie's surrounded by comic books on her bed she's talking out loud to herself she does not bag and board those Comics what a weird comic book fan right folks she also seems to be a big fan of cat based superheroes if we look closely at the posters behind her we have Kat lass okay super feline right and the night meow didn't really try too hard on that one Jackie says I don't want to break my promise not to sing but music is my life I've got to try I know Mom would have understood my favorite comic book characters never have this problem wait a minute that's the answer comic book characters all have secret identities all I need is a needle and thread that's using your big brain Jackie sure your father for bid you from singing but he can't possibly figure it out if you have a secret identity and a superhero costume it's the perfect plan let's take a look at her superhero costume which we've already seen and uh yeah so that is sort of a superhero costume it does seem to be lacking one thing that would help her with a secret identity that being a mask and the lyrics here are the lyrics to number one house rule that was the song that everybody thought would be the hit single for this album [Music] the number one house [Music] apparently that was a contest because a man is pointing at her saying the winner by unanimous consent that's how contests usually work we go backstage and two old men approached Jackie she recognizes them instantly as people from LMR records not just people from LMR records the actual Executives that ran that company which I'm pretty sure they did not just walk in backstage unannounced to various music contests I don't think that that's how it works I'm pretty sure that they had employees that would Scout Talent uh LMR records not a huge company they are the people in real life that released the nightcat album they had Stevie B signed to them he was a little bit of a musician in 1991 it's definitely not on the same scale as say Casablanca records back in the 70s when they worked on dazzler the caption says within minutes and we see that Jackie is ready to sign a contract and she thinks to herself I mustn't use my real name right well that makes sense I mean Jackie's trying to keep her identity a secret from her father and there's a great chance that Lou is at home looking over record contracts just in case his daughter's disobeying him that could definitely happen I don't know what name to sign your own of course by the way what is your name Jacqueline Tavares but you must never tell anyone okay but we have to call you something dad always calls me kitten and my costume is dark dark is night I like the name night cat is coming up with a name for her career she gives it all of two seconds worth of thought just sort of blurts out the things that are right in front of her uh you know thank God that she wasn't looking at say like a coat rack or something ladies and gentlemen the amazing coat rack the executives introduce Don Kessler saying that he will manage her and Don Kessler was again another real life person so let's pause here because all these people like Don Kessler and Jacqueline Tavares these are real people they are using the names of real people because they're trying to create a fictional story for actual real people Jacqueline Tavares is definitely the woman that was wearing the nightcat suit she was showing up on shows like Party Machine with Nia peoples to perform but she was actually not the actual singer if you go to a YouTube page that has the night cat album up uploaded you can see a reply there that explains that it was sung ghost sung by a lady named Nikki gregorov so I thought that that was interesting why even bother calling nightcat Jacqueline Tavares they could have made up this whole fictional character this obviously isn't the real life of Jacqueline Tavares but they still used her real name we've got a real Millie Vanilli situation going on here there's a little Montage explaining to us that nightcad has become very popular and she thinks to herself being a star isn't all that shabby that is definitely an example of how Stan Lee always felt the need to put dialogue in explaining what was obvious to us as the reader back at home Nikki speaks with her dad and her dad explains that he's about to go undercover for a while so she'll have to take care of herself for a few days I am a pop star I still live at home and meanwhile her manager Don helps her buy some sort of massive studio apartment I guess she loves it she's dancing all over the place he says we'll install a recording studio for you too you the next day we see that nightcat is at a recording studio it is not her home recording studio and she sees a mysterious man with a scar walk by she decides to Snoop even though it's really none of her business she takes the case that he's walking around with opens it up and says it's filled with white packets cocaine I should have guessed the whole studio must be a headquarters for drug pushers but it can't be the building is owned by Amanda Gideon the famous millionairess well I learned something I thought that all millionaires were called millionaires but but no I looked it up and you can call women who have millions of dollars millionaire S's so that's what I learned before nightcat can return the case of cocaine surprise surprise a big henchman grabs her from behind and he also must have choked her out at some point because by the last panel of this page this henchman is just carrying her unconscious body away now we meet the owner of that recording studio Amanda Gideon the caption box tells us that she's an heiress real estate Tycoon nightclub owner one of the wealthiest people in New York apparently she also is the employer of a super villain mad scientist doctor a doctor named Dr ecstasy you may now inject the gorilla serum doctor as you wish miss Gideon it is done look he's responding perfect he thinks he's an anthropoid ape see his ability his strength his balance but look doctor he's collapsing like all the others he's dead yeah miss Gideon and Dr ecstasy are in the process of trying to create a designer drug that apparently gives you animal Powers uh I don't know why you would need to do that when you can already successfully sell cocaine when you're already a millionaire she's just ambitious like that or maybe it's a really forced origin I don't know could it be foreshadowing I don't know foreign we also see that one of the henchmen working at Gideon's Labs is Lou she tried to steal a case of powder I caught her Stan decided to name the big henchman who trafficks and drugs decided to name him crack she isn't the most creative name but I guess it rolls off the tongue a little better than if he was named methamphetamine well well it's that new rock star who calls herself nightcat she'll be a perfect subject for Professor ecstasy Professor did he lose his Doctorate in just a couple Pages anyway uh Amanda Gideon maybe not the best idea to try drugs on a person who was last seen using your recording studio just some advice if she disappears put police might investigate the last place that she was seen Lou is there and we see that he must have massive head injuries because he says that girl she looks so much like Jackie but it can't be but no matter who she is I've got to save her Jackie is tied down and Dr ecstasy has a lot of fun he takes some blood out of a cat he takes some poison out of a jar of jelly or something like that injects it in her that's just science and Lou is doing a terrible job saving her in time because she's already been injected and he's outside thinking can't leave that poor girl alone in that lab drop it mister this is a bust you have the right to remain silent but Dr x c grabs a knife leaps at Lou Who says bad move doc very bad while he shoots him and then Lou has equipped saying I had to do it I don't have Medicare [Applause] [Music] um that's the best he could have come up with for a one-liner he couldn't have said a knife to meet you or take two of these and call me in the morning that one would have actually been pretty good anyway Dr ecstasy is kaput Lou starts unbuckling the restraints on nightcat some other henchmen burst in he shoots at them and is instantly shot right through the chest with one two three four five six seven shots she shouts out dad and as Lou is dying he's not instantly dead for some reason he says I thought it was you kitten Gideon orders her henchmen to kill nightcat but then all of a sudden her fingernails grow she has fingernail powers and jumping Powers stop her she can't wrong the night cat can no matter how fast she is she can't stop a bullet ah my face I don't have to stop it just misdirect it yes she has house cat powers and that allows her to be really fast and to grow her nails to cut people the girl is more trouble than we thought let me finish her off no we have no time the helicopter is waiting don't keep me waiting finish off a witness keep your helicopter waiting I mean yeah the decision is clear you got to go for the helicopter and just hope for the best nightcat takes out all of the henchmen and watches as crack and Gideon head to their apparently military-grade helicopter she kicks through a window in the first of what will become many crotch shots makes a huge jump but is not able to catch the helicopter and then all of a sudden after all of this fighting remembers dad he needs me I've got to go to him she was just planning on chasing down the villain on a helicopter what was she planning on coming back an hour or two later to see if her dad was still alive Dad look at me it's me your daughter I tried to save you I did all I oh Dad open your eyes please Jackie I never wanted to disobey you I love you Dad hush kitten I understand you mustn't cry you had to follow your destiny follow your heart and then he finally succumbs to those seven bullets through the chest the police finally show up of course they know Jackie because she's the daughter of a police officer she tells them that Amanda Gideon was the brains behind this what will you do about her you don't realize what you're seeing Jacqueline miss Gideon is one of our wealthiest most prominent citizens except for your word we haven't a shred of proof against her they're not going to take her word her father is dead you know why would she make something like this up she's just the daughter of a slain police officer oh she also picked up a stray cat here and she tells it that she's gonna call it midnight that has nothing to do with anything but she's nightcat so she's gotta like cats Jackie goes to her father's funeral where apparently the gravestones are starting to all tip over it's really crummy she gets through that packs up her belongings works out takes off her clothes and takes a shower and still has time to go to her criminology class that's right she's both a professional singer and still a full-time college student I don't know where she finds the time Jackie's singing and her manager Don comes in condescendingly says sounding good little lady it'll be the last song of my new released on I know but it's time for you to tour now Jacqueline no I can't if i tour Amanda Gideon will always know where to find me Jackie's worried that if she tours his nightcat Amanda Gideon would know where to find her as compared to you know going to the recording studio that she owns where you're recording your album good thinking in the meantime someone wants to meet you not now Don please you'll want to meet him the name's Lee Jacqueline I like your style how'd you like to be Marvel Comics newest superhero we can do a night cat mag fester and you can say excelsior I'd love it Stan I like to imagine how Stan Lee wrote his own cameo in this book a ruggedly handsome middle-aged man walks through the door muscles Rippling beneath his fashionable clothes his mustache and sunglasses are impeccable Jackie decides to track down Amanda Gideon saying to herself I've got the most sophisticated computers money can buy and I've fed them everything I know about Amanda Gideon's operation but I still can't get a handle on what she's doing or where she's doing it then she's watching the news which mentions a pollution problem Jackie thinks to herself a garbage Scout wouldn't that be a perfect place for a man to Gideon to hide her drugs of course that's it Jackie solves crimes the same way that she comes up with code names for herself whatever's right in front of her that's got to be the answer if she's watching a news report on a I don't know politics all of a sudden she go Amanda Gideons operating out of the White House White Like Cocaine I better get there fast a caption says and so with a little asterisk that then says would you believe we get paid for writing captions like that incredulous Stan really adding to the story there Stan great job in addition to her costume nightcat now has some sort of a poll or a staff I don't know when she had time to train on it but she can pole vault with it she can break through windows and knock guys out and she attacks a bunch of criminals that are on the garbage Scout she guessed correctly she can even deflect bullets with her staff and she bought herself a flashlight which blinds criminals Jackie then notes all of the drugs apparently loads them into a truck nearby and says I put enough explosives in back of the truck to sink a ship which is exactly what they're gonna do Bingo bye-bye truck bye bye barge and then she gets in a car which she says is called my catalack [Applause] [Music] um and at first I'm thinking well okay she's Rich so I can buy that she could purchase a custom car uh wouldn't that call attention to herself and then I'm forgetting she's operating as nightcad the famous singer so uh she's really not doing a good job at making the most of having a secret identity here we see that Amanda Gideon is working out beating up a bunch of henchmen while that happens she's getting news that nightcat is slowly shutting down her illegal operations around town and yeah Amanda Gideon had no trouble finding nightcat she literally drops an invitation off at the recording studio for her to come perform at Amanda Gideon's Casino nightcad accepts the invitation even though it's an obvious trap and she's got a bunch of ninja dancers this time and she thinks to herself strange my dancers seem so heavy and they're doing a new routine but she doesn't apparently suspend expect anything until they actually try to attack her on stage but she's of course able to beat a bunch of ninjas she keeps keeps singing she's definitely a showman and that's our show for tonight I Finally Found Someone but backstage she's attacked again this time by crack who throws her through the air we get another crotch shot and crack is way more successful he literally embeds a knife deep in her thigh but nightcat's only response is now that was very rude prak apparently can swap out his metal arm for a metal drill and that gives Jackie just enough time to pull the knife out and throw it at him crack charges with the metal drill but nightcap shoves the drill into an electrical socket killing him and she has a little quip even a kitten has claws oh yeah but those claws are actually really really tiny it's adorable if they try to climb up you it's it's really not going to hurt it's a kitten a wave of henchmen join in they should have probably started earlier to help crack night cat jumps over them and shows us all her crotch that's the third time for those counting and apparently she has a gas bomb now this is actually a pretty cool shot nightcat climbs the wall to the roof outside and she's lucky because Amanda Gideon happens to be there they then engage in a fight Amanda kicks nightcat in the leg remember she had a knife deeply embedded in that just a moment ago but remember nightcat has a flashlight she then uses a judo throw to toss Amanda over the edge of the building Amanda catches nightcat's hair which I thought was a wig this whole time apparently not nightcat uses her claw powers to just cut her hair off and send Amanda Gideon plummeting to her death with another quip saying my ACT is strictly solo [Applause] and then in the very next panel she's back to sing in a bunch with a closing line to herself saying the cat has just begun to prowl nightcat presents itself as a fictional take on a real-life person but as I said Jacqueline Tavares wasn't even the singer of the album Jacqueline Tavares was a model that fit the outfit she was a Playboy model who also had a topless scene in the movie tromeo and Juliet that movie was the first movie credit for James Gunn who went on to make movies like Guardians of the Galaxy nightcat had a lot of talent behind it Jim Lee Stanley some really talented folks But ultimately it really doesn't work and I think that when you focus on rushing out a project to try to snag an existing audience in this case you know music fans um you're not focusing on telling a good story but I'm really grateful because you end up with a Beautiful Disaster like this which is very very fun to talk about thank you so much for watching I'll be back next week with another their episode hopefully you will consider hitting like And subscribe that means a lot to me if you really like this show maybe you'll consider joining my patreon the link is in the description below for as little as a dollar you can help support this show keep me as ad free as possible that's my goal um it would mean a lot to me so hopefully you'll at least consider that uh and I've got some really exciting stuff I can't wait to talk about coming up I'm starting to feel a little healthier than I've been my shoulder's doing a lot better it's not at a hundred percent by any means but it's definitely got some more motion to it so I'm feeling pretty good uh thank you so much folks again and until I see you next time keep reading comics thank you in this video if you liked it please consider hitting like And subscribe if you'd like to support the show there are merchandise links beneath the YouTube video and you can always hit join on YouTube or visit comic tropes on patreon to get access to special perks [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: ComicTropes

Views: 82,467

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Id: rXs21EX6VGk

Length: 37min 16sec (2236 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 18 2023