All I know about Super Star Heroes magazine right now is that there are at least 11 issues, and this one is pretty cool. According to my recently established formula, I’ve posted the front cover, inside front cover, table of contents, inside back cover, back cover, and a couple of full articles. (Click pages to enlarge.)
I have a strange fondness for Meteor (1979), a Cold War relic that tried to capitalize on the post-Star Wars sci-fi craze within the disaster picture formula. I find Connery and Wood charming, the script has some moments, and I love the eerie, bombastic music that plays every time the meteor is shown hurtling towards Earth. The special effects sequences by Glen Robinson (Logan’s Run) are abysmal, especially the destruction of Manhattan, but I do like the space nuke miniatures.
American International Pictures (AIP), my favorite studio of all time, produced and distributed the film, and studio head Sam Arkoff was determined to make “the most expensive, most sensational disaster picture of all time.” The budget was $17 million, $10 million more than the 1974 blockbuster Earthquake. Compare that to 1998’s un-dynamic duo, Deep Impact ($75 million) and Armageddon ($140 million).
The AIP article gives a short history of the studio, which at the time was an improbable recipient of a retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
2 Warps to Neptune 