The Green Hornet, Episode One: The Tunnel of Terror

" I think the Hornet is the modern Robin Hood this city needs!"

Time for a new series to take the non-Marvel spot, and what better than this classic movie serial from 1940, a birthday present (nope, not telling you how old) from my brother and sister-in-law, who are well aware of my odd tastes. This serial is quite a prospect, partly because it stars a classic pulp radio noir hero who, twenty-seven years later, would guest star in Batman with Adam West, but mostly because Kato is played here by Keye Luke, who would go on, forty-four years later, to play the old man who sold Gizmo in Gremlins.

That's real stardom. Beat that, Bruce Lee.

Yes, this is standard movie serial stuff, with a pulp edge, but it's by Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor. Yes, it follows the tropes, and there's lots of hilarious "as you, know, Bob" exposition, but this is a superior example, however silly the Hornet's mask may look. Both Gordon Jones- as a Britt Reid who leans farvmore into the playboy persona than Bruce Wayne ever will- and Keye Luke- as a gleeful Korean Q with a regular supply of gadgets- are superb.

The plot, no doubt, bears no relation to what is to come, centring on health and safety for miners of all things, with the cliffhanger being the collapseof a mine tunnel, but this is gloriously random, the cars are great and the social attitudes are fascinating. Let's see where this goes...