With superhero movies dominating the box office and superhero cosplay starting to dominate Halloween there’s no better time for Balladeer’s Blog to examine Australia’s greatest superheroes.
DARK NEBULA
Debut Year: 1982
Secret Identity: Mark Medula, an astronaut in Australia’s fictional space program.
Origin: Returning from a flight to Mars, Colonel Mark Medula docked at the Threshold Space Station, which had just been seized by the alien warlord Cerellus.
Medula tried to stop Cerellus and the resulting chaos killed Medula’s body, but, amid all the cosmic energies being unleashed, that body became inhabited by both Cerellus’ soul and Medula’s soul.
Mark Medula’s body gained incredible superpowers and went on to battle Earthly and interplanetary menaces as the superhero called Dark Nebula. Cerellus often challenged Mark for control of their shared body, further complicating Dark Nebula’s adventures.
Powers: Dark Nebula has super strength and can fly, both in space and in a planet’s atmosphere. He is invulnerable and wields a combination of potent cosmic energy and dark mystical energy. Those combined scientific/ supernatural forces can be used to fire Darkfire energy beams from his hands and employ force fields. He also has psionic abilities like telepathy and ESP.
Comment: Dark Nebula’s adventures combine the cosmic head-trips of Jim Starlin’s Adam Warlock/ Magus storyline with some of the surreal mysticism of Dr Strange at his best.
Arguably the greatest Dark Nebula story arc was the one where he was off in deep space having a “deep” adventure while back on Earth his archenemy the Grandstander (Think of the Joker but with powers on Sinestro’s level at least) was impersonating him to ruin his reputation.
It endangered his marriage, too, since his wife had no idea why the man she thought was her husband never came home anymore after his public escapades. When Dark Nebula at last returned to Earth he had to tangle with the Aussie superteam the Southern Squadron who were out to bring him down for the crimes the Grandstander had framed him for.
When the misunderstanding was finally straightened out the Southern Squadron joined forces with Dark Nebula to tackle the Grandstander. This crossover was as much a milestone in Australia as the Avengers/ Defenders War in the 1970s was in the U.S. Continue reading →
Anne Coleman was a feared witch in Lanesboro, MA in the 1780’s. She was suspected of causing storms that sank ships, bringing on diseases that killed cattle, making food go bad and other malevolent deeds. 
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