This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero blog post centers around Marvel’s Power Man. Last year I covered his first twenty issues HERE. Here are more of his 1970s tales.
POWER MAN Vol 1 #21 (October 1974)
Title: The Killer with My Name
Villain: The original, villainous Power Man (Erik Josten)
Synopsis: The flood of glowing headlines that Power Man has been getting after crushing Cottonmouth’s drug ring in the previous issue get soured a bit one day when Luke goes to Noah Burstein’s clinic. He has gone there to visit his girlfriend, Dr. Claire Temple, but she has left behind a note for him saying she has left New York and can never see him again.
The hurt and angry Power Man returns to his Hero for Hire office above the Gem Theater. Luke gets attacked there by the original Power Man, a former operative of Baron Zemo who was given his super-strength by the Avengers foe the Enchantress.
That villain, real name Erik Josten, is demanding that Luke stop using the Power Man name since he has been using it for years. The resulting destructive battle causes the building to start collapsing, trapping a little girl inside. Naturally, Luke Cage wins the fight and saves the child. Continue reading
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #129 (December 1972) 
Crystal, Johnny Storm’s longtime girlfriend and former member of the Fantastic Four, was forced to move back to the Inhumans’ hidden city of Attilan due to her body’s negative reaction to air pollution in the human world. 
GRIPS 
As I indicated in the title of this blog post, I consider the Grips tales to be what low-budget, disreputable Grindhouse movies of the past were to glossy, professional films from major studios. The writing and artwork in Grips seldom approached the standards of the Big Two publishers, but the visceral violence, profanity and often taboo subject matter more than made up for the overall shoddiness of the finished product. 
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Vol 1 #183 (October 1980) 
The remaining evil forces on Apokolips – led by Granny Goodness (a Kirby creation, needless to say) – have raided New Genesis and abducted most of the inhabitants, then taken them as slaves back to their own planet. They did it with the help of three Earth-Two villains – Icicle, Shade and the Fiddler – so the New Gods use the annual get-together of the Justice Society and Justice League to recruit the two teams to help them recover their kidnapped population. 
THE HERETIC 
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Vol 1 #123 (October 1975) 
YELLOWJACKET 
Powers: Yellowjacket was a probable mutant with the power of mentally controlling bees. He used his armies of those insects to sting, distract or harass opponents in battle. In addition, this hero was in peak physical condition and excelled at unarmed combat. 
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Vol 1 #82 (August 1970) 
NELVANA OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
BLACK WING 
Powers: Black Wing was in peak physical condition and excelled at unarmed combat. He was also a superb pilot and had the advantage of flying the high-tech craft he had stolen from the Nazis. 
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA Vol 1 #21 (August 1963) 
The company’s method of adapting more “up to date” versions of their Golden Age heroes without losing the copyrights on those figures was to state that the original versions of all their old heroes came from an alternate Earth, designated Earth-Two. The Earth with the newer heroes was called Earth-One, since they were the newer, CURRENT versions. 
Balladeer's Blog 