With the movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings trickling out, assorted readers have been asking me if I’ll do a blog post about the character. I did one back in June, but the release of the movie wound up getting delayed. Below is the link to that blog post in which I examined the first twelve Shang-Chi stories in the 1970s.
For that post click HERE. For my blog post featuring Shang-Chi stories in which he fights alongside Iron Fist click HERE.
Filed under Pulp Heroes, Superheroes
Readers want more Marvel more of the time! With their What If? cartoon series off to a widely-panned start (I didn’t watch it) let’s take a look at some of the best What If? stories from its original run.
WHAT IF? Vol 1 #1 (February 1977)
Title: WHAT IF SPIDER-MAN HAD JOINED THE FANTASTIC FOUR?
Pivotal Event: In Spider-Man #1 the web-slinger tried to join the Fantastic Four but was turned down. But what if they had let him join the team?
Synopsis: Uatu the Watcher, from his headquarters in the ancient city in the Blue Area of Earth’s moon, ponders the multitude of alternate time-lines which branched off from the main (Earth 616) Marvel Universe.
With Spider-Man a member of the popular Fantastic Four/ Five, he never becomes an enemy of J Jonah Jameson and is therefore never deceptively painted as a villain to the public at large.
Having a powerful and capable new member like Spider-Man on the team makes Reed Richards (Mr Fantastic) comfortable enough to act on his overly-protective attitude toward Sue Storm (Invisible Girl). In their next mission (Fantastic 4 #13), against the Soviet supervillains the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes on the moon, Reed makes Sue stay behind on the Earth to “monitor” the group’s lunar expedition.
In this divergent reality, since Invisible Girl did not go to the moon with her teammates, she is lured away from the Baxter Building by the Sub-Mariner, whom she was infatuated with after the team’s first few battles with him. In the original reality, this could not happen until the Fantastic 4 got back from the moon. Here it happens earlier since she is by herself and is resentful that Mr Fantastic made her stay behind. Continue reading
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THE WINGED MAN – From Great Britain’s renowned story papers came the Winged Man. British story papers, like Dime Novels and Pulp Magazines, were text stories peppered with a few illustrations. The Wonder, an Amalgamated Press publication, debuted in 1913 and among its offerings was the tragic tale of the Winged Man, whose first story was titled Twixt Midnight and Dawn (the hero’s favorite time to dispense vigilante justice).
This figure was an interesting blend of Platinum Age heroes like the Man in the Black Cloak and the later Phantom of the Opera, the villain who had made his first appearance in Gaston Leroux’s novel a few years earlier.
The mysterious Winged Man was “a strange genius” whose real name was never revealed. He possessed such inventive brilliance that he created a suit complete with working wings which allowed him to fly.
The Winged Man took to the skies to deal out justice to the modern world’s villains. He operated out of a mysterious underground lair on “the bleak Yorkshire coast.” There he was served by his dwarf butler Ghat. Continue reading
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Last weekend Balladeer’s Blog took a look at the 1970s and 1980s stories of Star-Lord. This time around let’s go even further back and examine Marvel Comics’ original Guardians of the Galaxy.
MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #18 (January 1969)
Title: Earth Shall Overcome
Synopsis: In the year 3007 A.D. the aggressive humanoid lizard race called the Brotherhood of Badoon invaded our solar system with their fleet of starships. They attacked Earth as well as the Earth’s extensive colonies on Mercury, Jupiter and Pluto, where millions of genetically engineered humans lived, bred to thrive in each planet’s unique environments.
In addition, Earth had reached the Alpha Centauri star system and on Centauri IV had formed a peaceful government with the native Alpha Centaurans. The Badoon also struck there, wiping out all of the humans and Alpha Centaurans.
The Badoon killed every Alpha Centauran because they considered them and their control of the living metal Yaka to be a threat. Similarly, the lizard-like aliens committed genocide on Pluto, Jupiter and Mercury as well, because they felt threatened by large numbers of foemen possessed of the enhanced abilities of those genetically engineered humans.
On Earth itself, the Badoon allowed roughly fifty-three million humans to remain alive as slave labor, since baseline humans did not have any extraordinary abilities which might pose a threat to them. But the Brotherhood of Badoon had not killed off every single member of the Earth colonies like they thought they had. Four figures survived to oppose them in a war to free humanity, four figures who called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. Continue reading
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Marvel Mania is relentless! Already I’ve been hearing it from regular readers who have come to look forward to these harmless, escapist looks at superheroes on weekends. Here’s one for this weekend, a bit later than I usually get them posted.
MARVEL PREVIEW Vol 1 #4 (January 1976)
Title: STAR-LORD – FIRST HOUSE: EARTH
Villains: Ariguans
Comment: This tale presented a Peter Quill quite different from the way he would be retconned by the time the character joined Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy decades later. This Peter Quill grew up feeling tormented by his secret half-alien parentage after his mother was killed in an attack by aliens called Ariguans.
Peter trained to become an astronaut and ultimately wound up serving on a space station, where an entity called the Master of the Sun granted Quill his powers, weapons and sentient vessel called Ship to become an intergalactic adventurer called Star-Lord. The figure let Star-Lord avenge himself on his mother’s killers so he could start his duties unencumbered by a personal vendetta. Continue reading
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In the past handful of days Balladeer’s Blog’s 2017 blog posts examining the Marvel Comics villain Kang the Conqueror and some of his other selves like Immortus and Rama Tut have been getting incredible amounts of hits. I looked into it and it turns out that when the latest Marvel streaming miniseries, Loki, ended, the cliffhanger involved Kang and Immortus at Immortus’ castle in Limbo, the realm outside the time stream.
I thought that people were just going to my 2017 blog posts because they had no idea who Kang and Immortus are. Instead, I started getting comments from readers expressing thanks for the clarity of the “Timey-Wimey” nature of Kang’s labyrinthine saga. They said that the people writing the Loki miniseries plopped everything into the far later stages of the Kang/ Immortus stories, bypassing the earlier tales that would help people understand it.
So, in the style of an FAQ, here are the links to my articles which let people in on the Kang storyline from the beginning, through his eventual metamorphosis into Immortus by way of Rama Tut II, the Scarlet Centurion and others. Think of Kang’s various selves like you’d think of the Doctor’s various regenerations on Doctor Who to simplify it. Anyway, here are the links for my reviews of early Kang stories up through the Celestial Madonna Saga. (And with The Eternals movie coming, Marvel may well work the Celestials into their movie universe, too.)
Originally, Immortus wasn’t overseeing a “Sacred” Timeline as much as he was making sure events played out properly to bring on the Celestial Madonna.
ONE: BID TOMORROW GOODBYE – Kang wants the Celestial Madonna (Mantis, who started out as an Avenger in the 1970s) and reveals she has been the reason he frequently targeted the 20th Century. Agatha Harkness guest-stars, from the years when she was the Scarlet Witch’s mentor. CLICK HERE.
TWO: A BLAST FROM THE PAST – The actual, REAL death of an Avenger as the team tries to stop Kang from obtaining the Celestial Madonna, whose offspring would grant Kang control of all time and space. CLICK HERE
THREE: THE REALITY PROBLEM – The funeral for that first Avenger to be killed in action, plus further investigation into Mantis’ mysterious past to learn how she became destined to be the Celestial Madonna. CLICK HERE. Continue reading
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BALLADEER’S BLOG
At present pop culture is still Marvel’s world given how their superheroes continue to dominate movies and streaming services. Readers have been asking for a convenient one-stop blog post to use as an access point for Balladeer’s Blog’s assorted Marvel Comics articles, so here we go.
SHANG-CHI: HIS FIRST TWELVE ADVENTURES – Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu, is set to star in the upcoming movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. This blog post covered his “senses-shattering origin” (R.I.P. Stan Lee) plus his first dozen stories, featuring his villainous father, his adopted brother Midnight (M’Nai), Black Jack Tarr and more. Click HERE.
KANG THE CONQUEROR, MANTIS AND THE CELESTIAL MADONNA SAGA – Plenty of Easter Eggs point to Kang’s imminent debut in Marvel movies and/ or tv shows, plus his true love Ravonna Renslayer has already debuted. Kang’s alias as Rama Tut even showed up in X-Men: Apocalypse.
Mantis, though a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy in the films, started out as an Avenger in the 1970s. For my detailed look at her first appearance on up through her starring role in the original Celestial Madonna Saga click HERE. TO JUMP STRAIGHT TO THE KANG PART CLICK HERE. For Mantis’ role in the first THANOS WAR click HERE and HERE.
AGATHA HARKNESS AND THE SCARLET WITCH – Their first meeting HERE.
ADAM WARLOCK, THANOS, GAMORA AND THE MAGUS – And speaking of Thanos, and with Adam Warlock having been hinted at since the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, here’s another 1970s Young Adult Classic from Marvel. Adam took on his vile other self the Magus, his galaxy-spanning 1,000-world empire and Thanos in his first post-Thanos War appearance. Plus Gamora’s very first appearance. Click HERE.
KIT HARINGTON’S BLACK KNIGHT – This post covered Marvel’s various incarnations of the Black Knight, from the heroic figure who fought in the Crusades through the modern-day supervillain version who fought the Avengers to his nephew Dane Whitman (Kit Harington), who became a hero and redeemed the family honor. Click HERE.
KILLRAVEN – The heroic rebel leader and his Freemen take on Earth’s alien invaders on a war-torn post-apocalyptic world crawling with extraterrestrial tyrants and assorted mutated menaces. Click HERE.
THE X-MEN – For the first twenty stories of the ORIGINAL 1963 X-Men, featuring their initial encounters with Magneto, Juggernaut, the Mimic and the Sentinels, click HERE. For the NEW (Wolverine, Storm & Phoenix) X-Men from 1975 click HERE.
BLADE THE VAMPIRE SLAYER – With his own tv series on the way, here’s his early tales, from 1973-1983. Click HERE. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
As the 4th of July approaches, Balladeer’s Blog presents one last red, white and blue-themed superhero – Uncle Sam, from Quality Comics. For over 20 more Quality Comics heroes click HERE.
UNCLE SAM
Secret Identity: Ezra Smith (assumed name)
First Appearance: National Comics #1 (July 1940) His final Golden Age appearance came in 1944.
Origin: During the Revolutionary War, a dying American soldier named Sam (last name unknown) felt such a fervent desire to continue fighting for the new country that he assumed supernatural status. Over the decades he incarnated as Uncle Sam whenever the United States needed him.
In 1940 he appeared to young Buddy Smith, whose father Ezra was just killed for opposing a Fascist organization called the Purple Shirts. Uncle Sam defeated that group and became Buddy’s substitute father, pretending to be his late father Ezra to legal authorities.
Powers: This hero had Superman-level strength and invulnerability. He could fly in a sense by making enormous Hulk-sized leaps. He had a mystic ability to know where he would be needed. Due to his supernatural nature, Uncle Sam could not be photographed or filmed.
Comment: When he was no longer needed in a given time period, this hero faded away, to once again incarnate during the next period of crisis for the country.
NATIONAL COMICS #1 (July 1940)
Title: The Coming of Uncle Sam
Villains: The Purple Shirts
Synopsis: The origin of Uncle Sam, including his “adoption” of Buddy Smith, the scrappy kid in short pants depicted on the cover. Uncle Sam wages war on the Purple Shirts army, which is being financed by an unnamed – but obvious – foreign power.
Our hero invades the Purple Shirts’ secret stronghold at Box Valley in the southern Rocky Mountains. Uncle Sam clobbers the villains and rescues the U.S. President, whom they kidnapped earlier in a commando raid. Continue reading
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With the bulk of Balladeer’s Blog’s light-hearted superhero blog posts featuring Marvel Comics characters, DC fans have been demanding some love. I previously looked at the Justice Society, so this time here’s my take on their overlooked Golden Age heroes.
AIR WAVE
Secret Identity: Larry Jordan
First Appearance: Detective Comics #60 (February 1942)
Origin: District Attorney Larry Jordan became disgusted with the way so many criminals escaped conviction in the courts. He adopted the costumed identity of Air Wave and set out to fight crime on his own terms.
Powers: Air Wave was in peak physical condition and was more agile than an acrobat. He excelled at unarmed combat and wore special boots which let him glide or skate along power lines and phone lines. He also had radios in his costume’s earpieces. In addition, his trained parrot Static served as his mascot.
Comment: This hero appeared in nearly 80 adventures from 1942 to 1948. Continue reading
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With the big 4th of July holiday coming up, this weekend’s light-hearted bit of superhero escapism will combine some Revolutionary War nostalgia with some World War Two nostalgia. Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the early adventures of the Nedor Comics hero called the Fighting Yank.
For many more Nedor superheroes click HERE.
THE FIGHTING YANK
Secret Identity: Bruce Carter III
Origin: See below
Powers: The cloak bestowed upon wealthy Bruce Carter III by the ghost of his ancestor, a Revolutionary War soldier, granted him a large degree of super-strength, made him bulletproof and let him run at over 60 miles per hour.
STARTLING COMICS #10 (September 1941)
Title: Introducing The Fighting Yank
Villains: Nazi Spies
Synopsis: Wealthy Bruce Carter III is the spitting image of his ancestor, Bruce Carter I, a soldier who fought in the Revolutionary War. Unjustly accused of neglecting his duty Carter’s ghost has been wandering since then hoping to restore the family honor. He believes fighting in the expanding World War will provide that opportunity for his look-alike descendant, so he emerges from his life-sized portrait on the wall of the Carter home. The ghost leads Bruce III to the attic of the old family home and reveals to him a cloak which will bestow super-powers on the wearer.
In his first adventure, the Fighting Yank rescues a Senator from Nazi spies who have replaced him with a lookalike. That lookalike has been using the Senator’s popularity to rally the people toward an alliance with the Axis Nations. Our hero exposes the deception and clobbers the spy ring. Bruce Carter III’s girlfriend Joan Farwell recognizes him under the domino mask and shares his secret identity with him from now on. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
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