Category Archives: Superheroes

November 1, 2025 · 11:25 am

FOX FEATURES SUPERHEROES

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the neglected characters from Fox Features. 

Dynamo Fox Features picDYNAMO

Secret Identity: Jim Andrews, electrical scientist

First Appearance: Science Comics #1 (February 1940)

Origin: Jim Andrews risked his life to contain a potentially deadly accident at the electrical lab where he worked, inadvertently gaining superpowers from the incident. He donned a costume and fought the forces of evil as Dynamo.

Powers: Dynamo could use his electrical powers to shoot electric rays from his hands, to fly, to surround himself with a force field and to magnify his own strength.

Comment: In his very first appearance this hero went by the nom de guerre Electro, but in his remaining 24 adventures called himself Dynamo instead. 

Black Lion picBLACK LION

Secret Identity: George Davis, big-game hunter

First Appearance: Wonderworld Comics #21 (January 1941)

Origin: George Davis’ career as a big-game hunter had brought him wealth and fame. Having met all the challenges of hunting members of the animal kingdom he decided to go after the most dangerous game of all: human criminals. To that end he donned a costume and took on supervillains and Nazi agents.

Powers: The Black Lion was at the peak of human condition and had the agility of an Olympic gymnast. He was also an expert at unarmed combat and could outfight multiple opponents at once. His totem animal the lion gave him superhuman healing ability. Continue reading →

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October 25, 2025 · 12:01 am

FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER: MARVEL STYLE

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at the way Marvel incorporated the Frankenstein Monster into their 1970s horror comics.

MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN Vol 1 #1 (Jan 1973)

Title: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Villains: Mutineers

Synopsis: This loose adaptation of the Mary Shelley classic starts out in January of 1898. Readers meet Captain Robert Walton IV, descendant of the Captain Walton who encountered Dr. Victor Frankenstein in the frozen north roughly one hundred years earlier.

This Robert Walton has been searching for any sign of the remains of the Frankenstein Monster sighted by his ancestor. He and his crew at last find the being and carve out the huge ice chunk in which its body is held.   

That chunk is brought on board Walton’s vessel and stored in the hold. While the captain relates to a crew member the tale told to his ancestor about the monster’s creation and history, the rest of the crew plot a mutiny over being kept in the frozen north for so long just to recover a monstrous corpse.

Captain Walton is only partway through his tale about Dr. Frankenstein and his monster when the mutiny erupts and in the fighting a fire starts. The fire starts to melt the ice encasing the Frankenstein Monster. Continue reading →

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October 18, 2025 · 12:00 am

HALLOWEEN HEROES AND ANTI-HEROES FROM MARVEL

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at Halloween-themed characters from Marvel during the 1970s.  

GHOST RIDER – Daredevil biker Johnny Blaze makes a deal with the devil: Johnny’s soul in exchange for Satan curing the cancer in the body of Blaze’s mentor “Crash” Simpson. We all know how deals with the devil go, and not only does Crash die anyway, but Johnny Blaze is cursed to periodically transform into the flame-headed monster called Ghost Rider.

This horror figure outlasted all of the other 1970s Marvel horror characters, lasting until June of 1983 in his initial run. Along the way he and Roxanne faced Satan himself, a long line of demons, a Native American witch-woman, the eyeball-helmeted biker called the Orb and even other Marvel figures like Son of Satan, Hulk, Black Widow and Dr. Druid.

FIRST APPEARANCE: Marvel Spotlight Vol 1 #5 (Aug 1972) Continue reading →

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October 11, 2025 · 12:18 am

HACK/SLASH: THE EARLY STORIES OF THIS HALLOWEEN HEROINE

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at Cassie Hack, the horror superheroine who battles a long line of slashers as stylishly as Buffy fought vampires.

In Hack/ Slash stories, slashers are their own breed of monsters just like werewolves, vampires, etc. Tim Seeley created the series, which has been published by various indie outfits over the years.  

HACK/ SLASH Vol 1 #1 (Apr 2004)

Title: Euthanized

Villain: Bobby Brunswick

Synopsis: This very first appearance of Cassie Hack starts off with a few-page synopsis of her origin story. In school, Cassie was often bullied by the other students. This caused her mother to snap and become a slasher called the Lunch Lady, who took to carving up the teens who had bullied Cassie and mixing their remains in with food at the school cafeteria. Our heroine was forced to take action, saving her mother’s last victim. The Lunch Lady killed herself but rose again as a slasher. This time Cassie had to destroy her personally.

Readers are now dropped into the main story, set years later when Cassie Hack has established herself as a roving heroine who battles living and undead slashers alongside her African American sidekick – the hulking, gasmask-wearing Vlad. He views Cassie like a daughter and wields meat cleavers and butcher’s knives in battle.

In this adventure, Cassie and Vlad clashed with Bobby Brunswick, a veterinary assistant killed by the boyfriend of the female vet he worked for. Bobby came back from the dead for revenge and also preyed on the city with the army of dead animals that he controlled. Continue reading →

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October 4, 2025 · 1:17 am

MYSTIC COMICS (1940): MARVEL/ TIMELY SERIES

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the 1940 issues of Mystic Comics from Marvel back when the company was known as Timely Comics.

MYSTIC COMICS Vol 1 #1 (Mar 1940)

A. The Origin of the Blue Blaze – In 1852, 20-something Spencer Keen is seemingly killed in a tragic accident caused by a Blue Energy experiment his father is conducting. He is buried, but in 1940 some grave robbers dig up his coffin and we see that he has really just been in suspended animation all this time. The fresh air revives him.

        Now endowed with Blue Energy powers that enhance his physical abilities, our hero adopts the costumed identity Blue Blaze and thwarts the grave robbers’ evil employer, Professor Drake Maluski. That villain has been experimenting on a ray that can turn dead bodies into a zombie army for world conquest. Blue Blaze isn’t having it.

B. Dynamic Man – Scientist Dr. Simon Goettler creates a super-powered android who can pass as human. (Timely Comics had created the original android called the Human Torch the previous year, too.) Gottlieb has a heart attack and dies after activating this Dynamic Man android but the incredibly intelligent creation uses its Superman-level strength and ability to shoot energy blasts from its hands to fight evildoers.

        Dynamic Man battles evil millionaire Daniel “King” Bascom and his army. Bascom has financed the invention of a machine which lets him weaponize storms in all kinds of ways. Dynamic Man defeats Bascom’s forces and turns him over to the authorities.  Continue reading →

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September 27, 2025 · 12:00 am

THE DEFENDERS: VALKYRIE’S QUEST AND MORE (1974-1975)

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post looks at the Defenders from where my previous post about them left off.

DEFENDERS Vol 1 #17 (Nov 1974)

Title: Power Play

Villains: The Wrecking Crew

Defenders Roster: Dr Strange, Hulk, Valkyrie, Nighthawk and Power Man (Luke Cage)

Synopsis: This story opens up an undetermined amount of time after the previous story, in which the newest Defender Son of Satan (Daimon Hellstrom) helped the team rescue the Hulk from Hell and Asmodeus.

Kyle Richmond (Nighthawk) has used some of his massive wealth to convert the Richmond Riding Academy on Long Island into a secret high-tech headquarters for the Defenders, so that they don’t have to keep using Dr Strange’s Greenwich Village home for such purposes. Continue reading →

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September 20, 2025 · 12:00 am

IRON FIST: MORE OF HIS 1970s STORIES

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here on Balladeer’s Blog continues from my 2021 look at the earliest Iron Fist martial arts stories.

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #25 (Oct 1975)

Title: Morning of the Mindstorm

Villains: Angar the Screamer and Khumbala Bey

Synopsis: This issue picks up right after Iron Fist (Danny Rand) stopped the Skrull robot called the Monstroid before it could kill Princess Azir from Marvel’s fictional Arabic nation Halwan. Lt. Rafael Scarfe and the rest of Azir’s New York City police bodyguards are grateful, but the princess’s hulking Halwan bodyguard Khumbala Bey feels shamed and attacks Iron Fist.

Soon, Azir stops the fight and returns to the Halwan consulate in New York City. Next, Iron Fist learns that Colleen Wing has been abducted by minions of his archenemy Master Khan, who is secretly running a plot in Halwan. On Master Khan’s orders, Daredevil and the Black Widow’s old foe Angar attacks our hero with his Mindstorms. Iron Fist defeats the villain. Continue reading →

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September 13, 2025 · 12:00 am

THE CLOCK: HIS FINAL ADVENTURES (1941-1944)

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post wraps up the last of the 86 Golden Age stories about the neglected character the Clock. He debuted in 1936, so BEFORE Superman and Batman. 

CRACK COMICS Vol 1 #17 (Oct 1941)

Title: Killer Kale Dies Tonight

Villain: Killer Kale

Synopsis: Gangster Killer Kale is executed in the electric chair, but his thugs steal the corpse from the hearse and force a scientist named Dr. Jennir to use his new method for bringing the dead back to life. The Clock and his chauffer Pug Brady investigate when Kale murders Dr. Jennir. The pair find the new hideout of Killer Kale and his gang, burst in and defeat all the gangsters in a lengthy fight. Killer Kale is dead again by story’s end.  Continue reading →

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September 6, 2025 · 12:17 am

LADY JUSTICE

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the character Lady Justice.

LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #1 (Sep 1995)

Title: Hope & Dread

Writer: C.J. Henderson

Synopsis: The disembodied female epitome of blind justice is revealed to be capable of endowing superpowers on suffering women. Those ladies can then use their greater than normal strength, enhanced hearing and smell, plus their uncanny skill with enchanted swords and/or guns to avenge themselves on those who wronged them.

NOTE: The concept is like an exclusively female version of the 1989 creation the Crow, but in this case the people temporarily animated by Lady Justice are not dead. In this debut story Janine Farrell, a woman in a wheelchair, is inhabited by Lady Justice to get revenge for the murder of her two brothers.

LADY JUSTICE Vol 1 #2 (Oct 1995)

Title: Stepp’d in Blood

Writer: C.J. Henderson

Synopsis: The incorporeal Lady Justice urges her formerly crippled avatar to now pursue the criminal bosses above the men behind the killing of her brothers and the innocent bystanders who got caught in the crossfire.

After leaving a pile of dead bodies in her wake, the avatar of Lady Justice resolves to follow the predatory chain of command all the way to the top of the particular organization she is currently at war with.  Continue reading →

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August 30, 2025 · 12:00 am

VENUS: MARVEL/ TIMELY’s 1948-1952 SUPERHEROINE

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the Marvel Comics heroine Venus, from back when they were known as Timely Comics.

VENUS

Created By: Stan Lee and Lin Streeter

Secret Identity: Vikki Starr

First Appearance: Venus #1 (August 1948) Her final Golden Age appearance came in 1952.

Origin: The Golden Age Venus was the alien ruler of the planet Venus. For centuries she ruled over a planetary paradise protected from human eyes by the perpetual cloud cover of that planet. Wearying of being revered, adored and obeyed she decided to start dividing her time between her home world and Earth, where she hoped to try leading a simpler but more challenging life.

She teleported to the Earth, where her beauty made her such a sensation that she was hired as a model and editor for Whitney Hammond’s fashion publication called Beauty Magazine. Venus had a series of adventures ranging from mild fantasy to world-saving as she learned Earth ways and battled sci-fi and horror menaces. Continue reading →

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