Category Archives: Superheroes

February 28, 2018 · 10:27 pm

BLACK PANTHER: PANTHER’S RAGE OVERVIEW

Black PantherMarvel’s Black Panther movie has prompted a lot of Balladeer’s Blog’s readers to ask for more and more items on the figure. My favorite was one from just today which said “I don’t like actually reading comic books but I like the way you describe them and review the stuff so could you do Panther’s Rage?”

Since many of the characters in the Wakanda vs Atlantis War made their first appearance during Panther’s Rage (1973-1975) I figured why not.

Panther's RageJUNGLE ACTION Volume 2 Number 6 (September 1973)

PANTHER’S RAGE

This 13-part story dealt with a rebellion aimed at overthrowing T’Challa – the Black Panther – as the ruler of Wakanda and replacing him with N’Jadaka/ Erik Killmonger. This was the rebellion that caused T’Challa to take a leave of absence from the Avengers in our previous Black Panther article.

Synopsis: The Black Panther has been agilely making his way through the jungle like Douglas Fairbanks, Sr in the Silent Movie The Gaucho. He’s freshly returned to Wakanda and is trying to recapture the rhythms of the kingdom he has spent far too much time away from in his adventures.   

Erik Killmonger

“Memes … memes, everywhere.”

He comes across Tayette and Kazibe, two of Killmonger’s men, torturing an old man in a makeshift cage. It’s part of the rebels’ ongoing campaign of terror against all Wakandan villages and citizens who are still loyal to T’Challa (The Black Panther).

Our hero attacks and drives away Tayette and Kazibe, then frees their victim from the cage. The dying old man reaffirms his loyalty to T’Challa and says he never doubted that he would return to Wakanda to help his troubled people. Continue reading →

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February 26, 2018 · 5:07 am

BLACK PANTHER DEFEATS KLAW TO SAVE HIS FELLOW AVENGERS

Avengers 126AVENGERS Volume 1, Number 126 (August 1974)  All the Sights and Sounds of Death

AVENGERS ROSTER: Thor (Donald Blake, MD), Iron Man (Tony Stark), Captain America (Steve Rogers), The Scarlet Witch (Wanda), The Black Panther (Prince T’Challa), The Vision (not applicable), The Swordsman (Jacques Duquesne) and MANTIS (Mantis Brandt).

ALL THE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF DEATH

Synopsis: The exact amount of time between the last installment’s conclusion of the Thanos War and the beginning of this installment is another of those things that obsessive fans debate as they try to establish a timeline of Avengers stories. 

In any event this issue starts out at Avengers Mansion in New York City. Inside, Mantis is watching her romantic partner the Swordsman battle some robots in the Avengers’ Training Room. The Swordsman is trying to show off for her because he is still smarting with insecurity over the way Mantis and the Vision seem to be growing more and more attracted to each other. 

The various energy blasts from the Swordsman’s high-tech sword finish off the two remaining robots he’s fighting but Mantis still seems distracted. As they kiss it is obvious her thoughts are already turning toward the Vision.

The Vision himself is pondering his growing fears that his android brain may be malfunctioning. His panic attacks in Dormammu’s quicksand and Taurus’ pool combined with Ant-Man’s mysterious discovery in the Vision’s brain during the Kree-Skrull War all continue to hang in the air.     

Mantis miniMeanwhile, the Vision’s romantic partner the Scarlet Witch, is still torn with her own fears that the Vision may leave her for Mantis. (Two women fighting over him? The Vision really IS fully functional.) Wanda ponders her recent arguments with the Vision and how he always makes the arguments out to be HER fault. Continue reading →

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February 24, 2018 · 9:47 pm

BLACK PANTHER’S WAR PITTING WAKANDA AGAINST ATLANTIS CONCLUDES

With Marvel’s Black Panther movie making such a splash right now here’s the conclusion of the Summer of 1980 script-doctoring bit about Wakanda and Atlantis fighting each other. 

FOR PART ONE OF THIS ARTICLE CLICK  HERE 

Defenders 86 Quiet Riot

DEFENDERS Vol 1: Number 86 (Aug 1980) – D-Day on Kiber Island  (My title – the original title was The Left Hand of Silence)

On Kiber Island the Defenders are caught between two armies about to collide: On one side an Atlantean army with troops riding on a large number of those subsea monsters Sub-Mariner often uses to attack the surface world. On the other a Wakandan army with troops riding and flying around on a large number of dinosaurs from Serpent Valley. 

Our heroes – Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Valkyrie, Clea and Foolkiller (Greg Salinger) try to shake off the Mandrill’s taunts as his viewscreen shuts off. The Defenders’ actions vary from struggling just to survive amidst all the lumbering monsters and high-tech weaponry of the clashing armies and trying to stop the violence since they know both sides are being manipulated. Foolkiller would be his usual battle-crazed “Emilo Estevez in Young Guns” self while Valkyrie would remind him to spare lives as much as possible.   Continue reading →

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February 23, 2018 · 10:11 pm

BLACK PANTHER: PART TWO OF WAKANDA’S WAR WITH ATLANTIS

The Black Panther’s  war pitting his kingdom of  Wakanda against the Sub-Mariner’s kingdom of Atlantis proceeds. Will a certain Latverian dictator also get into the act?

Defenders 85 black pantherDEFENDERS Vol 1: Number 85 (July 1980) – Like A Proud Black Panther) 

We pick up the story two days after the nuclear missile caused the tidal wave that destroyed much of Kiber Island. The splash page would show Foolkiller and Hellcat (with her Shadow-Cloak wrapped around her) on a rooftop across from the Wakandan Consulate in New York City.    

Their back and forth dialogue would update the reader on developments between issues: both Wakanda and Atlantis would be denying responsibility for the nuke but various nations would be accusing one side or the other. (SPOILER: The Mandrill’s female agents planted the contradictory accusations with various high-powered figures.)

Another battle broke out between the Atlantean and Wakandan armies in the meantime, frustrating both Namor and T’Challa, who are trying to de-escalate the conflict. (Rogue military leaders in the two kingdoms are being supplied with the other kingdom’s top secret weaponry by the Mandrill, who is getting rich off the war AND plans to steal some vibranium from the sub-sea foot of Kiber Island, where Atlantean expeditions discovered it. )

The Black Panther has arrived by limo at the Wakandan Consulate in New York, where he will meet with various world leaders before addressing the U.N. the next day. T’Challa is surrounded by press and his own security as well as protestors who blame Wakanda for the nuclear poisoning of the sea near Kiber Island.  Continue reading →

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February 22, 2018 · 5:57 pm

MARVEL’S BLACK PANTHER: WAR BETWEEN WAKANDA AND ATLANTIS

Black Panther and VenommWith Marvel’s Black Panther in theaters right now Balladeer’s Blog will take a look at an angle of Prince T’Challa’s run that is a bit overlooked. Panther’s Rage has been covered extensively as have other aspects of this Avenger’s career.

I will be taking a look at the war between the Black Panther’s kingdom of Wakanda and the Sub-Mariner’s realm of Atlantis in the pages of The Defenders in the summer of 1980. 

Throw in Foolkiller to this already volatile mix plus a potential shift in the balance of the world’s vibranium reserves and stir.  Continue reading →

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January 9, 2018 · 8:17 pm

MAN-MONSTER: ATLAS COMICS HERO

Balladeer’s Blog’s recent look at the short-lived comic book company Atlas-Seaboard was a big hit. As a follow-up here’s a look at an Atlas figure I did not cover in the main article, which can be found HERE

Tales of Evil 3MAN-MONSTER

Secret Identity: Paul Sanders, Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist

Origin: Hedonistic Paul Sanders lives the life of a playboy from his endorsement deals and his resented oil baron father’s vast fortune. After a flirty/ bickering battle of the sexes-style interview with two female reporters from Women’s Lib Magazine Paul boards a motorboat for one of his father’s offshore oil wells.

To show off for the still-watching ladies Paul leaps overboard to swim the rest of the way to the oil drilling platform. As fate would have it, the oil drilling had just churned up some rare, mutated bacteria from the ocean floor. Sanders winds up covered by the bacteria, which causes changes to his body.  

Man Monster 1Paul barely escapes the bacteria and makes it back to shore, where he transforms into a red-scaled amphibious monster. After a brief rampage he becomes human again and the female reporters take him home.

From then on in times of danger the transformation comes over Paul again and he finds himself battling various forces of evil.

First Appearance: Tales of Evil #3 (July, 1975). His final appearance came in September of that same year.

Powers:    Continue reading →

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December 24, 2017 · 4:37 pm

A TEEN TITANS CHRISTMAS CAROL

Christmas Carol-A-Thon 2017 continues here at Balladeer’s Blog!

Teen Titans Christmas CarolA TEEN TITANS CHRISTMAS CAROL – Last year Balladeer’s Blog examined the 1973 Luke Cage, Hero For Hire version of A Christmas Carol. This time around I’ll take a look at Christmas 1967’s The Teen Titans’ Swingin’ Christmas Carol.

Swingin’ Christmas Carol may sound like the title of a Dean Martin Christmas Special but was really an issue of Teen Titans which paralleled the Dickens tale.

The Teen Titans was a team composed of the teen sidekicks of various DC Superheroes. Robin the Boy Wonder, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Aqua Lad and later Speedy, Hawk & Dove plus many others would come and go over the decades.

For this Christmas story we meet Ebenezer Scrounge, who runs a junkyard where he employees and abuses Bob Ratchet. Bob’s handicapped son Tiny Tom comes to visit his father and accidentally witnesses Scrounge’s secret partner –  a crime boss called Mister Big – use an invention which turns old items in the junkyard brand new. Continue reading →

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December 21, 2017 · 3:00 am

ATLAS (SEABOARD) SUPERHERO PANTHEON

Atlas figuresBalladeer’s Blog marks the shortest day of the year with the shortest-lived comic book company since Pelican Publishing!

It’s Atlas-Seaboard, to distinguish this publisher from Marvel Comics, which went by Atlas Comics in the 1950s. There IS a Marvel connection, however, in that Martin Goodman, Stan Lee’s old colleague, launched Atlas Comics through Seaboard Periodicals for one brief shining moment several months in 1975. 

Calling themselves “The NEW House of Ideas” clearly threw down the gauntlet at Marvel Comics’ feet. As it turned out, however, even Alan Thicke was a bigger danger to Johnny Carson than Atlas was to Marvel.

PhoenixPHOENIX

Secret Identity: Ed Tyler, Astronaut

Origin: Astronaut Ed Tyler was part of a three-man crew on the orbiting space station Threshold I. A leak in the main portion of the station forces the trio of astronauts to abandon their mission early and they evacuate in a shuttlecraft.

Complications cause the vessel to crash-land in the Arctic ice with Ed Tyler as the sole survivor. Tyler found himself in the hands of an alien race called the Deiei, who have been observing humanity from their underground Arctic base for untold millennia. The Deiei guided humanity’s evolution to make us more in their image.

The haughty aliens had recently decided Earth people are a failed experiment. They planned to preserve Ed Tyler for study to see what might have gone wrong but intended to wipe out all other human life on the planet and start from scratch. Tyler escaped custody, donned one of the high-tech battle suits of the Deiei and flew off, determined to thwart the Deiei’s genocidal plans 

Phoenix 2First Appearance: Phoenix #1 (January, 1975). His final appearance came in October of that same year.  

Powers: The Deiei space suit worn by Phoenix enabled him to fly at thousands of miles per hour, to shoot atomic energy blasts from his gloves and to withstand high levels of energy and large projectiles virtually unharmed. The suit also granted him a modicum of greater than human strength.  

The media named this hero Phoenix when they saw him emerge from the smoldering ruins of part of Reykjavik, where he drove off the first assault by Deiei spaceships.  

Comment: After fighting the Deiei for awhile Phoenix encountered another alien race called the Protectors of the Universe. Magus, the leader of the race, disagreed with the Deiei’s desire to wipe out humanity and granted Phoenix an opportunity to prove the people of Earth deserving of a second chance.

Phoenix’s adventures combined elements of the Silver and Bronze Age Green Lantern with Adam Warlock’s “philosophy for pre-teens” approach during his Counter-Earth period. Personally I found Ed Tyler’s gloomy “Humanity is so awful maybe we don’t deserve to be saved” musings to be ridiculous. Compared to the genocidal and callous Deiei, the human race seems like the definite lesser of two evils.  

All that aside, Phoenix had a certain charm. In fact he was one of the few Atlas characters popular enough to be given a second chance with 2010’s attempted re-launch of the title.  

Destructor 1DESTRUCTOR

Secret Identity: Jay Hunter, teenager

Origin: When aspiring criminal Jay Hunter ticked off Max Raven, the crimelord he answered to, that gangster put out a hit on him. The attempt on Jay’s life took place at the lab of his scientist father Simon, who was working on a super-soldier formula.

Both men were mortally wounded, but Jay’s father – knowing there was enough formula to save one, but not both of them – gave it to his son to save his life. Jay pulled through, discovered he now had amazing super-powers and took to wearing a costume to fight crime. He called himself Destructor and was determined to atone for his criminal past.   Continue reading →

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December 7, 2017 · 5:01 am

THE ZEBRA: ODDBALL SUPERHERO

With superheroes dominating popular culture right now Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at another odd Golden Age figure: the Zebra.

The ZebraTHE ZEBRA

Secret Identity: John Doyle, Attorney

Origin: John Doyle was framed for murder by corrupt politicians who wanted him out of the way. Just two days before his scheduled execution Doyle escaped from prison, lost the pursuing authorities and set out to clear himself.

Using his striped prison outfit as the basis for a costume, John added a mask, gloves, boots, a cape and a “Z” belt buckle to complete his ensemble. After proving his innocence, John Doyle resolved to continue fighting crime under the nom de guerre Zebra.  

First Appearance: Pocket Comics #1 (April 1941). His final Golden Age appearance came in 1946.  

Powers: The Zebra was in peak human condition, excelled at unarmed combat and was more agile than an Olympic athlete. As an interesting twist for Golden Age superheroes the Zebra’s specialty was French Kick-Boxing aka Savate. 

Those “Zebra Kicks” helped justify this unusual hero’s handle. It was sometimes implied that the Zebra’s legs were in such incredible shape from Kickboxing that he could run faster than most ordinary men, too.    

Comment: Created by artist Pierce Rice and an unknown writer working under the alias “Ellery King,” the Zebra was one of the Golden Age superheroes published by Harvey Comics.

STORIES: Continue reading →

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October 16, 2017 · 11:27 pm

DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT (2010)

Dylan DogDYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT (2010) Halloween Month continues with a look at the luckless Brandon Routh’s turn as this film’s title character, Tiziano Sclavi’s horror hero from Italian comic books. Sclavi launched Dylan Dog’s series in October of 1986 and under various creative teams the series is still running.

(Years ago I reviewed the film version of Tiziano Sclavi’s Dellamorte Dellamore from 1994.) 

Dylan Dog, an investigator of vampires, werewolves and other monsters, is an international cult hero beloved by comics fans around the world … which, of course, meant that any deviation from what the fan-boys wanted would cause them to hamstring the movie adaptation at the box office. The internet giveth and the internet taketh away.

In my opinion Dylan Dog: Dead of Night does not deserve its bad reputation. Compared to the many, many other films and television programs about heroic battlers of the paranormal this was certainly a top shelf production. The fact that this cinematic adaptation came along decades later than it should have is the main problem.  

Dylan Dog 2Let’s go by the numbers, knowing full well that budget and projected box office returns limited many of the creative decisions:

I. The Dylan Dog comic book was set in London (?). This movie was set in New Orleans, a change of locale that I actually like, given London’s overuse in horror films. Needless to say, this put the worst type of fan-boys in a VERY bad mood right off the bat.

II. The creative team behind Dylan Dog: Dead of Night kept the mood light. I agree with that choice given the inherent campiness and absurdity of an investigator who encounters werewolves, vampires, zombies, etc in horrific settings that are often reminiscent of Film Noir detective stories. The worst type of fan-boys bemoaned the “lack of the sad and serious tone of the comic books.”

III. In the comic book Dylan Dog’s sidekick in his investigations was Groucho, a Groucho Marx impersonator whose built-in craziness caused him to BE Groucho 24/7. For obvious legal and monetary reasons an American film version could not use Groucho as Dylan’s sidekick. The worst type of fan-boys were even more disenchanted.

Dylan Dog 3IV. The cinematic sidekick for Dylan was a new creation – Marcus, played by Sam Huntington, who had previously appeared with star Brandon Routh in the ill-fated Superman Returns (2006).

(Poor Routh. If only he had also starred in Frank Miller’s 2008 movie The Spirit he could have notched an all-time Hat Trick for starring in unfortunate comic book adaptations. Talk about not even being able to win for losing.)   Continue reading →

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