Category Archives: Superheroes

July 18, 2015 · 2:18 am

ODDBALL SUPERHERO: THE CONQUEROR

With the emphasis on superhero movies these days Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at another forgotten superhero.

ConquerorTHE CONQUEROR

Career: Victory Comics 1-4

Years Active: 1941-1942

Comment: Pilot Daniel Lyons accidentally crash-landed his plane in the Rocky Mountains one day. Luckily for him he landed near the remote laboratory of Dr James Norton. Dr Norton rescues Dan from the wreckage of his plane and, since the pilot is near death anyway, uses him as a human guinea pig for his Cosmic Ray Lamp.

After being subjected to the lamp not only does Dan recover, but he finds his strength, stamina and intelligence have all doubled, along with his capacity for healing. Dr Norton convinces Dan to use his second chance at life to battle the Nazis. Continue reading →

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July 10, 2015 · 9:10 pm

ODDBALL SUPERHERO: DR HORMONE


Doctor HormoneWith the emphasis on superhero movies every summer these days I’ll periodically look at some of the stranger costumed crime-fighters  who have come down the road over the years. The Black Condor will remain my blog’s Official Weird Superhero, so have no fear. 

Doctor HormoneDOCTOR HORMONE  

Career: Popular Comics 54 through 60

Years Active: 1940 into 1941

Comment: This bizarre superhero had the most convenient last name this side of Dr Stephen Strange. The good doctor was 75 years old before he perfected a special treatment that restored him to age 25, possibly for good. (His series got canceled long before the writers had to worry about retconning or sliding time-scales.)

Dr Hormone injected his own elderly self with special hormones he had been whipping up in his lab and followed that up with exposure to Vita Rays “Angstrom Rays”, thus de-aging himself. With great hormones come great responsibility, however, and our intrepid hero decided to fight the forces of evil with his new youthful body and his scientific genius. His hormone chemicals allowed our hero to change his opponents’ height, weight and manipulate their anatomy in other weird ways. (This guy would have made a better villain!)   Continue reading →

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June 9, 2015 · 9:36 pm

JUNE WEDDING: MR FANTASTIC AND INVISIBLE GIRL

From October 1965

From October 1965

It’s June, the traditional month for weddings and since summertime is also the season for superhero movies I figured why not take a look at a superhero wedding. And since the movie reboot of the Fantastic Four will be coming out soon I’m going with the wedding of Mr Fantastic (Reed Richards) and Sue Storm (Invisible Girl then, Invisible Woman now).

The actual comic book in question was the October of 1965 issue of Fantastic Four Annual # 3 and it featured virtually all the superheroes and supervillains in the then-young Marvel Comics Universe. The heroes were guests invited to the wedding, Nick Fury and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. were providing security for the event and the Fantastic Four’s arch-enemy Doctor Doom was mentally controlling the various supervillains into crashing the ceremony and trying to kill the heroes. Bedlam at the Baxter Building was the title.

The Story: Continue reading →

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May 31, 2015 · 3:28 pm

BLACK CONDOR CAPTIONING FUN RETURNS

The Black Condor was too late with his attempt to use an innocent bystander as a human shield but luckily the gunman's shot went wide.

The Black Condor was too late with his attempt to use an innocent bystander as a human shield but luckily the gunman’s shot went wide.

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May 1, 2015 · 9:30 pm

ULTRON AND THE BRIDE OF ULTRON

The August 1977 cover of the story The Bride of Ultron.

The August 1977 cover of the story The Bride of Ultron.

Reaction has been outstanding to the vintage Ultron covers I’ve been posting in honor of the release of the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron. Here’s another one – this one from the multi-part Bride of Ultron storyline when Ultron created his android bride Jocasta and was attempting to transfer the persona of Janet Van Dyne – the Wasp – into it.

And yes, that’s Jocasta as in Oedipus. Ultron was created by Hank Pym in the comic books NOT by Tony Stark, as they’re depicting in the movie. Ultron often sarcastically addressed Pym, his creator, as “father”. Hank Pym’s unstable personality (Hey, the guy was Ant-Man, Giant-Man, Goliath and Yellow Jacket for crying out loud.) was the basis for Ultron’s programming and helped lead to Ultron going rogue.   Continue reading →

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April 30, 2015 · 9:12 pm

ULTRON VS THE AVENGERS, FANTASTIC FOUR AND THE INHUMANS

From September 1974 comes this cover featuring Ultron attacking the Avengers, Fantastic Four and the Inhumans.

From September 1974 comes this cover featuring Ultron attacking the Avengers, Fantastic Four and the Inhumans.

With Avengers: Age of Ultron out in theaters fans got a huge kick out of my previous look at a vintage Ultron cover. This new one was the concluding part of an Avengers/ Fantastic Four crossover from back in the days before such crossovers were a constant thing. 

Plus, since it’s no secret at this point that the Avenger Quicksilver gets killed in the movie it seemed appropriate to highlight Ultron crashing Quicksilver’s wedding to the Inhuman and former Fantastic Four member Crystal. All this plus Franklin Richards was used as a deus ex machina for the first time ever in this tale! Continue reading →

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April 28, 2015 · 11:19 pm

AVENGERS VS ULTRON

An August 1969 Avengers cover featuring one of the team's earliest battles with Ultron.

An August 1969 Avengers cover featuring one of the team’s earliest battles with Ultron.

With Avengers: Age of Ultron out in theaters it seemed a good time to take a break from a very ugly world with some escapism. Thor, Iron Man and the Vision are the only Avengers from this cover that will appear in the movie, but if you want to get technical the blonde giant is Hawkeye from the period in which he abandoned his bow and arrows and had replaced Hank Pym as Goliath.

This was waaaay back when Ultron was still numbering his iterations and this time he went by Ultron 6. It was the first time he used adamantium for his android body. Continue reading →

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February 20, 2015 · 9:47 pm

PAT PATRIOT: FORGOTTEN SUPERHEROINE

Pat PatriotPAT PATRIOT – Last time around I examined the forgotten Golden Age superheroine Fantomah. Since Liberals and Conservatives have to inject their bickering into everything my look at Fantomah prompted Conservatives to accuse me of secretly being a Liberal because, after all, only ONE of Fantomah’s villains was non-white. For my look at Pat Patriot I’m sure Liberals will stage an “AHA” moment and accuse me of being a Conservative because of the heroine’s all-American, red white and blue nature.  

Pat Patriot 3Introduced in Daredevil Comics in August of 1941 Pat Patriot – “America’s Joan of Arc” – was, in reality, Pat Patrios, a Greek-American woman who by day worked on an assembly-line. By night she pursued her dream of show-biz stardom by appearing in a minor stage musical, costumed like a female Uncle Sam for a patriotic song and dance. One night Pat was walking home after the show with her boyfriend Mike Brown (no relation to the thuggish robber of convenience stores).

The pair stumbled across a plot by “European” conspirators (America had not entered the global war yet so even though the villains were clearly supposed to be German they weren’t openly identified as such) to steal airplane motors and smuggle them to the Axis Powers. Still clad in her stage outfit Pat used her fists and some brutal high kicks to thwart the evil plan. The press mistook her name for “Pat Patriot”, but our heroine happily embraced that as her nom de guerre.   Continue reading →

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February 4, 2015 · 11:37 pm

FANTOMAH: PART TWO

Fantomah 2Balladeer’s Blog’s examination of the neglected Golden Age superheroine Fantomah concludes with a look at the final eight stories penned by the one and only Fletcher Hanks under his pseudonym Barclay Flagg.

VII. JUNGLE ACTION #8 (August 1940)

Locale: The Temple of the Boiling Mud, hidden deep within Fantomah’s jungle territory.

Villain: Mister X, another Great White Hunter type, who plans to steal the sacred relic in the Temple of the Boiling Mud then ransom it back to the natives for a fortune.  

The Tale: Fantomah discreetly follows Mister X as he makes his Indiana Jones-ish way to the Temple. After he succeeds in crossing over the boiling mud pit that surrounds the tiny patch of land that the Temple stands on, he penetrates into the Temple itself. Fantomah appears to Mister X and warns him against stealing the relic. The natives believe that if the relic is removed the boiling mud will rise up and flood the entire jungle, wiping out all life. Continue reading →

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February 4, 2015 · 1:16 am

NEGLECTED SUPERHEROINE: FANTOMAH

latest (353×379) Balladeer’s Blog presents the first in my new series about neglected comic book superheroes and heroines of the distant past. With superhero movies and television shows being so popular right now it put me in the mood for some of the obscure and forgotten figures from the Golden Age. Here are my pithy story-by-story takes on our debut figure.

FANTOMAH – This superheroine was created in February of 1940 by Fletcher Hanks under one of his pseudonyms – Barclay Flagg. Hanks is a piece of work all by himself and is described as anything from “a primitive who created Outsider Art” on the good side to “the Ed Wood of comic books” on the bad side.

All of Fletcher Hanks’ comic book creations read like the chronicled psychotic episodes of a not particularly skilled ten year old artist, but his Fantomah stories are my all-time favorites. In the works of Hanks perspective, relative sizes and coloring can all change from frame to frame and the text often doesn’t even match what is being drawn. Continue reading →

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