Category Archives: Superheroes

September 1, 2015 · 7:49 pm

ANT-MAN: THE EARLY ADVENTURES PART TWO

By request from a Balladeer’s Blog reader here is my look at the early adventures of this superhero.

Tales to Astonish 407 TALES TO ASTONISH # 40 (February 1963)

Title: The Day The Ant-Man Failed

Villain: The Hijacker, a costumed supervillain who wielded a gun that both knocked out its victims and made them lose their short-term memory. That gas was derived from an ancient Inca formula. In later years the Hijacker fought Black Goliath and the Thing.

Synopsis: The Hijacker is robbing armored cars all over New York City by knocking out the drivers and leaving them with no memory of their attacker. With the help of Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four Ant-Man devises a gas mask made of unstable molecules.

The gas mask is to protect our hero from the Hijacker’s gas and the unstable molecular makeup of the mask will allow it to shrink and grow along with the rest of Ant-Man’s costume and equipment. Continue reading →

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August 25, 2015 · 6:48 pm

ANT-MAN: THE EARLY ADVENTURES

Ant-Man 1This past summer Marvel Comics added Ant-Man to their growing list of mega-successful film adaptations of their costumed crime-fighters. By request from a Balladeer’s Blog reader here is my look at the early adventures of that superhero.

1 TALES TO ASTONISH # 27 (January 1962)

Title: The Man in the Ant Hill

Villain: Various hungry ants

Synopsis: The emphasis in this debut story was on Incredible Shrinking Man– style antics. Dr Hank Pym has perfected his shrinking and growing formulas – later retconned to Pym Particles delivered via serum, pills or gas. Testing them on himself the good doctor shrinks and finds himself stuck in the “jungle” of his own back yard struggling to get back to his growth serum. Continue reading →

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August 16, 2015 · 10:41 pm

NEDOR SUPERHERO PANTHEON

With the flood of superhero movies every summer in recent years Balladeer’s Blog will feature periodic examinations of the more obscure comic book companies. 

Cavalier

THE CAVALIER

Secret Identity: Rance Raleigh, owner of an antique and curio shop

Origin: In Raleigh’s store was a portrait of the Duke de Chantreigh, sometimes said to be an ancestor of Rance. When that portrait would frown it was a supernatural sign that danger was coming. Rance would then suit up as the Cavalier and go into action. The first time was when Jake Miles, who was investigating munitions factory sabotage was hit by a truck outside Raleigh’s shop before he could tell him what he had discovered. 

First Appearance: Thrilling Comics # 53 (April 1946). His final Golden Age appearance came in 1948 

Powers: The Cavalier possessed the strength of a normal athletic male but was highly skilled with a sword and at unarmed combat. In addition he often used esoteric weapons and relics from his shop, just like the Golden Age Hawkman would wield artifacts from his museum. Continue reading →

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July 27, 2015 · 12:46 am

PROF SUPERMIND AND SON

With the emphasis on superhero movies these days Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at another forgotten superhero – or in this case a pair of superheroes.

Supermind & Son 1PROFESSOR SUPERMIND AND SON

Career: Popular Comics # 60-71

Years Active: 1941-1942

Professor Warren, a man who suffered from the lack of a first name, and his son Dan Warren did superduty fighting criminals and Nazis. The Professor fully understood that super-powers don’t come without a certain risk, which is why he was happy to use his son Dan as a human guinea pig for his High Frequency Energy Builder.  

Supermind and Son 2Periodic sessions hooked up to this device – which so help me resembles nothing so much as an electric chair – provided the Prof’s son with “strength equal to a thousand horse-power”, or “enough to kill a hundred men.” Sometimes even more.

Adopting the aliases Professor Supermind and Supermind’s Son the team used the same division of labor employed by Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin (or Jake and the Fatman if you prefer): the Prof sat around in their home base or their invisible rocket-ship (Wonder Woman, eat your heart out!) doing the brain work while Dan went out in the field taking all the risks and getting all the lumps.   Continue reading →

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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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