This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at Marvel’s superteams of the 1960s and 1970s.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
Debuted: January 1969
Comment: Yondu, Vance Astro, Charlie-27 and Martinex originally fought the alien race called the Badoon. Those alien invaders conquered 31st Century Earth and killed all but around 54 million humans to use as slave labor.
Over the years, the Guardians’ adventures came to involve time travel as superheroes from 20th Century Earth visited them in the future, like Captain America, the Thing, Sharon Carter, the Defenders and Thor. Eventually the G of the G moved to the 20th Century to fight their fugitive 31st Century foe Korvac alongside the Avengers.
Throughout it all, new Guardians members came along, like the woman Tarin, who ultimately became the President of Post-Liberation Earth of the future. Others were Starhawk, whose origin was later retconned to fit Starlord instead, and the woman Nikki, sole survivor of Earth’s Mercury colony in the 31st Century. Click HERE.
THE DEFENDERS
Debuted: December 1971
Comment: Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner and the Hulk banded together to save the world from the menace of the Omegatron, which wielded both science AND sorcery. Back in 1971 Marvel’s only other superteams were the Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men and the Inhumans so Dr. Strange and other heroes periodically joined forces to combat threats to the Earth, the universe or the multiverse.
At first Marvel pushed the notion that the Defenders were a “non-team” that had no headquarters, held no meetings and kept the group’s existence a secret from the world at large. Additional heroes came and went, like the Silver Surfer, Clea, Valkyrie, Namorita, Hawkeye, Nighthawk, Power Man, Son of Satan, Daredevil and many, many more. Continue reading
THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) 
IN THE CLUTCH OF THE WAR-GOD (1911) – Written by Milo Milton Hastings and serialized in the July, August and September 1911 issues of Physical Culture magazine. 
FIRST QUARTERFINAL – The number 1 seed – the GRACE COLLEGE LANCERS – took on the 8th seeded MT. VERNON NAZARENE UNIVERSITY COUGARS. By Halftime the Lancers were up 45-36, and after the break they left the Cougars further and further behind. In the end, Grace College won the game 83-64 led by Ian Scott with 23 points. 
SECOND QUARTERFINAL – Up next the 2nd seeded BETHEL (IN) PILOTS (Riverboat Pilots) played the 7 seeds – the TAYLOR UNIVERSITY TROJANS. The Pilots got more of a fight than expected from Taylor U. and led them by just 39-35 at the Half. From there Bethel University squeezed out some more distance from the Trojans in their 77-69 victory. Trent Edwards tossed in 22 points to lead the Pilots. 
THE TELEVISION GHOST (1931-1933) – As astonishing at it may seem, there were actually some regularly televised programs on pioneering channels like W2XAB beginning in 1931. Comparatively few people actually had the mechanical television sets of that period when the whole enterprise was highly experimental. Newspaper listings offer most of what little information survives about the broadcasts.
The Television Ghost ran 15 minutes and starred George Kelting as the Ghost with Bill Schudt as an announcer and narrator. The show’s Halloween Episode of 1931 was nicely hyped with a reference to some primitive television special effects magic. 
MOTOR PIRATES (1906) American release title The Modern Pirates – This British action short was directed by England’s monumentally underrated silent film director Arthur Melbourne Cooper. Motor Pirates clocks in at under 9 minutes but crams quite a bit into that runtime. 
The Motor Pirates drive their vehicle on to a country estate where they employ its front-end “suction feature” to vacuum up several chickens. Four men of the estate come out with guns blazing to stop the crooks, but they shoot down their victims, leaving three dead and one barely clinging to life as they drive off. 
DOWN GOES NUMBER ONE – This game pitted the LSU-SHREVEPORT PILOTS (Riverboat Pilots) against their guests, the nation’s number 1 team – the LSU-ALEXANDRIA GENERALS. The Pilots were up 38-31 at the Half before defeating the Generals by a final count of 101-96. Twenty-seven points from Tahjae Hill led LSU-Shreveport.
NAIL-BITER – The INDIANA UNIVERSITY-EAST RED WOLVES took it on the road against the UNIVERSITY OF RIO GRANDE RED STORM. The Red Storm had eked out a 30-29 edge by Halftime, but an equally hard-fought 2nd Half ended in a 63-62 Red Wolves win. Antuane Allen led Indiana University-East with 24 points. 
MS. MARVEL Vol 1 #11 (Nov 1977) 
THE FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY YEAR OF THE TEXAS 27 FILM VAULT CONTINUES! In the middle 1980s/ Way down on Level 31 came this pre-MST3K show about bad and campy movies. Film Vault Technicians 1st Class Richard Malmos and Randy Clower hosted the show along with their friend and cocreator Ken Miller as Tex plus Laurie Savino as the Film Vault Corps’ Mystery Clip Technician. 
QUEEN OF BLOOD (1966) 
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