This weekend’s escapist and light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the early adventures of the DC character Black Lightning.
BLACK LIGHTNING Vol 1 #1 (April 1977)
Title: Black Lightning
Villains: The 100
Synopsis: This first appearance of Black Lightning does things the way I like – it shows the hero in action for a while, and THEN reveals his origin through a flashback. After his latest victory over the drug dealers of Suicide Slums, the ghetto section of Metropolis, Black Lightning switches to his secret identity and recalls his origin.
Jefferson Pierce was a gifted athlete from high school on up and even won medals in the Olympics. Disdaining celebrity, he became a teacher and ultimately moved back to the slums where he grew up and taught at Garfield High.
Pierce and a scientist named Peter Gambi grew to hate the 100, an organized crime gang who ran Suicide Slums. Gambi created a costume and high-tech belt that let Pierce deliver lightning-charged punches and generate a force field for personal protection. He decided to fight crime as Black Lightning. Continue reading
TRADER HORN (1927) – This book was the quasi-autobiographical account of Alfred Aloysius Horn (1854-1931), a British trader in Africa during the 1800s. Ethelreda Lewis added pertinent commentary to each chapter. 
This weekend’s light-hearted and escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog is a Double Feature. The main event is a look at the early adventures of Marvel’s neglected hero El Aguila (the Eagle). 
EL AGUILA 
Through trial and error, Alejandro found that long, slender metal objects were the best conductors for his bioelectricity and gave him the most accuracy with his energy blasts. He began using a sword through which to shoot his rays but to conceal his mutant nature publicly pretended his swords contained micro-generators that accounted for the rays he projected. 
THE VIOLET FLAME (1899) – Here is another of the science fiction works written by THE Frederick Thomas Jane, of Jane’s Guides fame. Previously, Balladeer’s Blog reviewed Jane’s works 
CAPITAO SETE (Captain Seven) 
Recently, a Balladeer’s Blog reader asked if I would compile a list of my “Best of” stories of the 1930s and 1940s pulp hero G-8 and his Battle Aces. That idea makes perfect sense considering I reviewed all 110 book-length stories of this World War One flying ace who should be as big culturally as Doc Savage, Zorro, and so many other pulp icons. 
THE BAT STAFFEL (October 1933) – The very first G-8 pulp novel is at the top of my list. Not only does it nicely capture the tone and nature of the series, but it introduces the villainous mad scientist Doktor Krueger. That Teutonic terror would become the archenemy of G-8, Bull Martin and Nippy Weston as the series of novels rolled along. 
ACTION COMICS Vol 1 #1 (June 1938) 
Superman takes down a wife-beater, saves Lois Lane from horny gangsters and clears a woman falsely convicted of murder by tying up the real killer – and even smashing his way into the governor’s mansion to make him call off her imminent execution. 
A DEMIGOD (1886) – Written by American author Edward Payson Jackson, this work preceded Philip Wylie’s Gladiator by more than 4 decades. 
AMAZING FANTASY Vol 1 #15 (August 1962) 
THE MILLTILLIONAIRE (1895) – This novel was written by American author Albert Waldo Howard under the pen name M. Auburre Hovorre. A second edition came out in 1898. 
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