This weekend’s escapist superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at the first several stories of one of Marvel Comics’ most infamous villains: Dr. Victor Von Doom.
FANTASTIC FOUR Vol 1 #5 (July 1962)
Title: Prisoners of Doctor Doom
Synopsis: At the Baxter Building, the Human Torch cruelly taunts the Thing that he resembles the monster called the Hulk who has run amok in the American southwest. (Hulk #1 was published in May 1962).
Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman break up the resulting fight between the two. Suddenly, their power and backup generators are knocked out and a high-tech netting of some sort isolates the top five floors from the rest of the Baxter Building.
Over a loudspeaker, the Fantastic Four hear demands issued by a voice that Reed recognizes as that of an old college acquaintance – Victor Von Doom, now a PhD. Dr. Doom threatens to start killing unless the Fantastic Four surrender to him and enter his massive airship.
To save any innocent bystanders from harm, our heroes do so. They meet the armored Dr. Doom, who explains that his experiment which went awry and caused his expulsion long ago left his face scarred, so he now hides it behind a steel mask.
NOTE: The old pulp magazine villain Steel Mask, a foe of G-8 and His Battle Aces, wore such a mask to hide his hideously scarred face beginning in 1937, so though Dr. Doom did indeed come before Darth Vader, Steel Mask came before Dr. Doom.
Victor blames Reed for causing the experiment to misfire, but all Reed did was try to warn Doom that his calculations were wrong. Reed was right, but rather than admit that, the crazed Victor Von Doom has always maintained that Reed sabotaged his college experiment. Continue reading
Our heroes don their costumes and as Captain America and Bucky they find Mara’s lair and defeat all her Nazi troops and her booby-traps. Then Cap defeats the countess and her purse’s weaponry – grenades, a gas-gun and a regular gun. 
MASKAR
BARBEL 
For newbies to this IP, in 1973 Marvel licensed the use of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu plus other characters from the Fu Manchu tales. Rather than just churn out a Fu Manchu comic book series “the House of Ideas” instead combined it with the Kung Fu craze of the time and created Shang Chi, the son of Fu Manchu.
Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu had its own inimitable style and was largely one of the most innovative comic books of the 1970s and early 1980s. “Largely” is the key word. 
MASTER OF KUNG FU Vol 1 #29 (Jun 1975) 
Our heroes take a seaplane to Velcro’s mansion in a grotto near France’s Gulf of Lions. Reston poses as a buyer of a large amount of heroin who then burns all of his purchase and an enormous amount of the drug dealer’s additional inventory of smack. 
PEACEMAKER
Powers: Peacemaker was in peak physical condition and was a master of armed and unarmed combat. He designed and tested his own weapons in his secret “Peace Palace” lair in the Swiss Alps. Peacemaker’s action outfit included body armor, a jetpack for flight, plus a helmet for protection AND for radio communication. This hero’s weapons included his powered laser gun and the sonic beams shot from his helmet.
FIGHTIN’ FIVE Vol 1 #40 (Nov 1966) 
The following day Christopher attends an embassy dinner in Geneva, at which Bork and Smith needle each other. Smith dons his Peacemaker outfit and assembles his weapons, then flies out to Bork’s mansion in the Alps. Bork’s private army tries to kill Peacemaker but he outfights them all. 
WHITE THUNDER 
CANADIANA 
Jennifer proved strong enough to rebel against Robertson and use her powers against him and against his other female acolytes. She adopted the costumed identity Canadiana. 
CREATURES ON THE LOOSE Vol 1 #22 (Mar 1973) 
Synopsis: Thongor (at right), as always wielding his father’s god-forged sword Sarkozan, is working as a thief in the city-state of Zangabal. During one caper Thongor comes close to being captured by the authorities but is given shelter by Kaman Thuu, a Priest of the Seven Gods of Zangabal. 
TEEN TITANS Vol 1 #32 (Apr 1971) 
When they return to their own time period it turns out that Gnarrk’s death caused a butterfly effect and the “present” is now ruled by an evil version of Loren Jupiter called Jupiterius. He rules the world with Lilith’s (on stairs) sorcery, monsters and the evil counterparts of what would have been the other Teen Titans. 
This weekend’s superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at some of the earliest comic book adaptations of the iconic character the Green Hornet. That figure originated on radio in January 1936 and in a very early example of a shared universe, the Green Hornet’s secret identity was Britt Reid, grand-nephew of John Reid – the Lone Ranger. 
And just as the Lone Ranger show’s theme music came from classical music – the William Tell overture – the Green Hornet show’s theme came from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee. 
The police and even Daily Sentinel crime reporter Mike Axford (formerly of the 1932 radio series Warner Lester, Manhunter) misunderstood the Green Hornet’s vigilante activities and suspected the masked hero of being a criminal himself. The Hornet took advantage of that misperception by convincing some of his gangster foes that he was indeed an outlaw and wanted a cut of their illegal operations. 
HULK! Vol 1 #11 (Oct 1978) 
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