I took a long break from these babies to do the Wrestlecrap articles, but now I’m back with quite a collection of characters. Some are a bit topical, too.

CROSSBONES

Captain America #360 (1989)

The story of the issue is part of an arc called the Bloodstone Hunt. It involves Captain America and Diamondback taking on Baron Zemo, Batroc, Zaron and Machete over some gem. That part isn’t really important.

Though I will say that Diamondback’s appearance is sort of off-putting here. Her outfit is pink spandex with a series of black diamonds over her front and back. Considering she’s in the water for most of the comic, she hangs around some people in bathing suits, and the way the pink is colored here, it looks like she’s wearing a black thong that doesn’t cover her chest. That’s all well and good, but her costume is torn in places, so now it looks like she has some nasty-ass skin disease.

Anyhow, she and Cap get away with the prize. As they leave, we see that they’re being watched.

Crossbones is so cool.

CYBER

Marvel Comics Presents #85 (1991)

Being that this is Marvel Comics Presents, the story here is very short. The opening scene shows Cyber on a boat to Madripoor, with a big coat and hat covering up his adamantium features. He’s playing cards with a guy named Ortiz, who keeps beating him with blatant cheats. Cyber removes a glove to show his metallic hand.

A card falls from Ortiz’s sleeve, causing Cyber to strangle him to death. There’s a couple scenes of Wolverine running around naked in the woods that aren’t important. By the end of the segment, a man representing General Coy meets Cyber on a pier. Cyber, still disguised by his clothing, shakes his hand. The other man is a bit alarmed, as Cyber didn’t clean the blood off his hands after dealing with Ortiz earlier.

CYBORG

DC Comics Presents #26 (1980)

Robin is in the middle of dealing with a terrorist/hostage situation, when he suddenly a wakes up from a daydream in front of Titan Tower with Donna Troy. Robin’s a bit confused here. More confused when he walks in and meets Changeling, Cyborg and Starfire.

Kid Flash and Raven join soon after. Everyone acts like they’ve been a team for a while now, but Robin doesn’t remember any of this. Raven has called them together because a scientist has accidentally let loose a giant, yellow pudding monster that will fill the atmosphere with methane. The Titans get going.

Cyborg is really the only one to have any success against the monster, though short-lived. Robin, meanwhile, keeps going back and forth between this reality and the reality where he’s fighting terrorists. Back in the Titans adventure, the scientist who accidentally unleashed the monster helps the Titans send it back to its home dimension. The monster mostly goes by its own volition, as it can’t survive in Earth’s atmosphere.

Cyborg then starts insulting the scientist for being a screw-up and we realize that not only did this guy turn Vic into Cyborg, but he is his father too. Robin returns back to the terrorist scenario, finding that he’s already saved the day somehow. Oddly enough, one of the hostages is Cyborg’s father. Robin has no idea what any of this means, but in the shadows, Raven mentions to herself that this will all make sense eventually.

CYBORG SUPERMAN

Adventures of Superman #466 (1990)

Before he was an evil Superman, Hank Henshaw was a Reed Richards homage. He and the other three members of his fantastic crew open the story by crash landing on Earth. With the help of NASA and Lexcorp, they were trying to examine some new form of cosmic radiation, but some solar flares knocked them off course.

Steven has become a being of fiery blue radiation. Jim has become one with the rocks and metal around him. He can’t speak, but is crying due to the unspeakable pain he’s experiencing. The four try to get to Lexcorp ASAP, with Hank hiding the fact that the radiation is eating at him too.

The four get in an altercation with a Lexcorp guard, getting the attention of Superman. Steven, the Human Torch counterpart, accidentally blasts Superman. This, plus the radiation itself, causes Steven’s mind to break down. Superman fears what his radiation level may do to the population of Metropolis, so he tears away a Lexcorp guard’s containment suit and wraps Steven up with it.

Things calm down and Henshaw explains to Superman what’s going on. Henshaw’s flesh is melting away by the minute, gradually reducing him to a skeleton. Terri is beginning to fade away, as if vanishing into nothing. Hank is becoming irrational. Steven ends up escaping his prison and in a crazed act of glee, flies directly into the sun, killing himself.

Hank becomes a skeleton and dies. At least for now. His last words are a plea for Superman to save Terri. Superman gives Terri some radiation therapy that Hank prepared, which does indeed save her. While they were doing this, Jim used some kind of giant magnet to tear the metal from his body, thereby killing himself, as the pain was too great.

Superman admits that he may be at fault for the failed space flight. Earlier, he had tossed the Eradicator into the sun, which may have caused the solar flares. Terri tells him not to blame himself, though admits that she’ll have a hard time moving forward.

CYCLOPS

Uncanny X-Men #1 (1963)

Cyclops’ first major role in the very first X-Men comic is to smack around Beast and Iceman. The two have almost killed Xavier in their training and since Xavier’s kind of a dick, he mentally asks Cyclops to fight the two himself. It’s, uh, training.

Cyclops beats them both easily and Angel tries to join in on the fight. Xavier stops them before it goes too far. The two big plot points of this issue are Jean joining the team and the X-Men assembling to fight Magneto. Oddly enough, nothing important with Cyclops happens with the Jean intro.

I’ll go into more detail about Magneto’s plot when I get to Magneto’s entry. Cyclops does make himself more than useful during the adventure by breaking through Magneto’s force field with a full-force optic blast (so powerful that you can barely see his head) and later even nails Magneto with a clean shot prior to the villain escaping. Even back in his first appearance, Cyclops plays the leader role by dealing with the authorities and even getting some soldiers to give them the benefit of the doubt.

DAREDEVIL

Daredevil #1 (1964)

At a gym, several muscle-bound hoodlums sit around and play cards while talking about their harsh mob boss the Fixer. All of the sudden, a guy in an ugly costume pops in.

Being that he is Daredevil and these guys aren’t, he easily takes down every one of them without so much as getting hit once. One guy tries to bring a gun into play, but Daredevil effortlessly knocks it out of his hand with his cane. Knowing they’ve lost, the hoods give up.

We then get to see the origin of Matt Murdock. Pretty widely-known stuff, though one or two details are new to me. By the time Jack Murdock gets into his fateful boxing match that he refuses to have fixed, Matt is a full-grown college student with Foggy watching the fight next to him. There is a nice panel of Jack moments before death, where he smiles at how it doesn’t matter what the Fixer does to him. Matt’s proud and that’s all he needs.

Foggy tries to get Matt over his grief and the two graduate college. They go into business together and get Karen Page as their secretary. Matt can’t concentrate on his work, knowing that his father’s killers have yet to be brought to justice. He promised his father that he wouldn’t become a fighter like him, but decides that maybe he can pull off a dual persona. He cuts up some clothes and stitches them into the original Daredevil costume. He puts together a trick cane to help him in his fighting. Now he’s ready to go after the Fixer.

Which brings us back to the beginning. Daredevil gets to meet the Fixer. Daredevil talks through Fixer’s lies, finding that he’s able to figure out what’s truth and what isn’t via his hearing. One of Fixer’s bodyguards does get the drop on Daredevil by shoving him out a window, but Daredevil hooks onto a flagpole and flips back in. Daredevil lies about having recorded their conversation as evidence, causing the Fixer to literally pull the rug out from under him and bolt. Fixer and Slade, the man who pulled the trigger on Jack Murdock, escape to the streets.

As Matt Murdock, our hero follows them to a subway, changes back to Daredevil and subdues both of them. When he’s about to grab the Fixer, the middle-aged and out-of-shape criminal has a heart attack and dies. Daredevil uses that to his advantage by telling Slade that Fixer confessed prior to death. Slade buys the bluff and admits his guilt in front of the police.

An hour or so later, Matt returns to Foggy and Karen. They said that some murderer named Slade wants them to represent him in court, but they decided against it. Matt seems all right about that.

DARKHAWK

Darkhawk #1 (1991)

The Hobgoblin has been dealing with a crime boss named Gazin. He wants Gazin to uncover some kind of artifact for him, though it seems Gazin is prepared to backstab the ugly Osborn knock-off.

We meet Chris Powell, the teenage son of a cop and a lawyer. His mother, the lawyer, is constantly threatened by Gazin’s men to leave him alone or face the consequences. This puts her in constant fear of her family’s wellbeing. Later that night, Chris is supposed to be watching his annoying little brothers, but spends some time with friends instead. The two little kids run off to a ratty amusement park, where Chris tracks them down thanks to the help of a mysterious old bum. The three then make a shocking discovery: their father taking a bribe from Gazin’s men!

Their father lays his hands on one of Gazin’s men, thereby giving him a death sentence. The Powell brothers jump out to stop them, only to get themselves in more trouble. They try to escape the criminals and eventually fall through a decrepit floor. Searching for a place to hide, they uncover a strange room. The criminals are on their way, so Chris hides his brothers in a closet. He starts tossing random objects at the bad guys and gets some distance from them. He discovers a strange amulet, which he means to use as a weapon. Instead, it transforms him.

Calling himself Edge-Man (based on his father’s claims that justice needs an edge against crime), he defeats the criminals. One of them picks up a cable with an exposed end and tries to wield it against Chris. All he ends up doing is missing and shoving it into a high voltage panel, killing himself and shorting out all the power. Chris is a bit taken aback, as he has never seen a dead body before. He returns to his normal self, but his attempt to confront his father ends with his crooked father walking out on him in shame.

Despite that, Chris decides to hold onto the amulet that gave him his powers. He could be that edge against crime after all. The bum from earlier tells him, “Power’s got to be used – not abused… by a Darkhawk,” then vanishes. Chris has no idea what that means, but decides to call himself Darkhawk.

Once the Hobgoblin gets word that his artifact has been taken by someone else, he is pretty pissed.

DARKSEID

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 (1970)

It amuses me to no end that the big bad of DC originally showed his face in Jimmy Olsen’s comic of all places. The story here isn’t worth discussing. It’s about Superman fighting some Road Warrior hippies in Kirby gear.

The villain of the story is a shady character by the name of Morgan Edge, who has more advanced technology than a guy like him should. But who could supply him with such tech?

Ed Asner, that’s who!

DAZZLER

Uncanny X-Men #130 (1980)

There’s a surprise for you. Dazzler, the disco queen of mutantkind, didn’t even debut in the 70’s. Her origin shows her as debuting at a really crappy disco and Cyclops even jokes about how dead disco is around this time.

Cyclops, Jean and Nightcrawler are trying to track down the newest powerful mutant, to find that it’s this new disco singer. The Hellfire Club are also trying to get a hold of her. This leads to the X-Men fighting one of those Hellfire Club guys in the big red armor that look sort of like Juggernaut. You know who I’m talking about. They’re all over the place in the X-Men arcade game.

Dazzler helps out and they destroy the henchman’s armor. Cyclops tells her that she’s a mutant and that if she wants safety, to follow them.

DEADMAN

Strange Adventures #205 (1967)

Meet Boston Brand. He’s the proprietor of a rundown circus and comes across as a big jerk to everyone. He shuns his love interest Lorna (whose dead father gave him the deed to the circus) and is surly to just about everyone. It’s shown that it’s really all a front for his sweeter side that he refuses to show anyone. He does refuse to abandon the circus despite the fact that Ringling Brothers have offered to pay him five times more than what he makes.

He puts on his mask and outfit, getting ready for the show. Lorna really despises the ghoulish look.

Tiny the strong man breaks down the door and gets in a verbal fight with Boston. Boston storms off while the simple-minded Tiny wonders why a nice guy like Boston has to resort to name-calling.

We meet various characters around the circus and most of them have some kind of vendetta against Boston. He punches out a lion tamer for drinking on the job and then fires him. He catches the ringmaster stealing money. He deals with a crooked cop.

A fortune teller, grateful for Boston getting the cop off his back, tells him about the mystical god Rama Kushna. Rama is watching over Boston and will make her presence known when he least expects it.

That night, Boston attempts some trapeze acts without a net. While swinging, he shot in the chest and falls to his death. The next day, they bury his body while most of the carnies laugh to themselves at Boston getting what they feel he deserves. When everyone’s gone, Tiny tearfully pays his respects.

“I couldn’t say dis in front of Miss Lorna – but I can now! You were a rat, Mr. Boston! You lived like one – and you died da same! If you wasn’t no rat – you’d never have left her like dis! What’s she gonna do now? Who’s she gonna turn to? An’—an’—dat goes for me, too! S-s-so long, rat!”

Upon dying, Boston becomes a ghost, trying to tell his friends that he’s all right. Rama Kushna appears to him as a mouse and tells him that he will walk among men as a lost spirit until he has found his killer. Boston has no idea how he can do that, when nobody can hear or feel him. When he sees Tiny mourning his grave, Boston tries to touch him. He discovers that he can possess human bodies.

With this power in hand, Boston starts looking for whoever did him in. The only thing witnesses could say about the killer was that he had a hook for a hand. First, he goes after the lion tamer from earlier. He discovers him selling cocaine to the crooked cop. Very rare to see actual drug dealing in a comic from this time. As Tiny, Deadman barges in an fights the two. When the two-on-one situation doesn’t work out for him, he just takes over the cop’s body and punches out the other guy.

The two are arrested and Deadman-Tiny talks to Lorna. Deadman makes the decision to watch over Lorna while continuing the search for his murderer.

That’s the end of the issue, even though we didn’t get the answer. In fact, we wouldn’t get the answer for many years. The murderer turned out not to be any of the circus folk, but a hopeful for the League of Assassins, trying to pass initiation.

DEADPOOL

New Mutants #98 (1991)

Cable’s minding his own business at the library when all of the sudden, an explosion knocks him over. We see Deadpool with massive shins thanks to Liefeld’s art. He’s been sent by Mr. Tolliver and has to kill Cable. Deadpool holds a gun to Cable, but gets hit from behind by Cannonball. Deadpool makes up for that by using some kind of bolos on the kid and making him drop.

B.F.F.

Deadpool tosses a knife into Cable’s leg, again taking the advantage. The other New Mutants arrive and Deadpool begins taking them down. He beats Rictor and is ready to fight Sunspot. Instead, his eyes widen and he falls flat on his face with several knives in his back. Behind him is Domino.

Deadpool is tied up and suggests that they send him to a jail in the Bahamas so he can rehabilitate. Instead, Cable opts to send him back to Mr. Tolliver via Federal Express.

DEADSHOT

Batman #59 (1950)

Here we are with the entry that inspired this educational experience. Millionaire Floyd Lawton is very much the counterpart to Bruce Wayne. Not only does he have his own loyal butler, but he tends to use his skills to arrest criminals as a masked crime fighter. Not all that similar to the death wish-having anti-hero mercenary we know and love.

While Batman and Robin are out on vacation, Deadshot makes his debut and takes in various criminals with his perfect gun-shooting skills. He doesn’t actually murder anyone, but instead uses his guns to force obstacles. He’ll shoot someone’s tires or shoot a lamppost so that a bulb falls on a running criminal’s head. At first, Gordon isn’t so sure about this newcomer. Deadshot says that he would join the police force, but he has metal plates in his leg due to an accident and would never pass a physical. Gordon decides to give him the benefit of the doubt, since it’s not like they can do much to stop him.

Deadshot kicks a ton of ass against criminals and gets his name out there. Gordon thinks he’s awesome. He even gets his own bullseye signal to go with Batman’s bat signal. When Batman and Robin come back, they seem a bit jealous by Deadshot’s success. The Dynamic Duo team up with him a couple times and realize that something is definitely up when Deadshot moves through a metal detector and the plates he claims are in his leg don’t set it off. Using some ridiculous detective work I’m not going to even get into, they discover that Deadshot is Floyd Lawton, a loose acquaintance of Bruce, and that Floyd plans on both running Batman out of town and taking over Gotham as a crime boss.

Batman knows that the Commissioner would never believe him and would instead think he’s jealous. Batman tells Deadshot that he knows the truth about him, but Deadshot isn’t intimidated. In fact, he even tells Batman what he has planned. Even an expert marksman like him is allowed a miss here and there. That’s why he’s going to shoot and kill Batman and everyone will think it’s just an accident. Oh snap!

Batman makes a couple attempts to get Gordon to believe him, but Deadshot outsmarts him every time. Deadshot later tricks Batman into a confrontation at a pier. Batman goads Deadshot into shooting him, suggesting that he doesn’t have the nerve. He never shot to kill and he can’t start now. Suffice to say, it looks like he’s right. Deadshot can’t hit a single shot. It makes him more and more erratic until Batman disarms him and Deadshot gives up. Turns out that the night before, Batman had snuck into Floyd’s place, screwed with his guns’ aiming and left. Gordon apologizes to Batman and takes a crowbar to the bullseye signal.

DEATHBIRD

Ms. Marvel #9 (1977)

While on a date, Carol Danvers senses that somebody is currently in her apartment. She excuses herself, turns into Ms. Marvel and goes to check up on it. In the air, she’s attacked by Deathbird, who claims to be working for MODOK.

The fight is your usual Claremont fare (“She shrugged off my powerful punch! What am I dealing with?”). Ms. Marvel gets a hold of one of Deathbird’s javelins and uses it to beat Deathbird senseless. She notices that her apartment building is on fire and some children are in danger. Rather than continue the fight, she goes to rescue the kids. Deathbird uses her javelins to zap Ms. Marvel, causing her to fall to the streets below. Thinking her job is finished, Deathbird leaves.

Ms. Marvel gets her bearings at the last possible second and flies back up to both save the children and put out the fire. Unfortunately, her possessions are destroyed. The next day, Carol stumbles upon an AIM base and gets captured. All of the sudden, MODOK with Deathbird at his side breaks through the wall, prepared to destroy the organization that shunned him. Thus, cliffhanger.

DEATHLOK

Astonishing Tales #25 (1974)

We join Deathlok in action, as he’s been hired to kill two men. Even though he can easily kill each one immediately, he takes his time. As a cyborg, he thrives on the fear these men feel during their final moments. Mentally, he’s in constant argument with a computer that talks down at him for showing emotion in his actions.

Throughout the issue, we get a few flashbacks to how Deathlok came to be. Col. Manning had died and his body was mutilated. An old friend of his and General Ross facsimile named General Ryker wants Manning turned into a cyborg to preserve his mind and skills. Through the dialogue, it’s shown that this is the future. Also, via the whisperings of the guys operating on Manning, there are rumors that he isn’t the first man mixed with machine out there. Ryker watches on with his girl Nina, excited that his obsession is finally seeing the light of day.

Deathlok ends up showing signs of rebellion. Ryker discovers that while the computer inside Deathlok’s body is working fine, Manning himself has taken over the body’s functions. He escapes and I guess goes into business as a soldier of fortune.

Back to the story at hand. Deathlok goes to get paid and has to deal with some bodyguards first. He gruesomely kills a couple and makes his way in to see his contact. Not only does the guy stiff him on his payment, but he turns out to be a robot. Deathlok hears Ryker taunting him. It was all a trick. The two guys Deathlok was hired to kill were the only guys opposing Ryker’s plan to create more cyborgs. Now nothing will stop him from badgering Deathlock with human-looking android assassins. Nina enters Ryker’s chamber to discover in horror that Ryker himself is a cyborg.

The story is followed up by a comedy bit where the writers come up with the ideas for Deathlok, then throw them out in the trash for being too stupid.

DEATH’S HEAD

High Noon Tex (1988)

Funny story here. Death’s Head was well-known initially for being part of the Marvel Transformers comics. He was the guy that blew up Bumblebee, so yeah, he ruled. Marvel probably felt that someone like Death’s Head should be something to hold onto, so they didn’t fall into a trap and make him a Transformers property. After all, if he made his first appearance in the Transformers comic, that would create a crapload of red tape.

Instead, they did High Noon Tex. Various Marvel UK comics in 1988 had this one-page introduction to the character that featured zero Transformers references and therefore, made Death’s Head a true blue Marvel property. Not a bad idea, yes?

The short story shows Death’s Head on the second floor of a building, in his office, peering out the window. Tex, an angry cowboy, busts the door open, screaming for vengeance. According to Death’s Head’s narration, our robot protagonist had recently killed Tex’s brother, burned down his farm and slaughtered his livestock as part of a job. Surprisingly, Tex took that personally.

Tex stares at the back of Death’s Head and his eyes suddenly widen. Death’s Head’s back opens up to show a bunch of explosives and a speaker saying, “High noon, Tex!” The place goes up in flames.

DEATHSTROKE THE TERMINATOR

New Teen Titans #2 (1980)

Terminator grants an audience with some hooded representatives of HIVE. They want him to kill the Titans for them.

The HIVE guys try to have Deathstroke killed via guns in the walls, but he calls them a bunch of turkeys and dismantles them. Then he discovers that the figures are really just holograms. He doesn’t care. He just leaves. Elsewhere, the HIVE villains discuss how amazing Deathstroke’s skills are and how he could even dodge bullets. They had been using special cameras to film his movement, which they will use in a special experiment.

Enter Grant Wilson. He’s the boyfriend of some girl that’s friends with Donna Troy. They break up and Grant doesn’t take it too well. He tries to hurt his girl, but the Titans step in and send him packing. When HIVE offer him a chance at revenge, he jumps at it. It’s explained that the human mind only uses 10% of its capacity. Due to an experiment, Deathstroke uses 90%. The plan is to experiment on Grant so that he can use all 100%.

Deathstroke spies on the Titans and feels as if something’s wrong with how HIVE acted. He suddenly gets a suspicion of what’s going on and calls his sidekick Wintergreen to check on some contacts.

Under the mantle Ravager, Grant tries his luck against Cyborg. He’s beaten, but Deathstroke pops in to neutralize Cyborg and steal Ravager. Deathstroke tries to play mentor to the young would-be killer, but Ravager won’t hear it. When Deathstroke warns him of what could happen if he overuses his powers, Ravager just calls him jealous and goes on his way to Titans Tower. Though it is at least brought forward that Grant’s always wanted to be like Deathstroke, based on the stories he’s heard growing up.

When Ravager goes after the Titans, Deathstroke is on his side, watching his back. It’s kind of funny how the Deathstroke vs. Flash bit in Identity Crisis got so many people pissed off when in this first appearance, Deathstroke proceeds to make Wally his bitch.

Starfire goes a little overboard by trying to kill the mercs with her blasts. Ravager dodges them, but he’s overusing his reflexes and starts wigging out. Raven appears before them and declares that Grant is dying. As a way to give him some sense of peace, she gives him an illusion of the Teen Titans lying dead and scattered in the courtyard.

Deathstroke kneels over Grant’s dead body and shakes his fist in frustration.

“You did this to him. You Titans killed him!”

Raven steps forward and watches Deathstroke embrace Grant’s corpse. “No. We did nothing. The ones who gave him his powers are the true killers.”

Deathstroke picks up Grant and walks away. “That’s not the way it works in my racket, sister. The kid took a contract! And he died… because of you. Poor stupid kid. He never really had a chance.”

Unmasked, Deathstroke watches Grant’s ex-girlfriend mourn over the grave. As he talks it over with Wintergreen, it’s revealed that not only has Deathstroke taken Ravager’s contract on the Titans, but that it’s because he, Slade Wilson, is Grant’s father.

DEMOLITION MAN

The Thing #28 (1985)

If I had come up with another title for this series of articles, I may have called it D-Man’s Mohawk. This is another one of those entries that’s extremely different from what we’re used to.

Thing quits his job as being part of a motorcycle stunt team and sees a commercial on TV for the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation; the only wrestling fed that allows people with superpowers to compete. Thing figures this is right up his alley and goes to Las Vegas to join. At the try-outs, there’s a set of weights for each hopeful to lift and show how powerful they are. When it’s Thing’s turn, he goes for a tremendous stack of weights that causes several other wrestlers to leave in fear of how badly they’re going to get it. Especially because Thing acts like he could lift even more!

One guy decides to take him to task. His name is Demoltion Dunphy. Unlike Thing, he strains to lift the big stack of weights, but still succeeds. The two of them and some of the other wrestlers are put in a ring to test their skills. Thing decides to just stand still and let the others pound on his durable body. Dunphy looks to be the only one who can really take it to him.

Later, promoter Ed Garner pulls Demolition Dunphy aside and asks him to take the fall in his upcoming match with the Thing. The winner is going to be crowned champion and he thinks the Thing is better for business. Dunphy doesn’t agree with it, but is willing to go along with it for the money. Thing gets wind of it and makes a big stink. Glad that Thing agrees that this is wrong, Dunphy promises to give him a fair fight. Garner backpedals, telling Thing that he isn’t corrupt. He just wants this fed to succeed. Thing understands, but believes it will succeed because everything’s on the up-and-up.

Match time.

Yeah, really. That’s D-Man. The one on the right. No Daredevil or Wolverine duds back then. Plus he was like a foot and a half taller than Thing.

The match is pretty even for the most part and neither side shows any sign of backing down. The end comes when the two come running at each other with fists blazing. They punch each other at the same time, fly back into the ropes, get propelled into each other and hit the mat upon collision. Thing is first to get to his feet and is declared the winner. Dunphy takes his loss like a man and hails the new champ.

DESAAD

Forever People #2 (1971)

Desaad’s role here isn’t very big, only getting him three panels. The gist is that Darkseid gets this guy Mantis to fight the Forever People. As Darkseid watches the battle unfold, he has Desaad at his side, doing sciency stuff.

When Mantis fails, Darkseid makes a speech about how much he loves himself.

“Mantis fights hard – and fails hard – He cannot learn to plan! But Darkseid waits like silent stone… Waits and plans to flush his prize from its cover, Desaad… And, if you would wrest the secret from him – give him – to me!”

I love Kirby and all, but sometimes his old DC stuff torques my brain like a Rubik’s Cube.

DESPERO

Justice League of America #1 (1960)

Barry Allen is driving around when a UFO lands. Its landing not only causes the car to stop, but it infects Barry with some temporary blue radiation. He changes into his Flash duds and meets the aliens. They’re two green-haired beings with Namor eyebrows from the planet Kalanor. The tyrant Despero has taken over their world and one of them, the scientist Jasonar, has been building an anti-weapon that could drain energy from things. They fled to Earth in order to finish building it without having to worry about Despero.

Flash calls the JLA to meet him at headquarters. Despero shows up in a spaceship and tries to teleport Flash and the Kalanorians. He only gets away with Jasonar’s daughter Saranna, as it seems Flash and Jasonar are still affected by the blue radiation and are therefore immune to Despero’s powers. Ah, 60’s plot devices.

Flash goes to JLA HQ, but finds everyone in a trance, forced that way by Despero’s mind powers. Since Flash is immune, Despero plays a little game with him. He has a chess board of sorts with JLA members as pieces. The idea is that Flash would pick a card with a number on it. Before seeing what number it is, he’d pick a numbered square for a JL member to land on. If the numbers matched up, the chosen hero would be teleported to another world, never to return. Any survivors will be freed from mind control. If they all lose, Flash has to give up. Got all that?

It doesn’t really matter. Even with the odds on his side on paper, Flash loses. Every Justice League member gets tossed off-world and Despero wins. He sends Flash away on a rocket, since he can’t send him away mentally. Snapper Carr sees all this and notes that Despero cheated in their game. He hides in the background, unknowingly getting infected with the blue radiation.

Long story short, each League member gets back to Earth safe and sound.

Before that, Despero discovers Jasonar completing his anti-weapon. Despero swears to use the energy-absorbing machine for his own purposes, such as enslaving Earth. Snapper shows up and yells, “You’re a real bad dad, Despero! I’m gonna queer your game!”

Despero tries to use his mind powers on Snapper. Even though they don’t work, Snapper plays along anyway. When Despero turns his back, Snapper uses the energy-absorbing machine to render Despero weak and powerless. The League comes back and everybody’s happy.

DEMON ETRIGAN

The Demon #1 (1972)

The days of Camelot are at an end. Morgaine Le Fey and her army of monsters are coming to burn the kingdom to ruins. Merlin knows that she’s after his book of magic. As a plan of final desperation, he summons the Demon Etrigan to assist him. Etrigan can indeed take care of Morgaine’s soldiers, but it’s too late for him to make a major difference in the battlefield. Etrigan seeks out Merlin and is given several choice pages of the book of magic for safekeeping. Etrigan leaves Camelot and begins to transform into the human form of Jason Blood.

Flash forward many years, into the present. Jason Blood’s still around, but he doesn’t really know all that much about who he is. He doesn’t know what Merlin’s pages are and doesn’t know Etrigan other than that demon haunting his dreams. He’s a demonologist and rather well-off in terms of money. He goes to see another demonologist named Warly, who once wrote a book with a similar language as Merlin’s notes.

Warly, as it turns out, is working for Morgaine. He makes Jason fight a living suit of armor, which ends in a double knockout. Morgaine comes out and I guess takes the pages. She also shows that after all these centuries, she’s aged to the point that she looks like a prune and she’s dying. She lets Jason live so that he may soon lead them to Merlin.

Jason wakes up outside the place where he and Warly had their confrontation. A cop tells him that the place is supposedly haunted, but it’s been in ruins for years. Jason is confused, but goes home to hang out with his friends Randu and Harry. Harry, by the way, deserves a punch in the face for his “hilarious” antics.

Jason throws a party at his place and Randu’s wife brings a date for Jason named Glenda. She is easily charmed by his collection of artifacts and paintings, though finds it alarming that all the paintings of Jason’s “ancestors” from throughout the centuries look exactly like Jason. The dinner party is interrupted when a giant rock man in a purple overcoat and sunglasses is at the door. Man, it never fails.

The guests leave and Jason figures that this mute rock dude is some kind of messenger and wants to take him to Merlin’s tomb. They go on horses, fight through some guards and Jason is guided by a voice towards a dungeon, where he has a completely uneventful confrontation with two gargoyles. I’m pretending to understand what’s going on here. There’s this big symbol on the ground. Jason kneels over and tries to read it, being drawn into one little poem enscribed onto it.

“Change! Change, o’ form of man!
Release the might from fleshy mire!
Boil the blood in heart of fire!
Gone! Gone! The form of man!
Rise, the Demon Etrigan!!”

Then we get a cliffhanger page of Etrigan totally tearing shit up.

Next time: What’s up, Docs?

Related posts

• Contents (1)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: The Finale (7)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 16 (7)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 8 (7)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 12 (8)

I’m going to level with you. This is not going to be an impressive group of characters. Remember how the last article had Captain America and Captain Marvel and shit? The most famous character here is known for having a cameo in X-Men 2 and a damn near non-existant role in the third movie. But we are going to delve into some really weird stories. Oh, yes.

God, I hate you, Wonder Woman.

CELESTIALS

Eternals #2 (1976)

The Celestials are mentioned a few times in the first issue of Eternals, but we don’t get to actually see one until the next issue. Now, bear with me on this because I don’t know the slightest thing about the Eternals and I’ve never really paid attention to the Celestials. The story here has to do with Ikaris and his archeologist friends fighting some Deviants until Ajak comes in on a spaceship and saves the day. All of the sudden, this guy shows up.

Sorry. Too much trippy exposition for me to follow.

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN

Showcase #6 (1957)

I would barely even know who these guys were if it wasn’t for New Frontier and that one Amalgam story where the Challengers of the Fantastic fought the mighty GALACTIAC. Looking at it from the beginning, these guys have one cool origin story.

Rocky Davis, Professor Haley, Red Ryan and Ace Morgan are four different guys announced to be guests on a radio show dedicated to heroes. As they ride the same plane, they run into turbulence and crash.

The story of the issue involves a wizard Morelian hiring the Challengers to help him open a mystical box he owns. This leads to the team going on a series of wacky adventures, including one bit where they fight a miniature sun that freezes things. They succeed and Morelian opens the box. The inscription on the box says that inside you will find the secret to immortality. Morelian finds a ring inside, puts it on, flies off and laughs about his victory.

His plane then crashes and he dies. Turns out the box itself gives you immortality; not the ring. Oops.

CHAMELEON

Amazing Spider-Man #1 (1963)

The first Amazing Spider-Man had several plots that really had little to do with each other, such as Spider-Man saving John Jameson and Spider-Man trying to join the Fantastic Four. The Chameleon bit comes at the end.

Chameleon hears about how everyone’s out to get Spider-Man and decides to use that to his advantage. He uses a device to signal Spider-Man and asks to meet him at a specific destination. Chameleon dresses up as Spider-Man, steals some missile defense plans and runs off just as the real Spider-Man shows up to take the blame. Spider-Man then chases Chameleon and successfully catches him. He brings Chameleon to the police, but the villain slips away and dresses as a cop. Spider-Man grabs him, but the desperate villain screams at the others that Spider-Man is really Chameleon in disguise again. Spider-Man escapes and starts moping, while Chameleon is arrested. During that scuffle with Spider-Man, Chameleon’s shirt got torn up, revealing a Spider-Man costume underneath.

CHEETAH

Wonder Woman #6 (1943)

The first Cheetah is Priscilla Rich, a rich woman who is pretty envious of Wonder Woman. At a charity benefit, she is humiliated when the crowd boos her off the stage and insists they bring on Wonder Woman. Later on, Wonder Woman tries a Houdini-like stunt where she’s to be bound in chains and put in a glass tank. When nobody’s looking, Priscilla uses Wonder Woman’s lasso as well, which she knows Wonder Woman can’t break. The crowd is afraid that Wonder Woman might be in real danger, but Priscilla assures them that she’ll escape. By working through the chains, Wonder Woman does somehow find a way out of it.

Priscilla then gets even more jealous when Wonder Woman convinces her boyfriend to break off a promised dinner date. That’s when things hit a boiling point.

She steals the charity money and then follows Wonder Woman home. She stands over Wonder Woman with a knife, but decides that death would be too good. She wants to ruin her as well. She plants the money underneath the bed and runs off. As Priscilla, she gets Wonder Woman arrested. Wonder Woman is bailed out and is given a message of where to meet her lawyer.

At the address, Wonder Woman instead finds a warehouse. Inside is Cheetah holding her boyfriend Courtley Darling at gunpoint. Using Darling as a hostage, she pushes him and Wonder Woman into a room full of quicksand. Wonder Woman’s supporting cast catches up on the clues and comes to the warehouse just as Wonder Woman jumps out of the quicksand. Cheetah’s on the roof, trying to set the building on fire and destroy the evidence. Once she sees Wonder Woman’s escaped, the roof breaks apart and she falls to her supposed death.

There are a couple other Cheetah stories in the issue, including one where she and Wonder Woman finally fight it out. When Wonder Woman wins, she unmasks Cheetah to find Priscilla Rich. Priscilla breaks down and admits that she’s gone insane. She begs Wonder Woman to keep her prisoner so she can one day control the Cheetah side of her.

There are three other Cheetahs, but only one other is actually important. In Wonder Woman #9 (1987) we begin with this funny little man going through some cultish ritual over the body of Dr. Barbara Minerva. The next day, she has a meeting with Wonder Woman, with a false claim about some kind of magic amazon girdle she’s discovered that is related to Wonder Woman’s lasso. This is really part of Minerva’s attempt to steal Wonder Woman’s lasso for herself. The thing is, when she touches the lasso, she ends up admitting that she’s a liar and that she only tricked Wonder Woman to get close to the lasso. Wonder Woman leaves in a huff and Minerva decides to take a less subtle approach.

That night, she takes part in another ritual. She drinks a strange liquid that transforms her into a half-woman/half-cheetah. She stalks through the streets and tracks down Wonder Woman in a forest. The two fight, but Wonder Woman finds herself losing. Right when it looks like Cheetah has it won, she’s shot in the chest by Wonder Woman’s friend Julia. The wounded Cheetah jumps into a nearby body of water, eluding Wonder Woman in the meantime.

CHEMO

Showcase #39 (1962)

Doc Magnus and the Metal Men investigate the disappearance of Professor Ramsey Norton. They’re attacked by a giant hand, which soon grabs them and pulls them into Ramsey’s underground lab. Ramsey himself is now a giant for some reason. He explains his ultimate folly and his need for the Metal Men’s help.

He has been trying to come up with cures for various diseases, but he keeps hitting dead ends. Rather than find a way to properly dispose of his chemical waste from his failed experiments, he decided to use it constructively. He built a man-shaped jar and poured the various chemicals into it. That way he could epitomize his failures into one guy and up his enthusiasm.

The compound Chemo spewed onto him caused him to become really big, but he’s also dying. His dying words are a warning to the Metal Men that Chemo needs to be stopped. Throughout the rest of the issue, the various Metal Men fail. All that are left are Magnus and Platinum. Chemo burns a hole through the ground and Magnus uses that to his advantage. They go underground and find a series of gas jets. Chemo ends up getting stuck between two gas jets from each side and is held firmly in place. Magnus decides that’s good enough and goes back to his routine of refusing hot robot sex with Platinum.

CHESHIRE

New Teen Titans Annual #2 (1983)

Robin’s own failure has brought forth the death of an innocent family. Now he’s bent on bringing in the mobster responsible for it. The Teen Titans are worried for their leader, but agree to help him anyway. Said mobster gets a bit too nervous at Robin’s threat and calls up an associate named the Monitor. The Monitor calls upon a series of mercenaries with horribly uncreative names (Spear, Scorcher, Slasher and Bazooka).

The last hired killer gets a real introduction. An old man comes to her during one of her successful jobs and tells news that she’s needed. Nearby is a man dead in his bed, next to an unfinished glass of what appears to be wine. Cheshire pours the liquid out of the glass, allowing it to burn through the floor.

The Titans go through a warehouse to find the files on the mobster. Suddenly, they’re attacked by all the mercs. A fire is started and Starfire flies out and towards a rooftop, hoping to use a water tower to help stop the blaze. She’s knocked out of the air with a kick.

Starfire can’t land a single blast or punch no matter what she tries. Kid Flash runs by and grabs Cheshire, only to be cut across the shoulder by her poisonous nails. She escapes and luckily, Raven is able to save Kid Flash’s life.

That one Spear guy was totally Marv Wolfman wanting to have Mr. T in his comic. He needs a post-Crisis comeback.

CH’P

Green Lantern #148 (1982)

Eh……………………… pass.

CHIEF

My Greatest Adventure #80 (1963)

The Chief brings Negative Man, Elasti-Girl and Robot Man to his lair and suggests they become a team. They aren’t really into the idea, but they are impressed when they see the kind of stuff he has all over his home, such as his Nerve Center room. They see a news flash about a bomb on TV. The Chief gives Negative Man a device that can track it down. Negative Man takes his bizarre negative form and brings the bomb back to headquarters in under a minute. Chief suggests that the bomb will go off if he tries to disarm it conventionally. Elasti-Girl shrinks and takes care of it from within the bomb itself. Robot Man holds the bomb so that if it goes off, he will be able to muffle the explosion and save some of the others.

The disarming is a success and the cynical three are now onboard to stay a team. The team goes through another mission in the same issue, which gets them some media attention. The Chief rather enjoys how the media has labeled them the Doom Patrol.

The story also features the origins of the Doom Patrol members, but I’ll go over them another time.

CIRCE

Wonder Woman #37 (1949)

Wonder Woman’s boyfriend Steve Trevor takes a rocket to the moon with a scientist and some other dudes. Wonder Woman tries to keep tabs on the rocket’s progress, but it seems to vanish from radar. Thankfully, a week or so later, the rocket lands back on Earth. Wonder Woman finds that the only thing inside the rocket is a talking owl with the voice of the scientist who created the rocket. As it turns out, on the way to the moon, the rocket was intercepted by the sorceress Circe, who brought the men to her planetoid.

From drinking the water on the planetoid, all the men were transformed into animals. Wonder Woman and the talking owl return to the moon via the invisible jet. Wonder Woman chases down Circe, but some living trees shower Wonder Woman with their dew, causing her to transform into a doe. Wonder Doe runs off before Circe can catch her. Wonder Doe figures out where the antidote is and climbs up a nearby mountain to get it. To go with how silly the rest of this story is, the antidote is not only sitting on the top of a mountain, but it’s contained in a wine glass. She drinks some of it and reverts to her normal self.

To keep Circe distracted, Wonder Woman finds a real doe and makes Circe think it’s her. Circe binds it with the golden lasso, thinking she’s won. Wonder Woman cures the men, beats down Circe and promises to take her to Paradise Island for reformation.

No more 1940 Wonder Woman stories, please.

CLAYFACE

Detective Comics #40 (1940)

The original Clayface isn’t exactly what you’d expect. Bruce Wayne’s fiancé for the moment, Julie, has a major role in a horror movie about a killer called The Terror. It’s actually a remake of an older film, which starred character actor Basil Karlo. On the set of the movie, Bruce meets a series of people with a vendetta against the movie. A director who gets fired, an actor that gets dumped by his actress girlfriend and a mobster who wants protection money. Bruce can just tell that something’s going to happen.

True to his theory, the next day they’re filming one character’s death scene. We meet today’s villain.

Dude, come on. Not only is Polaris part of a different company, but she isn’t even going to exist for another couple decades! Man!

So anyway, the villain turns off the lights and stabs the Lorna Dane who isn’t THE Lorna Dane to death. Batman and Robin investigate by looking at all the suspects. The mob guys aren’t involved. They go to the dumped actor, but find him dying. His last words are, “Clayface…” thereby identifying the killer with a name. Batman thinks it might be the director, since he’s the only major suspect left.

Robin sneaks around a castle setting, looking for clues, when Clayface attacks him. Though Robin disarms him, Clayface still beats him unconscious and tosses him off a bridge. Batman rescues Robin, but the bad guy gets away.

The next day, Clayface makes an attempt to murder Bruce’s fiancé Julie. This time, Batman has him scouted. He and Robin thwart his attempted murder, tie him up and Batman even allows Robin a couple revenge punches. Someone recognizes the clay mask Clayface wears. It was the same mask a character wore in the horror movie entitled “Clayface”, as played by Basil Karlo. Batman chips off the mask and reveals that Basil is the killer after all. Like, zoinks!

A more well-known version of Clayface appeared in Detective Comics #298 (1961). Like in the animated series, this guy is Matt Hagan. Rather than get a real job, he skin dives in hopes of discovering treasure. He finds a secret grotto filled with some magic rainbow bubbles. Upon coming into contact with them, he gains the ability to transform into any shape he wishes. Like any jerk with powers, he decides to steal some money.

Clayface steals thousands of dollars in charity money, transforms into a bird and escapes before Batman and Robin can do anything. The Dynamic Duo and Clayface cross paths again when Clayface tries to steal art from a museum. Clayface has an easy enough time dealing with the heroes until realizing his powers are wearing off. He outwits Batman to make an escape, proving to Batman that Clayface is at the very least losing his powers.

Hagan returns to the grotto and immerses himself with the rainbow goop. Now he knows that 48 hours is his time limit. He gets himself a gang and changes his appearance from job to job. They were pretty damn creative with Hagan in this issue. He’d turn into a buzz saw, give himself a frog’s head, turn into a dragon man* and at one point makes himself into a hybrid of a dinosaur, a lion and a unicorn.

After another fight with Batman and Robin, Clayface’s identity and home are revealed. Unfortunately for him, his powers wear off and he can’t escape. He refuses to explain his origins to Batman, as he will one day escape prison and become Clayface once again.

There would be a couple more versions of Clayface, such as one who had to live in a body-mold to hold him together and later there was a female Clayface. The four Clayfaces eventually formed a faction called the Mud Pack and the latter two members had their own clay child. Thanks to the Dini Batman series, Hagan is the most popular incarnation of the mantle.

*Or maybe he was just a dragon. But he was still Clayface!

CLEA

Strange Tales #126 (1964)

Dormammu sends a messenger to the Ancient One to warn him that he’s planning on marching into the human world. Dr. Strange takes his cue and enters Dormammu’s realm to stop him. After vanquishing a foe, we see that Strange is being followed.

Clea doesn’t think Strange has any chance whatsoever against Dormammu, but her confidence rises each time Strange defeats an enemy. She tries to whisper to him that he should leave, but he ignores it. Finally, she outright goes to Strange and tells him to his face that he’s going to lose and still he doesn’t care. Strange continues to stay straight-faced, insisting that if Dormammu is as powerful as Clea fears, then he must not shirk. He has to stop this guy from coming to Earth.

Once Strange leaves, Clea questions why she even tried to warn him in the first place.

CLOAK AND DAGGER

Spectacular Spider-Man #64 (1982)

The two are joined at the hip as it is, so I might as well just lump them together.

Spider-Man’s swinging around when he comes across a guy on a rooftop, having an episode. The man is a pharmacist, admitting that he’s done some awful things for the mob, but wants Spider-Man to take him in to the DA. Spider-Man nods along until his Spider Sense goes off.

Spider-Man rushes Cloak, only to be enveloped into his cape’s portal to darkness. While he’s busy, Dagger tosses a handful of light daggers into Marshall’s chest. Spider-Man escapes Cloak’s dimension and sees that Cloak and Dagger have just murdered this poor guy. He goes after them again, but Dagger tosses some more of her light daggers at him. Spider-Man tries to escape, but they’re locked onto his movement. Cloak reabsorbs Spider-Man into his cape, allows the daggers to stab him and then lets Spider-Man go. The duo escapes, with Spider-Man unable to stand.

Using some detective skills as Peter Parker, he figures out where Cloak and Dagger are. At Ellis Island, Cloak and Dagger have been gathering mobsters and shoving them into a room. Once upon a time, these mobsters would abduct young runaways and have Marshall experiment on them. They’d be tossed into that same room for observation. A lot of the kids died. Enough died that Marshall and the others figured it would be best to just abandon the project and leave. Cloak and Dagger, on the other hand, got away with new abilities.

Spider-Man breaks through a window, admitting that if they told him this, he could have helped them. But murder isn’t the answer. Cloak and Dagger disagree, turning it into a three-way fight of Spider-Man vs. Cloak and Dagger vs. mobsters. Cloak wraps the mobsters into his dark dimension. They panic until noticing a light in the distance. They rush towards the light, but at the last moment, they find that it’s the moonlight outside the window. They crash through the window and fall to their deaths. Cloak and Dagger show no remorse and teleport away, allowing Spider-Man to live.

CLOCK KING

World’s Finest Comics #351 (1966)

Whenever there’s a costume party in a comic book universe, you’re just asking for trouble.

See?

The police hit the Arrow Signal and elsewhere, Oliver Queen gets into costume. You know, if this was Gotham City, at least Bruce Wayne would have been at the party to prevent shit like this. Doesn’t really matter, as Clock King makes no attempt to escape until after Green Arrow and Speedy shoot themselves over in a catapult.

Clock King does eventually escape and then commits a series of time-related robberies. A later robbery involves him breaking into an antiques store set next door to a clock store. In that clock store, he has set every clock’s alarm to go off at the same time. That way it’ll drown out the sound of the alarm when he sneaks into the antiques place. What a plan, huh?

Green Arrow and Speedy catch him in the act and chase him down until reaching his lair, decked out in clock stuff. Green Arrow and Speedy are dropped into a giant hour glass. As the sand sifts down to the bottom, Arrow discovers that there are giant spikes waiting for them on the floor. The two simply grapple their way out of there with a suction cup arrow and a rope and catch the Clock King easily.

CLUEMASTER

Detective Comics #351 (1966)

Remember Aunt Harriet? The annoying woman added to the Batman TV show because they didn’t want people to think Adam West and Burt Ward were gay? As it turns out, she used to be in the comic as well. In this issue, she uncovers the elevator to the Batcave and briefly wanders around until hearing the Batmobile’s return. Bruce and Dick realize Harriet’s discovery and try to trick her into thinking she imagined it all.

As for the Cluemaster, he believes that criminals lose against Batman because they fear him too much. If he was to have an advantage on Batman, he’d be far easier to take down. Cluemaster doesn’t even try to commit a crime before taking on Batman. He tracks him down and takes the fight to him immediately.

He gets away and commits several crimes, giving a Riddler-like calling card each time. The advantage he talks about comes from finding out Batman’s secret identity. Over the course of the issue, there are several times where he would have succeeded if it wasn’t for Batman and Robin negating his efforts as they try to mess with Aunt Harriet. Eventually, they figure out where Cluemaster’s hanging out and take him down.

COLOSSUS

Giant Size X-Men #1 (1975)

It’s the story widely known to be the new beginning of the X-Men. Most of the original team has been kidnapped by the sentient island Krakoa. Xavier searches the world for new members of the team, which includes Colossus.

We start with his sister Illyana playing in a field in Siberia, unaware that a runaway tractor is coming for her. Peter Rasputin drops what he’s doing and runs into action.

He demolishes the tractor, feeling bad for its owners. Xavier contacts him and tells him about how he can help him deal with his mutant powers. Peter asks his parents for advice, to which his father says he should follow his heart. Peter’s heart says to stay, but his conscience says otherwise.

That’s about it for Colossus in this story. He is there for the rescue, but he doesn’t do all too much.

Back when Colossus died in the late-90’s, the final page of the issue shows him dead on the floor with others surrounding him in mourning. There are text boxes featuring the dialogue from the above-mentioned scene between Colossus and his parents from this, his first appearance. An effective way to twist the knife, if you ask me.

CONSTRICTOR

Incredible Hulk #212 (1977)

Hulk’s friend Jim Wilson is in New York City, looking to help out his big buddy. He’s also being hunted down by several thugs. One of them tries to kill Jim, only to be beaten down for his troubles. The thug panics and tries to get out of town for messing up. He doesn’t get far before his boss, the Constrictor, nabs him and threatens to kill him. The scared goon tells his boss that he placed a tracker on Jim. Constrictor tosses the guy aside and goes off.

Later, Jim plays detective on the phone, trying to figure out where Banner is hiding out. Once he tracks down Bruce, the shit hits the fan.

Jim tries to run, but gets caught easily enough. Constrictor sticks him in his car and drives off around the time Bruce arrives on the scene. Bruce yells at Constrictor and gets his attention. Constrictor doesn’t know who this guy is, but decides he’ll just ram him over. At the last second, he freaks out and jumps out the car, right before it smashes into the Hulk. Hulk frees Jim and goes after Constrictor.

For a while, Constrictor has the Hulk’s number. He is able to blind him, side-step him and repeatedly trick him. He shows how his tentacles are unbreakable by wrapping them around the Hulk’s neck and electrocuting him. What Constrictor fails to realize is that not only is he connected to the Hulk, but the Hulk is now connected to him. Hulk grabs the tentacles and tosses Constrictor around until he lets go. Constrictor grabs Jim and threatens to kill the young man. Hulk pounds on the ground, creating a shockwave that knocks Jim away from the villain.

Constrictor goes for one last lash of his tentacles. Hulk ducks them and causes the indestructible whips to wrap around the nearby lamppost. Constrictor becomes a conductor and the lamp’s power zaps him unconscious. Hulk and Jim leave him KO’d and walk off together.

CREEPER

Showcase #73 (1968)

Jack Ryder is a talkshow host who has more nerve than sense. He verbally destroys a guest in a debate, knowing full well that the guest is a close, personal friend of his sponsor. Ryder refuses to apologize and gets fired. A man working for the government likes Ryder’s style and hires him. Some Russian mob goons have kidnapped Professor Yatz. As it turns out, these same mobsters are throwing a party. Ryder’s mission is to sneak into the party, find Yatz and get him out of there. Is he a bad enough dude to rescue the Professor?

Ryder sees that it’s a costume party, so he makes a quick trip to the nearest costume shop and sees what they got. He ends up buying a box of random crap for ten bucks and fashions a costume out of it. He sneaks into the mansion where the party is being held and is quick to get into trouble. He’s stabbed in the stomach, but still fights through enough goons to find sanctuary. Unfortunately, his hiding spot is the same place where they’re keeping Professor Yatz prisoner. Yatz tends to Ryder’s wound and inserts his beloved invention within the cut so the mobsters can never get it. Ryder is now stronger, more agile and able to heal quickly. As long as these powers are on, he’s stuck wearing his silly costume.

A goon pops in and shoots the professor accidentally. Creeper punches out the henchman and makes a run for it. While escaping, he runs into more trouble. Figuring that his appearance is already throwing these guys off-guard, he starts laughing maniacally. As it turns out, it’s really effective and totally messes with their heads. He makes his getaway with the authorities after him, thinking he’s a criminal.

Creeper eventually finds out the villains’ hideout and goes for the rematch. He goes after each thug and shows off his newfound powers and insane sense of humor.

Beware.

One-by-one, the Creeper takes down these hoods until beating their boss. The police arrive to find all these wanted criminals, but aren’t fast enough to catch the Creeper. Creeper transforms back into Jack Ryder and gives the police directions on where the Creeper ran off.

Ryder figures out how to work the device the late Professor Yatz installed into his body. He decides he’ll continue on as the Creeper, even if the mob now has a gigantic price on his head.

CRIME SYNDICATE

Justice League of America #29 (1964)

Earth 1 has the Justice League. Earth 2 has the Justice Society. Welcome to Earth 3, the world where actor Abraham Lincoln assassinated President Booth, among other mis-matched historical events. The world that gives us the Crime Syndicate of America.

The team uses their powers to commit crimes. For too long they’ve succeeded with minimal opposition. They feel they’re getting rusty and want to exercise their powers. Ultraman gains new powers every time he is bathed with kryptonite radiation. His latest power allows him to peer into alternate universes. He spies upon Earth 1 and tells his buddies about it. The group decides to sneak into Earth 1 and pick a fight with their counterparts.

The fights are all won by the Justice League. Flash incapacitates Ultraman, Batman out-fights Johnny Quick, Superman inhales the air around Power Ring, Wonder Woman lassos Superwoman and Green Lantern punches out Owl-Man with a green boxing glove. At the last second, each Crime Syndicate guy yells, “Volthoom!” That happens to be the signal for Power Ring’s magic ring. It teleports everyone to Earth 3, where the fight begins anew.

With the new atmosphere, the Crime Syndicate wins all their rematches with ease. They decide that they want to fight the Justice League on a neutral world where they’ll have equal ground. That happens to be Earth 2. Before they can do that, though, they need to take care of the Justice Society. They don’t want those guys helping the Justice League. With the League as prisoners, the Syndicate ventures forth. Only briefly can the League warn their Earth 2 buddies about the danger they’re about to face.

CRIMSON AVENGER

Detective Comics #20 (1938)

Crimson Avenger is a bit different from the other masked heroes of the day. Guys like Batman would try to arrest criminals for the crimes they’ve committed. Crimson Avenger has another way to bring justice.

The story deals with a lawyer Myron Block. He’s a crooked lawyer and is definitely in with the mob. He never fails to get his guilty clients off with his tactics. Reporter Lee Travis has seen enough. It’s time for the Crimson Avenger to make things right.

The Crimson Avenger breaks into Block’s home one night and asks for his help. He’s going to murder the DA and he wants witnesses. He also wants to make it look like a suicide, so he needs a suicide note. He’ll pay Block $50,000 for his part, but he needs a gun and poison as supplied by Block. This plan doesn’t make even a lick of sense, but Block goes with it.

Rather than pay Block, the Crimson Avenger knocks him out with his gas gun. He goes to the DA and fakes a murder attempt, making sure to escape when the cops arrive and leave his weapons behind. The cops find the fingerprints of Myron Block on the weapons and decide that Block was trying to frame the Crimson Avenger while killing off the DA. The cops bring him in and the Crimson Avenger is victorious… by… uh… having a guy arrested for a crime he didn’t commit.

CRIMSON DYNAMO

Tales of Suspense #46 (1963)

There are nine Crimson Dynamos in Marvel 616 history, so I’m only going to focus on the original. Professor Anton Vanko meets with his leader and shows him his newest breakthrough, which will lead to the death of that capitalist pig Iron Man.

With the Crimson Dynamo armor, Vanko has control over electricity. He can control machines and even cause them to implode. This includes Iron Man himself. Under orders, Dynamo goes around messing with Stark Industries. His public demonstrations and plants are sabotaged over and over again to the point that the government is losing faith in their product.

Crimson Dynamo is getting restless, as he wants to take on Iron Man. He figures he’ll be at Stark’s headquarters. His attack on its grounds gets Stark’s attention and he dons the old-school gold Iron Man armor. First he surprises Dynamo by showing him how he’s enhanced his own armor to be immune to Dynamo’s electric-controlling powers. He knocks down some nearby trees to trap Dynamo in place (turns out Vanko never gave the armor any flight abilities). Iron Man leaves for a minute, comes back, grabs Crimson Dynamo, flies off and threatens to dunk him in the nearest body of water. Because of the Crimson Dynamo armor, the reaction to water would shock both of them to death. Vanko surrenders.

Iron Man takes him to a pier and mentions that he is currently eavesdropping on Dynamo’s boss. He lets Dynamo in on the conversation, where his boss is giving orders to have the Crimson Dynamo killed upon return, as he’s too much of a threat. Vanko freaks out and denounces his country. As the authorities arrive, Iron Man announces that he’s hiring Vanko as a top researcher for Stark Industries. This infuriates the Russians.

Oh, and you know that conversation Iron Man had Crimson Dynamo listen to? That wasn’t real. That was just a recording of Tony disguising his voice. Granted, Dynamo’s leader did have the same game plan, but that’s still a real dick move from Tony, isn’t it?

In several weeks: A merc with a mouth, a merc with one eye and a freelance peacekeeping agent, yes?

Related posts

• Contents (1)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 8 (7)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 12 (8)
• Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings: Cab to Cat (8)
• Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings: Be to Bl (5)

Welcome to the fifth installment. Took me longer than expected, but a lot of these guys are big names. If you reach the end of the article, Batman will reward you with his greatest quote ever.

CABLE

New Mutants #87 (1990)

Originally, Cable appears in Uncanny X-Men #201 (1986) as a baby, but I figure it would probably make more sense to show his real introduction. The story begins with a terrorist act by a team of Stryfe’s henchmen in some facility. The only one I actually recognize is Four-Arm. After they leave, a new figure enters through a hole in the wall.

Cable tracks Stryfe’s team on their next mission, where they plan to kidnap a couple kids out of a government facility. He takes the battle to the enemies, but their numbers eventually overwhelm him. He’s left to die and the mutants get away. The issue ends with Cable in military captivity, thinking about how he went at this the wrong way. He’s going to need help.

LUKE CAGE

Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (1972)

The first issue of Cage’s comic shows him as a man in prison, found guilty of a crime he didn’t commit. Granted, even he admits that he’s done a lot of bad stuff, but being a drug dealer isn’t one of them. Carl Lucas keeps to himself for the most part, though is constantly dogged by the antagonistic head guard. The new warden comes in, sees the way Lucas is treated and has that guard demoted.

Lucas is asked to take part in an experiment with Dr. Burstein. Lucas explains to his new friend how he got where he is. Years ago, he used to hang out with a man named Willis Stryker. They both had feelings for a woman Reva and although Willis had her attentions, his paranoia and pettiness got the best of him and he ended up framing Lucas for drug charges. Reva ended up dying thanks to Willis’ behavior and now Lucas just wants to get out of prison and get his revenge.

Lucas takes his chances by agreeing to be a guinea pig in one of Burstein’s experiments, which may get him his freedom. Using some chemicals and machinery he got from Stark Enterprises, Bernstein feels that he might have a way to enhance the human body to the point that it can counter disease and aging. As Lucas goes through with it, the guard from earlier steps in and tries to sabotage the process, hoping it will kill Lucas. Instead, Lucas survives the process and comes out with unbreakable skin. He punches the guard and realizes that he may have actually killed him with his newfound strength. He punches through the wall, makes a run for it and fakes his own death.

Back in civilization, Lucas stops a diner robbery and gets a reward. It gives him the idea of becoming a superhero for hire. He changes his name to Luke Cage, as to reflect how much being in prison sucked.

For the rest of the issue, Luke messes with Diamondback, the new criminal moniker of his old friend Willis. In the next issue, Luke would finally get his revenge… and we’d get a better look at how he came up with that awesome costume.

DAVID CAIN

Batman #567 (1999)

Famed assassin David Cain is first introduced in the same issue as his daughter Cassandra. We see him starting off with an attempt to assassinate Commissioner Gordon.

Cassandra jumps in front of Gordon, which both stops Cain and allows the cops to open fire at him. He escapes with a couple dead cops left behind. Cassandra, having been brought up without speaking, still gets it through to James Gordon and Barbara how she’s related to Cain. Cassandra protects Gordon from her father again later on, this time actually fighting him hand-to-hand.

She uppercuts David and sees her hand stained with blood. She has a flashback to her first and only assassination when she was a child and then screams her first word, as taught to her by Barbara: “STOP!”

David is moved to tears and drops his guns. Suddenly, Gordon busts in and fires. Cassandra dashes forward and tackles her father through the window as to protect him.

I always found it funny that David Cain sort of resembles George Clooney occasionally. Especially since David Cain was responsible for tarnishing Bruce Wayne’s reputation that one time.

CALLISTO

Uncanny X-Men #169 (1983)

The story here is about Angel being kidnapped by Sunder of the Morlocks. A rather small X-Men team tracks Angel to the sewers, where after a fight scene, they discover the Morlocks’ leader.

“I am CALLISTO! My brethren have taken the name Morlocks, after H.G. Wells’ rulers of the Netherworld. This is our domain. You visit at your peril and when you address me, you keep a civil tongue in your head – or lose it! As for why Angel’s here – every princess must have a prince and, for me, who more fitting – than the most beautiful man in all the world!”

So, wait. Why didn’t she kidnap David Hasselhoff, then?

Callisto starts cutting apart Angel’s wings so he can’t hurt himself in the tight sewers. The X-Men attack and are overpowered. Callisto knocks Storm out of the air with a slingshot, Colossus can’t take all the Morlocks piling on and Nightcrawler… uh… hm. Yeah, he says he’s going to get Callisto and attacks her. Then there’s no real sign of him and no explanation.

CANNONBALL

Marvel Graphic Novel #4: The New Mutants (1982)

Sam Gunthrie is first shown as a coal mine worker at age 16. His father has just died of black lung and times are tough for his family. He continues to work, hoping that the life of his siblings could benefit. While in the mine, it begins to collapse and his boss nearly dies. Sam’s powers kick in and he makes the rescue.

This gets the attention of Donald Pierce, who gets Sam to work for him and his goofy-looking henchmen. Lucky for Sam, he doesn’t have to wear a stupid mask like the others. Sam is both naïve and loyal, not understanding that Pierce hates mutants like himself. He catches Wolfsbane sneaking around their headquarters.

Yeah, what the fuck.

Cannonball protects Pierce and helps fight off the other New Mutants – who are there to rescue the mentally-inhibited Xavier. When they’ve won, Cannonball thinks he should just hand the mutants over to the sheriff. When Pierce tells him to kill them all, he turns on his leader and prepares to use his powers. It seems his powers are burned out and Pierce reacts by pulling a gun on him.

Xavier breaks through Pierce’s mental-inhibitor machine and gets the strength to stop him. Pierce is led away by the Black Queen of the Hellfire Club to be punished and Cannonball doesn’t know what to do. A day or so later, he knocks on the door of the mansion, as Xavier has decided to give him a second chance.

CAPTAIN AMERICA

Captain America Comics #1 (1941)

We get an introduction to government scientist Professor Reinstein. In front of an audience of his bosses and the like, he tests his super soldier serum on skinny volunteer Steve Rogers. Over a short moment, Rogers begins changing. He stands before Reinstein and the others, now totally ripped. A member of Hitler’s Gestapo reveals himself as a spy and fires at Reinstein. The scientist dies in Rogers’ arms as the spy shoots the vials that contain the only samples of the serum.

He fires on another government official and then his collar is grabbed by a pissed off Rogers. Our hero roid rages on the bad guy and smacks him around until the spy gets up and tries a hasty retreat. He instead stumbles into some wires and dies via electrocution. Cap points out that the weasel deserved it.

Since then, a masked man has been shown helping out the cause for fighting those nasty Nazi scumbuckets. That man is Captain America.

Whoa, good for him. I hear the spy ring gets you +3 stealth.

There are a bunch of other stories in this issue – all starring Captain Not-France, but I’m not going to go into them. Well, that’s not completely true. Once we get to the R’s, we’ll have another go.

CAPTAIN ATOM

Space Adventures #33 (1960)

The omnipotent and unbeatable Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen is known to be based on Captain Atom. Reading this story, it’s no wonder. Captain Atom begins by saving a plane from crashing. On board the plane is a US diplomat, Mr. Haynes, on his way to a major summit. Captain Atom changes back to his alter-ego Captain Adam of the air force and greets the diplomat. In secret, Mr. Haynes admits that the President has informed him that Adam is Captain Atom, but he can keep that little nugget to himself.

Since Adam knows the plane’s crash was via sabotage, he figures that “the enemy” will try something else. What they really mean is “Russians”, but they never explicitly mention the country’s name. Adam disguises himself as Haynes and gets himself kidnapped by bad guys, who give him instructions to recite a speech they wrote for him at the summit. Instead, he stands before the other foreign diplomats and tells them about how he is being blackmailed into lying. When the kidnappers fire their guns, the bullets merely bounce off Captain Atom’s chest. He takes the two away and lets the real Mr. Haynes take care of business.

Captain Atom then discovers from an American spy that they aren’t out of this yet.

Heh. He looks funny.

He proceeds to disarm 100 atomic missiles while shrugging off conventional fire. Once done, he swings back to the summit, whispers into Mr. Haynes’ ear and watches with pride as his boss smugly yells, “BALONEY!” at the Russian speaker’s threats.

CAPTAIN BOOMERANG

Flash #117 (1960)

Rich toymaker W.W. Wiggins knows that boomerangs will be the next big fad among kids. All they need is a mascot to show what kind of tricks you can pull off. Digger Harkness gets an audition and shows that he’s a complete whiz with the boomerang.

What Wiggins doesn’t know is that Digger is himself a career criminal. He commits crimes with his boomerang, but stays out of sight. When Flash eventually catches up to him, he claims innocence and that another guy dressed like Captain Boomerang is behind it all. To prove he’s a real nice guy, he introduces Flash to his old and sick parents. Flash has this nagging feeling that things aren’t right, but leaves Digger alone for the moment. He’s right to think that way, as the two old people are really just some actor friends of Digger’s.

Captain Boomerang knows that Flash will go after him again, so he builds a special “lightning boomerang”. Even though Flash easily dodges it as it’s tossed, it instantly speeds up on the way back and takes him by surprise with a knock to the head. Captain Boomerang ties Flash up to a giant boomerang and tries to send him into space. It doesn’t quite make it and instead heads towards the ocean. Due to reentry and his vibrating molecules (as always), Flash escapes the ropes, runs on the water’s surface, gets his hands on Captain Boomerang and his actor buddies, takes them to the police and then has some dinner with Iris.

On a side note, you should be glad I chose a picture of Boomerang with his hat on. His receding hairline is creepy as hell.

In Identity Crisis #3 (2004), Digger is coaxed by his old friend Calculator to visit his biological son Owen Mercer. Digger, filled with anxiety, waits outside the Mercer residence until Owen walks out, asking if he needs help.

In later issues, Digger would become close with his son and would briefly teach him some boomerang tricks (though Owen’s already a natural). Over time, we’d discover that Melanie Thawne is Owen’s real mother, making him the half-brother to the current Flash Bart Allen. He’d become a villain for a short time until joining the Outsiders, dating Supergirl and being really tense around Robin. He’s a cool character. Glad DC’s trying to push him.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN

Captain Britain Weekly #1 (1976)

We start off with Captain Britain fighting a villain known as the Reaver. Captain Britain easily defeats the villain’s henchmen and shows plenty of bravado, but inside, he doesn’t understand what the hell is going on. He’s a physicist and now, for reasons he can’t understand, he’s calling himself Captain Britain while outfighting guys who by all rights should be killing him.

He flashes back to earlier that night. Brian Braddock is working at the Darkmoor Research Centre with Dr. Travis. They’re trying to come up with solutions to Earth’s energy problems or some crap. All of the sudden, Reaver and his legion break through the wall and go on a killing rampage. Brian escapes on a motorcycle. On his way to freedom, he’s nearly caught by the bad guys and instead escapes by falling off a cliff like a nimrod. He awakens in front of this bearded spirit, who offers both an amulet and a sword. He also acts like a complete jerk to Brian, despite the fact that he hasn’t done anything wrong.

And that’s it, really. It was weekly, so there were only eight pages. Go figure.

CAPTAIN COLD

Showcase #8 (1957)

We start off with Captain Cold completing his first major robbery. Everyone in the bank is frozen, so he has no trouble breaking into the vault.

“Ha! There’s plenty of cold cash in there – but I’ll warm the money in my pockets!”

Once Flash shows up, Cold tries blasting him with his ice gun to no effect. Since he can’t win that way, he just uses his gun on the ground, making the Flash slip around. Once Flash gets his bearings, Cold is gone.

We then flashback to see how Leonard Snart would become Captain Cold. Leonard wants to be a criminal, but he needs a way to counter the Flash’s speed powers. He reads a newspaper article about the Flash’s abilities and figures that they probably have more information than they’re making public. He sneaks into the newspaper’s offices and steals more information. He finds that the Flash’s powers can be countered by a cyclotron. He sneaks into a lab to steal one, but something goes wrong and the cyclotron gun he runs off with now has the ability to freeze stuff. Snart decides to go with it and calls himself Captain Cold.

The story takes a turn for the weird here. Cold figures that he needs to amp up his cold gun to take down Flash for good. His experiments fail until he adds liquid helium. Not only does it fire absolute zero blasts, but it causes random mirages to appear. He tries it on Flash and fools him a couple times, but Flash gets wise, runs so fast that it makes it look like there are twelve Flashes and gives Cold a taste of his own medicine.

CAPTAIN COMET

Strange Adventures #8 (1951)

When Adam Blake is born, a comet whizzes by his home. His father mentions an old wives’ tale that being born when a comet flies by is a sign that you will become a great man. The mother doesn’t believe in that, but as years go by, she begins to change her mind. Adam proves to be far smarter and intuitive than anyone should be. Using a sixth sense he doesn’t understand, he’s able to be an unbeatable football player, top student, juggler, musician and just about anything else he wants. Well, everything except being an average guy.

One day, he saves a girl from falling by slowing down her velocity enough to catch her in time. He seeks out Professor Emory Zackro to help him figure out what’s up. Zackro runs some tests and realizes that Adam is a mutant (yes, this is DC). He is highly evolved and is what human beings should be like hundreds of thousands of years from how. Shortly later, Zackro shows Adam a device that could convert sunlight into gold. While Zackro is gone, Adam makes some adjustments and gets it to work. Some thugs break in and want to use the machine for themselves. Using his mental-based powers, Adam easily overcomes the three goons. He even pulls a Neo and slows down a bullet to the point that it’s harmless.

Zackro laughs at this little incident, as the machine really isn’t worth all that much on a commercial level. The amount of gold it would create in a year would be about $100. Still, he knows that Adam needs to keep his abilities a secret if he wants to use them to help people. The two come up with a secret identity.

Two brilliant men come up with this and neither think to hide his face.

The story ends with Captain Comet running off to stop a giant spinning top that’s appeared out of nowhere in the US. No, really.

CAPTAIN MAR-VELL

Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (1967)

The Kree’s Sentry robot has been destroyed by the Fantastic Four and their warrior Ronan also failed. Now Captain Mar-vell is sent to keep an eye on Earth in the name of the Kree. He’s forced to go alone because Colonel Yon-Rogg has the hots for Mar-vell’s girl Una and wants Mar-vell out of the picture.

Captain Mar-vell thinks to himself about how he’ll be stronger and able to fly when he’s wearing his space suit. Without his helmet, he’ll only be able to survive an hour of Earth’s atmosphere. His first act is to prevent some government guys from testing a rocket.

Since he’s covered in radiation, they have an easy time finding him. He isn’t ready for a fight yet, so he mostly tries to escape. He blinds the attacking soldiers with a black light gun and gets away. Later, he gets a hotel room under the name “Marvel” and gets a message from his commanders that he isn’t to fail in his mission. Mar-vell then begins to mope about how he’s all alone.

Why did they bring this joker back again?

CAPTAIN MARVEL

Whiz Comics #2 (1940)

Edit: It seems I got my facts mixed up, thanks to Fawcett’s wacky numbering system. Thanks to Rad McAwesome for the correction.

We see Billy Batson trying to sell newspapers on the street corner. A suspicious man in a trench coat asks why he isn’t in bed, only to be told that Billy doesn’t have one. The mysterious man takes Billy home with him, which I’m sure had some semblance of innocence to it back then, but now reeks of creepy. Luckily, the guy isn’t taking Billy into his rusty, unmarked van, but instead takes him to the cave of Shazam. He, Shazam, is getting on in years and needs someone to help fight for justice.

Using a magical monitor (run by the Clapper, no less), Shazam shows that he knows of Billy’s horrible upbringing. His parents had died and his wicked uncle tossed him out of the house to get the money left in the will. Shazam asks Billy to speak his name.

The next day, Billy is still doing the newsboy thing, selling papers about a mad scientist named Sivana. Two guys buy a copy, making references to Sivana as their boss. Billy watches the two henchmen walk into a hotel, but the doorman won’t let him follow. Billy goes to Sterling Morris at the local radio station to tell him what he’s found. Morris doesn’t believe his nonsense and tells him to leave. Billy makes him promise that if he can get some facts on Sivana, Morris will give him a job.

As Captain Marvel, he jumps into the henchmen’s room in the hotel and has no problem beating the holy hell out of them. Sivana is watching all of this on a monitor and trades some threatening dialogue with Captain Marvel until Marvel smashes up the monitor. He calls up Morris and shows him the truth. Morris gives Billy a job as promised and also promises not to let it be known that Billy beat up these goons himself. That’s right, he doesn’t even know about Captain Marvel. He thinks this little boy just took these guys down with his own bare hands.

CAPTAIN MARVEL JR.

Whiz Comics #25 (1941)

The story here is mainly about Captain Marvel fighting Captain Nazi. Towards the end, Captain Marvel pulls Nazi out of an airplane and uppercuts him into the distance. Captain Nazi lands in a lake, where a young Freddy Freeman (never mentioned by name) and his grandfather are fishing. The grandfather pulls Nazi out of the water, only to be killed for his kindness. Freddy goes at Nazi with his oar, but is smacked into the water. Captain Nazi escapes just as Captain Marvel arrives. Marvel takes the boy to a hospital immediately.

A nurse tells Billy that Freddy will never walk again. Billy feels bad about this and goes to Shazam’s home. He tells Shazam about what has happened and hopes that maybe he could heal the boy. Instead, Shazam has Captain Marvel transfer powers into the crippled Freddy.

Other than some explanations from Captain Marvel, that’s the story. What’s weird is how casual everyone is about the fourth wall. Captain Marvel tells Junior that he has to go into Master Comics to beat up Captain Nazi. What?

Even more confusing, Captain Nazi calls up Hitler long distance just to laugh about how awesome it is to kill a helpless old man and cripple a boy. And they wonder why they lost the war.

CAPTAIN UNIVERSE

Micronauts #8 (1979)

I know so little about the Micronauts that I am all but lost here. From what I understand, the Micronauts are these tiny little robot guys from the Microverse. They hang out with a former astronaut Ray Coffin and his son Steve. The issue here shows their arch-nemesis Baron Karza showing up on Earth in human size, taking on the army. Steve gets to the front lines and gets the guy in charge to listen to his story of what they’re up against.

In the Microverse, this guy named Time Traveler lends some power to Ray Coffin to save them in their darkest hour. Later on, this happens.

The two fight and argue for the issue until Baron Karza escapes back into the Microverse. The Captain Universe powers leave Ray, who embraces his son in triumph.

CARNAGE

Amazing Spider-Man #344 (1991)

Cletus Kasady is first shown with Eddie Brock in Riker’s Island. Eddie is shown keeping in shape with hopes of avenging the Venom symbiote, which he believes to be dead. Cletus, meanwhile, is bored out of his mind.

Eddie sure looks fine for a guy who supposedly is dying of cancer. Bullshit retcon.

It isn’t until Amazing Spider-Man #360 (1992) that we get an appearance of Carnage himself. In a one-page aside, Gunny Stein is on his way home from work, when he’s stopped by a stranger.

SNAPPER CARR

The Brave and the Bold #28 (1960)

This, the first Justice League story, involves the team fighting Starro the Conqueror. While the various members go off to do their own thing to fight the worldwide threat, we join the Flash as he runs to Happy Harbor. In this town, we meet Snapper Carr, who has just finished working on his lawn. His family shows no reaction to his hard work and instead stares straight ahead. They are hypnotized by one of Starro’s starfish underlings.

Starro’s henchman senses Snapper’s immunity and fires at him. Flash makes the save.

Let me just say that even though I enjoyed Snapper’s role in Young Justice, this issue makes me want to strangle the holy hell out of him. Maybe this will make you understand.

Flash defeats the starfish and takes Snapper with him to help out in the final battle. While Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter take on Starro, Green Lantern uses his ring to inspect what could possibly make Snapper immune. They find that the lime he was using on the lawn protected him from Starro’s mind control. They then get a bunch of lime, toss it on the giant alien starfish and call it a day. They also allow Snapper membership to the Justice League because back then, comics needed to be really annoying.

SHARON CARTER

Tales of Suspense #75 (1966)

I had to do a little research on Sharon to get a better understanding. Back during the war, Cap was in love with Sharon’s older sister Peggy, though he never actually knew her name. Sharon always admired Peggy’s war stories and became an agent of SHIELD. This is an origin that really, really, really needs a retcon about now.

This is the same story that debuts Batroc. Steve Rogers is walking around New York City when he sees Sharon. He can’t get over how much she looks like Peggy, though Peggy would have to be much older. He sees her carrying a cylinder of something as she bumps into a suspicious guy carrying a similar cylinder. The guy switches them, which is supposed to be a subtle spy move, but Rogers makes a big deal out of it. Sharon tries to calm him down while doing her well-renowned Wade Wilson impression.

The two figure that they’ve never met before, though they feel as if they have. Sharon leaves, eventually attacked by Batroc. Steve changes to Captain America and beats down on the plucky Frenchman. Sharon gets away with Batroc insisting that Cap help him get to her. Cap learns that not only is she a SHIELD agent, but her cylinder got cracked in the struggle and is capable of exploding and killing them all.

CATMAN

Detective Comics #311 (1963)

Tom Blake is a famous cat-catcher; a man who captures lions and tigers to give to the circus. He meets his acquaintance Bruce Wayne and describes how bored he’s become with capturing lions. Bruce also says he’s bored with his life. Another rich guy suggests that the two of them start fighting crime like Batman.

This gives Blake an idea. He thinks about becoming a crime-fighter, but Gotham already has Batman. He’d only be a rival. If he’s going to be Batman’s rival, he’s going to do it in a more exciting way. He’s going to be a villain!

Some time later, Catman appears at a museum exhibit to steal an emerald associated with an Egyptian cat queen. Batman tries to stop him, but Catman makes a clean enough getaway, thanks to his cat-based gimmicks. At a millionaire get-together, someone jokingly suggests that Tom Blake is Catman, which makes Blake smile. He’s such an obvious choice that nobody would seriously think it’s him.

Batman and Robin search for cat-themed places that Catman might try to rob. It seems their choice is wrong, as Catman robs the local club called Cat and Fiddle. Once he gets of the building with his money in hand, he meets up with Batwoman. Catman easily defeats her and expresses his admiration for her beauty.

Batman and Robin show up and scare Catman off. He escapes, but without the loot. From Catman’s little speech in that image, Batman uses it as a clue to discover that Catman is indeed Tom Blake. He and Robin investigate Blake’s home and stumble upon a Catcave. Eventually, the Dynamic Duo finds themselves matched up against Catman on a giant robot cat. Batman easily defeats it by tossing nuts and bolts into its mouth. Catman tries to escape across an underground stream, but loses his footing and seemingly dies in a waterfall.

Robin thinks Catman’s gone for good, but Batman brings up how a cat has nine lives.

CATWOMAN

Batman #1 (1940)

Batman notices that an old rich lady, Martha Travers, is going to have a party on a yacht. During this, she’ll be wearing a very expensive diamond necklace. This is just asking for trouble, but Batman already has his own case to cover. He sends Robin on it with the promise that he’ll meet up with him later. Dick Grayson works as a steward on the yacht, noticing that just about everyone has it in for the kind, old lady. Most notable is her nephew Denny and his elderly, limping friend Miss Peggs. Dick thinks he’s a pretty nice guy, but another steward informs him that Denny Travers is an asshole.

Dick investigates and finds that Denny is in cahoots with the infamous criminal known only as “The Cat”. Dick is too late to prevent the robbery of Mrs. Travers’ necklace. To make things worse, a boat of crooks comes by to steal the necklace themselves. Dick changes into Robin around the time Batman shows up. Batman disarms all the criminals and allows them to fight Robin. Robin wipes the floor with them until they beg for no more. Batman looks to us, the readers, to explain that criminals are yellow without their guns and shouldn’t be respected.

When returning the stolen loot to Mrs. Travers and her guests, Batman causes the alarm to go off. He sees the elderly Miss Peggs run off far too fast for someone with a limp like hers. Batman also takes a moment to notice how nice her legs are for someone that age. Robin catches Miss Peggs and Batman reveals that she is really The Cat.

Batman gets the necklace back, punches out Denny and has the first of many “star-crossed lover” conversations with Selena. Yes, even in her first appearance, Catwoman tries to seduce Batman, only to be told that they can never be. While Batman won’t join her as a criminal, he does subtly allow her to escape. This peeves Robin to no extent.

In two weeks: The destroyer of Bludhaven, the destroyer of Breakworld and the Justice League counterpart that’s jealous about it.

Related posts

• Contents (1)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: The Finale (7)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 8 (7)
• Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings: Cr to De (6)
• Deadshot’s Tophat and Other Beginnings: Ce to Cr (5)

BLADE

Tomb of Dracula #10 (1973)

“They call me… Blade! Blade the Black Agent X!”

Times change, don’t they? The story that introduces Blade doesn’t so much go into his background, other than his hobby of offing vampires. He takes care of some of Dracula’s henchmen early on and then fights the big bad on a cruise ship. When Dracula has things won, one of his mind-controlled lady victims comes to jump his bones. This distracts Dracula enough that Blade can get back up. Dracula makes the decision to leave, though the boat will explode in moments. Blade tosses everyone off the boat and makes it to safety himself, knowing that he and Dracula will fight again one day.

BLINK

Uncanny X-Men #317 (1994)

Before Blink was well-known for her role in Age of Apocalypse and Exiles, she showed up in regular 616 continuity as part of the Phalanx Covenant. Along with members of Generation X, she finds herself captured by the Phalanx.

When attacked by a being named Harvest, Blink uses her power to teleport him away while tearing him apart. Other than that, she follows the others as they attempt to escape, knowing that the Phalanx was unable to find a way to dampen their powers.

BLOB

Uncanny X-Men #3 (1964)

Xavier senses a new mutant in the area. He sends the X-Men to scout a traveling carnival. Cyclops judges certain acts, figuring out if the carnies’ talents come from mutant powers or cheap trickery. He discovers the Blob, using his abilities to be a sideshow. No man can move him and bullets get lodged into his flab. Cyclops demands that Blob come to the mansion to meet the Professor. It isn’t until meeting Jean that Blob agrees.

Would you believe that later in the issue, Blob tells Cyclops that his eye beams can’t budge him?

Xavier is pretty psyched about Blob’s powers and Blob agrees that he’s pretty awesome. This pushes Iceman to ask Xavier for permission to beat up the Blob. Xavier gives him the okay. Blob easily overcomes Iceman’s powers without even hurting him and declines membership to the X-Men. Xavier yells at his X-Men to capture Blob so he can mind-wipe him of the mansion’s whereabouts. Blob fights through the team and makes the escape.

Keep in mind, the X-Men are supposed to be the good guys and the Blob is supposed to be the evil villain.

Blob regroups with his carnie pals and attacks the mansion. When he’s eventually defeated, Xavier wipes the mind of both the Blob and his friends so that they don’t remember meeting the X-Men or where the mansion is. They wake up confused and decide to go back to the carnival. They do this while inside the mansion and in front of the X-Men. Angel proceeds to congratulate Xavier on being so smart.

BLOCKBUSTER

Detective Comics #345 (1965)

Years ago, Bruce Wayne saved the life of scrawny chemist Mark Desmond. These days Mark Desmond is a hulking beast going around robbing banks for his brother Roland. Nicknamed Blockbuster by the media, he has no problem beating on the Dynamic Duo.

During their second fight, Batman comes to figure that this is Mark. He unmasks himself to show that he’s Bruce Wayne and therefore calms Blockbuster. This causes a bit of a problem, since Bruce now has to deal with Roland Desmond without blowing his cover.

Roland would become the second Blockbuster years later in Starman #9 (1989). This wasn’t the more renowned Jack Knight Starman series, but the one starring Will Payton. Starman deals with a rather large guy who totals an entire diner with no problem. This new Blockbuster – who seems to have a normal intellect – escapes and leaves Starman to deal with the wreckage. While Starman deals with the aftermath, a serial killer and his personal life, we see Bruce Wayne back at Gotham.

Bruce discusses with Alfred how Roland Desmond has escaped prison a week earlier and how the first Blockbuster was killed as a member of the Suicide Squad. When word of a new Blockbuster hits Gotham, Batman is already on his way. Meanwhile, Starman gets a rematch.

Don’t let the image fool you. Starman doesn’t fare so well this time either.

ULYSSES BLOODSTONE

Marvel Presents #1 (1975)

Ulysses Bloodstone, monster hunter, is first shown fighting an amphibious creature that some dude with a flute has conjured from the sea. Ulysses wins by firing his shotgun again and again and again and again and again and again. Later, after taking in the flute guy for questioning, he’s attacked by another monster. He finds out that the monster is possessed by a spirit that wants to possess powerful creatures. It controlled that flute guy to conjure the fish monster for the opportunity of taking over that fish monster’s body. Later in the issue, the nameless possessor blasts energy through Ulysses’ chest and seemingly kills him. I’m sure he got out of it in the next issue.

ELSA BLOODSTONE

Bloodstone #1 (2001)

Easily the most obscure member of Warren Ellis’ Nextwave team (not counting the brand new Captain), Elsa made herself known in her own miniseries. Accompanied by her pregnant mother, Elsa comes to her father’s old home and finds that she inherits everything. Despite her appearance and personality in Nextwave, she is nothing like that here.

Like I said.

Over the course of the issue, she fights some vampires, hangs out with Frankenstein’s monster, uses a genie’s lamp and ends on a cliffhanger where she is face to face with Dracula. All while wearing pants that are way too tight.

BLUE BEETLE

Mystery Men Comics #1 (1939)

Not exactly sure if this is from Mystery Men Comics #1, but it’s early enough that it might as well be. Dan Garrett was the first Blue Beetle, appearing as a guy in chainmail and a mask. You know those famed powers that passed Ted Kord over and made Jaime into an alien war machine? Those weren’t brought in until later. You can read more about Garrett at Comics 101.

Ted Kord first arrived in Captain Atom #83 (1966) as a backup story. Without a mention of who he is or where he came from, he makes his first attempt at foiling some criminals. As far as the fighting goes, he does well until they toss some kind of bomb thing at him. At first they attempt to unmask him, but then figure they’ll just shoot him and kill him there. They nix that plan when the police arrive. Blue Beetle gets back to his feet, gets into his Bug aircraft, catches the criminals’ car and delivers it to the police.

The current Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes, makes himself known in Infinite Crisis #3 (2005), which may be the most recent comic to ever show up in this series of articles. After the events of Day of Vengeance, the beetle scarab that gave Dan Garrett his superpowers years ago has ended up in the middle of El Paso. The Shadowpact and Superman both try to help out in that area as buildings fall apart and random explosions happen. Unknown to them, Jaime notices something on the ground.

This scene would be revisited in the Blue Beetle series, without the red sky and extra superheroes in the background. Apparently a lack of communication, says series writer John Rogers.

BLUE DEVIL

Fury of Firestorm #24 (1984)

“The costume makes the man? MAN! WHAT A COSTUME!”

In this backup story, Dan Cassidy, a stuntman and special effects wiz, has finished making a blue devil exoskeleton for a movie he’s working on. Already, the media thinks it’s stupid to waste all that potential on something as trivial as movie stunt work. The star of the movie, Wayne Tarrant, wears a mockup to film a scene while Cassidy readies the stunt suit elsewhere.

Flash villain the Trickster arrives and kidnaps Tarrant, believing that he is Cassidy and that he is wearing the high-tech Blue Devil costume. He wants the costume for himself. Cassidy finds out that Tarrant has been kidnapped, suits up and goes after the Trickster. Unfortunately, the trident that allows him flight needs an awful lot of work. The Trickster is surprised by how weak his captive is and unmasks him to find that it isn’t Cassidy after all. The real Blue Devil appears behind him.

The two fight back and forth with Blue Devil getting the win. True to his namesake, the Trickster sneaks off and gets away thanks to Blue Devil’s continuing difficulty in flying. The issue ends with Cassidy believing that his costume was a failure. His friends seem optimistic, knowing that Cassidy’s really going to just lock himself in a workshop and build on it for a while.

SASHA BORDEAUX

Detective Comics #751 (2000)

The title character in Checkmate was once Bruce Wayne’s personal bodyguard. Of course her first appearance would be her job interview. Lucius Fox does the interview and gives her the job.

Bruce is less than thrilled with the idea, but Lucius believes it’s necessary considering all the craziness that’s been going on in Bruce’s life. Blackmailed with Lucius’ resignation, Bruce has no choice but to accept. He talks with Sasha briefly before faking a trip to the bathroom so he can change into Batman and go fight Poison Ivy and her army of half-naked teenagers.

BOOM BOOM

Secret Wars II #5 (1985)

Now known as Tabitha Smith in Nextwave, she’s quite the opposite from her teammate Elsa. You see, Elsa was originally hot. Tabitha on the other hand…

Don’t worry, 1980’s. I still love you.

Tabitha sees the Beyonder mentally dismantle a train and thinks he’s a mutant like her. She follows him around and befriends him, not realizing what kind of power she’s really associating with. The Beyonder leaves her behind at first, but finds that he’s infatuated with her. He tries to mend their relationship, but his wacky cosmic behavior scares Tabitha and she demands to be left alone. She later summons the Beyonder so that the Avengers and X-Men can beat him down. Feeling betrayed by his one friend, the Beyonder doesn’t even fight back. He just lets them beat him up and then leaves the scene.

BOOSTER GOLD

Booster Gold #1 (1986)

Known at the first character to be created after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Booster Gold’s origin and beginnings aren’t part of his first issue. As we first see him, he’s already a successful superhero and is beloved by Metropolis. The main story of the issue is how some crappy super-villains have stolen some device. Booster fails in stopping them. His agent Dirk Davis talks of how this will ruin Booster’s image, but Booster shows that he does still care about the people he protects.

A fun quirk that showed up in Booster’s early days was his difficulty in getting modern-day dialect right. He’d always get certain sayings wrong and have Skeets correct him (“Here’s mud in your ear!” “Mud in your eye, sir.” “Right. Like I said.”). Looking back at the hints they dropped before revealing his origin, I’d be interested in seeing what the speculation was like back then.

SLAM BRADLEY

Detective Comics #1 (1937)

Catwoman’s baby’s granddaddy actually showed up before even Superman in the pages of Detective Comics #1. Reading through the issue, I couldn’t believe how boring it was. Without superheroes, it was just a bunch of cops and spies who did nothing but stand around and talk. Almost no action. Then, all of the sudden, I get to the finale story with Slam Bradley beating the piss out of a bunch of offensive Chinese stereotypes for probably no reason whatsoever.

A police officer shows up and tells the freelance detective about a new job. Slam goes to his office to meet uptight rich bitch Rita Carlisle, who wants Slam to watch her prize poodle for her. Instead, he slams his fist onto his desk and screams, “JUMPIN’ BLUE BLAZES! Is this what I was dragged out of a good fight for?”

He gives the job to his annoying wannabe partner Shorty. Shorty is soon in over his head when Ms. Carlisle is kidnapped by some more Chinese stereotypes. He calls up Slam for help and it’s obvious that there’s nothing Slam Bradley wants more than to pound his fists into some Chinese dude’s face. The guy is seriously messed up, but in a pretty awesome way.

I swear, he’s like the Golden Age Brock Samson.

Slam and Shorty team up and take care of the criminals. Rita Carlisle falls for Slam, but he just shoves her aside. No dame is going to stop him from his career of terrorizing those damned Asian bastards.

BRAIN

Doom Patrol #86 (1964)

The story here is mainly about the Doom Patrol fighting off Rog, a giant robot piloted by the evil Dr. Morden. Incidentally, Rog would later show up in an episode of the Justice League cartoon (the freakish little boy conjured him up in the Justice Guild episode). Morden causes a disaster that the Doom Patrol must deal with, giving him the easy escape. Later, he is blindfolded and allowed an audience with the mysterious criminal known as the Brain.

Brain doesn’t really do much in the issue. His plans for Rog fail when the robot is defeated by Elastic Girl in a clash of giants.

BRAINIAC

Action Comics #242 (1958)

Before Brainiac was some kind of advanced android thing, he was really just a green Lex Luthor from space. Clark, Lois and some other reporters are brought onboard an experimental spacecraft on a test run, only to notice a UFO approaching.

Superman can’t do a thing against Brainiac, what with Brainiac’s overly-powerful force fields. Brainiac uses a device to shrink various Earth cities and put them in bottles. He wants to use them in order to later repopulate his home planet and rule with an iron fist. Superman fakes defeat and returns to Metropolis, knowing that Brainiac will get around to shrinking that city as well. The miniature Superman discovers that the Kryptonian city Kandor has also been shrunken at one point. Working under Brainiac’s nose, Superman returns and reverts all of the shrunken cities. There is only enough juice in Brainiac’s device for one more use and Superman decides he’ll use it on Kandor. Instead, a shrunken scientist from the tiny city uses the ray on Superman first. Earth needs Superman.

Our hero then sneaks off with Kandor, hoping to one day return it to its normal size. Good luck with that.

BRAINIAC 5

Action Comics #276 (1961)

There’s a fucking ridiculous story in this issue about Supergirl fighting an army of tiny Supermen, but thank God that has nothing to do with the Brainiac 5 introduction. Instead, in another story, Supergirl is visited by three girls from the Legion of Superheroes. They take her to the future and induct her into the team. There’s a rule that every year involves the induction of both a boy and a girl. With Supergirl out of the way, who’s the boy?

Supergirl puts on a smile, but thinks that there’s no way this Brainiac 5 guy is on the up and up. A random kryptonite meteor falls to Earth and the two save each other’s lives. Supergirl trusts her new teammate, but rejects his offer to stay in the future as his girlfriend. She goes back home and ponders about how nobody would believe that she has two boyfriends: a merman and a green-skinned guy from the distant future.

BROOD

Uncanny X-Men #155 (1982)

The X-Men are taken aboard a Shi’ar spaceship and are given news that Lilandra’s been captured. Xavier and the rest go back home to figure out a way to get through this, going as far as visiting Avengers Mansion. Kitty Pryde and Nightcrawler are left on-board, where Kitty uses a clothing device to dress herself like Darth Vader. Seriously.

Back on Earth, Death Bird talks with what we find out to be a Brood creature about their alliance in killing the X-Men. Death Bird goes for the direct approach, but the Brood creature keeps its distance.

Wolverine ends up killing the alien while showing respect for the creature’s admirable fighting ability. Other creatures arrive and the X-Men fight back. Somehow, Colossus gets impaled by a metal pole while in human form.

BROTHER BLOOD

New Teen Titans #21 (1986)

The main story here deals with Cheshire fighting the Titans and revealing to Roy Harper that she had his baby. Cheshire works for a secret cult, who for reasons yet to be revealed, have kidnapped both Raven and her mother. We only get to see one quick appearance of this Teen Titans villain.

He’s the guy in the cloak, by the way.

HARVEY BULLOCK

Detective Comics #441 (1974)

Bullock only makes a quick appearance to start off the story. He heads a hostage negotiation, with neither he nor the criminal noticing as Batman sneaks out of a manhole and attacks. Batman brings out the criminal and hands him over to the police.

That’s about it, really.

BULLSEYE

Daredevil #131 (1975)

A bit into the issue, we see a poor sap receive a paper airplane through the window. And I mean through the window, as in it was thrown hard enough to break the glass. Thinking it’s some kind of sick joke, he reads the message.

“Pay me $100,000 or I will kill you!! – Bullseye”

Daredevil investigates, but doesn’t find much at first. Reporter Jake Conover finds him and tells him what he knows. Jake has plenty of secret criminal informants, so he knows all about Bullseye. He doesn’t know who he really is, but he knows about the guy’s descent into madness. Bullseye was in Vietnam, affected by each enemy he killed. He remained gung-ho as a soldier and was one day cornered by an enemy. Bullseye was out of ammo, so he just tossed his gun and miraculously killed him. After the war, Bullseye became a mercenary in Africa. Now he’s making a name for himself in the underworld.

As Daredevil leaves, a grenade gets tossed his way to get his attention. He finds Bullseye, but the criminal isn’t ready to fight yet. Instead, he lets Daredevil chase him until they reach a dark environment. Daredevil realizes where they are, but is confused. Bullseye has the lights turned on all the way so that everybody in the circus can play audience in the first ever Daredevil vs. Bullseye fight.

So, yeah, he kind of over-did it with the size of the forehead logo.

BUMBLEBEE

Teen Titans #45 (1976)

Mal Duncan is in for a lot of trouble, involved with gang fights and stuff like that. As an aside, he talks to his girlfriend.

And that’s the name of that tune! Okay. To draw this entry out a bit, her big plan was to become Bumblebee (she’s a scientist, she can do that) and attack the Teen Titans, thereby making Mal look better. Once she came clean, they let her join the team.

In two weeks: Sweet Christmas, that’s a lot of Captains!

Related posts

• Contents (1)
• Comics vs. Cartoons: A Look at Diniverse Designs (5)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: The Finale (7)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 14 (7)
• The Top 100 What If Countdown: Part 12 (8)

Sorry for being a week late. The holidays drained me faster than a three-way with Rogue and Parasite. …Please pretend I didn’t just say that.

THE BEYONDER

Secret Wars II #1 (1985)

We start out with another iffy entry. The Beyonder was present during the first Secret Wars. That’s obvious. It’s just that at no point did he actually appear. That didn’t happen until the horrifying sequel. We know him for his silly disco outfit, but that wasn’t what he originally showed up in.

I like it. We see him talking with the Molecule Man, who tries to explain things to him in a way that is admirably calm and casual. Molecule Man and Volcana send Beyonder on his way as he takes a more subtle form on his quest for experience. This form is of Molecule Man himself. He proceeds to turn a desk into apples, turns a fat television writer into a super-villain and then turns invisible and follows Captain America around for the hell of it.

BI-BEAST

Incredible Hulk #169 (1973)

Bi-Beast’s first appearance comes up in a weird story where Betty has transformed into this green bird demon called the Harpy. She and the Hulk are too deep in their violent, close-minded, green personas to realize who the other really is. Betty became the Harpy because of MODOK and all of them end up in some kind of cloud city (no Lando) and meet Bi-Beast.

Bi-Beast wins when the thin air makes Hulk revert to Banner. Bi-Beast is the last of some kind of race of bird people or something that I… Listen, this is a story about a giant head with tiny limbs and a two-headed Brock Lesner with one neck. It doesn’t have to make sense. The only reason I decided to cover the guy was so I could post this gag from Twisted Toy Theater.

The issue ends with Bruce finding a way to revert Betty back to her human form. The framing and cropping of the panels after this obviously point out that she’s supposed to be naked and the final panels show the floor crumbling as the two begin to freefall. Curious, I checked the next issue to find Betty suddenly wearing a torn dress in mid-air. Oh, you wacky Silver Age, Comics Code and dude writing yourself in a corner.

BIBBO BIBBOWSKI

Adventures of Superman #428 (1987)

Superman, looking for information, goes to Suicide Slums and enters a rather seedy bar. There he meets the man who I regard as my favorite Superman supporting character. Suck it, Jimmy.

On the next page, Bibbo apologizes and shows his respect for how tough Superman is by offering him a drink. Though Superman ignores him, Bibbo would later become one of Superman’s most memorable fans.

Interesting thing I read is that at one time, Bibbo denounced his admiration of Superman in transition to Lobo, who had recently brawled with the Man of Steel. I find this pretty amusing, considering Brad Garrett voiced both Bibbo and Lobo on the Superman animated series with little vocal difference.

BIG BARDA

Mister Miracle #4 (1971)

Big Barda, the amazon hotty of Apokalips, doesn’t look so good when drawn by Jack Kirby. She first shows up to visit her old friend and love interest Scott Free, only to find Oberon.

Hearing that Scott is off fighting Doctor Bedlam, Barda leaves, believing that Scott is doomed. She doesn’t realize that Mr. Miracle has already won that battle. Instead, she joins him in a different challenge, against a bunch of civilians hypnotized into trying to kill Scott. Scott considers her a good friend at first, but by the end of the story, when Barda is casually walking around the house in a bikini-looking outfit, Scott and Oberon finally see her in a different light.

“Whoever made that gal wear a uniform should be horse-whipped!”

BISHOP

Uncanny X-Men #282 (1991)

Trevor Fitzroy, time traveler and all-around ass, comes to the present and battles the X-Men. He controls some Sentinels, but they prove worthless. He continues to use his powers to create time rifts to bring in more opponents for the X-Men. Finally, Fitzroy’s arch-nemesis catches up with him.

Had I been following the series at that time, I do believe I would be officially pumped. I would only be able to speculate what the hell was going on, but I’d still know that angry, facially-scarred, time-traveling black dudes with mullets are not something you take lightly.

BIZARRO

Superboy #68 (1958)

Bizarro’s always been 50% comedy that tries to cover up the 50% tragedy. The first incarnation of Bizarro was definitely on the tragic side. Superboy visits his friend Professor Dalton, who has invented a cloning ray. The two experiment by trying to clone radium and jewelry, but the invention is a dud. While it does create matter, the end results are far from perfect. Dalton slips and accidentally hits Superboy with the ray. On the floor, they find an unmoving clone of Superboy. Dalton doesn’t think of it as being alive, so he figures they’ll just throw him away later.

Bizarro tries to make friends with people, but they all run and scream because he’s a retarded mutant. Even Superboy, rather than reason with his clone, tries to destroy him. Once shunned by Martha Kent, Bizarro falls into a deep depression until meeting a young girl Melissa who doesn’t seem too horrified by his appearance. Instead, she compliments him on his kind voice. Bizarro, now with a friend, feels optimistic. Like usual Bizarro stories, his inability to control himself causes more headaches for Smallville and pushes Superboy’s resolve to kill him. The prick.

Bizarro sees Melissa fall into an obvious puddle and comes to realize that the only reason she’s been so kind to him is because she’s blind. Bizarro loses all hope and allows Superboy to blow him up. The explosion causes Melissa to regain her sight. Whether or not Bizarro planned that is up in the air.

No backwards-speak, if you’re wondering.

BLACK ADAM

Marvel Family #1 (1945)

Captain Marvel wasn’t the first errand boy for Shazam. Long ago, back in ancient Egypt, Teth Adam was given the abilities of several Egyptian gods. The power soon corrupted him and Shazam had no choice but to send him light years away. 5,000 years pass and Black Adam makes his return to Earth.

I tell you. The more things change…

A big brawl with Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. ends when Captain Marvel tricks Adam into saying “Shazam”. This reverts him to his human form and kills him via suddenly aging 5,000 years. So, in essence, Captain Marvel was pulling that kind of shit decades before Miracle Man.

BLACK BOLT

Fantastic Four #45 (1965)

Johnny Storm comes across Crystal, who is really secretive about herself until finding out that Johnny also has powers. She brings him to meet the other Inhumans, though Johnny has already met a couple. Via previous adventures, he has bad blood between Medusa and Gorgon. Things escalate and the rest of the Fantastic Four are brought in, while the Inhumans make a couple mentions of a leader named Black Bolt. Reed warns the others that they should be careful as they don’t truly know what they’re up against.

The secret is that his middle name is Francine. That doesn’t come up in continuity very often.

BLACK CANARY

Flash Comics #86 (1947)

Dinah Drake makes her first appearance by seducing the nutty Johnny Thunder.

In this amusing little story, Black Canary is shown to be a criminal that only steals from other criminals. She, Johnny and Johnny’s genie Thunderbolt take on “Socks” Slade, who… “Socks” Slade. Sorry, I just can’t get over that. The story ends with Johnny infatuated with the blond bombshell and Thunderbolt yelling at him about how tired he is of seeing superheroes falling in love with hot villainesses.

This is where it gets tricky. An Earth-2 version of Dinah joined the Justice League in the pages of Justice League of America #75 (1969). Somehow she accidentally causes the creation of evil Justice League doubles. Like so.

After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, this story was retconned so that this was really Dinah Lance, the original’s daughter. I guess. I have a hard time keeping the old Crisis retcons straight. I’m just going to leave this entry here. The more I read about the Black Canary history, the more brain matter leaks from my ears.

BLACK CAT

Amazing Spider-Man #194 (1979)

Black Cat’s first appearance is what you’d expect. She’s a thief and Spider-Man’s trying to catch her. Though I guess the part where Spider-Man shoves his foot up Black Cat’s ass isn’t exactly expected. In only her first appearance, we already get a little hint at their destined romance.

Every time Spider-Man tries to catch her, she causes bad luck to get in his way. This includes the end of the issue, where a prison wall collapses onto Spider-Man and the new villainess rubs it in.

BLACK KNIGHT

Avengers #47 (1967)

Here we’re dealing with the main Black Knight. There’s a legacy with him and those with the same mantle, but I don’t really care. Dane Whitman appears in this issue, thinking about his uncle, who used the Black Knight guise for evil. It isn’t until the next issue that we finally see Whitman in his new costume.

Rather than try to prove his worth, he instead decides to seek out the Avengers so they can help rescue Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch from Magneto’s clutches. Hawkeye, being Hawkeye, reacts at Black Knight by launching an arrow. Things go badly from here. Once everyone’s calmed down, Black Knight tells them where Pietro and Wanda are. Unfortunately, Magneto’s already left and took his prisoners with him. Black Knight asks to help stop him, but Hank Pym asks him to sit it out since they don’t know anything about him. Black Knight gets offended and leaves the three to face Magneto alone.

BLACK LIGHTNING

Black Lightning #1 (1977)

Black Lightning, the Superfriend that never was, appeared in his own series before being introduced anywhere else. Jefferson Pierce returns to his old neighborhood to find the criminal syndicate The 100 taking control. He tries to fight back and it ends with the death of a young friend of his. With the help of a tailor and a belt that gives him electric powers, he gets his revenge as Black Lightning.

That afro is part of the mask, by the way. That gets a laugh and head-shake out of me.

I’ll never forget the first time I was introduced to Black Lightning, courtesy of comedian and SNL host Sinbad.

BLACK MANTA

Aquaman #35 (1967)

Though this issue is Black Manta’s first appearance, he and Aquaman don’t act like it. The two make it seem like they’ve been at each other’s throats for years. Black Manta rides his underwater vessel towards Atlantis in order to poison the water and make the area unlivable. Aquaman simply stops this by injecting all of his people with a serum that makes them able to breathe air. Of course!

Aquaman then gets into an adventure against his half-brother the Ocean Master. Since Aquababy saves Ocean Master’s life, the villain feels he owes it to save Aquaman from Black Manta’s next murder attempt.

Black Manta’s always had the unfortunate fate of being an Aquaman villain. Considering his neat appearance and cool-as-ice voice from Superfriends, that’s a shame.

BLACK MASK

Batman #386 (1985)

“Crazier than the Joker! Deadlier than Ra’s al Ghul! Introducing a villain for the ‘80s! BLACK MASK!”

The issue goes over Black Mask’s origin, showing him as being Bruce Wayne gone horribly wrong. His life is filled with trauma that reaches a peak when he runs the family business into the ground by going ahead with an experimental make-up product rather than fully test it first. He would later use that make-up to bond an ebony mask to his face and start a reign of terror as the Black Mask.

While this is indeed his first appearance, I can’t help but think that they were trying to incorporate False Face from the old 1960’s Batman show into the comics. There’s also a bit later in the comic that is obviously based on that Twilight Zone episode, “The Masks”.

BLACK PANTHER

Fantastic Four #52 (1966)

I always expected that Black Panther’s first showing would be one of those cliché stories where the Fantastic Four would wander into Wakanda peacefully and get attacked for intruding. Not the case here. Instead, the Wakanda government gives Reed Richards a sweet new plane in exchange for coming to Wakanda, meeting Chief T’Challa and taking part in a ceremonial hunt. The Fantastic Four and Wyatt Wingfoot (or as I call him, Wyatt the Blandest Comic Character to Ever Exist) take him up on the offer.

I’m sure you can guess the invitation’s real meaning.

Oof. Those kicks can in no way be hurting Johnny and Ben enough to warrant that kind of self-inflicted pain. Black Panther uses a bunch of contingencies to take apart the Fantastic Four one at a time. When it seems like he’s going to defeat Reed, the others come back to team up on him. Wyatt Wingfoot (or as I call him, Super Snore) had released them all from their prisons, showing that Black Panther spent all his time planning against the superheroes and none planning against the ordinary guy. The issue ends with a cliffhanger, where T’Challa is about to explain his actions.

BLACK PIRATE

Action Comics #23 (1940)

Kind of an odd choice to put on the list, but Jon Valor, the Black Pirate, had a fantastic role in Starman. I didn’t even realize he was an established character until coming across him in the DC Encyclopedia.

The story here is pretty short. A pirate crew kills a boat full of people. There’s one woman left to kill. The Black Pirate swings his way down.

Despite the odds, he fights off a bunch of pirates, though declares that he only wants to swashbuckle their captain. Before he can, the damsel in distress jumps into the water to escape. Valor tries to go after her, but finds nothing. He swims to a nearby island and camps out while the pirates dock.

Reading this gives me Watchmen flashbacks. We’ll revisit this issue of Action Comics later. A certain major villain also debuted here.

BLACK RACER

New Gods #3 (1971)

The issue here has surprisingly little to do with Orion, despite he being the main character and this being so early on. The Black Racer stalks Lightray through space and has him cornered. All of the sudden, the Black Racer vanishes. Metron has saved Lightray at the last second by teleporting Black Racer away with a boom tube.

Black Racer ends up on Earth and feels that it is because of destiny. Some members of Intergang shoot down a man on the streets. They discover a man in a window, Willie Walker. Walker, a Vietnam vet, is in almost a vegetative state. Since he did see the shooting, the criminal Suger-Man decides to put him out of his misery. The Black Racer stops him from firing and lets Suger-Man escape. The Racer believes that destiny has called for Walker to become the new Black Racer. He gives his power to Walker and reduces himself to dust. Walker, now able to walk and talk, puts on the Black Racer’s armor and understands what he has become.

Those were the days. These days, you leave a pair of skis laying around the sidewalk for a minute, you get them stolen. Even if you have the Club.

The new Black Racer proceeds to hunt down and kill Suger-Man. He returns to his bed to rest, reverting to his vegetative Willie Walker appearance so nobody suspects a thing.

Speaking of black dudes with ridiculous appearances…

BLACK TALON

Strange Tales #173 (1974)

Brother Voodoo is going around, trying to find his kidnapped girlfriend Loralee. She was taken after Voodoo got the snot kicked out of him by some guys in blue robes. He tracks them down and gets the snot rekicked out of him. He awakens to find Loralee alive, but perhaps not for long. Voodoo sees his new foe step forward.

Then he probably proceeded to laugh his ass off. Then Black Talon probably fell over because those feet cannot be easy to walk on.

BLACK TOM

Uncanny X-Men #99 (1976)

Black Tom is yet another character who didn’t make a full appearance first time around. As we see, he’s obscured by the rain and perspective. Two issues later, he would make his first full appearance, with Juggernaut in tow. Why they felt the need to make him so mysterious is beyond me. We already knew that he was Banshee’s cousin. The only surprise to come out of his first true appearance was the revelation that he has a beard.

BLACK WIDOW

Tales of Suspense #52 (1964)

Black Widow is one of two agents sent by the commies to go take care of Iron Man. Her partner, a rather large guy by the name of Boris, is given the mission to steal the Crimson Dynamo armor, currently in the possession of Stark. When Natasha first sees who’s she’s up against, she thinks, “Hmm… That Anthony Stark is handsome as well as wealthy! He will make an interesting assignment for the Black Widow!”

I know hindsight is 20/20, but it’s hard to read this and wonder how people were surprised by Natasha’s actions in Ultimates.

Black Widow does indeed turn on Iron Man, but Iron Man’s helped by Anton Vanko, the original Crimson Dynamo. Anton destroys the new Crimson Dynamo; an act that ends his own life in the process. In the confusion, Black Widow sneaks off. Tony Stark decides it would be a waste of time to chase her down. After all, where can she go? She can either pay for her crimes of failure or go on the run. The last we see is Black Widow sadly walking the streets in an attempt to escape punishment.

In two weeks: Ladies from Nextwave, drunken cops and the Laurel and Hardy of the Justice League.

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