Charlton VS Mighty MLJ

Friday, March 11, 2011

Action-Heroes in a Parallel Universe

What may have been in a parallel universe, had DC Comics published the Action-Heroes in the mid to late 1960s rather than Charlton.

When you get down to it, some stark realities reveal themselves through this exercise:

  • All of these characters except one (Adam Strange) were principally defined by the teams they joined.
  • Two had their own self-titled comics (Atom and Karate Kid...although Strange had a mini-series later).
  • All were all zapped by energies (Thunderbolt/solar/Zeta/White Dwarf/chronological) which sent them to unexpected locales throughout the multiverse. 
  • All of them were B-level characters that shined most when they were underestimated by those around them.
And all of them are near spitting images of their brethren over at Derby, if form if not always in substance.

3 comments:

Rip Jagger said...

Hah! I love this redesign. That's my favorite all-time comic book ad, and it's great to see the classic played with. Good show.

Rip Off

Doppelgänger said...

Thanks Rip it was fun to put it together... it was an idea in the back of my mind as to a "what if" scenario with DC in the drivers seat at Derby. :)

Doc Savage said...

Atom was hardly "defined" by his team, much less a B-lister. He had his own title for quite a long time and had the good fortune of fantastic Gil Kane art.