Charlton Meets MLJ Week: Dancing Duet

Looks like Acrobat is schooling Mr. J on jamming to an old groove! Mr. J is doing his best Bill Cosby-steps, apparently.

Obscure Character Quiz #1: Answers Await!

Which of these female fitness phenoms took down the lawless with their estrogen power-packed muscles while aiding...

Mr. Muscles' gal Friday was Miss Muscles (this one was really not AT ALL hard). She had the same problem as the Mister... rivals jealous of her bod.

Ms. Samson was a female body builder working out in the same gym as Steel Sterling, and competed alongside him for a role in a Hollywood movie. Turns out they picked Steel AND Samson, and during a drive out west the two fell in lust.

Who was the scientist and who the historian of this "spooky" pair?

Anton Piper was a historian who thanks to a moonstone transformed into the time traveling Spookman (not all that Spooky) and helped burn down ancient Rome!

Paul Morse was a scientist who learned to transform himself into a silver age variant of Mr. Justice. Not at all connected (aside from costume and abilities) with the 1940's version, it would seem.

 

Of these two synthetic humans, which was known as the Shape and which as the Shadow?

The Shape was the yellow and black clad being designed to replicate any... well... shape. He aided lad Kevin Boyd on a tale involving some spies and then disappeared into the night, while hunted down by Kevin's uncle who was Shape's demented creator.

Bonus question: Which of these androids was replicated in the same issue?
 
This would be the answer to question #3 and the bonus question. The Blue Shadow was spawned by the evil organization known as P.E.R.I.L. to defeat the Shield, and almost succeeded until Shield used the same device to create a Red Shadow to combat his Blue Brother. Then both just waded away!

Obscure Character Quiz #1

Which of these female fitness phenoms took down the lawless with their estrogen power-packed muscles while aiding...

Steel Sterling?

Mr. Muscles?

Who was the scientist and who the historian of this "spooky" pair?

 

Of these two synthetic humans, which was known as the Shape and which as the Shadow? 

Bonus question: Which of these androids was replicated in the same issue?

Team-Up Tuesdays: Ancient Adversaries Attacked!

We carry on with our review on the battle between the Mighty Crusaders and their foe the Nameless One, in their self-titled issue #5, and Golden Pharaoh's battle with Peacemaker in an unpublished adventure.

So let's get started:

Well how do you like that? It was a rival villain, Spider-Spry, that unseated Nameless' plans, it left the door open for nigh-omnipotent Mr. Justice to turn the tables on the mastermind's power neutralizer and give the Crusaders/Terrific Three/Ultra-Men their powers back! And for the dynamic duo of Peacemaker and his lovely assistant, it was Nora who ultimately tipped the scales on the Pharaoh and left him and his criminal empire in ruins. Despite all their high tech gadgets and strategies, they were no better against our incredible Team-Ups!

Sideline Sundays: E-nimals Week - The Other Action Heroes

Our focus for "E"-nimals week are Jaguar and E-Man. Huh? What do THESE two have in common. Surprisingly....oodles... which we'll get to tomorrow. For now, let's see some of the characters who are on the periphery of our heroic pair's adventures. See, are red-clad raiders were never all that sociable with the hero set, at least not at first. Still, the pair had some interactions with the Action Heroes.

From this initial outing alongside fellow members of the Terrific Three, Mister Justice and Steel Sterling, it is quite evident that he doesn't have to much respect for Justice and is very defensive of the Man of Steel. Maybe that's why this triumphant triad didn't last nor worked together again (until decades later, with scores of other heroes against a legion of larcenists). While in his solo tales jag seems amiable enough with fellow scientists and damsels in distress, with fellow "Type A" adventurers he didn't seem to play nice. This is evident when he next joins a super-set.

No that's not Jaguar all nice and close with the Web, that's just the weird way he carries his fly-less friend to an assemblage of the Mighty Crusaders. The Web ended up being Jaguar's brother-in-law, since he married Jag's sister Rose. She wasn't partial to Web risking his life in his colorful alias, but didn't seem to care much about brother Ralph prancing around in his feline fashions. And if his mama thought that John "the Web" Raymond" was a double-daring nut, imagine what she would have thought of her own flesh and blood doing far more dangerous stunts... battling wild beast and deadly aliens! We see where Jag got his feisty nature!

While another team mate (and Web's close confidant Doc Reeves) felt some tension between Jaguar and himself, Darkling sensed the animal avenger had the noblest spirit of any man she had ever met in all her dimensional traveling. He felt more at home with the animal kingdom.

In the above picture we see a melding of various Charlton Action Heroes, perhaps the only appearance he ever had with his fellow action aces. Note the impression he made on Blue Beetle, and the one Captain Atom made on him. Alas, in the publishing universe of Charlton, very rarely did any of its characters "play friendly" with one another, especially with E-Man who arrived several years after his fellow heroes (aside from Yang) had already left for comic book limbo. The did operate simultaneously for a brief period in the early to mid 1970s during the Charlton Bullseye's run.

On one other occasion, Mr. Alec Tronn aka E-Man was shown alongside Captain Atom (off panel) and the Blue Beetle (well his Bug, anyway). Okay, they WERE parade floats... but still that cements some acknowledgment that these characters played in the same fictional sandbox. And for Charlton, this was about as good as it got on most occasions!  Unlike Jaguar, E-Man generally had a friendly nature to all whom he met, yet he still preferred operating (with one or two notable exceptions, considered in a couple days) solo. Maybe that was due to being a disembodied sentient manifestation of energy floating through space for aeons? Could be, guess we'd have to ask him when we see him.

That's all for the outer ring of our duo's universe, so to speak. Tomorrow we get into the nitty gritty on what makes these two tick and why they are so unique. We'd love to see more published about each of them at some point in the future!

Hump-Day Humour: A Teenager's Breakthrough!

This solicit for a new feature in Jackpot comics was the beginning of the end for the MLJ back of mystery men. Humour would soon rule the day, thanks in large measure to the hijinks of one red haired teenager. Subsequent covers and ads would frequently pair Archie with this publisher's premier hero, the Shield, over in Pep Comics. This might help to break up the lengthy career of the Riverdale gang, with Archie and friends' 1940s-50s adventures on the same Earth as the Mighty heroes, and the modern versions on a separate universe (see Archie's Weird Mysteries #3 that shows this in detail). We were laughing, and so were the publishers all the way to the bank, but were the heroes? Don't think so.

Team-Up Tuesdays: Phenomenal Phantoms

Teams we've previously considered, the Mighty Crusaders as well as Captain Atom with Nightshade, met the key players in this week's post. Two men, Walt Whitney and Alex Rios,  aka Bob Phantom and the Ghost, discovered  the means  to teleport  from place to place instantaneously, seemingly appearing as phantoms when they did appear (hence their aliases). While the Ghost used technology in his glove, Bob Phantom used other means never described, although the end results were the same.

Both worked alongside gangs of confederates, although one was a powerful ally the other was a persistent adversary. This resulted in mixed results when interacting with the superhero set, as can be seen below from April 1966's Mighty Crusaders #4 (and then 1983's Mighty Crusaders #3 v2) in the third panel )and June 1967's Captain Atom #96, respectively:

As you no doubt have observed, this pair never quite got along with their fellow men and women in tights. The latter appearence of Bob Phantom was as mindless replica for the madman Eterno, while Alec Rios inbetween battles with Captain Atom and Nightsshade befriended their civilian identities, none the wiser. Both were social butterflies outside of their longjohns, as Rios was a rich playboy and Whitney was  a gossip columnist on Broadway. This affable nature never quite translated into their costumed lives, however Although the Ghost was soon adopted into an alien tribe of women from Sunaria who believed he was their Faceless One...long ago disappearing, although there are definite visual differences. Which reminds one of Bob Phantom's fellow phantom mystery man, Mister Justice of the Terrific Three, an ancient crusader tied to legends of lore.

Bob Phantom would eventually join the Mighty Crusaders at the dawn of a new century, while Ghost disappeared once his Sunuria kingdom was destroyed by its high priestesss (a tale for another Team-Up Tuesdays).

Team-up Tuesdays: Steeler Sundays Crossover!

During our last installment, we witnessed the dramatic confrontation between a mind-controlled Sarge Steel attempting to arrest the Sensational Sentinels, and of  singled-minded Steel Sterling's desperate attempt to join the Mighty Crusaders! Let's pick up where we left off, in the next issues of Thunderbolt #58 and Mighty Crusaders #5, respectively:

Steel Sterling allies himself with two other Crusader rejects to form the Terrific Three, and then immediately awakens the ire of the always cantankerous Jaguar over his flippant sense of humour. As the story progresses, they kiss and make up, with Mister Justice primarily focused on the task at hand...fly to the aid of the Crusaders and a 2nd group of  Crusader rejects, the Web, Fox and Captain Flag (that make up the Ultra-Men...you would think that a team of MJ, Jag and Steel would be THE Ultra-Men! Oh well.)

Sarge found himself on the wrong side of the Sentinels, as his  verbal attempt at apprehending the aspiring heroic team was thwarted by the vast mind might of Mentalia. This quickly led to his departure from the strip, as rapidly as he had  just appeared. Yep, no fuss, no muss. Apparently the master villian that sent him, Mind-Bender, knew the Sarge had the stuff necessary to defeat this terrific trio of Charltonians.

Neither Sarge nor Sterling appeared alongside heroic teams following these adventures, at least during the silver age. Apparently they operated best as solo stallions of steel  (sorry) Sarge's appearance served to tie the Sensational Sentinels into the main Charlton universe. Meanwhile, picking up on a thread from last week relating to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, they had an unpublished meeting with the Mighty Crusaders tying them into their universe. Later, the Agents met another heroic Thunder , a Bunny!

But that is another story for another time. Next week, we revisit the original five Crusaders and, well, the strangest assemblage of five costumed crusaders Charlton ever produced...against a stranger foe!

Steeler Sundays: Team-up Tuesdays Crossover!

This week we have a MEGA crossover of massive proportions, as Steeler Sundays and Team-up Tuesdays will chronicle the EPIC clash of our Steelers against the premier teams of Charlton and Mighty, the Mighty Crusaders and the Sensational Sentinels!

First, we catch up with the Sentinels after their battle with the android minion of Mind-Bender, Titan! It appears the Sentinels malignant mental malefactor sent another pawn to bring down the aspiring heroes, our very own Sarge Steel. Here is a rare CIA cover (he used so many over the course of his career), Sarge attempts to bring in the crew:

 

Elsewhere, the Mighty Crusaders are suffering a crisis of their own, as their acclaim as they are now world famous in their exploits, which caused virtually every costumed hero to petition for membership. Including our very own Steel Sterling, who was a trooper at first when his his number one peep, Mister Justice, swallowed a bullet for him, but now is a bit antsy over his competition joining the Crusaders leading to this tiff:

Looks like the Web can take on Sterling in a one-on-one. What becomes of our misguided Men of Steel? Will they cause further anxiety for their fellow do-gooders? Will they play nice come next issue? This we will discover in the next installment of our EPIC crossover, over on Team-up Tuesdays!