World's Wickedest Wednesdays: Ancient Adversaries Again!

The World's Wrinkly-est is more like it... as in King Kull the ancient Beast Man who's technological yet savage race was defeated in prehistoric times by the ingenuity of mankind. Awakening from suspended animation, the master of ancient sciences and physical brutality tried to subjugate modern man until he faced the Big Red Cheese, aka Captain Marvel! After a dozen attempts in the early 1950's upon his revival, Kull lied dormant until such time as he could seek his revenge upon his foes the Marvel Family. After assembling various thugs from three Earths, his ultimate goal of securing the Rock of Eternity almost succeeded until his trio of triumphant terrors, Cap, Mary and Cap Jr aided the combined heroes in a final assault on their wizened old opponent. After which, he was never more than a pawn of another villain, be it Doctor Sivana or Mister Mind.

Over at Charlton' Earth-Four, a more evocative and eloquent elderly evil was on display there, as Evila was revived by the Hooded One and transformed into a modern day threat. However, after but one case she was aged to ancient dust by Peter Cannon the Thunderbolt!

True, both were hairy and, ahem, busty, but definitely you'll want Evila instead of smelly old Kull crashing your party.

Eterno was a brilliant ruler of ancient pre-deluge Atlantis who, much like King Kull, brought technology into a modern era to clash twice with the Mighty Crusaders.

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In 1954, aspiring comic book publisher Charlton purchased the rights to several prominent characters from the expiring Fawcett Comics, such as Ibis, Golden Arrow and Lance O'Casey. In 1980 and 1985, DC Comics purchase Fawcett's Marvel Family then Charlton's Action Heroes, and the two were linked once more, now on parallel Earths, Four and Shazam.Now the MLJ has been added to their stable of characters, we examine the parallels in this series.

Friday Fiends: Masters of Moods Materialize

Carrying on from our last Team-Up Tuesdays, let's dissect our two masters of moods and see who they are, how they first came into conflict with our heroes, and what awesome powers they display. Presenting Spectro and Eterno, the doctor and the tyrant, for your reading pleasure:

Interesting, both men not only possessed the power of mind control and vast energy displacement abilities, they each seemed to survive their own demise and reappear with armies of superpowered clones. Each also displayed an arrogant demeanor which left them defeated at the hands of Captain Atom and the Mighty Crusaders despite superior assets. Ah well...

Team-Up Tuesdays: Multiplying Mood Masters

The following neatly fits under both categories of Team-Up Tuesdays and Friday Fiends, as the arch-villians created small armies of like-minded pawns to do their bidding. Today we'll focus on the gangs they spawned to due their evil bidding against the good Captains, Strong and Adam (also known as Sheild and Captain Atom), and Friday we'll go back in time to witness their first appearences and origins.

Let's get started. Eterno the Tyrant first appeared in July 1966's issue of Fly-Man #32, and Doctor Spectro first appeared in Captain Atom #79. When they next appeared, in Mighty Crusaders #s 1-3 and Captain Atom #81, respectively, they seemingly returned from the dead. In actually, both escaped doom from their previous encounters with our heroes and sought revenge. Using their indominable mental force that bent men to their will, they spawned super powered costumed gangs...each sharing the mind of their masters directing their every action.

Here we see Eterno, in his Atlantean fortress, as he is about to commence transferring his mind into seven genetically engineered bodies with the goal of wiping the Crusaders off the face of the Earth! And so are formed, the Mighty (or Malevolent) Legion of Jaggernauts! And since you are what you eat, assuming these vegatable men are vegatarians, they're a litle green around the edges. They'll soon see that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

Doctor Spectro reconstitutes his energized form only to find that the master of moods is now in five individual bodies. Each manifests a slightly different personality or aspect of the original doctor, and they soon realize they need to reform in order to stand a chance at conquering the world as originally intended. Thankfully, they find a handy satellite base (decades ahead of time as to technological advancement) to investigate how they can become one.

Whether his reason for selecting these identities was a lack of originality, or to get under the skin of his old foes the Crusaders, Eterno the Tyrant selects a colorful brigade of classically clad minions to due his bidding. Each seems to display near limitless energy emitting powers and superhuman physical forms. Must be an organic diet, yes?

Captain Atom discovers that his old foe has returned with a vengence, and quickly realizes that he has his hand's full combatting the diminutive devils. This leaves hin scratching his head...not realizing that he actually is about to face not one or two but five Doctor Spectros shortly! How will he triumph over their superior numbers and single minded strategy? Or is Team Spectro more divisive internally than it seems?

The Malevolent Legion of Jaggernauts quickly track down the Crusaders whereabouts at the Shield's secret mountain headquarters, and bring their host a house present in the form of quick de-feet (ouch). It becomes quickly apparent to the assembled gathering of guardians that these unwelcomed guests are not their old allies but are something wicked! And possessed as if of one solitary mind guiding their every action. And with not an ounce of fear in any of these sinister solitary forms.

In a return match against Captain Atom, the Doctors Spectro combine their limitless energy against the human nuclear furnace. And they make some headway,  thanks to the tactics employed by the purple Spectro. His agenda, however, is different from his fellow Lilliputians...he actually is good and wants to assume dominant control over the reconstituted Doctor. He realizes the good he could perform once he assimilaties his fellow beings.

The Crusaders make quick work of the Legion of Veggies as they lose their power source...the sun...when the Comet's uses his spaceship's tractor beam to pull Eterno's raised city base Atantis away from Earth and into the sun. While the Crusaders are whisked away thanks to Darkling's teleportation abilities, the Jaggernauts themselves never return (although Eterno does return at the dawn of the next century to join other villians).

The Spectro Doctors bask in the glow of victory over the Atomic Captain, however right when they are to merge and become one sentient being, Cap throws a patented atomic fireball at their machine's control panel. The result? One Dr. Spectro remains, weakened and led away by the authorities. However, the purple persona murmurs to himself. Will he turn over a new leaf? Alas when a Crisis occurs, he is once more in the villain's camp.

Next on Friday Fiends, we dissect the secret origins of the masters of moods before they multiplied into the teams we just considered.

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).