Hump-Day Humour: Nothing to Sneeze At!

Sorry folks, we've gotten a bit behind and haven't had a Battling Blondes round lately. Fear not, for we'll return to the scheduled proceedings here in the next couple of weeks. Until then, if you're late to the game or even if you've been keeping up with the battle royale between Thunderbolt and the Web, here is a link to their previous duels for your enjoyment.

Team-Up Tuesdays: Silver-Age Showdowns

We continue our coverage of the final tale of the Mighty Crusaders and (pre-)Sentinels of Justice prior to their brief 1980's incarnations. Click on the following links to catch up on part one and part two. In part three, things go from bad to worse as we Shield, Comet, Black Hood, Captain Atom and Nightshade with their hands full handling out-of-this world menaces in Mighty Crusader #6 and Charlton Bullseye #1-2. Check it out:

The Comet, doing his best Tony Stark impersonation, leaps into action using his near limitless gadgets he always comes equipped with, to remove the ruthless rogue rapidly! Alas, the Secret Service here at the White House is indeed correct... the Terror Globes never return and so remains the mystery of their maddening methods of malevolent mighty! And we begin to see a pattern of disgruntled federal employees unappreciative of the  Crusaders services.

They sure cranked out some strange cronies in the Mightyverse, didn't they? Nothing scares Officer Burland, who had spent several years with nothing else to do but improve his crime fighting techniques. Still, he breaks from pattern and resorts to fisticuffs rather than his handy dandy weapondry he has used in the past. Once this sinister scarlet schemer is caught by the Man of Mystery, how will said Man fair in the eyes of local law enforcement? Will the Hood get credit , or get a swift kick in the ol' gluteus maximus?

The Ghost shows his true megalomaniacal demeanor as he finally has both us hated foes in the palm of his hands. Although the Sunurian's honr code causes them to heal Nightshade from her injuries, the Ghost realized he has a pawn for his arch-enemy. Yet after years of exile from Earth, with amble time to meditate on when he failed previously and how to guard himself against his arch-enemy, he underestimates Atom!

The old adage "divide then conquer" is approp as that is exactly how the Ghost, his Sunurian amazon troops, and Mighty Comic's many moronic maniacs cause each hero more trouble then they expected. While the Crusaders' are definitely not currying public sentiment to their cause, Cap and Shade are very much outnumbered as they're thrust into a bizarre world that disables them. How will are champions triumph? Tune in next week and we'll find out.

Licensed Legends: The Shadow Reviews The Phantom #30

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Sideline Sunday: Bewildering Bug Boys

"Behind every great man there is a great woman". So goes the famous adage. Here is another just coined, "Behind every great insect superhero is a mysterious dude wearing a funky hat". Okay, not quite as eloquent, but it is true in at least two instances: the Fly and Blue Beetle. Both received jewelry, a fly ring and a beetle scarab, from our mystery duo:

Turan was a constant mentor for Thomas Troy, from back in the days when he was a mere orphaned boy transforming into the Fly, and later when Troy grew up to become an attorney and the Fly-Man. Periodically he would appear to the heroic Crusadergive him added insight into how to handle various cases. On one occasion, after an encounter with Mighty Man, Troy found that he could not transfer back to his human alias. Tom valued his humanity far more than his abilities!

After bringing Fly-Man back to the Fly World (where is people migrated to after a disasterous war on Earth that left some of his kind as common house flies), Turan realized that Fly-science is not enough and must resort to his time traveling abilities...to go back in time and remove the chemical combound that created Mighty Man, as the radiation was what kept Troy as the Fly-Man. And we begin to see that Turan's strange science allows him to alter physical laws that enable him to bend reality itself!

Things didn't always go so smoothly between the two, however. On one occasion, when the Fly's arch-foe Spider-Spry launched a satellite that beamed waves of hatred causing his nemesis to be despised by all (including Troy's love interest Allison) even Turan was effected. Turan leaves behind both the Fly and his hatred. However, the seeds of doubt have entered Turan's mind as to the worthiness of his charge (guess he skipped reading The Fly issues #1-36).

On another occasion, a supervillian known only as the Blockbuster began terrorizing the world with his missles. After reverting to his Troy alias, the Fly's indominable spirit was still evident has the mild mannered attorney gave his foe a crushing blow, revealed Blockbuster's true identity...TURAN! Turns out Turan was testing his young charge as to his worthiness.

Realizing that the heroic spirit of his Earthly agent is not dependent on the powers granted him as the Fly, Turan leaves to test out candidates elsewhere who also help their worlds as the Fly! However, we never end up meeting these other agents of the Fly People. Except Fly-Girl, of course.

Elsewhere in the land of Derby (i.e. Charlton Comics), Dr. Dan Garrett first met the enigmatic Great Pharoah while exploring an ancient pyramid. And after being pulled back in time to the Pharoah's day, he learned of a great gift about to be bestowed on him. So began the dawn of the second Blue Beetle (fear not, gentle  reader, we will get around to the progenitor of all Beetles Blue, just not today). So began the career of archeologist turned adventurer.

Turns out that would not be the last encounter between the two, as the Beetle called upon the Great one to assist him in his battle with the Red Knight, who had discovered an element from another world that gave him invincibility against our Blue boy. Pharoahs give his protegee some special dust that itself is an element of unusual properties, capable of breaking down the integrity of the Knight's armour. And all ends well that day for everyone concerned. Although nothing must is revealed this go-around about the Pharoah (or his fair maiden, fanning him faithfully). Only that he existed in an ancient time and has the ability to pull Blue Beetle back to his era for their consults.

During their final meeting, Pharoah reveals that he was the Blue Beetle of his day, and now the current Beetle is battling the same foe that his forebearer defeated centuries earlier. This added insight seemed to indicate for the first time a legacy of Blue Beetles beyond Dan Garrett (although there was a Dan Garret in the 1940's,  that we'll discuss another time).

Shortly after assisting the Beetle to battle his deadliest foe, old Blue found himself on the wrong end of evil Uncle Jarvis' machinations, and a new Blue Beetle was born. Apparently, the wisdom Pharoah imparted to Dan had a limited shelf life. As for Turan, he would appear decades later, reviving the Fly from a near fatale encounter with Spider-Spry. Nevertheless, both mysterious mentors and their awesome agents faded away after a brief revival in the 1980's until reinvented by DC Comics.

Friday Fiends: Fire Fiend & Fiery Friend

We break a pattern this week, as this post should be retitled "Friday Fiend & Friend" as only one of our candidates is a villain who only appeared twice yet is unique enough to consider among the hordes of other hot and cold criminals. The other is a golden age hero who's initial run was short and rarely appeared since, yet started out as a novel idea. Let's start the latter.

Fireball first appeared as Ted Tyler, fearless firefighter, who as often happened in comics both in the golden and then silver ages was exposed to "those" funky experimental chemicals that always seemed to be lying around. Thankfully his buddies are there to bring their unconscious comrade from the flammable structure...or would he have survived considering what was about to occur within his mutating body? Only his unknown creator knew for sure.

Ted then makes miraculously quick recovery (considering the page count of those 1940's comics) and immediately resolves to use his heat absorption and projection powers to fight fire bugs...and decided to track down the cause of his transformation before others are  then transformed as well into superhuman human torches. After all, who needs the competition in the long-underwear set? He still needed to nail the right color scheme, however.

Tracking down "the Bug" (as in firebug), Fireball shows how invincible his powers make him...bullets melt on impact...heat is his to command...his stamina is tremendous and his legs allow him to leap vast distances! And the Bug gets while the getting is good...we're unsure exactly where he landed but we are sure it wasn't pretty. As for Fireball, he continued his career as a one-man firefighting force, preventing fires from getting out of hand and burning bad guys who were their cause.This lasted about a year or so.

After 11 issues in the back pages of Pep, Fireball's fleeting fame burnt out. He next appeared in the 1960's as a potential member of the Mighty Crusaders, in fact he was the first applicant in issue #4. After an outing alongside fellow flaming fellows Firefly and Inferno then working alongside "too many heroes", he returns to retirement until Archie's Weird Mysteries #3 when he's finally accepted as a Crusader himself. Along with two dozen others!

August 1967's Captain Atom #87, a new adversary of our Atomic Ace appeared with an interesting set of abilities, the ability to project scourching heat from his right hand, and biting cold from his left hand...via his projectors attached to his specialized armor. Atom in his alias of Captain Adam, while swimming in the sea, came upon this baddie and his henchmen. And while the hired help aren't exactly pulling their wait, F-I is ready for this new challenge.

After cornering Atom into a trap which his henchmen sent thanks to their freezing cannon, Fiery-Icer mistakenly believes this is the end of the good Captain...sealed in a icey tomb underneath several tons of ocean. Ah if only he knew what was in store...a battle royale with our hero. Apparently Icer's objective is to disable a new missle tracking station which might have interfered with his "purposes" although what those were is unknown. Was he a foreign agent or simply a criminal opportunist?

It seems like Icer comes equipped for any opposition, including a nuclear powered sentinel, and uses a one-two combo of heat and cold to stun Atom. Note that Icer doesn't simply rely on his gadget, using his brawn as well as brains to pin down the Atomic Avenger!  The chips seems down until Cap finds the reserves necessary to deck his truly tempermental temperature foe. Knocking out Icer, Atom frees the ever annoying Abby Ladd from his clutches.  Sigh, oh well.

After years in the lockup, Fiery-Icer learns to folly of tying his career to a bunch of green clad goons and instead ties his future to a bunch of...green-red-and-yellow clad goons i.e. Blue Beetle's foes the Madmen as well as the Manipulator and another foe of Captain Atom, Iron Arm. Despite sheer numbers on their side, Icer's sinister Squad is no match for the fully assembled Sentinels of Justice. Still he manages to squirm away from Nightshade, to be seen nevermore.

Hump-Day Humour: Web's Wuh-Be-Luv

Team-Up Tuesdays: Bothersome Bureaucrats

Continuing last week's Robots Attack episode of Team-Up Tuesdays, we were following allowing with the Mighty Crusaders (in their self-titled issue #6) and future Sentinels of Justice (i.e. Captain Atom and Nightshade, in Charlton Bullseye #1) as they partook in their final silver age tale as a team. Now given, the Atom/Nightshade story had been delayed in publishing until the 70's after the traditional "silver age" period of comics had concluded, so we're fudging just a bit.

Regardless, this week we see the Crusaders dilemma at legitimacy as heroes without governmental backing their actions. When last we left Fly and Fly-Girl, they were saving some kidnapped victims of a gigantic mechanical pooch. Turns out they have bigger problems...and they aren't alone as the Shield, Bill Higgins, himself finds his efforts are unappreciated:

This isn't a problem for the Atomic Ace and Darling of Darkness, however, as they have right from the start acted as operatives of the U.S. However, they too are about to come up against another authority...this one from another world...that stymes not only their actions but those of their arch-enemy, the Ghost. Let's see how the plot develops:

Evidently the High Priestess of the Sunurians does not appreciate her fine troops being manipulated by the power mad Evil One, also known as the Ghost. How will our pair of Charlton's finest play into her scheme to take back the reigns of power from him?

And why, exactly, are all these governmental agents causing our Crusaders so much trouble, after they've gone out of their way to save their lives? Will the Flys and Shield, alongside teammates the Comet and Black Hood, figure a way back into their good graces?

Tune in next week to find out...