...And now back to our show.
Head's Geek Credentials 2
or
Head's Favorite Superheroes:
To finish off the About Head section of my blog (for now), here are my top Superhero picks.
a) Firestorm and The Atom (Ray Palmer) - Tied for number one.
Firestorm
- My first experience with Firestorm was probably the Superfriends
cartoon of the early/mid 80's. Even then, I thought he was pretty
cool. I then came across him in back issues of old JLA (Justice League
of America) comics from the late 70's, early-mid 80's. Something about
the dual nature of Firestorm intrigued me. For those that don't know,
the early Firestorm was made up of two dudes. Ronald Raymond (a high
school jock) and Professor Martin Stein (a Nobel Prize-winning
physicist).
In Firestorm, The Nuclear Man #1 (from 1978),
young Ronnie Raymond joins a nuclear protest movement (to win the
affections of a young lady (named Doreen Day)). He breaks in to a
nuclear power plant with the group only to learn that their goal is to
cause the plant to explode (to show how bad nuclear power is). When
Ronnie hears this, he attempts to stop them, but is knocked out by the
leader for his troubles. Seeing the trouble on the monitors, Professor
Stein rushes to where the bad guys are and threatens to call the cops if
they don't leave immediately. Knocking Stein unconscious (seems to be a
pattern with these yahoos), they leave the two next to the bomb.
Ronnie (the young buck he is) awakens and tries to drag the unconscious
Stein away, but alas he's not quick enough, as the bomb goes off, fusing
the two together. Ronnie being the controlling body and Martin Stein
the disembodied voice that guides young Ronnie. Firestorm's first
series only ran 5 issues before dying in the DC Implosion.
In
1982 (after a stint in a back up feature in Flash and appearances in
JLA) Firestorm is graced with a second series (which lasted a full 100
issues, plus several annuals). In this second series, Ronnie and Martin
will go on to have great adventures for the next several years until
around Nov of 1987, when the "Firestorm Matrix" changes with the
addition of Russian Mikhail "Pozhar" Arkadin. This is known amongst
fans as the "Blank Slate Era" as a amnesiac Professor Stein is in
control of the Firestorm body with Ronnie and Mikhail being the
disembodied voices. Firestorm is then in constant flux for the next
couple of years, becoming an Elemental and eventually kicking Mikhail
and Ronnie out of the matrix, leaving Martin Stein as Firestorm, the
Fire Elemental (in the last issue of his series #100).
Firestorm
goes through several more changes, but as I see this is starting to
turn in to a Firestorm-centric post, I'll leave off there. Maybe in the
future, I'll cover him more in depth. Also, for more Firestorm
goodness, check out the Firestorm Fan site (
firestormfan.com).
The site is ran by a cat name Shag (aka Shagg aka Shaggg) who also has
an awesome Firestorm podcast (The Fire and Water Podcast... the Water
part is Aquamancentric). Due to Firestorm's latest series being
cancelled, currently Shag is reviewing the 2nd Firestorm series (from
the 80's). I think Shag is doing a fantastic job reviewing this
wonderful series. I encourage anyone interested in learning more about
this era of Firestorm to check out the Fire and Water Podcast.
Firestorm and The Atom
The
Atom - Over the years there have been several heroes using the name The
Atom: Al Pratt (the original), Paul Hoben, Adam Cray, Ryan Choi, and
Rhonda Pineda. But my favorite Atom of all is the 2nd one. The Silver
Age Atom. Dr. Raymond Palmer, Phd.
Ray Palmer debuted as The Atom
in Showcase #34 (back in 1961). Ray Palmer used a fragment of a white
dwarf star to miniaturize himself and become the hero known as The
Atom. Ray can shrink himself down to subatomic levels and uses his
powers and intelligence to fight crime (mostly in his home city of Ivy
Town (somewhere in New England)). He ran in his own series from '62-'69
(the last year sharing the title with Hawkman).
I discovered
The Atom while he appeared in the JLA. The first solo stories I read
was a mini series in the mid-80's called The Sword of the Atom. Then in
'88, he got his own series once again called The Power of the Atom
(which only ran for about a year and a half).
Again, The Atom is another character I may go in to more detail on later. For now, let's move on to...
b)
Hawk and Dove - I haven't read much of the Hank and Don Hall
appearances, just a few here and there. Though I've recently acquired a
handful of their older issues, which I'm going to read through. But
the Hawk and Dove I read and am familiar with, is the Hank Hall and Dawn
Granger version. Hawk (Hank Hall) is an avatar for Chaos and prefers
to settle things with his fists. Dove (both Don Hall and Dawn Granger)
is the avatar for Order and prefers to think things through. Hank and
Dawn (and Don) transform in to their alter-egos when danger is near by.
The original Dove (Don Hall, Hank's brother) died during the Crisis on
Infinite Earths, while saving a kid from a collapsing building. Dawn
Granger appeared several years later (in real time) in the new Hawk and
Dove mini-series. Here we find out (via flashback), that at the same
time Don died,
Dawn received her powers. The mini-series gets these two heroes
together as a team, which then leads in to a wonderful (in my opinion)
series, which ran 28 issues.
I believe this series ran in to
issues (again, it's been over 20 years since they came out) when DC
decided to make Hawk the big bad villain Monarch of the series
Armageddon 2001, instead of Captain Adam (as fans guessed ahead of
time). Again, that last sentence is what I've heard from others,
nothing from DC directly, so it could be inaccurate.
Anywho... definitely a must read (in
Head's opinion) (even though, I believe, Rob Liefield supplied the art
for the mini-series.).
Hawk and Dove
(Hank Hall and Dawn Granger)
c)
Blue Beetle and Booster Gold (Ted Kord version of Beetle) - Blue Beetle
and Booster Gold. The ole Blue and Gold. They each started off in
their own series (bought by DC from another company). Eventually the
two wound up in the Giffen/DeMantis Justice League comic. Their wacky
hijinks quickly rocketed them to the top of my favorite list (even
though DC has killed off Ted in favor of their more PC version Jaime
Reyes). Not sure which of Blue and Gold I like better, but they're both
pretty damn awesome.
Booster Gold and Blue Beetle
(aka Blue and Gold)
d)
The Flash (either Barry or Wallly) - When I started reading the Flash, I
started in the low teens of Wally's series (the third Flash). But from
the old Superfriends tv show and JLA comics, I knew the prior Flash
(the second one) was Barry Allen. So once I got collecting comics, I
went back and bought back issues of Barry's series. It appears that
about 2 years before the end of his comic (and he goes off to die in the
Crisis (Spoilers sweetie)), Barry Allen (aka The Flash) killed
Professor Zoom (aka Reverse Flash) to protect Barry Allen's fiance
(Fiona Webb, whom Zoom was attempting to kill on Barry's and Fiona's
wedding day). Knowing that they were going to end his series, the last
two years of his book consisted of his trial for killing Reverse Flash.
In issue 350 (the last issue), Barry finally (after being found Not
Guilty) went off in to the future to live with his previously deceased
ex-wife (Iris Allen) (that in itself is a long story).
Anyway... long story shor... well, not short... but not quite as long, the Barry Allen Flash is in one of my top spots.
Reverse Flash and The Flash
e)
Animal Man - I always liked Animal Man (the few appearances I saw him
with the Forgotten Heroes, usually in a Superman comic), but he
definitely moved in to one of my top
spots after Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man (which first appeared in
Sept of 1988). If you haven't read it
yet, go find his run and read it (I believe it's available in trades).
This series explored Buddy's family life while trying to cope with being
a super-hero.
Animal Man
f)
Green Lantern (Kyle followed by Hal) - My first Green Lantern was of
course Hal Jordan. I watched him on the Superfriends and when I started
reading comics, he was Green Lantern (with John Stewart and Guy Gardner
as back up roles). But the Green Lantern I like best, is Kyle Rayner,
who flew on to the scene in 1994 after Hal went apeshit crazy and tried
to remake the universe after his hometown of Coast City was wiped out.
Kyle Rayner - Green Lantern
- Head
