Stuff I discovered on the web that needs to be posted and then deleted from my drive.

All stuff that's  very cool, or at least I think so.

Super villain Monday: continuity, time travel and woo hoo time changed, plus the Fatal 5

So...I've been avoiding this subject pretty hard.  I have not wanted to approach the Legion of Super Heroes, the 31st century, or anything that might lead me into a conversation that involved Clark Kent the Superboy.

I am not a fan of the Superboy, the original I mean.  Cloned Superboys grown in laboratories do not play hell and havoc with continuities or time streams.  They don't mess with the future or inspire teams of teen heroes who have much too much admiration for Lad, Lass, Boy, Girl, and Kid at the end of their hero code names.

There have been many reboots and many conceptions of the LSH, always a little cheesy, accept for the 5years later arc, there should have been more of that.

But this is super villain Monday and we should be talking about bad guys.  The Legion has never been strong on their own villains.  They have had to borrow and lend to earlier centuries and fight their evil counterparts is the Legion of Super Villains.

But the coolest team of villains ever to rise up in the future and really challenge the heroes has been the extra villainous 

Fatal Five

Originally a gang of super-criminals assembled by the Legion of Super-Heroes to help them destroy the Sun-Eaterthreatening Earth, the Emerald Empress, Mano, The Persuader, and Validus, led by Tharok, subsequently clashed with the Legion many times.

Emerald Empress aka Sarya was born and raised on Venegar. As a young women, she became obsessed with attaining power, influence, wealth, and immortality. Through a stroke of luck, Sarya stumbled into a cave that held the Emerald Eye of Ekron. The Eye was attracted by her strong emotions and the two formed a bond with each other. As Emerald Empress, she conquered her planet and several in its solar system. After installing a dictatorship, she was quickly met with rebellion. Empress fled Venegar and spent years as a pirate. Empress was soon resigned to her original goals, and formed the Fatal Five to conquer the United Planets.

Tharok-While on the run on Zadron, a petty thief was caught in the explosion of a nuclear device he stole when the Science Police tried to shoot him. Half his body was instantly vaporized. He was rushed into emergency surgery and attached to a robotic half. Tharok was gifted with heightened intelligence through his robotic side. Tharok escaped his prison and went on a crime spree. He later joined the Fatal Five, a collective of the worst criminals according to the Science Police. The criminals were however brought to justice through the combined efforts of the Legion of Superheroes.

Validus was a gigantic and almost mindless creature who acted as a member of the Fatal Five, and fought against the Legion of Superheroes. He followed the Emerald Empress' every command.

The Persuader aka Nyeun Chun Ti is a member of the Fatal Five and a mortal enemy of the Legion of Superheroes. His Atomic Axe can cut through anything, even Superman's flesh. Nyuen Chun Ti grew up to believe that the most important thing was to be able to prove his self-worth. As a result, he got into many fights as a child. As an adult, he was genetically modified to be able to work on heavy gravity mining colonies. As a result, his physical attributes were increased. This only elevated his ideology. Shortly after, he went to Minerstown on the Asteroid Archipelago for work. Ti soon confronted the foreman, Wolf Bebach and killed him. Ti took his Atomic Axe, the Persuader for his own as a trophy. He then decided to take the Axe's name and became an assassin for hire. Over the years, Persuader formed a psychic link with the axe and the two couldn't be separated for long. After 10 years of killing, the Persuader joined the Fatal Five, a group of the Science Police's most wanted criminals.

Mano was born on Angtu, a world so polluted that inhabitants are required to wear special oxygen helmets to survive. When a woman was pregnant, her helmet was cracked and she inhaled some of the pollutants in the air. She gave birth to a dark-skinned child who could breathe freely on Angtu and could disintegrate anything with a mere touch. Mano became an outcast because of his uniqueness and he grew more and more resentful. This repressed anger manifested as psychopathic urges. Mano began murdering people. When the Science Police failed to arrest him, Mano destroyed Angtu and started a career as an assassin for hire. He later joined the Fatal Five, a collective of the worst criminals according to the Science Police. The criminals were however brought to justice through the combined efforts of the Legion of Superheroes.

Separately these guys were trouble but together they were evil incarnate.

The only trouble was the consistency.  Reboot after a Reboot had changed the origin of the characters.  In some incarnations Validus is an ancient lightning God, in others he is the son of Saturn Girl, and Lightning Lad crossed with som Darkseid interference.

Sometimes the Emerald Empress is. Serial killer who uses green gem Stoney type knives, and is called the Emerald Empress before she is in possession of the Emerald Eye.

These facts, coupled with a tendency to change the future over and over again is makes Legion continuity hard to deal with.  You would think that by now a comic set 1 thousand years in the future would not b an issue, but somehow...

It's the guest stars, anytime a present day character visits the future it becomes a fixed point in continuity, not just for the character but fo the whole fictional 31st century, and every time there is a reboot, that fixed point needs to be rectified.

Time travel sucks

Obscure super team Sunday: an ill conceived notion

In the dark days of comics known as the late 70s, it crawled mysteriously off of the drawing boards of the Marvel Bullpen.  Caught somewhere between creative vision and corporate bureaucracy exists a middle ground of crappy conception and poor execution, it is the supper team known as the champions.

It was a group of heroes with nothing in common taking on the strongest villains on the "C" list of marvel villains.  It wasn't cool enough to be the Defenders although most of its members went on to be Defenders.

Ladies and Gentleman, from the depts of obscurity...The Champions (of Los Angeles)

Writer Tony Isabella developed the concept of a new team of superheroes and originally wanted the roster to consist of former X-Men Angel and Iceman, and the newly created Black Goliath.[1] Black Goliath became unavailable when the character debuted in his own title, forcing Isabella to rethink the concept. Editor Len Wein insisted on at least five members, and Isabella added three established heroes: Russian spy Black Widow (team leader), the Greek godHercules, and the supernatural avenger Ghost Rider. Captain Marvel, Power Man, and the Son of Satan were all considered for the final place on the roster before selecting Ghost Rider. Writer and publisher David Anthony Kraft is credited with naming the team, with the title originally intended to be published in Giant-Size format as Giant-Size Champions. Production difficulties, which caused a three-month delay between the first and second issues, prevented this.[1] The title was eventually published as The Champions, and ran for seventeen issues from October 1975 to January 1978. In addition to Don Heck, artists who drew the series include George Tuska, Bob Hall, and John Byrne.

The team battled established Marvel villains such as Pluto; the Griffin; the Titanium Man and Crimson Dynamo; Warlord Kaa; the Stranger; Kamo Tharnn; and new foes such as Rampage and Swarm. Russian heroine Darkstar joins the team, and Black Goliath eventually guest stars in the title.m The second-to-last issue continued a story involving a power struggle between villains Doctor Doom and Magneto from the title Super-Villain Team-Up. The last issue's storyline involving an attack by the Sentinels. is referenced in the title Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, which explains in flashback how the team disbanded.

The Champions guest-starred in several other Marvel titles, including Ghost Rider #18;[22] Iron Man Annual #4; The Avengers #163; and Godzilla #3.

The group briefly reunite in a X-Force/Champions Annual. In a humorous issue of the second volume of The Thing, the character Flatman — a member of the misfit team the Great Lakes Avengers — wins a poker tournament and renames his team the Great Lakes Champions, despite protests from Hercules. An issue of The Incredible Hulk features a flashback to a period when the Champions were still together. The team mistakenly attack the Hulk, with the delay almost killing a gravely ill Jennifer Walters.
Trademark dispute


Since 1987, Heroic Publishing has used the name "The Champions" for a role-playing game series which has been adapted into comic books. The United States Patent and Trademark Office has ruled that Marvel abandoned its trademark of the name and can no longer use "The Champions" as the name of a comic book series. A planned 2007 revival of the series was renamed The Order.



Members




Angel

Warren Worthington III is Archangel, a mutant and member of the X-Men. He sports some nifty wings which allow him to fly. Recently his blood allows him to heal others.




Black Goliath

Brilliant and tough, Goliath fought evil using a variation of the Pym Particles. He was killed during the Civil War by Ragnarok, a clone of Thor. He was succeeded by his nephew, Tom Foster.



Black Widow

Black Widow was leader of the Champions but the group disbanded after it became bankrupt.




Darkstar (Petrovna)

The first Darkstar, Laynia Petrovna is a mutant capable of manipulating an immeasurable amount of darkforce energy. She lived and died in service to her mother country Russia, but was later resurrected in the body of the previous Darkstar, Reena Stancioff, when Reena was transformed into a Dire Wraith.



Ghost Rider (Blaze)

The Champions were a little used super group based out of Los Angeles and meant to serve as a west coast team to offset Marvel's New York influences. The team was led by the Russian Spy Black Widow but was disbanded due to bankruptcy.





Hercules

Hercules was, perhaps, the pivotal factor determining the Champions formation as it was his enemy Pluto who attacked him while he prepared to give a seminar on Greek Gods and Myth at the UCLA campus. When Pluto's minions attacked Hercules, he was not alone in facing them. Fellow former Avenger the Black Widow, the Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze) and two former X-Men, Angel and Iceman were all in the vicinity and came to the aid of the endangered mortals and Hercules, too. Hercules and his newfound friends were able to eventually defeat Pluto, along with other Olympian threats like Ares and Hippolyta. The five of them then decided to stay together as a team of superpowered heroes/adventurers and called themselves "The Champions!" Unfortunatley, the team was short-lived in duration due to a lack of chemistry and cohesion amongst it's members. However, it was during their time as Champions that Hercules and the Black Widow began a passionate romance which lasted well after the team had disbanded.





Iceman
The coolest member of the X-Men

Superhero of the day:Barbara Gordon, Kim Yale and John Ostrander

This particular edition of Superhero of the day is long overdue.  Today we highlight Babara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle.

Barbara Gordon was played on television by the recently deceased Yvonne Craig.

If this is the only version of Barbara Gordon you know, you need to catch up, because to me, Barbara Gordon is moe than just Batgirl.  She exists as more than a token girl sidekick in a male dominated medium.  Let's face it boys, girls need role models just as much a boys do and Donna Reed just don't cut it.

As much as I enjoyed watching Yvonne Craig on the Batman television series, it seemed as if she as unrealistic and snarky, and how the hell do you fight crime in high heels.  I had many issues.

Barbara Gordon eventually retired from being Batgirl, and fans had mixed feelings about the whole thing.  Is it right to retire a good character before she becomes lame or keep using her until she rots and generates terrible stories.

But fans are Funny.  In the back of many brains lurked the question, "Will Batgirl return?"

We all went into shock when Alan Moore produced the Killing Joke, and shot Babs in the back via the Jolker.  Fans thought she was a goner.

Enter the comic geniuses of Yale and Ostrander.  The power couple of DC comics saved me from Comic Book Hell by writing two of my fave books, Manhunter and The Suicide Squad.  I was not the only one rescued.  Barbara Gordon was rescued from comic book oblivion, she was converted from a victim in a killing spree to a survivor and inspiration.

Babs, now a paraplegic struggled through rehab and came out stronger.  She harnessed her brain and technological savvy.

Barbara Gordon adopted a new identity and became the super sleuth of cyber space.

Where Barbara Gordon could no longer be Batgirl.

Super sexy, super smart Barbara Gordon

Could become the fantastic mystery ace of the interwebs, Oracle

What follows is the usual Wikipedia retread that I usually offer.  Pay close attention to the creators.  Yale and Ostrander are amongst my comic book heroes.  Buy their stuff, look for the name Ostrander on new projects, buy compilations of Hawkworld or the Spectre.  

Remember that without Yale and Ostrander...Amanda Waller, DeadShot, and Captain Boomerang would have faded into obscurity

Barbara Gordon is a fictional superheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Batman. The character was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino. At the request of the producers of the 1960s Batman television series, DC editor Julius Schwartz called for a new female counterpart to the superhero Batman that could be introduced into publication and the third season of the show simultaneously. The character subsequently made her first comic book appearance as Batgirl in Detective Comics No. 359 titled, "The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!" (1967) by writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino.^[1]Written as the daughter of Gotham City police commissioner James Gordon, her civilian identity is given a doctorate in library science and she is employed as head of Gotham City Public Library, as well as later being elected to the United States Congress.

In addition to appearing in other DC publications, she receives her first starring role in Batman Family which debuted in 1975, partnered with the original Robin, Dick Grayson. In 1988, following the editorial retirement of the character's Batgirl persona in Barbara Kesel's Batgirl Special No. 1, Alan Moore's graphic novel Batman: The Killing Joke depicts the Joker shooting her through the spinal cord in her civilian identity, resulting in paraplegia. In subsequent stories, editor Kim Yale and writer John Ostrander establish the character as a computer expert and information broker known as Oracle. Providing intelligence and computer hacking services to assist other superheroes, she makes her first appearance as Oracle in Suicide Squad No. 23 (1989). She is featured in the one-shot comic Black Canary/Oracle: Birds of Prey (1996) written by Chuck Dixon, which later became the monthly title Birds of Prey starring both characters. The series depicts her as a great intellect uninhibited by her paralysis, skilled in the martial art of eskrima. Employing Black Canary as her partner and field agent, Oracle later operates as the leader of a full team of female crimefighters who engage in global espionage missions, under writer Gail Simone. In 2011, following a company wide relaunch of all DC Comics titles, the character's mobility is restored and she is given a starring role in the eponymous Batgirl monthly comic, as well as Birds of Prey, as part of The New 52.

Following the release of The Killing Joke Gráphic Novel,comic book editor and writer Kim Yale discussed how distasteful she found the treatment of Barbara Gordon with her husband, fellow comic writer John Ostrander. Rather than allow the character to fall into obscurity, the two decided to revive her as a character living with a disability.

John Ostrander

Ostrander made his DC Comics debut by plotting the miniseries Legends which was scripted by Len Wein and penciled by John Byrne. Following Legends, Ostrander and artist Luke McDonnell launched the Suicide Squad into their own title in 1987 and developed several characters for the series. Later that same year, he and actor/writer Del Close created the Wasteland series with a rotating roster of artists.

From 1987 until her death from breast cancer in 1997, Ostrander frequently co-wrote with his wife Kim Yale including on the Manhunter series.  It was while working together on Suicide Squad that they recast Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl, into the information and computer specialist Oracle.

Ostrander has been a frequent collaborator with artist Tom Mandrake. They have worked together on Grimjack, Firestorm the Nuclear Man, The Spectre, and Martian Manhunter. Ostrander's in-depth explorations of morality were used in his work writing The Spectre, a DC Comics series about the manifestation of the wrath of God. His focus on the character's human aspect, a dead police detective from the 1930s named Jim Corrigan, and his exploration of moral and theological themes. In issue #54 (June 1997), the creative team introduced the character Michael Holt as a new version of Mister Terrific. Following the end of The Spectre series, they moved onto a Martian Manhunter series. In December 2006, a story-arc titled "Grotesk" by Ostrander and Mandrake appeared in Batman issues 659-662.

In 1990, Ostrander launched an ongoing Hawkworld series which followed Timothy Truman's limited series of the same name. In 1993, the title was cancelled and relaunched as Hawkman with art by Jan Duursema.^[13]

At Marvel Comics, Ostrander has worked on X-Men, Bishop, Quicksilver, Heroes for Hire and the Punisher, as well as the Western mini-series Blaze of Glory: The Last Ride of the Western Heroes.

He has written the Elfquest character Jink for WaRP Graphics, Hotspur for Eclipse Comics; Lady Death for Chaos! Comics; Magnus, Robot Fighter, Rai and the Future Force and Eternal Warrior for Valiant Comics. He was one of the main writers on Star Wars: Republic for Dark Horse Comics, and his story arcs include "Twilight", "Darkness", and "The Clone Wars" stories. He is the writer of Star Wars: Legacy. An unreleased Doctor Who audio drama titled "Deadman's Hand" was written by Ostrander for Big Finish Productions. As announced, the story was to feature the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex.

Ostrander contributed to the Silver Age Sentinels anthologies of short stories from Guardians of Order.^[He was nominated for the Comics Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. In 2010, he co-wrote Secret Six issues 14-18 with writer Gail Simone.  Ostrander maintains an online presence on the World Famous Comics Network^[15] and writes a weekly column on the ComicMix site.

Kim Yale 

Yale's first published comics work appeared in 1987 in the New America limited series,a spin-off of Timothy Truman's Scoutseries published by Eclipse Comics. She married a fellow comics creator, and frequent collaborator, John Ostrander the same year. Yale and Ostrander developed the character of Barbara Gordon into Oracle, and wrote her origin story in the short story "Oracle: Year One" published in The Batman Chronicles #5 (Summer 1996).

The two also co-wrote Manhunter, a series which DC launched in the wake of the Millennium crossover. Their collaboration on Suicide Squad included the "Janus Directive" storyline in issues #27-30 and the creation of the character Dybbuk in issue #45 (Sept. 1990).  Yale served as an editor for DC from 1991–1993 and oversaw licensed titles such as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

She was also heavily involved with the Friends of Lulu, an organization promoting women in comics, working as a member of the board. Yale wrote an ongoing column in the Comics Buyer's Guide, in which she detailed her battle against breast cancer. The Kimberly Yale Award for Best New Talent has been named in her honor. Yale died of breast cancer in 1997, aged 43.

Superhero of the day: the Golden Age became Amazing with the Help of Uncle Roy

Because I'm a big believer in the humans that create heroes being just as important as the heroes themselves, I will now take a moment to introduce you, briefly, to Roy Thomas.

Roy William Thomas, Jr.  (born November 22, 1940) is an American comic book writer and editor, who was Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazinehero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E. Howard's character and helped launch a sword and sorcery trend in comics. Thomas is also known for his championing of Golden Age comic-book heroes – particularly the 1940s superhero team the Justice Society of America – and for lengthy writing stints on Marvel's X-Men and Avengers, and DC Comics' All-Star Squadron, among other titles.

Thomas was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2011.

The things they don't mention about Roy Thomas is that he revamped the Vision in the Avengers, created Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, gave new life to sidekicks and second stringers in the Young All-Stars and , most importantly, created the first African American Superhero.

Okay, so Amazing Man is only first in a Retroactive kind of way, but there he was in the 1940's, fighting side by side with the legends of the Golden Age and becoming one of their number.

Will Everett was a promising young African-AmericanOlympian who had competed in the 1936 Summer Olympicsin Berlin, but his post-Olympic career devolved into a janitorial profession at a laboratory owned by Dr. Terry Curtis. During an accident involving the explosion of some equipment to which he was exposed (developed by the criminal mastermind the Ultra-Humanite), 

Everett quickly developed the ability to mimic whatever properties he touched (similar to Marvel Comics' Absorbing Man). For example, if he touched steel, then his body became composed of steel.^[

All-Star Squadron

At first, he was employed by the Ultra-Humanite as a henchman along with Curtis (as Cyclotron) and Deathbolt.  However, his sympathies soon swayed towards the side of good after repeated exposure to the All-Star Squadron, a team of both Golden Age characters and retroactive characters like himself, with whom he joined to defeat his former employer's machinations. He then served a lengthy stint as a member of this voluminous mystery man organization.

In February 1942, the Squadron helped Everett defeat the bigoted villain in his home town of Detroit, the Real American.  During the first Crisis, Amazing-Man was one of a group of heroes chosen by the Monitor to stop the Anti-Monitor's quest for destruction.   On a future case, Amazing-Man's powers changed so that now he had mastery of magnetism while losing his ability to mimic matter.

Civil Rights Activist

In the 1950s, his secret identity was revealed to the general public by J. Edgar Hoover. This act endangered the lives of Everett's wife and family. During the Civil Rights Movementof the 1960s, the murder of his nephew alongside two other civil rights activists spurred his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement of the time. He led marches against segregation across the United States of America, and also helped to quell riots in Detroit. Everett was also responsible for the capture of Martin Luther King's murderer James Earl Ray. In the DC Comics Universe, he is considered the third most important advocate for African American civil rights, behind acclaimed activists Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Heirs

It was later revealed that his grandson, Will Everett III (a.k.a. "Junior") 

also developed mimicry abilities. Will Everett Senior was last seen in the hospital, visited by his grandson Will Everett III. The senior Everett was dying of cancer.  The status of his son, the father of Amazing-Man III, is currently unknown. For a brief time, his grandson carried on the legacy of Amazing-Man before dying tragically. Later, another grandson named Markus Clay 

would take up the mantle of Amazing-Man.