|
|
|
OUR FAVORITE COMIC BOOK HEROES |
In celebration of America's long, rich tradition of comic book
heroes, a select group of columnists, all but one of them old enough to have been readers in THE GOLDEN AGE OF COMICS, pick their personal favorites. And if you MUST know, the underage member of this group is the lovely
Gina Gallo, who's barely old enough to remember Richard Nixon.
|
 The First Issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA |
Maybe it was his shield. Maybe it was because he lacked the superhuman powers that other comic book heroes possessed yet he could clobber the bad guys anyway. Maybe it was because of his youthful sidekick, Bucky, the kind of teenager I hoped to become someday. But maybe it was because my father was rejected as 4-F by every branch of the service during WWII--even the Merchant Marines turned him down--that made Captain America so appealing. That he couldn’t serve along side his brothers bothered my dad the rest of his life. Three of them fought overseas in the war, including an older brother who was closest to him. (The fourth was aged 40 when the war started.) You see, the feeble, sickly Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, was rejected by the Army, too. But, thanks to a secret serum, he was turned into a powerful human being and helped us kids make it through the war successfully. To me, my dad would have been like Captain America if the formula had been given to him. I never became Bucky either. By the time I became a teenager, I didn’t care anymore. I would rather have turned into Errol Flynn. I had discovered girls. ©2006 by Len Klempnauer. |
|
 |
©2006 by Maury Allen. |
|
 Little Lulu in a crisis. You can tell that because she has "anxiety lines" around her head. |
 Archie Andrews beams at the news Nachman has picked him as a favorite comic hero. Meanwhile, blonde Betty fumes at being overlooked while brunette Veronica figures the whole thing's about her. |
|
While most of my male friends were reveling in the exploits of Plastic Man, Spider-Man, Superman and Batman, I was deeply immersed in the more exciting adventures of Archie Andrews and Little Lulu. I read Superman and Batman, of course, but mainly for their clever, beguiling arch-villains--and also for the Clark Kent aspect, which set me on my career path as meek, mild-mannered, ineffectual reporter in futile search for a Lois Lane. But the great superheroes seemed far less engrossing and amusing than Archie and Lulu. Archie--who is still around in comic books, as “Archie and His Friends”--was a preview of teenage life I wondered about at as a pre-teen comic book freak and would-be cartoonist. I strongly suspect it was Archie’s interaction with Betty and Veronica that held my interest. In my post-teen years, I realized that Betty and Veronica were the same girl with different colored hair, creator Bob Montana’s wry, insightful comment on womankind. Betty, blonde and perky, was the all-American girl next door that we marry while Veronica was her evil (well, conniving) twin, the eternal vixen, the Other Woman who tempts and tries to trap unsuspecting Archies. I was far less interested in Jughead and Reggie, bit players in Archie’s unending saga with the yin-and-yang of his relationships with Betty and Veronica, both of whom also had the same nubile, sweater-girl shapes. Archie never resolved which girl he liked best, bouncing back and forth as the spirit moved him. I see now that Montana was a sharp philosopher who understood men and women, couching his insights in the war between the sexes in the innocent guise of malt-shop romances. Even after he had strayed with Veronia, Betty would always take Archie back, and even after he had pledged him devotion to Betty, Veronica would remain a constant threat. Yet after 50 years, Archie has yet to venture beyond the kissing stage. I haven’t looked at the comic book lately so, for all I know, Betty is a radical feminist, Veronica has pierced her nose and tongue and the two of them are getting it on together, while Archie himself remains undecided over not which girl he likes but which sex he prefers. But somehow I doubt it. Little Lulu was, for me, the best written of all the comic books, the wittiest and least predictable, created by someone known only as “Margie,” whose surname is lost in time, not unlike, for years, the woman artist behind Brenda Starr. Lulu was well ahead of her time and, like Brenda, very much her own woman, an early independent girl in a red dress and long curls who constantly made chumps of boys, especially her best pal Tubby, in one of their regular episodes as detectives trying to unravel a mystery. One of
the regular set pieces was Lulu’s unsuccessful effort to
invade Tubby’s boys-only tree house. In their crime-solving
mode, Tubby had his detective kit and disguises, but Lulu used
only her brain and invariably she deduced the culprit--always
her father; there was an ongoing villain, the wicked Witch Hazel,
forever foiled by Lulu and Tubby. And that’s about all I
recall of Lulu, who also appeared in an animated cartoon series
with a catchy theme song about “Margie’s Little Lulu.”
So who was “Margie”? Get on the case, Lulu. |
|
 |
I liked Sluggo of
"Nancy" fame. I liked the simplicity of the drawing
and the wisdom of Sluggo when he spoke on issues of world importance.
Unfortunately I can't remember exactly what he said. But Sluggo
was my man. And I always wished that I could be fast like the
Flash. And when I am introduced to a new name, I always see how
it reads backwards, because I was fascinated by that Dick Tracy
villain, The Blank, who, when unmasked, was revealed as Redrum--which
is murder backwards. Later, I became a fan of Pogo when I worked
as a copy boy at the New York Star where the strip had its debut.
On the day the Star folded, Walt Kelly gave me a signed original
of one of his Pogo strips, but to my everlasting regret, I misplaced
it somewhere. I could go on and on.... |
|
 BIZARRO |
He was the perfect example of the imperfect super hero. Created by mistake when Superboy flubbed the directions on a duplicating device, Bizarro Superman had none of the original caped crusader's charisma or intelligence. He was the polar opposite of his silver-tongued posterhunk counterpart, a crazily skewed superpower without the flash. This stone-faced, lumbering lug breeched the laws of grammar with each neanderthal utterance, and celebrated the illogical in everything he did. After establishing the Bizarro code: "Is big crime to make anything perfect in Bizarro World" he created an alternate universe of Bizarro superheroes on an uninhabited planet that was re-formed into a cube shape, to be called Planet Htrae ('earth' spelled backward.) Bizarro Superman was a lovable bumbler who embraced his imperfections, never hesitated to put his Spandex on the line for those he protected but still managed to look hot in those tights. Whether or not he ever figured out how to get them on or off is another question entirely. Inquiries on that topic should be directed to Bizarro Lois Lane. ©2006 by Gina Gallo. |
|
 |
I guess my favorite comic book hero is a strikingly original pick--Superman. I always thought it would be neat to fly among skyscrapers downtown and pick up locomotives. And, of course, the bespectacled Clark Kent, who was really Superman, was an inspiration to all of us kids who wore glasses from the sixth grade on. The phone booth thing was a great schtick. Today he'd be arrested for indecent exposure. And then there was the gorgeous Lois Lane. Come to think of it, for a newspaper reporter she must have been amazingly unperceptive. I mean, the Clark Kent/Superman deception went on for, what, decades? I liked the whole newspaper setting of the series, too, including Perry White, although I was not so fond of Jimmie Olsen, the kid copyboy/cub reporter. Too damn eager all the time. Of course, I'm operating under a bit of a handicap here. My father forbade comic books in the house and it was a major felony to be caught reading one elsewhere. I'm not clear what his objection was--he never deigned to tell me. Thought comic books were trash, I suppose. (Chocolate milk was also forbidden. He whaled the tar out of me when he found out I had been surreptitiously having it with lunch in the school cafeteria.) Ah, well. Look how well I turned out! ©2006 by Charles M. McFadden. |
|
 |
|
What I liked best about him was the little jingle he always said while re-charging his ring. It went something like this: "In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! Beware the power of Green Lantern's light!" I love stuff like that. I have no idea why today's heroes don't say anything that clever. However, even Green Lantern had debits. The down side for him was the company he kept. He hung out with a cab driver named Doiby Dickles. Can you imagine hanging out with a cab driver? The last cab driver I saw weighed about 400 pounds, had an earring and a shaved head. When he said, "Where do YOU want to go?" I almost said, "Home to my Mommy!" One of the nicer things about being a superhero, though, was getting to join one of those nice social clubs like the Justice Society of America, which had accepted the Green Lantern on a full membership. If I could be him, for instance, I could maybe get to know that tasty dish they called The Black Canary. You remember her, don't you? She was the one with black fishnet stockings, a little black eye mask and all that blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders. "Say, Canary," I'd ask her, "Would you like to come on over tonight and watch me charge my ring?" What girl,
even a super one, could resist a pitch like that from a blond
guy in a mask? |
This feature ©2006 by the individual writers. The cartoon illustrations are the property of their individual copyright holders and are courtesy of the public websites that
feature them in a "fair use" non-commercial presentation.
You
can comment on this column online. Please address your message
to "The Editors". To send an email, click here: talkback@thecolumnists.com
|
|
|
Archives |
|
|