RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books comic book characters you love, who never quite made it

No! you don't say!

Something about strong men in casual clothes? Betcha like Doc Savage too. His shirts were always ripped. Ooooooh.

I never got into Young All Stars. I gave up All Star Squadron not many issues after Roy Thomas floundered and Jerry Ordway left. The editorial impact of the Crisis storyline upon the title was a deathblow.

Getting momentarily back to Wonder Man and the Avengers, my favourite obscure Avenger is Tigra. Not sure about the bikini, but it is hard to avoid in order to demonstrate the concept that she was covered in striped fur. The first time I saw the character was in an Avengers comic when I was a kid: the Avengers were messing around with Ghost Rider and the character has to jump into water from great height.... And being a cat person, landed on her feet all while hating being in water (tigers actually love water so the editor cocked that one up). Given the powers she was always a female version of Black Panther in the Avengers (it would surprise me if they were ever in the same story), but somehow, despite being tiger-ish, didn't require the same suspension of disbelief as Black Panther does (how is it that a half tiger woman seems more believable than a king of a country absconding responsibility and running off to join an American super group?).

The excellent work in New Avengers had Tigra singled out and tormented by The Hood and his cronies, to demonstrate that villains can win: Tigra has a nice moment of character when she courageously steps in despite being emotionally and physically abused to help stop the villains.

I don't go out of my way to buy comics featuring the character but I'm always quietly pleased when I stumble across Tigra in a comic.

I was forced to masturbate to pulp novels in my past life...




You and I share an enjoyment of Simon, but not of Tigra. Or, at least, I hated how she was written in West Coast Avengers. Last I heard she was a booty-call for Hank Pym. And wasn't she originally some kind of strange substitute for the Hellcat character?

Talk about a fucked-up character, Patsy Hellcat. W-T-F?

"Forced" meaning "home alone." "Past life" meaning "yesterday."

As an aside, it kills me that Warren Ellis is working for Marvel and my life is STILL a Nextwave-free existence. If there was ever a book that would get me to buy my first comic in almost four years, it'd be Nextwave.

Mister Miracle for some reason. Something about being the greatest escape artist of 2 separate universes (originally 5 universes before Crisis) appealed to me even though his solo comics never did much for me.

Aztek...he RAWKED

As for the thread, I always dug Anarky. Though, I guess it was more an editorial decision to under cut the character than a lack of fan appreciation.

Bastid.

I just got this comic last year. The Johnny Blaze GR (who I always thought was the physically weaker version of GR) tore ass through the Avengers, including the big three!

I liked Trencher. It lasted about 6 issues.

More the other way around. Tigra used to be the Cat before she became covered in fur and wore the costume Patsy Walker ended up with when she became the Hellcat. I like them both but it's sad what has happened with Tigra.

he was also in an issue of Monster Massacre where he fought Bisley's monkey character.

Ah gotcha! Okay. I vividly remember HATING Tigra in the WCA. They just didn't know how to write her. The last thing a kid wants to read about is some moody bitch with emotional problems...

here's some GA Superman pron for your fetish. . .

GA=. . .aww, you know it already!

http://thegreatcomicbookheroes.blogspot.com/2012/03/planetarys-doc-brass-and-his-league-of.html

I like how they put Elixir of Power inside quotation marks, like there's an implication that it's not really an elixir of power. It's probably just steroids.

...and Captain Triumph is PCG's bro.

Awesome! I liked some of his other posts, dealing with Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, & Steve Ditko (probably my top three favorite artists)

cocaine is a helluva drug.

Another favorite of mine is SILVERHEELS, which was a three-issue series produced by Pacific Comics, up until Pacific ceased publication in 1984, scripted by Bruce Jones, with beautiful Frazetta/Wrightson-esque painted art by Scott Hampton.



It took me a while to wrap my head around what Jones was trying to do with the series. While set in the future, it has a late-1930's feel to it. It's a future where Nazis have taken over Earth and are exploring out into space, and are attempting to have their cadets join a galactic federation of alien races.
I think Jones was trying to tell a story from the perspective of how someone living in the late 1930's would envision the future, as at that time it seemed the Nazis (up till 1942) had taken almost all of Europe, and seemed would inevitably take over the world. That Earth's future would be ruled by Germany, and a master race of space-exploring "Nazite" Germans would colonize space.

The title character is Native American, and Silverheels manages with some cleverness and manipulation to join the Nazi military cadets to participate in the competition among them, to select one cadet to represent Earth in an extraterrestial alien federation, despite that Silverheels' fellow cadets clearly view him as racially inferior, and openly plan kill him at the first opportunity.

The three issues ended the series unresolved in May 1984 (Hampton apparently produced pages very slowly), when Pacific Comics folded. And in 1987 Eclipse finally released a SILVERHEELS graphic novel that collects the 3 previous issues, with a 20-page new conclusion.




The three issues also contain a backup series that has another of my favorite sparsely-seen characters, "Robotus Ridiculous" by Ken Steacy.
Starring a robot named Flan, who is a mechanic by trade, and has a charming nostalgia for machines built in the 1950's, that he considers an era when machines were better built than in any era that came after it.



Flan also saves the world and gets impressive parades in his honor, and an issue later makes one mistake and is suddenly as globally hated as he was just adored. A very fun and playful character, and an interesting concept, of a robot who grumpily favors old technology, the same way humans are nostalgic for and glorify past eras.

Also nice were several artist portfolios of Hampton and Steacy, with photos of the artists and many nice pin-up pages.

DYNAMO JOE, published by First Comics, sporadically from 1985-1988, is another of my favorites I recently just rediscovered in my collection.

Set about 1000 years in the future, it focuses on a robot-shaped tank and its crew, in a future galactic war with an unseen alien race. The Dynamo Joe tank has a two-man crew, one from a human warrior race, and the other, Dynamo Joe robot's mechanic, of an anthropomorphic cat race, who has a love for earth culture and colloquialisms he inadvertently doesn't get quite right, with humorous results.

It initially ran as a backup in MARS 10-12, until that title was cancelled. (these 3 issues later reprinted as DYNAMO JOE SPECIAL 1 in early 1987)


It then appeared as one of three anthology features in FIRST ADVENTURES 1-5 in Dec 1985-April 1986.
When that title was cancelled,
The storyline continued in a three-issue DYNAMO JOE limited series, in May-June-July 1986.

And then that series, after a few months of hiatus, continued as the DYNAMO JOE regular series, issues 4-15, in 1987-1988.

So this series really struggled to remain on the stands for a few years!

In some ways it reminds me of Joe Haldeman's THE FOREVER WAR, a solid storyline that is a hybrid war and science-fiction title, but with very likeable characters and a lot of humor, that gives the series a great balance.

I'd recommend starting with the DYNAMO JOE SPECIAL that reprints the first 3 stories, and also has about 10 pages of synopsis and character profiles, and better printing, that is a good introduction to the series.
Good stuff.

TOR LOVE BETTY, from Eros comics (an imprint of Fantagraphics).




That's Tor Johnson, of Plan 9 From Outer Space fame, and a pro wrestler before that. This one-shot was a nice tribute to both him and Bettie Page.

I was just looking again at my collection of Pacific Comics' SUN RUNNERS series, and the "Mike Mahogany" backup feature in issues 2-4, by Roger McKenzie and Paul Smith. Another great character with too few appearances.

The title character is a ventriloquist's dummy, whose standup comedian owner is murdered, and the dummy comes to life and becomes a hardboiled private detective, and inadvertently ends up on the trail of his former owner's killer.
Here's a sample, the first page of the series.

Part Philip Marlowe, part Pinocchio, and maybe a touch of Eisner's THE SPIRIT, this is a fun little series that's complete in 3 issues. It's also among the first times I saw Paul Smith do both pencils and inks of his own art (the only other I can think of offhand from that period was Paul Smith's Howard the Duck story in BIZARRE ADVENTURES 34, another excellent story.)

There was a double-page house ad for the series in SILVERHEELS 2 (and possibly ran in other Pacific titles) that would have made a nice wraparound cover for a collected edition of the three 8-page stories.

Another I love is ARAK by Roy Thomas (circa 1981-1985). And though he didn't quite make it, he did have a respectable 50-issue run, plus an annual or two.
ARAK was created when Roy Thomas left Marvel because of Shooter, and then contracted to do work for DC. That's when he started ALL STAR SQUADRON (so he could play with DC's Golden Age heroes), and to get his Conan fix, he created ARAK. I love the concept (contrary to the normal direction of migration) of a native American sailing over to Europe, adapting to Scandinavian/Viking life, and then exploring the rest of Europe. The only part I didn't like were the injected mythological characters. I would have preferred the series (with more historic accuracy) to just have the character explore the wars and kingdoms of Europe, Africa and Asia in that era. That to me would have been more engaging than Satyrs and winged horses and so forth.

I especially recommend ARAK 1 and 2. And the preview story in WARLORD 48.



But a very respectable run, as failed characters go. And while somewhat visually similar, far from just a rip-off retread of Conan.

To my knowledge, there have been no revivals.

Another black-and-white series from 1981-1982 worth looking at is ISMET, about a galaxy-spanning war with an evil empire fought by a dog named Ismet and his other anthropomorphic animal friends, in a brief 5-issue series.

The amateurish early issues improved at a remarkable pace up through issues 4 and 5, in both story and art. And I think it's safe to guess that artist Greg Wadsworth was a student of Dave Sim's CEREBUS series, that largely explains the series' rapid escalation in quality.

The last work by Wadsworth I know of was a short backup titled "Night of the Living Teddy Bears" in CEREBUS 54 (Sept 1983). Unfortunately to my knowledge, ISMET was never concluded. Too bad, a great rising talent in those years.

Anyone else a fan of Giffen's Ambush Bug character?



I love him best in DC COMICS PRESENTS 52.

And in subsequent issues of ACTION COMICS 560, 563 and 565 shortly after that first appearance, before he went on to star in a couple 4-issue miniseries and one-shots. Giffen's art changed dramatically at that point, and the silliness just went too far over the top for me.

The last I really enjoyed was DC COMICS PRESENTS 81.

I also recall a SECRET ORIGINS story where it gave about a dozen origins for Ambush Bug, all of which were humorously absurdly untrue.

I think, for quite a while, Ambush Bug had "made it," given the number of series and one-shots he had.

But when Giffin's-ahem-"borrowing" art from others became public DC more or less pulled the plug.

Giffen's swipes go back to his peak period work on LEGION. Even before the Great Darkness Saga (LEGION 290-294) Giffen was visibly swiping pages from LONE SLOAN/DILIRIUS by Phillippe Druillet that was serialized in HEAVY METAL in the late 70's.

Starting in 1984, Giffen's art dropped off a cliff in quality, and he was swiping pages from Toth and Munoz. But when the art was not as beautiful and detailed as during his 1982-1983 LEGION period, I think readers began to abandon him. Lots of artists swiped Neal Adams (Buckler, Grell, Brunner, Sienkiewicz, to name just a few) and their careers don't suffer for it. Giffen had the added detriment that his new work really, REALLY sucked, and fans stopped buying it.

The later AMBUSH BUG mini-series work likewise was a decline from the above stories I listed. They were less funny, and just became annoyingly silly. The earlier Ambush Bug stories in DC COMICS PRESENTS and ACTION COMICS were playful, but also struck the right balance. Others may have loved the miniseries, but an issue or two in, that's when I got off the train.

Another seldom-seen character is "Captain Fear", created by Bob Kanigher and Alex Nino, that for a long time only appeared in ADVENTURE COMICS in 1973-1974 across issues 425 and 426 (by Kanigher/Nino), and 427, 429, 432 and 433 (By Skeates/Nino).

Here's the complete first story from ADVENTURE COMICS 425 (Jan 1973) 8 pages.

And parts 2 and 3 in ADVENTURE 426 (March 1973)8p and 427 (May 1973)7p .

Here are parts 4, 5 and 6, in ADVENTURE 429(Oct 1973)7p, 432(Apr 1974)7p and 433 (June 1974)7p


From the last Nino story, in ADVENTURE 433.


The character later saw a brief resurrection in UNKNOWN SOLDIER 254-256 (Aug, Sept, Oct 1981) as a 6-page backup series by Michelinie/ Simonson. All 18 pages reprinted in THE ART OF WALTER SIMONSON collected trade in 1989. Unfortunately the pages for parts 2 and 3 have the pages printed out of order, but still with better printing than the original.

Here are some sample pages:
http://fireandwaterpodcast.com/podcast/wwwt02gallery/




There have been some brief cameo-type appearances many years later by others:

SPECTRE (vol 3) issues 40-42 April-June 1996, by Ostrander and Mandrake.

TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED (vol 2) issues 1-8, by Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, Dec 2006-July 2007. In the "Dr Thirteen" backup stories, includin Captain Fear with other 1970's characters Dr Thirteen (from Aparo's PHANTOM STRANGER era) and "I, Vampire (from 1980-1982 HOUSE OF MYSTERY series). So this was a pretty crowded story.

Plus a reprisal by Simonson of his earlier series in THE JUDAS COIN (2012).

And a few other forgettable cameos.
In SUPERMAN/BATMAN 75 by Levitz/Ordway(Oct 2010).
And OUTSIDERS (vol 4) issue 26, in March 2010, by Dan Didio and Philip Tan.

The ones I love are the earliest Nino and Simonson stories, that explored the more exciting and paradoxical aspects of the character. There certainly aren't many escaped-slave Carib-indian pirates sailing around the Spanish Colonial seas in comics, in the 1970's or now.

In the comic series PLOP, there were quite a few characters in one-shot stories I would have liked to see more of. A handful of them did have a much later second story in PLOP.

Here's the first 6-page "Comic Book McFiend" story from the fanzine AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS, issue 6, June 1975:
https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/93482.html

The complete AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS 6 issue here:
https://view-comic.com/amazing-world-of-dc-comics-issue-6/


An issue dedicated to editor/artist Joe Orlando, who began DC's Mystery line of comics, along with PLOP and SWAMP THING, the Fleisher/Aparo Spectre run in ADVENTURE COMICS 431-440, among other milestones.
And Joe Orlando was previously one of the EC artists in the 1950's glory days of EC. There were a lot of great unpublished stories and covers in this Orlando tribute issue.
Also included was the story "Judgement Day" by Orlando, possibly the single best story EC ever published, that I already posted in a Pre-Code comics stories topic.
Plus an interview of Orlando, and an overview of his career and accomplishments, particularly at DC. Orlando even did covers and other art for TIME and NEWSWEEK.

Among the other great features in that AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS 6 issue is this story with "Comic Book McFiend", a kid with mountains of comics and an all-powerful genie like mentor/friend, with powers that are a variant of Billy Batson/Shazam.

This was a rejected story from PLOP, that I was suprised otherwise never saw print except in this obscure form. I thought it was a very enjoyable story for one rejected. Which is odd, and obviously others liked it too, at the very least among DC's editorial staff, because a sequel to it saw print in PLOP 24.

To my knowledge the only two appearaces of the character.

Here's the second "Comic Book McFiend" story, from PLOP 24, Nov-Dec 1976, the last issue of the series:

https://comiconlinefree.com/plop/issue-24/4

A great and little-used character is a villain named Brynocki, who was a villain in MASTER OF KUNG FU 33-35 by Moench, and Gulacy/Adkins in 1975.
Later re-aappearing in 72-75, by Moench, and Zeck/Patterson.
And one last appearance in issue 119 in Dec 1982, by Moench/Sylvestri.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Master-of-Kung-Fu-1974/Issue-33?id=29964#1

He was a cute little Disney-looking robot servant of a character named Mordillo, who created robot killers, and Shang Chi follows the path back to a private island Mordillo owns, that's kind of like a Disney theme park of robots and death traps for Shang Chi and his friends. Brynocki is something of a caretaker for the island and its killer machinations, who is extremely loyal to Mordillo. Even beyond his master's death in subsequent stories, Brynocki continues to serve him.

While innocent-looking and prone to speaking in cheerful good-natured catch-phrases and playfully taking on different cliche roles and costumes, Brynocki is deadly dangerous. The paradoxes and ironies make him a very likeable and interesting character.




It was nice that he was handled exclusively for so long by Moench. Having only one writer gave him a consistency over multiple appearances.

He also had one appearance by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema in ROM 47 (another series I really enjoyed).
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/ROM-1979/Issue-47?id=53195


The only other appearance I'm aware of was in THE THING 1-3 (2006 series) by writer Dan Slott, with art by Andrea Devito.
https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/The-Thing-2006/Issue-1?id=123183

Man, a lot of guys at Marvel were drinking the bongwater back then, weren't they?

If you mean they came up with some wild off-the-wall stuff, then yes, I'd agree. I think the 1970's and 1980's saw the rise of some very intelligent and inventive material, but also very fun material.

There's a lot of stuff done these days that I consider an unimaginative re-invention and re-tread of that better era. Such as Didio and Giffen's OMAC re-tread, or the 12-issue FF:THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMIC MAGAZINE. Or stuff on the Marvel side like DAREDEVIL: RED, or HULK:GRAY, or SPIDER-MAN:BLUE. Or the stretched out crossover event with Spiderman clones, that was ultimately just an exploitative re-tread of the clone story done in the 1970's.
All these stories and many more give a reference to popular stuff from that earlier era, but really offer nothing inventive or new. Another I re-read recently were the "Marvel Monster Group" re-treads from 2005 of the pre-Marvel monster stories (single one-shot issues in a mini-crossover of DEVIL DINOSAUR, MONSTERS ON THE PROWL, FIN FANG FOUR and WHERE MONSTERS DWELL, plus an all-new NICK FURY'S HOWLING COMMANDOS six issue series). I wanted to like all these series, but they are just a re-invention of stories that have already been told, with very little new added to the equation.

They are intended to exploit the nostalgic love by older readers for the earlier material, but ultimately just cheat the reader and add nothing new to those earlier stories.

The same with Neal Adams' recent BATMAN: ODYSSEY and new DEADMAN six-issue series. They give reference to the earlier better stories, but are themselves unimaginative and substandard. I prefer that 1956-1990 period, where they actually were coming up with new ideas. And weren't afraid to tell a complete story in 8 or 12 or 25 pages. Whereas now they'll stretch that story into a 6 or 12-issue series, to fill a collected trade. As opposed to actually giving us 6 or 12 well-told and original stories.

Agree. I think I bought all the Ambush Bug stuff but I really didn’t care for the art style in the mini series. Just finished the Defenders Masterworks with his earlier art and it looked very similar. I actually didn’t care for his Legion work after Great Darkness Saga either but I think I’m in the minority there. Now those early Bug appearances were a different matter. Supes had a golden age look that I liked and like you said the humor was just right.

Yeah, Giffen's work was in decline even before the end of the "Great Darkness Saga" (LSH 290-294). But I still enjoyed the stories in 295-306, and the art was still nice, if not quite as detailed as the issues that preceded them. I especially liked the stories in 296-297 (re-telling the Legion's origin, with a special focus on Cosmic Boy), 298-299 (focusing on Invisible Kid and Sunfire), issue 301 (with Chameleon Boy and R J Brande on their home planet), and 305 (wrapping up the Collosal Boy/Shrinking Violet storyline).

.

Another series I loved is "the Masked Man" by writer/artist B.C. Boyer. It is somewhat similar in style to Will Eisner's THE SPIRIT, featuring a similar looking masked hero, and his shorter chubby friend, who writes about his hero friend and narrates the stories. In each issue, they meet someone and help them, in stories that are both funny and tragic human interest stories.



It first appeared as an anthology series in ECLIPSE magazine issues 7 and 8, that last 2 issues of that black and white anthology series, in 1982.

Then it appeared in the anthology's new form of ECLIPSE MONTHLY 1-10, in 1983-1984. While there were a number of regular series in this anthology, "The Masked Man" was the only series to appear in every issue.

Then the series spun off into its own title, as THE MASKED MAN 1-12, from 1984-1988. The last few issues 10-12 going to a black and white format, as many titles from Eclipse, Fantagraphics and other publishers did in this period, to remain solvent during a difficult period for the comics industry.



There was also another 8-page backup series by B.C. Boyer called "The Incredible Seven" that ran in Don McGregor's SABRE series, in issues 4, 5 and 6 in 1983 (that I believe was Boyer's first sale to Eclipse, but ran after the first Masked Man stories were published).
Boyer tied in and concluded this earlier backup in a Masked Man story in ECLIPSE MONTHLY 5, Feb 1984.

After the MASKED MAN series ended in 1988, B.C. Boyer disappeared from comics for a while.
Boyer came back into comics a few years later and did a series called HILLY ROSE 1-9, from 1995-1997. A humorous whimsical mixture of Walt Kelly's "Pogo" series, that combined elements of Cho's LIBERTY MEADOWS, and a futuristic space travel backdrop. With a lot of decorative and fun Norman Rockwell-esque pin-up pages and color back covers.This was likewise a black and white series. Rough economic times in the comic industry, amid a glut of substandard black and white titles in that era, killed both MASKED MAN and HILLY ROSE, and seemed to push Boyer out of comics into other work.
Too bad, I liked his stuff a lot.

Complete issues scanned online:

ECLIPSE MONTHLY
https://viewcomiconline.com/eclipse-monthly-issue-1/

SABRE (B.C. Boyer "Incredible Seven" backups in 4-6. Concluded in ECLIPSE MONTHLY 5)
https://viewcomiconline.com/sabre-issue-4/
https://viewcomiconline.com/eclipse-monthly-issue-5/

HILLY ROSE
https://viewcomiconline.com/hilly-rose-issue-1/

Here's an updated link to that second story.
https://viewcomiconline.com/plop-issue-24/