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Posts tagged Johnny Thunder
More Wild West Stars
Jul 27th
Here we are again in the Wild and Woolly West… More heroes have taken up the call to tame this era of human history and here they are.
El Diablo…the Devil of the West is Lazarus Lane. He was a broken man with pangs of remorse about a fellow bank teller who was killed because Lazarus did nothing to stop it from happening. When he managed to find the bank robbers they threw him into a shallow river where he was struck by lightning. Found by an Apache shaman named Wise Owl, he nursed Lazarus back to life (on the third day no less) and explained that Lazarus was now two men, the body of Lazarus Lane and the spirit of a restless avenger. In addition to being an excellent marksman he is an expert with knives, bolas, and the bullwhip. He also has an uncanny ability to escape certain death, whether this is some sort of mystical mojo or not remains to be seen.
Johnny Thunder and Madame .44… John Tane was the son of a sheriff and a teacher. While John’s father believed in dealing out justice with guns, John’s mom believed that education would solve all the world’s ills. John swore to his mother that he would never wear a gun and followed her footsteps becoming a teacher. As time marched on John’s father got older and policing the little town of Mesa City just became harder and harder to do on his own. John had to help his father, but how, since he couldn’t break his word to his ma. He would don a cowboy outfit, change his hair, dumb down his speech, and put on his six-shooters and Johnny Thunder became a big help to the sheriff and folks of Mesa City.
Then came woman trouble in the form of Madame .44. Jeanne Walker was her real name and she was the daughter of a man who had helped find one of the largest gold deposits in the West. Jeanne’s father was swindled out of his part of the mine and was unable to get his claim recognized in court. He died bitter and broken leaving Jeanne on her own. Jeanne decided that she would get even with evil men who were unable to be punished by ordinary laws. She donned an all white get up and dyed her blonde hair red. She became a photographer in the wild west and was very connected with those who were rich.. and corrupt. Madame .44 would discover these evil men’s secrets then rob them to give the goods back to the families, minus a portion kept to keep her gang from rebelling. Then she came across Johnny Thunder…
Both John and Jeanne suspected each other’s true identities and finally worked together to defeat a common foe named Silk Black. Once that adventure had been concluded, John and Jeanne revealed their identities to each other, got married and lived happily ever after with their son and daughter, Charles and Becky.
John is a school teacher and as is the case in those days extraordinarily well read and educated for your average Western man. Jeanne is known for her trick shots with her guns and being the Robin Hood of the West.
Oh and p.s. John’s horse, was named Black Lightning….
Nighthawk is Hannibal Hawkes, a renowned fix-it man who had a penchant for fighting evil in his spare time. Seeing as how his work made him rather nomadic, Nighthawk roamed the West traveling from town to town putting down evil men and doing right by folks. Nighthawk did for a time travel with an orphan, kind of like an unofficial sidekick, but he eventually dropped the child off at a good home for orphans and kept up his Nighthawk identity more and more, fixing things that really mattered.
Pow-Wow Smith is a Sioux Indian who left his tribe to investigate the White Man out of a sense of curiosity. Pow-Wow managed to gain employment as a Deputy Sheriff with his learned abilities of tracking and weapons. Eventually becoming Sheriff Pow-Wow is one of the most respected Sheriff’s in the Wild West.
Matt Savage, Trail Boss is a possible relative of Scalphunter, Brian Savage from the previous post. Matt ran cattle from Texas to Kansas becoming the boss of some of the most ornery cowboys you done ever seen. From hostile ranchers, rustlers, coyotes, mad Indians.. Matt Savage has seen it all out there on the plains of the West.
Trigger Twins.. Walter and Wayne Trigger to be exact. Walt is the real sheriff of Rocky City, but when things get too dicey, he calls in help from Wayne who puts on an identical outfit to lend a hand.
and finally The Wyoming Kid… Bill Polk also known as Johnny Jones, the Wyoming Kid is the son of a slain sheepherder who was killed by a man named Clagett. Many folks assumed the local rival cattleman was involved, but the Kid figured out that wasn’t the case. Wyoming set out to find this mysterious killer and to bring him to justice. Of course, this brought him in the path of many strange characters.
So, ready to come back to the present day? How about we talk a bit about those freaks of science.. Doc Magnus and his Amazing Metal Men, Ultra the Multi-Alien, Shade the Changing Man, and Brother Power the Geek!!!
Justice Society of America – Roll Call II
Mar 11th
Here we go continuing our look at the JSA.
Carter Hall, same name as our Silver Age version is NOT a Thanagarian, but rather the reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh named Khufu. Khufu and his bride Chay-ara were murdered back in ancient Egyptian days and cursed so that they would live life after life after life. Doomed to find each other and fall in love all over again, however at some point when their love was at its zenith, they would each be murdered again to be reincarnated once again and the cycle repeats itself. In this time Carter and Shiera Hall married and had children and carried on crime fighting careers as Hawkman and Hawkgirl.
Gee, that’s funny. You would think if there is a Golden Age version of Hawkgirl, there would be a Silver Age one..? There is a Silver Age version, we’ll get to her shortly.
Hourman is Rex Tyler and he is a renowned chemist and has invented a drug called Miraclo. Miraclo will give Rex increased strength, speed, and stamina for.. (wait for it).. one hour. Eventually, Rex develops a dependency upon Miraclo and he becomes one of the first comic characters with a drug dependency issue, though not the most famous one.
He sure does look happy for an addict, doesn’t he?
Wesley Dodds is the enigmatic Sandman. One of the Mystery Men who truly did strike fear into people with his gas mask evoking imagery of WWI and II. His gas gun would mostly put his quarry to sleep, but sometimes they would be compelled to tell the truth in a lucid dream/almost awake state.
The Sandman is unique in that his sidekick isn’t really a sidekick at all but rather Dian Belmont is portrayed as an equal foil to Wesley and unlike Lois is aware of Wesley’s masked identity.
Eventually Wesley would ditch the scary pulp detective look for a more traditional super-hero costume and would take on a sidekick in the form of Sandy Hawkins taking the role of Sandy the Golden Boy. Wesley at some point in his career develops precognition as another power further tying him to his nom-de-guerre.
The Golden Age Atom is Al Pratt who is a boxer of great spunk and at a diminutive height being called The Atom seems like an easy pitch. At 5′1″ it could hardly be said that The Atom was someone to be reckoned with, that is until Al’s fist hit someone’s jaw. The Atom was the epitome of the little guy can win the fight and size doesn’t matter. Eventually The Atom does gain some measure of super-strength due to fighting an atomic powered villain during WWII.
The Atom’s 2 costumes, on the left the non-powered version, on the right, the atomic powered version.
Originally, Johnny Thunder was the team’s mascot character. A good hearted fellow with plenty of spunk to want to fight the bad guys. Then Johnny went and found himself a genie that was contained in a fountain pen. Johnny could call upon the genie, named Thunderbolt, when he said the magic word “Cei-U!” or “Say You!” It sounds pretty cool right? Well, Johnny while well meaning, had difficulty controlling the Thunderbolt, who took things literally and would sometimes complain in battle “well, maybe I wasn’t told the right thing to do.”
Next Time: The remaining Golden Age JSAers and McCarthyism.
Justice Society of America – Roll Call I
Mar 10th
Now, we’re here on Earth-Two and the counterpart to the JLA is the JSA. Not only the counterpart, but also the predecessor of the JLA. Back when I started collecting comics characters used to be numbered by order in which they appeared, so the original Green Lantern was Green Lantern I but he was from Earth-2. I am not going to do that here.
If any hard core comic book fans are reading this, I probably just moved to the heretic column. Oh well, I’ve been called an abomination before, and it will happen again, so bring it.
What I am going to do is typically use the character’s name and their real name to distinguish which character that we are talking about.
For the five heroes that kept being published from the Golden Age through to the Silver Age…
- Superman
- Batman
- Wonder Woman
- Aquaman
- Green Arrow
Only three of them joined the JSA. Wonder Woman was the secretary and Superman and Batman were honorary members. Neither Aquaman nor Green Arrow joined the JSA. Additionally between the Golden Age to the Silver Age no significant changes were made in the character regarding name, origin, powers, m.o., etc.., While some of these may have evolved over time there was not a distinct change that occurred along with a brand new introductory character. Since Superheroes as a genre were not commercially successful, most of those heroes went into mothballs until the powers that be decided it was time for superheroes to stage a comeback.
When that comeback occurred it featured a new character, new costume, new powers, new origins… the only thing that stayed the same consistently from character to character was the name of the hero.
With that in mind, we need to go back to the Golden Age a bit and spend some time with these heroes and heroines of the Golden Age.
The American propaganda was very important back in the days of WWII. For morale of the troops overseas and as a cheap entertainment for the kids at home. Remember, basics were scarce, so people typically read a comic and then sent it along with their magazines and newspapers to paper drives, along with scrap metal, old tires, nylons, anything to help with the war. People grew victory gardens to save money while dealing with war rationing. A coca-cola for Christmas was considered a splurge due to the sugar shortage.
So kids, needed their heroes just as much as the boys overseas. And here they are the roll call of the original JSA.
The Flash is Jay Garrick is a college student who inhales fumes from a hard water/heavy water experiment and when he awakes he discovers he can move at super speeds and he has amazing reflexes. He is easy to recognize due to the Hermes/Mercury helmet he wears.
(Barry Allen Flash of Earth-One on the left and Jay Garrick Flash of Earth-Two on the right.)
The Spectre is Detective Jim Corrigan who was murdered by mobsters. His body became infused with the “spirit of vengeance” and he became The Spectre. The Spectre starts off as just a man in an outfit with ghostly abilities, but he evolves eventually into one of the most powerful forces in the DCU as the “Wrath of God.”
The Spectre in one of his spooky tales in the Silver Age.
The good doctor who is a master of the mystical arts is Dr. Kent Nelson a son of an archaeologist who was in Egypt discovering all sorts of hidden treasures, unfortunately Kent’s father died leaving young Kent to be raised by a being named Nabu. Nabu is an ancient Egyptian sorcerer whose spirit lives in the Golden Helmet of Doctor Fate. When Kent puts on the Helmet, the power and personality of Nabu take him over to an extent and he becomes an agent for the Lords of Order to fight the never ending power of Chaos magicks.
(You have to admit, the helmet is a pretty intimidating look.)
Green Lantern is Alan Scott of Gotham City and is a top radio man in the business. Radio, right? According to comic book legend Alan was supposed to be named Alan Ladd (Aladdin?) but then a real Alan Ladd began to appear in movies and the name was scrapped. Alan’s ring and lantern are formed out of a mystical rock called The Starheart. He must charge his ring every 24 hours just like that other Green Lantern, however he has no connection to the space faring Green Lantern Corps except in name only. He was named an honorary member of the Green Lantern Corps after many duties he had performed over the years in the Earth-One universe. Unlike Hal, Alan’s ring was immune against wood, not against the color yellow.
Next time: More Classic JSA members!