F: Falcon!

F  

is for Falcon.

The Falcon was created by Stan Lee and Gene Colon in 1969 and holds the distinction as the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics.

Samuel Wilson was born and grew up in Harlem. A rebellious youth, it took the death of his parents to make him leave New York and move to Los Angeles. There he becomes "Snap" Wilson, an up and coming criminal.

While on his way to Rio De Janeiro for a "big deal", his plane crashes on a place called Exile Island. The island isn't deserted, though, it's been taken over by the Nazi supervillain....The Red Skull. Sam comes across the natives, who are in hiding, as well as large falcon he calls Redwing. Sam develops a good bond with Redwing and they meet up with a certain Star Spangled Avenger....Captain America.

In the ensuing showdown with the Skull, Sam is blasted by the Cosmic Cube (a device of considerable power) and is mentally 'fused' with Redwing. The fusing effect strengthens the connection they two already had and, eventually, would give Sam wide power over any bird.

With help from the Wakandan king T'challa (also known as the Black Panther), Sam gets a 'flying harness' which....you guessed it....allows him to fly. With combat training from Captain America, he fashions a costume and becomes Cap's crime fighting partner.

Thanks to Captain America, Sam is a trained hand to hand combatant as well as a natural trainer of birds. A natural leader and free thinker, Falcon also is just as comfortable in a team dynamic.

Cap and the Falcon fought crime alongside each other for quite a few years. Sam even took on the mantle of Captain America a couple of times when the Captain was thought to have been killed.

Sam is still flying high in the Marvel Universe, as far as I know. Guest starring in various other books and even getting his own mini-series back in the 90s.

Rumor has it that the Falcon will be in the next Captain America movie and played by Anthony Mackie. We'll have to wait and see about that one...

Head on back over here Monday for a hero of colossal proportions!

E: Elongated Man

E 

is for Elongated Man. Yes...you read that right...Elongated....Man.

Ralph Dibney, the Stretchable Sleuth, fought crime under, perhaps, the worst superhero name out there....The Elongated Man.

Partially created by D.C. Comics editor Julius Schwartz, it's said that Schwartz didn't realize that the company owned the rights to the name Plastic Man (having bought the old Quality line that previously owned the name) or he would have never used the name "Elongated Man". I tend to believe that story. EM was created as a supporting character for The Flash and wound up getting backup stories in the Fastest Man Alive's book. He and his wife, Sue, would travel the country in a convertible, looking for odd mysteries to solve.

Just how does one go about becoming a silly putty superhero? Well, in Dibney's case, he was always fascinated with the Indian rubber men he had seen at carnivals and wanted to emulate their contortion skills. Why....I have no idea.

Anyway...

Doing some research, he found that they all drank a juice extracted from the root of a plant found in the Yucatan...the gingo plant. They used the plant to make an elixir called Gingold. Figuring out a way to make his own, he drank it with incredible results. He found he could stretch his body in a way more extreme manner then the 'rubber men' he had seen at the carnivals. Later on, his origin was amended to include that he had a "meta gene" that interacted with the Gingold, giving him his spectacular results.

Sounds plausible to me...

Known for twitching his nose when he 'smelled' a mystery (it was his trademark), Ralph was a skilled detective, but usually took a backseat to Batman because.....well...he's Batman!  it's also said that he was one of the first Silver Age heroes to reveal his identity to the public and marry his love interest. Regardless, though, Ralph was a pretty popular character, just saddled with a cornball name.

One of the reasons, I think, that Dibney was such a popular character was that many of his stories featured not only him..., but his wife as well. Sue Dibney was Ralph's anchor and kept him grounded in a world where they knew people who could fly, create objects with power rings, or breathe underwater. The pair were very reminiscent of Nick and Nora Charles from the Thin Man films. They had that sort of repartee that a lot of couples, married or not, could identify with.

D.C. decided to kill Sue Dibney in the Identity Crisis series, leaving Ralph a husk of a man.....the happy go lucky, joke cracking, Elongated Man was gone.

Ralph reappeared in the maxi-series 52, looking for a way to bring Sue back from the dead. At the end of the series, Ralph finally figures out something that many of his friends had been telling him....Sue wasn't coming back. 

Finally resigned to his fate, Ralph comes across a 'wish granting' gun (hey, I didn't make it up) and wishes to be reunited with his wife....even in death. Thus brings the end to the Elongated Man, but was the birth of Ralph and Sue Dibney....Ghost Detectives.

I wonder if they've ever come across Doctor Occult? I'll have to look that one up. Hmmm...

Check back tomorrow as we fly high with a real cool cat.

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During the month of April, for the sake of trying to keep my posts brief,  I'm going to be putting my Healthy Writers Club entries on hiatus. 

Never fear, all you health nuts, I'll be resuming my HWC posts the first Friday in May and I'm going to have some interesting news to share.

Stay tuned!

D: Doctor Occult!

D

is for Doctor Occult.

Richard Occult (aka The Ghost Detective) was a supernatural detective created by the same team who created Superman....Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. He debuted in New Fun Comics #6, back in 1935 under the name Dr. Mystic where he travels to a mystic realm, flies, and wears a cape....thus becoming the very first caped hero in comics (Superman didn't appear until 1938).  

As Dr. Occult, his usual garb was as shown above....a suit, trench coat and fedora. If nothing else, the Doc had style! He also had the "Symbol of the Seven"...a mystic talisman that focused his abilities, could exorcise as well as drive off demons, and did just about anything else the writers needed it to do.

A strange character deserves a strange origin story, I guess...

December 31st, 1899...a pair of infants are to be sacrificed to Satan by an evil cult. The two are rescued by another cult...known as The Seven. Seeing potential in the two, they raise the children..one boy and one girl..and train them in the 'mystic arts'. The boy they name Richard Occult and the girl they name Rose Psychic. Since Richard seemed to have the most magical talent of the two, he's given the mystical Symbol of the Seven. Soon after, the two were told to leave, go into the world, and fight evil. Simple enough, eh?

Occult went to school, excelling in the sciences (another scientist!) and earned a doctorate...becoming a legitimate 'doctor' in the academic sense. After that, he and Rose set up a detective agency, taking any and all cases involving the supernatural or the unexplained. 

The Doc had a long and varied career in the D.C. Universe and was usually called in when someone was recruiting a bunch of magic using types to deal with some manner of supernatural threat.  He used his powers to fight off aging...thus allowing the writers to pull him out of the mothballs anytime a story called for a 'mystical character you haven't seen in a while'. 

I've always loved the 'pulp' type heroes and they don't get much pulpier than the good Doctor.

 Tune in tomorrow for "E". A post I'll be trying to 'stretch' out....ahem

C: Chlorophyll Kid

C 

C is for Chlorophyll Kid

Yeah, I know...he sort of looks like a loser and, from his costume, you can probably tell what his power is.....

You guessed it....

...he can make plants grow. 

Really fast. 

'What sort of superhero is he?', you might ask. Well...he's a substitute hero.

In the far flung 30th century, D.C. Comics had a group of futuristic teens called the Legion of Super Heroes. Young men and women from different planets and each with a peculiar power which was, usually, an ability native to their home world.

There was Cosmic Boy, who could control magnetic forces. Saturn Girl, who could read minds. Lightning Lad, who could generate lightning, Phantom Girl, who could sidestep dimensions and walk through walls...etc., etc. Each hero's name went along the lines of "kid", "lass", "lad"....even Superboy (travelling from the past and who had inspired the group to form in the first place) was a member.

In order to become a member of the Legion and get access to their cool clubhouse as well as a Flight Ring (which let you fly...duh!), you have to try out. 

What happens when you fail your Legion tryout?

Why, you form your own group...the Legion of Substitute Heroes!

While most Legion applicants had natural powers, Ral Benum of the planet Mardru got his by falling into a vat of 'hydroponic serum'. He survived and gained the power to stimulate plant growth. Don't you just love those old 60s origin tales? :)

After one particular Legion tryout, a group of rejects consisting of Polar Boy (made things cold), Fire Lad (projected flames), Night Girl (super strength/invulnerability, but only at night), and Stone Boy (could turn to stone, but couldn't move after) got together with Chlorophyll Kid to form their own group.

The Legion of Substitute Heroes!

Their goal.....support the Legion where they could and help their fellow sentient beings. 

Chlorophyll Kid didn't have an outstanding run....in any book...but was a fun character who had a lot of potential, I always thought. I also loved the idea of a misfit group that would pinch-hit for the main hero group in times of trouble.

The Kid and his pals were fun heroes for a more fun time in comic book history.

Tune in tomorrow for "D" and a bit of....magic.

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Also, since it's the first Wednesday of the month (man, time sure flies by) it's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group post.

The brainchild of uber-author and blogger, Alex J. Cavanaugh, the IWSG is a time for self reflection and to discuss what, as writers, makes us feel insecure.

This month, I'm happy to say, I don't have a lot to be insecure about. While I haven't been doing much writing, I have been keeping my blogging "schedule" that I set up back in January. In my case, structure, repetition, and routine are paramount for my writing.

Just sitting down to write...regardless of what I'm writing...is a great big step forward for me, and it's something I've been doing pretty diligently.

While I want to keep up with my blogging, I'm going to have to transition my routine over to writing my stories and not just blog posts.

Slowly, but surely, I think I'll get there.

Thanks, again, to the Ninja Captain for that great shout out yesterday and all the kind words from you guys in the comments. With blogging buddies like that, it's hard to be insecure about anything. :)

B: Black Goliath!

B 

is for Black Goliath.

Black Goliath was created by Stan (The Man) Lee and Don Heck, for Marvel Comics,back in the 1970s. Dr. Bill Foster was a kid from the ghetto (seems like a lot of the heroes of color in the 70s where from the ghetto) who had made good. He became a brilliant biochemist, getting a Ph.D and going to work for Iron Man himself, Tony Stark. Later, he goes to work for another brilliant scientist, Dr. Henry Pym (a.k.a. Giant Man, Yellowjacket, Ant Man), at a time when Pym was stuck in his 10 foot 'Giant Man' form. Well, one thing led to another and Bill got a hold of Pym's growth formula....fashioned a costume and started calling himself, "Black Goliath".

As Black Goliath, Foster could grow to about fifteen feet tall and gained proportionate strength for his size....being able to lift about ten tons.

As stated, he was a brilliant biochemist as well as a gifted scientist.

Foster had a pretty long career in the Marvel Universe, showing up here and there and, eventually, landing a pretty steady job at Project Pegasus....a super powered 'think tank' that was the setting for quite a few "Marvel Two In One" issues (featuring The Thing).

Black Goliath inherited the "Giant Man" mantle for a bit, then just went by "Goliath".

Sadly, Foster was killed by a Thor doppelganger during the "Civil War" series.

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Oh...and "B" is also for Bird.....Arlee Bird (cue the James Bond music).

Yesterday I totally forgot to give a shout out to the man who made the A to Z Challenge possible....Arlee Bird over at Tossing It Out.

Thank you, Arlee!

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Oh...and one more "B" (seems there's more "B"s buzzing around there than a honeycomb)....glad I didn't forget this one, though.

B is also for  The Begonia Bribe

The Begonia Bribe: 2nd in the Garden Society Cozy Mystery series by Alyse Carlson
(aka: Hart Johnson)

Roanoke, Virginia, is home to some of the country’s most exquisite gardens, and
it’s Camellia Harris’s job to promote them. But when a pint-sized beauty contest
comes to town, someone decides to deliver a final judgment …

A beauty pageant for little girls—the Little Miss Begonia Pageant—has decided to hold

their event in a Roanoke park. Camellia is called in to help deal with the botanical details,
the cute contestants, and their catty mothers. She soon realizes that the drama onstage
is nothing compared to the judges row. There’s jealousy, betrayal, and a love triangle
involving local newsman—and known lothario—Telly Stevens. And a mysterious saboteur is
trying to stop the pageant from happening at all.

But the drama turns deadly when Stevens is found dead, poisoned by some sort of plant.
With a full flowerbed of potential suspects, Cam needs to dig through the evidence to uproot
a killer with a deadly green thumb.

Pre-order on: Amazon Barnes and Noble
Find Hart/Alyse at: Confessions of a Watery Tart
Facebook Author Page or Profile Twitter

Best wishes to Hart and I hope the book is a great success!

Tune in tomorrow for "C". If you don't....you'll wish you had :)

A to Z: A is for Adam Strange! / Music Monday

Today, for those of you who may not have heard (and, if not, where have you been?), is the start of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. The 'challenge', as it were, is to post an entry a day, each day in the month of April. The only exception is Sunday, giving us twenty six posts. Each post corresponds to a letter of the alphabet.

Today is "A"...tomorrow, "B", etc., etc.

The list of bloggers participating is pretty impressive....over 400, according to the sign-up list. A lot of these bloggers are going with themes to make it a bit easier to bring it all together, which I thought was a great idea.

My theme is going to be 'Obscure Superheroes'. Some of these men and women you may have heard of, but I'm pretty confident in saying that I'll have a few that you haven't.

To kick things off, A is for Adam Strange.

A       

Adam was  a D.C. comics character created in the late 50s by Gardner Fox. Fox was asked to come up with a 'science fiction' hero and came up with his answer to Flash Gordon. Strange was an  archaeologist who was zapped by the 'Zeta Beam' from a planet called Rann (a la Jon Carter). Stuck on a strange world, Adam found friends with some of the natives and fell in love (ah, good, ole, space opera). When the effects of the  beam wore off, Adam was zapped back to Earth. Strange had all sorts of adventures on Rann as well as becoming and adventurer on Earth and mingling with the likes of Superman and Batman.

Strange had no powers, per se, just advanced technology (jet pack, laser pistol), skill in hand to hand combat (as any self respecting archaeologist would), and a heroic spirit.

The character remains active to this day, as far as I know.

Tune into tomorrow for...."B"!

Just because it's the A to Z Challenge doesn't mean I still can't throw in a quick Music Monday selection.

A little something to get your feet tapping... Twisting By the Pool, by Dire Straits.