When has a superhero made it onto the “A-list?”
Well, my rule of thumb is this: when a character inspires direct imitations, it’s nearing top rank. And by that reckoning, the Spectre made the grade.
Because a year after the Spectre debuted in More Fun Comics 52 (Feb. 1940), MLJ’s ghostly clone Mr. Justice bowed in Blue Ribbon Comics 9 (Feb. 1941).
One of the comparatively few MLJ mystery men who had super powers, Mr. Justice could fly, sense evil intentions, shape-shift and swallow bullets “like gumdrops.”
Writer Joe Blair and artist Sam Cooper supplied his origin. Slain by Scottish rebels in the 18th century, Prince James’ spirit remained trapped in his ancestral castle until that fortress was dismantled for shipment to America. When a Nazi U-boat sank the ship, Prince James was freed to fight evil.
In addition to the Crusaders (Fly-Man, Fly-Girl, the Black Hood, the Shield and Comet) we got a couple of panels of the Ultra Men (the Fox, Captain Flag and the Web) and the Terrific Three (Mr. Justice, the Jaguar and the Steel Sterling). The Three presumably and literally looked down on the Ultra Men because the latter could not fly.
And after that the Royal Wraith simply vanished again, as ghosts are wont to do.
Bob Doncaster wrote: I had some Jaguar comics but as a kid those few panels featuring heroes I hadn't seen sure intrigued me and I hoped to see more of them.
ReplyDeleteJohn Ferrigno wrote: I consider characters A-List when they break out of comic book Fandom and enter general pop culture. If the average person knows who they are, or if they are referenced in movies, tv shows, stand up comedy routines, etc. If they show up on kid's bed sheets or party plates.
ReplyDeleteBasically, if my dad or my daughter know who they are lol.
Edward Lee Love wrote: I consider A-List to be a mix of things: longevity of consistent publishing, consistency of character, self-named title, ability to headline more than one book, a certain amount of prominence within the comic community in which the character exists. Green Arrow and Black Lightning have both had television shows and are more well-known to the general public than a lot of other characters, but I'm not sure I'd call them A-list. Definitely wouldn't consider Groot an A-list character of the Marvel Universe even if he's the most quoted outside of Uncle Ben.
ReplyDeleteMichael Fraley:
ReplyDeleteChesler's Major Victory was a wild combination of the Spectre, Captain America, and Captain Marvel, all rolled into one. Not that it made much sense. And he had his own title too!
Johnny Williams:
ReplyDeleteDan, that same Terrific Three appearance you speak of above was also my only ‘in action’ reference to Mr. Justice as well because he’d not been among the plethora of Golden Age heroes that my Mother had introduced me to.
I was never on fire about the MLJ heroes as a whole after the Earliest issues of ‘The Adventures of The Fly and of The Double Life of Lancelot Strong’ of which Both just happened to have been illustrated by one of the greatest creative teams in comic book history, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.
After they left the Fly I still found the artwork of Bob Rosenberger palatable enough to continue following the series.
Now The Jaguar I liked from conception through to the beginning of the cringeworthy Mighty Crusaders. I am a big one for superhero teams and there were some fun/interesting moments in their run but overall they’d missed the mark for me in some significant ways back then.
But now getting back to the subject at hand, I don’t know this for certain but I feel that just from seeing that short exposure to the MLJ ghost hero that The Spectre would have made mincemeat out of Mr. Justice.
Tom Galloway:
ReplyDeleteArchie just finished an Archie Is Mr. Justice mini-series, but other than the name it appears to have had no connection to the ghost version.
Tony Parker:
ReplyDeleteBy that criteria, The Incredible Hulk could be considered an A-list character. True, he wasn't the first "man-monster" character (Frankenstein's Monster, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, werewolves, The Heap, and Solomon Grundy all preceded the Green Goliath). I'll even concede that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby distilled the previous Atlas-era monsters into the creation of Hulk and Thing. Both Hulk and The Thing (Ben Grimm) were among the first monstrous characters who were cast as heroes rather than villains. The Hulk is the template for brutish, monstrous characters that retain some aspects of their humanity--think Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, and a variety of heroes and villains created since.
I replied:
Oh, I think the Hulk is definitely A-list. But Man-Thing and Swamp Thing are based on an earlier template — the Heap, which was itself directly based on Theodore Sturgeon's story It.
David Allen Jones:
ReplyDeleteIn the 80s, when the MLJ line was relaunched as "Red Circle", Mr. J was a backup feature in one of the titles- Trevor Von Eeden did the art, inked by someone I forget but who had an odd style, maybe a Filipino.
John Jones:
ReplyDelete"when a character inspires direct imitations, it’s nearing top rank" By that criteria, the Heap is nearing the top rank, since the Heap spawn numerous imitations (Man-thing, Swamp-thing, etc) but nobody outside of a small niche of comic fans have ever hear of the Heap. Comics are littered with direct imitations of other comic book characters that nobody outside of comics have ever heard of. Sometimes even comic fans are unaware of the original being imitated because it was such an obscure character that the comic creator just happened to fondly remember from their youth when creating the imitation.
I replied:
Well, the issue isn't important to anyone but comic book fans anyway, and like all such designations, the very idea of an "A List" is purely arbitrary. No such thing exists, objectively.