His power came from his long-unfashionable hat.
Teeny weeny magic beanie, / Pointing towards the sky; / Give me muscle, power, vigor, / Form a super guy!
And with that Green Lantern-like chant, in a Captain Marvel-like flash, Forsythe Pendleton Jones III became the caped, blue-clad (or sometimes purple-clad, or yellow-clad) Captain Hero.
Whereas his pal Archie Andrews got super with the aid of a self-help book and a considerable effort of concentration, Jughead needed only to invoke the beneficence of the hat he’d been wearing for 25 years. A similar fashion fetish — a twist of her ponytail — turned Betty Cooper into Super-Teen.
Debuting as a dream figure in Jughead 126 (Nov. 1965), Jughead’s alter ego put paid to various supervillains in seven issues of his own comic book as well as other titles.
“I think it helped that no one seemed to have any real grasp on what his powers were,” observed comics historian Mitchell Brown. “He was strong, sure, but he also appeared to be whatever the story required him to be, and he would pull gadgets like a radio headset out of thin air. Not that I’m complaining — a hero whose strength is fueled by burgers is probably not meant to be taken too seriously.”
“For all the arguments you can make for ‘realism’ in comics and the current decompression of story elements, this issue is fun in ways that modern comics just can’t match,” Matthew Peterson wrote of Jughead as Captain Hero 1 (Oct. 1966). “The art is clear, bright and brilliant, mixing super-hero tropes and the teeniebopper quasi-romance style of the Archie line with ease.”
Jughead’s penchant for daydream heroics went back at least to 1960, when he starred in the three issues of Jughead’s Fantasy as a knight in armor, the Son of Hercules and a private eye named “Peter Goon.”
I admit to a slight resentment against Jughead, though. If defying fashion gives you superpowers, then where are mine?
Bob Doncaster said: Always wanted to see Jughead and Wimpy in a hamburger eating contest.
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