May 1968: When Villain Turns Hero

Those first few appearances of Marvel’s Captain Marvel in 1967-68, by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas and Gene Colan, were dramatic and innovative.

The Kree invader Captain Mar-Vell was an alien spy and saboteur who, when accidentally compelled to pose as a superhero, found that he was gradually becoming one.

It’s a theme that has been reworked to good effect since, notably in Marvel’s Thunderbolts (when the Masters of Evil posed as a superhero team) and Superior Spider-Man (in which Dr. Octopus took over his archenemy’s identity).

But I’ve heard Stan Lee was unenthusiastic about Marvel Comics stealing the name and Shazam-born thunder of the famous Fawcett hero of the 1940s (it was his publisher’s idea). As the feature fell into other hands, it careened erratically into relative obscurity. What might have been, had Thomas and Colan stayed... 

September 1967: A Plague of Frogs

Daredevil has had a surprising amount of trouble with frog people.

Equipped by the Organizer (a/k/a New York mayoral candidate Abner Jonas) for the role of Frog Man, Francois Le Blanc teamed up with Jonas’ other Ani-Men (Bird Man, Cat Man and Ape Man) to battle Daredevil in Daredevil 10-11 (Oct.-Dec. 1965).

Then, in Daredevil 25 (Feb. 1967), Vincent Patilio adopted the springy identity of the Leap Frog even as Matt Murdock invented a twin brother, Mike, in a desperate ploy to protect his secret identity.

In Daredevil Annual 1 (Sept. 1967), the Leap Frog returned with the “Emissaries of Evil” (which included Electro, the Matador, the Gladiator and the Stilt-Man), but DD’s old foes didn’t fare any better as a team than they had individually.

Now styling themselves as “the Unholy Three,” Ape Man, Cat Man and Bird Man returned without Frog Man in Daredevil 39-40 (April-May 1968). And the Man Without Fear didn’t miss the green gangster.

“Only the Frog Man is left — but he hasn’t the brains to lead these other three,” Daredevil observed. “And since he wasn’t with them, he … must still be in the pokey!”

Unlike Frog Man, however, the Leap Frog was smart enough to invent the battery-powered high-tech spring boots that propelled his criminal career. 

Those boots were inherited by his son Eugene in Marvel Team-Up 121 (June 1982), and he used them to try to clear the family name as the Fabulous Frog-Man. 

Surviving largely by luck, Eugene is sometimes referred to as “Kermit.”

“Must be sad needing to follow in your daddy’s flippers in an ugly Frog Man costume,” Joseph Lenius said.

September 1967: Joining the Club

In Marvel Comics, some weapon — a shield, a hammer, webbing or claws — often served as a kind of totem for a superhero.

The weapon usually had a dual purpose: providing the hero with power and symbolizing his identity and mission. For example, Captain America, essentially a protector, carried a shield; Wolverine, essentially an aggressor, had claws.

And Daredevil, who was secretly blind, had a cane that snapped into a billy club — a tool to compensate for disability instantly transformed into a means of punishing the guilty.

Both the cane and the billy club provided freedom of movement to the superhero, as well.

“(T)he true value of Daredevil’s billy club is that it allows him to incorporate an essential item of the blind person into his superhero persona,” observed Alex S. Romagnoli and Gian S. Pagnucci in their book Enter the Superheroes: American Values, Culture and the Canon of Superhero Literature. “The billy club becomes a symbol for rising above one’s limitations. This is what we come to expect of technology in the 21^st century: that it can work miracles. We want devices that help us to navigate our world. Perhaps not a billy club that can let a blind person swing through the air, but certainly digital maps on cell phones that we can call upon when we are lost.”

Comics historian Vincent Mariani remarked, “I always felt that with the revival of Captain America and introduction of Daredevil in early 1964, Marvel achieved as perfect a cast of characters as possible. With Captain America, a link to Timely comics' Golden Age (begun with anti-hero Sub-Mariner a few years earlier) was cemented. And with Daredevil, a unique loner type of hero would be an apt compliment for the ‘offbeat’ Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.

“As time passed, and with increasing success, more and more characters were added in an inevitable expansion. But that early ‘universe’ of heroes, at that point in time, seemed far more manageably iconic.”

August 1965: Subby Moves into a Duplex

Marvel’s seagoing superman of the 1940s became a useful utility character early in the 1960s, serving as hero or villain as the occasion required — just as the Hulk did a little later.

In his Silver Age resurrection (Fantastic Four 4, May 1962), the Sub-Mariner became the super-team’s enemy, but in his second appearance (Fantastic Four 6, Sept. 1962), he started out as an opponent but turned into an ally to save the day. 

Prince Namor was intriguingly unpredictable, even as he had been in the late 1930s (though, thanks to the Comics Code, he was no longer casually murdering police officers).

However, by the time a feature spot opened up for the character in Tales to Astonish 70, the very busy Stan Lee had settled into a sort of one-note characterization for the Sub-Mariner, a grandiloquent arrogance. Compared to other Marvel superheroes, I found him a bit of a humorless “noble” bore. 

 “I was as thrilled as anybody when the Sub-Mariner was finally given his own series in Tales to Astonish,” recalled Roy Thomas. “‘Adam Austin’ drew an illustrative Namor which had little in common with the (Bill) Everett version, but I liked it. Later that year, when I went to work for Stan Lee, I learned that ‘Adam Austin’ was really one Gene Colan, hiding under a fake name because he also drew romance comics for DC and didn’t want them to know he was moonlighting.”

Perhaps coincidentally, when the Sub-Mariner replaced Giant-Man in the duplex title Tales to Astonish, the magazine acquired a theme: super-antiheroes.

Both Prince Namor and the Hulk, the star of the magazine’s other feature, were rough-hewn, sharp-edged heroes who often rescued humanity only reluctantly or inadvertently. 

Meanwhile, Strange Tales, featuring Dr. Strange and Nick Fury, spotlighted niche characters more marginally connected to superheroes. And Tales of Suspense, featuring Iron Man and Captain America, was the duplex comic offering two out-and-out superheroes.