September 1976: The Short Flight of the Human Rocket

What do you get when you cross Spider-Man with Green Lantern? Nova, the Human Rocket.

Introduced by writer Marv Wolfman and artist John Buscema in Nova 1 (Sept. 1976), the character was an attempt to recapture the teenage superhero lightning of Spider-Man in a bottle 14 years later. 

But instead of a bitterly alienated science nerd, Richard Rider was an ordinary high schooler, good-hearted but not overly bright. As with the Silver Age Green Lantern, his super powers are transferred from an endangered and dying alien champion. 

But the dying Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814, Abin Sur, had time to find the bravest man on Earth, Hal Jordan, and to use his power ring to check that he was also honest. The mortally wounded Centurion Nova-Prime Rhomann Dey just picked a kid at random.

And that angle gave the feature something of a Greatest American Hero vibe, with Rider learning to use his super powers on the job. And those were the satisfying if typical Standard Operating Procedure powers for a superhero — flight, super-speed, durability and super-strength.

His first run lasted only an unimpressive 25 issues. But I always thought Nova had potential, and at least his exit was as stylish as his entrance — for the final issue, his cover tag line was altered from “He’s here! The Human Rocket!” to “He’s gone! The Human Rocket!”

August 1971: Red Wolf in the Spotlight

“We must applaud Red Wolf for many reasons,” wrote Michael A. Sheyahshe in Native Americans in Comic Books. “The comic contains a character who is the first major Native superhero, one who is a complex character, more human than many other Indigenous characters, and one that even has his own sidekick.”

Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, Red Wolf was William Talltrees, a young man whose Cheyenne family was extorted and murdered by corrupt businessman Cornelius van Lunt. To avenge them, he adopted the legendary persona of Red Wolf, gaining vaguely defined powers from the Native American god Owayodata and a partner, an actual wolf named Lobo. 

“I liked the story,” recalled comics historian Paul Zuckerman of Red Wolf’s September 1970 debut in Avengers 80. “Although Native Americans had already long been treated with more respect in comics, this brought them front and center into the modern world, part of the trend of relevant comics that were popping up then and getting all of the attention from the media.

“They didn't really do much with the character and when Red Wolf got his own series, it wasn't him — it was his ancestor! But it was books like this that piqued my interest in comics again.”

Penned by Gardner Fox and drawn by Syd Shores, the Red Wolf feature that began in Marvel Spotlight 1 (Aug. 1971) was set in the Old West.

“The switch to a Wild West era character was something Stan imposed on us,” Roy Thomas recalled. “I would have preferred to keep the modern hero from the beginning.”

“Red Wolf marked the first time that an American Indian had assumed the role (of mysterious avenger), and it certainly should be remembered at least for breaking ground in a new direction,” Maurice Horn wrote in Comics of the American West.

In the movies at roughly the same time, actor and writer Tom Laughlin introduced his half-Indian ex-Green Beret avenger, Billy Jack.

August 1970: From Siren to Superhero

Already spider-themed, Marvel Comics’ Black Widow naturally became the first of several female counterparts to Marvel’s most popular superhero, the first of several fully feminist Marvel superwomen and finally a Hollywood heroine.

In the first six years of her fictional career, she moved from minor villain to headlining hero. Over the same span, her dramatic journey paralleled the advancement in the status of women across the 20th century.

Created by Stan Lee, Don Rico and Don Heck in Tales of Suspense 52 (April 1964), Natalia Alianovna “Natasha” Romanova was introduced as a Russian communist spy, a foe of the capitalist industrialist superhero Iron Man.

She wasn’t a costumed character but a beautiful “femme fatale,” an archetype created by male writers that represents a woman’s sexual attractiveness to men as a siren threat, a weapon.

Dashiell Hammett’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy, from the 1929 novel The Maltese Falcon, is a classic of the type, seducing several men to their doom. The femme fatale has often amounted to a nightmare view of female independence and confidence.

But Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique, credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century, was already a year old when the Black Widow debuted. So, by the end of the decade, the character was transformed from a slinky villain into a playgirl feminist superhero with her own feature in Amazing Adventures (Aug. 1970, drawn by John Buscema and written by Gary Friedrich).

Defecting to the U.S. and trading espionage for superheroics, Natasha had settled on a costume that consisted of a skintight black catsuit and wristband weapons that echoed Diana Rigg’s most popular outfit as Emma Peel in The Avengers (no, not those Avengers).

After her Amazing Adventures feature ended in 1971, the Black Widow started teaming up with Daredevil. In 1975, the characters attracted the interest of Angela Bowie, who planned to play Natasha in a TV project. She was the wife of David Bowie (Yes, that David Bowie).