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Can you believe it's another month, gone by, already? Well, it is
and this month I found inspiration in August's COMIC BOOK ARTIST
magazine, one of the most interesting magazines about comics coming out,
now. This issue focussed on Charlton Comics' Action Hero line and, of
course, I just had to take a shot at some of these characters.
This is not as easy as it sounds, many of these characters have
been redesigned in the years since DC Comics bought the Charlton
heroes and introduced them to the DC Universe in the pages of Crisis on
Infinite Earths. And that's not even counting the way that Alan Moore and
Dave Gibbons reworked the Charlton heroes in Watchmen.
Right off the bat, I decided there were a few that I wouldn't touch.
Blue Beetle and the Question need no work and since I have little
interest in the martial arts heroes, I chose to leave Judomaster and his
sidekick Tiger alone. That left me with four heroes to play with, Captain
Atom, Thunderbolt, Peacemaker and Nightshade.
Captain Atom was one of the earliest "nuclear" heroes. A
technician on a test launch of a nuclear weapon, trapped on the hull of the rocket,
unable to escape, he was launched into the stratosphere where
the weapon detonated. Miraculously, he was not killed by the blast or
radiation, he was empowered with "atomic" strength, flight and radiation blasts.
His body was heavily irradiated and he was required to wear a golden
mesh uniform to protect others around him from dangerous levels of
radiation. He worked principally for the Air Force and went through a couple
of uniform changes, before Charlton stopped production and other
companies took up the character.
When DC launched Captain Atom for itself, they altered the origin,
adding an alien metal/time travel twist to it. Apparently, in the mid-80s, the
idea of a man caught in a nuclear test just wasn't as plausible as
it was in the mid-60s. DC's solution was to start the character off in
1968, a Viet Nam veteran framed for a serious crime and given the option to
volunteer for a dangerous experiment in order to gain amnesty. Of
course, he volunteered. The government scientists were testing samples of
an alien metal found at the crash site of a UFO and Captain Nathaniel
Adam, was chosen to be the guinea pig. They locked him inside a sphere
of the strange metal, suspended in an underground test chamber and
detonated a nuke. The alien metal was energized by the blast and propelled
itself and it's passenger through time.
Nathaniel Adam's family was informed of his death and moved on
(his wife ended up marrying the officer who framed Adam, General Wade
Eiling). Fast forward to the mid-80s, he's back. The alien metal was absorbed
into his body and had given him a connection to something called the
"Quantum Field", granting him powers similar to the original version. Because
of the machinations of his nemesis, General Eiling, he was more-or-
less forced into government service.
DC's new design for Captain Atom was simple and effective. His
entire body was covered in a silvery skin of metal, with an "atom" symbol
etched into his chest and blue "boots" and red "gloves" sort of, painted
on. He could absorb the metal into his body to appear normal, as well.
For my design, I kept it simple and borrowed a bit from Dave
Gibbons' Dr. Manhattan design, using the dark blue/black full-body outfit, but
with golden boots and gloves.
One down, three to go.
I have to admit that I've never read a single story with Peter
Cannon, Thunderbolt, but I like the combination of red and blue/black and I
have to admit, the name Thunderbolt is one of the best. What I didn't like
about the character is the left/right bisection. I like symmetry, in a
costume.
Peter Cannon was orphaned, when his parents died fighting an
outbreak of the Black Plague in a Tibetan lamasery. He was raised by the
monks and taught their secrets which allowed him to tap into the unused
portions of the human brain and was able to perform fantastic feats, physical
and mental, the pinnacle of human ability.
For my version, I kept the colors the same, but altered the design
to a more symmetrical design. Also, I added pouches to the otherwise
useless belt and lengthened the trunks into long, bicycle-style shorts.
Ideally, I woul have him wear long pants, but I didn't want to stray too far
from the original outlines.
Now we come to the guy who, in my opinion, needed the most
work of all, Peacemaker. Not that the orignal design was all bad, but "dated"
doesn't even begin to describe it. Then there's that awful helmet.
Apologies to fellow Texan, the late Pat Boyette, but that helmet is about as
unwearable as they come. I do like that he wears brown, with is an
underused color, in comics.
Peacemaker is described as a man who "loved peace so much
that he was willing to fight for it". I have no reference material from the Charlton
days, but the DC version has him being the son of a former Nazi
war criminal, driven to fight the forces of instability in the world. For my
design, I changed the short-sleeved shirt to soft body armor and
used the same "material" for the boots and gloves. I had to change the
pants, just can't see a man going into combat wearing white pants, sorry. The
helmet, I reworked to a slightly more streamlined design, keeping it
somewhat odd-shaped. The firearms are normal guns, a Beretta 9mm, a mini-
Uzi and Remington pump shotgun in the scabbard on his back.
Nightshade, last but not least, is another character that I like
proper reference for, leaving me only the DC Who's Who info to draw from.
Nightshade is Eve Eden, whose mother was the queen-in-exile of
an other-dimensional realm called the Land of Nightshades. One day,
her mother took her children, Eve and her brother, Larry, back to the
Land of Nightshades, to introduce them to their heritage, where she was
ambushed and killed. Eve's brother was kidnapped by her mother's enemy
the Incubus and held hostage for years. Before she died, Eve's mother told her
that she shared her powers to command shadows and travel between
the worlds.
Nightshade's original costume was propably thought to be fairly
"cool" for the times, but it definitely doesn't hold up over time, especially
that headpiece. DC was quick to dump the "cheerleader" outfit for
something sleeker, when they put out a Nightshade comic. Black
and purple, which work phenomenally well together, however, their
design never really worked for me.
For my design, I broke my earlier "rule" about symmetry, for the
simple reason that I made the "rule" and I can break it when I want!
Seriously, sometimes an asymmetrical element adds just the right touch to
keep the design from being boring. In this case, I incorporated the diagonal
bar between the vertical side-panels to suggest the letter "N".
So, there we have it. Four characters from a company that has
been out of business for about twenty years. If you haven't got it, yet, I
recommend getting Comic Book Artist, the latest, back issues, etc. It's a very
good mag with a wealth of comics history.
To anyone who attended Uncommon Con, over Thanksgiving
weekend, I hope you stopped by our table to say, "Hi" and look for us, next year.
Personally, I'm going to try to attend as many cons in Texas, as I
can and maybe stray a bit further afield, when possible.
That's all for now, see you folks next month.
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