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With the upcoming Justice League/Avengers crossover on the horizon,
an idea struck me the other day, that a Justice Society/Invaders
crossover might be fun. Of course, a Golden Age crossover would be
perfect, but since JSA is a such a good book, these days, it would be
nice if Marvel had a similar title, featuring some of the Golden Age
characters. There was an Invaders mini-series, awhile back, but I
didn't care for it much.
So, here I am, thinking about the Invaders and which characters are
still around, active or otherwise. Of course, Captain America's
active, but he's an Avenger and it wouldn't really work to take him
away. There's his British counterpart, Union Jack, third or fourth in
that line of heroes. Also, from across the pond, there's Spitfire,
whose powers seem to have retarded her aging a great deal. The
original Human Torch is still kicking, I think and of course, Namor,
the Sub-Mariner.
I don't much care for the Sub-Mariner, I guess I just have a low
tolerance to pompous blowhards, so I'd just as soon leave him out. I
do like the idea of keeping the original Torch around, so he's in.
In the tradition of the current JSA title, I'd like to borrow a
character from one of the original Invaders' sister teams, The Liberty
Legion, Red Raven, just because I like the idea of a hero who straps
on artificial flying apparatus and soars to the rescue. Red Raven will
be our Hawkman.
Since Captain America is all tied up with his Avengers duties, I
thought I'd resurrect another member of the Liberty Legion for to fill
that slot. Marvel has no shortage of Golden Age patriotic heroes, all
inspired by Captain America, but of all of them, I like Patriot the
best. Update him a bit, make him the grandson of the original Patriot,
a gifted athlete and martial artist. Instead of decorative stars on
the uniform, they're attachment points for 5-pointed shuriken.
Again, following JSA's lead, I thought I'd introduce a young version
of the Whizzer, with Spitfire as his super-speed mentor. Make him
British, to give them a reason to have an acquaintence. I borrowed a
bit of the design of the old Whizzer costume, but never liked the
yellow-dominated color scheme.
Since there's a Whizzer on the team, there needs to be a Miss
America, right? In the original Invaders, Miss America's powers were
limited to a pretty wimpy form of telekinesis, for my 21st century
Miss America, let's kick it up ten or fifteen notches! Make her a
telekinetic "supergirl", a real anchor for the team. Miss America and
the Torch will be the team powerhouses. Of course, for her costume, I
went with a "Supergirl" look.
Around this core, we could bring in updated versions of Golden Age
characters or the descendants of Golden Age heroes. Maybe even sneak
in a few characters from the Lost Generation series, from a couple of
years back. if you haven't read that series, I recommend it. It's an
interesting time travel mystery and as a bridge between the Golden Age
and the modern age, it fills in some of the enormous gap left by the
vagaries of comic book time.
Sorry there's not more art this month, I ran out of time.
See you next month.
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