Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case Files #62: The Human Bomb

Bad guy fall down, go boom. Literally.

The Golden Age of comics was a screwy time.  All manner of publishers put out all manner of characters, and many superheroes, the ones that weren’t blatant rip-offs of other superheroes, had some really bizarre powers that they used mostly to fight Nazis and homegrown criminals.

That would be why we even had the Human Bomb.

Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #47: Bloodwynd

“I am the real terror that flaps in the night!”

The 90s have a lot to answer for.

During this time, superhero comics went for “edgy” characters that often had large guns, excessive pouches, and names that were often misspelled on purpose that suggested dark origins and the like.

Yeah, that’s where Bloodwynd came from.

Slightly Misplaced Comics Heroes Case File #6: Phantom Lady

She may not really be a phantom, but she sure is a lady.

Gabbing Geek Jenny recently challenged the readers to come forth if they could name a female character that:

• Does not have a male version
• Has not cameoed in a movie or TV show
• Has an origin story older than the mid 90s
• And that Jenny herself has read

Her answer to this riddle, when trying to figure an iconic hero that hadn’t gotten his or her own movie yet, was Madame Xanadu.  While Xanadu is a fine character, often associated with DC’s various mystical books and teams, she may not be the best character to dub as “iconic”.

See, a better answer may have been a more obscure character, Phantom Lady, also owned by DC, who actually is considered the epitome of Golden Age “good girl art”.  There’s no Phantom Man to go with her, she was created in the 40s, and her only appearance on TV or in a movie was a single episode of Batman:  The Brave and the Bold alongside the rest of the Freedom Fighters.  Of course, if Jenny had read of Phantom Lady, maybe that would have made the cut.  Or perhaps not, as we shall see…