I really like the old JSA characters, especially Dr. Mid-Nite and Hourman. I'd love an ongoing that focused on these two characters that was set in the 40s. Anyone else like the characters of this era?

Another comic I'd love to see would be the adventures of Zatara in the same time period. I love that Magician archetype character.

Michael

Speaking of Hourman...

There was another superhero who got his powers from drugs, but I can't remember who it was. (No, it wasn't Captain America!) In this character's story, some thugs do something bad and this character (a scientist) basically goes into his lab and randomly ingests various chemicals and drugs in a frenzy and is granted temporary superhuman powers by doing so. I saw this a long time ago and I can't remember who the story was about.

Was it Rick James?

Michael

To right this wrong with blinding speed goes...




Jim Lawless

Black Terror.

No, it wasn't the Black Terror.

Kurt Busiek probably knows, though. He knows nigh everything.

I like the old golden age characters a lot. Don't know as much about them as I would like, what with the price of back issues and even the hardback reprint volumes. Dr. Midnite is a fav along with Plastic Man, Capt. Marvel, and the Human Torch.

Have you read the "Sandman Mystery Theatre" series from Vertigo. If you haven't, it is a pulp story version of the original (Wesley Dodds) Sandman set in the late 1930's. Ran for 70 issues or so. Lot of good stuff and cheap in the back issue bins.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but the original GA Blue Beetle took some sort of super vitamin, at least at the start.

No, I'm talking about a guy who went into his lab and randomly ingested a whole bunch of chemicals/drugs in a frenzy.

I love the Golden Age heroes, especially the Justice Society. Even when I sold most of my comics a few years back, I made a point of keeping everything JSA-related. As for Darin's mystery-man, that origin doesn't sound familiar. Several heroes had origins involving super-drugs and scientific breakthroughs, but I don't remember anyone that consumed several at random and gained powers.

I do, in fact, know nigh everything.

And it was the Black Terror.

He was a druggist who witnessed some sort of criminal attack, so he went back to his shop and whomped up a mixture of all the drugs in the shop and gulleted it down.

Later accounts established that he'd been experimenting with "formic ethers" (ant farts?) and worked up a vitalizing concoction, but that was a retcon. He just choffed drugs until he went all superhuman -- if there's a better candidate for Hero Who Fights Lizards that Ooze From The Walls, I don't know about him.

kdb

Thanks Kurt! When Bob said "Black Terror," my brain (which runs on a Pentium II processor most of the time) conjured up images of the wrong character. You were right, Bob! Sorry.

Were you thinking perhaps of the Terror, who was injected with a serum made from the blood (or was it saliva?) of mad dogs?

Rabies as a super-power. The Golden Age had the best origins.

kdb

I might have.

Kurt Busiek knows everything.

Nigh

Michael have you ever read Sandman Mystery Theatre? It was a great series, the early issues are in trade - it is right up your alley.

I think that you'd enjoy the Liberty Files TPB's. I believe that the second series was published as a trade.

It focuses on the non-powered JSA'ers in an Elseworlds without Superman. Set in WWII, very Casablanca, very Edgar Rice Burroughs (the espionage stuff that he did with Tarzan in north africa).

I recommend it highly.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1401202039/?tag=imwan-20

JSA? Who were they?

I used to read all the JSA/JLA team-ups I could get hold of. Then "All-Star Squadron" came out and I snapped up the first issue.

Then came COIE.

Wow, Kurt Busiek posts here (or did)? He knows everything, all right.

I don't suppose rabies is any more dangerous as a way to gain superpowers than all that radiation flying around during the Silver Age.

He did. He doesn't anymore.

But we do have President Taft!