Wednesday, March 17, 2021

St Patrick's Day Special NOT WHO YOU THINK: BANSHEE "Origin"

Before a certain Marvel villain-turned X-Man...
Art by Dave Cockrum
...acquired the name, there was this guy...who also used the name of a female Irish demon!
(And yes, I know Sean Cassidy's daughter now uses the name, but this is Hero Histories, not Heroines!)
Illustrated by Louis Cazeneuve, this premiere/origin of the Banshee plays more off the classic "Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot..." shtick with a costumed athlete than the later, sonic super-powered mutants from Marvel.
Of course I'm curious as to why a villain named "The Scorpion" is wearing a Devil mask instead of, say, a hood with an embroidered scorpion image.
Was he working on a really tight budget?
Debuting in Fox's Fantastic Comics #21 (1941) and continuing until the book was cancelled two issues later, the Banshee migrated to a new book, V... Comics, for it's brief two-issue run, then disappeared into comics limbo.
He didn't even appear in Dynamite's various Project SuperPowers series which brought back characters whose names had been co-opted by later, currently-trademarked (though totally-unrelated) characters like Daredevil and Yellowjacket.
(Blue Beetle is a whole 'nother story...)
BTW, HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY!
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(Even without The Banshee, if you're a Golden Age fan, it's worth reading)