Before The Black Panther...LionMan!

Think the Black Panther was the first high-tech Black superhero?

Wrong!

Decades before him, a hero stalked the jungles and plains, defending them from evil men!

He's not only a scientist and athlete, but an American, as well!

LionMan made his first and only appearance in All-Negro Comics #1 (1946), a unique title for a number of reasons you can read about HERE!

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Not Who You Think / One-Shot Hero: BLACK PANTHER

Prince T'Challa, Marvel's first Black superhero, ruler of Wakanda, husband of Storm, a Mighty Avenger...

WTF???

1) Who is he?

2) Where did he come from??

3) What are his powers???

4) Why does he have a tail????

Of all those questions, we can only answer #3: Agile as a cat (obviously), expert in hand-to-hand combat, and probably good with the knife he carries.

Since he only made one appearance, in Centaur's Stars & Stripes #3 (1941), we will never know what his creator, writer/artist Paul Gustavson, had in mind for him.

Gustavson, though not a "big" name, did contribute several long-running characters to Golden Age comics history at Timely (Marvel), Quality, and Centaur, including The Fantom of the Fair (FantoMan), The Human Bomb, The Angel, two archer-heroes; The Arrow and Alias the Spider, and Man of War.

He also worked on Blackhawk, Uncle Sam, and other Quality Comics characters.

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Charlton Fools Day: SINISTRO: BOY FIEND "Too Many Happy Endings"

He could've been the typical All-American boy hero...

...but a cruel fate intervened to make him just the opposite!

The Boy Fiend's battle against all that is good and decent will continue in the near future.

Easily one of the weirdest strips to come out of the Silver Age of Comics, this never-reprinted tale from Charlton Premiere #3 (1968) by Grass Green (writer/layouts) and Henry Scarpelli (pencils and inks) could've been the Ambush Bug or Forbush Man of Charlton.
The highly under-appreciated Richard "Grass" Green was one of the first wave of fanboys-turned-pros which included Roy Thomas, Bernie Wrightson, and Barry Smith, and the only Black member of that august group of pioneers.
Though he did a lot of work for various fanzines in the 60s and 70s, Grass' mainstream professional work was limited to Charlton's Go-Go humor title and two issues of Charlton Premiere.
Green found a niche in underground comics in the 70s and 80s, creating Super Soul Comix and WildMan & RubberRoy.
He passed away from cancer in 2002.
HERE'S an extensive profile about Grass Green on the CBDLF website.

This post is part of an informal blogathon entitled

Charlton Fools Day

conceived and organized by Kracalactaka to bring attention to Charlton Comics, often considered the "runt" of the Silver Age comics litter.

Visit his blog HERE and see a list of other participants as well as his own contributions

Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES Ferret

Criminals are a cowardly, supersitious lot...

...but even they weren't afraid of this lame character in his only Golden Age appearance!

The writer and artist of this tale from Centaur's Man of War Comics #2 are unknown, and so was this character...until the tail-end of the B/W indie craze in 1992, when Malibu Comics revived a revamped group of Centaur Comics heroes as "The Protectors".

The Ferret was remade into a feral character who looked almost exactly like Marvel's Sabretooth, but was obviously-intended to capitalize on the popularity of Wolverine!

The Protectors ran 20 issues and Ferret starred in a one-shot book that sold well enough to prompt a 10-issue run of his own title.

Not bad for a guy who appeared in only one story before his revival.

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Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES Rainbow

Of all the comic characters inspired by other comic characters...

...this one has to be the silliest of all!

...the next issue of...???

As it turns out, this appearance in the back of Centaur's The Arrow #3 (1941) was the Colorful Crusader's one-and-only foray into superhero action.

Face it, it's not much of a gimmick, and the costume doesn't really show a "rainbow" effect, like Holo-Man, for example...

Art by Don Heck and Joe Giella

...but the concept of a character inspired to become a superhero (albeit one without weapons or powers) from reading a comic book is rather cool.

Written by "Ed Herron" (France Edward Herron aka France Herron), who was a writer/editor at several companies, co-created the Red Skull (with Jack Kirby) and Captain Marvel, Jr. (with Mac Raboy), and was a major contributor to various Superman and Batman series of the 1950s-early 1960s.

Illustrated by Alfredo "Al" Plastino, who went on to better things as one of the two primary artists (along with Wayne Boring) for Superman in the 1940s thru early 1960s (including working with Herron again)!

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Reading Room: ONE-SHOT HEROES! The Owl

With the Court of Owls currently bedeviling The Batman...

...we'll be looking at previous heroes to use the motif of an owl.

This character from Centaur Publications' Funny Pages V4N1 (1940) was the first costumed Owl.

Written and illustrated by Martin Filchock, he appeared only a couple of months after the first appearance of The BatMan in Detective Comics #27 (1939), and shows a number of similarities to the initial version of the Caped Crusader.
As it turns out, 1940 was a good year for owls as two more heroes (and one heroine) would show up within six months to claim the name.
We'll be looking at them next week...

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