Read the previous parts of the story HERE!
You may wonder, True Believer, why you're seeing the cover for Hell-Rider #1 in this blog entry about the FIRST Black superheroine, Butterfly!
If you remember, in our last exciting entry, we promised to explain...
- Who is The Claw?
- Why does he have a footwear fetish?
- Who is Brick Reese?
- Who are The Wild Bunch?
- And what ties all of them, and Marion Michaels, together?
Hell-Rider #1 tells a single story thru four chapters, one each with Hell-Rider, Butterfly, The Wild Bunch, and a final chapter combining all the plot threads and characters...
We'll do it chronologically...
Who is The Claw, and why does he have a footwear fetish?
 |
| Drug dealer and costumed super-villain! |
After discovering recovering addict (and former Claw client) Julie Storm sent the boots lined with heroin to Marian Michaels, The Claw takes Julie captive.
(This leads directly into the first part of The Butterfly story.)
Who is Brick Reese and who are The Wild Bunch?
You'll note the first caption above: "I followed them up the stairs..."
Who's the "I"?
Brick Reese!
A Harvard law school grad who wanted to "find himself".
He did the Easy Rider
gig, and ran into The Wild Bunch in a bar, winning their respect by kicking their collective asses...
gig, and ran into The Wild Bunch in a bar, winning their respect by kicking their collective asses...
But, once out of college, he was eligible to be drafted into the Army.
Wounded in Viet-Nam, he was used as a guinea-pig in a Super-Solider formula experiment, which helped his wounds heal.
Honorably discharged, he settled into a law practice and met Julie Storm.
While attending a party at her "pad", Brick saw The Claw kidnap Julie (see above).
He tailed them to their hideout, was knocked unconscious, and left with a note warning him not to interfere or Julie would die.
Realizing that suing them wouldn't do any good, Brick decides to take a more direct route...
His first outing as Hell-Rider turned bad when the Super-Soldier serum petered out and he was captured by The Claw.
She entrusted them with delivery of the boots to her lawyer, Brick Reese. (See how it all ties together?)
While enroute to Brick's, the Bunch run into The Claw...
The Claw captures most of the Bunch, but one, Slink, gets away with the boots.
Meanwhile...
Getting Julie to a hospital, Hell-Rider heads for Marion (Butterfly) Michael's pad, where Wild Bunch member Slink appears...
And, The Wild Bunch manage to escape on their own and show up at Marion's, too late for the fight.
So, while Marion appears in the finale, it's not in costume as Butterfly.
And, if you look at the cover at the head of this post, she's one of the two bikini-clad girls in the background (along with her roommate).
The second issue of Hell-Rider also features The Butterfly in a stand-alone story, not tied-in to the other tales in the issue.
We'll be presenting that one next week.
Trivia note: Gary Friedrich, who wrote all four stories in the issue, also co-created (with Mike Ploog) Marvel's flaming-skull-headed biker, Ghost Rider
!
And don't forget to check out the
#1, August, 1971.
