Stories You Love That Most People Never Heard Of

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by Leo656

All good, I'm just suffering from a bunch of work stuff kicking my ass, can't give this the attention it deserves. I appreciate you though man.

Understandable,I am being loaded down by the job and grad work so I cant do it for a few days. I have three more entries in mind, but no time to give the attention it deserves. I also have another entry ( Mad Hatter) I want to do with DC Villain Files,but I don't know if anyone is reading them.

[Leo656]

I am.

[MikeandRaph87]

My next entry is Batman Family#10 which features Killer Moth and Cavalier teaming up to find the Batcave and Robin and Batgirl must put a stop to it. This is Cavalier's return after three Golden Age appearance. From here he becomes a loser villain that pops up on rare occasion, usually as a gang or in groups.
http://babblingsaboutdccomics.blogsp...-moth-and.html

Next I have a mini-series as an entry.Overlooked treasure!

[MikeandRaph87]

There was a 12 issue series of one-shots that showcased post-crisis version of the Silver Age of DC Comics. It featured a villain that was the grandson of the big bang named Agamemno who met with Lex Luthor. Together they formed the Injustice Gang which had the likes of Catwoman, Penguin, Black Manta, JLA foes Dr. Light and Felix Faust, Mr. Element( an odd choice), Chronos, and Sinestro. It was the post-crisis period so Black Canary was not originally from Earth-2 and Wonder Woman is no where to be seen. Wonder Woman is only seen as Wonder Tot in a short story in the final book of the twelve after Batman and Robin stop the Imposter Mad Hatter in another story. I feel it hurt the series some not having Wonder Woman. Aside from that its the Happy Harbor League. Its goofy and fun, but also updated with more adult perspective. Some of the conversations have innuendo and Blackhawk is depicted in bed for examples. Also, Golden Age group Seven Soldiers of Victory, gets a cool silver age remix with the likes of Batgirl, Metamorpho, and Adam Strange. Metal Men, Doom Patrol, Teen Titans, Elongated Man, Dial 'H' for Hero are among the expanded cast in this epic. The body swap twist inspires both Batman in Tower of Babel and the seeds to revisit the body swap in Justice League of America#166-168 a few years later in Identity Crisis. Agamemno was seen at the auction scene in Grant Morrison's The Green Lantern#3 so he may actually be used beyond this one mini-series. There was JLA Year One, but I want to see something like this crazy cool concept again. Maybe do it with the Bronze Age? Or the Silver Age again. If anyone is reading this write up and has not heard of this you should look into it. It has its own Wikipedia page, but that does not mean its well known. Please drop your thoughts on this special mini-series or any of my other entries above.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Age_(DC_Comics)

[MikeandRaph87]

Batman#257, "Hail Emperor Penguin" is a bit campy for 1974 in premise. Yet Its actually pretty good. Penguin kidnaps an Arabian boy sultan who he demands ransom for while Talia in disguise attempts to loot the treasure to rebuild her father's resources.

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Batman_Vol_1_257

Next up is yet another Bat-centric story, but its more recent and overlooked from 2007.

[MikeandRaph87]

https://lovedatjoker.livejournal.com/19347.html

Detective Comics#833 & 834, "Trust" teams Zatanna and Batman together against Loxias a notable magician across the U.S. It turns out ll things are not what they seem as the man behind Loxias reveals himself

Spoiler:

to be none other than The Joker disguised as Loxias having taken his place after murdering him weeks before and this is pre-Oberon Sexton!

. Well done characterization wise and the plot is genuinely suspenseful. World building yet self contained. I enjoyed this story more than pretty much any

Spoiler:

Joker story since the early 1980s'!

[MikeandRaph87]

There is a pretty good two part and third fallout issue from DC Comics Presents#27-29, this follows right on the heels of the New Teen Titans preview and can be overlooked. Its the debut of Mongul. Influenced from Justice League I assumed War World was a run of the mill intergalatic gladiatorial games that often appears in sci-fi or super hero media. It turns out War World is the Deathstar! I still don't get how Earth can be made into a Deathstar such as in Reign of the Superman, though. Its pretty good characterization weaved throughout as Superman plays off old ally Martian Manhunter during his days as rare guest star and his blood cousin Linda Danvers. Reading this makes me see the prefect argument as to why Supergirl never was the same after her retcon 2003 to present and how dumb The Matrix was. It also is an eerie foreshadowing of COIE that would later play a part in this title and cause it to end.
http://comicsatemybrain.blogspot.com...8-29-good.html

DCCP#27-Martian Manhunter, 1st Mongul 28- Supergirl vs Mongul 29- Spectre

Also, any and all comments are welcome. I look forward to other suggestions and I invite someone else to do a DC Villain profile. I know Leo656 is busy so how about the rest of you guys?

[Leo656]

I love WarWorld stories and I'm a big fan of Matrix Supergirl.

[MikeandRaph87]

My next entry is Spider-Man's team uo magazine from the 1970s and 1980s'. This two parter has Spider-Man team up with Ka-zar, Marvel's Tarzan and Black Panther vs Stegron in his debut and an army of dinosaurs in the Savage Land. Its fun we dont get to see much these days. The second part might be getting some coverage of late because of the Black Panther film, but the larger story is overlooked.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Team-Up_Vol_1_19

https://www.google.com/amp/s/puzzled...dinosaurs/amp/

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

There is a story from my childhood that I learned as a part of my class during my early school years. It is a story that holds a very special place in my heart, but one that I never able to track down on the Interent, even to this day.

A rough summary of the story goes as follows:

There once lived a fisherman on a coastal village, poor but content with his life.

Life was as usual for him, until one day he spotted a beautiful woman walking out from the sea.

He was intrigued and smitten by her in an instant.

Despite many warnings from the villagers not to approach humanoids from the sea, the man defied the local traditions, by approaching the woman to talk to her about how beautiful she was.

She made him on offer, that she could take him to a place where countless other beautiful women like her lived. He would get to stay there for three days, and there, he would live like a king.

He took up the offer, and followed her into the sea, where she used her magical powers to give him the ability to breathe underwater. When he arrived in the mysterious city, it was exactly how she had described it to him.

The next three days were pure bliss for the man, for he would gorge on the most royal of feasts, sleep on the finest of beds, and meet the most beautiful looking women he had ever seen during his stay at the palace.

When it was time for him to go, the woman who brought him in the first place, also bought him to shore safely, taking away his ability to breathe underwater, and giving him a parting gift.

The man asked what was inside the box, to which the woman replied that it was a box that he must never open at any cost, returning back to the sea afterwards.

The man then returned to his village. To his surprise however, no one recognized him. When he told his name to a village elder, she proclaimed that she only remembered his name from legends told to her by her great grandmother. These were the legends of a man who walked into the sea 300 years ago after following a forbidden woman, never to return.

Realizing the situation he was in, the man walked away from the village, feeling depressed as to how he had lost his entire life in the village just for those three days of pleasure which started and finished in the blink of an eye. Having nothing else to do, the man looked at the box which was given to him by the forbidden woman in curiosity.

He opened it at last, releasing a magical spell that transformed him into an old man, who had aged by three hundred years, matching the new time period that he was now living in.

The End.

I've tried searching for the story online using key words and concepts from the story, but to no luck. That may be a blessing however, as it makes the story all the more fantastical, and nostalgic in my eyes.

This is the music I listen to when I think about the story and have come to associate with it, just to capture the magical atmosphere:

I believe the story you were referring to is this one:

It involves Ryugu-jo, the palace of the ocean Dragon King Ryujin, and his daughter, Otohime; ‘hime’ means ‘princess’ in Japanese. Otohime appears in the Japanese folk tale “Urashima Taro,” which is accredited as being the oldest story in the world involving time travel. In the story, a man called Taro is invited to visit Ryugu-jo. He stays there for three days, and before returning to land he is given a magical box by Otohime. She tells him not to open it, but of course he does. At the surface, he discovers the real amount of time he spent beneath the sea was 300 years, so he is now in the future and his mother is gone. Grief-stricken, Taro opens the box. Instantly he transforms into an old man, because the box contained his old age.

There is a similar story in Celtic myth of Bran mac Feabhail, who is invited by a woman of the Otherworld to visit Tir na mBan, ("the Isle of Women") and sails there where he and his crew are treated as kings for a year, but warned not to set foot on land when they decide to return home. When they arrive back in Ireland, one man jumps off and runs to shore, only to turn to ash. When Bran calls out to people on the shore, they claim to only know his name from legends, and that three hundred years have passed. There is also a tale of a fisherman who encounters a woman of the seafolk (a selkie or nixie) and falls in love with her. He goes with her to the Sea God's kingdom and stays for a few days, but soon wshes to return home. She gives him a cask, but tells him never to open it, and the rest of the story goes as expected.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Ok, now for a story of my own. Or several.

One of the most memorable books I've ever readi is The Silver Kiss, by the author of Bloid and Chocolate (which was made into a pretty cool werewolf flick!) It is a story about a girl who meets a vampire who is hunting his own brother (also a vampire) to kill him in revenge for killing their mother, and luring him to the vampire who turned them both. The girl, Zoe, is in the midst of dealing with an imminent move to another city, and a mother who is dying of cancer. They help each other to deal with their respective problems, in spite of their own fears. Its a very emotionally powerful story, and is probably one of the best stories I've ever read.

Second, since we seem to be focusing on comics, is this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Spide.../dp/B000PB3704

This is the historic "Black Cover" issue, the tribute to 9-11 published in Dec. 2001. This is the comic that ignited my love for comics as a medium, and brought me back to the heroes I grew up with in cartoons and the occasional comic book in my high school English class.

[MikeandRaph87]

It was the bi-centennial comics were in a peak period of my interest, despite the fact I had yet to be, but there was a corny one-off published that combined my baseball fandom with my DC fandom. Its a unique set up as far as a narrative and has a pretty good Justice League plus vs Secret Society plus. DIck Grayson, Wally West, and Uncle Sam along with an assortment of villains that did not have to include their opponent as Hal Jordan was absent yet Dr. Polaris and The Tattooed Man were present. Sportsmaster wanted to prove that villains did not always lose,but this before that disgraceful snot Jason Todd, Bane and Doomsday's grand entries. What a way to do it too, and the question is do they lose in this venue too? Check it to find out!
http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlo..._05/000787.php

https://www.sikids.com/si-kids/2016/...seball-numbers

[Leo656]

Keep 'em coming brother. I've been busy. Real life sucks, what can I say.

[MikeandRaph87]

My next pick for overlooked greatness is JLA/JSA: Virtue & Vice is a one-shot crossover roughly a year after I picked up comics full-time and introduced me to a few characters particularly of the JSA. It features the 7 Deadly Sins attacking the two teams as they gather for a Thanksgiving meal. This is one of the last few stories with the Magnificent Seven Plus Plastic Man lineup if I am not mistaken. It is by Geoff Johns and David Goyer. Its a great character story as well as attack story. Yes, there is the cop out of possessed heroes,but its excusable and serves the plot.
https://secrethideoutblog.wordpress....rtue-and-vice/

[MikeandRaph87]

Justice League of America#195 saw the return of the original super villain, The Ultra Humanite. He was a body swapping mad scientist. His classic form in an albino ape debuts. He wants revenge on Earth-2's Superman and to eliminate all heroes on Earth-2. He does this in odd fashion as it requires an odd combination of Earth-1 and Earth-2 heroes captured and tied to a device to do it. Signalman as the Bat Rogue of choice? Also, Percillia Rich never got the coverage Challenge of The Superfriends would make you thin.k as her niece is used here. Those two, Floronic Man, and Killer Frost will turn the tide in this crazy adventure once they are betrayed. I do love this cover though to #196.
http://bronzeagebabies.blogspot.com/...f-america.html
A solid mix of fun, action, and weird.

[Leo656]

Ahh, the Ultra-Humanite. The original "mad scientist" of the DCU before Luthor ascended. That man's brain gets passed around like a bong at a frat party. I always wonder if he just prefers to be a giant albino ape, because he's been transplanted into several other people and things, but he keeps resetting to Albino Ape Default. Why he'd want to do that after being in the body of actress Dolores Winters, I'll never know, because having boobs sounds pretty cool. But then I'm not an evil mad scientist with a giant ape fetish.

There's a longstanding rumor that Lex Luthor is only traditionally bald because an artist on the Superman books once upon a time got him mixed up with the original, human (and bald) version of the Ultra-Humanite. I don't know how true it is but it's a story I've heard often, and it kind of made sense. There's little to no in-story explanation as to why "Lex" suddenly went from having a loose mop of red hair to suddenly being bald sometime around 1941 or so; obviously many years later the editors added the "Earth 1" and "Earth 2" modifiers as a way of explaining those sorts of discrepancies, but that's an obvious retcon. At the time the stories were originally presented, "Lex" just had a totally different look one day and nobody knew why. So I can believe that it was a simple artist's mistake just as easily as anything else.

My favorite story featuring the Ultra-Humanite sadly isn't canon, but it is very good, good enough that it probably should be canon. That would be "The Golden Age", the Prestige format mini-series from the early 1990s. I'm a huge fan of that book.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Ahh, the Ultra-Humanite. The original "mad scientist" of the DCU before Luthor ascended. That man's brain gets passed around like a bong at a frat party. I always wonder if he just prefers to be a giant albino ape, because he's been transplanted into several other people and things, but he keeps resetting to Albino Ape Default. Why he'd want to do that after being in the body of actress Dolores Winters, I'll never know, because having boobs sounds pretty cool. But then I'm not an evil mad scientist with a giant ape fetish.

There's a longstanding rumor that Lex Luthor is only traditionally bald because an artist on the Superman books once upon a time got him mixed up with the original, human (and bald) version of the Ultra-Humanite. I don't know how true it is but it's a story I've heard often, and it kind of made sense. There's little to no in-story explanation as to why "Lex" suddenly went from having a loose mop of red hair to suddenly being bald sometime around 1941 or so; obviously many years later the editors added the "Earth 1" and "Earth 2" modifiers as a way of explaining those sorts of discrepancies, but that's an obvious retcon. At the time the stories were originally presented, "Lex" just had a totally different look one day and nobody knew why. So I can believe that it was a simple artist's mistake just as easily as anything else.

My favorite story featuring the Ultra-Humanite sadly isn't canon, but it is very good, good enough that it probably should be canon. That would be "The Golden Age", the Prestige format mini-series from the early 1990s. I'm a huge fan of that book.

While I know all the above it never hurts to reread it. Imagine how one artist error cost Ultra Humanite his place!

I know of The Golden Age, thanks to the Silver Age maxi-series I recommended. However, I never read it. Can you give me more information about it? I might check it out.

[Leo656]

Well sir, it's a bit complicated to explain without Spoiling too much. I'll put some things in Spoiler tags just to be safe. On a surface level, think of it as "Watchmen" by way of the Justice Society.

"The Golden Age" is set in the early 1950s and features the former JSA members adjusting to life after WWII and the McCarthy hearings. With most of the JSA forced into retirement, former super-hero "Mr. America" Tex Thompson returns from the war and becomes a Senator, then uses his newfound political power to assemble a new team of super-heroes under government control, including Robotman, The Atom, Johnny Thunder, and former sidekick Dan The Dyna-Mite, now rechristened as the Superman-analogue "Dynaman".

Meanwhile, former JSA members such as Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Hourman, Johnny Quick, Starman and others all individually struggle with their personal lives during their forced retirement; Hourman (as always) struggles with his addiction to the Miraclo pills which give him his powers, while other former heroes have gone through divorce, unemployment, and things like that. All the while, they try and cope with feelings of powerlessness as they watch their "replacements" take over.

Things are not as they seem, however, and events conspire to bring all of the JSA and All-Star Squadron heroes out of retirement for one final battle, in the heart of Washington D.C., for the fate of the entire world, as they unite to try and stop the single greatest threat the world had ever faced. The story is full of amazing twists, all of which are very well-executed and there's absolutely no "cheating" the reader. If you pay close attention, you can figure out what's going on, who's really the villain and why, but if you don't, the ultimate reveal hits like a ton of bricks, and when you go back and re-read it you see how the clues were there all along. It's a very tight story, brilliantly executed.

As for the twist, and where Ultra-Humanite fits in, that can't be revealed without Spoiling the entire surprise, but I'll include it here anyway. Proceed at your own risk:
While overseas at the end of WWII,

Spoiler:

"Mr. America" Tex Thompson

was kidnapped and murdered by Nazi scientists and the Ultra-Humanite. Humanite then

Spoiler:

transplanted his own brain into Thompson's body so he could return to the U.S. as a triumphant war hero, infiltrate the government, and create a hand-picked team of super-heroes who would operate under his command.

But that was only Part I of his master plan. Part II was to take Dunbar, aka Dynaman, secretly the group's most powerful member despite being a "mere sidekick", and

Spoiler:

then murder him, before implanting in him the brain of

Spoiler:

Adolf Hitler!

Through this, Ultra-Humanite and

Spoiler:

Dynaman/Hitler

, now the most powerful being on Earth, planned to take over the entire world

Spoiler:

and a new, super-powered Third Reich would emerge.

I don't think it's a Spoiler to say the Good Guys win, but it's a helluva ride. At the end, the heroes wistfully bid farewell to the so-called Golden Age, while hopefully anticipating a new heroic age... "as pure as Sterling Silver".

A lot of the story's events actually were lightly adapted into canon to varying degrees; James Robinson wrote this as well as "Starman" (which is generally considered completely canon), so his Starman run treated much of this story as if it had actually happened. Furthermore, it was one of Geoff Johns's favorite stories as a fan, so when he started writing the JSA book in the early 2000s, he also softly massaged some of the books' events into mainstream continuity as much as he was able. However, a few characters die in "The Golden Age" who are later seen very much alive in other books, so it's not a perfect fit. BUT, it is one of those stories that most of the DC writers and editors consider to be so good, that "it can be canon if you prefer that it be".

I give it one of my highest possible recommendations. It's only four issues, but has also been reprinted in trade paperback more than once. Most recently it was recollected as "JSA: The Golden Age", further blurring the line of its status between "Elseworlds" (as it's officially labelled) and "Mostly Canon" (as many readers prefer). Either way, it's easy to track down and a brisk, thrilling read. The first time I looked at it, I couldn't put it down, and the Third Act Twist blew me away. If you're a fan of the JSA at all, you should definitely, definitely check it out. Especially if you've ever wondered what a "Watchmen" kind of story with actual DC characters might look and feel like. It really feels almost like that was partly its purpose, as I believe it only came out about 6-7 years after Watchmen. It doesn't skew quite as dark, but it can be argued that the stakes are much, much bigger.

Check it out. If I had a spare copy I'd ship it over. That's how good I think it is.

[MikeandRaph87]

Oh,okay. I have known about the McCarthyism scandal forcing the JSA into retirement,but I thought it started in All-Star Squadron? Maybe it was in this. I did not read the spoiler tags,but it is probably a Jeph Loeb writing on the wall mystery that is still epic. So this would suggest that Ultra-Humanite killed the hero when he was running for office and took his place thus started the mess? Even if that is how it plays out I think I will like it. I will get to it very soon. Bookmark, the Silver Age maxi-series and I will do so with The Golden Age. We need The Bronze Age! Come on,DC! Is Alex Ross's Justice as close to that which we will get?

I have to think about what I will post next, it might be something outside my usual.Here is a company specific,but any era thread. It might not take off like the DC Villain Profiles did not.
http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=61152

[Leo656]

Hmm... "Justice" was pretty good, but it doesn't quite have the same feel to it as the others. I love the artwork (as always) but the story itself felt a little bit thin, even though it tried to be huge. It was a nice, "grounded" take on "Challenge of the Super-Friends", though.

Speaking of Alex Ross, I think "MARVELS" still holds up pretty well. But it's not really apt for this thread, I don't think, because I imagine most Marvel fans who read comics would have already read it, and if they haven't, they should. Still, it's a slick piece of work. I'm not really a Marvel guy but a good book's a good book.