I like the Red Blazer for two reasons: First off, no matter how tacky a red blazer might actually be, it's nothing compared to the collection of Cirque de Soleil castoffs which ended up in this cat's hope chest, to wit:
Secondly, there is his origin story, which conveniently occurs in his first appearance (Harvey's Pocket Comics #1) The origin story serves an important purpose in comics – besides providing motivation for the character, it gives context to whatever it is the holy hell this guy in short pants and a Lone Ranger mask is doing shooting fire from his buttcheeks. Context is valuable. It keeps credulity from being sprained worse than a girl scientist's heel in a 1960s monster movie.
The Red Blazer's story starts in the wide open plains of Wyoming where one Doctor Morgan is returning from his sold-out forty year tour of Mars. Morgan is returning by way of an enormous spaceship that must have had cowpokes and ranchers across three states shitting themselves with a force so profound that it could be emblazoned over the archway entrances to many better universities.
Accompanying Morgan is his Martian assistant Kagah, who embraces the beauty of the vast, awe-inspiring prairie by promptly kicking the bucket on his first lungful of Earth atmosphere.
Doctor Morgan takes it upon himself to bury his beloved assistant, which is when random cowpoke Jack Dawson stumbles upon the scene. The cowboy code – and I know this, you may not know this, this is something I know – clearly states that anytime you find a stranger in the middle of the plains burying a dude, you just take him at his word that it was an accident. If you're trying for your “No Body, No Evidence" merit badge, you be an extra good scout and help the guy with his burying. According to the license plates, Wyoming is the “Thousands of Dudes Buried In Unmarked Graves" state.
Dawson's apparent absence of guile also leads him to unquestioningly accept the what I believe to be the utterly insane ramblings of Doctor Morgan, who fills Dawson's ears with some nonsense about returning from space with special magic technology to help mankind be more awesome. This is in spite of having just offed a guy. He must be a hell of a public speaker, this Doctor Morgan.
Morgan goes on to reward Dawson for all his help and faith by slipping him a roofie and stuffing him in the trunk of his intergalactic pedo van.
Dawson awakes, alone, in Liberace's swimsuit, apparently on a cot in the boiler room of Doctor Morgan's spaceship – oh, which Morgan set on automatic pilot and sent hurtling into the path of some space rays. A trustworthy sort, this Doctor Morgan.
The radiation bath – and I'll bet a million dollars that wasn't the only bath Dawson got when he was unconscious – not only gives him the fashion sense of a mime smurf but also the power of “ASTRO-PYRO RAYS." And possibly a rash. The Astro-Pyro rays not only improve Dawson's cornpoke dialect but knock him up the evolutionary ladder “a few pegs," making him “the perfect man." The perfect man wouldn't wear his collar up, I know this for a fact.
From there, the story takes the usual Golden Age vigilante track – Red Blazer declares a war on crime, employs a probably-unnecessary level of brutality, terrorizes some hoboes and generally just kills a whole bunch of fuckers without ever so much as looking back. At the end of the story, Doctor Morgan – whom we last saw wandering off into the empty plains of Wyoming in no particular direction – suddenly shows up on a video monitor to gleefully congratulate his mutated research subject on orphaning all kinds of kids. Go Red Blazer! I like to think that during his off-screen time, Doctor Morgan was off exposing more Martian housemaids and butlers to Earth atmosphere and watching them drop like flies. I bet he found it funny, and still laughs when he thinks of fields of freshly upturned, bumpy earth stretching out as far as the eye can see …
7 comments:
Man, that first picture. THE RED BLAZER: The Man With the Concave Groin.
What the hell was in that drink?!?!
His western accent dropped!
His morals as far as appropriate dress drastically changed!
I understand a lot of the early hero outfits are based on circus and sideshow performers, but sweet jesus!
I do believe this is the equivalent of superheroic rape.
Would the guy have given the drink to ANYONE that came down that road?
Of course, now I ache to draw this Red Blazer.
Whoa, G&F back with a vengeance!
My favorite gone-and-forgotten Golden-Age superstupe will forever be The Comet of Pep Comics, created by Jack Cole.
A rat-ugly scientist named John Dickering (oy vey) discovers a gas lighter than helium and promptly decides to start injecting it into his bloodstream. Instead of immediately killing him, it somehow gives him the power of flight, and causes disintegration beams to be emitted from his eyes, requiring him to always wear a special visor.
Yes, that's right, he was a flying Cyclops, years before Marvel printed the first adventure of Scott Summers. The costume was even similar, except The Comet's displayed random planet-and-crescent-moon silhouettes like the drapes of a small child's bedroom.
He didn't need to rely on Lucky Charms shapes to strike fear into the hearts of evil men; he didn't hesitate to use those eye-beams on anyone who pissed him off, and many people died screaming.
In his third adventure, Comet was hypnotized by a bad guy and went on a crime spree, vaporizing several cops in the process. When he regained his senses--well, after he came to, anyway, he never had much sense--he promptly disintegrated the bad guys who could've cleared his name. Derp a der.
By Pep #17 (and still sought by police), The Comet became the first superhero to get plowed under. He died like a punk, bleeding to death on his couch while suggesting his brother and girlfriend hook up "as a tribute of sorts" to him. Not only did they comply with this ridiculous proposal, his brother suited up as the powerless Hangman to avenge him.
The Hangman remained active (and screwing his dead brother's girlfriend) until a late-joining back-up feature in Pep Comics became the all-encompassing popular lead: Archie Andrews. Rest in peace, Comet. You sucked royally.
Except that the Comet didn't rest.
Archie, during the horrid 'Might Comics Group'/Radio Comics period brought back the Comet. As I recall, he really went to a distant planet and married a princess, and came back to earth as a superhero with a god-awful outfit that included a helmet (no eye beams this time). He also had a mustache.
Much later during the 1980s revamp as "Red Circle", they brought back the Comet. They also did an ultra-violet miniseries that only lasted 2 issues that used his original outfit and powers.
And, yes, DC used the Comet in their Impact version of the Archie heroes.
Go to the Mighty Crusaders site for more info: http://www.mightycrusaders.net/
http://www.mightycrusaders.net/handbook/comet.htm
What I want to know is how can a character called "Red Blazer" have an outfit where the up part is BLUE, instead of red???
Welcome to Comet Talk here on Radio KGAF. Coming up in the next hour, The Comet, and after The Comet news at the top of the hour, more The Comet.
What I want to know is how can a character called "Red Blazer" have an outfit where the up part is BLUE, instead of red???
The important part--the part they obviously want you to focus on--is wrapped in those red, searingly-tight, shorty-short hot pants.
Comet Comet Comet
Yeeeeeeeeargh. Doesn't ANYONE stay dead? Well, besides Buck--oh. Uncle Be--um. Oh, wait, the Red Be--dammit!! Doesn't ANYONE stay dead?
(Thanks for the additional info!)
The Red Blazer's adventure sounds like it was written by people who had vaguely heard of comic books, possibly through Cthulhian dreams, and thought it'd be nice to try one, once they emerged from their cave and found some pencils.
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