One character gave the english speaking world an exclamation; the other gave nerds continuity porn

Captain Marvel- Quasar/Marvel Man

The other day, while looking around for info on the second character named above, I happened upon a message board posting where some nerd was talking about how much he liked Quasar, a “cosmic” hero that kicked around without much notice until he starred in what I gather was a highly wonky series penned by Mark Gruenwald and which ran from the late ‘80s to the mid ‘90s (this was the time I was not reading funnee books) .

In the Image era to which the series yielded, said the poster, every character grimaces while he blows villains heads off. Whereas Quasar is a noble young man who tries to do the right thing. To which another poster, evincing the cheap scorn some nerds on the internet indulge in so as to create a geek pecking order, sneered “every character, no matter how lame, is someone’s favorite.”

Apparently, Gruenwald saw Quasar as an “everyman” character who would explore the cosmic byways of the MU in a different, more wide-eyed manner than, say, the Silver Surfer. I liked Gruenwald’s Captain America and enjoy superhero wonkiness, so I’d like to check the series out one day.

So of course, a character known only to earnest goofballs will be paired with a hero who frequently outsold the Superman books in the 1940s and early ‘50s; provoked a lawsuit from DC Comics against the character’s publisher Fawcett Publications over a reasonable similarity to Superman; ceased publication and saw its copyright languish so that other publishers could use the name; gave Gomer Pyle his favorite exclamation; and was finally purchased by DC and fully integrated into its fictional diaspora. Most importantly, Captain Marvel is probably better known than any DC character save Superman, Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman.

The fanciful mythos common to the Big Red Cheeses probably doesn’t work past the 1940s: talking tigers and worms are best left in the past. But Captain Marvel worked well for about 25 years as a wish-fulfillment of many kids who read comic books before (and to a lesser extent after) the Stan and Jack revolution. Now he’s taken the wizard Shazam’s place as a mystical vizier, or somesuch other dumb shit.

Commonalities:
It’s the sense that both are essentially decent young fellows charged with great powers by ancient beings.

Differences:
Ostensibly, Quasar’s abilities to create energy constructs with his quantum bands, not to mention his relative youth and his cosmic bailiwick, would line up with Kyle Rayner. And Roy Thomas linked Rick Jones to Mar-Vell as an explicit nod to his namesake.

Alternate histories:

CM: Billy Batson is a rookie operative at a government agency who acquires an artifact once used by a that grants him immense strength, stamina and control of mystical thunderbolts. After a few years as the novice hero Captain Marvel, he travels into space and discovers that the artifact is a remnant of a offshoot civilization of “New Gods,” and that he has been chosen by the alien wizard Shazam to succeed the deceased Hawkman as a guardian of the “rock of eternity.” While he joins the Justice League for a short time, Captain Marvel spends most of his time opposing menaces throughout the cosmos; he apparently has been revived in a quasi-spectral state after he was thought to have been killed by an extraterrestrial antagonist.

QU: Teenager Wendell Vaughn encounters Eon, an omniscient creature who grants him various “quantum” abilities, which he henceforth accesses by transforming into adult form. Using the name Marvel Man and then Quasar, Vaughn is one of the few superhumans who can credibly challenge the Mighty Thor. During stints with the Avengers and the Liberty Legion, many colleagues, unaware that he’s truly an adolescent, note his naive demeanor. After a cosmic conflagration, Quasar has taken the place of the slain Eon as a universal guardian granted with “cosmic awareness.”

The escapist and the pussyhound

Mr. Miracle-Starfox

The first character cited is key to Jack Kirby’s Fourth World. The second was conceived by writer/artist Jim Starlin as a part of his supporting cast for his mucho cosmic run on Captain Marvel: it was only later that the folks of Titan were judiciously decided to be a subset of the Eternals. I don’t know what Starlin has made of his Titanians being folded into Kirby’s rejiggered-for-Marvel New God/Eternals mythos, but since he’s fooled with Fourth World concepts for DC, I suspect he wouldn’t mind.

I’m much more familiar with the Starfox character, via ‘80s Avengers stories that showed him to be a super-hedonist, than I am with Mr. Miracle. But I don’t see big problems here…

Commonalities:
Both oppose nigh-unto-omnipotent opponents, and have a more keen interest in the affairs of humans than their most of their kin.

Differences:
Again, Starfox, Thanos and other Titianians were ret-conned into being Eternals. And Mr. Miracle is an escape artist nonpareil, as opposed to a guy that can subtly suggest that women open their legs for him. I know which ability I would prefer…

Alternate histories:

MM: Scott Free is raised by his father Himon alongside his brother, Uxas, in an outpost in Earth’s solar system populated by their fellow “New Gods.” While his brother becomes obsessed with an "anti-life equation" and becomes Darkseid, Free is a —wait for it— free spirit: he’s moved to take existence with greater purpose when his brother threatens the universe. He allies with Hawkman and the Justice League to oppose Darkseid, and eventually joins that organization, using the codename Mr. Miracle. He has since traveled the universe and sporadically returns to active heroic service.

SF: Eros is the son of Zuras, the leader of the Eternals, a godlike race that resides in the extradimensional realm of Olympia. As an infant, Eros is traded to Thanos, the leader of the Deviants of Lemuria, in order to broker a truce between the two races that has been waged for centuries. Growing up amongst Deviants, he and fellow Eternal Thena are influenced by Alars to rebel against Thanos: the two escape to Earth, where their efforts to defeat Thanos nullify the truce mentioned above. Using the codemname Starfox, he marries Thena, joins the Avengers and commutes between Olympia and Earth. Both have apparently been killed in a massacre of all Eternals.

Winged Warriors of WWII

Hawkman (Golden age) - Red Raven

With some upcoming golden age-oriented pairings, we will see characters that have similar M.O.’s assigned to one another —unlike, notably, previous posts where the fast guys or winged guys are paired with characters with dissimilar abilities…

Such as this one, which finds the original conception of Hawkman, one of DC’s key wartime characters and the perpetual chairman of the Justice Society, paired with an obscure character that was published once in 1940 when Marvel was called Timely, and was revived in the 1960s and 1970s by Roy Thomas.

Commonalities:
Both are the winged warriors of World War II!

Differences:
The golden age Hawkman has been a mainstay of the DU for decades as the premiere member of the Justice Society. Whereas Red Raven was ret-conned to have been a member of the Liberty Legion, and was used as an antagonist in the 1960s and ‘70s for the Angel and Sub-Mariner. I read somewhere that RR had not died and became leader of the “bird-people” —which were also ret-conned to be a separatist sect of Inhumans— but references differ as to whether his survival has stuck.

Alternate histories:

HM: An european child is the only survivor of a catastrophe that claims his parents, and is raised by a reclusive cult in Northern Africa that preserves the customs of ancient Egyptian culture. Upon adulthood, he chooses to return to the wider world in order to combat the Axis Powers; using mystical and archaic equipment, he takes the name Hawkman. He eventually joins the Justice Society and opposes threats to America’s home front. Hawkman returns to the cult, whose population enters suspended animation; the cult has been revived, and Hawkman sporadically interacts with other superhumans.

RR: A young man discovers that he is both the descendent and a reincarnated king of a tribe of “bird-people.” He excavates equipment that enables him to operate as Red Raven; he initially opposes criminals and the Third Reich, and soon joins the Liberty Legion as its chairman. The Legion disbands in the 1950s, but reforms in recent years, often working with the Avengers. Red Raven’s aging has been retarded, and he currently serves as a mentor to younger superhumans in the Liberty Legion.

Support tough gals in comic books! Don't tolerate the "women in refrigerators" syndrome!

Hawkgirl - Ms. Marvel/Warbird

Don’t have much to say about the current iteration of Hawkgirl, other than her prominence in current DC comics seems to originate from the popularity of the Thanagarian iteration of the character on Bruce Timm’s Justice League cartoon, of which I cannot say enough good things…

But Ms. Marvel? Here was a female character that didn’t just strike a pose and point in order to engage foes. She decks bad guys, just like red-blooded Marvel dudes did! As I’ve said before, Marvel never had a female bruiser front and center, like Wonder Woman, up to that point. And so, despite the fact that she was written with rather a lot of Chris Claremont’s sympathetic feminist boilerplate, Carol Danvers had an important function.

But it may not be putting too fine a point on it to speculate that many comic book writers have problems with strong women. Before she became a key comic book writer, Gail Simone identified a syndrome in super hero fiction, which she dubbed “women in refrigerators.”

Taking its name from a plot point in a ‘90s Green Lantern story, in which Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend is murdered and stuffed into a refrigerator, Simone cataloged the indignities suffered by female characters in super hero fiction. Many many characters before Sue Dibny’s brutal killing by an insane Jean Loring were disposed with or forever compromised via editorial diktats that, most likely, were concocted and approved by men who probably were ignored or laughed at by chicks in high school. Oh, the horrors the fairer sex visits upon adolescent males who can tell you the issue in which the Vulture picked his nose!

Ms. Marvel got the “women in refrigerators” treatment but good. She was immaculately impregnated by a Kang-style dude, and then was hypnotized into living with him in some mystical dimension. She escapes and, after losing her powers to X-Man-to-be Rogue, gives the Avengers holy hell for abandoning her (well done, Mr Claremont). After a period that found her with cosmic powers as Binary, Kurt Busiek made her into a drunk in his Avengers run, but saw to it that she joined AA and becomes a lucid heroine again.

To Marvel’s credit, Carol Danvers is one of the key characters in their line, one with a mean roundhouse left. But she again bears the name “Ms. Marvel,” which is nowhere near as cool as Warbird (well done, Mr Busiek).

Commonalities:
Two broads known to throw a helluva punch, and known to have connections to expatriate extraterrestrial heroes on Earth.

Differences:
Hawkgirl has them wings and archaic weaponry; Warbird is super-strong, flies and shoots force blasts out of her fingertips.

Alternate histories:

HG: Kendra Saunders is a young pilot in the U.S. Air Force when she encounters and then enters a romantic relationship with Katar Hol, the Thanagarian dissident known as Hawkman. She appropriates some of his abilities, which she uses under the codename of Hawkgirl. Saunders then joins the Justice League, although she is spirited away to mate with a extra-dimensional being. She escapes and then angrily rebukes the JLA for abandoning her; she then spends some time with the Teen Titans before spending time in outer space. She returns to Earth and rejoins the JLA. Hawkgirl currently leads the sanctioned iteration of the JLA, which includes her current swain Captain Atom.

WB: As a young woman, Carol Danvers attempts suicide, but is revived when the spirit of an ancestor enters her body. Via Kree technology, she is imbued with abilities native to that race, and takes the codename Warbird. She joins a later iteration of the wartime organization the Liberty Legion, and is courted by a charter member of that organization to be named later, who she resists. After encountering Kree antagonists on their homeworld, Warbird has joined the Avengers, which includes her current swain, the Angel.

A pair of hardbitten alien soldiers enamored of Earth

Hawkman - Captain Mar-Vell

Quite fond of this one here— I always liked the way both of these characters looked…

I refer here to the Hawkman rejigged by Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert in 1961: a police officer from the planet Thanagar operating on Earth. Like the Silver Age re-introductions of the Flash, Green Lantern and the Atom, the Katar Hol iteration was introduced to the DC diaspora with a science fiction bent (as opposed to the Golden Age version, who has his own equivalent —to be named later).

Post-Crisis, Hawkman possibly suffered the most convolutions of any significant DC character. Pre-Crisis, Thanagar was said to have been one of many peaceful, technocratic societies so beloved of Silver Age DC, but it turned warlike in the late ‘70s, prompting Katar to turn against his race. In 1989, a mini-series called Hawkworld posited that Thanagar had been run by militaristic society for centuries, but the PTB at DC decided that this would take place in the present, thereby making Hol’s first “canonical” appearance contemporaneous and thus mooting all prior continuity. The Hawkman that had served in the JLA was now the Golden Age iteration.

Seems easy enough to say that, after Superboy’s multiverse-shuffling tantrum, that Katar Hol came to Earth from Thanagar, saw the error of his race’s ways, got the “Hawkman” mantle handed over to him by Carter Hall, and away we go: no harm no foul. Instead, the Hawkman franchise is incredibly convoluted. So you’ll forgive me if I go with my eminently sensible solution.

As for Mar-Vell…perhaps understandably, in 1967 Stan Lee wanted to lay claim to the copyright “Captain Marvel,” one that hadn’t been used by DC for the Big Red Cheese since the company won ownership of the character from its lawsuit against Fawcett (don’t ask about the short-lived 1966 version published by MF Enterprises). So Marvel’s version was a dissident Kree soldier on Earth.

No one seemed to know what to do with him at first: Roy Thomas rendered him akin to the "Big Red Cheese" by having him trade places with perennial hanger-on Rick Jones (one would languish in a nether-dimension while the other was on Earth). Finally, Jim Starlin made him a “Cosmic Protector,” with accompanying “cosmic awareness”—this is the version beloved by fandom. In 1982, Starlin had Mar-Vell die of cancer…25 years later, he’s plucked out of the timestream, just before cancer advances so that he can assist in the “Civil War” to no meaningful effect. He also was ret-conned into fathering Genis Vell and Kree/Skrull hybrid the Hulking—ahh, editorial mandates!

Note that the "Big Red Cheese" is the essentially the same person as Billy Batson and is otherwise not an extraterrestrial, so any match-up with Mar-Vell doesn’t work.

Commonalities:
Both are soldiers hailing from militaristic societies who come to Earth, renounce their race’s domineering ways, and champion their adopted world. Both take terran secret identities— HM: Carter Hall, CM: Walter Lawson.

Differences:
Well, Hol has them wings, is fond of archaic weaponry and otherwise boasts enhanced strength common to Thanagarians. He also had a partner/wife Shayera. Whereas Vell’s abilities shifted over time: he began as a Kree soldier and gained the powers mentioned above. His fellow Kree soldier, Una, never had a superhero guise, but as you will see below, I’m going to cheat.

Alternate histories:

CM: Mar Vell, a soldier from the expansionist interstellar society the Kree is stationed on Earth with his wife/colleague Una. The two renounce their homeworld and battle evil doers as Captain Marvel and Ms. Marvel (see who Carol Danvers is paired with at a later date) and join the Avengers.

HM: Katar Hol, a soldier from the expansionist interstellar society from Thanagar is stationed on Earth with his colleague/lover Shayera. The two renounce their homeworld, although Shayera is killed by another Thanagarian captain, leaving Hol to battle evil doers as Hawkman on Earth and in the cosmos (he finds time to co-exist with Snapper Carr and father some children as well). He often works with the Justice League, but eventually succumbs to cancer—that is, until an editorial mandate concocts a cheap ploy to resurrect him.