Doug: Happy weekend, everyone! Only a few more days until the Jolly Old Elf himself descends upon our households!Today's question came to me last Tuesday whilst exercising. Apparently all that motion helps to slosh my gray matter about and kick out the ideas over which you are supposed to converse. Anyway, it occurred to me that there are some nifty slogans -- not necessarily nicknames -- by which our favorite spandex-wearing friends are otherwise known. Just to name a few:
- Earth's Mightiest Heroes
- The Fastest Man Alive
- The Man Without Fear
- The Last Son of Krypton
18 comments:
You have already feature a picture of..."The Ghost Who Walks".
Some others that occur to me are:
"Dark Knight Detective"
"Emerald Archer"
"Star-Spangled Avenger"
"Sky-Rider of the Spaceways"
and of course my personal fave...
"Scarlet Smasher"!
Rip Off
I suppose you could do entire lists of names for DC's two banner characters; I thought of "The Man of Steel" and "The Man of Tomorrow", for one, and "The Caped Crusader", just plain old "Dark Detective" and "The Masked Manhunter" (not as common, but I've seen it used before) for the other.
A personal favorite, and a really obscure one, is "Tatterdemalion of Justice" from probably my favorite casualty of the DC Implosion.
Sentinal of the Skyways
Master of the Mystic Arts
Personally, I think Man Without Fear is pretty cool.
Ever-lovin' blue-eyed idol o' millions.
It doesn't get much better than that.
Of course, the sobriquet "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" didn't exactly suit the Avengers during the "Cap's Kooky Quartet" era, fun as that was. It became more apt once they had the Vision, Iron Man and Thor among the regular members.
I just remembered "Green Goliath" and "Golden Avenger" (which used to puzzle me as a kid, because his armor was pretty much equal parts red and gold). Among Marvel's royalty, there's "The Silent King" and "The Avenging Son" - that's another personal favorite.
Prince of Power.
Yeah, Avenging Son is cool, too.
Not so much for the team itself.., but the logo "The Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine" on the FF's pretty much did it for me back in 1973.
Yeah, agreed.., 'Man Without Fear' pretty much rules. But who can forget 'Your Friendly Neighborhood Webslinger'..
That was the best of all.
Scarlet Speedster
Emerald Gladiator
The Big Red Cheese
Edo, your one is Ragman?
Yep.
The Emerald Gladiator; The Maid of Magic; The Winged Wonder(s); The Stretchable Sleuth; The Fabulous Freak;The Dominoed Dare-Doll; and my absolute favourites: the Dynamic Duo and the Discarnate Detective.
Villains, next? The Princess of Plunder and the World's Wickedest Worm?
ol Jade Jaws.
I stayed away from "Children of the Atom" in the post because I figured someone else would want that glory. I think that one is appropriate and sounds cool.
Some of you came up with some pretty obscure pseudonyms -- good job!
Doug
Er, that would be me... Batgirl and the Spectre are probably the most obscure ones I mentioned; the latter got me to look up the dictionary as a kid. See? Comix help yu rite gud .
Not strictly relevant but it occurred to me that American super heroes often seem to have a confused relationship between their mandate to fight for Good (capital G) and their desire to fight for purely American values or America itself.
Hence, ‘truth, justice and the American way’ was quite a cool strapline for Superman, but why would someone from Krypton be so determined to fight for capitalism, per se?
Likewise, Wonder Woman took it a stage further. Why would an Amazonian princess, who came from a place where women were in charge, and was manifestly not any kind of a democracy, be “in her satin tights, fighting for her rights, and the old red white and blue” ?
Great theme song though. Terrible, but great.
OK, back to pseudonyms...
Doug - I agree that Children of the Atom is cool. Kind of makes up for ‘the strangest teens of all’.
Dbutler - I agree about the man without fear, but I love Miller’s addition......"show me a man with nothing to lose and I'll show you a man without fear"
I like ‘God of Thunder’ although that’s less a pseudonym, more a job description.
No-one has mentioned it, but there are a load of nicknames which are kind of pseudonyms as well. Shell-head, Wing-head, Web-slinger, High-Pockets, etc
Hi Doug – can I ask for 3 possible future threads if you haven’t done them already?
1)Cool theme songs/music
2)Best lines of dialogue (or monologue).
3)Best Straplines
Cheers
Richard
-The Man of Steel (my personal favorite. It has a way of conveying both the humanity and the power of Superman).
-The Ghost Who Walks (You just gotta love the mystique coming off of this one)
-Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. (Really captures the personality Peter has when he's got the mask on. It's both reassuring and wiseass at the same time.)
-The Dark Knight Detective. (Just the addition of the last word creates a different vibe from the whole tired dark knight schtick. It's less about a dude being dark and more conveys a noble figure cloaked in darkness who uses incredible knowledge and skill to ensure justice is done.)
You could probably design a multiple choice quiz around these nicknames and pseudonyms: "The Ghost Who Walks. A. Deadman. B. The Phantom. C.The Spectre D. The Shadow." Or, "The Scarlet Speedster. A. Red Ryder. B. Red Tornado. C. The Flash. D. The Whizzer." And so on.
"American super heroes have a confused relationship between their mandate to fight for Good and their desire to fight for American values or America itself." That is because the stories are written by Americans so they tend to reflect an American world view. Sherlock Holmes, Bulldog Drummond, and James Bond all reflected a British attitude.
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