Black and White Wednesday: The ORIGIN of Iron Fist

Check it out, Groove-ophiles! Here's a combination Black and White Wednesday/Secret Origins post featuring one of the grooviest, most far-out of all Marvel heroes, none other than Danny Rand, aka Iron Fist! This version of IF's origin, from Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #10 (cover dated March 1975), combines both the Roy Thomas/Gil Kane and Len Wein/Larry Hama stories from Marvel Premiere #'s 15-16 (February-April 1974) into one handy, dandy story called "The Shaping of Vengeance". Written by Doug Moench with art by Don Perlin, this piece was to have been part of the sadly aborted Iron Fist magazine. And now, heeeeeeeere it is!

Secret Origins: Teen Titans

The Teen Titans. You'd think they'd always been around, always been a top-flight, top-tier title. T'was not always so. In between their legendary first series (which ran 43 issues from 1966-1973) and the totally awesome Marv Wolfman/George Perez 1980s revamp, the Titans struggled to stay on the stands with a little-remembered run from 1976-1978 (issues 44-53). Mainly written by the solid-but-unspectacular Bob Rozakis and drawn by a revolving door of artists (from Pablo Marcos to Don Heck to Juan Ortiz), those issues are but a foot-note in comicbook history. Kind of a shame, because while the series was by no means spectacular, it was good fun, and it Rozakis and his cohorts did some innovative work on our favorite team of junior Justice Leaguers. He added new characters and members like Bumblebee, Harlequin, and Golden Eagle, along with a Titans West team featuring Hawk (of Hawk & Dove fame), the caveman Gnaark, and the original Bat-Girl. Both of those ideas were used in later, more successful incarnations of the Titans, but the best thing Rozakis did was in the final issue (#53, November, 1977) when he gave the Teen Titans an origin. When Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad first teamed up in Brave and the Bold #54 (April, 1964), the team didn't even have a name. When they got back together (and invited Wonder Girl) in B&B #60, they had a name but no origin. Leave it to the Answer Man to create an origin for a team that had gone without one for well over a decade. Way to go, Bob!

Famous First Fridays: Firestorm

It was nearly Christmas '77, and DC socked it to us with an early present from writer Gerry Conway and artist Al Milgrom. Firestorm, the Nuclear Man was possibly the most anticipated new DC superhero series in years. DC did a good job of creating cool house-ads to build a following before the mag even hit the spinner-racks. I mean, all they had to do was show us...the costume. A flame-haired hero with a costume made of equal parts Kirby and disco (which, according to Answer Man, Bob Rozakis, was Milgrom channeling his inner 14 year old), man, that was instant dy-no-mite!

Another thing that made Firestorm stand out from the majority of DC's output was the fact that Conway and Milgrom, both Marvel Comics veterans, treated Firestorm like a Marvel superhero. Many fans at the time counted Firestorm as a Nova rip-off, but Firestorm was really a reverse-Spider-Man. Instead of the nerd being picked on by the jocks, half of Firestorm's alter ego (yeah, I'll explain that in a minute), Ronnie Raymond, was a jock being picked on by a nerd! That was kinda fun and different, especially if you were a high school aged comic fan like Teen Groove. The other half of Firestorm's persona was a middle-aged, frumpy, Reed Richards-level nuclear physicist by the name of Professor Martin Stein. Stein was a genius, yes, but in his own way, he was a loser, too, as you can see in the scenes with his boss Danton Black. I won't ruin the fun of reading the origin for ya, but I have to warn you, some serious CRAP brings our two unlikely heroes together (literally!).

Firestorm's mag only lasted five short issues (December, 1977-July, 1978), not because the mag was bad (it was a hoot!), but because it was a victim of the fabled DC Implosion (which I'll cover in depth soon). Firestorm popped up in DC's team-up mags (Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents) fairly often, and he became the last full-fledged member of the original JLA (thanks in no small part to the fact that co-creator Conway was scripting the JLA) in Justice League of America #179 (March, 1980). After a short stint as a back-up in the Flash (issues 290-299, 301-304), Firestorm was given another shot at his own title, Fury of Firestorm, which ran 64 issues (March, 1982-July, 1987). Since then, he has been killed, brought back, replaced, and last I heard, killed again. One thing's for sure, though. Firestorm will pop up again. He's too cool of a hero to waste!