When two or more words are joined together, you sometimes get more than just a new word… You could get our favorite supers! Welcome to Ten Things: Ten Random Compound Words!
Whooshman-Bicarbonate Films, in conjunction with An Amateur Comics Historian and legendary lost heroes Paycheck, Basecoat and Sidewalk, Presents:
TEN THINGS: TEN RANDOM COMPOUND WORDS!
10) NIGHTWING
When Dick Grayson gave up the role of Robin, he spent a great deal of time soul-searching and planning his next identity. He chose his new nom de guerre from stories Superman told him of Krypton’s heroes, which means that ‘Nightwing’ is probably a transliteration from the Kryptonian language. Either way, he’s had that name for thirty-five years, nearly as long as the forty-four he spent as Robin, and we’ve all long since stopped worrying that it doesn’t really mean anything.
The mullet and glider wings were a short-lived 90s look occurring between his original disco collar costume and the modern blue/black minimalist take.
9) KNIGHTSABRE
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Mikey Graves has the power to absorb anger and aggression, channeling it into pure energy that he uses to empower his attacks. Being awash in rage, he’s not an easy person to be around, which made his tenure as leader of Youngblood a difficult one, and his cocky attitude when not full of bellicosity didn’t seem to help. This also made the time he was accused of murdering a teammate extra dicey.
No, I don’t know what’s going on with his hip.
8) IRONDROID
An employee of Stark International in the 22nd Century, Bill Hogan is descended from Happy Hogan and Pepper Potts, who married in his native reality of Earth-90110. A member of the Cosmic Avengers, alongside Commander America, The Tachyon Torch and a descendant of She-Hulk called Gammazon, Bill was killed in the line of duty.
His armor seems to be that of Iron Man 2020, which would make it more than 100 years old at the time he was using it.
7) COLDCAST
Nathan Jones grew up on the mean streets of Chicago, losing an eye while still a child. When his ability to detect and manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum developed, he caught the eye of Manchester Black, who recruited him to his team, The Elite. After getting soundly defeated by Superman, The Elite was taken over by Manchester’s sister Vera, who molded them into a more heroic team, even becoming a branch of the Justice League. Coldcast’s powers were key in the Elite’s operations, allowing them to bypass/destroy security with his EMP abilities and intercept electronic communications.
6) WILDSTAR
Man, the 90s were FULL of of random compound words… Trapped in a recurring time loop, Michael Gabriel is forced to go back in time and give his alien symbiote (the WildStar, which seems to be a starfish) to his past self, throwing the universe into chaos. His adventures are full of recursive possible futures, as Michael has the memories of his future self, but at a certain point, even I just throw up my hands and say #TimeTravelShenanigans. One of him came back and called himself SoulStar while haunting The Savage Dragon.
No, I don’t know what happened to his nose.
5) WITCHBLADE
Part of a centuries-old legacy of bearers of a mystical gauntlet, Dani Baptiste dreamed of the Witchblade before it was offered to her by previous wearer Sara Pezzini. The gauntlet’s power was later split between them, with Dani giving up the Witchblade to save Sara from possession by The Darkness, only to later be possessed by something called The Angelus. Regardless, I think we can all agree that Witchblade is a name that has not aged well.
4) STARBRAND
A prehistoric humanoid called Vnn, he was drawn to a place called The Garden, where the Starbrand lay dormant in the corpse of its previous bearer, a Tyrannosaurus rex. After the death of his mate, Brrkk, Vnn absorbed the cosmic energies and accidentally destroyed The Garden, leaving him to wander the prehistoric world. He eventually fell in with the Avengers of 1,000,000 BC to battle incursions by the alien Celestials.
I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole Stone-Age Avengers concept.
3) HELLSTORM
The first-born Son of several creatures to call themselves Satan, Daimon Hellstrom’s aliases have long been a problem. After debuting as the prosaic Son of Satan, he then became Hellstorm in the 80s, went by his real surname for a while in the 90s, and returned to the Hellstorm name in the 21st Century. Now that he’s getting a TV show, they’re going with a variant spelling, ‘Helstrom’, to try and take the curse off it, but no matter the name, it’s wonderful to see the seventies horror heroes finally making the ranks of The Avengers.
2) DIEHARD 2.0
Once a super-soldier reminiscent of one Steve Rogers, the hero from the 40s known as Diehard gained more and more cybernetic enhancements throughout the years, till he believed himself more machine than man. It’s not clear whether the entirely robotic Diehard 2.0 is based on his mental patterns or something, and given the scattershot nature and endless rebooting of the Youngblood property, it’s not likely that we’re ever going to find out. What’s more important is figuring out whether Rob Liefeld was inspired by the car battery or Bruce Willis…
1) NIGHTGLIDER
After a number of issues featuring ‘Super-Hero Confidential’, a column that reprinted old Marvel Comics with analysis and footnotes, Dynamite Magazine went all in with their own original superhero comics. Hence was born The Dynamite Duo, Nightglider (Bill Harris) and his sister Dawnstar (Pam Harris) who transformed with magic rings into a superhero pair with vaguely defined powers. First debuting in 1976, their serialized adventures ran for about six years, as far as I can tell, and featured art by Chic Stone and the legendary Joe Kubert. I fondly, albeit vaguely, remember their goofy adventures and am fascinated to see this panel’s blatant swipe from John Buscema’s work on Avengers #57, the first appearance of The Vision.
This week’s topic, Ten Random Compound Words, is all me but feel free to follow along @MightyKingCobra to suggest your own on Twitter! There’s more Ten Things madness to be had there or check out the full Twitter archive here! As with any set of like items, these aren’t meant to be hard and fast or absolutely complete, if only because there are only so many words in the English language and you can only make more by stickin’ ’em together. Either way, the comments section is Below for just such an emergency, but, as always: Please, no wagering!
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