A new hero every week! Only not really new. They're generally pretty old, but it seems very few of you are comic book guys, so... let's broaden your horizons. I mean, I own, what, five comic books? But still. I know lots about 'em. Sometimes they'll be obscure, sometimes they'll be famous. Sometimes they'll be awesome. Usually they'll be awesome.

Our first topic?


GUARDIAN!

The national hero of Canada (more or less), James MacDonald Hudson - with a name that could not be more Canadian if it slathered itself with maple syrup - is more than usually the leader of Alpha Flight, Canada's premiere super team. First appearing in 1978, his powers include flight, the ability to fire energy blasts, and he can make force fields or somethign like that. Generic superness, I suppose, gifted by his super suit!



Originally a petrochemical worker (oil guy to all us non-Canadians), he learns that the company he works for is developing a weaponized supersuit, and he's the one building it! Like any self-respecting Canadian, he does everything possible to his creation from being used for anything badass by stealing the suit before it can be sold to the military. He then leaves it in the woods and waits to be arrested. What a puss.

However, with the help of his girlfriend Heather, he gets the charges dropped and is pulled into Department H, a secret branch of the Canadian Department of National Defence! He rounds up some other heroes and founds Alpha Flight, the Canadian superteam, like I said before. You were listening right? You better have been. Taking the name "Weapon Alpha," he leads them on missions and stuff, such as their first appearance hunting down Wolverine!



As a government agent for Canada, of course, he'll often have run-ins with the X-Men, as they harbor Wolverine, who - for all of you who are unaware - he's a project of a Canadian super soldier program known as Weapon X, only he went renegade, and they want him back. So, fights between Alpha Flight and Xavier's boys aren't uncommon.

Before long, their general... failness ends with Department H being discontinued by the Canadian government. Guardian retires for a bit, but soon reforms the team as a private entity. They go on adventures and stuff, it's pretty badass, and he marries his girlfriend, and she becomes a superhero, and it's all going awesome until he dies. His wife takes over as Guardian and Alpha Flight's leader.



Only he didn't actually die! He was transported to Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons, and gets a super badass power upgrade. Returning to Earth, he becomes Vindicator, leaving his old name and leadership position to his wife. But, he still remains a big time member of the team, and generally continues to kick ass with his new space powers. Fight Galactus. Good stuff.

After a series of misadventures being transported to other planets and dimensions and shot into space and sent to Anarctica and being cloned and everyone thinking the clone is him and the clone becoming a character all his own and then dying... he comes back and stuff. All is good. He's Guardian again and his wife is now Vindicator. They trade names. All is fine until... he dies again.



This time, it seems, for real. He and the rest of Alpha Flight were slaughted completely by The Collective back in 2006, and he's been dead ever since. A new guy - Michael Pointers a.k.a. Weapon Omega - has been seen wearing the suit, but stopped not too long ago. Sasquatch (the only survivor of the original group) has joined Omega Flight, one of many Canadian offshoots of Alpha Flight (along with Beta Flight and Gamma Flight), and has confirmed both Guardian and his clone are completely dead. Or something.

In any case, he's pretty badass for a Canadian superhero, and knowing comic books... he'll be back before long. Oh, and also, his friend Northstar was the first openly gay comic book character. Sometimes they're good about that and sometimes it's just depressing.

...

WHOO! That was long winded! So look forward to next Friday for our next hero! Who will it be? I don't know because this was a spur-of-the-moment thing!

Hehe... let's see you get ME interested in this stuff.

Why is his left ankle broken in the first pic???

I love how we have a sasquatch.

I love how we have a sasquatch. X2

:pika: I learned something new today! Although he had a pretty stupid consume imo...

Oh man, another great new feature. You know, this could be the start of something grand.

Yeah... Wait, not really, no.

Oh yes it is.

It's been over a week. Lazy Johnny is lazy.

Actually, I've had it planned for a long time, but just can't remember to post it because it's never Fridays.

It'll be Squirrel Girl, by the by.

Who???

SQUIRREL Girl?

You have some catching up to do.

WHERE ARE THE OTHER SUPERHEROES HUH!?

Oh man now I want to do this again.

...

Eh but not now.

Oh god.

Do Warlock next!

NOPE LOL


ZATANNA!

Zatanna Zatara dates back to the 1960s, the daughter of Giovanni Zatara, one of the most gifted magicians of his time and a member of the mysterious "Homo magi" race (a subspecies of humans with a natural inclinations toward magic). Zatara was actually a Golden Age superhero from the 1930s, but for Zatanna's story, he vanished without telling her the secret of his powers. Growing up as a stage illusionist, she didn't discover her powers until she went on the hunt for her father. This search was a multi-comic story, where Zatanna appeared in Batman, Hawkman, Green Lantern, and other comic books for a single-issue guest slot. Very advanced crossovers for the 1960s!

So what exactly are her powers?



EVERYTHING! Her magic is just that... magic. She speaks a sentence backwards and alters reality to suit her purposes. In most cases this would make her horribly overpowered and easily resolve any plot device put in her way. It makes writing her tricky... but there's a lot of ways to get around it, from stealing her voice, losing her powers, or just putting her up against problems that can't be solved with a wave of the hand.

She ended up joining the Justice League during the 70s, during which point her powers were taken away - or, at least, limited to the four elements. It was reversed relatively quickly because, come on, that's lame. She made relatively frequent appearances throughout the 80s and 90s, but because of the trend toward dark and gritty, the relatively "silly" backwards spells made her unappealing to most writers.



However, things got big for Zatanna in 2004, during Identity Crisis (which was terrible and you should never ever read it). In essence, Dr. Light rapes Sue Dibny (ugh) and ultimately the League votes to wipe his mind. Zatanna is the one to do it, despite close debate as to the ethics. It drives a wedge between her and the team, and she quits/is fired. Eventually, it's retconned that Zatanna makes a habit of these mindwipes; Catwoman finds out her turn to the straight and narrow was because of Zatanna! It pisses her off obviously, but they patch it up; she ends up with the Seven Soldiers of Victory and a few other magical organizations. Oh, and her cousin Zachary Zatara was introduced a few years ago as a member of the Teen Titans. He's pretty alright.

Since then, she's had a lot of appearances in DC's Vertigo line - hard-edged, mature stories (GOOD mature stories, not just blood'n'guts schlock) with a serious edge. She's banged John Constantine is what I'm trying to say. I mean, not that I blame her, John Constantine's the man. But she's had some trouble treading the line between the two universes, which tend to stay SOMEWHAT separate.



With the post-Flashpoint New 52 - a complete retcon of the entire DC Universe, rejiggering every character and their histories - she's ended up as a member of Justice League Dark, which contains a number of more mystic DC characters and a touch of Vertigo to boot. It's supposed to be pretty alright. Her new costume is cool (in the picture above), too, even if it's not quite up to par with her classic magician's outfit.



Zatanna has become a pretty huge supporting member of Batman's cast (as you may have gathered from her relationship with Catwoman). This is partly due to Batman: The Animated Series, which had an episode featuring Zatanna. She and Bruce (in his pre-Batman years) both trained under Zatara, which is how Batman got so good at vanishing and such. She wasn't magical, just an illusionist, but it was still a good episode. Thank writer Paul Dini for that - he's got a MASSIVE hard-on for Zatanna. He even married a magician! She's hot, too.

This was eventually transmitted to the comics, where she and Batman have been romantically linked (to an extent; it never quite works out because he's Batman and devoted to the cause and all that). But, still, she's becoming an honorary member of the Gotham crowd, making appearances in Gotham Sirens and all that.



Since then, outside of comics, Zatanna's popped up in Justice League Unlimited (where she was upped to fully magical), the Gotham Girls webseries, and Batman: The Brave and The Bold in a cold opening. She almost got her own flash-animated show from Cartoon Monsoon, but it wasn't picked up beyond the pilot. Oh, and she'll be appearing on Young Justice next week... Zatara is a member of the Justice League, and rumor has it she'll end up with the Young Justice team.

On the live-action side, she had a movie in the planning stages a few years ago, but like most DC movies, it's probably dead in the water by now. On TV she got a recurring role on Smallville, where she's KIND of a bad guy, I think. She comes into conflict with Clark, at least, though she learns her lessen and becomes good by the end. Never really watched the show, but the actress is pretty hot, right?



Anyways, Zatanna is one of my personal favorite superheroines. She's got a great schtick, with enough flexibility to fit her into any story but enough of a limit to keep her from overpowering the story. I particularly like the "novice magician" line, which I hope they end up using in Young Justice. Not to mention the costume (come on, sexy magician, can't go wrong) and the generally sense of the character - not too serious, not too slutty, but a fun adventurer sort of character. A nice contrast to Batman in particular, for a number of reasons.

BUT YEAH, there's Zatanna. Thoughts?

Needs more Color Kid.

Rule #1 of Johnny's Superhero Thread: We don't talk about the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Color Kid is better than the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Color Kid doesn't take sh*t from anybarry.

I had never heard of her before but she is pretty interesting.
Also HAWT

...what?

I love the Super heroes/heroines like Batman who always rely on their strength rather than some cliche super power to get the job done - and doing it with style.

Very interesting read, Johnny.

But... she has the power to bend reality.

Yeah, she's like Scarlet Witch only less psychotic.

I must've missed that part.