Our colorful men in blue have marginal connections to the universes we claim they existed in, and they've since disappeared from public view. Nevertheless, each had interesting concepts. First, the Action Aces of Earth-One, then the Tracer and his sidekick of Earth-Two.
Clive Arno was a widowed archaeologist who located special coins originating from alien beings, providing him various abilities, which he used briefly as the crime fighter Captain Action alongside his son Action Boy aka Carl.
As Captain Action encountered the Superman of Earth-One, After this initial meeting, Arno struck out with only Carl by his side, as well as his pet pooch. On a couple occasions, Clive faced his former colleague turned supervillain Krellik, who had tried to seize Action's coins by using his own to overpower his adversary.
Eventually, the Captain faced his most formidable and famous foe in his father-in-law, Doctor Evil. Originally, this malevolent mastermind was Doctor Tracy, trying to use technology to repair fault lines and thus prevent life-threatening earthquakes. Instead, his machine transforms him into Evil, and twice the Captain and Doctor clash... each time with the latter's defeat.
Eventually, the Captain faced his most formidable and famous foe in his father-in-law, Doctor Evil. Originally, this malevolent mastermind was Doctor Tracy, trying to use technology to repair fault lines and thus prevent life-threatening earthquakes. Instead, his machine transforms him into Evil, and twice the Captain and Doctor clash... each time with the latter's defeat.
William "Wild Bill" Dunn was an American engineer operating in Ethiopia during World War II Battling an alien race known as the M'bujites, and alongside a young Australian soldier known as "Boomerang" Jones reassembled Nazi technology they came across into a a specialized vessel. This transport, known as the Blue Tracer, could be an airplane, tank or submarine.
Naming himself after his vehicle, the Blue Tracer had a minor career far afield from the All-Star Squadron of his native country, as he and Boomerang operated elsewhere around the globe. While not having a prominent opponent like his counterpart, Dunn still made several enemies during his brief career.
Like the Blue Tracer's three-in-one transport, Captain Action also had developed an amphibian craft known as the Silver Streak. Though not as sophisticated as the Tracer, Action's coins compensated for this inequity. And each champion and junior partner became minor footnotes in the histories of their parallel planets.
1 comment:
IIRC, Captain Action mentioned the Justice League in his origin story, which is further evidence that he was on Earth One. BTW, the aliens from whom he got the power coins had visited Earth in ancient times, and myths and legends were based on them. Another example of the ancient astronauts theory in science fiction before Erich Von Daniken popularized it in his "non fiction" best sellers.
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