On this 232nd birthday of the United States of America, I'll be heading out of town for a few days of rest, relaxation, and colorful explosions...but in the meantime, I've got a little America-themed activity to occupy your Independence Day weekend.
You'll see that I've posted 32 red-white-&-blue comic book characters from various decades and publishers. Your task as red-blooded Americans is to identify as many of them as possible using your encyclopedic knowledge of comics lore (and Google).
This time around there's no lucrative prizes involved, but who needs 'em? Identifying flag-themed comic characters is its own reward, right? As such, I'll be keeping the comments section open for you to compare notes and figure out who these star-spangled superstars are.
Never fear, the answers will be provided for you on Monday if your combined brain power (and Google) should fail you. Until then, have a wonderful (and safe) holiday weekend!
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Am I the only one the contest pics aren't coming up for?
Posted by: ShadowWing Tronix | July 04, 2008 at 09:19 AM
Whoops! Thanks for the tip-off, ShadowWing. I had the images set in the wrong color mode. I've posted corrected images, so you should now be able to see them. Sorry for the confusion!
Posted by: Mark Engblom | July 04, 2008 at 09:42 AM
Yay! Now I can play along and...I can't even identify half of these guys. And I only learned about two of them from comic blogs and Wowio.
Does Citizen V even count as "hero", or did something happened after I stopped reading Thunderbolts?
Posted by: ShadowWing Tronix | July 04, 2008 at 12:17 PM
I'm having trouble with #7... !!
Posted by: Hube | July 04, 2008 at 12:40 PM
ShadowWing-
Regarding the "hero" status of Citizen V, you'll note that I referred to the gallery as simply "comic book characters", with no regard to their heroic (or otherwise) status. Most of them are true-blue heroes, but a few of them are a more ambiguous shade of "anti-hero" or perhaps even villainous. Yeah, I called them "superstars" toward the end of the post, but that's more an unfortunate bit of alliteration than a comment on their moral status.
So....give me some LISTS people! Like I said, you can collaborate on this one, so take advantage of it!
Posted by: Mark Engblom | July 06, 2008 at 09:13 AM
Man, these were tough ones; even with the help of my chatroom buddies, these were all we could come up with:
1 Star Spangled Kid
2 Commander Steel
5 Stripesy
6 Uncle Sam
7 Captain America
9 Captain Flag
11 Superpatriot
13 American Dream
15 Captain Freedom
17 The Comedian
19 Fighting Yank
25 Miss America
28 Private Strong Shield
31 The Shield
Posted by: Pat Curley | July 06, 2008 at 11:43 AM
OK, here's who I can identify offhand:
1. Star Spangled Kid
2. Commander Steel
3. Citizen V
4.
5. Stripesy
6. Uncle Sam
7. Captain America
8.
9. Captain Flag (MLJ/Archie)
10. Miss America (Quality/DC)
11. Superpatriot
12. Skyman (hey, same guy twice!)
13. American Dream
15. Captain Freedom
16. The Defender
17. The Comedian
18. General Glory
19. Fighting Yank
20. Fighting American
21. Major Victory
22.
23. Patriot
24. Miss Victory
25. Miss America (Marvel)
26. Patriot
27.
28. Private Lancelot Strong
29.
30. The Spirit of '76
31. The Shield
32. Major Liberty
Posted by: buttler | July 06, 2008 at 05:59 PM
Oh wait, 4 is Liberty Girl.
22 is really bugging me. I know I've seen her before.
Posted by: buttler | July 06, 2008 at 06:22 PM
Ah! 22 is Pat Patriot! Jeez, that was going to drive me nuts.
And 29 is Nedor's American Crusader.
Posted by: buttler | July 06, 2008 at 06:34 PM
Buttler! You MADMAN! There you go, folks...Buttler just blew open the dam, so now you've only got a few more blank slots to fill (of course, assuming Buttler's guesses are all correct). Full answers tomorrow!
Posted by: Mark. Engblom | July 06, 2008 at 06:59 PM
27. Yankee Clipper
That should just leave #8 and 14 unidentified.
Posted by: buttler | July 06, 2008 at 07:07 PM
I swear I'm not competitive, just compulsive. Here's a complete list. Whether its wholly accurate we'll see, but complete in any case. I'm still thrown by the presence of both Star-Spangled Kid and Skyman, as they're the same guy, but try as might to make Skyman look like someone else (the Puppeteer, say), I just can't do it.
1. Star Spangled Kid (DC)
2. Commander Steel (DC)
3. Citizen V (Marvel)
4. Liberty Girl (Heroic)
5. Stripesy (DC)
6. Uncle Sam (Quality/DC)
7. Captain America (Timely/Marvel)
8. Pistolfist (Bluewater)
9. Captain Flag (MLJ/Archie)
10. Miss America (Quality/DC)
11. Superpatriot (Image)
12. Skyman (DC)
13. American Dream (Marvel)
14. Commando Yank (Fawcett)
15. Captain Freedom (Harvey)
16. The Defender (Timely/Marvel)
17. The Comedian (DC)
18. General Glory (DC)
19. Fighting Yank (Kirby)
20. Fighting American (Nedor)
21. Major Victory (DC)
22. Pat Patriot (Lev Gleason)
23. Patriot (Marvel)
24. Miss Victory (Holyoke)
25. Miss America (Timely/Marvel)
26. Patriot (Marvel)
27. Yankee Clipper (Marvel)
28. Private Lancelot Strong (MLJ/Archie)
29. American Crusader (Nedor)
30. The Spirit of '76 (Marvel)
31. The Shield (MLJ/Archie)
32. Major Liberty (Timely/Marvel)
Posted by: buttler | July 06, 2008 at 09:00 PM
Whoops, I accidentally reversed the credits (but not the heroes) for #19 and 20:
Fighting American (#20) is the Kirby creation that made the rounds of various publishers.
Fighting Yank (#19) is the Nedor hero recently revived by Alan Moore.
It's interesting how much the Spirit of '76 (#30) resembles him, considering that he was created as a Marvel version of Uncle Sam along with a bunch of other thinly-veiled Freedom Fighters.
Posted by: buttler | July 06, 2008 at 10:17 PM