INTRODUCE YOURSELF

[Rik]

Hi everyone,

Levionne Klay ask if we had a post to introduce yourself so here goes.

I am your host, my name is Rik. This website was started by Bradly Cobb and called "Mighty MLJ". I had a Shield only website called "The "Shield". Brad gave me his website and I combined it with my Shield website. Then Scott Martin who had the "Mighty Crusaders Handbook" and the "Mighty Crusaders Message Board". Ask me to moderate his Message Board. Late Scott shut down his site and sent me all his files. I merged it with my site and Brads site and renamed the entire thing the Mighty Crusaders Network because
1) It was a network of 3 sites linked together and
2) Archie Comics owns http://www.mightycrusaders.com so I had to use .net and I figured adding the word network would help people remember it wasn't .com
Eventually Scott gave me the Message board too.

I have been a Mighty Crusaders fan since Mighty Cursaders #1 volume 2, when I found it at my local comic shop in the 80's and liked the cover enough to pick it up and give it a try. It has become an addition over time. The Lancelot Strong version of the Shield was initially, but over time the original Shield appealed to me more and more.

[Levionne Klay]

Greetings I am Levionne Klay ( my real name is James) I also go by Saint Powers and Captain Halo.
I have searched the internet for Christian Superheroes and found very few and none in the mainstream comics
So, I am writing my own I may see about posting a story

I have been a Fan of DC comics and Archie's I am glad to see the return of the Mighty Crusaders to comics

[GWhitmore]

Hi all,

My name is Gregg. I've been a comic collector for longer than I can remember, with over 20,000 comics in the garage and another 20+ boxes of books, graphic novels, and misc....

Although I bought the Might Crusaders books in the 1980s -- my first exposure to them -- I quickly wrote them off as Marvel knockoffs. Later in life, I realized that Stan Lee incorporated LOTS of the Crusaders' ideas when he started creating Marvel Comics. That gave the old MLJ heroes lots of legitimacy in my eyes.

I'm an editor at The Grand Comics Database (http://www.comics.org) and dabble in digitial coloring (www. gwhitmore.deviantart.com). I'm married, have 4 kids, work full time in a medical library and go to school part time.

I started collecting Archie titles about 4 years ago after a 40 year absence and haven't looked back. That reintroduced me to the Crusaders. Since then, I've acquired full runs of the current books by DC, the 1990s Impact books, the 1980s run, the 1960s reintroduction (missing only 2 Jaguar books and a handful of the early Fly's books). I feel the Crusaders have HUGE untapped potential.

Long winded cuss, ain't I? :>)

Gregg

[leonmallett]

My turn I guess. ;)

I am Leon, a comic book fan from the UK of over 30 years. The UK comic book market is very different in many ways to that seen in the US from what I understand, meaning the exposure of fans around my age to certain publishers was restricted. Hence my first Archie/MLJ heroes exposure was in fact through the !mpact line. The early 90's was a mixed bag of of the great and the less-than-great, yet from that time many new comic book universes emerged, the !mpact line among them, a line which i have a fondness for regularly re-reading today.

Cut to the last few yeasr when I have started to become a collector of 'Dead Universes' thgrough appreciation of ideas that seemed all too short-lived, and so I happened onto first the 80's Red Circle/Archie Adventure books, loving everything from that line except the last couple or three issues of Mighty Crusaders. In turn that put me onto pickiing up the Archie ultra-hero tpb's as well as some of the 60's books, and of course the AWM stuff.

Cut to today when I am buying and enjoying the DCU Red Circle adventures. The two titles are among my monthly must reads and show how good comic books can be when not weighed down by line-wide story arcs, the down side is that in my view these books are criminally under-exposed.

I love posting on the board, learning about the diferent eras and iterations of these characters from fellow board members and especially through Rik's excellent efforts and the work by those he cited in his post. I love the fact that despite there being so many versions of these characters there is a mutual fondness amongst us for what they could be and what they offer us through the adventures that have been printed.

As long as the Network is here, I'll keep posting. Thanks Rik.

[Paul Nolan]

I'm also a UK reader, but started reading US comics in the early 90's.

I'd read British comics such as Wildcat and Eagle, but apart from Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends a comic I didn't know anything about US heroes until a title called "Heroes" hit UK news-stands. It was anthology reprinting Batman, Blue Devil and Metal Men in a UK Kid comic format. After that I noticed US Format comics on the News-stand shelves from and ended up picking up the odd X Title.

It was during a holiday in Denmark with a German exchange partner that I really got into comics. Being in a foreign country with foreigner had me needing something English, and I found X-Force, New Warriors and a load more on the shelves of a Danish shop. When I got back to the UK I sought out a speciality shop and got on the ground floor with Ultraverse and Image Universe books.

Since then I've amassed a few thousand comics, and this Red Circle reboot is my introduction to these characters.

[RHOM]

Hi me is rhom
of the "organic comix" team

my story of the day: not even old
for me the discovery of a strange in the basement of my cousin.
in 1978 to been a revelation at the time a genuine "ct" the single DB or we could see "the spider".
This mad passion is is then emparée me, of course at that time
I looked at that the pictures, and my MOM does in bought me when mm
often is not.
The genuine departure from this race to the collection was released from the n ° 04 spidey
(as I always have)...
Apart from that I am:-a husband (very nice at least I try).
-a papa surely too cooooooooooool.
-mr super draw that fout of the ortographe is a Correctors for it.
-an artist missed, which prefers the cash over the creation.
-representative of BE incomprit (or rather inflexible)
-a surely too good (DAO) cartoonist (in my opinion it must be Sha)
-all day I made the sièste reflects on the job

and I'll tell you about / present strange (organic comix) http://www.organic-comix.fr/strange/index.html

HA Yes of the times I draw heroes also sup... http://oniriccity.afs-team.fr/viewtopic ... d8&start=0

[AstroShark]

Hey I am Mike

started reading comic books at a young age...I remeber one of the first books i started reading on a regular basis back in 1987 at the age of 10 with Justice League #1...While reading JL (wich im still loyal too today) I started picking up back issues of Volume 2 of The Mighty Crusaders witch was done by Archie Comics and loved it...I was able to find all 13 issues at either flea markets or yard sales...I read The Impact line faithfully and i must say that the current Red Circle series(s) is the best run i have read thus far...I really wanna see theese books succeed.

The Sheild is a great series...Just a fun thrill a minute book.

The Web is great as well..A fun book with a slightly dark edge to it...Brillant!!!

Makes me kinda mad cause eventhough people love the series(s) they are predicting they will fail..Well as fans we must do all we can to show DC we dont want to see theese books end.

Thats all i got for now Thank you for reading:)

[captainzero]

I'm Captain Zero .... Master of Midnight.
I'm a pulp hero.... or ...as a hero, I've been beaten to a pulp...I can't remember which. But don't worry. I'm only as old as you guys.

I've been reading comics since the late 1950's.
I began by reading Dick Tracy in my local newspaper in a small town in Southern Minnesota.
I liked Tracy so much that I started to cut out his daily strip and paste (with that white creamy paste) his adventures to notebook paper and then put the pages in a note binder.
One day my Grandmother slipped me 25 cents and sent me to a local store. I found Dick Tracy in comicbooks...in color..and that seem to start it all.
Not too much later, I found an Issue of The Private Life of Private Strong.... #1. (The Shield by Simon and Kirby...and later... I got my hands on THE FLY #1. )
[I was also picking up WORLD'S FINEST by Dick Sprang, early Flash and Green Lantern... and Brave and the Bold HAWKMAN by Joe Kubert... The early Justice League.... and then one day....
stumbled upon Fantastic Four #4 by Lee and Kirby.... and was hooked.]

Later, I bought the issue of THE FLY #32?--- guest-starring THE SHIELD, BLACK HOOD, and THE COMET... as they were trying to decide whether they should team-up as THE MIGHTY CRUSADERS...or not. Of course, I was pulling for them to team-up. FLY-GIRL joined them... and pretty soon they did form the group.

I was hoping the art would get a little better...and the characters would develop more... and the stories would get better... but I was strangely attracted to the Group. The writing was really crappy and the art was terrible... but I still liked The Mighty Crusaders. I liked The Shield, Black Hood, The Fly, The Comet, and Fly Girl.(more later.)

[Chip]

I'm Chip. I began reading comics in the 1960's as a boy. At the time, I only bought DC's and the superhero books such as Superman, Batman, Flash, Justice League (my favorite at the time), etc. I immediately liked the character of Green Arrow back then though at the time of the early JLA books he was just there mainly taking up space. I never bought any Marvel comics. My friends and I only bought the 12 cent DC books. Marvel was like some sort of Brand X. Like many, my comics from over 40 years ago didn't survive. As for any of the Archie bokks, forget it. I remember the character on the comics from back then, though not any of the Archie comics superhero books.

Flash forward to today. Over the last 20 years I've traveled in and out of comics collecting. In the late 1980's when I first got back in the hobby, it was mainly buying Marvel books this time and in particular I liked Daredevil. I had almost a full run of these issues that I acquired dating back to the first issue. Then I unloaded them along with most of my collection around 1993. Now I'm back collecting again however wasn't sure where to start and what to acquire this time around. I remembered the Comics Buyers Guide newspaper from many years ago and stopped at one of my local comics shops to see if the publication was still around? I discovered that it was only now as a magazine. In buying some back issues, it was here that I discovered The Mighty Crusaders in one of the magazine's feature stories talking about how DC had obtained the rights to use the characters. I liked what I read, and in particular there was something about the various characters that I found very appealing! So this is where I'm picking back up, getting the 1960's books with perhaps some of the 1980's books and possibly the newer DC versions of these characters. I'm even intriqued by the Golden Age MLJ comics characters ... we'll see where it goes. Anyway, I'm glad to have found this group and hoping to join in as often as I can!

Chip