Trevor R. Giberson, Thoughts on a Mighty Crusaders book

The ultimate plan is to write and draw a fanfic comic featuring The Mighty Crusaders. This is all very preliminary right now. I haven’t read the Red Circle/Archie books since the 80s and I’ve never read most of the Mighty books. I’m only started exploring the Golden Age stuff now, so everything I’m writing here will be subject to changes and inspirations I find as I these books start coming in.

The Web is a hero with no super-powers. Unlike The Black Hood, he’s also not had any extraordinary and/or weird sensei to teach him. I figure in a straight fight, he’s good against normal opponents, but the Black Hood would pummel him. It’s kinda like the Blue Beetle vs. Batman. Beetle’s good, but Batman’s gonna wreck him. In the MLJ universe, The Black Hood is Batman.

The Web’s motivation is watching his criminal brother get caught in a web of his own making – the crook didn’t take into account the consequences of all his actions, nor did he pay attention to what was occurring around him. Not realizing the ramifications of all the little details, the crook got caught.

That inspired our hero to become The Web. He’s not a guy with an arachnid-based theme, he’s all about noticing and manipulating all the little details. To me, that makes him perfect to be the Oracle of the team – when there’s several missions going on at once, he’s the guy in front of the computers and communication devices coordinating it all.

The Web is also married and his wife hates him being a super-hero – it’s too dangerous. In the silly 60s comics, he was described as “the hen-pecked hero.” I don’t want to play that up too much, but I’ll touch on it. Also, since he’s the best all-around thinker of the group and the least dangerous hand-to-hand combatant, this is the perfect role for him – especially since I don’t have a telepath to work with.

This isn’t to suggest that The Web isn’t an effective hero. Quite the opposite, I think it’ll be fun and effective to mix in a Web solo adventure in the middle of the group action. By the time this happens, the reader should identify with The Web (he’s basically a nice guy and he’s hanging around with guys a lot more powerful than him). The audience should cheer at his every little victory as he weaves his own web and traps his opponents – it should be very cool. Plus, while Shield will be the leader in the field and public spokesman, The Web will be the guy who’s really running things.

More importantly, The Web’s our everyman. He’s the guy that the readers are going to identify with most. The Web’s surrounded by demi-gods and he’s just a mortal man. He’s the reader’s eyes – his impression of the other Crusaders will be the reader’s. Their greatness will be reflected in his awe of them.

Like I said above, The Black Hood is the Batman of the MLJ universe. That’s not to say he’s a rip-off because The Black Hood’s a very unique character with a very cool origin. He’s not a Bat-clone, but I see him as the hero with the best hand-to-hand skills, the best detective skills and the most single-minded of the heroes. While he’s not as grim and neurotic as the current incarnation of Batman, he’s certainly the guy with the grimmest, most pulp-like origin.

The Black Hood is the guy who’s convinced me not to take the MLJ comics as gospel. I want the original Black Hood and I want him to be a contemporary character but with a very 40s crime noir feel. In fact, when I get around to telling that origin in flashback, I think it might be cool to do it with Frank Miller Sin City-style artwork, complete with modern technology but 40s/50s-style cars and architecture. Y’know, the crook talking on a cell phone while driving down a back road in a 1949 Mercury, that kind of thing.

Right now I’m conflicted with what to do with the Black Hood. I love the Golden Age version and think I can play with that quite well. However, I have a great idea for a third Black Hood (which will mean killing off the second version) that would fit well, too. Basically, it’ll parallel the origin of the original Black Hood, except that the hermit in the woods will turn out to be his grandfather, the original BH, now about 90 years old (he’d faked his death in order to retire and live alone).

I don’t know what approach I’m going to take yet, but I’m leaning towards just using the Golden Age one.

Whatever the case, this Black Hood will be a wanted man in his civilian identity. He will be one of the two Crusaders whose secret identity will not be known by the rest of the team (the other being The Fly, since he wouldn’t want them to know he’s just a kid). The Black Hood will be the grimmest, perhaps the most serious of the Crusaders (Jaguar’s gonna give him a run for his money there!). Again, he won’t be neurotic like Batman, but he will be a driven man. When the team separates in order to work on several missions at once, BH will usually work alone.

The Web and The Black Hood are the only non-super-powered members of the Crusaders. Unlike the Web (the team’s everyman), The Black Hood will be portrayed as larger than life. Super-powers or not, this guy’s a overwhelming fighter and a demi-god just like all the super-powered Crusaders.

I’m really looking forward to the Red Circle/Archie books coming in (another week or two and I’ll have ‘em all!) because I only remember flashes from the Simon/Kirby reprints for these two.

As I remember it, Fly is a little kid who has a ring that will let him turn into an adult superhero ala Captain Marvel. Flygirl is a model or actress or something like that who falls for the Fly and somehow gets the same powers. That’s kind of a weird arrangement, if you ask me. Maybe the comics will expand on it for me, but it seems to me that Flygirl would be pretty darn freaked out by the object of her affections really being about 12 years old. I thought Geoff Johns handled the Billy Batson/Star Spangled Kid attraction really well in JSA but I’m no Geoff Johns. I don’t know if there’s a way to deal with it without directly ripping off Johns and I don’t want to do that. It’ll be a hell of a challenge, especially since the male/female roles are reversed here. Whatever the case, Flygirl will be the only Crusader who will know Fly’s secret identity. As it stands now, she’ll be conflicted about it.

Their powers will be weaker than they were in the comics. I was browsing some preview pages in MileHighComics.com and there was a scene where The Fly threw a tank over the horizon into a body of water a mile or two away. Steel Sterling is our powerhouse (and maybe the Shield, I can’t remember if the original Sheild had super-strength or not), so while the Flies will have super-strength, we aren’t going into Hulk/Superman territory with them.

I see him as the perfect super-hero, a cross between Captain America and Superman and deserving of a spot in their echelon. He’s the field team leader and the public spokesman for the team. He’s the best-of-the-best.

My version is the original Shield. If I remember correctly, he was turned to stone in the 40s and was eventually restored to live in the modern era. If the books bear this out, then I’ll keep that aspect. Sure it’s a Captain America copy, but the way I see it Cap owes The Shield one (wink, wink).

However, I could be wrong with the modern era thing. If I am, I’ll be quite disappointed because I can’t bring myself to so closely mirror Captain America’s life unless someone has done that particular bit of dirty work for me. If that never happened then I’ll still use the original Shield, but make his origin happen in contemporary times.

I forget, does the Shield have super-strength? I think so, and if he does, I’m going to put him at a very high level – close to, but not quite Steel Sterling’s level.

I love the orgin of Steel Sterling from Zip Comics #1, so I’ll be keeping that, right down to the fact that it happened in the 40s. I read one of those Archie ‘know your heroes’ pages with Sterling and it says that he doesn’t age. That’s perfect for me.

I love the idea of exploring the unique camaraderie that would develop between The Shield and Steel Sterling, another man of the 40s. While the Shield has missed 50-60 years and is a man lost in time, Sterling experienced all those decades and never aged a day through it all. He’s been young and vibrant all those years, but still has his ethical foundation in the great Golden Age, his moral compass in the 40s. I see Shield and Sterling becoming close friends. Certainly Sterling is the only peer The Shield can truly relate too in this modern world.

But that won’t stop me from finding an excuse for an inevitable slugfest between the two. I mean, how cool is this All-Star Squadron cover? How can I avoid doing something like that?

I hardly remember anything about this guy except that he has animal powers, but I happen to love heroes with animal powers. It’s an old Aztec belt gives him his abilities. I’m going to be very stereotypical here, but Jaguar’s going to become more catlike in personality the longer he wears that belt. No magic comes without a price, and that’s the one Jaguar’s got to pay.

However, it’s not going to be dangerous thing. It’s not a case of the animals taking over the Jaguar’s mind or anything like that. It’s more of a case where Jaguar’s mind is becoming more natural, less ‘tamed’ or caged by civilized life. He’s going to become more proud, more predatory (although he’ll never kill unless it’s truly the last resort). It’ll be obvious just by talking with him that he no longer truly fits in with civilized man – he’s something more primal now. Did you remember Alan Moore’s early issues of Swamp Thing and how he characterized Jason Blood (aka The Demon)? There was an acute sharpness in Blood’s gaze and something unsettling about the way Blood spoke to people. It was unnerving, like something potentially deadly was barely being held in check. Well, that’s how I want The Jaguar to be. People should be nervous around him – this is a carnivore and he’s higher on the food chain than we are.

All this will be in spite of Jaguar being a true hero who loves mankind and would never hurt an innocent. He just can’t fit in with humanity very well anymore. By default, he’s a loner now (and, although unstated, he’s actually quite lonely). The only Crusader who can relate to him at all is The Black Hood, and BH is quite the predator himself. Since the web is our everyman, he’s actually nervous whenever Jaquar’s around.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with this guy. I’ve recently read Pep Comics #1 so I know he’s a powerful killing machine. Right now I’ve got him on the team because of his powers. I need to read a lot more about him (heck, I need to read a lot more on ALL of them, but I’ve got no initial angle on what to do with The Comet).

I asked the artist to take the original costumes of the various crusaders and update them to modern times. Other than The Jaguar’s costume, there were no other directions.

This is take 1 of The Web:

* Color-scheme is the same, yellow and dark green (dark areas on sketch are green)

* Kinda makes me think of a motorcycle suit

I like this one a lot. It’s like the original Black Hood costume gone Matrix. Looks a lot like Midnighter from The Authority, but the resemblance will be less once the yellow shirt is colored in.

The Shield looked great as he was, so this version keeps most of it – updates it but keeps all the classic elements. The leggings and lower torso are red and the stripes are white

Steel Sterling is kept essentially the same as the old days. There’s a couple changes – the artist is adding a pebble-like texture to his shirt (a great idea, I think). Also, I asked him to change the belt/shorts thing to something leather (like a weight-lifter support belt) – on the final , Sterling’s abs won’t show through.

An updated Jaguar sketch…

The black areas of the costume are really a star-field effect … think Eternity draw by George Perez. The mask and body suit are like this. The visor and gloves are yellow/gold and the shoulder pads are red.

I finally got an angle on this guy while reading the golden-age stories. While the two Red Circle issues were fabulous, I don’t see the need to bring in all that space stuff that was used to bring him back from the dead. We’re going to keep it the way it was … Comet murdering criminals when nobody was looking. When the Crusaders or witnesses are around, he’ll play by their rules. When it’s just him and some murderer, they’re be nothing left of the b@stard but ashes.

In the Golden Age, The Comet was eventually murdered and his brother(?) became the masked crime-fighter called The Hangman. We’ll eventually do that, too, I think….