BEING A SLIGHT EXPLANATION OF THE REAL STORIES
OF SOME COMIC BOOK "SUPERHEROES" IN THE WNU

Part One
Marvelous, Fantastic Heroes

Inferior five

In Showcase No. 62, May-June 1966 DC comics presented one of the oddest collections of heroes in its lineup, The Inferior Five. This group consisted of Merryman, Dumb Bunny, Awkwardman, The Blimp and the White Feather. They were the sons and daughters of the Freedom Brigade who were heroes and heroines from the Forties and Fifties. Unfortunately the earlier heroes did not breed true and their super abilities had not passed down the through the generations.

Myron Victor (Merry Man) was a cartoonist by trade. He was the son of The Patriot, who looked like Uncle Sam and of Lady Liberty who looked like The Statue of Liberty. It was later revealed that he was the grandson of the Yellow Jacket. The Yellow Jacket fought crime with the help of his chauffeur Plato. Their special vehicle was called the Gold Bug. Myron was also a descendent of the Crimson Chrysanthemum, Sir Chauncey Berkeley. Myron was a exceedingly thin, ungainly and very weak individual.

Athena Tremor (Dumb Bunny) was a model. She was a beautiful, statuesque blond whose mother was Power Princess, an Amazon living in the Man's world. Athena was super strong but on the dim side.

Herman Cramer (The Blimp) was a hugely obese man who owned a diner. He was the son of Captain Swift, who had super speed and flight. Herman inherited the ability to fly, that is to float but he did not inherit speed. He could only fly by swimming slowly through the air.

Leander Brent (Awkwardman) was a beachcomber, surfer and lifeguard by trade. He was the son of Mr. Might and the Mermaid. Mr. Might was the premier hero of the golden age, an alien with many powers including super strength, flight, and x-ray vision. The Mermaid also had super strength and could live on the land or the water, although she had to be immersed in water once an hour. Leander inherited super strength but also the liability of having to be immersed in water.

William King (The White Feather) was a photographer. His father was the famous hero, The Bowman who ran about in Lincoln green doing the Robin Hood bit. William King was a superb archer when he was by himself. Around other people he was such a coward that his hands shook his shots went wild.

In their unfortunately short run the Inferior Five met parodied depictions of The Hulk, Plastic Man, The Fantastic Four, the Men from Uncle, Tarzan of the Apes, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Charles Darnot and Namor.

As with most comic book tales the characters and events are blend of much fantasy and some truth.

There was indeed a group that called themselves the Inferior Five in the 1965-67 period but the backgrounds for the people while having some semblance to the comic tale were not exactly the truth. The true origin of the group was also something that the comics could not reveal, especially given the comics code still strongly in effect in 1966.

Athena Tremor, that is, Athena Trevor was the niece of Wonder Woman but was not a blood relation. She was Steven Trevor's niece, the daughter of Trevor's sister and Theo O'Day. Athena used the Trevor name for publicity, believing it helped her modeling career. Athena Trevor had been born Athena O'Day, she was the twin sister to Angela O'Day. (1)  Like her sister Athena possessed a brilliant mind as well as a feminine form that sent men to drooling and acting like idiots. Athena discovered that brains were not considered attractive, necessary or even a desired trait for women with her features and physique. Athena realized early on that if she acted as was expected of her, more opportunities arose. Although she had the same mental abilities as her sister, she did not have her sister's desire to prove that she was not only as good as a man but in some regards better than men. Athena liked being a woman; she liked nice clothes, jewelry and attention. She was proud of her body and enjoyed the effect that it had on men.

Although Athena had wanted to be a high fashion model in that particular time period voluptuous was out and the Twiggy look was in. Athena was consigned to modeling underwear ads, swimsuit ads, suntan lotion ads, brassiere ads and cheesecake photos for men's magazines. She accepted these jobs cheerfully but her self-esteem took a hit every time she needed to be nice to a man to get a gig.

Athena alleviated her feelings of inadequacy with marijuana, which she scored from a photographer friend, Willie King. She also took diet pills to help keep her figure trim so that even though her large breasts and well-rounded posterior counted against her in the modeling game, she at least would not have belly as well. The pills gave her a bubbly personality while the marijuana made her seem a bit dense. When she and Willie King were introduced to the Merry Pranksters they tried LSD and found it to be an exhilarating and yet often frightening experience.

The LSD helped Athena achieve some measure of peace and acceptance with how she used her body. She began to see her sexuality as a force for good that broke down old stereotypes about women being sexually submissive. Yet while she felt that her modeling career helped the sexual revolution, she also began to intensely dislike the commercialized sex industry. It is not difficult to understand given this context why she chose a bunny as her street theater super hero persona. This era was the zenith of the Playboy empire with Playboy Clubs in every major metropolitan city. The Clubs although not the seamy burlesque theaters of days gone by were still patronized mostly by male clients and composed of a predominantly female staff dressed in Bunny costumes which accentuated their sexual attributes. Athena saw these as epitome of crass commercialism, of sexuality prepackaged and designed by and for males. This was male dominated sexual fantasy with a male fantasy depiction of female sexuality. This was sexual pandering not sexual liberation. Athena chose her Bunny costume to lampoon the Playboy image; she acted as the stereotypical dumb blonde to poke fun at the male derived derogatory image. By claiming descent from Wonder Woman, she was also making fun of Wonder Woman's decision to become a typical American housewife.

Unfortunately Athena's attempt at satire was too subtle for many people to "get it". They truly believed her act, so deeply was the image of the dumb, sexy blond ingrained into the national consciousness. Athena did not help matters either because during her time with I-5 she was taking a lot of drugs. These were to bolster her confidence, to make the experience even more enjoyable and share in the drug experience of the others. Athena was taking large amounts of LSD, Dexedrine and marijuana but her favorite was phencyclidine. This later caused her most erratic behavior and its manic effects and the increased strength that the drug gave her also lent some credence to the story that she had received super strength from Wonder Woman.

Herman Cramer was the adopted son of Jay Garrick the original Flash. There were no powers to be inherited. Herman had a medical condition of obesity due to glandular problems. Jay Garrick used his scientific genius to help Herman with his weight problem. As part of project he created a synthetic form of Cavorite. Although this was not as powerful as the original Cavorite was purported to be, it did reduce the gravitational pull of objects to about one-tenth of their weight. Hoping to revolutionize the transportation industry, Garrick sold his invention to a Transportation conglomerate, He naively signed a non-disclosure agreement along with the other papers. Acme chose to sit on the invention believing that the pseudo-Cavorite would be too disruptive to business and could reduce their profits dramatically. Purportedly Bendt Micawber destroyed all the materials related to the creation of the substance rather than let industrial spies steal it.

Garrick had coated a belt with the pseudo-Cavorite that he gave to Herman to reduce his weight. Herman's gravitational pull was reduced to about thirty pounds. When the idea of the Inferior Five was bandied about Herman had an idea of how he could use his reduced weight to be an effective "superhero". He took two diving suits and modified them by sewing one inside of the other. When it came time to fly he filled the inner chamber of the suit with helium. Although this increased his girth it enabled him to fly or float as it were.

Leander Brent was not, as supposed in the comic, the son of Superman and Lori Lemaris or Namora. He was the offspring of Arnold Munroe and the actress Dolores Marsh. Arnold Munroe was the son of Hugo Danner the ersatz Kryptonian. Leander had one quarter Kryptonian heritage although with little agility. Although inherited some Deep One characteristics, among them strength and the ability to breath water. He also had webbed feet and needed to immerse himself in water regularly.

Leander Brent was an orphan yet because of his superficial physical resemblance to Superman and his enhanced strength he believed that he was the illegitimate son of Superman. According to the comics Superman had a girlfriend who was also a Mermaid, Lori Lemaris. Because of his need to immerse himself in water once or twice a day, Leander was convinced that this was a true story and he was the result of this love match. Leander believed that his flaws had been readily apparent  at birth and so neither of his parents had wanted to be saddled with him.

Leander Brent had won several swimming contests in high school; his strength and natural affinity for water made him virtually unbeatable. He had won a place on the United States Olympic team but was disqualified by International Judges because of the webbing on his feet. After this scandal the endorsements he had been counting on and the role on an undersea television show had evaporated. He barely was able to get a job as a lifeguard.

The true parentage of Leander Brent is an odd story in itself. He had been placed in an orphanage by famed private detective Philip Marlowe. Marlowe claimed the child was the son of the film star Dolores Marsh who had drowned in a bizarre incident in 1942. (2)The father of Leander Brent was Arnold Munroe who had been in town investigating the odd goings on for the government. His investigation into Dolores Marsh became an intimate one. Munroe was not aware of his parenting Brent.

Leander's job as a lifeguard brought him into contact with Athena Trevor and William King. They had met during a beach shoot for a magazine layout. Athena and Willie King induced Brent to hang out with the Merry Pranksters at Kesey's house at La Honda. Although like most of the I-5, Leander dabbled in hallucinogens his drug of choice was marijuana. When Myron Victor created the I-5 Leander joined as a means of poking fun at his parents who had rejected him. He designed a silly suit that reflected his dual heritage a body suit resembling to some degree's Superman's. He wore swimming fins, which hid his own webbed feet. His liberal use of marijuana and the webbed feet made him unsteady on his feet, he was dubbed Awkwardman.

William King The White Feather is the most controversial character of the Inferior Five. He was once a hero, see more detalis about his life story on the Green Arrow page.

By 1964, William King was an alcoholic and moderate drug user, marijuana and some psychedelics but quite a bit of amphetamines. It was through his position as a photographer of men's magazines that he came in contact with the Hippie subculture. It was sometime model Athena Trevor that introduced William King to Ken Kesey, The Chief and through Athena that William King accompanied the Merry Pranksters on their cross-country trip. King took photos and also was one of the cameramen during the shooting of the forty five hour epic The Merry Pranksters Search for the Cool Place.

The Inferior Five began as an exercise in freak out street theatre, as a performance piece intended to lampoon The Four in particular, costumed vigilantes in general, the comic book culture of modern American life, the absurdity of struggle in the face of overwhelming adversity. Myron Victor did not believe in heroes, he believed that nothing and no individual could affect the out come of destiny. He was also convinced that costumed vigilantes created their own evils; that the Batman's presence had caused the Joker to appear. If his theory was correct then the I-5 should also bring out some costumed nuts.

Myron Victor's family however had several costumed heroes connected to it by genealogical ties. He was quite sure that he did not measure to anything in their eyes and he hated feeling inferior to them. Perhaps because he secretly wished to be a hero he held them in contempt.

In the course of the Inferior Five series it is revealed that Myron Victor is the descendent of many heroes. His parents were the Patriot and Lady Liberty, his grandfather was the Yellow Jacket, his mother's ancestor was Sir Chauncey Berkeley the Crimson Chrysanthemum. A collection of family portraits also revealed a masked cowboy, a masked cabellero with a sword and a whip, a man on horseback who was either a Bedouin or a Cossack and another man in an urban setting leaping or flying from the top of a building. He wore a skintight suit with cape, boots and a cowl with long ears or antenna.

We can deduce most of the real identities of this distinguished lineage: the Yellow Jacket was the Green Hornet, Sir Chauncey Berkeley was Percy Blakeney, the masked Cowboy was John Reid, the Lone Ranger, The Masked Cabellero was El Zorro. However the man who was either a Cossack or a Bedouin and the man leaping from a building in an urban setting are less obvious but I believe I have discovered their identities. The man on horseback who was either a Cossack or a Bedouin was Francis Xavier Gordon known as El Borak, the costumed man in the urban setting was The Black Bat who was really Tony Quinn, crusading district attorney.

What was Myron Victor's true relationship to these heroes? Myron Victor's parents are portrayed as being THE patriotic heroes. One might assume that they were Captain America or Miss America as seen in the comics. Their identities were actually Major Victory and Lady Liberty and they were costumed vigilantes for a very short time at the start of World War II. However their being costumed patriotic costumed vigilantes was not unusual in the 1940's since patriotic fever coupled with the mysteryman craze of that time inspired several people across the country to don patriotic themed garb and fight crime and saboteurs. So far as local law enforcement was concerned these costumed vigilantes were non-powered, interfering nuisances.

In early 1942 in Danville, Virginia Myron's parents were attending a costume party with a patriot theme. Sam Victor was dressed as Uncle Sam and his wife Elizabeth Reid Victor was dressed as the Statue of Liberty. On their way home they saw a group of men breaking into city hall. Sam stopped the car and took after them with a baseball bat. Libby joined him and battered the men with her shield that Sam had made for her out of piece of sheet metal. The men turned out to be members of a local Bund who were breaking into city hall to steal the city plans of Danville to send to their Nazi masters. They proudly proclaimed this plan was their own idea. The Chief of Police believed them and he perfunctorily thanked the Victors for defusing a situation that could have escalated into a national security problem. His tongue was in his cheek but this encouraged the Victors to go on patrol, fighting crime. Most nights in Danville there was not a blessed thing going on. However they did stop three or four crimes, enough to get stories in the newspapers. In 1943, Sam was shot while trying to stop an armed robbery and his shoulder and collarbone were broken. Libby shortly thereafter discovered that she was pregnant. It had begun to look like they would not be having children since they were both in their mid thirties.

Libby ended their vigilante career right then and there.

Although it states a few times in the comic that the Green Hornet (Yellow Jacket) was Myron's grandfather, he was in fact his uncle. Elizabeth Reid b. 1910 was the younger sister of Britt and Jack Reid. Daniel Reid married three times; his wives were Amy Striker, Patricia Blakeney and Margaret Sanford. Amy died of cancer in 1908. In 1909 he hired an Englishwoman Patricia Blakeney to write the society column for the Daily Sentinel. They hit it off famously and before he knew it they were married. When she presented him with a daughter, Elizabeth in 1910, he was certain that his happiness was complete. An automobile killed Patricia in 1912, a driver lost control of the new fangled thing and it smashed right into her as she was walking the baby. Elizabeth was scraped and bruised from where her mother had tossed her out of the way of the oncoming car. Daniel Reid married Margaret Sanford in 1915 and although they did not have any children, the Reid children thought her of as mother. (3)

Elizabeth's mother Patricia Blakeney b. 1885 was the sister of Peter Blakeney b. 1891 and the daughter of Peter Blakeney and the Baroness of Heves. She was the great-great granddaughter of Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlet Pimpernel. (4)

Daniel Reid was the nephew of John Reid, the Lone Ranger. Myron Victor's connection to the El Zorro could also be traced through the Reid line. Daniel Reid's grandfather Britton Reid had married Estrellita Cross. Estrellita Cross's family name was actually de la Cruz. Estrellita was the daughter of Estevan de la Cruz, Don Diego de la Vega's maternal uncle. Yet there was closer connection on his father side.

Samuel Victor's father was Alexander Victor. He was the son of Manuel de la Vega and Andrea Gordon. The marriage between Andrea and Manuel was not a happy one and it ended with great acrimony. Manuel had disdain for Anglos after his experience with that Anglo woman. To wound him greatly she claimed, falsely, that Alexander and Imelda were not Manuel's children but she had been having an affair with a traveling salesmen. Although this was patently false, Alexander greatly resembled his great grandfather Don Diego, Manuel chose to believe it. He considered his family line to have generated no offspring. Andrea legally changed her children's surname from Vega to Victor to further spite Manuel. (5)

Imelda Victor married Francis Quinn and their son was Tony Quinn. The Quinns were wealthy businessmen with weak eyes who had a penchant for making wise investments, gambling on ventures that suddenly took off. Tony Quinn became a district attorney who was blinded by acid being thrown in his face. "When crooks threw acid in his face, blinding him and leaving him with a number of scars around his eyes, Quinn resolved to get his revenge. He embarked on a training program to develop his other senses; his hearing and sense of touch became superhuman. He trained until he was in top-notch physical condition. And then, by means of a secret operation, Quinn got the eyes of another man and regained his sight. More than that, he got the ability to see in the dark. He did not make this news public, choosing to inform only a few close friends. Instead, he put on a black cape, black hood, black shoes and gloves, black mask and cowl, and became the Black Bat, a crimefighter universally feared in the underworld. "

The Black Bat used .45s on enemies and, Spider-style, he left a bat-shaped scar on the foreheads of the criminals he'd slain. He had a secret crime lab, of course, and a large estate on the city limits, and a powerful roadster. He was wanted by the police as well as the underworld, and one copy in particular, Lieutenant McGrath, hated both the Bat and Quinn and tried any number of gimmicks to prove that Quinn was no longer blind." (6)

Tony Quinn was Samuel Victor's cousin and it was his portrait as the Black Bat which hung on Samuel Victor's wall.

Andrea Gordon was the elder sister of Francis Xavier Gordon a former Texas gunslinger who became an adventurer in the Middle East. He was the man whose portrait resembled that of a Bedouin.

Showcase 62 showed Myron Victor becoming Merryman because a jester's outfit was all that was left at the tailor shop which catered to Superheroes. He thought that if he was going to make a fool of himself, he might as well look the part. Actually Myron's intent was to make a fool of himself and to mock the very notion of the superhero. His name "super hero" was derived from the Merry Pranksters where he had conceived the notion of his acting troupe.

Myron had joined the Merry Pranksters, albeit briefly, when they traveled through Virginia on their way to New York. The idea of the Inferior Five came to him in a vision of pharmaceutical induced clarity, when he realized that others on the bus were also related to crime fighters or mystery men or women. When he proposed the idea of the Inferior Five troupe they were at first reluctant but his persistence and the camaraderie of their shared drug experience finally convinced them to help him create his street theatre troupe.

The five members of the street troupe all had the common denominator of low self-esteem for various reasons. Their depressive states were artificially buoyed up by liberal use of hallucinogens and mood elevators.

When the Inferior Five began their street theatre in 1965 it was in response to the Four, whom the press had dubbed the Fantastic Four. The Inferior Five were prepared to incite derision, laughter, angry and hopefully some thought about the role of the costumed vigilante in society. What they were not prepared for was their uncanny knack for becoming involved in situations with some famous and infamous people in the Wold Newton Universe.

They decided to do their first bit in Metropolis, home of many of the mystery men including Superman and the Four. On busy Fifth Avenue they began the improvisational play first by declaiming their names and reciting their histories and origins.

The Inferior Five was destined however to clash with a self-styled mad genius of crime, who called himself Dr. Gruesome. Dr. Gruesome had been inspired by the great criminal minds of the ages, Quartz, Luthor, Moriarty, Ivan Shark and many others. He had designed a deadly death ray with which he could rule the world. Unfortunately it did not work. Dr. Gruesome was not a scientist and did not have any scientific training. He was the owner of a salvage yard and had made his death ray out of junk. After giving the matter some thought he was certain that he needed a ruby to power his death ray. Not just any ruby but the Shinboni ruby on display at Tuppeny's jewelry store. This was actually Tiffany's and Company.

About a half an hour into the Inferior Five's first presentation, a killer robot came clanking up the street.

The Inferior Five was digging it. Somebody had heard them and was playing along. The killer robot was made of junk, which made it even cooler because the person understood where they were coming from.

The killer robot was intended by Dr. Gruesome to be a remote controlled unstoppable machine that would steal the Shinboni ruby for him. It was actually an old refrigerator with stove pipe arms that ended in claws from a vending machine. It sat on a small powered cart, which gave it limited mobility. Dr. Gruesome had planned to control it remotely by radio but he could not get that to work either. He hired a wino to operate the thing and steal the gem while he waited down the street in a getaway truck.

The killer robot plowed right into the Inferior Five. The robot was not mobile enough to avoid them. Believing that the person inside was pretending to attack them, they responded in kind. Dumb Bunny and Awkwardman pushed against the refrigerator part. The ill-constructed machine fell apart and toppled right into Tiffany's window. This immediately brought a crowd composed of salespeople, opportunistic  looters, security guards and onlookers. Everyone's attention was focused on the costumed weirdoes. The wino tumbled out of the refrigerator and swiped the ruby. Dumb Bunny saw him dash down the street and jump into a waiting truck. She thought this was hilarious. Myron thought it was a laugh too until Brent reminded them that they were likely to be blamed for the theft.

Myron and the others ran to their "Inferior" car a junker they used as their hero car.

At Gruesome's salvage yard Dr. Gruesome proved to be a dangerous maniac. He came at the Inferior Five with a modified Duesenberg covered with armor plate that made it a veritable tank. He had added a machine gun, a bazooka, and two flame-throwers all gotten through Army salvage. He fired the bazooka and a pile of junk near Athena and Leander exploded and knocked them down and out. Willie King brought up his bow, although his hands were shaking with a speed rush, he shot at the slits in the window and pinned Dr. Gruesome's shoulder to the seat.

When the police arrived Myron told the police, tongue in cheek that they were a real true-blue superhero team who had just captured a supervillain. Wishing to avoid negative publicity the cops did not charge them with anything.

The next comic adventure in Showcase no. 63 had a group of supervillains out for revenge. They were a group who had fought the Freedom Brigade in the forties and now wished to go against their less powerful progeny. The supervillains were first shown as old men who were rejuvenated by the magic of the Silver Sorceress. An ex-Nazi named the Iron Swastika threw a temper tantrum until he was declared leader of the group.

The villains sent a photographic clue of their first crime in a string of crimes to the Chief of Police. The lame clue led the Inferior Five to a championship boxing match. When the Inferior Five arrived the Vendetta were in the process of robbing the gate proceeds. In the ensuing fight a radiation emitting grenade was thrown into an open window. It landed under the bunk of an unconscious glass jawed boxer who had just lost a match. The boxer's name was Brute Brainard. The radiation turned him into a green skinned behemoth called the Man Mountain. He walked into the middle of the fight between the Vendetta and the Inferior Five. He was so grateful to the Vendetta that he defeated the Inferior Five for them. The Vendetta used his great strength to break into the First National Bank, a jewelry store and a fur depot. At the latter the Inferior Five caught up to them and tried to capture the crooks. The Man-Mountain defeated the Inferior Five's biggest guns Dumb Bunny and Awkwardman easily. Merryman defeated the Man-Mountain by accidentally punching his glass jaw.

The truth of this particular adventure is much less humorous.

Having worn out their welcome in Metropolis, the Inferior Five took their show on the road, emulating the Merry Pranksters. They went to Virginia where Willie King and Athena had a photo shoot. In Roanoke there was a heavy weight match which would make the winner one step closer to a championship bout with the current champion. There was some controversy attached to this bout because one of the two men in the bout was a member of the American Nazi Party and the other was African-American.

The American Nazi party and its leader George Lincoln Rockwell were holding a rally across the street from the boxing ring. The Inferior Five were driving by when they saw the Nazi's. Myron thought it would be a trip to go into their act as superheroes and declare they were keeping the place safe from the Nazis. Not only would it freak the folks at the fight but it would also tweak the Nazi's a bit. Dressing in their costumes the Inferior Five took up position in front of the theatre. The superhero improvisational routine descended into an argument with the Nazis. A rock was thrown. A fight began. Several people from inside the boxing arena came outside to see the free fight. Several people from the theater were sent out to disperse the crowd. One of these was a corner man named Bruce Brainerd. (7)

During the fight Awkwardman slammed into Bruce Brainerd. The sudden flare of pain and anger made Banner lose control and he transformed into the Hulk. Banner's Multiple Personality Disorder combined with unique lycanthropy to create variant forms of his Hyde transformation. One of these was the incarnation that has been called the Stupid Hulk or the Simple Hulk, to be more accurate it would be best to call it the Childish Hulk. The only real difference in the Hulk forms was that the Childish Hulk had a great mass and muscle, he had a small child's intellect and temperament. This was a dangerous combination imagine a child who could toss a couple of tons about and you can imagine the destructive tantrum.

Believing that Awkwardman had attacked him the Hulk tossed him into a wall. Fortunately Leander Brent's denser mass saved him from serious injury. The leader of the Nazi's George Lincoln Rockwell turned this to his advantage and he kicked the fallen Awkwardman yelling at him for having attacked his friend. The Childish Hulk bought this performance and attacked the Inferior Five who scattered before the onslaught. Rockwell convinced the Hulk that bad people had stolen money from him and were holding it in a building. Using his super strength and near invulnerability the Hulk was induced to rob the First National Bank of Arlington. He then took the Hulk to a couple of jewelry stores and convinced him to take all of the shiny stones. The Nazi's hung back making certain that they were no where near the actual robberies.

The Inferior Five and the Nazi's met up accidentally. Athena and Willie King were scheduled to begin a photo shoot at a fur warehouse that evening for some newspaper advertisements. The Nazis had also picked this warehouse to steal from because a Jew owned it. They convinced the Hulk to steal all of the furs while they waited up the street in a van.

The Inferior Five arrived at the warehouse still in costume, too stoned to remember or even care to change. Seeing them the Hulk broke away from the Nazi's and leapt over to attack the Inferior Five. Awkwardman was knocked aside. Athena, Dumb Bunny was unfazed by the sight of Awkwardman having been tossed aside like an old rag and she stood directly in the path of the Hulk. She tried to grab his arm but missed and fell on her face. She would later admit that she was tripping and saw a giant green flower coming towards her and had tried to pick it.

Hulk zeroed in on the frail form of Myron Victor. Victor tried an ineffectual punch that nearly broke his hand. The Hulk launched a punch straight at Myron Victor's face. Had it connected Myron would have been decapitated. Yet the Hulk's hand froze just before it connected. To Myron's admittedly unclear recollection it seemed as though the Hulk transformed into a man in his mid-twenties. The young man ran away holding up stretched out pants.

The Nazi's tried to escape in their microbus. Willie King fired arrows that punctured their rear tires and Herman Cramer floated above the stalled truck and dropped a rock on their windshield. The Nazi's abandoned the microbus and all the goods inside.

The American Nazi Party's part in these crimes was never publicly disclosed due to lack of evidence and witnesses. Rockwell's life ended a year later when he was shot outside a laundromat by one of his cronies.

All of these thefts were added to the long list of charges that Banner compiled during his time as a fugitive.

The Inferior Five were once again credited with having stopped another super menace.

The Inferior Five's next comic book caper, Showcase 65, Nov-Dec. 1966 is almost entirely fictional. The writers and editors of the comic book decided to use the Inferior Five as a vehicle to poke fun at one of their competition's best selling titles which once again depicted an entirely fictional super hero team, the X-Men.

In this issue the Inferior Five took jobs teaching at Professor Egghead's Academy for Superheroes.

The reality behind this incident is that the Inferior Five were engaged to speak at an exclusive prep school due to their publicity in defeating the Hulk.

When they arrived at the school they happened to see a boy being forced into a car by a group of large hulking men. He screamed he was being kidnapped. Ordinarily they would not have done anything about it except maybe report it but they were fearless with pharmaceutical courage, they were bolstered by their defeat of the Hulk that to their fuzzy minds became a real event and it was a kid after all. They tried to stop the abduction. The thugs disabled Myron, Herman and Athena by some well aimed punches. Leander tripped over his flippers and slammed face first into the side of the car. He left a large dent and fell stunned. Willie King was passed out in the Inferior Car.

The kid was shoved into the limo and it sped off. The Inferior Five gave chase. They followed the Car into downtown

The kid was hustled into a large office building. Leander decided to jump on top of the building and catch the crooks by traveling downwards from the roof, like his father Superman would have done. Since Leander Brent was not Superman's son and was in fact only a quarter as strong as his Grandfather Hugo Danner he only leapt halfway up the building before crashing into a window. He brushed himself off and then walked to the stairwell. He then realized how dumb his plan was. There were offices all over the building. The chances of him running into then abductors were pretty slim.

Myron and the other members of the Inferior Five caught up with the kidnappers at the elevator. As it turned out the kid was not being kidnapped after all but had been pulled out the prep school by his Father, a well-known and powerful member of the Teamsters Union. The Teamster official had not wanted his kid influenced by a bunch of drug crazed hippie superhero wanna bes.

The Inferior Five waited for Leander to make his way down to the Lobby and then returned to the school. Myron Victor believed that it was time to emulate Ken Kesey and Merry Pranksters and have their own Acid Test. They spiked the punch at the function with LSD. In the aftermath of the Acid Test, one professor did claim to have telepathy and telekinesis although only the thoughts he received were so deep that the person who thought them did not know what they were and no body else ever saw any of the objects move. One kid acted like a chimpanzee, running about on all fours, howling hanging off of furniture. Two people believed that they could fly. Herman caught one and but the other suffered a broken collarbone from his downward flight.

In the first issue of the Inferior Five's own magazine, Inferior Five, March-April 1967. we return to familiar Wold Newton Universe territory.

In the comic story Myron is at his combination apartment and artist studio being visited by his grandfather. His grandfather had once fought crime under the name of the Yellow Jacket accompanied by his chauffeur Plato. Myron received a call from C.O.U.S.I.N.F.R.E.D. The Competent Organization Utilizing Scientific Investigation for National Fiend, Ruffian and Evildoer Defense. He is told to have the Inferior Five meet at the 8^th and 54^th street newsstand. Myron's Grandpa offers to take him there in the old jalopy the Gold Bug.

C.O.U.S.I.N.F.R.E.D. needs the Inferior Five because HURRICANE Heinous Unscrupulous Rats and Rogues Initiating Crime Anarchy and Nefarious Evil has contracted some super powered villains. HURRICANE was a parody of on of the popular super hero teams of that day, Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves. The Black Bird (Raven), Powerhouse (Dynamo), The Missing Fink (NoMan), The Yellow Streak (Lightning) and Mr. Mental (Menthor). Tabby Katz (Kitten), Nitro Gleason (Dynamite) and Crabgrass Wilde (Weed).

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. was actually a special unit of CIALD which utilized some ancient artifacts of advance technology, possibly extra-terrestrial in origin. Dynamo wore a special force field belt that made him invulnerable and increased his strength. However it was powered from his body’s bio-energy and after thirty minutes of use he was completely exhausted. Lightning wore a suit that sped up his metabolism making him the equivalent of the Flash. The suit had another similarity to the Flash. The Flash used a modification of Professor Gibberne’s Accelerator drug which when not used properly or used without a retardant that Barry Allen or Jay Garrick had created, aged the user far beyond their years. Each time Lightning used his suit, his age accelerated. No Man wore a cloak that conferred invisibility. Menthor wore a helmet that accelerated his intelligence and also gave him psionic powers such as telepathy and telekinesis. In the comic the helmet was shown to have a beneficial change on the personality of the wearer, however in reality, the helmet caused insanity if worn by one individual too long. Despite the suits being assigned to single person in the comic book series, the suits were worn by a series of agents, especially the Dynamo, the Lightning suit and the Menthor helmet which had adverse effects on their wearers. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. or rather the group of agents called T.H.U.N.D.E.R. were often coordinated with the Impossible Missions Team and so the people depicted in the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents comics as Kitten, Dynamite and Weed were actually Cinnamon Carter, Loomis and Rollin Hand (special thanks to Alan Turniansky and Brian Estep for pointing out the error of my previous speculation about identity of HURRICANE)

The Inferior Five meet Mr. Ivanhoe (Waverly) Caesar Single (Napoleon Solo) and Kwitcha Belliakin (llya Kuryakin).

As they are being debriefed they soon realize that they are being spied upon by the invisible Missing Fink, his allergies have however betrayed him and they follow the trail of loud sneezes out of the building. He gets into a car with Mr. Mental and takes off. The Inferior Five followed him in the Gold Bug from which Plato has shot a towing rope. The bad guys unknowingly tow the Inferior Five to their headquarters.

At the HURRICANE headquarters the Inferior Five are captured. They are set in an elaborate death trap. Merryman uses the very complicated nature of the death trap to escape it. He used the candle that was burning through the rope holding the suspended vat of acid to burn though his own ropes. He threw the bundles of dynamite through the electric eye, which sent a million volts of electricity through the moat filled with piranhas. Escaping the death trap, the Inferior Five capture the HURRICANE members whose leader is revealed to be Tabby Katz.

William King had been shooting models for a magazine called Payboy. He had finally chosen Dumb Bunny to be the centerfold.

The reality of this "case" of the Inferior Five is much simpler.

Myron Victor parents had gotten nowhere trying to dissuade him from his current dissolute, marginal lifestyle. They had asked his Uncle Britt Reid to try and talk some sense into him since he had always hero worshiped Britt especially after discovering he was the Green Hornet. Britt had insisted on meeting Myron's friends to lecture them at the same time. They all lived in the same area so Myron had them meet at a newsstand at 54^th street.

When they met there the Inferior Five and Britt Reid innocently became caught up in a raid conducted by the UNCLE organization. This raid however interrupted a complicated sting operation being run by the members of the Impossible Missions Force who were working in concert with the CIALD operatives with the alien artifacts. Rather than blow their cover the IMF resisted arrest by the members of UNCLE and aided the Dominican terrorists that they were stinging. Britt Reid and the Inferior Five saw what appeared to be a brawl. Britt Reid excused himself and returned as the Green Hornet who threw himself into the melee. Myron saw a man taking aim at his uncle with a gun and launched himself at him. The rest of the Inferior Five sauntered in to groove the scene.

The end result of the brawl was that the Green Hornet, the Inferior Five, Cinnamon Carter and one of the Dominican terrorists were captured by the UNCLE organization. While Waverly, Solo and Kuryakin were interrogating the Green Hornet who was known to have criminal connections, Rollin Hand escaped and freed Cinnamon Carter and the Dominican terrorist.(8)

After this happened Britt Reid could not bluff his way out and had to reveal that he had worked for CIALD in the past. The current director vouched for the Hornet. The Inferior Five were also released. Britt Reid was furious at Myron and the Inferior Five, blaming them for having to blow his cover.

Since Myron would not listen to reason, Reid figured that he needed to learn how the real world worked, he advised his relatives not to give Myron or his friends any money or support until he came to his senses. He contacted the other parents of the Inferior Five and gave them the same advice.

Realizing that she and the others would soon need an influx of serious cash, Athena put aside her disdain for Playboy to pose for it. To her secret delight she was chosen Playmate of the Month for December 1966. (9)

Inferior Five 2, May-June 1967 starts out with the Inferior Five holding a meeting at the Freedom Brigade's old headquarters. They are interrupted by a songwriter who claims to have written theme or fighting songs for all of the superhero teams. After he annoys them with several songs they decide to find a new headquarters where no one could find them. They see in the papers that the Batson Building has some vacant offices.

Meanwhile... in the Batson building there are four people working on an experiment which was supposed to give them superpowers so they can compete with the Justice League. The experiment is a moderate success the gain superpowers but become freaks as well. Rod Rickard becomes the Manplastic, his wife Sophie becomes the Vanishing Queen, the lab assistant Bjorn Anderson becomes the Whatchamaycallit and Sophie's kid brother Jerry Drizzle becomes the Matchstick Kid. They become known as the Kookie Quartet.

Meanwhile... across town Hector Prynne and his fiancee Janice work on an experiment to make people shrink to miniscule size or grow to gigantic proportions. They succeed and he becomes King-Size and Janice becomes the Terrible Tsetse Fly. They embark on a career in crime.

The Inferior Five arrive at the Batson building in time to see the explosion from Rikard's lab. The Kookie Quartet spots the Inferior Five and tells them to butt out they would become the city's crime fighters. A fight ensues.

Merryman spots King Size and the Terrible Tsetse Fly ripping open buildings and stealing stuff. Both groups attack the giant and the flying tiny woman. Working at cross purposes they get in each other's way. Despite their lack of ability and superpowers they bring down King-Size and capture the Terrible Tsetse Fly. They used the stunned Manplastic to bind King-Size while Merryman located his controls. They shrunk King-Size down to regular size and deminiaturized her and tied the two criminals up. A fight broke out between the Inferior Five and the Kookie Quartet as to who would get credit for the capture. Plastic Man had come to the scene to see if the could help against the giant criminal. Seeing Manplastic, he told him he was tired of copycats and tied him into knots and went bouncing away.

So what is the truth?

While waiting for the Athena's check, the members of the Inferior Five began losing their residences, being kicked out of their apartments for non-payment of rent. They decided to consolidate, to find a place where they all could live and work from. They were searching for an apartment when they saw the Baxter Building being attacked by members of the Vulture Gang, They circled the Baxter building in their vulture painted ultra light gliders and machine gunned the windows and threw explosives inside. This attack was actually a diversion because further down the street members of the Vulture Gang were busy robbing two banks. One of these was the bank in which Athena was cashing her check. In their attempt to escape from the Vulture Gang, the Inferior Five were spotted by them. Believing them to be actual costumed vigilantes they fired upon them. White Feather, Willie King punctured two wings with arrows, Herman floated up out danger and flew directly into one of the gliders sending it careening into another. Awkwardman shielded Myron and Athena from gunshots. He tore a door from a truck to shield himself and pulled the driver out with it. As it turned out this truck was the Vulture's getaway truck.

Plastic Man and the Four turned up to capture the rest of the Vulture Gang and to take credit for the whole incident, although Plastic Man claimed jurisdiction being a FBI agent. (10)

Inferior Five no. 3 July-Aug. 1967 puts us right smack into the midst of the Wold Newton Universe.

The Inferior Five are summoned by the head of the FBI to find a missing physician, Dr. Livingroom in Africa. The doctor had disappeared while playing golf in the Belgian Congo when it went independent. Reports named him as being in the vicinity of the lost city of Oompah. The CIA had made arrangement with Darwin of the Apes to guide them. Darwin of the Apes lived in a castle in the midst of Africa. His real name was John Claypool, Lord Gravestone. His wife's name was Jayne. The she ape Killa had raised him. A witch doctor had given him some pills when he was a youth, which had kept him young. He had shared these pills with his family and friends. Among the friends he had given them too were Little Orphan Annie, Charlie Brown, Batman, Robin, Nancy and Perry Mason.

Darwin soon tires of the incompetent amateurs as he leads them to Oompah, which was one of the lost cities of ruins dotting Africa. It was a lost colony of Atlantis.

In Oompah ape-men and beautiful women greeted them. The Oompahs then tied them to become sacrifices for the Sun God. The Oompahs had also had captured Dr. Livingroom.

The High Priestess Luau declares that they will be sacrifices to the Sun God. Darwin asks why she does not stop the human sacrifice gig but she is afraid of being declared a heretic.

As they were about to be sacrificed Darwin screamed for Tantrum the Elephant whose rampage in the city freed them. The Inferior Five were rewarded by being allowed to lug several hundred pounds of gold from Oompah to Darwin's mansion.

The head of the CIA had wished to see Dr. Livingroom because his back had been bothering him.

Darwin of the Apes is of course Tarzan of the Apes. The question is did the Inferior Five really meet him in Africa and odd, as it seems the answer appears to be yes.

The Inferior Five were not called in by the CIA to find a missing physician named Dr. Livingroom in Africa. Their mission was a far more personal one. As seen above Athena Trevor was actually Athena O'Day, the daughter of Professor Theo O'Day. Theo O'Day was an archaeologist specializing in Atlantean studies. Professor O'Day had taken Athena's sister Angela in search of the lost city of Opar. This was a time of great political instability in Central Africa. Athena worried when she had not heard from them in over two months, despite their strained relationship. Even though Professor O'Day disapproved of her career choice and her current lifestyle; they had kept in touch.

Athena had the idea to go searching for them in Africa. Her mind and judgement were clouded by anxiety and recreational chemicals otherwise she would have realized that she really had no idea of how to find them. The others thought it would be a great adventure and as Myron pointed how the lost civilization probably used some really tripping stuff when they had their religious ceremonies. They scraped enough money to take some low class flights on freighter and shuttle planes. They hopped from New York to Florida to the Caribbean to the Canary Island to Johannesburg to Nairobi. Why did they get out at Nairobi? Because all safaris left from Nairobi. Once they arrived in Nairobi, they did not have the faintest idea of how to get to Opar or where it might be located.

As fate would have it however, Jane Clayton recognized Athena. While shopping in one of Nairobi's shops, Jane spotted a girl whom she thought was Angela O'Day. Angela explained who she was and why she was in Africa. Jane took them to the Clayton estate in Nairobi. Tarzan had recently returned from a trip to Central America where he had received some revelations that had deeply disturbed him. For more details please see Tarzans in the Valley of Gold.

Tarzan had no desire to guide a bunch of amateurs through the jungles especially when they were using some sort of intoxicants. He was also not inclined to go searching for Professor O'Day. Although he liked the Professor and considered him a friend he had warned him against searching for Opar especially in the current political climate. O'Day had not listened so Tarzan felt that he should live with the consequences of his actions. In the comic book Jane was upset that Tarzan left for the jungle bit again. However in actuality it was Jane that quietly insisted that Tarzan guide them and help to find Professor O'Day and his daughter. Tarzan finally relented but only if they remained sober while they traveled with him.

Tarzan took the members of Inferior Five, who did not wear their costumes in the jungle, on a small safari in search of Professor O'Day. They used modern vehicles and camping equipment and were accompanied by well armed and well trained Waziri with modern weaponry. Tarzan led them close to where Opar was located. He left the camp and went to Opar's location. Tarzan he was satisfied that to discover that it was still under water as he had arranged. (11) With Waziri aid Tarzan had dug a channel that flooded Opar's valley in 1946. He had believed the city to be deserted.

When he returned to the camp he discovered that it had been raided. He at first thought it was Congolese Brigands but found some very odd and disturbing dead bodies. Along with several slain Waziri, he found the body of two Gorillas and what appeared to be a Mangani male and an Oparian male. The bodies had all been shot with forty-five caliber bullets.

Tarzan followed their scent and trailed them to mountainous region two days travel from Opar. He began seeing large stones, which he realized, were broken and water eroded masonry, the masonry pieces became more prevalent as he traveled up a mountain. He entered a cavern that exited on the side of the mountain, he traveled further up the mountain and was forced to enter and exit three more small caverns before exiting in a forested area that covered large stone structures. He wondered if the fallen stones had been thrown there by the same cataclysmic event which La claimed had destroyed the civilization to which Opar had belonged. The style of architecture resembled Opar's but there were distinct differences.

The structures became more solid as he neared the top of the mountain. He left the trail and began to circle around the side of the mountain keeping his eyes and ears open. Peering over the remains of a large wall, he saw the ruins of an ancient city, which almost seemed to predate Opar there were also newer buildings made of salvaged stone and modern junk. In the center of the city were what appeared to be original buildings that were mainly intact. He then realized he was also looking at a bizarre sight that made him feel as though he were in a cheesy science fiction film.

He saw gorillas dressed in khaki and camouflage outfits carrying pistols, rifles and submachine guns. He saw Mangani and Pygmy Mangani in various states of dress or undress. Many of these were also armed. He saw what appear to be Oparian males of differing shades and also Black African native women who were probably captives, although they seemed to roam freely and part of this hodgepodge society.

Tarzan felt eyes upon him but could not see or smell anyone near him. Entering the city by a side entrance, he gingerly crept across broken masonry and looked for signs of the foolish young Americans and his brave Waziri warriors. Catching a scent he started to enter a dark chamber but back out immediately. Three gorillas carrying machine guns blocked his exit. From inside the chamber came three Oparian males carrying a net. Knowing that even he could not overpower three male gorillas with machine guns and three Oparian males at once, he surrendered. He was netted and carried into the center of the city. In the mostly intact Temple of Resu, the Flaming God of Opar Tarzan was forced to stand before the dais of the Priestess.

This Priestess was a strikingly beautiful African woman with blonde hair, although Tarzan was certain it was bleached. She appeared to be in her mid-forties but was still very beautiful.

The African woman regarded him with a mixture of fear, awe and anger. She spoke in Mangani for the candidates and the sacrifices to be brought forth. She proclaimed that since the Son of the Sun had returned, a new Priestess would be chosen, one that was more pleasing to the Gods.

Dark skinned Oparian males carried Athena and Angela O'Day into the temple. The O'Day sisters had been bound hand and foot and gagged as well. They were laid side by side on a large sacrificial stone. The other young Americans were also brought inside, as was Professor Theo O'Day. Tarzan's remaining three Waziri warriors were also brought in. The men were laid on sacrificial stones as well but these were pillars that had been cut in sections

The Priestess told Tarzan to chose a bride by killing the rejected one. The male brothers of the new Priestess would also be sacrificed at the same time. He handed Tarzan a knife. He heard several bolts click back as safeties were disengaged.

In years gone by Tarzan would have killed the Priestess and taken out as many of the Oparians as he could and would have freed most of the prisoners. Or he would have sounded for Tantor who would come crashing into the city to save him. However Tantor was probably out of earshot and by the time he climbed the mountain everyone would be dead. Also direct action against the Oparian Priestess and her followers might free the captives but it would also leave many people dead.

Tarzan dropped the knife instead and told the Priestess that he chose neither because it was a ridiculous idea. Neither one of those two girls had the faintest idea of how to run this city, or knew the language or anything about the complex culture of Opar. Making either one of them the High Priestess would be one certain way to make the Oparian culture extinct. He asked the Luau what would happen to her if a new Priestess were chosen, would she be joining her ancestors? She answered affirmatively.

Tarzan realized that the number of Oparian male refugees must have been about the same amount as the dwindled population of this city. The Oparian males had become a powerful political force in this small community. The Oparians had seen their power dwindle when Luau had accepted refugees from London-On-the-Thames. The Oparians had subtly campaigned against Luau mainly because they felt that she was not Priestess material, because unlike La she was not predominantly Caucasian in appearance.

Tarzan realized with a start that this must be the site of Grandrith's Ophir, the lost city he had found or had been directed to find. (12)

He asked if she had the courage to sacrifice herself for the good of the city, did she have the strength and courage to live for her city? He asked if human sacrifice had actually helped her people or not, so far as he knew all it had done was reduce their population and made enemies of their neighbors. The gods had not favored them by giving them knowledge or power to rebuild their civilization, it had in fact brought about a greater fall. He told them that it had been the practice of human sacrifice which had brought about the cataclysm that had ended the Oparian civilization, continuing it had only made The Flaming God angrier and he had turned away from them.

Tarzan said he knew that Luau had a good heart, she had taken in refugees from the city of Opar, she had given refuge to the Gorillas from London-On-The-Thames, (13) she had even given shelter to the remaining Mangani and Pygmy Mangani (14) and taught them to adapt so that they could survive. If she could do all this, she could lead her city and her people into a new era.

Certainly they had the strength and the firepower to kill Tarzan and all of Tarzan's friends but what good would that do. Tarzan pledged to help the people of this city to survive, to use his influence and his resources to keep it isolated but to help its citizens be aware of the modern world so they could know how to react to its constantly changing nature. To be isolated could mean survival; to remain ignorant could mean extinction.

Tarzan could tell by her expression that he was speaking aloud her own personal beliefs. She was a smart woman who realized that the influx of new people could either reinvigorate the city or bring about its final death.

Do you Son of the Sun command these things?

Tarzan realized that even though she may have felt as he expressed, she was still culturally locked into her position as High Priestess. She had to obey the laws or she would be killed and replaced. She was giving him the opportunity to allow her to save Ophir.

Tarzan said that he commanded it to be so and that for now the High Priestess spoke for the Son of the Sun.

Luau ordered the captives released.

Tarzan had learned that after Theo O'Day and his daughter had stumbled onto Ophir, the English speaking gorillas had determined that they were not part of a larger invasion force. However to make certain Luau had instituted long-range patrols. These had clashed several times with Congolese raiders and rebels. The patrol that had attacked Tarzan's encampment had believed them to be another such group. The Ophirites had learned to attack such without warning. It was discovered that there were whites among the party and a woman who looked exactly like the one being held captive in Ophir. They took the rest of the camp prisoners and brought them to Ophir. It was learned that they traveled with Tarzan. Tarzan was well known to the disparate groups of Ophir some having had good experiences with him others having had bad ones.

An Oparian faction had tried to use this as a means to replace Luau with their own puppet Priestess.

Tarzan spent the next several days ironing out a new set of laws and course of action which were commandments from the Son of the Sun which would help keep Ophir isolated and yet help their civilization progress instead of regressing even further.

So far as Theo O'Day could determine, the influx of refugees had been accepted into Ophir shortly after Luau became the La, in the late forties. Three people had stumbled onto the city during that between the late forties and now. (15)

One of these was an explorer/insurance investigator looking for a downed plane. He had been wounded and was nearly dead with Jungle Fever.

Compassionate and intrigued enough to care for him during his sickness, Luau also was cautious enough to remove him from city blindfolded when had recovered. Although she did not say so, Tarzan felt there was a bit of jealousy in her motivation to have him leave as well. Luau had intended this Bill to become her mate yet one of the female Mangani had taken a shine to him. She was quite the rarity among the Mangani for not only was she a fertile female but she had a golden blonde coat of hair.

In his delirium Bill had told this female mangani how his people mated. The female mangani "married" him by slipping a ring onto his finger and one onto hers. Luau realized that if she allowed this marriage to actually take place the Mangani would lose a valuable resource, a fertile female. She was a resource too valuable for the continuation of the species. For the good of the mangani, Luau forbade this from becoming an actual physical mating. She also believed it would be doing Bill a disservice since he was not in his right mind. For some reason he believed that the ring gave him the power to switch minds with the female mangani.

Luau had sent three guards with Bill when he was escorted from Ophir. Only two returned, one had decided to accompany Bill to civilization. She cursed them for allowing him to leave. The Mangani guard who had traveled with Bill was a young male mangani who had been adopted by one of the English speaking gorilla couples. Their descriptions of Merrie Olde England and Bill's tales of his land had filled him with a burning desire to see the world and to benefit from the outside civilization. He was also a fierce and violent warrior. His name was Red Spear, Ga- arad.

The golden haired female Mangani had also disappeared and she hung around in the outside following Bill for a couple of months before she outgrew her mooning over Bill and returned to Ophir. Ga-arad never did return. He convinced Bill to take him the United States as an exhibit but then left Bill when they arrived. Ga-arad under a different spelling of his name became an opponent of the second Flash and claimed to have come from a super scientific city inhabited by gorillas, of which he claimed to be one. (16)

After the O'Day family's initial reunion problems once again arose and Athena returned to New York with her four friends. Professor O'Day and Angela stayed behind to study Ophir and to find Opar despite Tarzan's dissuasion. The members of the Inferior Five had with them some golden trinkets that they managed to smuggle back to the United States. This kept them in rent, food and most importantly well supplied with recreational drugs.

The Inferior Five no. 4 Sept-Oct. 1967 begins of all places in Valhalla. Odin is bemoaning the lack of new arrivals and is seriously bored with those already present. He commands his Valkyries to find some heroes. After searching the world they end up with the Inferior Five. They are forced to undergo trials to prove that they are heroes worthy to remain in Valhalla, whether they want to or not. They met Thor the son of Odin. He liked the idea of being a super hero on Midgard. He returns with them to Midgard. Merryman insisted that he needed a secret identity, Thor settled on becoming a baseball player. Loki showed up to play havoc with that idea. Together the Inferior Five and Thor defeated Loki.

Issue number 4 of the Inferior Five comic magazine reflects a period in the Inferior Five's lives when they spent less time on their street theatre group than they did on recreational drug use. Like many people during the mid-sixties they became deeply involved in hallucinogens and psychedelic drugs. This is secretly portrayed in their comic book adventures, which became even more fantastic after they returned from Africa.

The incident with Valhalla and Thor is one in which they were deeply in danger but remained for the most part blissfully unaware of it. Their recollections of the events which actually happened became blended with Wagnerian Opera, Norse mythology and comic book stories featuring Thor.

What seems to have happened was that the Nine had discovered that the Inferior Five had discovered Ophir and they needed to make certain that they had not revealed its existence to anyone else. They apparently knew of Luau's social experiment and encouraged and aided it because it was a manner to preserve endangered species for which there were no other genetic resources.

They were in New York and were abducted and taken to Scandinavia by agents of the Nine. In Scandinavia they were taken to the Nine's northernmost enclave in the mountains of Norway, they were interrogated by being injected with various drugs which reacted oddly with the psychedelics in their system.

The person they thought was Odin was called Xauxaz by the others. (17)

After ascertaining that they knew nothing about the Nine or the operations in Africa, the Nine had decided to eliminate them. However an examination of Leander Brent's blood work showed some odd genetic anomalies. The Nine cross-indexed this blood with other samples. Their inquiries into various records areas alerted Dr. Donald Blake who believed that they had captured Superman or Arnold Munroe, both of whom were his patients because of their unique physiology.

Donald Blake flew to Norway in his private jet and went to Valhalla. He used his hammer and his belt to rescue the Inferior Five from the Nine. He also destroyed the Nine's research on the group. Unfortunately none of the actual Nine had remained after their initial interrogation with the Inferior Five.

The bit of Thor becoming a baseball was as fictional as their battle with the monsters of Ragnarok that showed up at the baseball stadium. It may have been part of one of the Five's trips or it may have been a comic book writers invention.

Inferior Five No. 5 Nov-Dec 1967.The eccentric clockmaker living near Leander Brent's home has devised a clock, a magnificent clock that has monsters in it. Brent called the Inferior Five to investigate. The clock is a time travel device. While investigating it the Inferior Five fall into the clock and end up in Paris during the Terror. They meet Sir Chauncey Berkeley, the famed Crimson Chrysanthemum. He wanted to rescue Charles Darnit who was scheduled to be executed. However Charles friend Sydney Carton switches places with him. The Inferior Five saved Carton ruining his chance to die a hero. In saving Carton, Sir Chauncy was captured. Sir Chauncey escapes but not knowing this the Inferior Five are captured attempting to rescue him.

They escape the guillotine with Sir Chauncy's aid. They returned to their own time. Merry Man reveals that his ancestor was Sir Chauncey.

This episode is the result of a shared acid experience among the Inferior Five. Myron began talking about his ancestor Sir Percy Blakeney, They rented an 8mm copy of the movie and Myron commented upon it. Before long they were improving and imagining themselves in the French Revolution and aiding the Scarlet Pimpernel. Elements of A Tale of Two Cities also became intermingled in their theatre. They performed this piece out on the street to raucous calls and mixed cheers. Myron knew that the failure to rescue Sydney Carton was one of Sir Percy's greatest disappointments.

Unfortunately No. 6 and No. 9 are currently unavailable to me so I cannot go into very detailed or accurate descriptions of the events in the comics. Help would be appreciated on these.

No. 6 has the Inferior Five meet up with DC's Metal Men.

Although I cannot truly describe the Inferior Five's encounter with the Metal Men I can explain what they were exactly and possibly provide some explanation as to how they have have encountered the Metal Men.

A brilliant young man named Will Magnus created the Metal Men. Magnus worked for Hughes Electronics and was an integral part of the Iron Man project. Although his designs for the Iron Man suit were quite revolutionary and paved the way for the micro-miniaturized circuitry that the suit used, Magnus was an odd sort whose designs seemed to spring fully created and almost seemed out of place. It was as if they were highly sophisticated designs forced onto inadequately primitive technology.

Magnus believed that the suit could be made so that it would be a true robot but could be guided directly by human technology. This way the suit would not be a mere protective suit for a human solider but rather a unit that could if need be disposed of without harming the solider. He rejected cybernetics; brain transplantation or artificial intelligence as the guiding forces for the robot suits as too dangerous.

He chose several candidates with strong wills and purportedly with certain brainwave patterns. They would be connected to a device that would broadcast their thoughts into the robot brains. There were six robots; each plated with a different metal Gold, a Mercury alloy, Lead, Iron, Tin and Platinum. Each robot had slightly different abilities. The robots however were not shape changers as depicted in the comics. The initial experiments of the robots being remote controlled by a human mind were a success although the participants complained of headaches and severe fatigue.

The tragedy derived from greed. Howard Hughes had discovered Magnus line of research and disapproved of it, it seemed like Magnus was making the human mind into a germ invading another body. He ordered the plug pulled on the experiment, immediately. Hr. Hughes orders were to be questioned. All the power to Magnus lab was shut off. The bodies of the six volunteers went into shock. They were rushed to the nearest hospital and doctors were able to revive them. However all of them experienced brain death. They remained on life support but were in deep coma's, close to if not in brain death.

Their consciousnesses lived on however stuck in the robot bodies. They were unable to be transferred back into their brain dead bodies. Their consciousness had not made a complete transition, what remained was more of an electronic replication of their minds. After Hughes learned that the experiment had been a success despite his interference he ordered Magnus to create more of these robots. He made arrangement to sell the existing ones to the United States Army or one America's allies, which ever would pay the most. Magnus protested that these were people trapped in robot bodies and could not be sold like an electric oven or toaster. Hughes got a judge to rule that since machines could have neither minds nor souls, what the Metal Men possessed was an electronic analog of human thought which was owned solely the Hughes Corporation. Magnus refused to replicate the process and destroyed his work. He was charged with several felonies revolving around the destruction of Hughes Enterprises intellectual property. Magnus added grand theft and violation of the national security act when he freed the Metal Men and escaped with them.

Over time guilt over his experiment made Magnus into a manic-depressive and he tried several times to destroy his "work", over the objections of the living robots of course. Magnus and the Metal Men despite their often humorous comic book adventures had existences which anything but fun. They were federal fugitives until the end of Jimmy Carter's term when he pardoned them as he was exiting from office. As fugitives they were constantly on the run. They were heroes by accident. Every so often they would be near a fire or some other natural disaster or be near the commission of a crime and would lend their help before disappearing once again. The comic book adventures were often their only source of income and so they did not object to the wild tales conjured up by the artists and writers.

It is possible that the Inferior Five ran into the Metal Men during one of their visits to New York.

Inferior Five No. 7 Mar-Apr. 1968

    The I-5 are traveling along in the Inferi-Car when they see a mugging taking place. Following the mugger they travel into the City Sewer system. Almost immediately upon entering the Sewer they meet man who offers tours of the sewer system. He resembles to a great degree Ed Norton of the television show The Honeymooners. They decline to take the tour and strike out on their own. Round a curve they have a sledgehammer thrown at them. This turns out to be the Hammer of Thor. Thor had of course met them earlier. He told them that he had signed a contract with a comic writer named Stanley who wished for Thor to become a doctor and to change the color of his hair from red to blonde. The Inferior Five tells Thor that if he signed a contract he must honor it. Ed Norton shows up with a barber and beauty shop equipment for cheap rent. Dumb Bunny bleaches Thor's hair.

    Upon leaving Thor they walk into a section of the sewer and a wall slids down behind them. The area they are in is flooded with water. They encounter a homely mermaid who is attracted to Awkwardman. As they fight off the mermaid, Prince Nabob the Sub-Moron appears. He has been sent by Stanley to find Thor. Finding a dry section fo the sewers they encounter the detective Allergy Queen who is on the sleuth for a criminal mastermind.

   Following Queen they find themselves trapped as many iron rods slid out of the stone walls to form a prison around them. They are rescued by Iron Pants who also seeks Thor for Stanley.

    They encounter in rapid succession Mickey Mouse, spy vs spy, Dr. Hackenbush, Stanley and the Monster, Count Dracula, Crow and the Fox, Captain Spaulding, the Cobweb Kid and the Blast a thug turned Supervillian after being exposed to high voltage of electricity.

    They enter a auditorium filled with rows and rows of people dining. They are all dead as Allergy Queen's sneezes demonstrate when he keeps blowing the seemingly well preserved corpses to dust. Allergy leads them to a library. He is about to reveal the person behind the crimes when he is reduced to dust.

    The villain who had been disguised as a little old lady reveals himself to be none other than Dr. Diabolica, a villain dressed in evening dress with a pencil thin moustache. He reveals that he had lured the I-5 to his hidden laboratory. He places the Inferior Five in giant bells and drains their powers into an assistant. The assistant has acquired the Inferior Five's Inferiority and the I-5 are able to act as the heroes they emulated. They smash up Dr. Diabolical's operation. Dr. Diabolical escapes in an ejector chair. Ed Norton shows up in his touring golf cart with a contingent of police. The I-5 leave the sewers behind. Spotting a little old lady they believe it is Dr. Diabolical in disguise and attempt to capture her. This turns out to be a real little old lady, the aunt of the Cobweb Kid. The Cobweb kid chases after them in anger.

    The Inferior Five troupe are returned to their apartment after a performance. They happen across the mugging of a little old lady. Leander Brent chases after the mugger. The mugger ducks down into an open manhole. Leander follows. Myron and the other follow after Brent. The interior of the sewer is fairly well lit but it is dank and smelly. To make the experience more memorable and also to help them ignore the clammy stench they all drop a couple of tabs of LSD.

    After wandering around lost in the sewers, they encountered a man wearing a porkpie hat, a rubber vest and hipwaders. He bears some resemblence although only superficially to the character of Ed Norton from The Honeymooners television show. He regards the costumed young people with a mixture of wariness and amusement. They asked if he had seen a man running through the sewers carrying a purse.

    He told them no.

    Myron asked him if he knew the best route to find another quick exit.

    Staring at Myron with exasperation, the man replied he wasnt a sewer tour guide and wandered off. He appeared to be lost. They heard him muttering that he used to know these sewers like the back of his hand.

        The intrepid five wandered further into the Sewer system. They were certain that the LSD had really kicked in when a flying hammer nearly decapitated Leander. He dove out of the way and the hammer smashed into the the wall with a crackle of electrical energy.

    They once again encountered the hero Thor who had gotten them out  of "Asgard" earlier (see the story behind issue 4 above). He asked what they were doing in the sewer and advised them to depart. He was seeking Namor the Avenging Son, whom was said to be sewers and plotting against the Surface world, specifically Greater New York.

Myron caught Thor off guard with a bizarre response. He asked about the Thor comic books. He was thinking of trying to get one of the comic book companies interested in the adventures of the Inferior Five. He wondered how one went about it.

Thor told Myron that if interested the comics would contact him or one of the I-5, the comics frowned on heroes who actively sought to have their exploits recounted. They considered these heroes as vainglorious, as publicity hounds who sought the limelight instead of actually being public spirited. Thor said that if by chance the comics did offer them a contract, make certain they had a lawyer look over the contract. Thor had not and had signed an exclusive deal for fifty years. Thor had not thought to retain any control over the use of his character and so the writers had dreamed up a fantastic origin for him and changed him from a red head warrior with a beard to a blond haired beardless youth. This was a change that did not sit well with Thor.

Thor admonished them to leave the sewer in case Namor was lurking about. After Thor left the Inferior Five ignored the warning and went further into the sewer system.

It is about this time that the LSD was kicking in and things began to get really strange. It is hard to discern what actually happened in the sewers and what was part of their acid trip.

According to the comics a section of the wall slide down cutting them off and preventing them from retracing their previous route. What actually appears to have happened is that they wandered into a regulator section of the sewer and run off water poured into that section. They claimed to have seen a mermaid, an alligator and the Submariner within a few moments of one another. The mermaid sighting appears to have been hallucinogenic in orgin. The story of the alligator may have been true (18) The encounter with Namor is also problematic in that it may have been suggested by Thor's pursuit of the Submariner. However given that Namor was in the New York area a few months later it is possible that they actually did see him. He may have been charting the sewers for his own uses.

After their encounter with Namor, who left them unmolested probably considering them no threat, they found a dry sewer and began traveling through it. They encountered another famous personage, the detective Ellery Queen. (19)

According the comic Ellery Queen was searching for a master criminal named Dr. Diabolical. While this is out of the ordinary for Ellery Queen to have done, it certainly was not impossible. Although the criminal actually appears to be someone who had stumbled onto an old hideout of a villain from the mid-thirties and used the location and some of the equipment to carry out a personal vendetta. The family involved had not wished to bring the police into the affair and so asked Ellery Queen to investigate. The villain who had originally owned the equipment and secret hideout appears to have been Rance Mandarin aka Dr. Death. Ellery Queen had a nodding acquaintance with Dr. Death from having known Dr. Death's main opponent James Holm, a wealthy young criminologist with more than a passing acquaintance with the supernatural. Holm had worked with the Chief of Police in the thirties and had known Inspector Queen.

    In the comics Queen shows the I-5 a man who had been chained to the wall for thirty years on the orders of Dr. Diabolical. The man began to speak and was disintegrated by a ray gun. Allergy to dust Allergy Queen had to flee the area. What appears to have happened is that Ellery Queen was explaining to the I-5 his reason for being the sewers and giving some background on Dr. Death when they became seperated from him.

    The man chained to the wall was simply a hallucination inspired by the Wizard of Id cartoon strip. As we will see this was not the last cartoon inspired hallucination they would have in their trek in the sewers of New York.

As the I-5 were lost after having been separated from Ellery Queen, the man that they had called Ed Norton also had an odd encounter. He ran into a man fleeing from the police. He ran into "Ed Norton" and was knocked against a powerline. The powerline did not kill him but rather charged him with electricity. In the comics this crook was a different one than the one whom the Inferior Five were chasing. In truth it appears that like the Inferior Five and Ed Norton, this fellow had also become lost in the sewers. He ran off to cause mischief with his newly charged electrical powers. (20). He had expended his charge of electricity while committing a crime, fled from the police and recharged while in the sewers. He was pursued by Spiderman.

In the comics the Inferior Five came to another dead end as metal rods slid out of the sewer walls to form a barrier to prevent their further progress. There were rebars jutting from the sewer but this was because this section was being reconstructed. The barrier was to prevent unauthorized personnel from entering the construction site, it had nothing to do with the Inferior Five. According to the comics the Inferior Five also encountered the hero Iron Pants (Ironman). This does not seem to have been a true encounter since despite Marvel Comics penchant for placing the majority of heroes in New York City, "Iron Man" operated mainly on the West Coast and in Las Vegas. Whether this was an allusion placed there by the comic book writers or part of their LSD hallucinations is unknown. Considering that shortly after they encountered Iron Man they also ran into Mickey Mouse, Spy vs Spy who were a couple of cartoon characters from Mad Magazine, a person who called himself Dr. Hackenbush, Stanley and the Monster also from the comics, Count Dracula, Fox and the Crow, Captain Spaulding riding on an Elephant, Spiderman, Electro and an Octopus.

Of these most appear to be hallucinations caused by the psychedelic drugs in their systems. The ones which appear not to be hallucinations are Spiderman Electro and oddly enough Dr. Hackenbush/Captain Spaulding. As seen earlier Electro had run out of his electrical charge while committing a crime, he fled from the police and The Spider-Man. While fleeing he knocked down an old lady. The Inferior Five saw this as a mugging and chased Electro. Although Electro wore an insulated suit to help keep his charge from dispersing through contact with ungrounded objects unlikethe portrayal in comics did not run around with the suit exposed but rather wore street clothes over it. The appearance of Electro and The Spider-man brought to mind Dr. Octopus and Leander Brent suddenly saw an imaginary octopus swimming through the sewer water.

Dr. Hackenbush was Rufus T. Hackstabber a New York cabbie whose fare had gone down into the sewers for a couple of minutes. His fare was "Ed Norton" Rufus T. Hackstabber would later be immortalized in the comic exploits of Shang Chi. Hackstabber bore an uncanny resemblence to the actor Groucho Marx. This was not a coinicidence. Marx had based his comic character on Hackstabber or as he was more properly known. Rufus T. Firefly. Firefly had lived under a series of alias which included Captain Spaulding. For more information please see Freedonia. Because of his resemblence to Groucho Marx Hackenstabber brought up visions of Dr. Hackenbush and Captain Spaulding.

Hackenstabber stood on the sidelines as did the Inferior Five as Electro and The Spider-Man battled. When the battle moved beyond their sights both parties lost interest in the spectacle.

Eventually the Inferior Five found the door that Ellery Queen had left open. It lead to the abandoned headquarters of Dr. Death.

The headquarters had a large meeting room with a long table and twenty chairs where Dr. Death had met with his various minions. The furniture was covered in dust. In the corner were two upright but dessicated human corpses dressed in old style evening clothes. Dr. Death had probably made these unfortunates into zombies back in thirties.In the comics this was translated into a large auditorium filled with skeletons. Beyond the meeting room was a library which is where Dr. Death's inner sanctum had been. Inside the library Ellery Queen and "Ed Norton" sat on a small, dusty sofa. Across from them sat an old lady. The old lady had a odd shaped gun in her hand. Off to her side was a young man in his mid twenties. As the Inferior Five entered the room the old lady pointed the gun at Willie King and pulled the trigger. The young man launched himself at Merryman but tripped as Merryman crumpled under the assault. The young man's head slammed into Leander Brent's chest. Leander's dense tissue was like hitting a wall and knocked the young man's out.

    The gun whined but had no effect on Willie King. Ellery Queen leapt up and knocked the gun from the old lady's hand.
The power source had depleted. Ellery Queen explained that the old lady was Nina Holm, nee Fererra. She had been the niece of Dr. Rance Mandarin aka Dr. Death. After her husband Jim Holm had been killed by the mad man known as the Joker in 1950 Nina had snapped. She had found her way to her Dr. Death's lair and had gone after the Joker using Dr. Death's super science weapons such as the dissolution ray. Nina Holm had been captured and Holm's adoptive family had used their influence to have her institutionalized. A few months prior to this incident she had escaped and had begun stalking James’ Holms adoptive family and the families of the police who had arrested her.

Since no deaths had occurred the former Mayor had not wanted Nina to be subjected to police arrest. He had asked Ellery to locate and capture her.

As Ellery handcuffed Nina with his ascot, he admitted that he too had become turned around in the sewers and did not know the way out.

"Ed Norton" told them that he finally remembered how to find his way out. He lead them directly out of the sewers and to surface, if by directly one means in a meandering course that took another four hours. (21)

After the Inferior Five finally climbed out of the sewers they had to ride the subway back to where they had parked. The disenchantment witht he troupe was starting to settle in among all of the members, including Myron.

Inferior Five no 8. May-June 1968 started out with piles of growing garbage which engulfed the city of Megapolis. The Inferior Five's old foe Dr. Gruesome had devised a potion that caused garbage to reproduce and grow. The city was buried in piles of junk and garbage. The Inferior Five climbed the largest mound of garbage to see if they can find answers. Halfway up the mound they discovered a Mod clothing store. The two designers made comments about Dumb Bunny's build, remarking not everyone can look like Twiggy. The I-5 climbed higher and discovered a group of Flower Children. The Flower Children planted a seed that became a giant man-eating plant. Defeating the man-eating plant, they climbed further. Vicious robot animals made of junk attacked them. After they defeated the robot animals they were attacked by animated smog clouds that carried them to the Castle in the Clouds, a Castle made of Junk. Next to the Castle Dr. Gruesome has an atomic hen house where he was breeding birds for his foul plan, which was to make atomic eggs that he planned to drop on the world.

The Inferior Five escaped from their prison and defeated Dr. Gruesome.

This episode was almost entirely acid derived. It was also an improvisational piece played out on the streets of New York when all of the members were loaded, primarily on LSD or DMT but with good helpings of PCP and/or marijuana. It played out against the background of a long New York City Sanitation Worker's strike when the garbage was piling up in the streets. As can also be seen, the members wove in a shot at the modeling industry, some gibes at the hippie subculture, a retelling of the Seymour Kahlbaum incident otherwise known as the Little Shop of Horrors incident. They finished off with a replay of the Jack in the Beanstalk folk tale modernized so that the Castle was made of junk.

Inferior Five No. 9 has the Inferior Five guarding a museum against a Mummy but beyond that my information is scant.

Inferior Five No. 10 Sept.-Oct. 1968 is unfortunately the last published adventure of the Inferior Five, at least, which pertains to the group of individuals who inspired the comic book. Later comic appearances in such magazines as Captain Carrot or Animal Man or Crisis on Infinite Earth were just DC means of keeping the rights to the characters.

Inferior Five No. 10 begins with the Inferior Five lamenting their lack of superheroing work. They begin a self-improvement program to enhance their skills. While they were doing this, an alien fleet invaded the Earth. Many heroes come to the rescue, Superman, The Submoron, The Kookie Quartet, and The Cobweb Kid.

The Thing is smash into bits by the aliens. The Inferior Five put him back together badly so he looked like a mass of jigsaw pieces. Needing water the Submoron ducks into a nearby distillery and jumps in a tank. He becomes too drunk to help against the invasion. The Matchstick kid is hypnotized by the aliens and looses his concentration.

The Cobweb Kid is hypnotized into believing he is a real spider and begins eating insects. Manplastic of the Kookie Quartet is hypnotized into believing he was a blimp. The Inferior Five also prove no match for the Aliens. Superman arrives from outer space and defeats the aliens.

The sales on the Inferior Five had been steadily slipping and the magazine was on the verge of being cancelled. The writers pulled out all stops and placed as many cameo appearances as they could in the rather thin storyline.

Was there a secret alien invasion in 1967 which needed the combined forces of the Fantastic Four, the Sub-Mariner, The Spider-Man and Superman to repel? I could find no record of such in any of my researches or even a hint of one.The aliens in the comic book were based upon the Skrull, the Alien race created in Marvel comics, The Skrull appeared to have been based upon the three or four encounters which the Four had with the Invaders. The Skrull may also been based in part on the protoplasmic creatures which may have been Founder orphans or their terrestrial equivalents.

Whatever the true story of Marvel's Skrulls they really do not apply in his story of the Inferior Five. There weren't any aliens.

The truth is that the Inferior Five was getting tired of one another and their dissolute lifestyle was wearing thin. There was too much drug use and too little activity and so they began to fight and bicker among themselves. The truth about the alien invasion story with many cameos is that is was three single incidents combined into a single narrative.

Willie King and Athena Trevor were doing a lay out for a men's magazine. Since the group needed money, this was a quick easy way to get it. Athena had enjoyed the response she had gotten from the Playboy shoot and she had come to believe that as long as she enjoyed doing it and made bread from it, then such pictures were not exploitative. Her sister disagreed and this became a bone of contention between them.

As part of the agreement to do the layout, Athena had insisted that Willie be the photographer. Willie was having trouble getting work because of illness; he was always dragging and often feverish. The group had tried to get him to go to the doctor but he refused (22)

They were shooting on a Hotel's rooftop swimming pool and restaurant area that the magazine had rented for the occasion. Some men came bursting onto the roof dressed in black clothing, ski masks and carrying large cloth bags and handguns.

They regarded Athena's half-naked form with some admiration. One said "No Witnesses?" The other nodded. They raised their guns. The guns were immediately covered by a whitish glop. A blue and red figure swung up from a line attached to an over hang on the room. He swung over and planted his feet in the chests of the two criminals knocking them into the pool. When they clambered out of the pool in their sopping wet clothing, The Spider-Man webbed them to the cement.

He looked at Athena and said "Dumb Bunny! "

She looked puzzled and The Spider-Man remarked he would recognize those ears anywhere. She was momentarily puzzled because she was not wearing a costume. He told them to stand back because things were going to get ugly. A helicopter swooped over the roof and dropped a ladder. The Spider-Man began climbing it and also shot a line of his webbing onto the bottom of the helicopter. The men in the helicopter realized that the men they expected were not climbing the ladder and cut it loose and began firing guns. The Spider-Man swung up and attached himself to the bottom of the helicopter.

The helicopter soared off flying erratically trying to dislodge him. (23)

Athena and Willie King returned to their photo shoot. She was thrilled to have met a real live hero. He felt guilty because he had done nothing to stop the crooks.

His courage bolstered by cocaine, Leander Brent decided to confront Superman once and for all. He knew that the veteran reporter Clark Kent was supposed to be Superman's best friend, despite the claim of that red headed guy. So Leander went to the Daily Planet and finagled a meeting with Kent. He told him that he had the real story behind the mystery man team of the Inferior Five.

Clark Kent met with Leander Brent hoping to run a humorous piece on the group.

Leander told Kent that he would start by telling him about the members of the team, Awkwardman was the son of Superman and Lori Lemaris. Kent started laughing at that and wrote it down. Brent told him that was true. He picked up a horseshoe on Kent's desk and bent it straight.

Kent told him that there wasn't any such person as Lori Lemaris. Kent did not know who Brent's parents were but Superman was not one of them. Superman did not have any children out of wedlock. To say that he did was not only a disservice but also slanderous. Kent suddenly excused himself; his lunch was coming back up on him. He rushed to the john. While Leander was waiting for Kent to return, Leander heard the familiar express train sound of Superman's leaping through the city. He leapt right past the Daily Planet building.

Leander jumped out the window and landed ten stories below. It stung his feet a little. He began leaping after Superman, following him. Superman was heading towards Coney Island.

Myron Victor and Herman Cramer were the only two dressed in their Inferior Five outfits. They had gone to Coney Island Beach to test out some new improvements on Herman's Blimp suit, which added air jets to the feet and shoulders. They tested them over the water in case the jets sent Herman tumbling towards the ground.

Namor the Avenging Son burst out of the ocean waters and began attacking the people and objects on the Beach, throwing chairs, people, coolers, lifeguard chairs, hot dog stands and other vendors with abandon. From three different points on the beach three monsters burst out of the water. Myron recognized two as some form of plesiosaur but with webbed, clawed feet and another as a sort of tortoise dinosaur. These dinosaurs also began running rampant trampling the exhibits, eating the people and causing great destruction by accidentally smashing through things with their great bulk or by directly attacking anything they perceived to a threat.

The intent seemed to be to panic the people on Coney Island and it worked, the train exits were soon clogged with people as were the parkway. Namor and the monsters took advantage of the logjam of people and death and destruction resulted. Myron and Herman never intended to be heroes but were thrust into that situation by fate. Myron distracted the dinosaurs with his purple suit and tinkling bells. He used this to draw the dinosaurs away from children and as he zig-zigged for the relative safety of the amusement parks.

Herman stayed aloft and called out directions for the people to elude the dinosaurs. He felt guilty that he could not rise and fall at will, if he vented his gas to lower himself he would be vulnerable to attack.

The Four were in town and immediately arrived on Coney Island in their flying car. The Four however had their hands full with Namor and one of the dinosaurs. While Reid and Ben's powers made them fairly invulnerable to the dinosaur's attack, Sue and Johnny's powers could only provide distraction. (24)

Myron and Herman were forced to keep themselves from the other two dinosaurs and also felt the need to help others escape. After distracting one of the plesiosaurs from a group of children clustered in fright around a ride, Myron found himself trapped up against a wall. He thought his number was up when the fanged head darted for him.

A fist shot out and cracked the dinosaur in the jaw, breaking some teeth and stunning it momentarily. It shook its head and went off after its attacker. Myron's rescuer was Superman. By leaping out of the way of the dinosaur's teeth and claws and punching the beast with all of his might he was able to bring it down. He only intended to subdue it but his last punch broke its neck.

Superman then tackled the giant tortoise dinosaur and was aided in this effort by Leander Brent.

The Four found that their efforts against Namor were hindered when Namor had grabbed Sue Roberts and slung her over his shoulder. Although he did not use her as a physical shield, they were unable to really press him.

The Four were helped to defeat Namor by Merryman, believe it or not. Myron took a balloon filled it with water, put in three acid tabs shook up the balloon and tossed it at the Sub-Mariner. He believed that if the Sub-Mariner's body absorbed water like Leander's then the LSD would hit him hard and fast.

Myron's aim was good and he hit Namor right in the kisser with the spiked water balloon.

Although it usually took thirty or forty minutes before the reaction to the drug began, because of Namor unique biochemistry, his absorption process or some other factor he began experiencing loss of coordination in about fifteen minutes and began hallucinating. Reid and Ben Grimm contained and then captured Namor. (25)

Superman and Leander Brent's efforts against the tortoise dinosaur drove it back into its shell. The Four, Superman and Leander began working on the Plesiosaur and it dove into the ocean and swam away. Shortly thereafter the turtle dinosaur came out of its shell and did the same.

Despite a search of the nearby ocean, scientists never found any trace of the other two dinosaurs.

The dinosaur that Superman had killed decayed rapidly and despite efforts to freeze the carcass it soon degenerated into a gelatinous fluid. The fluid was intriguing but very puzzling. It seemed to be composed of the DNA of many different types of animals including humanoid. Some scientists speculated that Namor had used forgotten Atlantean science to create artificial animals using DNA from various species many of them extinct. Others claimed that the dinosaur must have had the ability to become the various species that comprised its DNA. (26)

After the fight was over and the threat was passed, Leander Brent confronted Superman about being his father. Superman told Leander essentially the same story that Kent had told him that Lori Lemaris was a fiction created by the comic company. Superman did not have any children out of wedlock. However since Brent had proved that he did share some of the same abilities as a couple of other people Superman knew about.  Superman gave Leander Brentthe name of Dr. Donald Blake and told Brent that Dr. Blake should be able to help identify his real father.

In the aftermath of these two incidents the Inferior Five felt rather guilty about having lampooned the heroes. As mentioned earlier they were also tired of one another and of their dissolute lifestyle. They decided to go out with one last performance piece and then to go their separate ways.

In their last piece performed in Central Park in the summer of 1967. They turned the incident on Coney Island into an Invasion from Outer Space and had all of the Heroes except for Superman as being rather inept but in the end it was the Inferior Five that saved the day.

In the years that followed the members of the Inferior Five had diverse careers.

Herman Cramer was the only one to actually "cash in" on his membership in the Inferior Five. In the late sixties he had a brief career as a stand up comedian, dressed in his Inferior Five outfit and telling of outrageous superhero antics. His ready charm and wit made him a popular guest on television talk shows. This connection made his hobby also a commercial success. Herman's knowledge of diner cuisine was parlayed into three books, Diner America: A pictorial history of the American Roadside Diner, Good Eats: A Diner recipe book and The Diner's Club Select Recipes from America's Diners. Television producers saw his gregarious personality and ready wit as commercial possibilities. Soon he was hosting a syndicated television series as called Good Eats. He also began a chain of sandwich shops called Blimp's however a court battle ensued and he lost the rights to use that name because of an existing business with a similar name.

In 1980 he suffered a massive coronary. His gross obesity led to complications. He was forced to lose 250 pounds, which brought him down to svelte 200. He came out of this experience with a new attitude towards eating. Spending a few years in research he once again come out with a trio of books. The Smart and Sexy Diet: How to look good, eat smart and still enjoy a good meal. Good Eats Revisited: Tasty, Healthy foods and Deflated: The story of Former Human Blimp. Herman's publishing company TwobyFour Inc. published all these.

Willie King slipped further into drug addiction and became a full time junkie. He eventually met a good woman and became redeemed. See the Green Arrow article for more details. Although Willie King and Athena Trevor had a close friendship it was purely platonic so she was not the woman who redeemed him.

Athena Trevor continued to model for a couple of years both clothed and unclothed. She had a few roles in some minor horror, science fiction and sexual comedy films; those made on the cheap side. Her roles were both clothed and unclothed.

Finding dissatisfaction with these roles and in the life of a model and of being perceived as an air headed bimbo, Athena returned to school at the University of Stanford where she studied psychology, mass communications and literature. Like many women in the late sixties and early seventies, she became involved in the feminist and women's liberation movement. She eventually became disenchanted with Feminism, not as a principle but as a movement. It seemed to her that gender equality meant to many feminists separation of the genders and in many regards they wished to replace male dominance with female dominance instead of discovering a balance and equality between the two genders. She believed that on a fundamental level that many feminists had the same failing as many men in reducing the male/female dynamic to merely a reproductive urge to fulfill the necessity for species survival. With the advancement of reproductive technology some of the feminists acted as though they wished to segregate the genders for all purposes except reproductive and to conduct that through impersonal, non-physical and scientific methods.

Athena viewed the equality of the genders as indicator of human social evolution. True gender equality meant the male/female dynamic became a fulfillment of the yin/yang principle of a true partnership where a couple would make equally valid and harmonious decisions that would be fulfilling to both parties. She became the target of criticism by both feminist and conservative forces for her books Sexual Feminism,Coupling: Emotional Fulfillment in The Male/Female Dynamic and Martial Relations: The Sex War between Men and Women.

To feminists she was unpopular because she espoused the belief that it was okay for a woman to be a housewife, if that was what she wished and she and her husband both desired. To conservatives she was unpopular for her view that a man did not necessarily have to be the bread winner that it was in fact alright for the man to be a stay at home Dad, if this was what the Couple had agreed. Conservatives and Feminists both strongly disagreed with her stances on pornography and prostitution. She believed while it was true that the institutions did exploit human sexuality and did render women as sexual objects that all men and women were in a sense sexual objects. And that if a woman freely chose a life of prostitution or pornography then the underlying principle of a woman being able to do what she wanted with her own body should be respected, even if her choice was a regrettable one.

Athena became a full professor in the Psychology program at Washington University. When she began teaching just about every semester one or two students would discover that she had once posed for Playboy. Some would even try to blackmail her for better grades to keep it quiet. She began prefacing her first lecture about what she had done in her youth and how she had come to be a Psychologist, this included describing her stint as a centerfold and as member of the Inferior Five. Unfortunately mentioning the Inferior Five would bring about the inevitable question about Myron Victor.

Although Athena lived a fairly content existence and was considered something of an expert on male/female relationships, her own love life was erratic and often empty. On one occasion she even discussed with her sister the possibility of dating her sister's business partner Sam Simeon, the Oparian male everyone thought was a gorilla. Whether this was an actual possibility or if she was just trying to goad her sister is unknown. Angel did have some rather strong negative feelings about the idea and so Athena never pursued that relationship.

Athena's string of broken relationships of varying lengths she blamed on her inability to a find someone with the correct dynamic. She wrote romance novels under a pseudonym as a hobby and also to bring in revenue for her various charity works. She was also consulted every now and then as a psychologist for various news or discussion panels. It was during the mid-eighties that she was placed on a panel discussion board about sex education in the schools and free condom distribution. On the panel with her was Myron Victor. He was no longer the skinny as a rail kid but he still had a sharp nose and an even sharper tongue. Among his favorite targets for ridicule were Dumb Bunny and Awkward Man, Leander Brent.

Leander Brent went a several year journey to discover his true parents. Dr. Donald Blake matched his unique DNA to two possibilities. One of these was Hugo Danner whom Brent ascertained was most definitely dead. The other was Arnold "Iron" Munroe whose work for the United States Intelligence community made him a hard man to track down. He eventually did track Munroe down in Florida where was working with Dr. Jake Terrell to stop an assassination attempt against the President's Yacht. Terrell was a scientist working on cross species communication with cetaceans. Terrell's dolphin's had been stolen and trained to place bombs against targets. (27)

Leander aided in this effort. Munroe was less than receptive to accepting Brent as his son. He said it was possible but he may have had many kids scattered all over the world, that was part of the biz.

Leander was crushed by this rejection. He spent a lot of time with the dolphins and eventually became involved in Dr. Terrell's research. Leander attended the University of Miami and received a Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology. He also participated in Dr. Terrell's experiments with neuroscience. His experience in an isolation chamber opened up his latent gill slits. Now a true, although he hid the fact, amphibian, Leander became very deeply involved in Cetacean research. He also became deeply involved in campaigns to end whaling; end pollution of the oceans and other marine based environmental issues. This would eventually make him a public target for ridicule by his former associate Myron Victor.

Myron Victor after he had left the Inferior Five Myron had become an underground cartoon artist reminiscent of R. Crumb. His use of psychedelics continued although he became more politicized. He no longer thought that satire alone would bring social change, you had to combine satire and social change. He became involved in the drive to ratify the 26^th amendment to the United States Constitution, which allowed for 18 year olds to vote. Myron also became the main publicist for the political campaign of Presley Rickard who was running simultaneously for the Senate and for the United State Presidency. Although he was under age, he believed that if enough people wrote in his name he would have to be elected. Myron's satirical cartoon adventures of Prez Rickard created as a publicity were later "borrowed" by one of the major comics companies. Myron and Prez managed to get the title stopped after four issues.(28)

The drug related deaths of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and many others made Myron rethink his ideas about forced social evolution through pharmaceuticals. Although to be fair he had never thought heroin, barbiturates or alcohol were drugs that raised consciousness. In 1975 he took an acid trip for the road as it were, intending for this to be his final drug experience. He smoked marijuana laced with LSD. He was unaware that it was also highly impregnated with PCP.

He fell into a coma and was fortunately found by a neighbor. He lay in the coma for two weeks before regaining consciousness. When he awoke he was in many ways a changed man. He never fully revealed what he had saw during his hallucinogen driven coma but bits and pieces have emerged over the years, gathered from off hand remarks he said about the experience. He saw the death of universes, talking animals, living Toons, visited the works of Lewis Carroll and saw a man who could talk to the animals and also duplicate them without changing form.

Myron Victor became serious about his work and his drawing became clearer, sharper and along more classic lines. Some also said his humor became sharper and even to the point of meanness. He sold satirical cartoons to such magazines as The Atlantic, The New Yorker and even Playboy. Eventually he tried his hand at political humor and his editorial cartoons began appearing in the Daily Sentinel, Daily Planet and other newspapers with a large syndication.

Although he would later claim that his transformation from liberal ideologue to conservative icon was a Saul of Tarsus experience, if one traces his career you can see his gradual disenchantment with liberalism and the philosophy of the flower generation. Some, as he would said he was maturing and returning to the values of his parents who fought crime and promoted American values as a vigilante team in the forties. However his views became even more conservative than theirs were. After a while he no longer submitted his work to the Daily Sentinel, considering the Reid family publication too liberal for his taste.

His first book A Cartoon History of the New Left savagely lampooned the figures of the Sixties and was his first known outwardly ultra-conservative work. Blow Your Mind, but use a gun please!, was his savage attack on the drug culture and its aftermath. He was roundly criticized for stating that drugs merely brought out the weaknesses inherent in the liberal mentality. Liberals were losers and would do society a great service by overdosing on drugs or just plain shooting themselves. However since drugs were illegal it would be better for everyone if they just used legal handguns.

Myron Victor's sense of drama and his outspoken views made him a popular guest on television and radio. He was eventually offered a radio program that became syndicated through out America.

He became notorious for his targeting of former friends and acquaintances that were involved in liberal causes, such as the Super Feminazi Athena O'Day and Awkwardman the Dolphin Boy. He also targeted Bernard Baker whom he hated on sight. Baker was an animal activist who wished to do away with slaughterhouses, fox hunts, fur wearing. Myron dubbed him Animal Man or Beast Boy.

In early in 1980 he wrote a book entitled My Inferiors: Drama, Drugs and Dementia. This was a work discussing the flawed vision and purpose of the Inferior Five and why he regretted those years.

The other members refused to comment on the book.

In 1985 Myron Victor was placed on a discussion panel with Athena O'Day. Both were clear and lucid and both had very strong opinions. They began arguing during the panel, they continued arguing over dinner and the cab ride to her apartment and to her front door. Athena decided to shut his big fat mouth by kissing him. In the contest that followed, it is unclear who actually won since both had the upper position at various times. Both could be said to have won since they both emerged this conflict as Victors.

People on both sides of the ideological spectrum viewed the marriage of Myron Victor the archconservative icon to Athena O'Day the liberal feminist with shock and dismay. For his part Myron refused to comment on the marriage other than to say it helped to keep his wits sharp and his bed warm. Athena O'Day's commented that the purpose of the male female dynamic was to find a balance, in her case she had to find someone who challenged her and at the same time made her happy.

Although she was forty-five in 1988, she gave birth to the Victor's only daughter, Mitzi.

NOTES

1. The editor is aware that in the comics Athena and Angela were half sisters but the comic writers believed that this was a necessary fiction for the comic book versions of the sisters to explain why one had super strength and one did not.
2. See The Big Fish by Kim Newman in Cthulu 2000
3.  please see The Reid and Kato Family Trees, from NOW Comics' Tales of the Green Hornet volume two, number two on The Wold Newton Universe site and The Reid Family Tree by Dennis Power. Read the companion articles, Masked Men: A Chronology of the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet by Mark Ellis, Matthew Baugh, and Win Eckert, and Masked Memories: The Reids by Dennis Power
4. The Demmed Blakeney Family Tree by Win Scott Eckert.  Read the companion article, "They Seek Him There....": The Demmed Fine Blakeney Family Tree by Win Scott Eckert

 (5) For more on the Gordon family please see The Magnificent Gordons by Mark K. Brown. For more on the De La Vega family please see The Legend of the Fox: A Chronology of Zorro by Matthew Baugh. An expansion of the latter article can also see seen at An Addendum to the The Legend of the Fox.

6. citation taken from Pulp and Adventure Heroes by Jess Nevins.

7. Banner may have been using this name as a sort of tribute to the great inventor Johnny Brainerd This was actually Robert Bruce Banner during his days as a federal fugitive.

8. This does not seem to correspond with any of the Impossible Missions Force televised adventures. Their mission seemed was to trace the group of terrorists which had come to the United States for revenge in the United States role in the Dominican Intervention. That a wave of terrorist acts did not take place in 1966 is a measure of their success.

9. This issue with Dumb Bunny as the Playmate of the Month is one of the most sought after issues of Playboy. It is particularly rare in our universe since Dinah Willis was the model in our Universes' issue.

10. This may actually have been Elongated Man who used multiple identities during his career as a member of CIALD. These included Sandman a criminal and the post fifties appearances of Plastic Man. Had anyone checked with the Bureau they would have discovered that Eel O'Brien had retired in the late forties.

11. The details of how Opar had come to be under water are explained in Philip Jose Farmer's Tarzan Alive, Chapter Twenty-Four.

12.  Lord Grandrith had a life story that was oddly parallel to Tarzans and yet quite divergent as well. Portions of his life are portrayed in A Feast Unknown and Lord of the Trees by Philip Jose Farmer. The reason for the odd parallel is discussed in The Triple Tarzan Tangle.

13. The English speaking Gorillas from London-On-The-Thames are from Tarzan and the Lion Man. A mad scientist had stolen several cell samples from Westminster Abbey. Traveling to Africa he had pursued a form of genetic ressearch. He managed to mutate a group of gorillas to be semi-human at least in terms of behavior and speech.

14. Pygmy Mangani are a smaller offshoot of the Mangani family. Whereas the large mangani resemble Gorillas and are often thought to such, Pygmy Mangani resemble Chimpanzees. Chetah and the so called Detective Chimp were Pygmy Mangani.

15. Although I have continued to call this city Ophir further studies by Philip Jose Farmer in Hadon of Ancient Opar and Flight To Opar have uncovered the truth about the "Atlantean" heritage of Opar. Opar's mother civilization's destruction had many parallels to the Atlantis myth that Edgar Rice Burroughs believed that they had the same origin. Opar's mother civilization was based on a great island in the center of a sea which covered much of Central Africa. The island sank and its cities were destroyed. Ophir appears to have actually been the city of Sakawuru.

16. This seems to be the truth behind the comic book stories of Congorilla and the true origin of Gorilla Grodd.

17. This was however not XauXaz but his descendent whom XauXaz had acting as him so that they rest of the Nine would not know that XauXaz and Iwaldi's quest to find a rejuvenation drug was successful. The charade was eventually uncovered and the false XauXaz was killed.

18. According to The World Beneath the City by Robert Daley 1959, The Superintendent of Sewers Teddy May. There were alligators in the sewers at least in 1958 but they were supposedly all killed that same year.

 19. What was Ellery Queen doing running around in the sewers? According to his chroniclers he was born in 1905 and so would have been past sixty. Also he was a bit of an upper class snob much like Philo Vance it is hard to believe he would be deign to chase down a suspect in the sewers. That was the Ellery Queen depicted in the first ten cases recorded by J. J. McC. After The Spanish Cape Mystery Ellery began to change subtley.  J. J. McC in his original introduction in The Roman Hat Mystery stated that Ellery Queen was a pseudonym. J. J. McC also stated that by the time of the publication of the first mystery, The Roman Hat Mystery which occurred in 1929, Ellery and his father had retired from sleuthing. The Roman Hat Mystery and the following eight mysteries then took place prior to 1929. After The Spanish Cape Mystery,  Mystery writer and historian Julian Symons speculated that the reason for the differences in Ellery Queen was that this Ellery Queen was in fact a different person altogether. The second Ellery Queen was Ellery's brother Dan. Dan Queen was the Ellery Queen who was part time sleuth, part time mystery writer and part time Hollywood screenwriter. It was Dan Queen's exploits that the films starring Ralph Bellamy were based as was the radio show of the thirties and forties were based. In 1942 apppeared a series of books under the series title Ellery Queen jr. mysteries. The name is a bit misleading for although Ellery Queen is shown having an infant son in the introduction to The Roman Hat Mystery this child was not the star of the Ellery Queen jr. series.The actual protagonist for nine of the books in the Ellery Queen jr. series was Djuna. Djuna was small gypsy-blooded orphan boy was adopted by Inspector Queen during his lonely years when Ellery was attending the University. The Ellery Queen Jr. or Djuna series consists of The Black Dog Mystery (1942) The Golden Eagle Mystery (1942)The Green Turtle Mystery (1944) The Red Chipmunk Mystery (1946) The Brown Fox Mystery (1948) The White Elephant Mystery (1950)The Blue Herring Mystery (1954) The Purple Bird Mystery (1966) As with the first nine Ellery Queen novels the publishing dates do not necessarily reflect when the adventures actually occurred. These Ellery Queen jr. adventures  probably took place when Inspector Queen was still active with the police department, circa 1920s. Although Richard Queen may have returned to the police department for a time during the mid thirites to early forties.

The Ellery Queen jr series also had two mysteries by Gulliver Queen. The Gullivar Queen series was as follows The Mystery of the Merry Magician (1961) The Mystery of the Vanished Victim (1962) Gulliver is stated to be the nephew of Ellery Queen. However if the current Ellery Queen was Dan Queen or  Djuna this would be an accurate statement if Gulliver were Ellery's son, that is the infant son shown in the introduction to The Roman Hat Mystery.

Djuna grew up and became a detective/writer using the name Ellery Queen. He was the Ellery Queen whom the various television series the Adventures of Ellery Queen 1950-52, The Adventures of Ellery Queen 1954-56, The Further Adventures of Ellery Queen 1958-59, and Ellery Queen 1975-76 are based and also the later radio series. The Jim Hutton TV series as set in 1947 and shwoed some early portions of Djuana's career as Ellery Queen. As seen as part of the deliberate obfuscation by the "Queen" family Dan and Djuna were using the name at the same time. For the true name of the Queen family please visit Watching the Detectives by Brad Mengel.

Djuna was the Ellery Queen whom the Inferior Five met.

20.  This man appears have been Dan McCormick, the Electrical Man. He was also known as Max Dillion and as Electro and Shocker. His story is told in The Spider-Man article.

21. Ed Norton was of course a fictional character created by the entertainer Jackie Gleason. The character however was based upon a real person whom Jackie had known slightly. When Gleason had been a young man he had been the MC at a number of nightclubs. The clubs were often visited by a thin man and his chubby companion. The thin man and his chubby companion would regale Gleason with tales of their  domestic "bliss and their get rich schemes. The "Ed Norton" that the Inferior Five met was the inspiration for the fictional Ed Norton as portrayed on the situation comedy The Honeymooners. The man the Inferior Five met was actually the immortal known as Buzsla. In 1966-67 Ollu and Buzsla were the proprietors of a small amusement park in California, they were also free lance writers for Hanna-Barbera Productions and had just begun to sell movie scripts based on their historical knowledge. Ollu and Buzsla were writing a film based Erik the Phantom and his coterie of vampires in the sewers of Paris. Buzsla had been in New York for a meeting and had decided to conduct some impromptu research on the sewers of New York, to refresh his memories. He had heard that you could not turn around in New York without running into costumed lunatics but had thought that was mere hyperbole until he met the Inferior Five.

22.The rest of the members did not know that Willie King a.k.a. Roy Harper a.k.a. Oliver Queen II had become a heroin addict.

23. This took place during Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin's war against the other crime figures on the East Coast. Spider-Man's involvement in was to keep the war going and bring down as many crooks as he could.

24. Reid had devised a plasma generator that would generate gouts of flame from shooters on Johnny's hands powered by the photons that Johnny concentrated but these were of short duration, there was a limit to how many plasma bolts each conversion unit would make before it became drained. While the plasma bursts might have incapacitated a human to the dinosaurs they were painful distractions.

25. Namor escaped from custody almost immediately when he was taken to a holding cell he asked to use the rest room. He bulked up his muscles by absorbing tap water and ripped the metal bars from the window. Once outside the went into the sewer and made his way back to the sea. During this period Namor had conceived of a powerful lust for Sue Roberts believing that her power and beauty would be great abilities to bring into the Deep One's gene pool. By being more human looking and also having the ability to become invisible the Dyzan would be more easily able to infiltrate among the Surface Dwellers.

26. Where did these dinosaurs originate? These Dinosaurs were of different species previously catalogued and the rapid cellular decay was very puzzling. Although we cannot be certain the dinosaurs may have originated in two locations. The Plesiosaurs with the clawed webbed feet and the raid cellular decay may have originated on Caprona. The Island near the Antarctic where each living creature begins as a single celled creature and if it survives will go through the various states of evolution the final stage of which is a true human being. This process was probably an artifical biological experiment created the Ancients whose antrocentric bias is well known. The turtle dinosaur may have come from the island known as Monster Island. It was probably of the same species from which The Gamera orginated. The Gamera and its descendents were tortoise dinosaurs modified by the Kilaak to become protectors of the Earth.

27. Dr. Terrell was an associate of Dr. John Lilly but his work had diverged from his by the mid-sixties, especially when Lilly began talking of extra terrestrial intelligences guiding him. The incident of of the assassinating dolphins was novelized and then made into a film. The Day of the Dophin

28. The comic book was DC's short term Prez. A recap of the four issue run can see seen at Dark Mark's Short Run Heroes  Myron especially hated the comic because it showed Prez campaigns manipulated by an corrupt power broker and slumlord named Boss Smily whose head was a Smily Medallion. Myron was certain this was a jibe at him. Myron also disliked the book for it seemed to seem as though the concerns of the younger generation were frivilous and that they were incapable of effective government service.

SELECT SOURCES

Farmer, Philip Jose A Feast Unknown, Playboy 1980
Hadon of Ancient Opar
Flight to Opar
Tarzan Alive
Inferior Five 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, DC Comics 1967-68
Newman, Kim The Big Fish, Cthulhu 2000, 1999
Showcase 62, 63, 65 DC Comics 1966

Created 10-18-02

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