Charlton characters, Jason Todd and the end of the dystopian hero

[Dennis]

The Watchmen were modeled after the Charlton characters. Most of the Charlton characters are now dead. The Dark Knight returns emphasized how the other heroes lost their way and left Earth, Barry, Hal who were both dead in Continunity and now they're back as is Jason Todd, the 'good soldier'.

Discuss.

[Vad Varo]

ummmm I disagree.

Captain Atom - alive (currently in own mini and rumored ongoing)
Nightshade - alive (featured in the Shadowpact)
the Question - alive (featured in 52)
Peacemaker - dead (in Eclipso I think but a lot of those deaths got "reversed")
Blue Beetle - Ted is gone, but the beetle lives on in a new series even!
Johnny Thunder - got changed to a Jonni, and hasn't been around much in 20 years, but not dead to my knowledge.
Sarge Steel - will most likely be around in Checkmate
(have I missed anyone, was Sarge Steel a charlton character?)

Actually I think the Charlton heroes have mostly done well for coming in during the COIE.

[Scott Mateo]

Peacemaker - dead (in Eclipso I think but a lot of those deaths got "reversed")

Vad Varo

Hopefully, Peacemaker can come back - IF I read Didio's comments right about deaths that should have never happened on this new Earth (it's on www.newsarama.com)

(have I missed anyone, was Sarge Steel a charlton character?)

Vad Varo

Sarge Steel is indeed a Charlton character - Dick Girodano's favorite at that

One you did miss was Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt (who you may have confused with Jonni Thunder - who's not a Charlton character). He's a little bit different, Pete Morisi's family owns the rights to him, not Charlton.

[stumpjs]

The Watchmen were modeled after the Charlton characters.

Doctor Fate

Just read the Watchmen not too long ago for first time.

Let me see if I get this right:
Rorscach- Question
Nite Owl 2- Blue Beetle 2
Dr. Manhattan- Captain Atom

Did I miss any/get any wrong?

[Vad Varo]

Hopefully, Peacemaker can come back - IF I read Didio's comments right about deaths that should have never happened on this new Earth (it's on www.newsarama.com) Sarge Steel is indeed a Charlton character - Dick Girodano's favorite at that One you did miss was Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt (who you may have confused with Jonni Thunder - who's not a Charlton character). He's a little bit different, Pete Morisi's family owns the rights to him, not Charlton.

Scott Mateo

You're right it WAS Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, but I think the Jonni Thunder character was a post-Crisis rework of him...

[Vad Varo]

Just read the Watchmen not too long ago for first time. Let me see if I get this right: Rorscach- Question Nite Owl 2- Blue Beetle 2 Dr. Manhattan- Captain Atom Did I miss any/get any wrong?

stumpjs

Silk Spectre - Nightshade (really really loosely, more based on Phantom Lady who coincidently DID get killed in IC #1, right between the eyes
Comedian - Peacemaker
Ozymadius - Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt (as I was corrected about above)
Nite Owl 1 - Blue Beetle 1 (doh!)

[stumpjs]

Silk Spectre - Nightshade (really really loosely, more based on Phantom Lady who coincidently DID get killed in IC #1, right between the eyes Comedian - Peacemaker Ozymadius - Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt (as I was corrected about above) Nite Owl 1 - Blue Beetle 1 (doh!)

Vad Varo

OK I could see all of that. I was goin to say BB 1 and NO 1 were the same, just the slight difference of BB 1 having powers(i think). But they were definately similar characters.
I was thinking Silk Spectre and Phantom lady seemed alot alike.
I can see the similarities between Peacemaker and Comedian.

I don't realy know anything about Peter Cannon so I'll take youre word on that.

Thanks for the info.

[Vad Varo]

OK I could see all of that. I was goin to say BB 1 and NO 1 were the same, just the slight difference of BB 1 having powers(i think). But they were definately similar characters. I was thinking Silk Spectre and Phantom lady seemed alot alike. I can see the similarities between Peacemaker and Comedian. I don't realy know anything about Peter Cannon so I'll take youre word on that. Thanks for the info.

stumpjs

I thought Nite Owl 1 and Blue Beetle 1 had similiar costumes, and just the fact that they are "legacy" characters (i.e. new people, same name).

Silk Spectre and Phantom Lady again share a similarity in thsi respect. The Phantom Lady that just got killed was a successor to the original (I have no idea how this happenned)

[Vad Varo]

Hopefully, Peacemaker can come back - IF I read Didio's comments right about deaths that should have never happened on this new Earth (it's on www.newsarama.com)

Scott Mateo

Two words: Superboy PUNCH!

[CoMike Norris]

How are Jonni Thunder and Peter Cannon similar? She's a PI who could transform into a lightning bolt. He was a a guy trained by lamas to reach the heights of human mental and physical perfection.

Jonni has more in common with Johnny Thunder than Peter Cannon. I think she was created pre-Crisis as well. Peter Cannon even had a maxi series in the early 1990s.

Mike

[sylpemberton]

Jonni Thunder was created prior to the Crisis and was placed on Earth 2 by her creator Roy Thomas who was writing the entire Earth 2 line at the time. She was a female PI who had some control of a Thunderbolt creature - Johnny Thunder was a 40s character who appeared in JSA who had control of a Thunderbolt creature. Roy Thomas was writing both. During and after Crisis she started appearing semi-regularily in the Infinity Inc series which was a book filled with the sons and daughters of the JSA.

Peter Cannon, the Thunderbolt first appeared as his Carlton incarnation during the Crisis itself. He'd later be used in the JLQ series a bit.

Jonni wasn't a reworking of him.

[sylpemberton]

From an Alan Moore interview with Twomorrows:

The Question was Rorschach, yep. Dr. Manhattan and Captain Atom were obviously equivalent. Nite-Owl and the new Blue Beetle—well, the Ted Kord Blue Beetle—were equivalent. Because there was a pre-existing, original Blue Beetle in the Charlton cosmology, I thought it might be nice to have an original Nite-Owl. I can't really say that Nightshade was a big inspiration. I never thought she was a particularly strong or interesting female character. The Silk Spectre was just a female character because I needed to have a heroine in there. Since we weren't doing the Charlton characters anymore, there was no reason why I should stick with Nightshade, I could take a different sort of super-heroine, something a bit like the Phantom Lady, the Black Canary, generally my favorite sort of costume heroines anyway. The Silk Spectre, in that she's the girl of the group, sort of was the equivalent of Nightshade, but really, there's not much connection beyond that. The Comedian was The Peacemaker, we had a greater degree of freedom, and we decided to make him slightly right-wing, patriotic, and we mixed in a little bit of Nick Fury into The Peacemaker make-up, and probably a bit of the standard Captain America patriotic hero-type. So, yeah, these characters started out like that, to fill gaps in the story that had been left by the Charlton heroes, but we didn't have to strictly stick to that Charlton formula. In some places, we stuck to it more closely, and in some places, we didn't.

Adrian Veidt was Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt; I always quite liked Pete Morisi's Thunderbolt strip... there was something about the art style, almost bordering on kind of Alex Toth style, though it was never as good as Toth, but it sometimes had a pleasing sensibility and a nice design sense about it that I was quite taken by. And I quite like the idea of this character using the full 100% of his brain and sort of having complete physical and mental control. Adrian Veidt did grow directly out of the Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt character.

[Dodge Dart]

You forgot Judomaster who is still alive AFAIK and walking the earth righting wrongs and such.

[Anthem]

While the Blue Beetle 1 that DC inherited from Charlton was a powered character, his original incarnation from Fox comics varied wildly and with little explanation. Sometimes he had the scarab or some other reason for super powers, sometimes he was a costumed adventurer in the mold of Blue Beetle II.

[Mark MacMillan]

Yep. You forgot Judomaster.

[Amentep]

While the Blue Beetle 1 that DC inherited from Charlton was a powered character, his original incarnation from Fox comics varied wildly and with little explanation. Sometimes he had the scarab or some other reason for super powers, sometimes he was a costumed adventurer in the mold of Blue Beetle II.

Anthem

The original FOX Blue Beetle, AFAIK, got his powers from a bulletproof suit he'd designed and a drug - "vitamin 2x" - that was made by a local chemist. When the end of the 40s saw the popularity of superheroes, FOX removed him having powers from the strip (and IIRC eventually making him just a crime comic host like they did their version of Phantom Lady)

Charlton reprinted some of the FOX run after they got the character rights before revising Dan Garret into the archeologist with a magic scarab in 1964.

Ted Kord took over the role in 1966.