Saturday, November 22, 2008
Comic Art
Normally this space would be filled with the next installment in the on-going look at Jack Kirby's masterpieces of Asgard and the New Gods, but as I write, personal life complications make me unenthusiastic about writing that and I think that series may be winding down, though I for sure have to do the ultimate Thor post. Time will tell.In the meantime, my prevailing mood does entice me to rite about what I consider to be the LAMEST hero in the history of Marvel - Triathlon, aka Delroy Garrett.
He is entirely derivative (more on that in a minute) and his backstory is just silly:
A gifted young sprinter, Delroy Garrett, Jr. won three Olympic gold medals before he was exposed as a steroid user. Stripped of his awards and livelihood, Garrett sought new direction in the Triune Understanding, a philosophical movement that preaches the fulfillment of one's innate potential by balancing various aspects of environment and self. Developing a superhuman triple-powered physique, Garrett believed the Triune teachings had unlocked his latent powers, and he became the costumed hero Triathlon while serving as a celebrity spokesman for the Triune Understanding.Then the story gets all sorts of complicated with betrayals and misdirection and quasi-religious power abuse and so the story goes. He even has an "alternate earth" story.
This guy has been around a while and morphed a lot which means he is popular, but I flat out don't get it. He was clearly created to take pot shots at religion as devious and believers as duped idiots - his appeal seems based in his seeming desire not to be mainstream, sort of the perennial outsider. Maybe its not the character I dislike, but what he represents?
Anyway, he is derived both in appearance and in powers from this guy - 3D-Man. Now, maybe I show my age, but I like the pulpy, brightly colored appearance of the 3D-Man costume as compared the Triathlon's darker, less-conspicuous union suit. I mean, isn't this what comics are supposed to be, the garish, the overstated, and oh yeah, the genuinely heroic. The 3D-Man story was one of those staples of comicdom, two people coming together to make one hero, creating all sorts of interesting dilemmas in life management. And consider:After a brief career as a costumed adventurer, Hal decided to retire the 3-D Man, partly because he was thinking about starting a family, and partly because he was afraid his brother's consciousness might somehow be lost during periods when Hal was the 3-D Man's dominant consciousness.Now that is heroism, particularly when compared to Triple-boy's completely self serving reasons for joining up with the "Triune Understanding," etc.
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