Hey guys welcome back to Comic-Con TV, the only place on YouTube where all geek culture collides. I'm Shannon and today on the show. We're taking a look at the age of MLJ, the Archie Comics Superheroes. In January of 1940, Pep Comics number one introduced the world to the first patriotic superhero of the shield. Predating Marvel's Captain America by one year and two months, the shield was Kimis Joe Higgins, the son of Lieutenant Tom Higgins, who was slain by German semitour Hans Fritz in the Black Tom explosion. Tom was blamed for the explosion while working on a chemical formula for super strength, which the Nazis were after. After Tom's death, Joe continued to work on the formula. He finally figured out the solution, which meant applying the chemicals to certain parts of his anatomy and using x-rays to give him super strength, agility and invulnerability. The initials of the anatomy he injected the formula into also gave him his name, sacrum, heart, innervation, eyes, lungs. And Derma, he became the shield. Joe became an FBI agent whose secret identity was known only to FBI chief Jay Edgar Hoover. After clearing his father's name and fought foreign agents and other threats to the US, the Black Hood was police patrolman Matthew Kip Berlin and debuted in Top Notch Comics number nine in October of 1940. When Kip noticed someone in a mass grade costume robbing a mansion, the robber knocked him out and placed some diamonds in his hand. Later, the police found Kip passed out with the jewels and believed he was a looter. He was relieved of his badge and asked to stand trial for grand lersony. While out on bail, he scoured the streets looking for the man who framed him. One evening, he noticed a late night delivery truck at a fur warehouse. Suspicious, he entered the warehouse to find the skull, the same mass grading corpse who framed him. He was knocked out again and taken to the deep woods to be left for dead, soon after a hermit stumbled upon him and nursed him back to health. As the days continued, he confessed to the hermit about the frame up. The hermit being a sheriff at one time had also heard of the skull. To end the skull's crime spree, the hermit began training Kip by rebuilding his strength and teaching him ways to fight crime. Many months later, the Black Hood was born. The comet first appeared in Pep Comics number one in January 1940 alongside the shield. John Dickering was a chemist who as a science experiment began repeatedly using a gas that was 50 times lighter than hydrogen on himself. The side effects gave him lighter than air leaping abilities and a pair of deadly eyebeams that could disintegrate anything he looked at. To prevent his optic rays from destroying everything he saw, he designed a visor shield out of glass. Soon after discovering his new powers, he was hypnotized by a mobster and sent on a crime spree. During a heist, he killed 10 people and police officer O'Hara. Because of this, he became infugitive, but when he regained his senses, he vowed to clear his name. While on the run, he met newspaper reporter Thelma Gordon, who believed his innocence and fell in love with him. She soon became his girlfriend and confidant. While the two worked together, Thelma wanted John to turn himself in so they could live normal lives. However, when John was about to go on trial as a chief witness against a racketeer big boy Malone, the gang leader sent orders to kidnap him. A few days later, Malone's henchmen entered John's apartment and grabbed his visiting brother, Bob Diggering, by mistake. Before the gang could force Bob into their car, the comet came to his brother's rescue and was gunned down in a hail of bullets and mortally wounded. Afterward, Bob became a vengeful man and swore to carry on his brother's war on crime. He would later take on the name, all lawbreakers would fear the hangman. Unknown to his brother, Anne Thelma, John did not die. He was actually teleported to the planet Outrox, where scientists were able to resurrect him. He would later marry the planet's ruler, Queen Naja, and continue living on the planet as their leader. Unfortunately, Outrox's atmosphere would slowly destroy the effects of the mysterious gas that gave him his original powers. Ignatia was killed and his powers had completely vanished. John Diggering resigned as ruler of Outrox and returned to Earth to fight crime alongside the mighty crusaders. The fly, who was later known as Flyman, was created in 1959 under the Red Circle Comics branch of Archie Comics. Tommy Troy was an orphan hired by Ben and Abelgale March, who were wizards. Late one night, Tommy tried on a ring with a fly-shaped emblem he found in their attic, and the ring summoned Turan, one of the fly people. Turan explained that ages ago the fly people ruled the Earth, they used magic in their wars, and the ultimate one in which they reduced most of their population to common houseflies, only a few fly people managed to escape to another dimension. There they waited for one person, pure of heart, to fight crime and greed, which were their own downfall. Tommy was that person. By rubbing the ring and saying I wish I were the fly, he exchanged bodies with the other dimension and became a costume to adult superhero. To return to his own identity, all he had to do was utter his name. Flygirl was actress Kim Brand, who debuted in the Adventures of the Fly number 13 in July 1961. Kim had slipped and fell out of hotel window when the fly rescued her. She fell in love with him, eventually, and in me of the fly, thought to outwit him by creating two crimes at the same time, assuming the fly couldn't handle both at once. Turan then appeared to Kim and offered her a fly ring so she could become Flygirl in order to help the fly. The web was college criminology professor and mystery writer John Raymond, the web debuted in issue number 27 of Zip Comics in July 1942. Raymond used a high-tech suit and taekwondo skills to become the vigilante known as the web. Raymond's motives to become the crime fighter were due to his brother Tom's criminal activity as a youth. In his first issue, the web rescued Rose Wayne from a Japanese terrorist known as the Black Dragon of Death. Rose discovered the web's secret identity as well as his motivations, and they were later married, after which he retired from crime fighting and settled down into a domestic life. However, he came out of retirement in Flyman number 36 from March of 1966 to combat the antics of an imposter. He later joined the fox and kept in flag to form the ultraman, but was later chastised and then pecked domestically by his wife for continuing as a crime fighter. Later, however, Rose, who is actually the younger sister of the Jaguar, trained and dawned her own superhero costume fight crime with her husband, who was unaware of her dual identity as Power Girl. The Jaguar, who first appeared in Adventures of the Jaguar number one in September of 1961 was zoologist and archeologist Ralph Hardy. While on a digging Peru, a giant serpent burst forth from the ground and began terrorising the area. While everyone else fled, Hardy followed a rare white Jaguar into a ruined temple and found a series of cave drawings depicting the ancient Incas battling the same monster, as well as a mystical, nucleon energy belt. The round golden buckle of the belt had the engraved image of a winged Jaguar on the front and on the back an inscription which read, He who loves the animal kingdom may wear this belt and be transformed into a human Jaguar. Hardy put on the belt and was instantly transformed. As the Jaguar, he possessed feline abilities, all the powers of the animal kingdom, only a thousand times more powerful. The oft-quoted magnified toughness of a rhinoceros is hide, for example, gives him near Superman level invulnerability. He also has the Aquaman style telepathic ability to mentally communicate with and command all animals, including those from alien worlds. Eventually, the Jaguar would join with steel sterling and Mr. Justice to form the terrific three. If you enjoyed that video, make sure you hit the subscribe button right there so you can stay up to date on all things geek culture. 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