Graphics I made for my gimmick account, Butthead Publishing (@/buttheadpublish) on Twitter

*Butthead Publications (@/ButtheadPublic)

if france has 1,000,000,000 haters i am one of them. if france has 1,000,000 haters i am one of them. if france has 100,000 haters i am one of them. if france has 10,000 haters i am one of them. if france has 1000 haters i am one of them. if france has 100 haters i am one of them. if france has 10 haters i am one of them. if france has 1 hater i am that hater. if france has 0 haters i am no longer on this world

‘Superman: Red & Blue’ anthology

                                                     ScribblE

Source Deviantart.com |  mrno74

By the late 1950s, DC Comics (then known as National) was showing the world that superheroes could make a comeback in comics.  Archie Comics took note and decided to jump on the bandwagon.

Archie Comics, originally known as MLJ, had published numerous superhero comics at the beginning of the Golden Age.  The company hired Joe Simon and Jack Kirby in 1959 to get the superhero ball rolling again.  One of Archie/MLJ’s original characters - the Shield  - was dusted off and brought to life again, joined by the Fly, a new superhero.

The Shield, America’s first flag-wearing superhero, who pre-dated Captain America by several months, was an established character with a respectable run during the Golden Age  However, the creative team presented an all-new character, with new powers and abilities, as the Shield.  There are several theories as to why this was done, but most probable is that the same formula had worked with DC’s Flash and Green Lantern, so why not for the Shield as well?

Strangely, the hero’s comic did not mention the Shield in the title, but was instead called The Double Life of Private Strong.  That’s like retitling Superman into The Adventures of Clark Kent When He Takes Off His Glasses.

Speaking of Superman, DC Comics was none too thrilled with the new Shield/Private Strong.  This was because Lancelot Strong’s origin - orphaned son of a brilliant scientist who gains super-powers (many similar to Superman’s) and is raised by a kindly couple on a farm - was very similar to the Man of Steel’s.  DC threatened legal action, and Archie shut down The Double Life of Private Strong after only two issues.

The character made a few small appearances in The Fly’s book, but soon disappeared.  Archie brought back all of the MLJ superheroes, including the original Shield, in the mid-1960s during the superhero boom, but the Private Strong version of the Shield was left behind.

He finally returned as Lancelot Strong, alongside the Shield, in the 1983 series The Mighty Crusaders.  Lancelot Strong was soon killed off, and as far as I know the character has never been used again.  That’s a shame, as he was a result of one of the last collaborations between Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

UPDATE: Thanks to @dirtyriver​ for pointing out a mistake I had made in the original post, where I mistakenly stated that the Fly was a revived character like the Shield.

That’s what happens when I try to do three different things at the same time while writing posts.

Swampy Marsy (my OC) It lives quietly in the swamp

Supergirl by Artgerm

George Perez’s 1984 Justice League of America pin up cards.

There’s a protest going on against AI art over on artstation, so I feel like now is the time for me to make a statement on this issue! 

I wholeheartedly support the ongoing protest against AI art. Why? Because my artwork is included in the datasets used to train these image generators without my consent. I get zero compensation for the use of my art, even though these image generators cost money to use, and are a commercial product. 

Musicians are not being treated the same way. Stability has a music generator that only uses royalty free music in their dataset. Their words: “Because diffusion models are prone to memorization and overfitting, releasing a model trained on copyrighted data could potentially result in legal issues.” Why is the work of visual artists being treated differently?

Many have compared image generators to human artists seeking out inspiration. Those two are not the same. My art is literally being fed into these generators through the datasets, and spat back out of a program that has no inherent sense of what is respectful to artists. As long as my art is literally integrated into the system used to create the images, it is commercial use of my art without my consent.

Until there is an ethically sourced database that compensates artists for the use of their images, I am against AI art. I also think platforms should do everything they can to prevent scraping of their content for these databases. 

Artists, speak out against this predatory practice! Our art should not be exploited without our consent, and we deserve to be compensated when our art is exploited for commercial use. 

365 Marvel Comics Paper Cut-Out SuperHeroes - One Hero, Every Day, All Year…

Team Supplemental - The Young Avengers

The team of teenage heroes known as The Young Avengers formed when a younger version of Nathaniel Richards traveled to the modern era from the distant future as part of a desperate effort to prevent himself from growing up to become the villainous Kang the Conquer.  Nathaniel had hoped to recruit the modern age Avengers to assist him since they had been the one team who had consistently managed to defeat his older self.  Yet he miscalculated his time jump and arrived at a time where The Avengers had disbanded following the Disassembled event.

Unable to make another time jump, Nathaniel made do by searching the Vision’s data banks to locate a group of young heroes previously identified as potential recruits for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.  So to belay suspicions with these young heroes, Nathaniel hid his true identity and took on the guise of Iron Lad.      

The team Nathaniel was ultimately able to put together called themselves ‘The Young Avengers.’  This team was composed of Wiccan, Hulkling, Patriot, Stature and Hawkeye/Kate Bishop.  Subsequent additions to the team included Wiccan’s twin brother, Speed, and a new iteration of The Vision with a personality matrix based on Iron Lad’s consciousness.    

Although The Young Avengers were able to defeat Kang, the trauma of the death of his teammate, Stature, caused Nathaniel to become emotionally unhinged.  This caused him to ultimately returned to the path that would result in fulfilling his destiny and become Kang the Conquerer.

The initial version of The Young Avengers disbanded, yet a new iteration came together to battle the threat of the inter-dimensional parasite known as Mother.  This second version of the team consisted of the original members, Hawkeye, Hulking, Wiccan and Speed, along with the new additions of Ms. America Chavez, Marvel Boy, Prodigy and Kid Loki.  

The team first appeared in the pages of Young Avengers Vol. 1 #1 (2005).