Hire Power

I wasn’t following Power Man and Iron Fist when their series ended, so I didn’t know that Iron Fist was supposed to be dead. I only found out about it in John Byrne’s Namor series where he was brought back to life. I’m glad he did because Danny Rand is too good of a character to waste.

Ape is Enough

An obvious Tarzan copy, but it’s also more than that. It also incorporates elements from the Hulk. Hogarth is a hybrid of a human and an ape. He was born human, but when he gets angry or upset, he turns into a savage ape. Just don’t ask how he managed to get the DNA of both species.

And his name Hogarth is obviously a callback to one of the most popular Tarzan comic strip artists, Burne Hogarth.

Bat-ten Down the Hatches

 

Captain Strong was a Popeye pastiche who was a recurring character in the Superman titles in the Bronze Age of comics, but I think he only had a total of four appearances.

While I was drawing this, I couldn’t help but think of his visual similarity to Bibbo Bibbowski, who became a much-loved supporting character during the Triangle Years of Superman. Was Bibbo inspired by Captain Strong?