Jab’s Builds! (Lawnmower Man! Samus Aran! Metroids!)

[Jabroniville]

HALF-LIFE (Byron Stark)
Created By: Karl Kesel & Paul Pelletier
First Appearance: Superboy & The Ravers #2 (Oct. 1996)
Role: 1950s Teen, Zombie Hero
Group Affiliations: The Ravers

-lol, of all the names for Marvel & DC to share, “Half-Life” is one of them.

-Byron Stark debuted in the second issue of Superboy & The Ravers, and was a 1950s teenager who was killed in the wreck of an alien spaceship along with his pregnant girlfriend and his family. He was brought back to life when strange matter from the ship touched his dead body, but he was reborn in a half-decayed, radioactive body covered in ectoplasmic slime. He vowed revenge against the aliens, but joined the Ravers team. He felt inadequate compared to the rest of them, but gained a fancy alien motorcycle in a game of chance and started to fit in thanks to that.

-Half-Life had Regeneration & Elasticity powers, and could shoot Ectoplasmic Blasts that burned anything they touched (like a Ranged Weaken probably).

[Batgirl III]

Okay, kind of a silly character, but you gotta admit this is a cool visual.

[Shock]

Okay, kind of a silly character, but you gotta admit this is a cool visual.

Looks like Atomic Skull sneezed on his back.

[Jabroniville]

REX THE WONDER DOG
Created By: Robert Kanigher & Alex Toth
First Appearance: The Adventures of Rex the Wonder Dog #1 (Jan. 1952)
Role: Rin-Tin-Tin Rip-Off
Group Affiliations: The Ravers, K-9 Corps, The Bureau of Amplified Animals

-Yes, REX THE WONDER DOG. This was not at all unusual in the 1950s, and in fact this book lasted a long time- 46 issues between 1952-1959, a longer run than any of Marvel's acts had during that decade. "Heroic Dog" stories were a big deal- Rin-Tin-Tin was a huge star during the dawn of film and numerous other stories like it showed up- Lassie was published in 1940 and a movie came out during the run of Rex the Wonder Dog, too. This was big business.

-Rex was a medium-sized white dog with super-powers- a government experiment during World War II, he gained human-level intelligence. He served in the K-9 Corp during the War and went on to serve in Korea, apparently being immortal as well (he and Detective Chimp came upon a fountain of youth and were revived permanently). I have no idea how much of this was in the actual book. The character returned to comics in the 1990s in Superboy and the Ravers, being spotted with the team many times. He was also seen occasionally in big Event Stories like Infinite Crisis or helping the Flash against Gorilla Grodd, but typically he's just reduced to tiny cameos.

[Jabroniville]

Amazo is yet another character that JLU took from crap to kinda cool. Having him being a seeker of universal knowledge and purpose with an axe to grind against Luthor gave him much needed characterization. His arc was handled so well, I almost forgot how much I loathed his DCU version, which your build reminded me.

I still remember watching the Young Justice cartoon series and being like "Oh my God! They used THAT Amazo?!" What a horrible first episode to see XD.

[Shock]

Dear god

[Jabroniville]

Dear god

Cultural appropriation. So shameful.

[Sidney369]

It's too bad Sparx didn't work out, since she's one of the rarest type of character in the DCU: a Canadian one.

[Ares]

SPARX (Donna Carol "D.C." Force)

This one left such a mark that the nearly identical looking Livewire was introduced only 4 years later in the cartoon and made her way into the comics and nobody blinked an eye.

Yes, but Livewire had a personality.

I mean, so did Sparx. Sure, you could boil it down to "nice girl who loved superheroes and the idea of being one", but since Livewire's personality was "snarky, power hungry bitch" , that put them on about the same level of complexity.

[Batgirl III]

It's too bad Sparx didn't work out, since she's one of the rarest type of character in the DCU: a Canadian one.

Wait, no, that’s not true there was Plastique, Dark Crow, Flying Fox, the Force Family, Lumberjack, the New 52 version of Sandman (Wesley Dodds).

Umm… Maginnis of the Mounties?

Okay. Fine. Marvel has more Canadians… But mostly just because that one schmuck with the weird haircut got inexplicably popular.

[Davies]

-Rex was a medium-sized white dog with super-powers- a government experiment during World War II, he gained human-level intelligence. He served in the K-9 Corp during the War and went on to serve in Korea, apparently being immortal as well (he and Detective Chimp came upon a fountain of youth and were revived permanently). I have no idea how much of this was in the actual book.

The fountain of youth story was, as you've probably guessed, from a "Whatever Happened To ..." story in DC Comics Presents, in 1981. In the original stories, Rex was able to think in complete sentences, but there wasn't any mention of any experiment in his first appearance. (His K-9 service is mentioned.)

[Ares]

As for Superboy and the Ravers, having read a decent chunk of the series . . . yeah, it was at best pretty mediocre. Adults writing about teenagers can often be tricky. Adults trying to incorporate things like "rave culture" into their book can just feel extremely dated and kind of cringy.

Which is a shame because the characters they used were fine additions to the DCU. Giving the H-Dial to a new user was fine, and Hero himself was a decent character adding some Hispanic and gay representation to the DCU. Kaliber as a heroic Qwardian was actually a neat twist, where in a society devoted to evil, a rebellious teenager is a fan of Earth superheroes. Aura was a rare heroic magnetism user with a legit dark past and had the kind of mean girls attitude Jab seems to adore (in his fairies, anyway). Sparx was one of the New Bloods who was a solid, usable character from the get go, and the idea that her family was composed entirely of people who had highly active meta-genes and would all develop superpowers was a fascinating bit of worldbuilding. And Half-Life . . . um . . . well, 4 out of 5 ain't bad?

[Ares]

-Rex was a medium-sized white dog with super-powers- a government experiment during World War II, he gained human-level intelligence. He served in the K-9 Corp during the War and went on to serve in Korea, apparently being immortal as well (he and Detective Chimp came upon a fountain of youth and were revived permanently). I have no idea how much of this was in the actual book.

The fountain of youth story was, as you've probably guessed, from a "Whatever Happened To ..." story in DC Comics Presents, in 1981. In the original stories, Rex was able to think in complete sentences, but there wasn't any mention of any experiment in his first appearance. (His K-9 service is mentioned.)

For extra silly fun, I'd make Wonder Dog (of the Super Friends / Marvin & Wendy crew) a pup of Rex's inheriting his dad's intelligence and capabilities.

[Ken]

The fountain of youth story was, as you've probably guessed, from a "Whatever Happened To ..." story in DC Comics Presents, in 1981. In the original stories, Rex was able to think in complete sentences, but there wasn't any mention of any experiment in his first appearance. (His K-9 service is mentioned.)

For extra silly fun, I'd make Wonder Dog (of the Super Friends / Marvin & Wendy crew) a pup of Rex's inheriting his dad's intelligence and capabilities.

Rex was used as one of the heroes who showed up due to the 1959 "Martian Invasion" revealed in Justice League of America #144.


When the heroes split up, Rex ended up going with the collection of heroes in the lower right-hand corner. It was the one canonical* appearance of "Wonder Dog" with the Super Friends. (Comic came out in spring of 1977, a few months before the Superfriends introduced the damnable Wonder Twins and Gleek.)

* - Well, canonical until 1986, anyway.

[Ken]

In many ways, Rex the Wonder Dog is the -er- "Earth-One counterpart" to the slightly earlier Streak the Wonder Dog. Streak was an adventure dog character who began as a supporting character in the Green (Alan Scott) Lantern book in 1948. The thing is, after DC dropped Alan out of All-American Comics (it became All-American Western) and they cancelled Green Lantern vol. 1, there were still SOLO Streak the Wonder Dog stories in a handful of issues of Sensation Comics. This was mid 1949. Rex would debut in late 1951 (Rex #1 was cover dated Jan.-Feb. '52).

Robert Kanigher, who was the writer/creator of Rex was also the writer of the Green Lantern stories that Streak had appeared in AND the solo Streak stories.