This Day In Comics

On January 1, 2015, This Day In Comics released its first post. I began research on this project nearly a year before I started posting, so, to me it’s been with me a while. I started this blog because I love comics. I love learning about comics. And I love sharing what I find with others. And after 1461 daily posts I’ve decided to take a break. I don’t want to say this is the end, but merely a hiatus.

Before I go I will explain two things about each post. Firstly, the dates on comic book issues are sale dates, not publication dates. This means this is the first day the world has seen this book. Secondly, a sale date, especially on older comics, can differ greatly from the date on the cover. This was an old tactic used by comic sellers to sell old issues for months proclaiming them still “new”.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all of your interest, faith and wonderful support throughout the years. I wish you all the best. Now go read more comics!

Cecil is head of the Global Defense Agency, a secret U.S. government agency charged with protecting the world from planetary level threats. As a young agent, Cecil was held captive by a brother-sister team of supervillains called The Order of the Freeing Fist, who were intent on sparking a revolution by using a highly corrosive gas called chemical X to destroy an entire city. The superhero Brit was sent in to stop them and rescue Cecil, but was too late to prevent the siblings from setting off the canisters of chemical X, which Cecil was tied to. In the ensuing fight, Cecil is horribly burned and loses most of his skin. A few weeks later, Brit visits a fully recovered Cecil in a hospital and Cecil tells Brit that now most of his skin is in fact artificial, and the scarring on his face was the only part of his skin that was salvageable. Cecil chose to keep it as a reminder that failure of his job got people killed. Cecil first appeared in Brit: Cold Death (December 31, 2003).

Fallen Angels formed after Sunspot accidentally injured fellow New Mutant Cannonball, during a soccer game. The debut in Fallen Angels #1 (December 30, 1986). Shunned by his teammates, Sunspot left the team and was followed by the techno-organic alien entity Warlock. While living on the streets, the group befriended a young Korean girl named Chance, who had the ability to randomly enhance or inhibit the abilities of other mutants and Ariel, a teleportor that could turn doors into temporary gateways with her powers. Ariel and Chance lived with the longtime X-Men villain the Vanisher, who had reinvented himself as a Fagin-style mentor to a group of pickpockets that included Chance and Ariel. They were soon joined by Multiple Man and Siryn, two X-Men allies who were sent to locate the wayward New Mutants, and Vanisher's former star thief Boom Boom, whom Ariel recruited after a fight with Iceman. The group soon picked up several additional non-mutant members, a cyborg named Gomi and his two cybernetically enhanced psychic lobsters Bill and Don, and Moon-Boy and Devil Dinosaur, the later of whom accidentally stepped on and killed the psychic lobster Bill. It is eventually revealed that Ariel is an alien, from a planet called Coconut Grove, which had ceased to evolve and reached a genetic dead end. Ariel's superiors sought to remedy that situation by studying mutation in other species. Taking her friends to visit her planet, the team is captured by Ariel's superiors for vivisection. Ariel herself was then betrayed, as it is revealed that she herself was a mutant: possessing a persuasion ability unlike any other members of her race. Gomi, whose abilities as a cyborg were unaffected by mutant inhibitor fields, was able to escape his cell and free the others, and Ariel used her persuasion ability to convince the Coconut Grove to let them leave peacefully. Returning home, Sunspot and Warlock declare their intention to rejoin the New Mutants and leave the group, while Siryn and Multiple Man decide to stay alongside their new friends.

Katar Hol was the imperial prince of his home planet of Thanagar. He first appeared in The Brave and the Bold #34 (December 29, 1960). His father was Paran Katar, renowned ornithologist and inventor. When Katar Hol was eighteen, an alien race called the Manhawks invaded Thanagar and began looting the planet. Paran sent young Katar Hol to infiltrate their nest and bring back information on the aliens. Using this information, Paran created a hawk-like battle suit containing advanced technology like his "Nth metal". Katar used this hawk-suit and Paran's advanced weaponry to drive the Manhawks away from Thanagar. Some Thanagarians had learned the concept of stealing from the Manhawks. Due to the amount of crime, the Thanagarian government created a police force. In honor of Paran Katar and his achievements, the new police force began using his hawk-suit and equipment. Katar soon became one of the most skilled of the Hawk-Police. When a group called the Rainbow Robbers began committing crimes, Katar was teamed up with rookie Shayera Thal to track and apprehend the criminals. During the case, Shayera saved Katar's life, and the two soon fell in love. A few weeks later, Katar proposed to Shayera and the two got married, working together as partners-for-life in the Hawk-Police. After ten years of marriage and in the force, the pair were sent to Earth to capture the shape-shifting Thanagarian criminal Byth. During their mission, they meet George Emmett, commissioner of the Midway City Police Department, and told him their alien origin. With Emmett's help, the pair took over his retiring brother Ed's place as museum curators. They adopt the identities as Carter and Shiera Hall. After capturing him and sending him back to Thanagar, they elected to remain on Earth to work with authorities to learn human police methods. The two acted publicly as the heroes Hawkman and Hawkgirl (later Hawkwoman).

Chondu was once a sideshow magician before becoming a professional criminal. In his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #9 (December 28, 1959), he lectured on yoga and sent an escaped convict to Limbo. Chondu can perform intermediate magic as he is a adept in the mystic arts. In his monstrous demonic-like form, he had superhuman strength, flight and the ability to constrict objects with his tentacle-like arms. Chondu later joins the Headmen. Dr. Arthur Nagan transplants Chondu's brain into Nighthawk's body in a bid to exploit the Defenders. Doctor Strange defeats him in a fight and mystically places Chondu's consciousness in a fawn's body. Meanwhile, Nagan and Ruby Thursday carry out a series of alterations to Chondu's original body. His altered body is a monstrous, demonic-looking form with eight lampreys for arms, bird-wings, a horn from his skull, fangs, a forked tongue, and eagles' feet. His consciousness is placed in an artificial brain made out of the same material as Ruby's head. In this form, he had superhuman strength, flight and could constrict objects with his tentacle-like arms. Chondu attempts to kidnap a construction worker to use in a brain transplant, but encounters Valkyrie and is arrested by the New York City police.

In the alternate dimension he came from, Hank McCoy was a mad scientist and geneticist working for Mister Sinister in his breeding pens, intent on breeding more powerful mutants according to Apocalypse's "survival of the fittest" ideology. However, while Sinister was methodical and rational in his experiments, McCoy sadistically delighted in causing pain to his lab subjects and in the cruelty of his experiments, which is why he was nicknamed the Beast both by prisoners and Sinister's Elite Mutant Force. McCoy also experimented on himself in order to further his mutation and gained his ape-like bestial appearance. Any mutant that he deemed unworthy was turned into a component of a genetic stew that was used to create Apocalypse's army of Infinites. Besides being one of the creators of the Infinites, the Dark Beast also experimented on Blink, on Jamie Madrox, Impossible Man, merged all of the Power siblings into one hideous creature, created Tiger Shark, made Nemesis into Holocaust following his defeat at the hands of Magneto, and was also responsible for the creation of Holocaust's lead hunter Wolverine. The Dark Beast has the same superhuman abilities and intelligence as the main Marvel Universe's Beast before he underwent his secondary mutation. However, Dark Beast was not physically as powerful as his counterpart was in the normal Marvel continuity as he did not train on a regular basis, also being hampered by the fact that he is 20 years older than the main universe's Beast. While as intelligent as his counterpart, "normal" Beast seems to possess a larger spectrum of knowledge, as evidenced when Dark Beast was infiltrating the X-Men and became annoyed at the amount of knowledge the X-Men expected him to possess. This is due to Dark Beast specializing in genetics, while 616 Beast maintained study in multiple fields. He debuted in X-Men Alpha (December 27, 1994).

Not much is known about Kelda before the events of Ragnarök, she is one of the many Asgardians brought back to life by Thor after he recreates Asgard in Oklahoma. She is first seen walking alone, enjoying the Oklahoman night where she meets Bill, a short-order cookat a local diner. Bill later visits Kelda in Asgard, the pair quickly fall in love and consummate their relationship. After Loki successfully has Thor exiled from Asgard, he manipulates Balder, now king, into moving Asgard to Latveria. Kelda then informs Bill that she wishes to leave with her people and Bill decides to go with her. In Latveria, Bill realizes that Loki has tricked Balder into moving Asgard to the home of Dr. Doom and warns Balder of his suspicions, which are overheard by three of Loki's followers. The three follow Bill outside to confront him, when Kelda appears and conjures a spear made of ice from a passing winter storm for Bill to use to defend himself. Kelda tells the three that spear is poisonous and one cut could kill, which cause them to flee. She first appeared in Thor #6 (December 26, 2007).

Law clerk Lawrence "Larry" Jordan had recently graduated from law school and was an intern at the Brooklyn District Attorney office. Noticing the rise of crime, Jordan decided to become a costumed crimefighter using technology, and used his interests in radio and electronics to create his equipment, including a cowl radio system that allowed him to listen in on police reports and special skates that enabled him to travel along telephone lines. He was accompanied by an outspoken parrot named Static, who occasionally aided him in battle. His superhero activities were noticeable enough for a fictionalized President Franklin Roosevelt to request his participation in the All-Star Squadron. Larry Jordan retired from his career as Air Wave in 1948 and married Helen soon afterward. Their son, Harold (Hal), was born as Jordan continued his research into radio wave conversion. He first appeared in Detective Comics #60 (December 25, 1941).

Inspired by the success of Lassie, Willy Vandersteen and Karel Verschuere decided to make a comic strip series about a female collie. Contrary to the original Lassie series, though, it didn't feature any child characters and was set in the Wild West rather than the present time. Bessy was given an owner, Andy Cayoon, with whom she had many adventures involving cowboys and Native Americans. "Bessy" was first published in the French-language Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique on December 24, 1952 and translated into Dutch a year later, when the comics were published in De Standaard and De Katholieke Illustratie.

Sarah Hughes was a witch who gained her powers from being a consort of the demon Azzael, a duke of Hell who is Hellboy's "biological" father. Taking Sarah's body to hell when she attempted to repent on her deathbed within a church in East Bromwich, England, Azzael burned her away so their child would be born, and chopped off the newborn's right hand to replace it with the "Right Hand of Doom", a relic tied to the Ogdru Jahad. When the other princes of Hell learned of his actions, Azzael sent his half-demon child away while he was stripped of his powers and imprisoned in ice. The child is eventually summoned to Earth in the final months of World War II by the "Mad Monk" Grigori Rasputin on Tarmagant Island, off the coast of Scotland, having been commissioned by the Nazis to change the tide of a losing war ("Project Ragna Rok"). As a direct result of this ritual, the child appears on Earth in a fireball at what remained of the ruined Bromwich Church on December 23, 1944. Proving not to be a devil, in the traditional sense, but a devil-like creature, the child was dubbed "Hellboy" by Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm.

Many years after it’s creation the Danger Room developed self-awareness in Astonishing X-Men #8 (December 22, 2004). The first thing it does is convince Wing, who has recently been depowered by Ord's cure, to kill himself. The next thing it does is take control of an old, broken Sentinel robot and knock out all the psychics within the X-Mansion. During the Sentinel's attack, Cyclops orders Shadowcat and the students to go hide in the Danger Room for safety. While there, they find the corpse of Wing. The Danger Room reanimates the corpse and attacks the students. Apart from Wing, there are no additional fatalities among the students. After being freed from its prison, it takes the form of a woman. She is dubbed Danger and attacks the X-Men. After defeating them, she travels to Genosha to kill Professor Xavier. As Danger gained self-awareness and adopted a more humanoid appearance, she has shown enhanced strength and durability, create hard-light holographic projections that can affect entire areas, energy blasts, flight, the ability to rebuild herself after her body is destroyed and control over other machines. She is able to bring other machines into self-awareness and upload herself into other machines to build and operate new bodies. She also possesses more detailed knowledge of the X-Men and their combat skills than any other source, having trained against them as the Danger Room.

Heggra is the elder sister of Steppenwolf, the wife of Yuga Khan, the mother of Darkseid (her younger son Uxas) and Infinity-Man (her elder son Drax) as well as the grandmother of Kalibak, Orion and Grayven. All of them, including her, are New Gods of Apokolips. Heggra became the supreme sovereign of Apokolips after her husband, Yuga Khan, was claimed by the Source Wall in the Promethean Galaxy. Uxas began laying plans to claim the rulership of Apokolips. Part of this was following his elder brother to the 'Infinity Pit'. Drax was to claim his birthright, the Omega Effect, Uxas killed him and took it instead. He renamed himself Darkseid. However, he became more peaceful with the love of a good-hearted scientist and sorceress named Suli. Darkseid fathers Kalibak with Suli after marrying her. Suli's peaceful nature displeases Heggra, who then had Desaad, the chief torturer (who Darkseid had corrupted when he was younger), kill the woman. She is forced to threaten DeSaad's life in order to have the task done. Heggra forced Darkseid to marry Tigra, whom she admired for her hot-tempered nature. Darkseid goes through with this despite hating Tigra; Heggra's grandson Orion is born as a result. Eventually, Darkseid learned of Heggra's role in the death of Suli. Now more motivated to see his mother dead than ever before, he had DeSaad murder the queen by poisoning her, leaving him as the unopposed ruler of Apokolips. She first appeared in New Gods #7 (December 21, 1971).

When Joe Simon created his initial sketch of Captain America for Marvel Comics precursor Timely Comics in 1940, he included a young sidekick. "The boy companion was simply named Bucky, after my friend Bucky Pierson, a star on our high school basketball team," Simon said in his autobiography. Following the character's debut in Captain America Comics #1 (December 20, 1940), Bucky Barnes appeared alongside the title star in virtually every story in that publication and other Timely series, and was additionally part of the all-kid team the Young Allies. Barnes grew up as an Army brat. He was orphaned when his father was killed in training at U.S. Army Camp Lehigh in Virginia just before the United States' entry into World War II. As a result, he is unofficially adopted by the camp as a mascot. Nicknamed "Bucky", he takes to wearing a uniform and becoming savvy with the ins and outs of military life, even though he is a teenager. It was at Lehigh that he meets and befriends Private Steven Rogers, who by all appearances is the clumsiest soldier in the camp. This was at the same time that reports of the then-mysterious Captain America begin to appear in news magazines, and Barnes eagerly devours the accounts of this new hero. In 1940, Bucky accidentally walked in on Steve Rogers changing into his uniform, thus discovering his friend was Captain America and insisted that he join him. He underwent extensive training and was assigned to be Captain America's partner. The military justified putting a 15-year-old in harm's way by using him as a symbol to rally the youth of America. They fight the Red Skull together, and Captain America accepts Bucky as his partner.

The Director of The 1000 was a U.S. senator named Henry Ballard who shepherded the organization's new direction and goals. Under the Director, The 100 changed its name to The 1000, where it is attempting to expand their reach to even the Oval Office with Henry Ballard as the presidential candidate. This plan, however, was thwarted and The 1000 became The 100 again upon retreating into the shadows. As The 1000 they fought Booster Gold. They first appeared in Booster Gold #2 (December 19, 1985).

Basilisk is a mutant and a student at the Xavier Institute. Possessing limited intelligence and persecuted in his youth due to his abnormal appearance (bald, abnormally large and with one eye), the character is extremely aggressive. Once Basilisk's mutant power manifests, he suffers from brain seizures until given a device to help regulate the ability. A camera-like device is located in this socket that allows Basilisk to control his superhuman mutant ability to emit a pulse of high-frequency strobe light from his brain. The light paralyzes any sentient being that views it, with the length of the effect varies depending upon the willpower of the onlooker. He first appeared in New X-Men #135 (December 18, 2002).

Ray Terrill was told he was hypersensitive to light and exposure to sunlight would kill him. Privately tutored in his window-darkened home, Ray's most earnest wish was for normalcy. The media called him Night Boy. His only friend during his formative years was his neighbor, Jennifer Jurden. When he was 18, at his supposed father's deathbed, Ray learned his life was a lie. He was not allergic to light, nor did he have to live in darkness. Most disturbing of all, he discovered his true father was the 1940s war-time super-hero, the Golden Age Ray. The dying man admits that exposure to sunlight will activate Raymond's own light-based super powers. As a child he would have been unable to control such power, and thus had to be kept in darkness. Raymond eventually decides to take up the mantle of "The Ray," defeats the evil Doctor Polaris, and succeeds in dissuading the light entity from its destructive purpose. He first appeared in The Ray #1 (December 17, 1991).

Lena is Lex Luthor's younger sister. She celebrates her birthday on December 16. After Lex began his villainous career, his family changed their last name in shame to the anagram "Thorul" and told Lena that Lex had been killed in a mountain-climbing accident. Soon after this they were killed in an auto accident. As a result, Lena never knew she had an older brother, as Lex Luthor himself (with occasional help from Supergirl and Superman) worked to keep her from learning the truth.