Imagine you’re a comic book illustrator/creator/mad genius, and your boss gives you the kind of assignment you always dreamed of — the company has acquired the rights to a classic character and they want you to be in charge of redesigning him! In the 1940’s a dashing figure cut a swathe through the criminal comic book underworld, by the name of “The Black Terror”. Your task is to update that character for a relaunch in the present day. You’ve got the name and you have access to past issues featuring his exploits, but how much or how little of his previous incarnation you keep is totally up to you. Your only mandate is that the name has to stay the same, “The Black Terror”.

Are you imagining that? Well good, because that’s the challenge for this week! Come up with the best character reimagining around the name “The Black Terror” to win. This week I’ll be judging entries not just on their visual appeal but also on the overall concept behind your retcon; there’s more to super-heroes than just the outfits, after all. If you want to bone up on his previous exploits, you can find past issues at “Golden Age Comics“, although really that’s up to you.

Otherwise the rules are the same as every week:

1. All entries must be left as links to an image file hosted somewhere on the internet (ImageShack, PicasaWeb, UGO Forums, whatever) in the comments to this post;
   You must use some version of HeroMachine;
2. No manipulation by outside programs like PhotoShop except for basic cropping and the like;
3. The contest will run from now until next Tuesday.

Good luck everyone! I am looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I’d like to thank everyone for submitting new, interesting, and fun characters for this, the third “Patriot” themed contest I’ve held. I didn’t realize it’d been that many, so while I apologize for overusing the idea, I have no apologies for the quality of the artwork submitted. So hats off to you all, nice job again this week!

As usual, after the jump I’ve assembled the Honorable Mentions and the overall winner. If you don’t see yours listed it’s not a reflection on you or your imagination, just a limitation of size and time. Now, onward!

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(From “The Black Terror” number 9, 1945.)

I’ve long wondered what exactly it is that made Superman the mega-star he is when so many other characters from the Thirties long since faded away into utter obscurity (many of them found right here on these pages being made fun of, and what kind of life is that for a guy in tights?). Sure, he has lots of powers, but so did those other guys. And yes, he had a flashy costume, but so did a lot of the other crusaders running around the funny pages. Is it as simple as he was first, so he had dibs on the popular imagination?

Beyond that, though, the character has been through more re-imaginings and ret-cons and re-definitions than I can count, and yet his core still remains unquestionably “Superman”. So what is it that makes him who he is, with a seeming death-grip on the American public consciousness as “the” super-hero? So here’s the question I came up with to try and grapple with that issue:

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(From “The Black Terror” number 9, 1945.)

I’m going to be moving on to various background or setting elements tomorrow, so if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments here. I’m talking about various props such as chairs, tables, flooring, background walls, doors, fields of lava, that kind of thing, items that would surround your character and make it look as if there is an actual scene taking place. One such set will probably be word balloons, for instance.

(From “Kid Eternity” number 2, 1946.)

(From “The Black Terror” number 1, 1942.)

Under the theory that you can never have too much whiny sniping and carping, I wanted to follow up last week’s post showing how Rob Liefeld can’t even swipe right with another example, this time featuring the exact same character as in the original from Jim Steranko’s “Captain America”. First, the original and then Liefeld’s version:

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The HeroMachine 3 Alpha has just been updated with 39 new entries in ItemRightEnergy for all your blasting needs. I tried to include things that would work well when used together, so you’ll notice a variety of simple circular shapes and energy auras and such, so give the “multiples” setting a ride on this one. As always your suggestions were key to making this set work, so thank you for taking the time to post your links and ideas, I really appreciate it.

If you see something you don’t like, or don’t see something you would like, please let me know in comments and we’ll see what can be done. Here’s a quick preview of the first page of new energy effects: