Friday Night Fights: Speedball vs. A Beloved Children's Television Character

And now, Speedball, the Masked Marvel, will have his face kicked in by Big Bird


...or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Your Friday Night Fight is brought to you by the letter BAHLACTUS.

Friday Night Fights: Speedball vs. The Malaprop

It may not be Speedball Week any longer, but I still have those copies of Speedball: The Masked Marvel, and I still have a stake in Bahalctus's mighty test of skill and wit, Friday Night Fights. Thus, the only logical course of action is to keep documenting the all-out hoo-hah action that only Steve Ditko can provide:

Unfortunately, Steve's hoo-hah is completed negated by Roger Stern's jarring script error (or Jack Morelli's lettering goof):

Yar! Cap'n, thar be whales here!

Hey, hey - I know it sounds silly, but hey, everyone makes a mistake every once in a while. You don't have to be so harsh about it.

Especially when you're such a bonehead.

(Speedball faces his grammar demons in Speedball: The Masked Marvel #8)

Speedball vs. The War on Crime

Speedball didn't exactly have the most impressive Rogues' Gallery. He fought a man in a rat mask who was trying to shoot cats, once. His main antagonist was actually Niels, a cat who was caught in the same "experiment gone awry" that turned Robbie Baldwin into Speedball. Speedball hoped to catch Niels and then - I don't know, use his mastery of science to figure out how to get rid of his kinetic powers.

None of his enemies really posed a believable threat to Robbie Baldwin, but for a kid who's only ability is bouncing off the walls whenever somebody hits him real hard, he racked up quite the impressive kill-count. Only Golden Age Batman could match the rate at which Robbie Baldwin was knockin' off scum-bags.

Speedball: The Masked Marvel only ran for 10 issues, but that was enough for Baldwin, a man who would soon lose his shit over indirectly causing the death of 600 civilians when a bad-guy went nuclear, to put a disproportionate number of evil men in their graves.

Speedball doesn't wait, either: he gets started right off the bat, in Speedball: The Masked Marvel #1. In Speedball's origin story, a group of masked crooks set out to rob the Hammond Research Lab of Springdale, Connecticut, where young Robbie Baldwin has been employed as the weekend (and, evidently, night) office bitch. After the accident that turns him into Speedball, Baldwin heads to the roof of the lab to hide his condition, and encounters the thieves trying to enter from the top. After a short fight which serves as a showcase for Baldwin's new-found kinetic powers, the thieves are pursued in their getaway van by the police, who waste no time in delivering justice:


Springdale justice.

Sure, that one was the fault of the police more than it was Speedball's, but if Speedball hadn't been there, they probably would have gotten away scot-free - and alive. Now, don't get me wrong - I hardly sympathize with the crooks, here. I'm just saying that there's very little difference between criminals crashing their van in an effort to get away, and Nitro blowing up a couple city blocks in an effort to kill the New Warriors during Civil War. The criminals are responsible for the deaths, Robbie, not Speedball. They became guilty when they chose a life of crime.

But let's move on, shall we?

Remorseless Kill Number 2:

In Speedball: The Masked Marvel #2, a man called Foxworth has stolen the "magnetic glue" formula from Dr. Sol Haven (which just screams "Steve Ditko named me"), and murdered him in an attempt to steal the files necessary to gain legal ownership of the discovery. If you've read Ditko's "Question" stories for Charlton, or his independent "Static" series, then this villain will sound familiar to you - he's the parasite who couldn't come up with an idea on his own, so he steals one to acquire fame and fortune. Too bad these types of villains are typically nothing without their stolen technology.

Dr. Benson, Robbie's boss at the Hammond Lab, just happens to be sending the very files that Foxworth is looking for back to Haven, so he sends Robbie to deliver them. When Foxworth has his lackey take the files and push Baldwin down the stairs in an attempt to kill him, his kinetic powers kick in and he sets out to kick Foxworth's mooching ass. Tracking him to an old button factory (Springdale used to be the button-making capital of the world until China liberalized it's economy - true fact), Foxworth gets the upper-hand by using his goo-suit to stick to anything Robbie throws at him - including Robbie himself!

Alas, Robbie is smarter than he looks - and realizes that without the suit, Foxworth is nothing. So he takes his helmet off.


And with that, Robbie Baldwin has now achieved the prerequisite number of kills to become a double-o agent.

As an aside, I want to mention that this would have been a great recurring villain for Robbie - Speedball is essentially rubber, and Foxworth has a suit that's essentially glue. The concept is little too limited to provide for any real variety in their encounters, but Foxworth is the only villain in the short-lived series to ever really give Robbie any trouble at all.

To recap: we've now seen two issues of Speedball, and it's 2 for 2 when it comes to featuring stories where the criminals pay the ultimate price. How many more filthy criminals will bite the dust in the next 8 issues of Speedball: The Masked Marvel? Tune in tomorrow for Part 2!

Geoff Johns Writes Comics Just For Me

Proof?


That is a page from Booster Gold #6 that features the Dan Garret Blue Beetle; the Jaime Reyes Blue Beetle; a Blue Beetle from the future; Booster Gold; Batman; Sherlock Holmes; the Elongated Man; Jack MOTHERFUCKING Knight; and just to put the exclamation point on it, the Steve Ditko version of Shade, the Changing Man.

EDIT, January 14: Oh yeah, and did I mention that they're all going to go bring Ted Kord back to life?

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the greatest man alive:

Friday Night Fights: Black & White

Happy 80 years of ass-kicking, Ditko!



Sorry... Mr. Ditko.

Anything particular you'd like to be called, Mr. Bahlactus?

(The first Mr. A story is from Witzend #3)

That Is The Question

This is one of the most well-done pieces of fan-film I've ever seen, especially considering that it only contains re-used footage from "Justice League: Unlimited." Who wouldn't kill (only in self-defense, mind you) for a "Question" series?