Saturday, October 2, 2010

Golden Age Superheroes - Dart and Ace

 
Today I'm offering another hero from Fox Features Syndicate. This one is the Dart, along with his kid sidekick Ace, the Amazing Boy. Dart has a rather convoluted origin, having been a gladiator named Caius Martius, who was empowered by the gods with the power to "dart" - or basically fly - in order to root out crime. He was somehow imprisoned in a rock for 2,000 years, awakening in 1940 in a museum, which must have thought his rock was pretty enough to keep on display. He goes outside and immediately witnesses a drive-by shooting, which kills the parents of a boy named Ace. Taking the kid under his wing, the Dart decides that he needs to root out crime in the modern era as well. He assumes a secret identity of Caius Martius Wheeler and teaches Roman history (convenient that he spoke English - perhaps another gift of the gods) in his spare time, while with Ace, the Amazing Boy at his side, he battles evil as his primary duty. The Dart appeared in Weird Comics from issue #5 to #20 when it disappeared altogether. He did show up later in Dynamite Comics Project Superheroes. The Dart appeared to have a number of different versions of his costume - some with blue trunks and boots and bare legs, some with green highlights, suggesting a number of artists collaborated on the character. I chose to use the yellow and red version, which seemed to be the most popular. I used a Tor Biz Daredevil body with the head from a NASCAR driver (don't remember which one) on Dart and a Mattel Secret Wars Wolverine body and the head from a Toy Biz Robin figure for Ace.
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