A Bird's Eye View of Ornitho

We return to our foray through the history of DC's 30th century ronin, the Wanderers, by looking at  Ornitho.

Source: Comicvine

Possible inspirations
As I reflect on Ornitho, it seems there might be several points of connection between him and other heroes.  Obviously, he is yet another in the ranks of the winged superheroes. Since he emerged in the late 60s out of a DC publication, I'd assume that Hawkman was the nearest inspiration. After all, Hawkman did have a syndicated cartoon on television around this time.

Over at Marvel,  the Angel (a founding member of the popular X-Men) had made his first appearance only three years earlier.

Source: Comicvine

A much later (and, therefore, correspondingly tendentious) possible connection is illustrated in Marvel's 1982 debut of the French hero, Peregrine.  Though Alain Racine's abilities were the result of his costume, as opposed to being inherent in himself, am I the only one who perceives some suspiciously similar color schemes going on?

Ornitho in 1968

Peregrine in 1982

A word about Ornitho's powers

Adventure Comics #375 (DEC 1968)

Pivoting from inspirations to power sets, I gotta tell ya:  there's a key element that just doesn't make sense to me.  I can see how transforming into a parakeet might help on stealth missions, or turning into a flame-breathing space bird could add valuable oompf to the team's punching power; but--at a gut level--there's just something incongruous about a guy with wings whose main power seems to be to turn into other things with wings!  I mean--what's the point of having the wings in the first place?   DC made a stab at simplifying/rationalizing Ornitho's powers during his 1980s reboot as Aviax.  Unfortunately--as will be illustrated in a future post--those "solutions" created as many (perhaps more) problems than they solved.


Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes #200 (JAN 1974)

Though, technically, the Wanderers appear in this issue.  They basically do nothing more than make a brief cameo.  The issue as a whole records the tale of Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel's wedding--and its predictable "crashing" by the super-villain Starfinger.

Indeed, there's only one (admittedly, now iconic) scene in this entire issue featuring the Wanderers...and I'm not too sure that I can spot Ornitho in it at all.  What say you?