My heart's...a-far...for El-var

The final entry in our series on the Wanderers looks at the clone resurrection version of Elvo.

Elvar's Look and Powers
Where his original look wasn't bad, I have always thought the clone version--notwithstanding the thigh high boots--was an improvement. For one, the original yellow and purple color scheme was pretty garish.  It's difficult to pull that off.  Green and black are much a better combo.

Second--and I realize mileage will vary here--I liked the more elf-like look given Elvar.  I've got to believe that the morphological affinity of "Elvo" with "elf" was part of the inspiration. Elvar combines the tropes of both the snarky elf and the agile sword wielding elf in one character. The former trope is illustrated by other examples like Marvel's villainous Elf with a Gun (introduced in July 1975).

The agility and swordsmanship combo was, of course, well established in fantasy literature.  Interestingly, Elvar's uniting of the elvan swordsman with superhero tropes was aped by Marvel's Excalibur version of Nightcrawler who, seemed to be wielding a saber every time you turned around.  I don't recall that being a part of Nightcrawler's basic depiction prior to Excalibur.  The basic chronology here makes me suspect that Elvar may have inspired the changes in Kurt Wagner. (However, as an admittedly arm's-length reader of both the X-Men and the Excalibur, I realize I may just be ignorant of "the elf's" backstory.  Perhaps some well-versed X-fan can clarify the situation for us?)

Does he look like a refugee from the Dark Crystal?  Sure, but I submit that's still better than looking like a guy with a yellow beach bucket on his head.

The power upgrade made Elvar a bigger asset to the team and just a more interesting character generally.  First, he got enhanced agility. Second there seem to have been some changes in regards to the energy properties of his sword.  As noted in the post on Elvo, however, there's inconsistent information about the precise parameters of those changes.

Aviax

Straining toward a serious raison d'etre that's just out reach...

This week's Wanderer is perhaps the poster-child of how a promising rebirth of 30th century ronin went completely off the rails.

An earlier post discussed the Ornitho.  When "reborn" he chucked this in favor of the name Aviax.  As with Dartalg/Dartalon, I think the rebirth name was an improvement.

The costume, however, is  a different matter.  While Ornitho's original outfit wasn't particularly inspiring, neither was it a trainwreck.  When I was eleven, I thought Aviax's threads were cool...but as I said, I was eleven.  With the wisdom and perspective of age, I gotta admit that Aviax's look has not aged well.  In the first place it just looks a little goony.  (What's the purpose of those giant shoulder wing pads?)  The color scheme is a bit loud.  In addition to the gooniness, the costume is largely dysfunctional.  

Where most of the other Wanderers either got a new costume or a new costume plus power upgrade, Aviax got both...plus a highly-limiting weakness.  While Aviax gained the ability to transform into any type of flying creature he could imagine--in addition to those that actually exist, as he had in his Ornitho form--this came at the cost of having porous hollow bones (like a bird's).

Now when you think about it, that's a pretty serious weakness for a guy who's going to travel around the galaxy fighting.  Furthermore, if you know going in that that's a weakness then would you wear...I don't know...a few more clothes than this?  Maybe some kind of padded armor or something to keep you from constantly having broken bones?

At a more fundamental level, does this weakness even make sense?  Clonus is able to give Re-Animage the ability to resurrect people from the dead, but he couldn't figure out how to clone Aviax in such a way that his bones wouldn't shatter under a strong wind?!

But the greatest fail...the coup de grace of SMH moments came in Wanderers #12 (MAR 1989), when at long last Aviax is able to demonstrate his usefulness to the Wanderers.  In this story, the team is trying to save a planet of dinosaurs from impending extinction due a radiation cloud spreading slowly over the planet.   What's the solution?  Why, to transform into a prehistoric bird and have sex with another prehistoric animal so as to (supposedly) imbue the creatures of the planet with Aviax's own genetic resistance to the radiation.

Yeah.  I'm not makin' it up.  That was actually, a real story as told in a professionally-published comic book. If you want the last vestiges of your illusions shattered, you can read more about this debacle in Brian Cronin's piece for CBR.  But even if you don't, just take a look at the cover for that particular issue.  It'll basically tell you everything you need to know.

And the series was cancelled after the very next issue.  I know...shocking, right?

Dartalon: wearing weapons (and emotions) on his sleeve

In a previous post, we looked at who I consider the most-underwhelming of the original Wanderers, Dartalg, Master of the Blowgun! (See...don't you feel a little stupider just saying that?)
Anyway, our ole buddy Dartalg is one of the characters who most-benefitted from his clone resurrection.  Today, dear reader, we consider the most "prickly" of 31st century heroes:  Dartalon!

As mentioned above, it seemed to me that Dartalon got the best upgrade of any of the Wanderers.  He went from being a near-useless dude with a blow gun, to a guy whose body could generate its own weaponry.  His darts could either be fired as projectiles, or used as Wolverine-like claws. In addition to all this, he also maintained his earlier practice of treating certain darts with explosives, sedatives, etc.

His orange/khaki look was (IMO) a major improvement over the old frumpy green outfit he originally had. Given all of that, I'd have expected him to be generally pleased with his new self.  However, Dartalon wound up being the one who complained the most about how Clonus had turned him into a "monster."  I'm sure that spiky form set him off some...but c'mon.  He inhabits a world with characters like Blok, Tellus, and Wildfire. Dude...no one wants to hear you whining about how your really sharp body stubble is off-putting.

 

Wildfire