POP-A-LOOZA: THE EVERLASTING FIRST! Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), The Challengers Of The Unknown, The Dave Clark Five, The Clash, The Creation, The Creeper

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is an Everlasting First look back at my introductions to a mixed bag of rock 'n' roll groups and comic book superheroes: Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell), the Challengers of the Unknown, the Dave Clark Five, the Clash, the Creation, and the Creeper.

For supplemental reading on the pop combos, we have links to more about the Clash and the Creation, and the Dave Clark Five are the subject of pieces focused on "Any Way You Want It," Glad All Over Again, and even the DC5's influence on the Beatles.

(The above are not the Captains Marvel you're looking for.)

As for supplemental links to today's comic book subjects...I got nothin'. I've written about the original SHAZAM!-shoutin' Captain Marvel (especially here and here), and reprised the short-lived 1960s M.F. Enterprises Captain Marvel stories here, here, here, here, here, and here, but I haven't had much to say about the Marvel Comics characters that swipe...adopted that name. Superheroes don't swipe. Marvel's Captain Marvel turns up in my memories of the '60s Marvel Super-Heroes comic book series, and that's about it. The Creeper and the Challs are otherwise MIA on this blog, though both are mentioned in my fantasy piece "The Old 52: Imagining A New Pre-Crisis DC Comics."

Still, whatever else I've written about these pop entities, they're all on equal footing in The Everlasting First! The stories of my introductions to them serve as the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

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THE EVERLASTING FIRST: Quick Takes For C

Continuing a look back at my first exposure to a number of rock 'n' roll acts and superheroes (or other denizens of print or periodical publication), some of which were passing fancies, and some of which I went on to kinda like. They say you never forget your first time; that may be true, but it's the subsequent visits--the second time, the fourth time, the twentieth time, the hundredth time--that define our relationships with the things we cherish. Ultimately, the first meeting is less important than what comes after that. But every love story still needs to begin with that first kiss.

CAPTAIN MARVEL (MAR-VELL)



Yeah, the the original Captain Marvel was long gone by 1967, but continued pop culture references kept that fabled name in the public eye nonetheless. The good folks at Marvel Comics recognized the potential value of that name; realizing the name was not protected by any prevailing copyright, Marvel created its own Captain Marvel, an interstellar warrior named Mar-Vell. Mar-Vell's alien race the Kree planned to invade Earth, and Captain Mar-Vell was sent to our big blue marble to prepare the planet for Kree conquest. Mar-Vell ultimately rebelled against his own kind, and helped Earth to resist domination by the Kree. This Captain Marvel debuted in two issues of a comic book called Marvel Super-Heroes in '67 and '68; I first saw him in Captain Marvel # 1 (May 1968).

THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN



I confess that my main attachment to the Challs is that I think they make a really cool name for a trivia team. I also think they would have been a natural for a radio drama series: Four adventurers who cheated death! Four men living on borrowed time! These are THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN!! In the early '70s, I picked up a coverless DC giant that reprinted some early Challs stories drawn by the King, Jack Kirby, and those were cool. But I first saw the Challs face arch-enemy Villo in "Two Are Dead--Two To Go!" in Challengers Of The Unknown # 52 (October-November 1966). (Pop music bonus reference: the Challs are name-checked in the song "Challengers" by The New Pornographers.)

THE DAVE CLARK FIVE



One of my siblings owned a copy of the "Bits And Pieces" 45, so my Tottenham Sound adventure starts there. We also had some kind of DC5/VO5 tie-in, a cardboard Dave Clark Five record promoting VO5 shampoo, but I can't remember anything about it. (Well, other than the fact that li'l me, at four or five years old, would look at this record and point at the first three members of the DC5, reading left to right, and insist, "That's Dave, that's Clark, that's Five;" I think I was joking.)

I remembered the product as VO5 rather than Pond's, but this looks about right.

THE CLASH




A 1978 (?) issue of New York Rocker was probably my first exposure to The Clash. At a Flashcubes show that summer, I was chatting with Penny Poser (alias Diane Lesniewski), and she told me her favorite bands were The Who and The Clash. I bought The Clash's "Remote Control"/"London's Burning" import single...and, um, wasn't really all that impressed. The B-side grew on me, though, and I later picked up the "Tommy Gun"/"1-2 Crush On You" 45, and eventually got the domestic versions of The Clash's first three albums. I came to like The Clash quite a bit, but never quite felt the level of worship for them that I reserved for the likes of The Ramones and The Jam.

THE CREATION



This mid-'60s British Mod group was mentioned in Bomp! magazine's 1978 power pop issue, with The Creation's "Making Time,""Painter Man," and "Biff Bang Pow" cited as prime examples of power pop. So, y'know, I wanted to hear this stuff! But good luck with that effort. I started with a DJ at Tip-A-Few, an oldies bar in Syracuse's Eastwood section, but he'd never heard of Creation, and even if he had, he wasn't gonna play anything that was never a hit record in America. I finally found an import 7" reissue 45, combining "Making Time" and "Painter Man." It was at Desert Shore Records up on the Syracuse University hill; Arty Lenin, guitarist from The Flashcubes, was workin' the Desert Shore counter that day, so I bought my first Creation record from him.

THE CREEPER



Beware! THE CREEPER! Oooo--scary! The Creeper's debut appearance in Showcase # 73 was among a small stack of comics my parents bought for me to take along on my summer travels in 1968. I didn't know comics creators when I was eight years old, but I'm sure I'd seen DC's ads promoting this new work by Steve Ditko (along with Ditko's The Hawk And The Dove); I'm equally sure I didn't connect this Ditko guy to work I'd seen on Marvel's Dr. Strange in the pages of Strange Tales, nor Spider-Man reprints in Marvel Collectors' Item Classics, nor Charlton's Blue Beetle (the latter of which I didn't see until after The Creeper's debut anyway). Still found it all very, very cool.




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Our new compilation CD This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio, Volume 4 is now available from Kool Kat Musik! 29 tracks of irresistible rockin' pop, starring Pop Co-Op, Ray Paul, Circe Link & Christian Nesmith, Vegas With Randolph Featuring Lannie Flowers, The Slapbacks, P. Hux, Irene Peña, Michael Oliver & the Sacred Band Featuring Dave Merritt, The Rubinoos, Stepford Knives, The Grip Weeds, Popdudes, Ronnie Dark, The Flashcubes,Chris von Sneidern, The Bottle Kids, 1.4.5., The Smithereens, Paul Collins' Beat, The Hit Squad, The Rulers, The Legal Matters, Maura & the Bright Lights, Lisa Mychols, and Mr. Encrypto & the Cyphers. You gotta have it, so order it here.