Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Hero of the Week- Black Condor (Quality)

From Wiki-  A Golden Age superhero who possesses the power of flight, the Black Condor was created by writer Will Eisner under the pseudonym Kenneth Lewis, and artist Lou Fine in Crack Comics #1 (cover-dated May 1940).[3] Initially alternating with the Clock as the cover-featured character, he became the solo cover feature from issues #20-26 (Jan.-Nov. 1942). Fine drew the first 24 stories,[4] and his feature continued to run through issue #31.[5]   

As an infant traveling with his parents on an archaeological expedition thorough Outer Mongolia, Richard Grey Jr. survives after his family is killed by the bandit Gali Kan and his men. Rescued by a condor who raises him as her own, he learns to fly,[6] as the origin story states, by "studying the movement of wings, the body motions, air currents, balance and levitation" of his avian siblings. A mountain hermit, Father Pierre, eventually discovers and civilizes the feral child, and teaches him to speak English.[7] Richard tracks down and kills the Mongolian bandits who killed his parents and then departs for the United States where he uncovers a plot to kill United States Senator Thomas Wright. He is too late to save Wright from assassination, and so begins to use his identity.[8] He adopts the guise of Black Condor to fight crooked politicians, rum-running bootleggers, and racketeers.[9]  And now returning to me:

I met the Freedom Fighters in the "Crisis on Earth-X" crossover with the JLA and JSA.  This was in 1973, and I was eight years old.  I had never heard or read any Quality Comics heroes, and my love of heroes teams was well into play at that time.  I really liked Condor's costume, not many heroes had bare legs- and still don't!  The Black Condor has been a legacy hero these days, and I am fine with that.
 

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