Might of a Thousand

In 1993, Topps Comics relaunched Jack Kirby's Silver Star as a miniseries under the auspices of writer Kurt Busiek and artist James W. Fry. Though the series was canned after only one issue, Busiek has revealed that he planned to pit the hero against an army of 1,000 supervillains - many of whom he and Fry managed to conceive, reportedly reaching somewhere in the upper 800s before the ax fell. Here is a two-page spread from that first issue, showcasing just a few members (relatively speaking) of that planned awesome army of evil.

While I'm amused by the flying catwoman - who I'm pretty sure Busiek has said is actually named Kittyhawk - take a closer look at the pink blob to the left of the Lightning Lady. Yes, Silver Star just barely avoided the terrible might of a Barney the Dinosaur/Godzilla crossbreed! Oh, the horrors...

Don't fret too much over Busiek and Fry's seemingly wasted efforts, though; apparently a number of their unused ideas ended up in Astro City. Whether any of the characters here are immediate predecessors to Astro City villains, though, I couldn't say.

Sal's Sunday Punch #17

Hey there, fight fans.  A special treat today - it's Marvel's artistic soul of the '70s clashing with their hottest new heroes of the '90s in 1997's Spider-Man Team-Up #7, brought to you by Kurt Busiek, Sal Buscema, and Dick Giordano.

The scientific no-goodniks at the Enclave (creators of, among other things, Adam Warlock), have created a super-robot to steal stuff.  It kinda-sorta-maybe-if-you-squint looks like Spider-Man, so when it kills a security guard during one of its heists, the hunt is on for the wall-crawler!  This is after the Avengers and the Fantastic Four sacrificed themselves to destroy Onslaught, though, so who's left to bring him to justice?  Why, the Thunderbolts!  But, of course, as we know and Spider-Man doesn't, the Thunderbolts are the villainous Masters of Evil, masquerading as heroes to gain the public's trust.  Thus, they're really excited to have a good reason to pound on Spidey - especially MACH-1, who is secretly former Spider-Man punching bag the Beetle.  But while he and Songbird fight Spider-Man, his teammates Techno and Meteorite find the robot, and it's none too friendly.

Due to recent events in Thunderbolts, at this point that may be the present incarnation of this guy, mind-wiped and altered to resemble his past self...meaning this is the second time he's been punched that hard.