Here's one of the first batch of covers, right when I started taking requests. Two of the most obscure characters asked for were Ultra, the Multi-Alien and Mopee, and this was the result. I confess to knowing very little about Ultra, other than that he is kind of cool looking - I don't remember ever reading one of the few stories he appeared in. I smiled when I saw him make a cameo appearance on Cartoon Network's Batman: The Brave and the Bold Starro two-parter.
Mopee I think made only one appearance in an issue of The Flash. It was explained that he, a magical imp, in fact was responsible for the Flash's powers and the idea was universally found to be ridiculous by readers and creators alike... and so Mopee was never referred to again. I'm thinking that was for the best.
Ah, the Silver Age. There sure were a bunch of cool characters around then. No so many any more...
ReplyDeleteI wonder, is Ultra a cosmic version of Metamorpho?
That's a good way to describe him. This issues was so cheesy I had to give it a Whitman cover!
ReplyDeleteI was one of the very few that liked the Mopee story. Even as a kid I thought it was against the odds that lightening would come through a window and only knock over the correct chemicals to give a man superspeed. It would have to be someone from the future or another world that knew what to do to create the Flash. But what do I know?
ReplyDeleteAt one point DC retconned the lightning bolt to actually *be* Barry Allen converted to energy in his dying Crisis moments and going back in time to complete a predestination paradox. I really dug that, but they got rid of that in Barry's 2009 return, and who knows what the New 52 has wrought...
ReplyDelete@Ross, Cathy, and Dave: hence, the twenty cent discount?
ReplyDelete