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Friday, July 31, 2009

Undersea Heroes Part 4: Pirana

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The fourth and final installment of our "Undersea Heroes" theme week, where we take a look at Harvey Comics' Pirana, and his two sidekicks, Bara and Cuda. No, I'm not kidding!

The pool for water-based superheroes was really shallow by the time Harvey Comics, desperate to cash in on some of that superhero heat thanks to the Batman TV show, created their own line of superheroes.

Sadly, all of their heroes, few were as silly as their own version of Aquaman, the heroic adventurer known as Pirana!
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First Appearance: Thrill-O-Rama #2 (1966)

Created by: Otto Binder and Jack Sparling

Powers: Can live underwater, can communicate with this two "Piranapets", Bara and Cuda.

Group Affiliation: None, though I'm sure he tried

Likes: Alone time with his Piranapets

Dislikes: Third-World dictators, rich kids who can buy and sell him

Fun Facts: Acquired his two sidekicks from a text story, in this issue, called "Meet Bara and Cuda, The Piranapets."

Sadly(?), unlike our other underwater heroes, never got his own title.

Sample panel from the above issue of Thrill-O-Rama:
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...ouch--smashed in the face with a hammer! No one laughs at Generalissimo Brainstorm!

Current status: Waiting for DC Comics to buy the whole Harvey heroes line so Grant Morrison can work him into a story.

Could he beat Aquaman?: Are you kidding? This guy couldn't beat Arthur Jr.!


...and that ends our Undersea Heroes week. Like I said, this week doesn't represent every underwater superhero out there. Maybe if we do an Undersea Heroes Week 2, we'll get to other water-based characters like:
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Abe Sapien
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Mermaid Man
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Sea Guy
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Namorita
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Marina
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Amphibian

...plus this guy, my favorite obscure superhero, Timely's 1940s-era character The Fin:
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I don't know anything about The Fin other than, judging from this cover, he looks like a lot of fun!

8 comments:

Wings1295 said...

Pirana is lame, but hey, at least they tried. I guess!

Would love to see the others some time! :)

Great week, Rob!

John said...

LLCF (Ladies Love Cool Fin)

Earth 2 Chris said...

Whoa, how did that hammer panel get past the comics code back then? It's the famous eye-injury thing right there!

Chris

David Cutler said...

I've always had a soft spot for Marina--she was raised in my home province of Newfoundland, Canada!

BentonGrey said...

I really enjoyed this week Rob, but yeah, Piranha is pretty darn lame. It doesn't help that his finny friends were pink....

Plaidstallions said...

Don't forget Filmation's Manta.

wiec? said...

the panel of the fat headed guy whacking Pirana in the goggles is probably the most awesome thing i've ever seen the entire week. thanks for that.

by the by i gave your blog an award. check my 7/31 dated post. congrats and have a great weekend.

Sphinx Magoo said...

Mermaidman deserves his own set of articles here. His original appearances make lots of fun references to the old Filmation cartoon series. Sure, he's kind of like a Mad magazine version of Aquaman, but the Spongebob gang tend to treat him a lot kinder than Mad might have done.

Plus he's voiced by Ernest Borgnine, so that's a plus.