Friday, October 19, 2007

1970's Flashback: 3-D Man



Roy Thomas debuted the 3-D Man during the 1970s in the Marvel Comics anthology series, Marvel Premiere #35 (April 1977), although his adventures were actually set in the 1950’s.

Chuck Chandler was piloting the experimental XF-13 rocket plane when he was captured by the alien Skrulls. When they attempted to interrogate him, Chandler escaped, damaging their warp star-drive in the process. The Skrull saucer exploded as the XF-13 flew away, exposing Chandler to strange radiation and the experimental plane then crashed into the Mojave Desert. As his brother Hal attempted to rescue him, Chuck Chandler disappeared, but Hal soon discovered that his missing brothers image had been imprinted onto the lenses of his eyeglasses. When Hal wore the glasses and concentrated, he triggered a dimensional shift that caused Chuck to materialize, however in this new form Chuck’s bodysuit had become red & green, and he found that he had triple his normal strength, speed, and stamina. As the costumed 3-D Man, Chuck Chandler fought crime and against the Skrull plot to invade Earth..

By concentrating on the image of his brother imprinted on his glasses, Hal Chandler could summon a super-powered version of his brother as the 3-D Man. This action would cause Hal to lose consciousness while the 3-D Man was active, and in turn, Chuck chandler could only exist for three hours at a time before Hal regained consiousness; causing the 3-D Man to subsequently disappear.

As his name suggests, the 3-D Man possessed three times the physical capabilities of a "peak" human male. 3-D Man is three times stronger, faster, and more durable than a normal man. His senses are also three times more acute and his rate of healing is three times as fast as that of a normal human. Additionally, the 3-D Man could detect Skrulls no matter what physical form they took via shape-shifting.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

3-D man sounds like a fundamentally more realistic character then most superhero's of the time, kinda nice to see a character who might be assailable by mere mortals.

Chuck Wells said...

3-D Man was later retconned into an ersatz 1950's team of Avengers in What If?, but the group was revived this year as Agents of Atlas, minus 3-D Man who was apparently left floating in the ether.