MORE COOL STUFF: Heroes and Hockey

Not talking about Gretzky, Howe or Franzen (though they are hockey’s heroes!), but instead, this is a focus on how the wintery game of hockey has found its way into the world of super-heroes.

One of the earliest examples was a foe of the original Green Lantern, the Sportsmaster.  Starting with All-American Comics #85, Crusher Crock waged war on the ring-slinger, and even joined the Injustice Society of the World.  Like any sports hero, he got the girl and had married the feline villainess, the Huntress, (a foe of fellow JSAer, Wildcat, no stranger to sports himself, as a former boxer) and together, the married couple produced the Tigress, a second generation villainess, who, with the second Icicle, menaces the Justice Society of America’s members to this day.  There was even another short lived Sportsmaster, who fought Gotham’s other hero, the Batman, and was defeated by the Manhunter (and, this Sportsmaster ended up in the Suicide Squad, and had more of a hockey-styled uniform!)

Another hero who took up hockey as a design element in his costume was Wild Dog.  Created by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty for an mini-series that started in September 1987, instead of using a bat to terrify criminals, he used military armament and hid his face with a goalie’s mask.  Central to this series was the mystery of who Wild Dog was, so won’t spoil the surprise, but invite you to find this series and play along.

But, leaving DC and heading over to Marvel, there was a character who adopted the entire hockey motif.  His name was Gaard, and he lived on an alternate earth (Earth-A, for those keeping track), where Ben Grimm had streching and flaming powers, Sue Storm was normal (and married to Ben!), and Reed Richards had become the Thing!  Our (Earth-616) Fantastic Four’s Thing and Human Torch ended up on that world, and had to work their way back home, and the only thing stopping them from getting to their goal was…Gaard.  Benjamin J. Grimm did indeed end up getting by this goalie (with a little help from Mr. Fantastic and Thing-Reed), and slight spoiler here, the readers discovered…Gaard was that alternate world’s Johnny Storm (at least Johnny is alive and well somewhere!  Gaard even had come back during the 1990s in Fantastic Force as Vanguard, losing a little of the hockey idea, and revealed to have destroyed the world of the odd Fantastic Four from What If #6).

Recently, the Fantastic Four’s co-creator, Stan Lee, in conjunction with the NHL and POW! Entertainment, created the Guardian Project, a loosely knit collection of 30 super-heroes (one for each of the 30 National Hockey League’s teams) that premiered in January’s 2011 NHL All-Star Game.   These heroes are fighting for tooth, just-ice and the goalie way, and more information on them including how to buy the comic detailing their histories can be found at their website, www.guardianproject30.com.