One of the things that drive me crazy in Comics is to see an awesome character that is cool as can be and then they are only used in one or two storylines or underused if they are recurring characters. There are some powers on popular characters that could change the whole world and yet nothing is too far off from where we actually are. It amazes me when this sort of thing happens so here is a list of what I think are some characters that were underused or looked over way too much.

One of the first and in my opinion most important characters in this is the Marvel Comics character called Forge. Forge was a Native American who had a tendency to run with the X-Men every so often. Forge was cool as can be because he could think of some odd mechanical thing and his mutant power would kick in and he would know exactly how to make it. He has made huge weapons for the X-Men when they were invading Genosha to get some of their people back, he has upgraded the X-Men’s jet with stealth capabilities and space capabilities, he created bionics to replace one of his legs and an arm and even created a machine that had depowered Storm for a bit. So my question is this, why is this man not a multi-billionaire? Why are bionic legs and such not normal in hospital use? Why does the US not have BFG’s like this guy has made for the X-Men? Forge works with the US Government yet in the comics nothing seems to be all that high tech other than for SHIELD who most likely does not use Forge Tech.

Yet another character that has a cool history and some cool stuff but is so underused is a character called Booster Gold. The thing that drives me crazy about this character is that if you look at his back story he had the perfect setup to be a GREAT superhero. This man has an awesome super suit, a robot that can tell him all about what’s going to happen before it does and a flight ring among other great gadgets. Booster was a janitor and while he started off his super hero life by stealing a super suit and hopping a ride to the past he had a good setup to succeed. Unfortunately Booster never really made it big in fact one of his nicknames is “The Best Super Hero You’ve Never Heard of.” In fact there is a Justice League cartoon of a similar name that focuses on Booster and how he can do a ton of things and yet still gets overlooked because something else even flashier is happening elsewhere. Even with the help of a robot that has historical records that could help him stop things happening in this day and age he still seems to always come in second if not fourth or more. The best thing I can say for Booster was that he was a member of the Justice League International…however as that team seemed to be a team of second stringers that’s not saying a lot about him.

Speaking of the JLI the next person on my list is also a member of this much…ok kinda esteemed portion of the justice League. The next character is a millionaire and an inventor and one of the main comedic influences in the JLI along with Booster Gold. Of course I’m talking of the batman wannabe known as Blue Beetle. While Blue Beetle was one of my favorite JLI’ers it was mainly because he had cool gadgets in my mind and he was just so deng funny. The problem is a good punch line does not a super hero make. Ted Kord was a watered down Bruce Wayne in that he was a CEO of a major company and thus a millionaire. He was also like a watered down Batman in that he was pure human and used a suit and gadgets to fight crime. However Blue Beetle is nowhere near as proficient in fighting as Batman and while his toys are created by his own hands they tend to not pack as much of a punch as Batman’s. I would say the height of Blue Beetle’s career was how he was instrumental in creating solar powered guns to help defeat Eclipso in the huge DC wide crossovers that happened in 1992.

Heading back to the Marvel characters I think there is a duo that while they used to have a comic of their own they really are underappreciated for what they were able to do. Cloak and Dagger were used as a comic to help keep kids away from Drugs and personally I think they may be one of my favorite duo’s in Marvel. Cloak was a black kid named Tyrone and Dagger was a lovely blond girl named Tandy who was a dancer. Tandy and Tyrone were kidnapped and used as guinea pigs for some drug runners trying out their new drugs on some kids before it would hit the streets. These drugs interacted with something within these two teens and gave them super powers. Tyrone now known as Cloak is draped in darkness, he can pull people into his cloak and make them live their worst fears this effect seems similar to Ghost Riders Penance Stare. Cloak can also teleport through the shadows bringing people along with him. Tandy on the other hand is now a being of pure light and calls herself Dagger, while her light is known to help heal people in the throes of drug abuse and is the only thing that keeps Cloaks shadows from overwhelming his body it can also harm normal people. Cloak and Dagger are powerful players but they never really caught on. They had their own short lived series and did guest starring roles with Spiderman, X-men and the New Warriors but really never went anywhere.

One of my favorite comic books was the original Guardians of the Galaxy. What we have now is interesting but they have it based in the mainstream marvel universe namely Earth-616 but this was part of the Multi-verse before they started to do the Multi-verse thing and has even crossed over with our universe several times. One of my favorite characters in it was Major Vance Astrovik who was an astronaut who was trapped in stasis as he went to Mars I think it was, however by the time he got there advances in tech meant that it had already been colonized for a while and had a thriving civilization. Then enter the Badoon who invade the solar system and enslave all the planets. A small percentage of people somehow escape from each planet and band together to form the Guardians of the Galaxy with Vance being in charge. Vance is a telekinetic trapped in an environment suit and is eventually given Captain America’s shield by Cap himself. Unfortunately this version of the GotG did not last very long and Vance was forgotten…or was he? Advance things a few years and you find in Earth-616 a young Vance has received a visit from his future self from another part of the multi-verse which completely changes the time line of 616 so it won’t mirror the time line they know. Vance tells his younger self to not go into space but to instead stay at home and work on honing his powers. But Vance’s parents don’t like this so he gets beat up by his dad even though he could have used his powers to stop the man. Vance eventually tries to join the Avengers and gets shut down. Night Thrasher then goes and starts the New Warriors and recruits Vance as Marvel Boy and Vance quickly assumes a secondary leadership role since most of the members either hate Thrash or just don’t trust him. So why is Vance one of my forgotten, because like GotG back in the day New Warriors just wasn’t a well followed comic and the New Warriors slowly became laughing stocks of the Marvel Universe in my eyes until the day they all died for the most part to start the Civil War Storyline.

Pictures Courtesy of:

Forge- en.wikipedia.org

Booster Gold- Comic Vine

Blue Beetle- en.wikipedia.org

Cloak and Dagger- Comic Vine

Vance Astrovik- en.wikipedia.org