The Top 10 Hunks of Shazam

Captain Marvel (1941-53) was DC Comics' attempt to circumvent the obvious homoeroticism in the 1940s superhero-teen sidekick relationship by making the two the same person.  14-year old Billy Batson transforms into adult superhero Captain Marvel when he says the magical word Shazam.

Which, by the way, is an acronym for the magical beings who bestowed the power upon him: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, Mercury.

It's all very silly, and it provides a new problem: how to give Captain Marvel a girlfriend, when he's really a teenage boy with muscles?  He can't very well be dating Lois Lane.

The 2019 movie has Billy (Asher Angel) turning into an unnamed superhero (played by Zachary Levi).  But it also gives Billy a sidekick of his own, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer).

And, in the absence of a girlfriend, they have a gay-subtext romance.

Plus one of his foster-home buddies, Pedro (Jovan Armand) appears to identify as gay when they hide out in a strip club and he says "not my thing."




The result is a pleasantly non-heterosexist superhero movie, which also has a surprising number of hunkoids in the cast.

1. Adam Brody, Freddy's adult superhero alter-ego (left).

2. Zachary Levi.

3. All of the other residents of Billy's foster home morph into superheroes.  Eugene (Ian Chen) into Ross Butler

4. Pedro (Jovand Armand) into D. J. Cotrona

5. Instead of a whole fraternity of immortals from the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology, Shazam is a single person, played by Djimon Hounsou.

6. Cooper Andrews as the beefy foster father to the superheroic crew.

7 Mark Strong plays the Big Bad, Dr. Silvana, who unleashes the Seven Deadly Sins (Sloth, Lust, Envy, and so on) onto the world.  What's with all the villains with Ph.D.s?  Part of the culture of anti-intellectualism?

8. The teen idol set is already familiar with Asher Angel.

9. Evan Marsh as the main bully who is terrorizing Freddy.

10. Landon Doak as the bullying brother who terrorizes a teenage Dr. Silvana.

The Top 10 Teen Titans

Remember the Teen Titans of 1960s DC comics, pushing together various DC teen sidekicks, including Kid Flash, Aqualad, Wonder Girl, Robin and Superboy (he's actually the teenager version of today's Superman, who is much older then Robin, so...oh, just go with it).

Turns out they've been doing the comic book store circuit ever since, with many changed characters, changed premises, and changed titles: The New Teen Titans, Team Titans, Titans, and finally The New 52, which appears in issues of Teen Titans, Titans Hunt, and Ravagers.

Yeah, that's why I don't read DC Comics.  Who wants to read a hundred issues of a dozen titles to get the story?

Forging a tv series out of such a complicated storyis risky business (really, who in the real world has ever heard of any teen sidekick except Robin?).  It was announced in 2014, went through the ranks of acceptance and rejection, and finally premiered on the DC Universe network in October 2018 with an 11-episode first season.  Most of the Titans are young adults, with some new teens added.

According to rumor, in Season 2 they are planning to introduce a gay Titan.  Bets were on Bunker, canonically gay in the 2012-2013 comic book series. But they have just cast Joe Wilson as Jericho, who has a long backstory of closeting: he was originally meant to be gay in the comics, but the authors changed him to straight, but in Rebirth he was bisexual, and...

I'm getting a headache.  Let's just go on to the beefcake:

1.Brenton Thwaites (top photo) as Dick Grayson, the Robin of the comics now retired and working as a detective in Detroit.  No superpowers, but very athletic.

2. Ryan Potter as Gar Logan, one of the early Titans, then a member of the Doom Patrol. He can turn into a tiger, which I imagine is very effective against bad guys with guns.I guess he's like Beastboy.

3. Joshua Orpin as Superboy.  One from an alternate universe.

No beefcake photos of Superboy?  Really?

4. Alan Ritchson as Hawk, a former prizefighter, now a vigilante with his partner Dove.

What's with all the Titans lacking in superpowers?

5. Curran Walters as Jason Todd, the new Robin.  You didn't know that Batman keeps changing them when they die or get too old, did you?

6. Elliott Knight as Don Hall, the deceased younger brother of Hawk, the original Dove.

That's it for the male Titans.  I'm disappointed.  Where's Cyborg?  Kid Flash? Aqualad?   Gnarkk the Caveman?

7. Lester Speight as Clayton Williams, a bouncer in a Detroit nightclub who is good friends with Dick Grayson.

8. Jeff Roop as Thomas Carson, a minor character.

Beefcake seems rather limited, for a series about superheroes.

9. Alain Moussi as Batman (uncredited).

Oh, right, I need 10.

Um...how about Brooker Muir as the Superboy body double?

Batman and the Boy Wonder

The Batman tv series (1966-68), like The Adventures of Superman and  The Green Hornet (1966-67) was based on a long-standing comic book series.  But only loosely. The characters were the same -- superhero with no superpowers Batman/Bruce Wayne (Adam West), his teen sidekick Robin/Dick Grayson (Burt Ward), butler Alfred, police chief Gordon, even some of the villains -- Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Louie the Lilac (played by comedy legend Milton Berle). But they infused their characters with a "gee-gosh" earnestness that the hippie generation found hilarious.

Playing along, the producers came up with crazier and crazier villains, as famous actors lined up for guest villain spots -- Cliff Robertson as "Shame," Vincent Price as "Egghead," Roddy McDowell as "Bookworm," William Smith as "Adonis."  Boxer Jerry Quarry played a boxer.





And the predicaments that the Dynamic Duo got into during their weekly cliffhangers became more and more ludicrous.  But what gay kid noticed, or cared?  They were tied up and struggling, muscles were straining, and you had to wait a whole 24 hours to see what clever -- or exceptionally lucky -- strategy they would use to escape.

Sometimes Robin was tied up alone, and Batman had to rush to the rescue, providing a "my hero" moment and the only buddy-bonding.  Otherwise Dick and Bruce were aggressively portrayed as adopted father and son, not as boyfriends, as they had been in the original comic stories (why, precisely, do they sleep in the same bed in a 100-room mansion, or need a cold shower afterwards)?

But what gay kid was paying attention?  Both Adam West and Burt Ward were pleasantly muscular.


















And both Burt Ward and Frank Gorshin, who played the Riddler, had extra advantages -- jaw-droppingly obvious even to kids -- that rivaled the enormity of Rupert Grint, 30 years later.  After the first season, complaints from the Catholic League of Decency forced them to tape it down.



Burt's  autobiography, Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights, describes his endowment in intimate detail, and it's also discussed in the Batman biopic starring Jason Marsden, but gay men who had grown up with him were already quite aware.  They had missed the plot details of any number of episodes because it took up the entire tv screen.

See also: Lane's Celebrity Date

Black Lightning is Back

Black Lightning is back.

That's the premise of the new Netflix series based on an obscure DC comics character from the 1970s.  The only problem is, Black Lightning has never appeared on screen before, so the constant references to past incidents and situations are all immensely confusing.  It's like coming in during the third act of a play, except there were no first two acts.

But apparently about ten years ago, mild-mannered school principal Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) became Black Lightning, lowering his voice and putting on an electricity-funneling suit, in order to kill a bad guy who killed his father. Being a superhero caused too much tension in his family (and family is everything), so he retired.  But now he's back, a superhero vigilante who literally does nothing but beat up bad guys and people he thinks are bad guys.

As principal, Jeff promotes a "respect yourself" and "make positive life decisions" philosophy to help his students overcome the drugs, crime, and racism of their society, especially police targeting of young black men (this is definitely the Black Lives Matter era).

But as Black Lightning, he's a throwback to the 1970s "violent thug" era:  all of these problems are caused by a gang, the 100, led by big bad Lala (William Katlett, seen here in the play Heat and Hostility, about two porn stars comparing endowments).

No, Lala has a boss, Tobias (Marvin "Krondon" Jones), the "albino" big bad who Black Lightning thought he had killed.  An albino in real life, Krondon tries to ensure that the show gives factual information about albinism, and doesn't suggest that it is responsible for Tobias being evil.

But it turns out that Tobias has a boss, Lady Eve (Jill Scott).

And Lady Eve has a boss, Martin Proctor (Greg Henry).

And there are probably a few more big bads in the hierarchy.  I haven't gotten to the end of the series yet, but who wants to bet that the Biggest Bad is the school lunch lady?

Anyone can see that Black Lighting is Jeff in a mask, yet he manages to keep his identity secret from all of his friends, allies, and family.    The only two people who know are:

1. Elderly tailor Peter Gambi (James Remar; photo from a few years ago), who designed the suit and has a secret connection to the hierarchy of evil;

2. Ex-wife Christine (Lynn Stewart), who divorced him a few years ago for no apparent reason other than to reconcile now.

Other characters include:

1. Anissa (Natessa Williams), Jeff's daughter, a medical student and high school science teacher, a lesbian, and a superhero named Thunder.  She's out to her parents as a lesbian but not as a superhero, which leads to her father thinking she's a villain and beating her up.

2. Jennifer (China Anne McClain), Jeff's other daughter, a high school student and party girl, who has superpowers of her own but hasn't settled on a superhero identity yet.

3. Jennifer's ex-boyfriend Khalil Payne, who is paralyzed by a bullet meant for Black Lightning and becomes a cyborg super-villain named Painkiller.

Well, basically everyone is wandering around with superpowers, except for Billy (Damon Gupton), Jeff's friend on the police force, and I'm sure he'll get some soon.

Top 10 Hunks of "Supergirl"

Supergirl (2015-) is a tv series on Netflix based on the DC comics character: Kara Zor-El, the cousin of Kal-El (Superman), arrives on Earth somewhat later and goes into the superhero business for herself in National City (Los Angeles).

Cousin Kal-El is rarely mentioned by name. Kara (Melissa Benoist) fights villains on her own, notably her Aunt Astra from Krypton, who wants to take over the world.

Meanwhile she butt heads with her two bosses, the media mogul Cat Grant (Calista Flockheart) and Hank Henshaw (David Harewood), head of the alien-hunting DEO.

And negotiates a relationship with her older, non-superpowered sister (Chyler Leigh), who also works for the DEO.

And ruminates endlessly over romantic relationships.

It's very complicated, deliberately silly, and entirely gay-free.  Fortunately, the beefcake is endless.  Here are the top 10 hunks of the first season.

1. Jeremy Jordan as Winn Schott, Kara's quirky bff and computer-hacking Scooby.  Jordan wanted his character to be gay, but the producers nixed that idea, instead giving him an unrequited crush on Kara.




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2. Mehcad Brooks as a beefed-up Jimmy Olson, here "James," a Pulitzer-prize winning photographer who has on-off relationships with both Kara and Lucy Lane (Lois's younger sister).

3. Peter Facinelli as Maxwell Lord, a hunky, fast-talking super-scientist who heads a multi-billion dollar tech firm, has an on-off relationship with Kara's sister, and alternates between villain and ally.

4. Robert Gant as Zor-El, Kara's father back on Krypton, in flashbacks and holo-scenes.  He hasn't taken off his shirt yet, but one can home.

5. Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, aka the Flash, guest-starring from his own series.  His bulge enters a room three seconds before the rest of him.
















More after the break.

The Five Boy Wonders of Batman Comics

If you think Superboy has a confusing pedigree, wait until you hear about Robin, Batman's teen sidekick.  There have been five, not including one-shots, fantasies, clones, and Infinite Earths versions.


1. Dick Grayson

In Detective Comics 38 (1940), Batman takes in eight-year old Dick Grayson, a circus acrobat whose parents were murdered by crooks, and grooms him to become his sidekick, Robin the Boy Wonder (not named after the bird, but after Robin Hood).  Comic sales doubled, as Robin mediated the grim harshness of the Caped Crusader and gave the kids someone to identify with, and soon every superhero in the business had a young boy tagging along.

Robin soon became a teenager, and fought crooks alongside Batman.  During the 1960s he founded a superhero coalition, the Teen Titans, who listened to rock music and said "groovy" a lot.

In the 1980s, all grown up, Dick Grayson decided to set off on his own as the superhero Nightwing.  Thereafter he and Batman occasionally worked together, and in at least one storyline, he returned temporarily to his Robin persona.















2. Jason Todd

After Dick Grayson moved on, Batman needed a new sidekick.  He chose Jason Todd, a troubled kid who he had been mentoring since 1983. Unfortunately, fans never took to the new Robin; after a reader poll in 1988 called for him to be dropped, the writers obligingly had him murdered by the Joker.  He later was resurrected as the superhero Red Wing.

3. Tim Drake

Never at a loss when it came to finding young boys to mentor, in 1989 Batman brought in Tim Drake, who had been a fan of the original Dynamic Duo.  But this Robin was not satisfied with merely hanging out with an old guy; he formed his own teen superhero coalitions, Young Justice and then the new Teen Titans full of millennials.

You may have noticed that all of the Robins look pretty much alike.  Batman definitely has a type.

In 2011, Tim Drake left Batman to become the superhero Red Robin, and retconned his past to insist that he had never been just plain Robin.

4. Stephanie Brown

A Girl Wonder?

Yep, Tim Drake's girlfriend (not shown) took up the mantle of Robin briefly. Then she became the Spoiler, then Batgirl.  Then she was retconned to have never been any of them.

5. Damien Wayne

The next Robin was Batman's son, raised by the murderous League of Assassins, and thus quite a handful when he came to live with Dad.  Eventually he settled down to fight crime as Robin, then Red Bird, before being murdered.  Or, in an alternate reality, becoming the new Batman.

But the thing about being a twink magnet is, there's a new crop every year.  A few hours of cruising at Gotham City Junior College, and Batman will be soon be taking the next Boy Wonder by the...um...hand.

Superboys: 70 Years of Beefcake Boys of Steel

To the non-comic book fan, it's easy.  There's Superman, the Man of Steel, disguised as Clark Kent, a reporter for the Daily Planet in Metropolis, and there's Superboy, the teenage Clark Kent, going to high school in Smallville.

But in fact there have been many incarnations of the Boy of Steel.

Superboy first appeared in New Fun comics during World War II, when every superhero in the business had a teenage sidekick to appeal to the younger readers.  He's the one who got the traditional origin story of the infant Kal-El being sent to Earth from Krypton, and being adopted by elderly farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent.









Originally around ten years old, Kal-El became a teenager for the Superboy comic title, which lasted from 1949 through 1977, with a new series through 1984.  Although his adventures should technically take place years ago, no one paid much attention to the timeline until the 1970s, when DC comics made the rule that Superboy stories should always be set about 15 years before the current date..

In 1985, as you may know, the many discontinuities in the DC universe were resolved through the "Crisis on Infinite Earths."  Turns out that the various storylines were actually about superheroes from different alternate universes, which were all destroyed.  In the new timeline, the only Superboy is Superboy-Prime, from Earth-Prime, whose "S" seems to be on his chest, not on his costume.













But that wasn't the end of the Superboys.

In 1993, a clone of Kal-El appeared, Kon-El, with the secret identity Conner Kent, Clark's cousin.   Later he was explained as a hybrid of Superman and archnemesis Lex Luther.  Clones, of course, must grow up at a normal rate, and this one promptly became a teenager, dubbed Superboy again.

He and Superman occasionally interacted for adventures, but generally he hung out with his teenage superhero teams, Young Justice and the Teen Titans.

He died after a fight with Superboy-Prime in 2005, was resurrected in the 31st century, returned to the present, and settled down to civilian life in Smallville.

Next, Jon Lane Kent, Superman and Lois Lane's son from another timeline, takes over the role.

Then Jonathan Samuel Kent, their son from yet another timeline.

But, according to Wikipedia, "Kon El's consciousness is pulled into a pocket universe (dimension) when Jon Lane Kent touches his Psycho Future Self with all other Kons and Jons of the multiverse."

Um....maybe we should just look at the pictures.

The Quest for the Shirtless Superman

When I was a kid, I read Harvey Comics, the Disney ducks, the Gold Key jungle comics, and occasionally an Archie -- but not DC: Superman, Batman, and their ilk.

Who could follow the never-ending story arcs, spread across multiple issues and multiple titles, with references to event that happened ages ago that everyone was supposed to know about?

Besides, the big-city settings were dull -- give me a jungle any day -- and who cared about battling bad guys?  Find a lost civilization or seek out buried treasure, something mildly entertaining instead of the constant zap! pow!

But the biggest problem -- the musclemen were never naked!  Tarzan, Korak, Brothers of the Spear wore skimpy loincloths, so there were massive chests, 6-pack abs, and bulging biceps to ogle in nearly every panel.  The DC superheroes were never shown out of their stupid costumes.

Logically, I can understand why -- strip Superman out of his suit, and no one will know who he is   You'd never know that this is a picture of Superman (actually Kal, from an alternate reality where Krypton explodes in the Middle Ages rather than 1930s, so the super-baby refugee grows up to be a blacksmith rather than mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent.  Got all that?)

But still, there's no reason why there couldn't be at least a few shirtless scenes.

Nope.  I just spent 2 hours on the Grand Comics Database, looking at the covers of  866 issues of Action Comics (1938-2016), 423 issues of Superman (1939-1986), 333 issues of the second incarnation of Superman (1987-2006) and the third 92011-2016), plus all 230 issues of The Adventures of Superman (1987-2006) ), The Justice League of America, Batman/Superman, Superman/Batman, and Supermen from Britain, France, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Finland, over 2500 covers in all.

7 of them show a shirtless Superman.  

That's 0.26%

Nothing at all for the first 25 years.  Then, in 1963, Superman agrees to fight his arch-nemesis Lex Luthor on a planet with a red sun, where his superpowers don't work.  He takes his shirt off to get pummeled.

In 1964, on another red-sun planet, a caveman steals Superman's clothes (he has a beard so we know it isn't really Supe).

Why the lack of beefcake?  I suspect it has something to do with the writers, who were typically girl-chasing heteros who had no interest in drawing the male form.  Or else they thought that the audience consisted entirely of 15 year old hetero boys who had no interest in seeing the male form.

No shirtless covers for 36 years, until, in 2000, Superman appears in a wilderness setting, his shirt half torn off, fighting monsters, with Wonder Woman behind him wielding an axe.  The title "Immortal Beloved" seems to be reflecting the Edgar Rice Burroughs story "The Eternal Lover," about a warrior from 100,000 years ago who falls in love with a 20th century woman who is a reincarnation of his ex-girlfriend.

Then 13 years passed with nothing.

In 2013, "the “Psi-War” epic begins! Psi-War erupts as Hector Hammond tries to take control of H.I.V.E. from its queen, but there are other forces in play as well, as a new Psycho Pirate emerges, and Superman is caught in the middle, unable to protect those closest to him."

The 3-D cover shows a brutal, scary Bizarro or Borg Superman, but at least he has his shirt off.  Note the "real" superman captured in the background.

Justice League 40 (2015) is about the Darkseid War!  The Justice League comes face to face with "the two most powerful and dangerous entities in existence!"  More dangerous than the Sun-Eater that ravages entire galaxies, from a 1967 Superman continuity?

But the cover shows Superman, Batman and company as strippers in a homage to the movie Magic Mike.

Earth One is a series of graphic novels set on an Earth that didn't participate in the mega-retconning "Crisis on Infinite Earths" of the 1980s, and thus is not limited by the continuity restraints of the new DC.  Volume 3 (2015) depicts Superman's battle with General Zod and romance with someone named Lisa.

Superman 42 (2015) has Superman fighting an information-skimming mega-crime syndicate called HORDR.  Also, Lois finds out his true identity, and he loses his powers yet again.

But a variant cover shows Supe drawn like a character from the Nickelodeon cartoon Teen Titans Go!, in his underwear, trying to pick out a costume to wear.

H's a cartoon, but he's still shirtless, so it counts.

3 covers from 1938 to 2012, and then 4 from 2013 to 2015.  Maybe things are looking up for DC Comics beefcake fans.

Check out the Shirtless Superheroes blog for lots more shirtless pictures of Supe and company.