Superman Analogue: Count Nefaria
90What if Superman but badman? Marvel has a few and a great example is Count Nefaria! He started off as your typical evil aristocrat that made a grab for power and actually got to keep it!
Original Thread: https://twitter.com/CaseAiken/status/1076610261237280768
Original Text: Today I feel like talking about the dark side of the Superman archetype. The unpublished original story, "The Reign of the Superman", featured the character as a villain after all. So today I'll be discussing Marvel's Count Nefaria
Nefaria started off as a "Dime Store Dr Doom" who battled various superheroes, sometimes with his own creations.
And he was the villain of one of the first big casualty stories the X-Men dealt with, the death of Thunderbird.
But he became a real physical threat when he copied the powers of Living Lightning, Whirlwind, and Power Man (who, btw, had the same power set at this point as Wonder Man, previously on this list).
In theory, this gave him a number of abilities, but he only ever really uses the generic super strength, speed, invulnerability, flight, and laser eyes. Eventually, they'd play up his shared power source with Wonder Man and Power Man (then, renamed Atlas) to streamline him.
As seen here...
Ultimately, this was all to give the Avengers a villain to fight that bore a striking resemblance to the Flagship character of their Distinguished Competition, down to the cape and big letter on his front. And when he shows up, it's going to be a rough fight.
So, while the core of the character is vastly different from the original, it's hard to ignore all of the artifice that makes him resemble the man of steel. A different person with those powers could have been the great hero, but instead he's one of the most dangerous villains.
Image 1 – I don’t know who did this pinup. It looks like maybe early Romita Jr., but not sure.
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2 – X-Men #22, Art by Werner Roth (Jay Gavin)
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3 – Avengers #13, Art by Don Heck
Image 4 – This might be Iron Man #8, with art by George Tuska, but I haven’t been able to read scans yet.
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5 – X-Men #94, Cover by Gil Kane
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6 – Avengers #166, Cover by Ernie Chan
Image 7 – Avengers #34, Art by George Perez
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8 – Avengers #165/166, Art by John Byrne
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9 – Pinup by Andrew Robinson
Image 10 – Thunderbolts #44, Art by Mark Bagley
Image 11 - Fantastic Four (2014) #5, Art by Leonard Kirk
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12 – Thunderbolts #44, Cover by Mark Bagley
Image 13 - Avengers #34, Art by George Perez
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14 – Avengers #165, Art by John Byrne
Image 15 – Avengers #166, Art by John Byrne
Image 16 – Avengers World #5, Cover by Ron Garney
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17 – Marvel Action Avengers #5, Cover by Jon Sommariva
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18 – Moon Knight (2011), Art by Alex Maleev
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19 – Avengers/JLA (2003) #4, Art by George Perez
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20 – Pinup by John Byrne
Music by Bret Eagleston - www.breteagleston.bandcamp.com
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