Number 2063: From Champion to Champ, from Foreign Legionnaire to Human Meteor

Champion Comics made a title change to Champ Comics with issue #11 when, with that issue, Harvey Comics took over. The first ten issues were published by Worth Publishing. The Human Meteor also made a change. He started out as Duke O’Dowd of the Foreign Legion in Champion Comics #6. According to Public Domain Superheroes, he got superpowers when he met “. . . Wah Le, the ancient ruler of a lost city in Tibet.” I wonder how many superheroes got their powers from someone in Tibet? Apparently several.

Besides becoming Human Meteor, Duke became a cab driver, with a young pal named Toby. (Origin in Tibet, friends with young boy. Check those off your superhero qualifications list.) Oh, and he was half-naked. I have never known why some male superheroes showed skin, unless it was beefcake for a potential readership, or, maybe leaving bare skin, adding trunks, boots and a cape was a way of getting out of designing a costume. No one knows who created Duke O’Dowd/Human Meteor, so we’ll likely never know, although Human Meteor does look like an amalgam of some other superheroes of the era. As for his name, I know enough about meteors to know that most of them falling to Earth burn up in the atmosphere, as did the Human Meteor. After Champ Comics #25 (1943) he was seen no more.

From Champ Comics #11 (1940). Grand Comics Database lists no writer or artist for this story.

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