A Total Attack of The Heart!

Welcome to part 7 of

Where the comic strip based adventures of The Human Fly slip into a Flashback for Blaze Kendall who rather shortly after being dismissed for being a woman by her Captain during her first flight as a co-pilot, finds herself in a life or death situation, As the Captain does indeed suffer from "A Total Attack of The Heart" In this next reproduced page:-

Last week I mentioned there was a another stunt that the real-life Human Fly that also appeared within his comic book adventures

This was announced in none other than the letters page ("Fly Papers") of The Human Fly comic, issue 5, January 1978, in which a letter from the real life Human Fly is printed:-

"We here at the (Marvel) Bullpen just received a letter from the (Human) Fly that we're passing along to you pilgrims out there.  The letter says that, on October 7, 1977, the very real HUMAN FLY - riding a rocket-powered motorcycle - will attempt to double a world's record by leaping over 26 parked buses.

This event is scheduled to take place at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada.

That's all we know as of right now, but if anything further comes along, we'll be sure to pass it on to you."

There's several things to note from this letter, the stunt mentioned was not mentioned at all in the CBC TV interview with The Human Fly (as seen in last weeks blog post) so one can only assume that this is the event for which he was having to train to the level of a athlete and did not want to mention.

But of course the main thing is like the wing walk, this stunt is very specific and should be very easy to prove or disprove…

So to start off with here is a photo of The Human Fly "jumping over 26 buses"

And it turns out there is a wealth of information about this stunt from the person who designed and built the rocket powered motorcycle The Human Fly used, so starting next week we will cover the first part of this!

TRAGIC TALE
As before I would like to remind you all that the following appears with very kind thanks and much appreciation to Bill Coffin

You can read the entire article here http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2011/11/07/tragic-tale and of course it comes highly recommended

Take it away Bill Coffin!

"While Mantlo wrote certain titles for long stretches, he never bonded with them so deeply that it prevented him from writing other titles. Even when he was writing monthly scripts for Micronauts and ROM, Mantlo was still doing fill-ins. “You gave him the call, and 72 hours later, you’d have a story. That’s something the editors grew to depend on. It was natural to think of him as a go-to guy,” Claremont says.

But Mantlo’s writing itself was also deeper than most other comic writing, especially for the time. Mantlo used comics as a form of social commentary, especially on topics that became flashpoints during the protest era of the 1960s. A comic series about an injured stuntman became an allegory for disabilities awareness. A space opera comic about a talking raccoon became an allegory for taking proper care of the mentally ill. A story about why the Incredible Hulk is powered by rage became an allegory about child abuse.

A lot of writers, including Claremont, did this sort of thing, but few did it as regularly or as effectively as Mantlo did.

“He was one of the writers who thought that comics should be more than just guys in skin-tight suits hitting each other and saving the world,” Claremont says. “He was asking, ‘What kind of a world are we trying to save? What kind of lessons can we impart to our young and impressionable readership?’ The trick was to find a way to do it so that you’re not preaching, but you’re also telling a cracking good story that will make the reader turn the page and bring the reader back next issue so you can have an ongoing and more lasting effect. Bill did that.”

NEXT WEEK:- Rocket Powered Motorcycles and more Tragic Tale!