He's Only One Man!!

Welcome to part 16 of

In which The Mercenary declares his fellow hostage takers "idiots" as they unable to stop The Human Fly, despite him being "Only one man" as this next recreated page shows…

And the unseen narrator adds "The Fly is the embodiment of the hopes of many men!", which brings us neatly to the point under discussion from last week - having established that The Human Fly did in fact get injured during his rocket powered motorcycle stunt, how did The Human Fly react to that?

This week, we get to hear from The Human Fly himself (or at least his representatives) again courtesy of the letters page of the Human Fly comic, this time from Issue 13….

"Dear Marvel,

I have been reading the many letters you have been forwarding to me with great interest.

I am certainly very pleased about the response to the comic series, but more than that, to the positive reaction from all you readers towards The Human Fly.  It makes me very happy, and inspires me a great deal, to see the enthusiasm and support I'm getting from Marvel Fans.

As you may very well know, a short while ago I was injured while attempting to jump 26 buses on a rocket bike in Montreal, Canada.  I found myself once again in a hospital bed, from where I am writing this letter.  This experience in the hospital reminds me of that auto accident many years ago in Ashville, North Carolina.

One would think that this second confinement would discourage me.  Quite the country, if anything, it is giving me more strength to go ahead with my hopes of becoming the world's greatest daredevil.  As you know, I want to help other people less fortunate than myself by donating a good portion of my earnings to world research and to charitable organisations.

My fans probably don't know this, but, as a child I was exposed to a strong musical background.  I have decided that, in addition to my daredevil stunts, I will pursue my musical career (which I stopped somewhat after the accident), I've alway been interested in rock music.  Its eels to me to have the same kind of vitality and uniqueness that I wish to project in my stunts.

May I Just say that soon you'll be hearing from the Human Fly musically.  I'll be going into the recording studio as soon as I am out of the hospital to tape my first album.  I hope that my friends out there, in addition to looking for my stunts and Tv appearances, will keep their eyes and ears open for The Human Fly Rock Show.  I hope to make people happy with my music as well as my daredevil feats.  And, as with my stunts, a good part of any money I earn through my music will be turned over to charitable organisations in whatever cities I perform.

Best regards to everyone.

THE HUMAN FLY"

The first, and most obvious thing to note about this letter is its distinct lack of obvious hyperbole and or show biz talk, whilst still, yes serving in some respect as publicity for what the Human Fly is doing next, the letter is written much more in a matter of fact way and has a degree of apparent integrity and honesty as a consequence…

The next thing is the fly himself does not clarify what his injuries was nor the nature of his actual accident one way or the other, but then he does not appear to blame "mechanical failure" or his own possible lack of expertise as being at fault either, no the accident just happened and thats all

The fly also does not clarify his success or otherwise at doing the stunt

All this leaves us with in terms of determining how much we should pay attention to the letter above is what The Human Fly exactly did following his accident…

Before we move onto that, however, I have to mention issue 11 of The Human Fly comic, take a look at the cover below…

The cover copy says it all, "A true-to-life account of the near-tragedy at Montreal"

So over this week and next, lets delve into selected pages from this issue titled "Silver charity, sudden death"

In the Splash page above , the "rock star" angle is used as framing device to tell the story in flashback sequence, with the singing being a method of expressing the anguish caused…

In this next page above - straight away the comic is implying mechanical failure with the rocket bike as being known and before the fly even starts the stunt, but the fly decides to go ahead anyway… 

Only to crash back wheel down onto a bus with security guards having to pick him out of the tangled metal wreckage

In short these pages are a almost a word for word recreation of the letters page article featured last week, which does not remotely compare to Ky Michealson's actual true life story in which there was no mechanical failure and the fly crashed on the receiving ramp (meaning he actually succeeded in his attempt and did not fail)

That in of of itself is already enough to dispel the cover copy of issue 11

But what happens after the accident in the comic…? Find out NEXT WEEK