Comic book scientists are incredibly clumsy.
They spill or ingest chemical concoctions that would kill any ordinary human, but always end up granting
them amazing powers!
Such is the case of Harry Thurston, who developed a chemical that would convert
any matter it touched to water.
And, of course, he spilled it on himself, turning his arm to liquid. Thankfully, labmate Bob Blake used another chemical to revert Harry's arm.
Deciding to take things a step further, Bob Blake then had himself
injected with the chemical, making his whole body turn to water and using his force of will to control the level of transformation from human to liquid and back to human.
Like most scientists who gain weird powers, he becomes a costumed hero to fight enemy agents and crooks. Strangely, he strapped a .45 automatic to his belt when he first dons his costume, but never used it! (Whatever happened to Harry Thurston, who had the good sense not to inject himself with dangerous chemcals?)
With his ability to both
become and
control water,
HydroMan was a remarkably-effective crimefighter, as long as he avoided sub-zero temperatures which would freeze him solid (his Achilles heel!)
HydroMan never had his own comic, but he was the cover feature for the first year or so of
Reg'lar Fellas Heroic Comics. It is from this series that
Atomic Kommie Comics™ has created a new line of kool kollectibles for our
Lost Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics™ series, including his 1st appearance, and his 1st issue with partner RainBow Boy!
Note:
HydroMan was created by Bill Everett, who later went on to create some other water-based heroes for Timely/Marvel including The Fin and some little-known guy called Namor, The Sub-Mariner.
Oh,
him you've heard of...
Alex Ross has revived
HydroMan in
Project SuperPowers, teaming him with
PyroMan on the upcoming cover for issue #4!
Oddly, he's renamed
Hydroman "Hydro", even though the only extant Hydro-Man in comics is a seldom-used Marvel villain! (It's not unusual for characters at different companies to have the same name, especially if one's a hero, and the other's a villain. Example: The Sandman...a villain at Marvel, and several
different heroes at DC!) But I digress...
Pick up
Project SuperPowers, the best Golden Age revival on the stands today, and have a look at
our retro-styled goodies at
Atomic Kommie Comics™ (And when is Dyanmite going to do their own Alex Ross art-based line of Project SuperPowers collectibles? I'll be among the first to get 'em when they come out!)
Perhaps the first comic strip to be created as a military recruiting tool, Don Winslow U.S.N. was launched in 1934 to encourage enlistments in the U.S. Navy, which at that point had reached an all-time low. A clean-cut role model for American Youth, Don battled spies, saboteurs, and criminals on the home front, and even made brief forays to both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of war!
