The Human Falcon: he's fantastic!

You may remember my run-down on The Martian Manhunter's rogue's gallery a short 18 years ago, in which we met the malevolent Human Falcon.  I discovered how severely this piqued everyone's interest and for the last 18 years I have been pestered EVERY DAY by someone wanting me to discuss the Human Falcon IN DEPTH.

Okay, fine. Perhaps not EVERY day.

Let's get some background on the HF from his hype-man, the editor.

He is bizarre, but he is not winged.
It's really impressive just HOW untrue this all is.

The speed of a hawk! Well, he has a plane.  

A FALCONplane, mind you.  Branding matters.

The strength of an eagle!  Okay, I will cede this point, since the splash panel suggests that the Falcon can with one hand lift a giant cage with a giant golden eagle in it WHILE hanging from a thread with the other hand.

And he's holding it OVERHAND, like he's palming a basketball.
It's abnormal.

I mean, even J'onn J'onzz can do nothing!  But that's really MM's thing, isn't it: he's all-powerful yet always believes himself incapable of stopping some mook in a business suit.

The wile of an owl! Well, we'll just see about that, won't we?

It starts, as so many interesting stories in the '50s do, with a gaggle of girl dancers backstage at a TV studio.

This is in the same vein as a priceless folio of famous parasols.

I am trying to imagine myself as a collector of priceless plumes, which is odd even for a comic book citizen. I mean, I know the Sims can collect bird feathers, but comic citizens?  

Anyway, I am a Priceless Plume Collector and Roy Raymond there calls me up and says:

"Can we borrow your priceless bird-of-parade plumes? It's for a good cause: television!"

So, I say: "Fantastic! Glorious! I'm floating with ecstasy!" because in those days being on television, which was sort of primitive version of YouTube, was a really big deal. And, after all, what could possibly go wrong?

Let's find out.

Look! Up in the sky! It's... a bird! Metaphorically.

By the way, those are clearly ostrich feathers (the traditional plumes used by female dancers) rather than the much smaller (but more valuable) plumes of a bird-of-paradise, but I'm not going to go there.

Now, you may not think you'd be afraid or even startled by a man in a suit wearing an owl-head. But if you think that, you probably have never seen the Aussie horror film "Stage Fright".

Trust me; such a person would scare you.

Gotta hand it to '50s villains: their commitment to the strictures of contemporary couture while still trying to be intimidating is impressive.  They WILL wear a normal suit but you WILL still fear them.

Anyway, TV studio guards in the 1950s were no creampuffs and they pursue this animal-headed loon without hesitation, dedicated to earning their minimum wage, with which they support a mortgage and a family of five.  

Their plan is to simply shoot his gas tank with the pistols that, you know, all '50s TV studio guards carried.  They are already smarter than Detective John Jones.

Unfortunately mere TV studio guards are not up to the challenge of the Falcon's owlish wiles:

Like he's Speed Saunders, the Falcon whirs about on his pursuers and confronts them.  The best defense is a good bird-feather bazooka offense.

Bird-feather bazooka is next-level thematic weaponry; I can't believe the Penguin never used one.  Naturally, this unbeatable weapon is nearly FATAL for the guards, and Detective John Jones must abandon his own pursuit of the Human Falcon in order to save their lives.

If only J'onn had the ability to fly. Which he doesn't. It's the only ability he DOESN'T have, really. I mean, except for telepathy, which he also doesn't have.

To do so, he must become his Martian self (because at that point, he could not use his Martian powers while in his human form).  But he's also invisible, which does not prevent him from using his powers.  Later, writers would realize that, if he could do THAT, there was NEVER any reason for him to become visible while using his powers.  So they also made it that he couldn't use any other powers while invisible. It's almost as if there were a growing recognition that J'onn's endless panoply of powers made him unwritable.

Naturally, he solves the problem with Mars-halation, his favorite long-distance power (and second favorite overall power).

Now, it's possible that this entire incident seems a bit familiar.  That's because it is nearly identical to an incident in the famous "Mr. Moth" story, where an animal-headed villain in a business suit escapes to his plane after a robbery and uses a device to blind pursuing authorities who must then be saved by Martian Manhunter before they wreck their vehicle.  This is because this "The Falcon" story (March 1959) is entirely re-run beat-for-beat exactly one year later as the "Mr. Moth" story (March 1960).

But at this point, this sort of incident is so unprecedented that it actually moves Apex City's Police Captain Harding to STAND UP.

Something the not-easily-moved Harding does not do lightly.
At his size, Captain Harding doesn't do ANYTHING "lightly".

Tomorrow: The Martian Manhunter versus a lion, because what could be more thematic in a Human Falcon story than a rampaging lion.