Karate Spears

Karate Spears

Created by Chuck Spears

Real Name:  Karate Spears

Alias:  Interstellar Ninja

Current Occupation:  Mercenary

Parents:  Unnamed

Siblings:  Charles Spearing Senior, Brian Spearing

Spouse:  None

Children:  None

Group Affiliation:  Powerkid Haters, Bad Guys

Place of Birth:  Earth-K

Current Place of Residence:  Orange City

First Appearance:  Powerkid # 1, September 1982

Biography:

In an alternate reality, life on Earth had evolved differently, in a warrior culture where only the mightiest warriors ruled.  In the late 20th century, Karate Spears was that warrior ruler.  However, Spears grew bored with no challenges to his rule, and sought to find one elsewhere.

Despite being a very uncivilized world, they were much more technologically advanced, and Karate Spears used a device that allowed him to view alternate Earths to find a challenge.  He came across the universe of Powerkid, and found Powerkid to be a worthy opponent.

To that end, he came to Orange City and found Powerkid, and began attacking him.  Powerkid and Karate Spears at first seemed evenly matched, but it turned out that Powerkid began weakening because Spears was using a power draining device called Apple Crisp on the hero.

Mustering the last of his energy, Powerkid fled.  Karate Spears had given Powerkid the clue on who to seek out for aid.  When Spears revealed he was from another Earth, this let Powerkid know that he multiverse was real, just like in his comics.  He had previously used the Forbidden Forest as a portal to travel through time and to other weird dimensions, so likely he could do so to travel to alternate Earths, and he did just that.

In the meantime, Spears gloated over his victory, and threatened to keep destroying the city until Powerkid returned to face his demise.  But Spears didn't have to wait too long when both a red and a blue streak came towards him, and Spears found himself toppled over by both Powerkid and Superman!!!  (Even though there was two Supermen in the Wronskiverse at this time, they operated in secret and Powerkid was not aware of their existence, thus he traveled to another reality to get their Superman.)

The two defeated the villain, who teleported back to his own world.

Humiliated, Spears had to redeem himself (especially since on his world, weakness was surely a sign that he was unfit to rule and easy to kill.)  Over the next few years, Spears constantly tried to kill Powerkid and failed each time.  Eventually, he became a constant foe of Zap and the Powerkid Police as well.  Karate Spears eventually found it in his best interest to form a lasting alliance with Doctor Deadly, the evil ageless ruler of Death Planet.  He also joined a team of Powerkid's greatest foes called the Powerkid Haters.

During the Crisis on Infinite Earths, everything changed.  The wave of antimattter and the environmental damage were combining to tear Karate Spears' Earth apart, and only with the aid of Powerkid was it saved, when Powerkid actually moved the planet out of that doomed reality and into an orbit between Death Planet and Booer.  Overcome by the generosity of a hero who he's tried to kill dozens of times, Spears redefined in his mind what makes a warrior, and vowed that his world, renamed Kearth, would never do harm to Powerkid or Earth ever again.

That would be Spears' undoing.  One of Spears' top aids, General Leers, was able to convince the public that their leader's newfound outlook was weakness, and toppled the government and assumed control.  Leers did not slay Spears, however, as Spears still had a large following, and instead locked him away in a dungeon.

Eventually Leers himself was killed and replaced by Spearon, and a decade passed with Spears locked away, until he eventually escaped and fled to Earth, where he began operating as a super-hero called the Interstellar Ninja.  A few years later, a mutant named Adam took over the Earth, and aliens were all deported, including Spears.  Spears recently returned to Earth, and joined a team of mercenaries that consisted of reformed super villains called the Bad Guys.  He currently works this this team going around the world helping people in need.

Comments:

Karate Spears has the distinction of being the first Powerkid foe, and replaced the Lightning Kid as Powerkid's primary foe.  The character was created by my then neighbor Chuck Spears.  He was creatively involved in almost all Karate Spears stories from 1982 - 1985.

Ironically, as my friendship with Chuck was ending, I did the reverse for the characters.  Karate Spears' final appearance was in 1985's The Crisis Within, until I brought him back in 1994 in the Powerman series.  Karate Spears appeared a few times as the Interstellar Ninja between 1994 - 1995, then again stopped appearing until 2008 when he was brought back in Crisis, and is now a team member of the Bad Guys, which is published monthly.

Krusher I

Krusher I

Created by Robert E. Wronski, Jr, Phil Sheridan, and Ken Maxwell

Real Name:  Ken Madison

Alias:  Mad Dog Madison (his high school nick name)

Current Occupation:  Mercenary

Parents:  Unnamed

Siblings:  None

Spouse:  None

Children:  Olive Madison

Group Affiliation:  Powerkid Haters, Seven Deadly Sins, Bad Guys

Place of Birth:  Orange City

Current Place of Residence:  Orange City

First Appearance:  Powerkid # 25, September 1984

Biography:

Ken Madison enlisted into the Marines in 1984 at the age of 18 immediately after graduation.  After Boot Camp, he ended up being assigned to an installation in Greenfield, where he had the misfortune of walking in on Colonel Peterson murdering a man.  Peterson arranged for Private Madison to be framed for the murder, but then offered his charges to be erased if he took part in an experiment.  The experiment was part of Project:  Franklin, which was a super-soldier program.

Madison was irradiated with some mysterious energy (which may have been of alien origin).  The result was that Madison gained the ability to absorb power and energy, making him stronger and invulnerable.  In some cases, he could even absorb super-powers, draining the super-powered being and being able to temporarily use those powers himself. Unfortunately, the more power Madison contained, the more his mind degraded to a savage state of being.

Madison broke free and began rampaging through Greenfield on his way back to Orange City. It was in Orange City where it took the combination of Powerkid, Zap, and Speed Demon to stop Krusher, as Madison was calling himself.

However, the Super-Trio didn't use their physical powers to stop him, as that was impossible.  Any powers they used were just absorbed and used against them.  Powerkid, Zap, and Speed Demon had to combine their mental powers to give Madison amnesia.  The government, wishing to not be linked to this, left the amnesiac alone, and Madison got a job working as a janitor at Mahar High School, where Powerkid could keep an eye on him.

A few months later, however, Ken's memories were restored by Doctor Deadly, who was putting a team together of Powerkid's greatest foes, in a plot to destroy Powerkid.  The team was defeated, and Madison's mental blocks were put back in place.

In 1991, the blocks wore off, and Powerman (formerly Powerkid), Zap, and Volt-Man attempted to stop Krusher again, now rampaging in the Nevada desert.  The three knew that their power wasn't effective, and even hypnotism wouldn't work any longer.  Scientific genius John Barstaman devised the only solution, by creating a portal to some unknown other dimension, in which the three heroes lured the crazed villain and trapped him in.

What the heroes didn't know was this unknown dimension was actually the dark dimension of Doctor Deadly.  Deadly once again recruited Krusher for a new team to capture Powerman for him.

A year later, it appeared that Krusher had been killed by Powerman, after he and his former teammates completely destroyed Orange City, killing the millions of inhabitants.  However, in 2001, it was revealed the Krusher had indeed survived, due to his power, and even though in 1998 Allorin Vonski had taken away his powers and memories, they came back over time.

But in 2001, Madison had somehow managed to control his power, and his sanity, and retired.  A few years later, he had a daughter, whose mother died shortly after a very slow and painful death.

In 2009, Krusher was recruited by Michael Bossman to join a team of reformed villains called the Bad Guys to perform missions around the globe where governments are unable to.

Even though Bossman himself turned out to be less than reformed, the team continued on without him.

In the year 2019, Ken's daughter Olive Madison will have inherited her father's powers to become Krusher II, a founding member of the Power Police.

Comments:

Krusher was a character co-created by myself, Phil Sheridan, and Ken Madison (who is also the inspiration) in 1984 on the playground of Butterfield School.

Despite the fact that he was considered one of Powerkid's greatest foes, he only appeared in two story arcs in 1984 then only appeared briefly in cameo in scenes at Mahar where he was an amnesiac janitor.  Occasionally Chris Kowalski would worry about what would happen if Madison's memories were restored.

And indeed in 1991 when I made a major revision of the Super Universe, one of the first things I did was see what would happen if his memories returned.  But again he only appeared in three major story arcs from 1991 - 1992.

He resurfaced for one story arc in 2001 which was about Chris' class reunion, bringing back many characters from the high school era including Krusher, and showing that Orange City was being rebuilt.

Since 2009, Krusher has appeared monthly as a member of the Bad Guys.

His daughter Olive Madison was first introduced in 1991 in Justice League 2019 and again in Power Police 2020 the next year.

And Kenny has been very upset that I turned his villain into a good guy.  All I can say is to be patient.  The future isn't what it used to be.  I have plans in the works.  There are alternate realities and not all of them turned out the same way.  Somewhere out there, there's a really, really, really scary version of Krusher whose story has yet to be told, but is coming soon.