Real
Name: Walter "Wally" Bonner BLACKMANE
Real
Name: Walter "Wally" Bonner
Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Earth-431111/"Earth-Cockrum") human mutate
Occupation: Comic book artist
Group Membership: Futurians (Avatar/"Andrew Pendragon"/Bak En Ab-A, Bloodknight, Mosquito/Dana Morgan, Silver Shadow/Jonathan Darknyt, Sunswift/Neith, Silkie/Tracy Winters, Terrayne/Harry Robbins, Werehawk/Matthew Blackfeather, Zapkat)
Affiliations: Doctor Zeus (Patrick), Eugene Fullstack, Hammerhand (Ian), Jack O'Finagle (Sandolarian the Traveler), Ms. Mercury (Brandy), Major Samuels, Rick Todd, Vandervecken (Callistrax), Wargod (John Bolt)
Enemies: F'Wyrrn, Inheritors (Temujin, Dagon, others), Divine Thunderbolters (Brother Heironymous, others), Paragu the Lava God, Red Leach
Known Relatives: Sadie (mother), unidentified father (deceased)
Aliases: "Fangface," "Morris the Cat"
Base of Operations: Future Dynamics, Colorado
First
Appearance: Marvel Graphic Novel#9 "The Futurians" (1983)
Powers/Abilities: Blackmane possesses enhanced
agility, strength and reflexes, as well as claws strong enough to rend
toughened metals, and sharp fangs. He is an exceptional acrobat and
skilled fighter. He also appears to have enhanced hearing.
As part of the genetic manipulation he
underwent, Vandervecken planted a compulsion in Blackmane (and the other
Futurians) to use their powers for the benefit of mankind, and can calm
them down and wipe their memories of the last few minutes if they begin
to get obstreperous.
Like the other Futurians, he can teleport
using a Future Dynamics ring, dialing the location he wants to go to on
any normal phone and then activating the ring to transmit himself to the
other end of the line. He can also use the ring to temporarily return to
his pre-transformation human form for a few hours at a time.
Height: (Bonner) 5'4"; (Blackmane) 6'4"
Weight: (Bonner) 130 lbs. (by estimation); (Blackmane) Unrevealed
Eyes: (Bonner) unrevealed; (Blackmane) red (no visible
Hair: (Bonner) blond; (Blackmane) red-brown
History:
(Marvel Graphic Novel#9 - BTS) - Five million years into the future a
conflict between two rival warring states, the mutants "Inheritors" of
Ghron and the scientists of Terminus, led to the devastation of the
Earth when the Inheritors brought the Moon crashing down in an attempt
to destroy their rivals. Ironically, this failed, destroying almost all
life on Earth except for Ghron and Terminus, both protected behind
impenetrable force fields. The Inheritors' next ploy was even more
insane - they tapped into the sun itself to transport themselves into
the distant past, towards what had then been known as the 20th century,
with the intention of conquering this more primitive version of their
world. This caused the sun to expand into a red giant, leaving Terminus
in an even more precarious position. Unable to physically follow the
Inheritors because attempting to do so would turn the damaged sun
supernova before the transference would complete, it was decided to send
the mind of scientist Callistrax back to occupy a body in the past and
direct the effort to stop the Inheritors. To provide him with operatives
capable of achieving this, genetic "time bombs" were also sent back,
intended to plant the potential for superhuman abilities in random
bloodlines, needing only a catalyst to activate them, a catalyst
Callistrax could supply. While some of the time bombs over and
undershot, most landed around the first half of the 20th century, around
half a century before the Inheritors were scheduled to arrive.
Callistrax meanwhile arrived in 1962, taking the body of a homeless man,
Vandervecken, just before he would otherwise have been murdered. He
spent the next twenty years creating a technology empire, Future
Dynamics, to provide the resources he would need for the coming war.
(Futurians#0) - Walter Bonner was Jewish. At school he
wasn't big enough to play football.
(Amazing Heroes#74) - As an adult he became a comic book artist.
(Futurians Return (fb) - BTS) - He began his career as an
apprentice to Rick Todd and Eugene Fullstack on "Vincent the Vulture",
and went on to draw "The Wyrrd Patrol."
(Futurians#0) - His widowed mother Sadie did not think
much of his profession.
(Futurians I#3 (fb) - BTS) - Walter watched news reports
on the superheroes Hammerhand and Ms. Mercury, during which they walked
into gunfire with bullets bouncing off them like ducks shedding water.
(Marvel Graphic Novel#9 - BTS) - By
nature he was a scrapper, a short man with a shorter temper, always
ready for a fight in contrast to an otherwise good nature, and thanks to
being very agile, acrobatic and able to improvise he gave a good
accounting of himself despite his diminutive stature. He was also one of
the candidates the Vandervecken identified as carrying the genetic
potential Terminus had sent back. In 1983 with the Inheritor arrival
imminent Future Dynamics approached him and several other potentials and
convinced them to take part in an intensive training program intended to
raise them to the peak of their natural abilities. The candidates knew
this was intended to create a cadre of very special agents, but were not
informed about either the Inheritors nor their own potential to become
superhumans. Walter struck up an immediate rivalry with geologist and
former pro-footballer Harry Robbins, who towered over him and liked to
tease him about his shortness; though they argued and fought, at heart
they soon became best friends.
(Marvel Graphic Novel#9) - With the Inheritors
expected to launch their attack imminently, the day arrived when the
first seven candidates, Walter included, were gathered at Future
Dynamics' Colorado HQ to have their powers jumpstarted. Seeking to
wind-up Walter (and succeeding), Robbins told exaggerated tales of his
football prowess to the ladies on the team, and despite other
candidates telling both of them to knock it off, the pair nearly came
to blows before Vandervecken arrived and introduced himself. To their
confusion he directed the group to change into costumes and then enter
a set of high-tech chambers. Energies provided by Sunswift, an ancient
being who lived in the sun (and possibly another individual empowered
by Terminus' genetic time bombs, just in the distant past), were then
used to activate the candidates' superhuman potentials, re-writing
their DNA. Walter emerged from his chamber resembling a humanoid lion,
and to his delight a foot taller than he had been before. Taken to a
briefing room, he was informed he would be codenamed Blackmane, and
Vandervecken introduced them to Sunswift, their eighth member. However
Harry Robbins was more concerned with having been turned into a
seven-foot tall rock monster, Terrayne, something Blackmane naturally
decided to taunt him about. Then all such trivialities had to be put
on hold, as an alert heralded news that the Inheritors had just
struck, sooner than anticipated. With four simultaneous assaults
across the United States of America, Vandervecken ordered his
Futurians into action.
Terrayne and Blackmane were
sent to St. Louis, where an Inheritor drilling machine had emerged
from underground and disgorged troops to attack the Shrewsbury
Research Center, intending to seize radioactive material to replenish
time fortress fuel that had been depleted by their journey into the
past. Teleported into the midst of the enemy, Blackmane launched into
battle delighted for the first time to not be the shortest person in
the fight. The discovery that his claws were strong enough to rip
apart the mutant troopers' battle armor only added to his enjoyment,
and with Terrayne also more than holding his own, things seemed to be
going well at first. However the Inheritors literally brought out the
big guns, deploying a proton-blaster cannon. While Blackmane kept the
cannon busy dodging its fire, Terrayne shifted underground using his
ability to phase through rocks and earth, and destroyed it with a lava
blast from below. Unfortunately, this had given the Inheritors time to
load up their drilling machine with stolen radioactive material and
escape. The army officer in charge of defending the research center
then approached the two heroes and tried to arrest them; predictably
Blackmane began to argue with the man, but Terrayne shut down the
debate by sinking the officer and his soldiers into the ground up to
their necks. The pair then tried to return to Future Dynamics using
their teleport rings, but Terrayne misdialed the number and deposited
both men instead into a random woman's apartment. Understandably upset
with two monsters appearing before her just after she had stepped out
the shower, the woman chased Blackmane round hitting him with a broom
until Terrayne managed to dial the correct number and teleport them
both away.
Back at Future Dynamics Blackmane and Terrayne were reunited with their returning teammates just in time to witness the Inheritors broadcast worldwide their ultimatum to surrender to their domination or be annihilated. To demonstrate their power, the Inheritors then dropped small meteors to drop on the hearts of major cities worldwide, striking midtown Manhattan, London, Moscow, Paris, Beijing...
(Futurians I#1) - Mexico City, Tokyo, Capetown, Cairo, New
Delhi, Melbourne, Bogota, San Paulo, and a near miss at Los Angeles,...
(Marvel Graphic Novel#9) - killing
millions in each location. The Inheritors then gave world leaders 24
hours to capitulate, promising that any nation that failed to
surrender would then suffer a sustained bombardment. However, this had
also allowed Future Dynamics to locate where the Inheritors' base was
located, hidden in the northern reaches of the Canadian Rockies, and
the Futurians launched their counterattack just as the Inheritor
leader, Temujin, decided to not wait the promised day and instead drop
another meteor on Rome. Future Dynamics redirected the meteor so that
it struck the Inheritors instead, and though their force fields held
the impact alone caused considerable damage within the base. With the
base force fields designed to deflect high velocity energy and
objects, the team were able to simply walk within the force field
perimeter, but as soon as Sunswift attacked the whole team were
detected, and the Inheritors activated the base's battle
configuration, causing it to fly up into the air and train its guns on
the interlopers. Terrayne raised a wall of earth to shield his
teammates, until Silver Shadow, a Futurian who could transport himself
between shadows, slipped inside the base and disabled the guns. The
rest of the team followed into the base, where to Blackmane's delight
they were confronted by a horde of goons. Calling dibs, Blackmane
leapt into battle, eagerly tearing into the enemy, and despite his
insistence the others should find their own goons to play with the
other Futurians joined in. Unwilling to let the Futurians breach the
core of their base, the Inheritor leaders jettisoned the section of
their base that the heroes were in. Rapidly losing power, the
Inheritors activated a last ditch weapon, the Annihilator, despite it
draining the power needed for their defensive systems. This unleashed
energies that began to destroy everything in the vicinity from the
cells out, but Sunswift countered with her own radiance, temporarily
granting the Futurians a reprieve. Terrayne then strained his powers
to the limit and caused the Inheritor base to sink into the earth;
however, as his powers had limited range, Terrayne had to accompany
them. As time ticked on, Blackmane became increasingly concerned for
his friend's safety. Vandervecken retrieved the rest of the team,
transporting them back to Future Dynamics, and to assuage Blackmane's
concerns he confirmed that Terrayne had survived long enough to trap
the Inheritors in Earth's molten core, and assuming he was still alive
now had a very long walk home.
(Futurians#0) - Blackmane checked on his
mother to make sure she was okay following the attacks. She was, but
was not impressed to learn he'd become a superhero. "Other mothers
have doctors for sons. I have Morris the Cat."
(Futurians I#1 (fb)) - Though defeated, the damage caused by the Inheritors caused instability the world over. A week later, after hearing that armed search parties were disappearing from the ruins of Manhattan,...
(Futurians I#2) - the results of attacks by giant
centipedoid aliens brought to Earth on the meteor that struck the
city,...
(Futurians I#3 (fb) - BTS) - a species that called
themselves the F'Wyrrn, or "Beautiful Travelers,"
(Futurians I#1) - the team was
dispatched to investigate, departing only shortly before Terrayne
finally returned from his core visit. With clearance arranged through
the National Security Headquarters the team's plane landed at a National
Guard base outside New Brunswick, New Jersey. Seeing refugees kept
behind cyclone fences and barbed wire, Blackmane expressed disquiet, but
was told that it was necessary to maintain order while dealing with
millions of refugees and only limited resources to look after them.
After checking with the base office to see if the family members of
other Futurians were at the camp, and getting a negative response, the
team were informed that some Thunderbolter had shown up. Members of the
Church of the Divine Thunderbolt, a religious political movement that
had sprung up claiming the destruction was the work of an avenging god,
the pointy-hooded group had come upon hearing that the base commander,
Major Samuels, was consorting with changelings and demons (the
Futurians). His hackles rising, Blackmane confronted the group's
leader,...
(Futurians
I#2) - Brother Heironymous,...
(Futurians I#1) - and when the man called him vermin to his face Blackmane broke his nose. The other Thunderbolters produced knives and steel pipes, so Blackmane piled into them too, soon followed by teammates Werehawk and Mosquito.
A short while later the team flew on into Manhattan, landing in the
devastation near where Mosquito's family had lived. Distraught at the
thought her entire family might be dead, Mosquito flew off desperately
calling their names; Werehawk and the amphibious Futurian Silkie flew
after her, while Silver Shadow vanished into the shadows, leaving
Blackmane alone. Complaining that everyone else in the team had powers
that included a means of transportation, Blackmane followed sulking,
wishing he'd gotten a Blackmane Mobile, or Blackmane Cycle, or even just
Blackmane Roller Skates. He caught up with the others in the remains of
Mosquito's family home, where there seemed to be no sign of any of her
family. Returning to their plane with the intention of doing some
general reconnaissance, the Futurians found it had been destroyed. With
no evidence of artillery or explosives, Blackmane suggested that the
vehicle had been taken out by other superhumans, then began to check if
any of their equipment could be salvaged. Moments into this the group
were interrupted by two prominent superheroes, Doctor Zeus and
Hammerhand. Blackmane immediately jumped to the conclusion that they
must have been the ones who destroyed the plane, but Silver Shadow
stopped him from attacking, pointing out that the pair had been on the
side of law and order for years. Doctor Zeus explained they were part of
the official search team looking for survivors, and Hammerhand added
that his own wife, Ms. Mercury, had vanished there a couple of days
earlier. Still acting belligerent, Blackmane told Hammerhand to take a
hike and got in the veteran hero's face, provoking him until he got
annoyed and tossed Blackmane high into the air. Silver Shadow ordered
Silkie and Mosquito to catch him, and they brought him back itching for
a scrap until Silver Shadow ordered him to stand down. The still tense
situation was then interrupted by the arrival of the mysterious Jack
O'Finagle, someone known to the two veteran heroes, and apparently a man
who knew things and turned up where needed. Jack pointed out to the
senior heroes that the people they were on the verge of fighting were
the heroes who had stopped the Inheritors, and then told Blackmane that
his friend Terrayne was safely back at Future Dynamics. Then
he told all of them that less than ten minutes earlier a heavily armed
unit of soldiers had been wiped out nearby by some devilish thing from
the shadows, advised them to look out for holes in the ground, and
walked away. With the tension defused Doctor Zeus apologized for the
misunderstanding, though a still tetchy Blackmane suggested that Doctor
Zeus' lightning insignia reminded him of the one worn by the
Thunderbolters. The group split up to search the area, and Doctor Zeus
and Hammerhand soon found the soldiers' equipment, only to be attacked
by the beast that had taken them. Alerted to the problem over their
radio, Blackmane and Mosquito rushed to assist, but found them already
gone when they got to the location. Then the radio alerted them to
Werehawk, Silkie and Silver Shadow being similarly attacked, but before
they could respond, they too were confronted by one of the massive
aliens.
(Futurians I#2) - Blackmane and Mosquito desperately dodged as the creature attacked, and it quickly became clear that it could absorb the energy from Mosquito's ultra-sonic bursts, growing even larger as a result. Blackmane tried to pierce one of its multitude of eyes with a piece of sharp rubble, but found even that presumably more vulnerable body part too tough to penetrate, though the attempt did enrage the beast. Writhing, the creature threw Blackmane to the side, and while Mosquito was focused on the monster...
(Futurians I#2 (fb) - BTS) - Blackmane
fell down one of the tunnels that the beast and its relatives had
burrowed. Back on the surface Mosquito just knew he'd vanished, and
confronted by a second monster she beat a hasty retreat. With no way
to get back to the surface and the prospect of facing the alien again
even if he did, Blackmane decided to go exploring. After a while he
unexpectedly ran into the missing Ms. Mercury, finding her also
wandering the tunnels, looking beaten up and very confused. Lending
her support to stand, Blackmane took her with him as he continued to
explore.
(Futurians I#2) - Blackmane and Ms. Mercury
eventually ran into the remaining Futurians who had yet to fall prey
to the bugs - Avatar and Terrayne recently arrived from Future
Dynamics, and Silver Shadow and Mosquito, who had evaded capture.
After comparing notes - and in the case of Blackmane and Terrayne
insults - the group realized that Ms. Mercury was asking for food,
as her accelerated metabolism needed to replenish energy the bugs
had drained. Rapidly recovering and becoming properly aware of her
surroundings once fed, she explained how she had been captured by
one of the creatures and woken to find herself webbed up alongside
other victims with her life force being gradually drained away.
Thanks to her fast healing ability, she'd been able to recover
enough from the worm's poisons to break free, but this had left her
dangerously weak and delirious, the state she had been in when
Blackmane found her. The group set out to return to the cocoon that
Ms. Mercury had escaped from in order to free the other victims,
eventually reaching a massive chamber the monsters had carved out, a
crossroads for several of their tunnels. Almost immediately they
were attacked by several of the creatures at once, but as with
Blackmane and Mosquito's earlier bout, most of the team's attacks
proved ineffective; only the combined strengths of Avatar and Ms.
Mercury managed to hurt the monsters. Nevertheless the heroes
finally prevailed, though with Blackmane stating that he could hear
more rapidly approaching the group made a run for it, with Terrayne
blocking up the tunnel behind them to slow the pursuit. Moments
later they reached the cocoon chamber, where they found the missing
heroes trapped in the aliens' web, their life forces being drained
away.
(Futurians I#3) - The heroes noticed that the most
recently captured were in the process of the webs holding them turning
into full-fledged cocoons, and that further back in the chamber were
hundreds, perhaps thousands of complete cocoons. The air itself was
fetid, smelling like rotten meat - or, as Blackmane noted, Terrayne's
fridge back home, a comment that elicited a universal "Blackmane, shut
up!" from the others. They began removing the victims from the web,
starting with Hammerhand, though doing so immediately triggered a loud
alarm. Avatar then ordered Blackmane to help Terrayne take down some of
the full cocoons, wanting to see how many of the people inside could be
saved. The very first one they removed however ripped open as soon as it
detached, revealing rotting, almost skeletal human remains, and then a
larval worm erupted from within and attacked Blackmane. Reacting with
panic and disgust he smashed its head to pieces on the chamber wall,
then began squabbling at Terrayne for not lending a hand against the
worm. With the other heroes free but mostly comatose, and realizing that
the adult worms would soon be on them, Avatar ordered a retreat, and as
multiple worms breached the chamber as anticipated Terrayne used his
earth-moving powers to raise the group to the surface, along with some
intact cocoons for study. The worms pursued, but Avatar had contacted
Vandervecken, who opened a portal between Future Dynamics and their
location. With only three heroes - Avatar, Hammerhand and Ms. Mercury -
able to harm the beasts, a desperate rearguard action was fought to give
everyone time to get through the portal. Blackmane carried the injured
but conscious Silkie through, not understanding her desperate attempt to
tell him something about the Mother Soul, F'Wyrrn and beautiful
travelers.
(Futurians I#3 - BTS) - Back at Future Dynamics and in
Blackmane's absence, Silkie revealed she had been in telepathic contact
with the F'Wyrrn while in the web, learning of their planet-consuming
life cycle, and that they absorbed energy, treating it as a superfood
that rapidly accelerated their growth. Unfortunately, the military had
decided to deal with the F'Wyrrn threat by nuking Manhattan, and did so
only minutes later despite the Futurians and Vandervecken's warnings
that this would only make things worse.
(Futurians Volume 2) - With some of the worms now as large as half a mile long, the F'Wyrrn began rapidly spreading beyond Manhattan. The army proved impotent against them, and when Avatar suggested the Futurians return to the battle Blackmane pointed out that if the army couldn't cope they would be unlikely to fare any better. The discussion had to be tabled as reports came in that down in the medical bay Werehawk had awoken in a delirious state and was now rampaging, fighting unseen enemies. When he transformed into a massive avian form, Vandervecken had a guard shoot Werehawk with a molecular scrambler, created to subdue the Futurians if they ever became a menace and designed to disrupt biological functions at a molecular level. However the beam from the scrambler also hit two intact cocoons, and the F'Wyrrn larvae within erupted out in agony. As they turned to menace the group Blackmane reasoned that their pained reaction meant the scrambler was putting out a force they couldn't absorb, snatched the rifle from the guard, and blasted the worms. The result was instantaneous, with both larvae dying explosively. Now having a weapon that could kill the smaller worms and hopefully at least repel the giant ones, the Futurians and their allies teleported to New Jersey and coordinated with the army forces there to begin driving the worms back into Manhattan. The scramblers proved surprisingly effective, as even the largest F'Wyrrn, unused to experiencing pain, fled in terror like frightened cattle. With the aliens confined back on Manhattan by a ring of scramblers, the heroes reconvened to discuss the next step, all too aware that the current solution was not a permanent one. This ultimately came in the form of Sunswift; the worms would drain even her energies if she confronted them directly, so she generated a vortex that ripped the entire island of Manhattan into space, and dumped it into Jupiter. Avatar warned that even that might be only a temporary solution, and they should work on plans for what to do if the F'Wyrrn one day escaped to again threaten Earth...
"and ways to stop the Jovians when they see the crap we
dumped on their planet." Blackmane quipped.
(Futurians#0/2)
- Both in their human forms, Blackmane and Terrayne went to a bar, but
Walter got annoyed at Harry being thronged by fans, and asked Harry why
autograph hounds went after has-beens. When Harry responded that it was
better to be a has-been than a never-was, Walter insisted he was in
better shape than the former football player, and bet that he could do
"five or six hundred push-ups." Harry took the bet, and Walter
immediately dropped and did five push-ups, then demanded Harry pay up.
Admitting he should have expected a trick, Harry took his leave to visit
the men's room, but in his absence a large bruiser approached Walter at
the bar and told him the sucker bet had been a sleazy move. Insulting
the man's appearance, Walter told him to mind his own business,
prompting the bruiser to threaten to smash the "shrimp's" face in. At
this Walter transformed into Blackmane, expecting this would scare the
other man off, but instead he declared that he hated "costumes" and
transformed too, into a crimson-hued (see comments) tusked
humanoid even larger than Blackmane. Declaring himself Red Leach, he
punched Blackmane flying, and a melee ensued. Despite Red Leach's size
advantage, Blackmane had the edge in agility, and when Red Leach landed
face first after Blackmane dodged an attack, Blackmane bit him on the
butt with his fangs.
(Futurians#0/2 - BTS) - The bar quickly
emptied because the fight, and Red Leach apparently fled not only
pantless but underpantless.
(Futurians#0/2) - By the time Harry
exited the men's room the only person left in the bar was Blackmane,
sitting at the bar with a chunk of Red Leach's underpants in his mouth.
(Dave Cockrum's Futurians: Avatar) - When Avatar didn't
respond to any of Vandervecken's communiques for a prolonged period he
decided he would give the incommunicado hero another 24 hours, then send
the Futurians after him. As he declared his threat, the rest of the
team, Blackmane included, stood behind him, visibly under the influence
of Vandervecken's mind control ability.
(Futurians Return) - Harry hung out in Walter's room
as the latter worked on some new art. Reading some of Walter's "Wyrrd
Patrol" comics, Harry teased Walter for never growing up, but Walter
insisted that drawing comics was the most fun a guy could have with his
clothes on. It wasn't long before that an alert came in that a gigantic
lava monster, Paragu, was attacking West Denver, so Vandervecken ordered
the entire team, including new recruits Bloodknight and Zapkat, into
action. At this Blackmane pointed out that he'd not be much use against
a lava giant, prompting Zapkat to tease him for being a "wuss," and him
to respond that she was being very cocky for someone yet to complete a
single mission.
Reaching Denver the Futurians saw Paragu was
fighting an armored man, Wargod, who they initially mistook for another
menace. While those with suitable powers fought Paragu, Blackmane joined
the rest of the team rescuing civilians trapped in flaming wreckage left
in Paragu's wake. Between them Wargod and Terrayne appeared to defeat
Paragu, turning him to stone and shattering him, but Wargod that the
demon was not defeated yet. Sure enough the individual pieces each
reignited and spawned a new, smaller version of Paragu, leaving the team
fighting an army of the creatures. However Silkie located the mystic
idol that had powered Paragu (or more strictly, enabled him to possess
an unfortunate prospector, Carl Dorner) and smashed it, destroying all
the mini-Paragus.
(Amazing Heroes#74 - BTS) - The Futurians took on a
dinosaur that had been empowered by an overshot genetic time bomb;
having survived the millions of years since the dinosaur extinction, it
blamed humanity if only because they had replaced its own kind, and
sought to destroy the world. They also fought Mosquito's sister, who had
gained powers when Manhattan was nuked, and who irrationally blamed
Mosquito for the deaths of their family during the Inheritors' attack.
Comments: Created and owned by Dave Cockrum.
Blackmane was his favorite Futurians character, and Dave's "alter ego"
in the book; his happy-go-lucky personality and tendency to make jokes
and puns was based on Dave himself.
The Futurians have had a slightly convoluted
publication history, which might make it tricky to figure out how all
the various publications featuring them fit together. They first
appeared in Marvel Graphic Novel#9 in 1983, before continuing their
story in Lodestone's Futurians series in 1985. That sadly lasted only
three issues, though a fourth was ready to go, so in 1987 Eternity
Comics published a TPB featuring all four issues. That meant the fourth
issue had not been released on its own, but that changed in 1995 when
Aardwolf released it, confusingly numbering it as issue#0; in black and
white unlike all the prior stories, it also included design sketches
(some previously seen in Amazing Heroes#74) and mini-bios of the
characters, and a new back-up story, "Less Filling." The next time the
team returned was in a three issue reprint of both the original GN and
the series published in France by Semic Comics in 2001, but crucially
these also included a brand new page in the middle of the original GN
and the first color printing of Less Filling. Per
Paty Cockrum's interview in Futurians Return, at some point while Dave
was still alive (but I think had already fallen too ill to continue the
series himself), Rob Liefeld wanted to license the Futurians for Image
to publish, with another writer and artist. However, it turned out the
writer wanted to make Blackmane feral, a ravenous beast that ate people,
among many other changes that did not maintain the integrity of the
characters, so that deal eventually fell apart before any new stories
were published. After Dave Cockrum passed in 2006, in 2010 David Miller
Studios licensed the rights to release a comic based on the Futurian
Avatar; it ran for three issues, and a fourth was advertised but I don't
believe it actually came out; however, a TPB of all four issues was
released (with a new coloring reprint of Less Filling included). As a
fan of the Futurians, I applaud the effort, but it's not the same
without Cockrum. In 2015 a Kickstarter was funded that released Dave
Cockrum's final Futurians story, taking the completed script and handful
of pages he'd drawn, and then having other artists finish off the story.
Again, Dave's absence is noticeable - it's a fun story and I'm glad we
got to see it, but the other artists just aren't on the same level as
him.
One final addendum with regards to Futurians
publishing. In 2017, two years after Futurians Return (and thus, I
assume, not the incident Paty Cockrum mentioned in her 2015 interview),
Rob Liefeld announced he'd struck a deal (another deal?) to publish
Futurians. Per Rob Liefeld:
However, more than a decade later nothing further seems to have happened, so I assume that deal has died too.
Callistrax explicitly tells the people of Terminus
that he is not sure if the time travel has split off an alternate
timeline, or if the Inheritors have arrived in the past of the same
timeline they came from. As such, no reality number has been assigned to
his era. That no new timeline was diverged is seemingly confirmed by
Sunswift's presence in the Terminus future. The series hints at and the
Amazing Heroes#74 interview with Dave Cockrum confirms that Sunswift was
another person empowered by one of the overshot genetic time bombs.
Since her origins are dependent on being a human transformed by
Terminus' time travel, then she couldn't exist in Terminus' far future
era if that was a different timeline.
Dave Cockrum's column in Futurians#1 dubbed
their world Earth-Cockrum, since it was his first venture in doing a
series that he not only was writing and drawing, but which he owned. The
Appendix uses numerical designators to track which world is which, so we
tried to choose one that reflects that this was and is very much Dave's
world. We'll leave the readers of this and subsequent Futurian-related
profiles to figure out how the numbers were chosen, but suffice to say
it was done with love and respect for the man and his work. Dave was one
of the greats of comics, and he is very much missed. And personally, I
always loved the Futurians, and it's a shame we got to see so little of
them.
The back-up story in Futurians#0 was in black
and white, but as noted it was republished in color in France, then in
the Avatar TPB and in Futurians Return. In the first of these, Red Leach
was the same pink color after transforming as he had in his human form,
while in the second, used above, Red Leach is colored red, but in the
last he's green. Given his codename, I suspect the red version is most
likely to be correct.
This profile was completed on 08/16/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25th anniversary's celebratory event to represent Futurians.
Blackmane, shut up!!
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Blackmane has no known connections to:
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Jason Wyrrd lived in a mansions in the haunted hills of the Catskills, somewhere deep in the woods, a place where the walls between the myriad dimensions of reality grew thin. Wyrrd's arcane ability allowed him to open the doors between these dimensions and summon an esoteric band of adventurers, the Wyrrd Patrol. And that was the premise of The Wyrrd Patrol comic that Walter "Blackmane" Bonner drew. Comments: To differentiate the Wyrrd Patrol panels from the Futurians, Paty Cockrum drew them instead of Dave, though they were credited to Wally Bonner (in other words, to Blackmane). Though only a comic in the Futurians'
reality, in an infinite multiverse somewhere they'd be real.  --Futurians Return
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images: (without ads)
Futurians Return, p33, pan1, originally published Amazing Heroes#74,
p33, pan1 (main image/design sketch)
Marvel Graphic Novel#9, p20,
pan5 (face in powered form)
Marvel Graphic Novel#9, p14, pan2
(human form)
Marvel
Graphic Novel#9, p24, pan1 (teleporting into battle)
Futurians I#2, p1, pan1 (attacked by alien bug)
Futurians I#3, p6, pan1 (fighting larval worm)
Dave Cockrum's Futurians: Avatar TPB, p2, pan5-6
(transforming into Blackmane, facing Red Leach)
Futurians Return, p3, pan2 (Jason Wyrrd)
Futurians Return, p3, pan5-6 (Wyrrd summons the Wyrrd Patrol)
Futurians Return, p4, pan1 (Harry reading Wyrrd Patrol comic)
Futurians#2, p27, pan1 (Blackmane with reader's letters)
Appearances:
Marvel Graphic Novel#9 "The
Futurians" (1983) - Dave Cockrum (writer, art), Al Milgrom
(editor)
Amazing Heroes#74 (July 1985) interview with Dave Cockrum
Futurians I#1-2 (October-December 1985) - Dave Cockrum (writer,
pencils), Ricardo Villagran (inks), David M. Singer (editor)
Futurians I#3 (April 1986) - Dave
Cockrum (writer, pencils), Ricardo Villagran (inks), David M. Singer
(editor)
Futurians Volume 2 (June 1987) - Dave Cockrum (writer, pencils, inks),
Ricardo Villagran (inks), Chris Ulm (editor)
Futurians#0/2 (August 1985) - Clifford Meth (story), Dave Cockrum
(dialogue, art)
Dave Cockrum's Futurians: Avatar (August 2011) - David Miller
(story, art), Joe Rubinstein (additional inks)
Futurians Return (October 2015) - Dave Cockrum (story, pencils), "Wally
Bonner" (Paty Cockrum), Richard O'Hara (pencils), Robin Riggs, Bob
Wiacek (inks)
First Posted: 09/23/2026
Last updated: 08/16/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel
Copyright
info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™ and © 1941-2099
Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you
should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!
The Wyrrd Patrol