"Boss" Blaine (crimelord; Esau Cairn (later Ironhand) foe)

Identity/Class: Human conventional weapons-user;
active circa the 1930s (and alive for perhaps 30-50 years before that)

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
formerly an unidentified city (perhaps Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; or Manhattan, New York)

First Appearance: Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33#5 (May, 1939);
(Marvel) Epic Illustrated#2 "Almuric" (Summer, 1980) blaine-boss-almuric-prof

Powers/Abilities: Blaine wielded great political and criminal organization power and was very wealthy.

He was used to manipulating others to his own ends, using them as patsies to avoid prosecution for his own crimes.

History:
(Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33#5) - Corrupt senator "Boss" Blaine ruled an unidentified district for years.

(Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33#5 / Epic Illustrated#2: Almuric (fb)) - Corrupt senator "Boss" Blaine appointed former football player, boxer and mercenary Esau Cairn to a state office, intending for him to be a puppet whose strings Blaine could pull. For a time, Cairn, weary of the monotony of his existence, served as an ideal tool. blaine-boss-almuric-dead

However, although Cairn was large and strong, he was neither a criminal nor a fool, and after he discovered that Blaine had set him up to take the fall for a graft plot, Cairn confronted him in his home.

(Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33#5) - Used to grinding men under his feet and seeing them cringe and beg for mercy. Boss Blaine could not understand that he was dealing with a man to whom his power and wealth meant nothing.

(Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33#5 / Epic Illustrated#2: Almuric (fb)) - Blaine told Cairn he would go to jail for a few years, but when he got out, Blaine would make it worth his while.

When Cairn insisted that he would not go to jail for anybody, Blaine pulled his gun and instead suggested that Cairn would "shoot himself because he couldn't stand the disgrace."

(Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33#5 / Epic Illustrated#2: Almuric (fb)) - ...leading Cairn to deliver a powerful punch that killed Blaine, breaking skull like an eggshell and stretching him lifeless on the floor, behind the desk from which he had for years ruled a whole district.

(Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33#5 - BTS / Epic Illustrated#2: Almuric (fb) - BTS) - As his rage subsided, Cairn realized that he could not escape justice for Blaine's death, but he sought a better place to engage in his final battle.

By chance, Cairn happened upon the observatory of Professor Avery Hildebrand, who offered him the opportunity to be transported to a distant planet, Almuric, via his technology, as opposed to facing certain death if he stayed.

Esau Cairn accepted and was transported to Almuric, where he became the heroic adventurer Ironhand.

Almuric is a planetary romance novel by American writer Robert E. Howard. It was originally serialized in three parts in the magazine Weird Tales beginning in May 1939. The novel was first published in book form in 1964 by Ace Books.

In 1980, Marvel Comics' magazine Epic Illustrated published a comic book adaptation of the story, a limited series in four parts written by Roy Thomas and drawn by Tim Conrad over issues #2-5. It was later reprinted in graphic album form by Dark Horse Comics in 1991, and a 4 issue sequel was done by Dark Horse Comics: Ironhand of Almuric.

    Of the final burst of blind passion that banished him for ever from the life wherein he roamed, a stranger, I need say little. It was a nine-days wonder, and the papers exploited it with screaming headlines. It was an old story — a rotten city government, a crooked political boss, a man chosen, unwittingly on his part, to be used as a tool and serve as a puppet.

    Cairn, restless, weary of the monotony of a life for which he was unsuited, was an ideal tool — for a while. But Cairn was neither a criminal nor a fool. He understood their game quicker than they expected, and took a stand surprisingly firm to them, who did not know the real man.

    Yet, even so, the result would not have been so violent if the man who had used and ruined Cairn had any real intelligence. Used to grinding men under his feet and seeing them cringe and beg for mercy. Boss Blaine could not understand that he was dealing with a man to whom his power and wealth meant nothing.

    Yet so schooled was Cairn to iron self control that it required first a gross insult, then an actual blow on the part of Blaine, to rouse him. Then for the first time in his life, his wild nature blazed into full being. All his thwarted and repressed life surged up behind the clenched fist that broke Blaine’s skull like an eggshell and stretched him lifeless on the floor, behind the desk from which he had for years ruled a whole district.

    Cairn was no fool. With the red haze of fury fading from his glare, he realized that he could not hope to escape the vengeance of the machine that controlled the city. It was not because of fear that he fled Blaine’s house. It was simply because of his primitive instinct to find a more convenient place to turn at bay and fight out his death fight.

So it was that chance led him to my observatory.

He would have left, instantly, not wishing to embroil me in his trouble, but I persuaded him to remain and tell me his story. I had long expected some catastrophe of the sort. That he had repressed himself as long as he did, shows something of his iron character. His nature was as wild and untamed as that of a maned lion.

He had no plan — he simply intended to fortify himself somewhere and fight it out with the police until he was riddled with lead.

I at first agreed with him, seeing no better alternative. I was not so naive as to believe he had any chance in the courts, with the evidence that would be presented against him. 'Then a sudden thought occurred to me, so fantastic and alien, and yet so logical, that I instantly propounded it to my companion. I told him of the Great Secret, and gave him proof of its possibilities.

In short, I urged him to take the chance of a flight through space, rather than meet the certain death that awaited him.

And he agreed. There was no place in the universe which would support human life. But I had looked beyond the knowledge of men, in universes beyond universes. And I chose the only planet I knew on which a human being could exist — the wild, primitive, and strange planet I named Almuric.

Cairn understood the risks and uncertainties as well as I. But he was utterly fearless — and the thing was done. Esau Cairn left the planet of his birth, for a world swimming afar in space, alien, aloof, strange.

Weird Tales Magazine Vol.33 #5 (May 1939) - Robert E. Howard (writer)
Epic Illustrated#2 "Almuric" (Summer, 1980) - Roy Thomas (writer/adapter), Tim Conrad (artist), Stan Lee (editor/publisher), Archie Goodwin (editorial director), James Shooter (consulting editor)
Almuric graphic album (1991) - Dark Horse

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