Real
Name: Reston Balance RESTON BALANCE
Real
Name: Reston Balance
Identity/Class: Human;
Victorian
era;
UK
citizen
Occupation: Victorian adventurer (see
comments);
former school head boy and sporting champion
Group Membership: Formerly Rugby School rugby team, Rugby School cricketing team
Affiliations: Rugby headmaster, Rugby students
Enemies: Unidentified Hindu dwarf
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: Stirling Worth
Base of Operations: Formerly Rugby School, Rugby, Warwickshire, England
First Appearance: Zip! The Comic for the Eighties! dummy issue (circa 1980)
Powers/Abilities: Reston Balance was a star athlete and expert boxer, cricketer, rugby player and runner.
Height:
Unrevealed
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Unrevealed (but light colored)
History: (Zip! The Comic for the Eighties!
dummy issue (fb)) - At Rugby, Reston Balance was head boy and
chief recordbreaker at boxing, rugby and running on the spot. In 1875 on
his last day, he headed across the quad to collect £5 his headmaster had
borrowed from him when he spotted a dwarf in turban and loincloth
removing a plaque of the school crest from over a hall door. Suspecting
the man was not a student, Reston confronted the man and demanded he
explain what he was doing, but the man responded by biting Reston's
bowling hand, endangering his perfect cricketing record.
(Zip! The Comic for the Eighties! dummy issue (fb) - BTS)
- Balance went on to become a shamelessly dishonorable adventurer and
womanizer in adulthood.
(Tim Quinn online interview) - Reston was the Great Victorian adventurer, Sexton Blake, Sherlock Holmes and Lord John Roxton rolled into one, just the champ to have at your side during a Zulu uprising. Reston's first true adventure began when someone began bumping off members of the Royal Family, leaving Reston trying to stop them before Queen Victoria became a victim.
(Zip! The Comic for the Eighties! dummy issue) - As an elderly man, many years later, Balance regaled listeners with his history, unashamedly identifying himself not only as a "great Victorian adventurer" but also a cad and a bounder.
Comments: Created by Tim Quinn and Geoff Campion.
Reston Balance is another of Marvel
UK's "lost" characters, very much in the vein of George MacDonald
Fraser's antihero Harry Flashman. Per Tim Quinn: "Round about 1980,
together with my cartooning partner Dicky Howett, I was asked by Marvel
UK to put together the dummy for a weekly humour/adventure comic in the
style of DC Thomson and IPC." This was 'Zip! The Comic for the
Eighties!' The strip was going to be called either Stirring Stories
featuring Reston Balance or Stirring Stories featuring
Stirling Worth; since the dummy uses the former, I've used that
one here. Other stories in Zip! included The Devil Wants You, wherein
Satan grew bored with Hell's humdrum life and came to Earth to collect
souls to torment himself, with hilarious consequences, and Debbie Drake
of the SAS, about a 12 year old SAS member. Tim retains the rights to
all the characters and has since revived Debbie character for the
digital comic Aces Weekly. There's nothing within the short sample story
that would prevent Reston existing within 616, but Marvel not owning him
means he is unlikely to ever resurface there.
I'm ASSuming the short man who bit
Reston was Hindu given he was wearing a turban.
Profile by Loki.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Reston Balance has no known connections to:
Appearances:
Zip! dummy issue (circa 1980,
never officially published) - Tim Quinn (writer, editor), Geoff Campin
(art)
First Posted: 08/05/2020
Last updated: 08/05/2020
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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