Even at first glance, I recognized Power Man as a nod to that one-issue wonder, Wonder Man.
Wonder Man had been born a villain and died a hero in The Avengers 9, and Power Man appeared — drawn by Jack Kirby in a similarly dominant pose — on the cover of The Avengers 21.
Those two Jack Kirby covers form a set with a third, published between the two. The Avengers 19 cover gave the same prominent play to the purple-clad swashbuckler the Swordsman, standing boldly while drawing his blade from its scabbard. All three covers introduced audacious adventurers who were glamorous, but treacherous.
Wonder Man’s betrayal caused the defeat of the Avengers, but he balked at Zemo’s plan to murder them and saved the superheroes while dooming himself.
It was a good story — too good to end in a single issue. So a year later in The Avengers 21 (Oct. 1965), we meet Erik Josten, a soldier of fortune who’d served as a mercenary for the slain Zemo and is now on the run. With the aid of the Enchantress, Josten uses Zemo’s ionic ray device to gain some of the powers of Wonder Man.
“We must call you something worthy of your newfound power,” proclaims the Asgardian witch.
“Just so long as it isn’t anything as childish as Wonder Man,” Josten replies.
“That’s it!” the Enchantress says. “It will be an ideal name! It will make you a worthy successor to Wonder Man. Your name shall be Power Man!”
Although Josten was energized by the same method that had been used to empower Wonder Man, and by the same person (or rather, the same goddess), he wasn’t as easily turned to the side of right and virtue as Wonder Man (although it would, eventually, happen).
“He sought power for his own,” observed Chris Coke in his blog Coke and Comics. “He seemwas mostlyivated to destroy the Avengers by Enchantress’ beauty. Women lead a lot of men astray…. Stan (Lee) pokes a bit of fun at the genre through the character, who finds his costume and name corny.”
Power Man became the Smuggler in Peter Thelar Spider-Man 49 (Dec. 1980). Then in in Peter Parker’s Iron Man Annual 7 (Oct. 1984), he started calling himself Goliath, and in The Incredible Hulk 449 (Jan. 1997) he became Atlas.
Josten had at least as many identities as that other Goliath, Hank Pym. In addition to his super strength, he gained the power to grow to a giant size from Pym’s serum.
As Atlas, Josten joined the Thunderbolts, a team of criminals disguised as superheroes. Warming to the public admiration he received, Josten changed, finally turning into an actual hero.
“One thing that’s interesting to note is which villains reform and become superheroes,” Coke wrote. “Hulk and Namor have always walked that line… Hawkeye only became a villain by mistake, and then continued down a bad path because of a woman. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch felt a debt to Magneto and had earned their distrust of humans from their treatment. Their motivations were from the start at least understandable to us.”
“Amazingly,” Roy Thomas later wrote, “with this foursome — Captain America and his also-rans, as we fans thought of them at first — The Avengers gained in sales, despite such early mediocre opponents as the Minotaur, the Commissar, Swordsman, and Power Man.”
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