No, I didn't forget about it, you forgot about it.

Anyway, this week's hero is from a slightly older era than the typical hero covered here - all the way back from 1921 (making him public domain by more traditional means). He's also not from a comic and doesn't have a public-domain illustration, hence the watermarked stock image.

Richard Staegal was just your average wealthy socialite until, one day, he made a pact with his fiance to live a more exciting life. Most couples would accomplish this by [think of lewd joke later], but Richard opted to take on a new life as a Robin Hood-type figure, stealing from the rich and giving to charity.

Of course, he couldn't just go out on the streets without a disguise, hence why the Man in Purple is clad in purple clothing and a purple hood - all of which are apparently specially made to dissolve in acid (that sounds like all clothing, but maybe they dissolve quickly or dissolve under weaker acid than most clothing).

Despite being a creation of Johnston McCulley (perhaps best known for creating Zorro) barely anyone cares about this guy apparently. He showed up in 3 stories total (all of which I could only find by trudging through Archive.org - though there is one publisher selling an anthology with all of them) and, for the first time ever, I've had to create the pdsh wiki page for them. So, one could argue I actually wrote this post 4 days ago and therefore I'm actually early rather than late!

There are roughly 5000000 superheroes (give or take) in the public domain who base their entire personality on loving America... and of those heroes, about 5 of them are actually fun to talk about. Man of War is one of them!

Unlike most heroes, this Man of War isn't strictly speaking a human. During World War II, Mars (Roman God and global conflict fanboy) saw this fighting between the humans and was so impressed that he decided to send down a hero of his own creation to aid one of the sides during the war... unfortunately, the side Mars was rooting for was the Nazis.

Fortunately, however, Mars didn't account for Earth's rotation, so Man of War ended up landing in good ol' America instead, whereupon he learned that the Nazis weren't the best people. From this day on, he would aid the Americans in their fight against the Nazis.

Like most heroes of the time, he had some amount of super strength and damage resistance, but he was also uniquely equipped with a magical flaming sword that could cut through anything (including tanks!).

Man of War didn't live long (only appearing in 5 issues total), but he has found himself being bought back a few times, with a rebooted version of the character in the 90s by Malibu Comics, and a more comedic version of the character showing up in the webcomic "Everything Will be the Same Ever Again".

The Dobre twins. The Olsen twins. Adam Sandler and whatever the name of the person who played “Jill” in “Jack and Jill” was. For decades, twins and triplets have used the conditions of their birth to attract fame to them like magnets, and today’s group is no different.

Richard, Barton, and Bruce Brandon (side-note, somebody genuinely decided to name their child “Barton Brandon”?) were a set of triplets who felt like they really had something to offer the world of crime figthing - mainly the fact that there was three of them - and so they set out upon the streets as Triple Terror!

My main question about this group is would it be easy or difficult to find out their secret identity? On the one hand, they do wear masks, which is more than can be said of most of the heroes covered here… but also, each of the triplets has a symbol on their chest related to their day-job. Furthermore, how many triplets do you know in your life? I just feel like maybe they’d be an easy bunch to figure out is all.

Anyway, Triple Terror was a surprisingly long-lived group, lasting for 65 issues before disappearing into obscurity.

In contrast with last week's superhero, today's guy doesn't have luck on his side. Quite the opposite.

Harold Higgins (a name with exactly 13 letters) was never actually a normal person. While on most days he did just fine, he found himself experiencing bad luck when it came to the number 13. This got really bad on his 13th birthday, when his girlfriend died in a freak chandelier accident. On subsequent 13th days, his brother died in a plane crash, Harold lost all his money playing the stock market, his sister got in a debilitating accident that crippled her for life, his father died, yet another one of Harold's girlfriends died, and finally he got fired from his job.

Now, personally I'm not a superstitious sort, but, given the overwhelming amount of evidence for the number 13 being unlucky here, I'd be avoiding it for life. What I wouldn't do is put on a costume with a giant 13 on it and start fighting crime. Harold Higgins disagrees.

Surprisingly, this didn't result in him dying by falling down a flight of stairs. In fact, he ends up being very lucky in his crime fighting escapades (whether this is through usual plot contrivance or genuine supernatural luck is unclear), and he even picked up a sidekick named Jinx (who was exactly 13 years old, and also experienced quite a bit of bad luck). However, like most crimebusters covered here, he didn't last long. He lived for exactly 13 issues... + 2. He had 15 issues.