During this series, we discussed superheroes who ended up dying by the end of their run (and, unlike most comic book superheroes, their obscurity meant their deaths were permanent). But what about the ones who died before their hero careers began?

Meet Paddy (sometimes Danny) Sullivan. Once a cop by day, he was killed in the line of duty and ended up as a ghost. Once he realised this, Paddy made the bold, noble, and brave decision to become a total dork. Rebranding himself as "The Duke of Darkness" (though I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't the first time he tried out this name), he went around in his ghostly way, stopping crimes of both the mundane and supernatural variety.

Now, you may think his being a ghost would mean his adventures are pretty low stakes (I mean, how do you kill a ghost?), but, despite being intangible and very strong, he can also be knocked out by a simple thwack to the head. How does that work? I don't know, I'm not a ghost expert here.

Now, you may have noticed that, conceptually, this superhero is actually pretty sick. I mean, surely he had quite a few comics, right? No. He had 4 total appearances, and the 4th one was only on the cover. Life's unfair.

Some ideas are worth doing more than once... a statement that you may think you understand right now, but will take on a different meaning by the end of today's segment.

Grant Farrel was just your average rich guy, dating a blonde woman in a red dress named "Glenda"... or at least trying to. She immediately leaves him in issue 1 and he gets very very sad about it. Fortunately, Thor is watching Grant and decides to give him the powers of Thor himself so that he might save the world (or at the very least save Glenda, who, at the time, had accidentally gotten kidnapped by spies). Some of you may recognise similarities between this and the earliest version of Marvel's Thor.

Being a very noble hero, he uses his powers for a very noble cause: stalking his girlfriend. Indeed, in issue 2, Glenda tells him that she plans to go to France (this issue was released in May 1940, the same month the Nazis invaded France - think of that what you will). Like a normal person, Grant responds by quickly buying a ticket to be on the same boat as her and following her to France, and not ceasing to follow her until the end of the issue.

There is actually a surprising amount of character development in the few issues Thor had - while Grant stays the same, Glenda goes from dismissing Grant due to him being a boring little manboy to appreciating him more after she figures out his secret identity.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately since the series was starting to get a bit racist around this time), this superhero's run ended at 5 issues... but their legacy lived on. In 2011, a small mockbuster studio made "Thunderstorm: The Return of Thor" - a superhero movie obviously banking off the success of Tho- wait, no, it's Iron Man? Their version of Thor is just a guy in a black Iron Man suit? Okay.

An even more confusing bit of legacy is what their creator (Wright Lincoln) got up to once Grant Farrel was retired. They were still attached to Thor it seems, and wanted to make yet another superhero based on them immediately (and I do mean immediately, this new character premiered in the issue directly after Grant's final issue). This character? DYNAMITE THOR! But they weren't alone... Dynamite Thor had a love interest you see. She was a blonde haired girl who tended to wear a red dress... and her name was Glenda.

Some of you here may be familiar with a popular web animation featuring a character named "DR. BEES!", with the main joke beeing that, generally speaking, bees make most situations worse. Unfortunately, Red Bee didn't get the memo.

By day, he's an Assistant District Attorney by the name of Rick Raleigh (one of the few alliterative names I've stumbled across with Public Domain Superheroes, which is odd to me because it's such a staple of superhero stories), but Rick is dissatisfied with the current justice system. This causes him to adopt the persona of Red Bee!

His powers include good athleticism, a gun, and the ability to CONTROL BEES! How did he get this power? I'm not sure. Red Bee had a surprisingly good run, with 24 stories total wherein he fought various foes such as two people with swords, "Boss" Storm, and all of the Nazis.

As most people who have ever submitted a college essay would know, Plagiarism isn't typically looked on fondly. Usually, plagiarism can be seen in either writing or visual media... but what happens when some total stranger steals your superhero identity?

Jerry Steele was just your average WWII soldier-turned Patriotic Hero (seriously, there are so many America-themed heroes clad in the red white and blue, and a couple themed around the Confederate Flag because this is the 40s). As V-Man, he punched up the Nazis real good with the help of his super costume which increased his strength and mental capabilities. Also helping him was a group of youngsters called "The V-Boys" (which sounds slightly derogatory).

Move to 1944... a new person came into town, dressed in the same costume and calling himself "Captain V". You may think that this is just Jerry Steele trying out a new name... but no. Captain V was the secret identity of a Puppeteer named Alan Dale, who seemingly had no connection to V-Man, but had the same costume and power set - well, actually, he had one new power: the "V-beam".

Now, this case of plagiarism isn't one that'd result in any legal consequences irl, mainly because these were both characters by Fox Features Syndicate (the owner of other Golden Age superheroes like Dynamite Thor and the Blue Beetle)... but that only makes it more confusing. Why did they do this? Did they just forget what V-Man's name was or something? If you want a headcanon, you could say that Captain V was one of the V-Boys, but the timeline doesn't match up, it's only been 2 years!

Even more confusing is the third name change. For some fucking reason, Alan decided that Captain V just wasn't cutting it as a superhero name, so he changed it to The Puppeteer. Because that's what his day job is. Jesus Christ Alan, what's wrong with you? You dress up in stars and stripes, have a V-themed costume, and you decide to call yourself The Puppeteer!?! That'd be like if instead of "Superman", Clark Kent just decided he was going to fly around the city as "The Reporter"!