POWERNAUT 1976!

It's amusing how the people who reprint the Powernaut comics have no problem telling the history of the real one, but need me to tell them about his replacements. Fortunately I've kept track of the later Powernauts, since 1968.

• In 1971 the same one from 1969 was still acting as Powernaut. But he seems to have simply disappeared. Oddly this wasn't in a heroic burst of action (unlike his predecessor). Instead he went on retreat or something.
  • The only clues come from the underground Powernaut comics of the time. They said he was fighting the lead singer of a rock band (the "Crawling King Snake") in a magic realm somewhere. In that story, the underground Powernaut took up the title of Super-Savior.
  • In the present day that story has one legacy. It calls itself the Church of the Super-Savior. It has a charismatic and personable leader, recruited from professional basketball - but it is only about as legitimate as Scientology.
• I heard from my colleague Stonewater Smith that the Powernaut was back from retreat in 1973. Stonewater and this Powernaut went on a long motorcycle trip together. This matches the Powernaut comics of that era also.

Today's Powernaut Comics tell me they might someday reprint the stories of that era, but it's not a priority for them. The old attempts to reinvent the Powernaut were sometimes just flops, both in comics and in real life.

Powernaut comics were hardly alone in suddenly finding patriotism during the year of the American Bicentennial. I don't know the state of mind of that particular Powernaut, so I can't say whether he truly felt pride in America. But I can tell a story about the real Powernaut.

When we were in France in 1944, I told him I wanted to be as inspiring and patriotic as him someday. The Powernaut just tugged at his tunic and said, "Do you think yellow's a patriotic color?"

"Well, not in our country."

"There you have it."

Now I realize, the Powernaut only became inspirational by accident. That's known from his origin story in 1941. He was just trying to do the right thing. The rest is history.

Having met the Powernaut's replacement, I believe a similar thing may have happened. He was obviously a moral man, trying to do what he felt to be the right thing. When he took up the Powernaut's name, he got the Powernaut's enemies with it - as witness Aryan Man. I can testify, the presence of any Nazi is enough to make people believe in anything which is the opposite of Nazism. Like America. So, the Powernaut of 1976 might truly have had a patriotic moment.