 The year was 1941. The start of the Golden Age of comics, Stanley became the editor-in-chief at timely. Captain America, Captain Marvel Adventures, Submariner and World's Best Comics debuted. At this time in history, America entered World War II after the events of December 7th, a date which has lived in infamy. Comic book publishers became far more patriotic than any other time in history. Comic book superheroes started coming out of the woodwork. Superheroes like Miss Fury, Black Marvel, Bucky Barnes, Captain America, The Patriot, Doctor Midnight, Plastic Man, Fighting Yank, Aquaman, Green Arrow and Wonder Woman. Among these heroes was Black Terror created by Richard Hughes and Don Gabrielson for Neater Comics. Pharmacist Bob Benton formulated a chemical he called formic ethers, which gave him multitude of superpowers. Bob, alongside his sidekick Tim Rowland who duplicated the formula, became known as the Terror Twins and fought crime in Nazis. During the Black Terror and Tim's original stories, their powers included super strength, durability, advanced agility and stamina. The Black Terror fell into the public domain in the 1980s and as such many other companies began to use him in their stories. Some of these publishers took it upon themselves to change his origins while others simply furthered his adventures. AC Comics reinvented the character as Mark Benton, an older retired superhero who returns to action after the death of his wife due to organized crime. He is a more aggressive vigilante and simply goes by the name Terror. Later he became a villain as a criminal enforcer and changed his name to Terrorist. In America's best comics, after years of service fighting common criminals alongside his teammates in Smash, the society of modern American science heroes, Bob retired and happily married. Seeing an opportunity, criminals attempted to shake Bob down for protection money. Met with a refusal from the retired crime fighter, the criminals became disgruntled. After the criminals crossed the line and killed his wife, he decided to return to fighting crime so that no one would ever have to feel the sadness, anger and possibly guilt that he so deeply felt. Instead of using the same tactics he used in Smash, he returned as an over-the-top vigilante known as the Terror, later the Terrorist, due to his bare-knuckle beatings to any lawbreaker. After fighting crime as a Terror for some time, he was killed in a battle with an alien from the moon in Tom Strong issue number 11. But before he died, he transferred his consciousness into a computer program called Terror 2000, a feat he accomplished due to his immense intellect. Terror 2000 seemed to be a success, but because it didn't have a soul, it developed into an evil killing machine that killed the now fully grown Tim Rowland, the Terror's original sidekick. It also tried to obtain power from Captain Future's spaceship, but was foiled by a time-traveling version of the Terror. In America's best comics, his powers consisted of super strength, invulnerability, healing, advanced agility, stamina, polemathy, and time travel. Now, the Black Terror can be found in Dynamite Entertainment's Project Superpowers. The Black Terror picks up where the Golden Age character left off. He graduated from Penn State in 1940 and eventually became a superhero in World War II. After the war, Bruce Carter, a CIA-sanctioned hero known as the Fighting Yank, started capturing all the world's heroes and those who appeared later, including the Black Terror in the Urn of Pandora, believing that if he trapped all the heroes of the war in the Urn, the world would be rid of evil. In the present day, a now-elderly Fighting Yank is visited by the American Spirit, who revealed to him that he was deceived and that instead of stopping evil, he had caused it to proliferate throughout the world. The American Spirit then explains that in order to save the world, he must again find the Urn of Pandora and free the heroes trapped inside. With the help of the Green Llama, the Fighting Yank found and broke the Urn, thus freeing the Black Terror and all the other heroes that were trapped inside. The Black Terror was the first to emerge from the Urn and fought with a vengeance instantly not knowing who the real enemies were, save for an immense rage felt against the Yank for his betrayal. He was quickly informed of Dynamic Man and his evils. Dynamic Man was once one of his fellow heroes and now he was a supervillain who controlled New York City with his amazing technology. The America he loved and served in was now a corrupt dictatorship. He reflects a lot on the past and makes some fundamental changes as a hero. One of these changes is how he sees himself as a hero. He originally wore the skull and crossbones as a symbol of poison. His occupation as a pharmacist got him to think of himself as poison to those who do evil. Now he thinks of himself as more of a vigilante swashbuckler willing to break unjust laws for the greater good. He starts to think of his symbol as more of a pirate flag and a sign of rebellion. He also starts fighting with an actual sword. He has become more impulsive and quick to respond without much planning. For those who haven't yet read Project Superpowers Vol. 1 or 2, I'll leave the story at that and let you read it for yourselves. In this series his powers are the same as his Golden Age counterpart. In between Project Superpowers Vol. 1 and 2, the Black Terror fought alongside other Golden Age heroes like the Green Lama, Black Bat, the Shadow and many others in the series Masks. If you haven't read it yet, check out our video on the channel about that story. A link will be at the end of the video. But the synopsis of the story is as such before superheroes. There were Masks. Masks is a group of vigilantes united together against a newly formed fascist police force. That has taken over New York. When the law is unjust, justice must be an outlaw. The Black Terror was originally owned by Neater Comics. Also known as Standard Comics, which was owned by Popular Library. Which itself was eventually bought out by Fawcett. Yes, the same Fawcett which owned Captain Marvel. When Fawcett went out of business, Popular Library was sold to Warner Brothers. Though officially owned by Warner Brothers, since they hadn't used his likeness or character since obtaining him. The Black Terror had fallen into the public domain. Which means that his rights had expired and the character himself is now free to be used in any works without worry of lawsuit. So there you have it guys. In this latest edition of History and Origins, we took a look at the Black Terror. I'm Shannon for Comic Getting TV, the only place on YouTube where all geek culture collides. Take care Geeks.