SPACE ADVENTURES (vol. 3) #44 (February, 1962). Cover by Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio.
There are obscure superheroes, and then there's Charlton's Mercury Man.
Created two years after Captain Atom, Charlton's other original superhero, Mercury Man was really Merco, the last survivor of the planet Mercury.
While the cover colorist gave Merco a typical superhero costume, when we get to his interior story we find he's just a silver guy flying around in swim trunks.
Why he has golden wings on both his ankles and his ears, we'll probably never know.
We do learn that Mercury Man is ridiculously overpowered: he "can fly at any speed, take any shape or appearance, and who has total immunity to any weapon!"
Don't believe me? Then get a gander at this, because no sooner does he arrive at Earth then he's attacked by a "full salvo or target-seeking atomic missiles!"
Mercury Man had come to Earth in hopes of helping its people avoid the fate of Mercury's civilization, which had been wiped out by atomic war. He flies around the world, mostly in the USSR (that's Russia for all you Millennials) destroying weapons and weapon factories.
Then he meets up with Dr. Erika Penn, an Earth scientist with whom he has been in telepathic contact for quite sometime. Mercury Man explains his mission to Dr. Penn, and voices his desire to join the ranks of regular mankind.
Dr. Penn's experiment is a success and, as that next-to-last panel hints, she's delighted to learn that's not a banana Mercury Man's pocket, he's just VERY glad to see her.
So now ole Merco looks just like the rest of us, with regular ears and no ankle-wings. But don't get too used to it, folks, because by the next issue of Space Adventures, featuring his second - and very last - appearance, he looks like this:
Again, he's depicted in another generic superhero costume. Gone is the silver skin, and his ears are now merely pointed instead of covered by wings. And Dr. Penn's had a make-over, too, figuring she'd spice things up by becoming a redhead.
As for Mercury Man's ankle wings, they're still there, but somehow he can wear boots with them as seen below:
This time around, with the permission of the President of the United States, Mercury Man wants to show war mongers from around the globe the error of their ways. He's going to take them to Mercury so that they can witness firsthand the devastation caused by nuclear war.
He gathers them up, including Dr. Penn (who wants to tag along) and a Soviet with the charming name of Demonov), and places them in a space capsule he had constructed in 72 hours. Mercury Man then lifts the capsule and flies the group to Mercury.
Mercury Man's lesson goes unheeded. Dr. Penn has the wonderful idea of leaving the bad guys on the dead planet. Mercury Man, in true heroic fashion, agrees, and he and Dr. Penn fly back to Earth to live happily ever after.
And there ya have it: the entire superhero career of Mercury Man.
Like many Charlton Characters created before 1964, Mercury Man is believed to be in the public domain. It remains to be seen if anyone cares enough to ever try to bring him back.
