#van crawford

[chernobog13]

The entire three-issue run of Fatman the Human Flying Saucer, by writer Otto Binder and artist C.C. Beck.

Fatman was wealthy Van Crawford, a gourmet, orchid raiser, and philanthropist. He saved a shape-changing alien who then granted Van the ability to change into a flying saucer in order to battle evil.

Binder and Beck were both longtime contributors to the adventures of the original Captain Marvel before he was cancelled by Fawcett Comics. Much of the same zaniness that occurred in Cap's adventures occur here. In. fact, other than the color change and different chest emblem, Fatman's costume is nearly identical to Captain Marvel's.

Unfortunately, Fatman had two things going against him from the beginning:

First, he came along near the end of the very short-lived superhero boom brought on by the Batman (1966) television show. Dozens of new superheroes in all sorts of media showed up in response to Batmania. But the trend didn't have any legs, and most of those heroes didn't even last a year.

Second, Fatman was a call-back to a much simpler time, when the comic book audience was much younger. The meteoric rise of Marvel Comics and their angsty, more "grounded" superheroes were attracting a new generation of older readers who didn't have time for books aimed at "kids."

One of my older cousins had Fatman #3 in his small comic book collection. I remember reading it numerous times when I visited his house, and remember enjoying its cartoon goofiness.

[come-to-the-day]

Second issue of the Fatman comics.

In this issue, funnily, Fatman ends up fatter than in the previous comics. Indeed, since there isn’t much activity for Fatman, Van Crawford spends his time in his manor, caring for his plants or stamps, looking at birds or comic books. And of course, eating a lot. Sandwiches, tarts, bananas, hams... He ends up so big he develops a third chin and breaks his scale. 

The trouble is that, if Van Crawford gains weight, than his “flying saucer” form is also heavier, to the point he is unable to fly high or at great speed. Later, the alien who gave him his powers visit him, angry that he isn’t using all of his powers. When he realizes that Fatman gained too much weight, he decides to help him lose weight with his high technology and alien methods. Fatman hopes it will slim him down quickly and with no effort.

Turns out, the aliens have exactly the same methods to lose weight as humans. Massages, steam baths, exercise, reducing pills and eating nearly nothing. 

In terms of weight, while Fatman’s weight is never specified, we have clues helping us to deduce it. When dieting he explains he has to lose around 80 or 90 pounds. In his flying saucer form, he weighs 2000 pounds while usually he eighs only “1500″ pounds. That means his flying saucer form has an excess of 500 pounds for 80-90 pounds as a human. If we divide 500 by 80 and then by 90 and search for the middle result, we have roughly six. This mean his usual flying saucer weight of 1500 pounds can be divided by six: Fatman seems to normally weigh around 250 pounds (113 kilos). 

Funny thing, when hungry, Fatman is ready to do anything to get food, even to pop up in people’s garden asking for food. And funnily enough, the lady he ends up at thinks he is a beggar, due to him being weirdly dressed and asking for food. 

(And again we see another of the little snacks Fatman keeps in the lining and pockets of his costume : a five-pound emergency sandwich.)

[come-to-the-day]

When Captain Marvel was “eliminated” by DC Comic during the Superman plagia trial, it left an empty place to be filled. The creators of Captain Marvel (that would be rebirthed several decades later as Shazam, ironically in the DC Comics) tried to reiterate the huge success of Captain Marvel with other heroes. None worked. 

And one of these “failed attempts” was “Fatman, the Human Flying Saucer”.

Having an overweight super hero was a first, we were still in the 60s after all - and, from what I’ve read of the first issue there isn’t any kind of real fat shaming except for mentions of a diet at the beginning. However, it is still using a lot of fat clichés and fat jokes, and isn’t modern in any way. But I have to admit - it still has funny moments and interesting ideas. (Just to give you an idea look at the official description: “Fatman! A sensational new fighting hero of pachyderm proportions, whose adventures are over-weighted with thrills as he strikes like a ton of bricks! Crooks have slim chances as he tips the scales against crime at every turn!”

Anyway let’s see what this goofy comic can offer.

Fatman himself is a young man called Junior Van Crawford. son of an extremely wealthy family (wealthy enough to live in a mansion with servants, having a private boat and not have to work to live). He is, as the title said, really fat and overweight, not to say obese (well, for the time). I haven’t seen his weight mentionned in the first issue. His parents are deeply unsatisfied with their son. On one side because of his eating habits: he is a glutton who doesn’t care about his weight and can’t stick to a diet. When they try to put him to a “six eggs-five chops-four-squabs diet”, he rather eats twelve eggs, ten chops, and eight squabs, and when called out on that, he explains that to compensate he’ll cut down on the desserts: only two layer cakes and one gallon of ice cream. 

The other thing that displeases his parents is that he is doing nothing important of his life. He spends his days and weeks collecting stamps and puppets, groing exotic tropical plants and watching birds. It despairs his parents so much they are convinced he is doomed to be a good for nothing. 

Yet, if Junior is so determined to be a “good for nothing”, it’s to keep secret his identity as “Fat Man, the Human Flying Saucer”. Beware, it gets weird now. While watching birds, Van Crawford saw a flying saucer about to crash. The young man, trying to help, broke down trees to help the saucer’s landing (because apparently he was already fat and heavy enough to bring down trees with just one shoulder punch). 

Turns out it wasn’t a real flying saucer, but an alien from a race that is able to transform themselves into flying saucers to travel around the world. And he wasn’t about to crash, he just faked it to test Van Crawford. The young man proved that he had empathy, a quick wit and an ability to move fast, qualities the alien searched desperatly for. The alien gave to Junior a potion (that he requested chocolate flavored) that gave him the power to turn into a living flying saucer, plus other typical super-hero powers (strenght, speed, fighting abilities). The alien briefly explains that they give this gift to one worthy person per planet to fight the constant battle between good and evil, and then quickly disappears in the sky. 

Fatman’s great appetite keeps being mentionned or used as plot points. He only swears by food names (holy bacon, holy apple pie, holy cupcake), and right after testing for the first time his flying saucer power he decides to go to a restaurant have a nice meal. Just a bit of “t-bone steak, porkchops on the side, then a couple of roast chicken and cream gravy”. Enough so that he doesn’t “starve to death”. 

As I said the use of his fat in combat is quite cliché. Villains can’t move him or take him in their arms, and he can make them bounce with his belly. He is also the definition of “acrofatic”: he reveals that he spent so much time in gyms trying to lose weight that now, even with his huge frame, he can still jump high and swing on bars like a monkey (something apparently not related to the serum the alien just gave him).

It’s actually during his first encounter with villains that he found his name, when the chief of the criminals called him “hog” and “fatman”. After taking a nice meal of lobsters and chickens, he created his own super-hero uniform out of “various masquerade outfits”. And right after finishing to create his hero persona, he goes to raid his own fridge to celebrate. 

Edit: I also just wondered about what Fatman’s family name could indicate us on his background. “Crawford” is a typical anglo-saxon name, mostly worn in the British Isles, even though it later got carried on in the USA. As for “Van” it’s actually a typical prefix for family names in the Netherlands, the Dutch equivalent of the German “Von”. So the Van Crawford family probably descends from the union of British and Dutch immigrants. 

[come-to-the-day]

This is the rest of the Fatman first issue.

Funny thing, the Fatman first issue opens with an advertisement for losing weight. 

We see that Fatman always bring a snack with him in the lining of his cape (such as a baloney-ham-egg-salad-sardine-liverwurst-tongue sandwich on white, rye, raison and whole weat bread, plus milk, an apple and a banana). 

And when the exploits of Fatman became known to the world through television, his mother complains that Junior could do something as useful as that - but Junior merely says to her that he is tired just “hearing” of Fatman’s exploits, and orders two hot pizzas to help finish his cake. 

We also have the cliché of “the big eater loses his appetite when things get serious”, when Fatman refuses to eat his meal after being forced to fight the last descendant of a benevolent race that was attacked by humans long ago and banished from the lands deep into the sea. (However it turns out at the end of the issue that this is a lie the fish-creature tells everyone when he is drunk, in fact he has a wife and five hundred kids). 

Later Fatman founds an ally/sidekick into a new young super hero, a teenager that kept being mocked for being extremely thin and lanky but became a sort of super-robot made of tin. As the result they became the “fat and thin duo”. 

[come-to-the-day]

And the last part of the second issue. 

Again there is a mention that Fatman is a good gymanstic and a talented acrobat, despite his “rotund build”, because he “keeps himself in shape”. There is also a tagline “Fatman may look soft... but he’s really as hard as steel!”. 

[come-to-the-day]

And the last of the third issue of Fatman, which was also the last - it got cancelled afterward. (Quite a shame, I was starting to enjoy this comic).

After defeating the mastermind behind the evil organization S.A.T;A.N. (quite subtle, heh?), Van Crawford celebrates with eating twenty pizzas, staining his face, hand and napkin - and he is still hungry for more. 

And Fatman finds a love interest into Eunice Kane, the owner of a candy shop that quickly steal his heart. She quickly guesses that Fatman and Van Crawford are one and the same, while Van Crawford/Fatman helps her winning a contest against a candy villain and learns her secret candy recipe. In the end, Fatman offers her to join her business and help her run the candy shop - and the authors ask the readers to send letters about what they think of this development, asking if Fatman should have a girlfriend or not.

Unfortunately, the comic got cancelled so we never knew how their love story went on. 

[come-to-the-day]

Issue 3 of Fatman.

We learn that Van Crawford is a chess champion, and yet so generous that the prize he wins from chess championship ends up rather in the crippled children’s fund. He also owns a private jet. 

One plotline involves Van Crawford visiting three “new nations” that just started to create their own stamps, to add them to his collection: Octogonia, Rubemania and Coolsland. 

At Octogonia (south of Hawgphat), where the king is also the post officer, policeman and filling other jobs in the small nation, Van Crawford ends up buying the country by pure luck, while offering the king twenty-five thousand dollars for his stamps. The night of his coronation (or day?) he has a great feast, however a villain comes in and turns all the food into wood. And this is the first time we see Fatman so serious with a villain - he really got angry at seeing someone ruin his feast. Later, Van Crawford abandons the Octogonia crown and flies to the other “new nations” to get his stamp. 

In Rubemania Fatman ends up chassing an assassin that wants to kill the Rubemania President, however he gets distracted by a stand of “Rubeburgers - All you can eat”. This gives time for the assassin to prepare his deadly plan - which includes planting a “polar attractor” in the biggest movable object - which ends up being, of course, Fatman himself.