390 MARVEL BOY
Smallville , all of which focus on interpersonal relationships and feature corporate
Luthors.
Jackson Jennings
MARVEL BOY. “Marvel Boy” is a name used for a variety of characters in comic books
published by Marvel and its precursors. Th e fi rst Marvel Boy, a superhero with the
power of Hercules, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby , had only two appearances:
one in Daring Mystery Comics in 1940, and another (in a version that could be inter-
preted as an entirely diff erent character) in USA Comics in 1943. “I don’t recall that
one,” Simon later said about the character.
Th e second Marvel Boy, created by Stan Lee and Russ Heath, made his debut in
Marvel Boy #1 in 1950. Bob Grayson is a teenager raised on the planet Uranus, where
his father fl ew in a space ship. He is given a set of powerful accessories by the local
aliens and returns to Earth as a costumed hero. Th e character stopped appearing regu-
larly in 1951, but had a handful of further appearances over the next 55 years. In 2006,
writer Jeff Parker re-introduced Grayson in the Agents of Atlas miniseries, revising his
history in the process. Parker established that Marvel Boy was a member of the group
now known as the Agents of Atlas in the 1950s, but then returned to Uranus, where
he remained until the present. Now simply called “Bob” by his friends, the character
became one of the protagonists of Parker’s new monthly Agents of Atlas series.
In 1977, another Marvel character using the name Marvel Boy debuted in Captain
America #217. Th is time, it is young Wendell Vaughn who comes in possession of
powerful Uranian artifacts and uses them as a superhero. Th e character does not keep
the Marvel Boy moniker for long, however, and is now better known as Quasar. In
Th e Th ing #32, published in 1985, a telekinetic youth named Vance Astrovik begins
calling himself Marvel Boy. He continues using the name while appearing in New
Warriors at fi rst, but changes it in 1993. Better known as Justice, he now appears in
Avengers : Th e Initiative. Meanwhile, he passed on the Marvel Boy name to a minor
character named David Banks in the limited series Justice: Four Balance (1994).
In 2000, writer Grant Morrison and artist J. G. Jones created the miniseries Marvel
Boy. Its protagonist is Noh-Varr, a young member of a humanoid alien race from a
parallel universe. Noh-Varr is on his way home from a diplomatic mission when his
ship is shot down by Marvel Universe super-villain Dr. Midas. Th e only survivor of
the crash, Noh-Varr is imprisoned by Midas, but quickly escapes due to his superior,
nano-active physiology, which, among many other superhuman features, is capable
of self-repair fueled by the ingestion of matter — such as waste. Following his escape,
Noh-Varr declares war on humanity. He carves block-sized expletives into Manhat-
tan and fi ghts opponents such as Hexus the Living Corporation, a parasitic alien life
form; a group of very expensive super-soldiers called the United Nations Bannermen;
and Oubliette, Dr. Midas’s daughter, who is forced to wear a mask by her father at all
times and believes herself to be horribly scarred. Eventually, Noh-Varr and Oubliette,
who discovers she was lied to, team up to defeat Midas. In the fi nal issue, Noh-Varr is
