Trivia Question: 1st Super Powered Comic Character? 0

[gadzukes]

Trivia Question: 1st Super Powered Comic Character?

I recently bought a scrapbook with some old Sunday comics from 1902.

While researching the comics on Wiki one of them was listed as possibly having the 1st example of a "Super Power" in a comic character.

Can you guess it?  Does anyone know of an older comic where the character exhibits a "superpower".

Spoiler

Billy Bounce.  He is elastic and uses his bouncing ability to virtually fly around the world.  Here his bounce power prevents an attack by a lion. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited May 31, 2017 by gadzukes

[Readcomix]

Wonder if he inspired Bouncing Boy?

I read somewhere that Popeye was the first comic character to exhibit super-strength. I'll try to locate that source.

cool discovery; thanks!

[gino2paulus2]

Cool!!! ?

[rjpb]

I'll be shocked if someone finds a super-powered character in comics earlier than this. Very cool.

[telerites]

Having never read any of the books or comic strips from the 1890s, would the Brownies count since they were fairies?  Did they exhibit any spritelike powers?

[OtherEric]

Billy Bounce was created by W. W. Denslow, best known for having illustrated the original edition of The Wizard of Oz.

I picked this up 2-3 months ago:

 

[gadzukes]

On 6/2/2017 at 5:45 PM, OtherEric said:

Billy Bounce was created by W. W. Denslow, best known for having illustrated the original edition of The Wizard of Oz.

I picked this up 2-3 months ago:

 

I used to have that book.  The color plates inside are amazing.

I've always loved Denslow's "seahorse" signature.  I wonder if that's what inspired Walt Simonson to do his Dinosaur sig

[OtherEric]

1 hour ago, gadzukes said:

I used to have that book.  The color plates inside are amazing.

I've always loved Denslow's "seahorse" signature.  I wonder if that's what inspired Walt Simonson to do his Dinosaur sig

Luckily my copy has a full set of plates.  I actually prefer Neill's version of Oz to Denslow, but I have to admit Denslow's color plates are amazing... they have a very nice way of highlighting only certain objects with black borders that is very striking.