Braggadoom? Yes, Braggadoom.
He first (and last?) appeared in Marvel Two-In-One #13 (Ja'76) which featured The Thing teaming up with Luke Cage, Power Man. Luke debuted in 1972 in Hero For Hire #1 and in his first years integrated himself into the Marvel Universe by encountering Spider-Man, Doctor Doom, Iron Man and the Defenders. Here he meets Arnold Krank, a stuttering bio-chemist in the Arnold Strang/John Fielder mode, who confesses to Cage that "I Created Braggadoom! The Mountain that Walks Like a Man!" At first he accidently created a living green protoplasmic blob that later absorbed two men, including Krank's boss. That transformed him into a forty foot green, vaguely reptilian giant with a child's mind. The creature went on a rampage, to be confronted by that idol o'millions, Benjamin J. Grimm. Apparently, the rest of the Fantastic Four were not home nor the Avengers, for that matter. Cage was unmoved by Krank's plight. Monster-hunting wasn't his style until he learned that the Thing was battling it alone.
Meanwhile, Bashful Benjy is not making much progress as he's batted around like a tennis ball. As he smashes through a grandstand, he, somehow, makes a noise that sounds like "Braggadoom!" that appeals to the Immense Ogre. Suddenly the creature evolves into an intelluct and now christens himself Braggadoom! It's true, he named himself after a sound effect! On that sequence alone, he could have went with either "Ska-Runtch" or "Ka-Thoom" which sounds more traditional but maybe he's a New Wave thinker! At this point, Cage and Krank (I see sit-com potential here) arrive and Brags grabs Luke and Ben and imitates Catfish Hunter and hurls them away!
After a neat stunt to save themselves, Ben decides that he doesn't need Luke tagging along and they debate with their fists briefly. I was never sure how strong Power Man was supposed to be but he was probably closer to Spider-Man than the Thing. Flying in the Pogo Plane, the two are shocked to see Braggadoom, now over 300 feet tall, in the river with Krank in one hand and demolishing a bridge with the other! (Great two-page spread here!) He seems to do this to impress Krank. (BTW, where are the Avengers, Defenders, Spider-Man, the X-Men, SHIELD and even the National Guard while all this is going on?)
The Brawling Buddies hit the drink and attack Brags' titanic feet with little success. Then the Thing is able to topple the Massive Menace as Cage rescues Krank only to be told that Brags' atomic structure is extremely unstable and that he can go nuclear with any impact. Luke tries to stop the Thing and they have another "debate" but suddenly Brags starts to shrink to mere inches, imploding instead of exploding. Krank theorizes that Braggadoom was rebelling against him as his "father". Cage goes "All's well that ends well" until Ben reminds him of the two men Brags absorbed. They never came back. But later we see Krank raising Braggadoom as his "son" with him in a playpen with a rubber ball! So he's still out there!
This issue had a lot of talent in it: Roger Slifer and Len Wein (scripters), regular MTIO artist Ron Wilson, inker Vince Colletta and plotter/editor Marv Wolfman.
Luke Cage always treaded a fine line of sterotypical behavior but he was probably one of the more realistic portrayals of what an "actual" super being would be like. They all can't be millionnaire playboys!
The friction between The Thing and Power Man seemed to come from Cage's "Hero For Hire" persona which would rub a lot of the original Marvel heroes the wrong way.But that was how Krank found Cage to begin with. He was the only super-hero in the phone book!
Luckily when Brags evolves into humanoid form, he also evolves a pair of stretchy trunks as well!
The ending seems to cry out for a sequel and it is a little creepy!
Ironically Power Man would temporarily replace the Thing in the Fantastic Four in their title (#168-170) when he becomes Ben Grimm again, which he seems to do once every decade!
Replies
I assumed since Braggadoom wasn't killed that he was going to appear again somewhere. Did the writer leave Marvel (or at least Marvel Two-in-One) soon afterwards? Perhaps the name was based on Brigadoon?
At least, they could have done a "I Was a Teen-Age Braggadoom!" story!
Luckily it wasn't a Walt Simonson story, or he would have adopted the name Ba-throom - "The beast that was built like a brick sh*thouse!"
Don't give Marvel any ideas. Bringing back an obscure character almost always means doing something terrible to him,
After turning Wundarr into the Aquarian they seemed to have no further use for him either. Realized he was more interesting if he talked funny?