I don't know how long I'd been reading about Ultra Boy before I realized his name was Jo Nah and he'd gotten his powers from being swallowed by a space whale. I caught on to that more quickly than I realized why Matter-Eater Lad was from the planet Bismoll.

But today, copy editing a manuscript that mentioned the barren winters...I realized there'd be a pun in the name of the lead character of Night Force all along. Baron Winters -- 34 years since his introduction! I think that's a new record for me!

Any pun names in comics (or elsewhere) that you didn't catch onto until later?

You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!

Join Captain Comics

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • Modesty Blaise. Her origin story says her mentor gave her the name Modesty (in a joking spirit, referring to her lack of physical modesty), and she took her surname from Merlin's tutor. I recently realised her surname is really a pun on "blaze".

  • Wikipedia argues Batroc's name derives from "batrachian".

     

  • In his recent review of Jack Kirby's Black Panther, Bob recently mentioned that Abner Little was a play on Li'l Abner. that hadn't occurred to me until he pointed it out. 41 years. Beat that!

  • Well, since I didn't know that until you just told me ...

    Jeff of Earth-J said:

    In his recent review of Jack Kirby's Black Panther, Bob recently mentioned that Abner Little was a play on Li'l Abner. that hadn't occurred to me until he pointed it out. 41 years. Beat that!

  • Nice! Though I don't know Kirby's Panther run, so he's an unfamiliar character to me. 

  • Then there's "Giant-Size Man-Thing" ...

    (ducks and runs)

  • During the---ugh!---New Blackhawk Era, when the team took on super-hero identities, Blackhawk assumed the code name of "the Big Eye".

    The Big Eye = the Big Guy, i.e., the boss.

  • Oh, fer cryin' out loud -- that's another one I never got!

    Commander Benson said:

    During the---ugh!---New Blackhawk Era, when the team took on super-hero identities, Blackhawk assumed the code name of "the Big Eye".

    The Big Eye = the Big Guy, i.e., the boss.

  • Rainbow Raider is Roy G. Bivolo. This is from the mnemonic roygbiv. I had no idea until the Legionnaires explained this to me on the Captain's old board.

    Werewolf by Night is Jack Russell. I can't remember when I worked that one out.

  • "Federal Men" was an early Siegel and Shuster feature. In the instalment in New Adventure Comics #12 the hero asks a scientist about what the police methods of the future will be like. His answer forms an SF story.

    The officer in the story is named Jor-L. What's interesting about this is it suggests the El name was chosen as a homophone for L and comes from the SF tradition that in the future people will have letter or letter-number names/surnames (like Ralph 124C 41+ in Hugo Gernsback's novel, or the characters in the film Just Imagine). Likewise the surname of the Silver Age character Dev-Em is a homophone for M. The GCD attributes all his Silver Age appearances to Siegel.

This reply was deleted.