The Terribly Tacky Tiger-Man

Atlas/Seaboard Publishing was a rival company to Marvel Comics that was established in the early 70s set up by Chip Goodman whose papa Martin sold Marvel with Stan Lee acting as head editor and would hand the position over to Chip when Martin retired. Lee of course became the Grand Poohbah instead and dismissed Chip, so Martin set up Atlas as Marvel's archenemy with Chip at the helm along with several other Marvel artists who jumped ship to go to Atlas. Much of Atlas' titles were slight rip-offs of Marvel, although Tiger-Man might be an exception as he made his premiere in Atlas' Thrilling Adventure Stories in early 1975 in a black-and-white story fast forwarding the character's career as an already established superhero taking on a white slavery ring. Following that, Tiger-Man got his own series in color that only lasted three issues written by Gabriel Levy who did several other Atlas titles and drawn by former Harvey Comics artist Ernie Colon. Beginning in the wilds of Zambia, Dr. Lancaster Hill was studying the special chromosome that makes African animals so powerful and used a blood sample from a tiger and injected into himself giving him the strength to take down a rampaging tiger. The natives gift Lancaster the tiger's skin as a trophy, and certainly not to use for an ugly superhero costume. Dr. Hill returns to his home in New York as he reunites with his sister Anna who is a famous actress that gets attacked in her apartment by a pair of thugs. Lancaster decides to use new his animal skills to track down Anna's killers, so he uses the tiger pelt to make one of the tackiest superhero uniforms from the Bronze Age and declares "I'll get that mother!" as he calls himself Tiger-Man. After getting the sniff of horses from Anna's place, his enhanced senses lead him to a rodeo and determines that it's star Jake Milner is the one who plugged his sister. Tiger-Man tracks down Jake who teams up with his partner in crime as they go into a bar, and our fearless feline just walks right in wearing his striped pajamas as all the cowboys inside heckle him for it. Tiger-Man slays his sister's killers and runs off into the night to do the stereotypical self-monologue swearing to be the hero that this city needs. Future issues have Tiger-Man fighting the equally unfashionable Blue Jaguar and the mind-taking Doctor Hypnos, but the last two issues were written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Steve Ditko, although the change in art styles didn't stop the comic from getting cancelled. Tiger-Man is one of the few superheroes outside of Wolverine who actually had stripes in their outfit, even though Logan made it work, but what makes the costume particularly ghastly is the mask with the lower jaw actually moving looking like an animatronic nightmare. A striped superhero ensemble does not make for nearly any kind of success which is why Tiger-Man couldn't even get a gig as a cereal mascot after his comic was canned.

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