Honestly, I'm not sure Black Orchid had a dozen appearances at that point. Did she even appear in Crisis? (Yes!) Well, she's in today's book as well: from 1985, Blue Devil Annual #1, "The Day All Hell Broke Loose" Written by Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin, pencils by Paris Cullins, inks by Gary Martin and Bill Collins.
Lost and confused, reporter Jack Ryder finds himself being chased by the Man-Bat! Ducking into a mysterious-but-conveniently-open shop, Jack meets both Madame Xanadu, and the Phantom Stranger; who seem to have a little tiff over who has jurisdiction. That doesn't go very far, before Etrigan the Demon also shows up. Meanwhile, in California, Blue Devil is testing some new special effects robots for the upcoming Blue Devil II movie; when of course they start to rampage, courtesy of Felix Faust, who is after something in Dan Cassidy's workshop. BD tries to fight the robots without damaging them--they were $2 million a piece!--before Etrigan shows up to 'help,' smashing them to bits. After a brief encounter with Faust, Etrigan ends up with the bauble he had been looking for, and refers to it as an egg!
Meanwhile, in a cab there, Ryder tells Xanadu his portion of the story: the Creeper and Man-Bat had been taken over by Faust, but changing back into Ryder broke the control. Xanadu and Creeper free Man-Bat, while the Demon is positively drooling at the first egg, which spills out little monsters that he finds delicious. The Stranger gives an enchanted butterfly net to Blue Devil to gather up the creatures; while Xanadu does the same for the Creeper in NYC, but the creatures lump into one big one! Luckily, the Black Orchid arrives to help. Confused, Creeper asks Xanadu about her, and Xanadu dishes the previously unknown origin of the mysterious crimefighter:
The heroes join up in the desert (although, Orchid apparently arrives separately, under her own power) to stop Faust, who takes control of Blue Devil briefly. Black Orchid arrives in time to seemingly drop Faust off a mesa; and BD asks the Stranger about her, so he spills:
Those both seem familiar somehow...After Faust is finally beat, the Creeper suggests maybe they were all there for a reason, and suggests maybe they make the team-up a regular thing. It goes over like the proverbial lead balloon; but the name probably didn't help.
I guess if they had called Justice League Dark "John Constantine's Mystic Punters" that wouldn't have caught on either. Although she would have a few appearances with the Suicide Squad, it would be three more years before Black Orchid would get an origin, courtesy of Neil Gaiman.
1 comment:
Blue Devil- another one of those underappreciated comics that needs a trade collection or two. Funny and willing to use characters and plot threads from all over DC history. I think one of Black Orchid's hooks is that they never revealed her secret identity.
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