The Black Terror comics

By 1942, comic books were so thickly populated with superheroes, it took some real doing for a new one to stand out from the crowd. The Black Terror, who debuted in the spring of that year, did it by wearing a solid black costume with gold trim, and using a skull and crossbones as his chest emblem. The Terror's series began in Exciting Comics #9, dated May, 1942. Within six months of his introduction, he had his own comic. But The Terror lasted far longer than most of the 1940s long underwear guys, but by the end of the decade, even he was losing his grip on sales. All three of the comics that ran him were canceled in 1949, and a few years later, the company itself bit the dust. In the 1970s, Marvel Comics introduced a new character, The Punisher, with a costume strongly reminiscent of The Terror's. And with the trademark no longer current, Eclipse Comics (Airboy, DNAgents) introduced a new Black Terror in 1989, who looked like him and shared the name, but was otherwise different. Later, the original character was used by AC Comics, which makes a specialty of reviving old superheroes such as The Avenger, Captain Flash and The Blue Beetle. In 2001, writer Alan Moore (From Hell, Watchmen) brought the original, along with the company's other super-stars, back for a crossover with his own Tom Strong.