Super Bowl Sunday is stampeding towards us on the gridiron, and what better way to celebrate than by uniting jocks and nerds into one glorious list? Easier said than done, it seems. This may or may not surprise you, but apparently sports have very little to do with superheroes, despite the fact that both involve men and women dressing up in brightly-colored, often animal-themed costumes for our amusement.

The Buffalo Sabre – Did you know Stan Lee designed superheroes for every NHL team?

In celebration of the biggest game day of the year, I’ve decided to spread the wealth of geekery to my more athletic brothers and sisters. Click the jump to see 6 of the sportiest superheroes and villains in comics! Though I wouldn’t necessarily let any of them go home with the game ball.

6. The Skateboarders

Sadly, only one has ‘thrash’ in his name

I’m an open-minded sort of guy, so of course I consider skateboarding to be a sport. One I, sadly, never learned. But these guys have! That’s Rocket Racer, Night Thrasher and El Guapo, three separate characters with super-powered skateboards. For you see, super-powered skateboards were all the rage in the 90s. So much so that legendary writer Dwayne McDuffie once pitched Marvel the sarcastic ‘Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers’.

Rocket Racer is one of Spider-Man’s silliest foes. Night Thrasher is a badass street fighter who had no business adding a skateboard to his arsenal other than the fact that it was the 90s and he was a teenager. El Guapo was a member of X-Statix, the off-brand X-Men who were only concerned with their celebrity status. And I’m pretty sure his skateboard was the dominant one in that relationship, if that makes any sense. These guys were pretty fly in their day. I’m only sorry to say I couldn’t find any roller blading superheroes. Perhaps the 90s just weren’t 90s enough to make that happen.

5. Javelin

Step 1: Throw javelin Step 2: ??? Step 3: Profit

Olympic events? Yep! Those have inspired more comic book characters than actual sports. Sometimes to make a super-villain, all you need is a signature gimmick. I could probably do an entire list based on the villains who use boomerangs. One guy even uses a fishing rod as his signature schtick. But this guy? This guy’s got some class. He isn’t just throwing spears like some kind of jungle guy. He’s throwing javelins. And I’m pretty sure they’re just javelins. Not ‘exploding javelins’ or ‘electric javelins’. They’re just javelins. Now that’s classy.

Javelin first showed up battling Green Lantern in 1984, because what better way to battle the most powerful weapon in the universe than with a fancy type of spear? Javelin was a German ex-Olympian who turned to a life of crime when apparently dedicating his life to throwing a javelin didn’t exactly lead to fame and fortune. Javelin was a grunt-level super-villain through several minor adventures before getting run over by a jeep. He should have thrown his javelin at it!

4. Battling Bantam

Puerto Rico’s proudest superhero

Battling Bantam is the boxing superhero, who, based on his costume, clearly also supports cock fighting. So if you are ever in a contest at a bar trying to think up the worst superhero ever, you can now say you’ve heard of the cock fighting superhero who wears a chicken on his head. But boxing is Bantam’s real sport, as you can see by the boxing gloves on his hands. And the name ‘Bantam’ clearly comes from the bantam weight class, but come on. He’s ‘Chicken Boxer’! Or maybe just ‘Cock Fight’! Someone get Marvel Comics on the phone!

Roberto Velasquez was an up and coming young boxer in Puerto Rico who could never catch a break because of his meager size and weight. So he accepted an offer from a bad guy to get super enhancements, because steroids are so passe in a world of superheroes. When Roberto next stepped into the ring with a new strength, he killed his opponent. That was more than enough of a tragic origin, and Roberto put together his ‘Battling Bantam’ identity, teamed up with Captain America, of all people, and put a stop to the bad guys. Good for him. Except that Bantam didn’t appear again until 13 years later, when he was killed off during the superhero Civil War. Because that’s what happens to superheroes in chicken costumes.

3. Triathlon

Why not ‘Marathon’? You’ll see…

The Avenger with the strength of three men! Literally, that’s his super-power. Someone was desperate to put the prefix ‘tri’ in his superhero name. Delroy Garrett was an Olympic runner who was banned from the sport for using steroids (maybe they’re not so passe). With nowhere else to go, Garrett joined the Triune Understanding, which somehow managed to imbue him with super-powers stolen from the original 3-D Man…because yes, there was once a superhero named 3-D Man.

The newly named Triathlon had the strength, speed and agility of three men. He could also heal at three times the rate of a normal person. And his senses were – you guessed it – tripled in strength. Triathlon joined the Avengers in the late 90s, which was kind of a dark period before they started their renaissance towards movie stardom. He eventually found out that the Triune Understanding was evil (duh!) and he sacrificed his super-powers to resurrect the 3-D Man. Because who wants to live in a world without a superhero named 3-D Man?

2. Sportsmaster

He’s a ‘master sporter’

You would be surprised how hard it is to find a superhero or villain who uses a popular sport as a theme. No basketball superheroes. No baseball superheroes. Not even a hockey superhero! Fortunately, DC Comics has a villain who decided to just use ‘sports’ in general as his theme: Sportsmaster! It’s probably safe to assume that he considers himself a ‘master’ of sports. And he went all out with the theme. Exploding baseballs, exploding hockey pucks, flying bases, knockout basketballs, a lacrosse-style net shooter; Sportsmaster had it all. And his costume was a random assortment of sports uniforms. It’s like somebody spent a long time trying to come up with a sports-themed character who didn’t seem too ridiculous, then got so frustrated that he just threw all the sports together.

There have been several Sportsmasters or Sportsmen over the years, but the only one that really matters was Lawrence Crock. Dreamed up all the way back in the 1940s, the original Sportsmaster battled the Green Lantern, because apparently that’s what sports-themed villains do. Word has it his successor, Victor Gover, did team up with Javelin at least once. That must have been a hell of an issue.

Somebody out there likes Sportsmaster though, because both he and his daughter Artemis were selected as major characters in the Young Justice cartoon a few years ago. They turned Sportsmaster into a supreme badass capable of taking on Deathstroke the Terminator in a fight…while still sticking to that sports theme. At least they tried.

1. NFL SuperPro

He only speaks in logos and Wordart

Behold the gloriously synergistic marriage of Marvel Comics and the NFL! A true melding of geek and jock! Though hopefully he has the legal permission of the NFL to put that logo on his chest, or somebody’s going to be told to ‘cease and desist’. Created in 1991, SuperPro could very well have the silliest origin in comics, alongside the silliest name and silliest costume. Aspiring football star Phil Grayfield was forced to quit the sport when he injured his knee saving a little boy (off to a good start). Choosing instead to become a sports writer, Grayfield interviewed an eccentric football fan/mad scientist who invented a $5 million indestructible football uniform – basically Linebacker Iron Man.

During the interview, a random bunch of thieves raided the eccentric’s house and stole a van full of valuable NFL merchandise…then set the house on fire, like you do. Grayfield, tied up by the thieves, somehow knocked over a vat of ‘experimental chemicals’, which, in conjunction with both the fire and the leftover ultra-rare football souvenirs, granted him amazing powers! And then he put on the indestructible football uniform. One of those origins was not enough. SuperPro has both super-powers and a super suit!

Assassins fear him

SuperPro is just the greatest sort of nostalgic silliness you could ever ask for. His comic lasted only 12 issues before being mercilessly cancelled. The writer, Fabian Nicieza, has even admitted that he only did it for free NFL tickets. But somehow, some way, SuperPro lives on in all of our hearts. His is the sort of painful notoriety that shall never die, just like the other legends of the gridiron!

—————