{"id":6849,"date":"2025-06-30T07:41:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T11:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/?p=6849"},"modified":"2025-06-30T07:42:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T11:42:59","slug":"forgotten-heroes-2025-the-escapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/?p=6849","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Heroes 2025: The Escapist"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For my last submission to Forgotten Heroes this year, I present: The Escapist!<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Escapist first appeared in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay<\/em>, Michael Chabon’s fantastic novel published in 2000. He’s the fictional character created by a couple of Jewish cousins working in the comics industry back in the 1930’s, the Golden Age of Comics. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Kavalier and Klay are an homage to the creators of Superman, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, only Siegel and Shuster weren’t cousins and Siegel (to my knowledge) wasn’t gay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you haven’t read this book, I can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s a novel about persecution, fear, Jewish identity, family, love, perseverance and heroes, both real and created. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Chabon won a Pulitzer Prize for it in 2001. Three years later, Dark Horse Comics published a series of comics, Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of The Escapist,<\/em> which featured stories about the character written and drawn by different comic creators. I don’t have any, but I wish I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about The Escapist himself? Because it’s early and I have to go to work, I’ll cut and paste Wikipedia for the benefit of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The character’s\u00a0modus operandi\u00a0is part of a recurring theme of\u00a0escapism\u00a0in the novel, representing the imaginative and positive effects of escapism in\u00a0superhero\u00a0comics as well as Kavalier and Clay’s attempts to escape from the troubles of their past.\u00a0Joe Kavalier has fled to America from\u00a0Nazi-occupied\u00a0Prague\u00a0in\u00a0Europe, leaving the rest of his family behind. Unable to help them, he starts fleeing from himself and everyone trying to get close to him. Sam Clay also wants to escape from himself \u2013 both his\u00a0polio<\/a>-stricken body and repressed\u00a0homosexuality.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Escapist’s true identity is Tom Mayflower. He is the crippled nephew of escape artist Max Mayflower (who performs under the stage name of Misterioso). When Max is fatally shot while performing onstage, he reveals that he isn’t his real uncle, having rescued him from a cruel orphanage as a baby. He gives Tom a golden key and a costume, explaining that he was recruited long ago by a mysterious organization called the League of the Golden Key to fight tyranny and free the oppressed. With his dying breath, Max commissions Tom to carry on his work. As long as Tom is wearing the costume and the key, he finds that he is no longer lame of leg and can perform amazing feats of escapology. Tom uses his powers to fight crime under the guise of the Escapist, especially against the evil forces of the mysterious criminal network, the Iron Chain.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To make The Escapist, I used this Animal Man Heroclix as a base miniature. He’s pretty much perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From there, it was an easy paint job, as The Escapist’s costume is a black\/grey skintight leotard and a TMNT-style bandanna domino. Not hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Although I was happy with the result, he looked somewhat blah, so I added the chains. It’s an actual necklace (worthless, of course) that I clipped and superglued into a pile at his feet. One quick metallic drybrush later, and voila! The Escapist has escaped!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s it for Forgotten Heroes 2025. Thanks as always to Jeremy for hosting it. I’ll be making the rounds to everyone’s blog to see their contributions and heap well-deserved praise upon them!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my last submission to Forgotten Heroes this year, I present: The Escapist! The Escapist first appeared in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon’s fantastic novel published in 2000. He’s the fictional character created by a couple of Jewish cousins working in the comics industry back in the 1930’s, the Golden Age […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,3,52,31,25],"tags":[71,28,57,27],"class_list":["post-6849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conversions","category-miniatures","category-painting-challenges","category-repaints","category-super-heroes","tag-forgotten-heroes","tag-heroclix","tag-super-mission-force","tag-supersystem-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6849"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6884,"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6849\/revisions\/6884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/angrypiper.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}