Real Name: Calvin Elroy
PARAGON
Real Name: Calvin Elroy
Identity/Class: Presumably Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid;
Fictional character on Earth-616, possibly Extra-Dimensional (Earth-Paragon) (See Comments).
Occupation: Presumably T.V. anchorman
Group Membership: None confirmed, possible member of the Lightning Legion
Affiliations: None
Allies: Kora Kane
Enemies: Dexter Dorbolak, Captain Complex, Dork the Disruptor, General DeKay, Lurrgu, and Repello
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Capitol City
First Appearance: Captain Britain Monthly#1 (January 1985)
Powers/Abilities: "Para-"strength (presumably class 100), "para-"breath, flight, invulnerability ("para-" being an all-purpose prefix meant to parallel "super-" in the description of Superman's powers, his abilities seem to include ordinary heightened strength and breath).
History:
(Captain Britain Monthly#1 (fb - BTS)) - Dexter Dorbolak was born in Hungary.
(Captain Britain Monthly#3 (fb - BTS)) - Paragon discovered that Pedasol, a substance used to treat foot infections such as verucca, contained an obscure radioactive element which rendered him immediately comatose.
(Captain Britain Monthly#1 (fb)) - Paragon#311 was entitled "Cataclysmo, the Living Condominium." Dorbolak had constructed a skyscraper-sized robot, which doubled as headquarters for him and his allies (including Captain Complex, Dork the Disruptor, General DeKay, and Repello). Dorbolak demanded absolute world supremacy. Paragon scrambled Cataclysmo's air-conditioning system with his para-breath, distorting the sound wave of Dorbolak's message so that each of the other four evil scientists heard instead a catalog of their mothers' sexual shortcomings; Captain Complex, whose mother was killed in a grain harvester on his sixth birthday, took special offense at this and sellotaped a grenade to Cataclysmo's central reactor.
(Captain Britain Monthly#2 (fb)) - Paragon#428 was entitled "The Fiend with My Face." Dorbolak had been struck by a meteor which granted him the ability to absorb Paragon's para-powers and physical appearance. He proceeded to commit destructive acts across America, including tearing up railway lines and toppling the Empire State Building. When Paragon confronted him, the hero was defeated when Dorbolak pushed a Pedasol factory on top of him. As Dorbolak gloated, a sudden thunderstorm not only washed away the soluble Pedasol, but revealed that a side effect of the meteorite was to make Dorbolak equally soluble. He dissolved and was later incarcerated in a fishtank.
(Captain Britain Monthly#4 (fb)) - Paragon#429 was entitled "The Day it Rained Dorbolak." Paragon was distracted from his mission, transporting the tank containing Dorbolak to his antipodean retreat, when Kora Kane fell out of a passing aeroplane. The fishtank drifted into the eye of a radioactive storm, causing billions of raindrops, which reconstituted into evil replicas of Dorbolak, to rain down on Capitol City.
(Captain Britain Monthly#1 (fb)) - Paragon#500 was entitled "Holocaust in Atom City!" Dorbolak had sabotaged a reactor on Atom Isle, saturating the island in nuclear waste which transformed the citizenry into superhumans who immediately began to battle it out amongst themselves. Paragon was powerless to help, having been lured into a vat of liquid Pedasol.
(Captain Britain Monthly#3 (fb)) - Paragon#501 was entitled "The Hounds of Dorbolak" Paragon was vacationing on a remote African island, and unbeknownst to him had been followed by Kora Kane, who sought to reveal his secret identity as her bespectacled colleague, Calvin Elroy. Dorbolak was also hunting big game on the island, and began a deadly game in which Paragon repeatedly was forced to rescue Kora Kane from Dorbolak and his pack of enormous mastiffs, while avoiding Dorbolak's Pedasol-armed howitzer. The scientist's plans were disrupted when a cigar-shaped ship bearing a giant reptile clad in silver landed in the jungle. It declaimed, "I AM LURRGU!" and proceeded to tear off Dorbolak's arms and legs and eat him.
(Captain Britain Monthly#3 (fb)) - Paragon#502 revealed that the Dorbolak which had been slain by Lurrgu had been a robot.
Comments:
Created by Steve Alan and Jeff Anderson.
Paragon was a fictional character depicted in the serial "Paragon of Painthorpe Street," and was devotedly read by the story's protagonist, Redmond Jonah Pringle. He was an obvious Superman analog, with Dorbolak resembling Lex Luthor, Kora Kane resembling Lois Lane, etc.
The artist on the strip was Carl Grebe.
Based on the assumption that the Paragon title was published continuously and monthly, its first issue would have been released circa 1958.
Other comic characters Pringle was fond of included Anakro the Unfrozen, The Lightning Legion, Reef Radford, and Tarnaz the Untamed.
Many characters in comics who are fictional in one reality actually do have real counterparts in other realities. While this is likely the case, it remains unconfirmed. For that matter, it is not even confirmed that Redmond Pringle lives on Earth-616. Alternatively, Paragon could have existed on Earth-616 in the pre-modern era, around the dates of his stories' publication, but have been poorly remembered for some reason. Just another unconfirmed theory... - Snood
Clarifications:
This character, Paragon, has no known connections to
images:
Captain Britain II#3, p17, pan1 (head shot)
Captain Britain II#1, p23, pan1 (Paragon surrounded by various characters)
First Posted: 02/01/2004
Last updated: 02/16/2014
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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