DAN SMALLWOOD
Real Name: Dan Smallwood
Identity/Class: Human
Occupation: Unrevealed
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Guardian (James Hudson), Sasquatch
(Walter Langkowski)
Enemies: None
Known Relatives: Gladys Smallwood (grandmother),
Marrina Smallwood (adopted sister), Tom Smallwood (grandfather)
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Newfoundland, Canada
First Appearance: Alpha Flight I#1 (August, 1983)
Powers/Abilities: Dan Smallwood possess no
superhuman powers, he is a typical, helpful young man who is accepting
of all people, looking past any physical oddities or deformities.
Height: 6'3" (by approximation)
Weight: 144 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Green
Hair: Red
History:
(Alpha Flight I#2 (fb) ) - Young Dan Smallwood was raised
on an island off the coast of Newfoundland by his grandparents Tom and
Gladys Smallwood. Tom, captain of a fishing trawler, returned home one
day with a strange, eggshaped Plodex embryo pod he'd collected from the
seafloor.
Dan spotted a tiny creature inside the
egg and commented to his grandmother that it looked like a baby chicken.
Noticing the egg was about to hatch, Gladys broke the shell of the pod,
imprinting her human DNA on the Plodex embryo in the process, causing
her to change into a tiny infant. The Smallwoods called the creature
Marrina and raised her as their own, alongside Dan.
Dan was among the first to realize Marrina possessed superhuman abilities when she started swimming at speeds well past 100 mph. Some ten months after Marrina manifested her powers, Dan got in touch with the ministry of defense, bringing his "sister" to the attention of James Hudson, who inducted her into Gamma Flight.
(Alpha Flight I#1) - Dan noticed the Alpha Flight alarm signal going off in Marrina's brooch and rushed out in his car to deliver it to her. Finding the aquatic Marrina at the Newfoundland coastline, she was surprised to see a call had come in, considering the team had only recently been disbanded. She still went to answer it, leaving a pensive Dan behind, wondering what he would do if anything should happen to her.
(Alpha Flight I#4) - Marrina elected to leave Alpha Flight
to join Namor the Sub-Mariner in finding out more about her mysterious
alien origins. Guardian and Sasquatch travelled to Newfoundland to
inform her family. Hudson noticed that Dan took the news particularly
hard and realized Dan's love for Marrina was more than simply fraternal
affection.
(Alpha Flight I#40 - (fb) - BTS) - Fighting her innate,
savage Plodex instincts, Marrina reminded herself of her humanity,
thinking back on her youth spent with Dan and his grandparents. This
helped her break free from the genetic conditioning.
(Avengers I#287) - Dan was having coffee at a diner when he suddenly spotted Marrina and Namor on TV, discussing a recent Avengers mission. The sight of his childhood sweetheart shocked him, since he had already resigned himself to the fact he'd never see her again.
Comments: Created by John Byrne.
Poor Dan's story is more than a little heart rendering. On his website, John Byrne outlined his idea for the character, calling him "Marrina's 'Lana Lang' - the one who got left behind when she went out into the big bad world to play superhero." Roger Stern planned to use Dan in a similar capacity in Avengers, but left the book before he could properly write the initial set up in #287. Ralph Macchio scripted Dan's two panel appearance, somewhat to Stern's chagrin as he posted back in 2008: "Dan had a sort of unrequited love for her, despite what the copy says. I was going to - eventually - have Dan show up on the Avengers' doorstep, and there was going to be some friction between Dan and Namor."
With Byrne modelling Dan after Superman's girlfriend from Smallville, having his last name be Smallwood seems like too much of a coincidence. Be that as it may, yours truly finds the Marrina-Dan connection indicative of the weird, uncomfortable and sometimes downright creepy themes John Byrne introduced in his Alpha Flight run. Having a man hold a torch for his sister, adopted, alien or otherwise, always bugged me, especially when Byrne tried to backdoor rationalize it by saying inbreeding was quite common among the local population. Well, so is malnutrition in the Sudan...doesn't make it right, though.
Profile by Norvo.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Dan Smwallwood has no known connections to
images: (without ads)
Alpha Flight I#4, p24, pan3 (main image)
Alpha Flight I#2, p13, pan6 (young Dan with family)
Alpha Flight I#2, p14, pan 4&5 (Dan and Marrina play)
Avengers I#287, p7, pan1 & 2 (Shocked to see Marrina again)
Appearances:
Alpha Flight I#1 (August, 1983) - John Byrne (writer, pencils, inks), Denny O'Neill (editor)
Alpha Flight I#2 (September, 1983) - John Byrne (writer, pencils, inks),
Denny O'Neil (editor)
Alpha Flight I#4 (November, 1983) - John Byrne (writer, pencils, inks),
Denny O'Neil, Linda Grant (editors)
Alpha Flight I#40 (November, 1986) - Bill Mantlo (writer), David
Ross (pencils), Whilce Portacio (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
Avengers I#287 (January, 1988) - Roger Stern, Ralph Macchio (writers),
John Buscema (pencils), Tom Palmer (inks), Mark Gruenwald (editor)
Last updated: 12/08/13
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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