GLEAMING GLADIATOR

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Unrevealed 

Occupation: Unrevealed

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: None

Enemies: None

Known Relatives: None 

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed 

First Appearance: Mighty Marvel Calendar 1975 (1974)

Powers/Abilities: Possessed of a strong back and brave heart, the Gleaming Gladiator carries a golden-colored shield and sword, as well as a boomerang-like weapon shaped like a large number 9. 

Height: Unrevealed (see comments)
 Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Unrevealed

History:
(Mighty Marvel Calendar 1975) - The Gleaming Gladiator was a hero who utilized symbols connected with the zodiac sign Leo. 

Comments: Created by Marie Severin.

   On the back pages of the 1975 Mighty Marvel Calendar an astrological disk was included identifying zodiac signs, and giving the birthstone, flowers, colors, numbers, and parts of the body supposedly ruled by each sign. Using this, a competition was launched for readers to design and send in their own heroes or villains based on said features, to be revealed in the next year's calendar. To provide an example of how this might work, Marie Severin designed a character based on her own sign, Leo. As the text explained, he had a ruby-encrusted helmet, an oversize 9 as a boomerang-type wonder weapon, a strong back and brave heart, and some orange and gold threads, resulting in the Gleaming Gladiator (since that last sounded a lot like gladiolus).

   He's not been seen since, but presumably he's wholly owned by Marvel, and so in theory there's nothing preventing him turning up somewhere else someday.

   Since he's only got a single picture of himself standing alone with no other height references, neither characters nor objects, it's pretty difficult to guess at his height (and hence weight). I'd guess he's probably somewhat tall, since what kind of barbarian-esque action hero is really short, but honestly any number I could throw in here would be a very loose guess.

   The winning entry, presented in the 1976 annual, was Capricorn.

   Thanks to Lonewolf36 from Who Watches the Watchers for suggesting covering this character.

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Gleaming Gladiator has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Mighty Marvel Calendar 1975, p27 pan1 (main image, zodiac sign attributes)

Appearances:
Mighty Marvel Calendar 1975 (1974) - Marie Severin (writer), other credits unknown

First Posted: 10/03/2021
Last updated: 10/03/2021

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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