Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Heroes Case File #256: The Blasters

The past couple weeks, I’ve covered here superheroes who came about because of various big crossover events.  These events often create new heroes or teams, but many don’t last very long after that for one reason or another.

But I don’t think there was a group that got less attention after the crossover than DC’s Blasters.

Who were the Blasters?  Well, they were the space-based superhero team that came out of DC’s big Invasion! crossover.  The big thing to come out of that for DC lore was the concept of the metagene.  This was a bit of DNA in some humans that, when said humans are under extreme stress, can activate superpowers.  The Dominators, the alien big bads of Invasion!, figured this out by putting a mass of humans into a series of death traps and being surprised when six random people survived.  Those six became the Blasters.  And one of them was a character who’d been around for a while in the form of former Justice League mascot/junior member Snapper Carr.

So, the Blasters were integral to the final defeat of the Dominators, right?

Eh, not really  When some Earth heroes and the Omega Men showed up, Snapper gave them some help, but by and large, the rest of the Blasters didn’t do a whole hell of a lot.

So, they got a short-lived ongoing series afterwards, right?

Nope!  They got a one-shot special.

So, who are the Blasters?

Well, their core team was:

• Snapper Carr, who we’ve already mentioned, who got the power to teleport places whenever he snapped his fingers.
• Churljenkins, a green alien who acted as the team’s pilot and Snapper’s love interest.
• Jolt, Carlotta Rivera, a Spanish fashion model who got a repelling field.
• Looking Glass, an older British children’s book author, Dexter Fairfax, could transform his torso into a highly reflective surface.
• Dust Devil, a little Israeli boy named Moshe Levy who could generate tornados.
• Frag, Austrian sky instructor Fritz Klein, who could turn to living metal and explode stuff.
• Crackpot, a self-professed African American con man who could make people believe anything so long as he stayed calm.

On the side, they also had a rogue Dominator scientist and, because there weren’t enough stereotypes, Moshe’s overprotective mother.

So, beyond that special, what’s up with these guys?  Well, not a whole lot.  They sometimes get a guest appearance in other books, but mostly it’s Snapper by himself.  As for Snapper, aliens chopped his hands off, and while he got some artificial replacements, he may or may not still have those teleportation powers depending on the story.

So, will the Blasters return?  Eh, probably not.