Comic Book Resources

I forget, has Brian already covered the never-staged Broadway musical adaptation of the 1989 Batman movie that Meatloaf's songwriter wrote? However bad this one is, that one is still be worse.

Whoops, sorry. Accidentally posted this in the wrong spot. Supposed to be in Urban Legends.

Kwinn the Eskimo, that made my Friday B. I wish they'd make an action figure of him.

John Mihaly: an action figure was made of Kwinn (called Tracker Kwinn, probably for trademark reasons) in 2004; it was in a comic three-pack with issue #2 of the Marvel series. (http://www.yojoe.com/action/04/trackerkwinn.shtml)

Cronin, Your love of Dylan is astounding. Understandable, but astounding.

The closest I can get is a Beatles-influenced character, Ross and Waid's Nowhere Man, from Kingdom Come.

I would think that Rocket Raccoon is also a Beatles influenced character. Can't think of any other DYlan ones.

The U-Foes name came from a Graham Parker song.

Since others have gone off the rails, I'll also toss in that Ruby Thursday is a Rolling Stones (Ruby Tuesday) influenced character.

However, someone has probably made another Dylan-themed character.
Sadly, I'm not as up on my Dylan as I should be, so I can't say for sure.

X_the_Phantom-Longbox__

I hope this isn't a double-post (since the first one seems to have vanished into the internets)...

But, DREAMWEAVER (a one-shot Doctor Strange villainess with a COOL visual) was named after the song by Gary Wright.

Here's her "bio" entry for the curious:

http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/dreamwea.htm

X_the_Phantom-Longbox__

Does Jack of Hearts count?

This doesn't involve Dylan, but David Anthony Kraft devoted a good chunk of his Defenders run to the mythology of The Blue Oyster Cult and even named one of the villains Vera Gemini after a Cult song that was co-written by Patti Smith.

Heck, I think the Cult itself appeared in the comic as demons in human disguise.

Hey Brian, what about "Tom Thumb" from Squadron Supreme? Surely, that could count as Dylan-influenced, especially if he has the blues.

I did not know Dylan wrote that song. All I knew it from was Manfred Mann's fantastic version.

Mr. Jones was the leader of the Men From N.O.W.H.E.R.E. in Grant Morrison's DOOM PATROL - and there's an explicit "Ballad of a Thin Man" reference.

And of course, there's always The Joker.

I tried to post this earlier, to no avail.

Let me add another helpful G.I. Joe link, this time to a biography of the big Eskimo himself:
http://www.myuselessknowledge.com/joe/kwinn.html

Incidentally, I'm not sure if the timeline makes sense, but I always wondered if the Joes' recurring Middle Eastern dictator character Colonel Sharif was a reference to "Rock the Casbah". You know: "Sharif don't like it... rock the casbah, rock the casbah..."

The Weatherman (from Stormwatch) is named from lyrics if not a song.
And the Jack of Hearts is at least a likely...

I have nothing to add except that Kwinn & the entire G.I. Joe run by Larry Hama are amazing and still underrated despite the attention they've received.

Cronin, you're such a hippie.

Best comic book character named after a folk song has to be Moonshadow, by Cat Stevens (and John Marc DeMatteis). It's also my favorite graphic novel ever!

Not a character, but during the Salvation Run mini, there was a scene set in a 'watchtower' where Joker said to Shadow-Thief, "There must be some way out of here." Then he complained, "I just know there's a joke in there somewhere! I must be losing my mojo!"

Oh, and once in Justice League Unlimited Quarterly, there was a character named Particle Man, from the They Might Be Giants song. No Triangle Man, Universe Man or Person Man, however.

Damn - I can't believe I missed a Particle Man reference. It must have been a post Giffen issue.

For great song-based names though you can't top the Duke of Oil!

There was a "Weathermen' in an old issue of the Avengers as well, and the title of the comic made it clear where the reference came from. The story was called "You Don't Need The Weathermen, To Know Which Way The Wind Blows"

Wasn't Dogwelder a mention from Highway 61 Revisited?

George R.R. Martin's shared world science fiction anthology 'Wild Cards' is full of characters named after songs.
'The Envoy' is named for the Warren Zevon song.
'Mack the Knife' is named for the Kurt Weill song.
And there was even a 'Quinn the Eskimo'.
And if I recall correctly, one of the characters, Captain Trips (A Grateful Dead reference) could transform into a bunch of different superheroes, all of whom were named for songs.

Oh, and during the latter days of Marvel's New Universe, there was a team of supervillains in DP7 all named after songs.
Though off the top of my head, the only ones I can recall are Acid Queen and Wooly Bully.

Oh of course I think possibly (but don't hold me to it) every issue of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run was named from song lyrics.

(but most of them were completely obscure to me and took my dad to point them out)

DanCJ: At least a few of them were named after famous paintings, not songs. (The Anatomy Lesson, The Sleep of Reason)

And later on there were a few that were named after other comics (Secrets and Mysteries, Mysteries in Space)

But lots of songs other than that. They're just about always a reference to something, anyhow.

Arse - well I'm half right - and I always thought "The Sleep of Reason" was a reference to the Talking Heads song "Creatures of Love", but that probably got it from the painting too.