Silver Charity, Sudden Death!

THE HUMAN FLY — Issue no. 11, April 1978

Book: The Human Fly

Issue No.: 11

Published: April 4, 1978

Title: “Silver Charity, Sudden Death!”

Cover Price: 35¢

Another issue of The Human Fly leads me to another round of research about the character. My first assumption was that Fly was based on famous 1970s daredevil Evel Knievel. Then I found out that the book’s tagline (“The wildest superhero ever — because he’s real!”) was not just hyperbole, and there really was a masked stuntman (Canadian Rick Rojatt) known as the Human Fly doing stunts in the real world in the 1970s.

A blurb on the cover of this issue of The Human Fly promises “A true-to-life account of the near-tragedy at Montreal!” So I had to do some more research. This masked dude did a big motorcycle stunt in the late-1970s, and Marvel wrote that stunt into a comic book? How did I not know about this? I was the target audience for The Human Fly, because if there were two things I loved in 1978, they were comic books and motorcycle stunts. (Not only did we not have the internet in those days, I didn’t even have basic cable because I lived in rural Alabama, so my entertainment choices were limited. That said, comic books and motorcycle stunts are still pretty awesome.)

This round of research turned up this YouTube video, which pretty much answered all of my Human Fly-related questions. You should watch the video if you’re interested in the pop culture of the late ’70s. (The narrator on the video is not a fan of the Fly comic book, but I don’t hold that against him because he explains most everything you might want to know about the “real” Human Fly in ten minutes.)

But basically, the Human Fly was more of a multi-media marketing plan than a stunt performer. The original idea was that the Fly would remain masked and anonymous, so the Fly’s management team could send out different stunt performers for different events, and the audience wouldn’t know because whoever was the Fly that day would be wearing the same mask and costume. The Fly’s managers licensed the Fly comic book rights to Marvel, and apparently Marvel’s creative staff gave the Fly’s managers ideas to flesh out the “real” Human Fly’s backstory.

The “real” Human Fly only ever performed two public stunts. Rick Rojatt claimed credit for those stunts, which kind of messed up the Fly’s managers’ “anyone can be the Human Fly” plan.

Aside from the daredevil stunts, the Fly’s managers had plans to make the Human Fly a masked pop singer (or maybe a folk singer?), and this issue of the Fly comic book promotes those plans by showing the Fly playing guitar and singing, with a note at the end of the issue that “The Human Fly — stuntman extraordinaire — will soon become a recording artist as well.”

Why is the Fly playing guitar and singing? After his motorcycle stunt in Montreal ends in a crash, he and his team travel to a charity event in St. Louis. The Human Fly’s stunt there is a success, but the rock singer he is sharing a bill with is injured (or maybe killed? it’s unclear, but it was all because of the singer’s shady manager), and the story ends with the Fly taking the stage in the singer’s stead. The show must go on!

Next time — A big treasury book of stories starring one of Marvel’s biggest heroes!