Posted in: Comics | Tagged: alpha flight, Arnim Zola, Banshee, Brain Drain, Comics, Contest of Champions, entertainment, marvel, Shamrock, x-men

A St. Paddy's Day Tip-O'-The-Hat To Marvel's Shamrock

Being that it's St. Patrick's Day, it made me think of the Marvel Comics character Shamrock and how they addressed characters from other countries in the past. Being an Irishman myself (my wee 92-year-old Grandmother is from County Cork), I realized that there aren't that many superheroes from Ireland, but you'd think a country half the size of New York would have more than a handful. And the ones we do have a VERY Irish-centric. For a long time all we had was Banshee from the X-men. A banshee of course is a female spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the underworld. This made perfect sense for a big strapping man like Sean Cassidy to take as a superhero name. Don't get me wrong, I like the character, but that was all the Irish had until 1982…

I remember getting the Contest Of The Champions mini-series at age 12 and being fascinated by all the characters being brought together at once and how there were all these American characters and a handful from other countries. Some were already established like the Soviet Super Soldiers and Captain Britain… neither of which you would have to ask where they were from once you asked their names. And some new ones like Defensor, Talisman, Peregrine, Blitzkrieg, Arabian Knight, Sabra and the one that caught my eye Shamrock.

Now all of the newly introduced characters were mostly nation-centric. Arabian Knight looked like Sinbad on a flying carpet for example. But the one most blatant was Shamrock. She wore a skin-tight green-on-green body costume with a giant Shamrock on her chest… and forehead in case we were actually trying to look into her eyes. She wore a mask that completely covered her head… but have no fear they did modify it later to show her long, curly red hair. (Could you get more stereotypical?)

Now in the issue of course all the new characters are chosen to be part of the battle and we not only get to see the decades of political strife between Ireland and England addressed in a single panel… but we also see she's a bit of a randy lass.

Putting that all aside… she's kind of a fun character with a unique power. Born Molly Fitzgerald and what we know of her origin and her history revolves a lot around her fanatically militant Irish nationalist father. At three he took her and her brother to the northern mountains and asked the heavens to grant his son the power to strike down mountains… not so much… but they did give his daughter the ability of good luck. Years later when her brother dies from an IRA bomb blast, her loving father drugs her and takes her to Arnim Zola in hopes the scientist could transfer her good luck powers into him (to the father, not Arnim). This just made her more powerful and she escaped. There has to be some family therapy issues there.

Other than that, the only other exploits we know of the character are from The Contest Of The Champions and when she attended the Pan-European Confrence on Super-Human affairs… which of course was attacked by the Nazi villain Brain Drain who sent all the heroes back to the prospective countries to kill their heads of state. Alpha Flight stopped most of them but Shamrock was unaffected by the brainwashing in the first place because of her powers.

Speaking of her powers, Molly basically became a vessel for the souls of those who died innocently in war. Whenever she is in physical danger, one of the souls sacrifices itself in a burst of telekinetic energy causing improbable things to happen to her benefit. This also manifests itself in letting events fall in her favor. However at one point Molly fell, broke her foot and she decided her good luck powers had run out… all out of souls I guess. She decided to retire and become a hair dresser.

But you can see there is a certain place in people's heart for the underused character… as shown by not only a custom figure and a custom statue but also a cosplay.

So raise a pint of Guinness on this St. Paddy's Day to Marvel's symbol of Ireland and remember, it could have been worse… they could have made a leprechaun.

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