Sunday, May 18, 2014

See the voices of Black Vulcan and Samurai

In 2011, I had the privilege of interviewing many voice actors and other talent behind my favorite cartoon of my youth (okay, who am I kidding—of my all time): Super Friends.

Around the same time, the first-ever figures of Black Vulcan and Apache Chief came out as part of the Justice League Unlimited line, packaged together with Samurai, who’d had a figure in the Super Powers line of the 1980s.




I bought two sets of the three figures—one for me (no shame) and one to divvy up and send to the men whose voices lent life to these characters: Buster Jones (Black Vulcan), Jack Angel (Samurai), and Michael Rye (Apache Chief).

The first two gamely gave me their addresses, but Michael was considerably older and in poor health so I didn’t want to trouble him. 


Off went the Black Vulcan and Samurai figures (while their cartoon inspirations had the natural ability of flight, these versions flew via USPS).

But it was only recently that I went back to Buster and Black Vulcan and Jack and Samurai to ask for them to pose like this:




Obviously not only good actors but also good sports.

Huge thanks to my longtime friend Mike Fox for sparing Buster the awkward task of taking a selfie while holding a toy. [9/16/14 addendum: Only a few months after Mike took Busters photo, Buster passed away.]

(Oh, and Michael Rye died 9/21/12. RIP Apache Lantern.)

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