Whatever Happened To The 3·D Man?

 

The colorful hero known as the 3·D Man premiered in a *ahem* three-issue trial run in the pages of (it stands to reason) Marvel Premiere in 1977, created by Roy Thomas and artist Jim Craig during the time when Thomas was mining the 1950s for comics characters who would be viable for new stories in Marvel's present-day comics line. Reportedly, the 3·D Man was based on Captain 3·D from his first and only self-titled issue, published in December of 1953 and created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby--though, curiously, Thomas omits that information from his foreword on the character who was debuted in '77.

The adventures of the 3·D Man (aka Chuck Chandler, a test pilot who is presumed dead when his experimental jet crashes), like those of the Invaders, are set in and restricted to the past (in his case, 1958). Yet Thomas has also set out to use the stories and situations which the hero deals with in that time period to, in part, address the social ills of the '70s--and his means to do so is the insertion of Skrulls as the 3·D Man's main antagonists, their mission two-fold: to impede human technological and sociological advancement, and to subvert our society by taking behind-the-scenes steps to turn humans against one another, all of which place the Skrulls' infiltration of the human race thirty years ahead of the events of Secret Invasion (and four years before their first appearance in the pages of Fantastic Four, for that matter).

But since you can rightly presume that Chandler didn't die in the conventional sense following his crash, just how does the "3·D Man" come into being? The first we see of him, he's used to make a hopefully favorable first impression on the reader by coming on like gangbusters--which is precisely what he does with a gang of spies, led by the shape-changing Skrull who was present during the capture of Chuck's XF-13 during its first test flight.

It's during this confrontation that the story flashes back to provide the reader with the circumstances of the 3·D Man's origin, which include Chuck's solid and supportive family life... his background as a college football star... his promising career as an Air Force test pilot... his girlfriend, Peggy... and most importantly his relationship with his younger brother, Hal, afflicted with polio and somewhat eclipsed by his family doting on his older brother, but nevertheless Chuck's biggest fan. Hal, from his vantage point in a secluded desert spot, was witness to the same disappearance of the XF-13 that Chuck's flight crew recorded--but none of them could have known the true cause of it, or what it would lead to for both himself and for Hal.

As we've seen, the 3·D Man appears in a way similar to that of Captain 3·D. In the latter's case, teenager Danny Davis finds a strange pair of glasses inside a book and, using them to look at an illustration of a man in the book, brings that man to life; while in the place of the Skrulls, Captain 3·D's foes are a race of Cat People* who hide in disguise among mankind and work to continue their plans of conquest. As for Chuck Chandler, who can only appear as the 3·D Man for three hours at a time (the same time limit Thomas imposed on Captain Marvel), he reaches a point midway through his short series where he's able to put two and two together and, in the process, establishes the theme meant to guide any continuation of published comics headlining the 3·D Man.

*No relation to the race of cat people affiliated with Tigra (though one of the stories in the Captain 3·D book also features a character named Tigra).

Moving on from Marvel Premiere, we catch up with the character one year later in the Thomas-created What If book, where the 3·D Man would become part of a new 1950s super-group called... wait for it...

It's a story that leaves up in the air whether "the Avengers" existed on an alternate Earth or our own--though hold that thought for a moment.

A little over two years later, the 3·D Man returns in the current-day Incredible Hulk title, where we find Hal Chandler and his family enjoying an afternoon with friends, when they're surprised by a wandering Bruce Banner (it really is a small world, isn't it)--though Hal has seen through the facade of Bruce "Jones," and decides on a course of action that is as fraught with risk for his family as the perceived threat he sees in Banner.

We then learn that it's been decades since Hal has called on the 3·D Man to appear--yet now he feels he must resort to doing so in order to safeguard his family. If this sounds out of character for the Hal Chandler we've come to know and considering how fondly he regarded his brother, it's a point that will linger like a cloud over this drama; nevertheless, Chuck is siding with his brother's feelings of danger in regard to the presence of the Hulk.

When the state police backup that Hal requested arrives, the 3·D Man moves to presumably secure Banner--but young Chuck, who has received transmissions from his ham radio that indicate Rick Jones is in danger, has reached Banner ahead of him, and the situation immediately jumps from cautionary to out of control with the appearance of the Hulk.

Obviously, the 3·D Man is receiving an education on the Hulk, both in background and in power, which his brother's tense feelings about the "monster" didn't convey. Meanwhile, Peggy is also being enlightened about a secret that her husband has been keeping from her for years--and she moves to rein in the violence happening in her home, an effort which is almost derailed by the 3·D Man's ignorance of the one he determinedly faces.

It's a somewhat disturbing ending for both Hal and Chuck, whose relationship could have suffered from Hal's misjudgment and unwarranted fears. Thankfully, writer Bill Mantlo's story leaves things working out in general for the Chandler family--but as for the 3·D Man, there's no telling what will become of him at this point.

Fortunately, the Grandmaster takes the decision out of his hands--and out of Hal Chandler's, apparently--when, like a kazillion other heroes, the 3·D Man is compelled to take part in Mantlo's mid-1982 limited series, Contest Of Champions. But following that, it would be almost seventeen years before the character reappears--this time in the Avengers Forever limited series, where Captain Marvel and the Wasp have determined that the Vice-President is actually a Skrull and are halted in their efforts to seize him by the Avengers... that is, the other Avengers.

Finally, in 2002, we learn in an Avengers story (not the '50s Avengers, we're back to the others--I think we're all starting to suffer from whiplash here) that the 3·D Man and Delroy Garrett, the Avenger called Triathlon, share a connection** in the true origin of their powers: a trio of pyramid-shaped "fragments of light" created to counterbalance the emergence of an other-dimensional fragment of pure evil into Earth's dimension, one such fragment having been found by the Skrull ship that had captured Chuck Chandler. Subsequently, Hal was eventually captured by Jonathan Tremont of the Triune Understanding (a sham self-empowerment movement which served Tremont's interests) and drained of his "tri-power" to create Triathlon--who in time delivers a little payback to Tremont for his deception and destroys the evil fragment.

**And it was right in front of us all this time: note the unobtrusive pyramid symbol on both Triathlon and the 3·D Man, as well as Chuck Chandler's flight suit.

As for the fate of Hal and Chuck, Delroy manages to give their family a happy ending nearly forty-five years in the making--a fitting scene to bring an end to the story of "the 3·D Man."

BONUS!

If you're curious about the Captain 3·D comic from '53--one of the few attempts made at the time to produce a 3-D comic book--the good folks over at the Digital Comic Museum have it archived! (But be sure you have a pair of 3-D glasses handy!)