With the power to create an unbreakable sphere of pure force around himself, Forcefieldo is a member of the Strange Squad, the world’s foremost superhuman explorers. When not on missions with the Miami-based superhero team, he returns to his home in Nairobi to fight crime there.

Forcefieldo is a pretty generic superhero. That is kind of the point, though. Forcefieldo is a Kenyan, but that is not represented at all in his superhero identity. Far, far too often in comics when a character is from any country other than America, or any ethnicity other than white, they’re some stereotype. There are exceptions obviously, especially as time goes on and more characters are created, but, man, it’s crazy how many not-exceptions there are. So anyway, this is my attempt to add one more to the exception pile.

For the record (there’s a record, right?), Forcefieldo and the Strange Squad are both from my old notes. The Strange Squad in particular was my Fantastic Four rip-off team, though my version progressed from the 60s to the present (well, the 90s, which was the present at the time) and recruited new members as others came and went. Forcefieldo joined the team in the 90s. I’ll probably have more Strange Squad characters show up this year, since reaching into my notes will usually be quicker than thinking up someone new.

There’s this street in Winnipeg where a bunch of guys had to go to war. Three of them won the Victoria Cross, so they decided to rename the street to reflect the magnitude of heroism that had come out of there. That’s the story of Valour Road.

I have mentioned more than once that my favorite thing about these is the way they’ve been burned into the minds of my generation. Usually this means that we can utilize quotes from the commercials at nearly any situation in life. While someone MIGHT be able to find a use for “It’s Clark! I just heard he took out twenty Germans!” most of this commercial is not quotable. But it is still burned into my head. I know ever beat of this commercial like I’m watching some old action film I’ve seen a dozen times. The whole commercial is in my head and it is staying there. Apart from that we’ve got some quality war scenes here. I’ve seen actual movies that don’t look as good this minute-long commercial for a second rate country.

We do, however, sidestep the fact that these three war heroes were probably not the only kids from Pine Street who went off to war. I bet there were a dozen total dillholes from Pine Street that went to war and we just jerks about it. Valour Road thinks that it is so special, but they got jerks like everyone else, I bet.

Anyway, I’m doling out a healthy Four and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake for this Heritage Moment.