Friday Night Fights: It really starts movin', yeah!

In honor of All Souls' Day, this week's contribution to Friday Night Fights features the ghost of Knute Rockne showing that he can kick some serious ass, on or off the gridiron...and even from beyond the grave.

This one's for the Gipper, slimeball!
It happened in Kid Eternity #15 (May 1949). Kid Eternity, seen sporting the spiffy red cumberbund in the bottom left of the above panel, has the power to summon the spirits of dead (by shouting "ETERNITY!") to fight his battles for him.

Sure it's mildly disturbing and more than a little exploitive, but I'm willing to cut some slack to any comic where the shade of American humorist Will Rogers gets to hogtie the unquiet spirit of Torquemada, the chief architect of the Spanish Inquisition:

"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."
The Music Explosion - Little Bit O'Soul (from Little Bit O'Soul, 1967) - Where garage rock and bubblegum collide!

(Hats off to the presiding division champion.)

mocking voices ring the halls

Following on the heels of All Saints' Day comes All Souls' Day, because why should intercessionary figures and revered martyrs have all the fun? And so this day is set aside for honoring the "faithful" departed. In the byzantine metrics that govern one's place in the afterlife, these unfortunate spirits have brought a few venial sins too many to the express checkout to the Great Beyond, and have thus been directed to spend some time warming the benches in the spiritual waiting room known as Purgatory.

(Y'know, between this post and yesterday's, I've come to realize that there isn't much difference between discussing theology and discussing comic books...and I don't mean that in a way that ennobles the latter.)

Here are a couple of "soul-ful" tracks featuring vocals from the ranks of the departed. I'll leave the "faithful" qualifier for the individual listener to decide.

Joy Division - Dead Souls (from Substance, 1988)

The Blues Brothers - Soul Man (from Briefcase Full of Blues, 1978)