MEMES OF YORE: GE-SPEAK

Here's an obscure one that I have only encountered in early Golden Age comics: the German or pseudo-German accent that includes a prominent use of the prefix "ge-" as a word modifier, in the same way that a bad French accent might append "la" or a bad Russian accent might add "-ski" to the end of words.

How widespread was this? Did it exist outside of comics? No clue. How widespread was it within comics? That we can attempt to solve by gathering examples here. Perhaps some kind future cultural historian will be able to take the evidence thus presented and rediscover this lost stereotype. 

(Whiz Comics 023, 1941)

 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 909: THE SPIDER

(Whiz Comics 022, 1941)

In what turns out to be Dan Dare's final recorded case, he is asked to protect a man named Dr Phoebus Weber from being murdered by a mysterious figure known only as the Spider.

Upon entering Weber's home, Dan and Carol are almost immediately attacked by the Spider, who I have to give partial credit to for the costume. Sure it appears to have a more beetle-like body plan and the head of a mosquito, but what's more important is that it has the full eight limbs, including four useless ones hanging off the torso that surely must constantly be in the way. Accuracy be damned, I love a commitment to the bit.

The Spider also has a third central eye that is supposedly able to emit a hypnotic light, but if it does there is no actual evidence of it in the text. Perhaps Dan Dare is merely a paragon of mental fortitude.

The Spider's attempt to kill Dan fails thanks to an over-reliance on a hypnotic eye/ stabbing proboscis combo that he never really manages to pull off and I can only imagine was further hindered by the extra arms. He is unmasked to reveal the in-retrospect-supiciously-named Dr Weber, but that's not all, because...

Weber is in turn unmasked to reveal that he is in fact Dan's old enemy Hypno Harry! This has all been an attempt to kill Dan in revenge for his foiling Harry's old racket of hypnotizing bank clerks with his gimmicked glass eye, and just imagine the impact that this story might have had if we had ever heard about any of this before the Spider reared his improbable head!

Still, a costumed crook is a pretty good note for Dan and Carol to go out on after 20-odd issues of solving one mystery after another. Let's hope that they were finally able to get that vacation. 

DIVINE ROUND-UP 026

I've finally caught up on my god backlog so these are all piping fresh deities for you to peruse.

Itzalotahui:

On an expedition to Guatemala to locate their missing friend John Malcolm, Billy Batson and Whitey Murphy make camp in the lost temple of the monkey god Itzalotahui and are awoken from their slumber by the god himself, flaming and steaming and flailing about.

After an initial panic and an in-retrospect-embarassing fistfight, Captain Marvel discovers the truth: Itzalotahui is not alive but is in fact a cunningly-designed ball and socket arrangement in which the lower torso/socket is connected to a natural gas source and periodically ignites and wiggles around thanks to gas pressure.

This issue is real study in contrasts: though the name of the fictional god is literally It's a Lot of Hooey (in keeping with 1940s contempt for non-Christian or Classical religion), Captain Marvel actually seems to respect the cultural value of the site rather than just smashing it up like so many characters might. Meanwhile, the presence of natural gas means the probability of oil as well, but both Malcolm and Marvel advocate for leaving the area free from the hell of oil extraction, even if they do so in the most patronizing/patriarchal language possible.

God Style: Idol (Whiz Comics 022, 1941) 

the Angry God: 

The Angry God, aka the Dark Spirit, is a near-forgotten entity whose last remaining priest has thrown in with the villain Half-Man and his Hitler stand-in boss the War Lord to lend mystical power to the armies of the Axis forces. The Angry God requires not just human sacrifice but the sacrifice of "great men," which might go some way toward explaining his low levels of worshipper-retention. Please also note the fun imp-swarm that seems to accompany the worship of this particular god - they must be very distracting. 

The Angry God's status as a real entity and current diminished circumstances are both illustrated in the fact that it animates its idol in an attempt Ibis the Invincible from killing its priest and then itself falls dead once it is deprived of that one last worshipper.

God Style: Real (Whiz Comics 023, 1941)

Balka: 

Balka is the guardian tiger spirit of the ruling line of the Asian country of Balkania, and whether the country was named after the tiger or vice versa is left unexplored in-text. What is made clear is that the old legends about the statue of Balka coming to life to avenge the death of murdered Balkanian monarch are absolutely true, as experienced by regicidal dictator and fashion maven Carnov after he kills good King Banok.

Alas, Carnov is not torn asunder by Balka but spared by rightful heir Kelo (aka the Jungle Prince) so that he can face more conventional justice. Balka then returns to statue form to await the next threat to Balkania. (The Arrow 003, 1941) 

Quetzalcoatl: 

Jungleman and his lover Louise Carson stumble upon a hidden Aztec city while searching for Louise's father. Jungleman is briefly worshipped as Quetzalcoatl as per the legend about Hernán Cortés, while Louise is slated for sacrifice by a jealous high priestess. They manage to extract themselves from this situation with minimal fuss, for a 1940s adventure comic, and even find Louise's father just kind of hanging around the temple on their way out. (Champion Comics 012, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 908: THE RATTLER

(Whiz Comics 022, 1941)

As we join the action, a passing stranger informs us and also Golden Arrow that the Rattler has broken jail! And he's handing out calling cards! 

Turns out that the Rattler, notorious outlaw of the West, is out to get the men who served on the jury at his trial (and, we must assume, the judge and prosecutor as well), and he's being impressively proactive about it: the above scene takes place the morning after he breaks jail and he has already killed nine members of the jury.

After the unnamed sheriff's deputy quits in the face of the Rattler's murderous machinations, Golden Arrow signs up for the job and is immediately pinned down by a hail of bullets. Bullets which are then revealed to be yet another calling card-type image! For an Old West character, the Rattler is surprisingly brand-conscious.

The Rattler's industriousness turns out to include planning super-hero contingency plans: by the time Golden Arrow gets ready to pursue and apprehend him, the villain's men have already made off not only with Golden Arrow's horse White Wind but his ladyfriend Carol Braddock. And he arranges for Golden Arrow to be attacked by a (jumping!) rattlesnake - more brand consciousness.

I'm almost sad that the Rattler falls for Golden Arrow's subsequent trap. He was doing so well! There's a lesson here that I can't quite articulate - perhaps something about the path of revenge laying even the most clever among us low. In any case, it's back to jail for the Rattler, which will give him more time to come up with an even more extensive revenge list.

JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 9/15+

DIVINE ROUND-UP 025

Gods gods gods. 

Puni, God of Fire: 

Sea-faring adventurer Lance O'Casey almost gets sacrificed to this fire god by the cannibalistic inhabitants of a tropical Antarctic island before escaping, entering the volcano in question and meeting the other Puni. Not sure how much the volcano-dwelling madman and the actual religion influenced each other, but it must have been at least a little. Also: cool idol.

God Style: Idol (Whiz Comics 019, 1941) 

the War God:

This War God idol functions like one of those hollow dog statues you see at grocery stores, that you put your change in to help raise money for people to get seeing eye dogs (and if that's not a thing where you live then sorry for the unrelatable analogy), only the money is meant to go to the defense of China against Japanese invasion, and instead of a dog it is a sick-ass god-monster. It's never entirely clear if this is supposed to be a representation of an actual god or just a marketing gimmick.

God Style: Idol (More Fun Comics 059, 1940)

 Wotan:

As was established when he beat up Mars that one time, Merlin the Magician hates war, and seeing as he has a magic cloak and a can-do attitude he sets out to do something about it. His first step is to go back in time and save a couple of young Ancient Britons from being human sacrificed by some Druids. What does this have to do with ending war? No idea, but then again I don't have a magic cloak so my perspective might just be too mundane to comprehend the intricacies.

Having reviewed the plan, I must conclude that Merlin just needed a couple of people with no ties who would be grateful enough to him to do whatever he wanted and that Druidic sacrifices were his first thought. Specifically, he asks these young folk to act as peace ambassadors to an unnamed fascist nation in order to undermine the efforts of the war god Wotan, who has been roaming the Earth inciting men to war.

(It would have been quite thematically satisfying if the two young people had been rescued from being sacrificed to Wotan, and while that might have implicitly been the intent, it's just not there on the page) 

The young people are somewhat successful, in that they are immediately killed by a similarly young and idealistic pair of enemy soldiers (and what a progressive fascist nation, to field female soldiers in 1941!) who then become overwhelmed with remorse and swear of war forever, at which point Merlin appears and restores his agents to life - an effective but painful strategy, it seems.

All this talk of pacifism and understanding between nations draws the ire of Wotan himself, who shows up to kill Merlin and ends up on the end of a killing sword-blow from the magician, making the current score Gods: 0 Merlin the Magician: 4.

God Style: Real (National Comics 011, 1941)

Death: 

This version of Death is bound to obey an artifact known as the Sceptre of Eternity, and as such has been commanded to replace the lost daughter of a guy called the Sheik of Kamroon in the 12th Century, and as such has made off with a present-day woman named Betty Jekil. I'm pretty sure that this was a calculated move, as Betty's father turns to super-magician El Carim for help, which ultimately results in El Carim trading the Sceptre of Eternity for Betty's life, which is a pretty good deal for Death.

God Style: Anthropomorphic Personification (Master Comics 019, 1941)

NOTES - JANUARY 2026

Honours: 

Aviator Cloud Curtis and his pals are personally thanked by FDR for stopping a spy plot against the US. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941) 

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 033

Just another buncha jerks.

John Elton: 

This fellow brings us right back to the roots of the Generic Costumed Villain Round-Up, being a businessman who puts on a mask to run a gang and kill off the other officers of his company so that he can buy up all their shares and make a fortune. Plus, his name is John Elton, which doesn't mean anything but is still a fun coincidence. Dan Dare gets 'im. (Whiz Comics 016, 1941)

the War Lord:

Like the War Maniac before him, the War Lord is a generic and unseen stand-in for Adolf Hitler with a good enough villain name that I had to highlight it. A whole passel of his agents feature in the story in which Smasher Spy goes back to being Spy Smasher and get beaten up by Spy Smasher, Smasher Spy and Captain Marvel. 

It's not particularly germane to anything but this panel of Spy Smasher flying out a window into the arms of the War Lord's agents after almost being blown up looks very nice and I had nowhere else to use it. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

The War Lord returns to vex Spy Smasher in Whiz Comics 019, in a rare return appearance for a generic Axis dictator. In fact, he is also the power behind the fascist group the Blitzys and Ibis the Invincible foe Half-Man as well - he's one of the most prolific Hitler stand-ins of the Golden Age!

The War Lord finally shows up in person in Whiz Comics 024 and while he is clearly just a straight-up stand-in for Hitler his main character trait seems to be in expressing himself like a disappointed father. He sticks around just long enough to instill a deep sense of despair in the Half-Man, leaving him vulnerable to being turned to the side of good by a bit of kindness from Ibis the Invincible. Once again being a bad boss fails to pay off!

Puni, God of Fire: 

The above text box precedes the Lance O'Casey story in Whiz Comics 018 and let me tell you: none of that stuff happened in the prior issue. We are very much dropped in media res on the tropical Antarctic island populated by cannibals and also lost explorer Hiram T. Wallis - I don't know if this is some remnant of a never-published story or just an attempt to shake things up again (EDIT: it happens, in fact, in Whiz Comics 019. The two-part story was just published in the wrong order).

Lance and his ever-expanding supporting cast (including Hiram T. Wells, old-timey pirate Dan'l Doom and not one but two monkey sidekicks) are venturing into a volcano to get some gold that Wells had found there when they are confronted and menaced by the self-proclaimed Puni, God of Fire, who is in actuality Marino, a sailor shipwrecked at the same time as Wells and presumably driven insane by ten years of living in a volcanic cave. Puni/Marino never manages to get very close to killing the party but he does try in his way, and by gar can he belt out a villainous pronouncement.

Everything ends up okay, as Marino has the kind of insanity that can be cured via a solid smack to the jaw and a dunk in the ocean. 

This adventure also features a giant treasure-guarding parrot, just one of the many cool creatures that do their best to convince me to add the truly life-ending task of chronicling all comic book monsters to my already overloaded to-do pile. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

Herculo Svenson: 

This is Herculo Svenson, pirate, Doctor Voodoo antagonist for several issues and man in the running for best name in comics certainly for 1941 and possibly for all time. He kills a whole valley full of giants, kidnaps their regular-sized queen and makes off with magical McGuffin the Golden Flask before eventually getting killed by bigger villain Black Marco. (Whiz Comics 022, 1941)