MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 092

Who ever thunk that there could be quite so many minor super-heroes?

Invisible Scarlet O'Neil:

Young Scarlet O'Neil, being the kind of person who will touch an arc of mysterious energy in her scientist father's lab, finds herself rendered invisible, a condition that she eventually learns is reversed by touching a certain nerve in her wrist.* She uses this power to fight mid-tier injustice eventually (I am assured) parleys it into a career as a newspaper reporter. Before that, she functions as a very low-level vigilante - she solves some crimes, yes, but also gets mixed up in a lot of people's personal lives. She is also one of the few invisible characters to regularly suffer any consequences for going out in public without reflecting any light: she is regularly beaned by baseballs, pushed into traffic, etc.

Sticklers might note that "Invisible Scarlet O'Neil" was a comic strip first and that what I am showing here are images from the comic book reprints of such, and I must confess that I do not have the wherewithal to source comic strip dates every time I want to refer to this character. All references to her will be from the Eastern Color comics. (Famous Funnies 081, 1941)

*As presented, the timeline is extremely sad: 1) her father accidentally causes her to become invisible by not taking her poor lab safety practices into account 2) he works to find a cure but cannot 3) he dies, presumably in despair over his child's life of invisible obscurity 4) she figures out the nerve thing

Categorized in: Body (Invisible), Origin (Mysterious Ray Mutate), Power (Invisibility)

Fearless Flint, the Famous Flint Man:

Jack Bradley, a worker on the carving of Mount Rushmore (and let me tell you: every time I think that I'm done being surprised by the real-world events that super-hero origins are being roped into I am dead wrong) is flung down the face of the mountain when his pneumatic drill is sabotaged. Instead of being killed horribly as one might expect, Jack survives because the flint shards that litter the Rushmore debris field merge with his skin rather than shredding it. Now, upon touching any metal, he turns to red hot flint complete with little sparks flying off of him, and becomes super strong and invulnerable. A few things:

- Flint's elemental transformation is very on brand for the small stable of Eastern Color super-heroes, cv Hydroman, the upcoming Man o'Metal, etc.

- Despite the fact that he requires the touch of metal to transform, Flint notably fails to consider carrying any around with him in any of the half dozen of his adventures I have flipped through. He always needs one of his enemies to bop him with a metal weapon or push him into a railing or drop a chandelier on his head, and in later adventures simply turns to flint when he gets angry.

- Flint's drill was sabotaged by agents of the Lava Man, his first enemy, whose appearances are serialized across half a dozen issues in 1942 and who we will be covering once that year rolls around. I will give you a spoiler, however: he has absolutely no reason to have sabotaged the construction of Mount Rushmore, so either this was a classic example of the Reel (agents of a super-villain go far afield for no reason other than to draw the hero to a second location and move the plot forward) or the Lava Man is very sympathetic to the plight of the Sioux people.

- Finally, I looked very hard and while I can't say this with 100% certainty I can do so at 95%: the Black Hills in general and Mount Rushmore in particular do not seem to be particularly rich in flint. But maybe that's the secret to Flint's transformation, that they were magic flint shards that shouldn't ought to have been there.

All in all a true oddball of a character as befits a member of the Eastern Color stable. (Famous Funnies 089, 1941)

Categorized in: Element (Minerals (Flint)), Origin (Material Mutate), Power (Phyiscal Transformation, Super Strength)

the Sixth Column:

Nineteen Forty-One: Stardust the Super Wizard, concerned about a mass mobilization of Axis fifth columnists into the Americas, vows to form a sixth column to counter their efforts. As his agents, he chooses the boys of the United States (more on this). Also please note that in between declaring that he would found the Sixth Column and actually getting around to doing so, Stardust roots out and murders every Fifth Columnist in America as part of his defense of Earth against the Martian Sky Demons.

With no counter-espionage work to do, the Sixth Column is instead given a portion of Stardust's power (flight, fusing rays to mess up the enemy's war machines, repelling rays to levitate the enemy troops) and set loose as a super powered child army versus an Axis invasion force that is approaching from South America. (Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

The Sixth Column returns in Fantastic Comics 015, and this time they get official Stardust the Super Wizard outfits. In addition to the star-metal costumes (possibly invulnerable), the boys are equipped with mind-reading devices to root out fifth columnists and metal-repelling rays to protect the US from enemy missiles. Curiously, this time they are not given the power of flight.

The thing that I find myself thinking while reading the two stories featuring the Sixth Column is "why is Stardust doing this?" It's not for any lack of ability to keep on top of things, that's for sure, as the boys do not do anything that Stardust hasn't already done on a bigger scale, and in any case he is monitoring them the entire time as seen here when they lose control of a missile and destroy an ocean liner and he jumps in to take over immediately.

Is it meant to be some sort of mentoring? Of ensuring that there will be a new stardust? Is he just bored? He's probably just bored with crime fighting while being so grotesquely overpowered, isn't he.

Categorized in: Alphanumeric (Six), Origin (Sidekicks), Powers (Various) 

Stardust the Super Wizard **UPDATE**:

And speaking of Stardust the Super Wizard: we've seen him shapeshift before and we've seen him impossibly grab a man by the torso before but in this, his very last appearance, he combines the two by grabbing the villain "Slant-Eye" with a gross tentacle hand. It truly is an iconic image for the guy to go out on. (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 043

We've met a few of them in the past, but here's another dose of the inhabitants of the Fourth Dimension, as explored by Flip Falcon.

Zezo:

Zezo works for the Fourth Dimensional villain Lucifer as a guardian. We don't learn too much about this fellow - is he a one-off or representative of a whole species, for example - but I like his moxie and his big teeth. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Koggo:

Koggo is an even more mysterious fellow than Zezo, given that he is more obviously the product of a civilization of some sort: he has clothing and weapons and hypodermics full of Agony Serum, and also a conceptual framework that allows him to believe that human pilots are somehow trying to invade the Fourth Dimension. This leads him to kill and kidnap several of them until he is stopped when he is exploded by Flip Falcon. (Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

Fourth Dimensional Dragons: 

Fourth Dimensional dragons have a body plan that is a variation of the modern fantasy concept of the wyvern, with wings and front limbs appended to a long serpentine body. It's unclear just how intelligent they are: Robbo here acts like an animal, but he also has a name. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Serpo (Poison Dragon of the Elements) also has a name, but given his seeming status as more of a natural disaster than an inhabitant of the Fourth Dimension, that might just be equivalent to when we name hurricanes. Intriguingly, Serpo is able to cross the dimensional boundaries under his own power.

Serpo comes to the attention of Flip Falcon after he abducts a woman from Earth and learns too late that he is susceptible to being exploded. (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

Demi-Things:

Any time you talk about Flip Falcon and the Fourth Dimension, you're going to get Demi-Things coming up. The first time this occurs is when Gogo, Master of the Demi-Things attempts to abduct the same woman who had already been snatched by Serpo. And just like Serpo, Gogo is unprepared for the explosive power of Flip's dimensional energy. (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941) 

The death of Gogo opens the way for Kandor to become Lord of the Demi-Things, and while we have no indication of whether he is a more benevolent ruler than his predecessor, he certainly is aware of the fact that he rules at Flip Falcon's whim. Or perhaps they really are friends, who knows. (Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

Finally, we have Zorka, the Giant Demi-Thing. Zorka guards a region of the Fourth Dimension containing the element "acco-nito." Why? This is not explained - perhaps it's just a classic case of treasure-hoarding. In any case, Flip needs so acco-nito to save a woman's life, so Zorka gets exploded.(Fantastic Comics 019, 1941)

Octopus Men:

Strictly speaking, the Octopus Men are not Fourth Dimensional beings, instead, they are the inhabitants of the wandering planet Octo, which up and wanders straight through the dimensional barrier one day and allows the Octopus Men to start beating ten kinds of hell out of the Demi-Things.

Despite this, the Octopus Men prove just as vulnerable to being exploded as all of Flip's other enemies, which he discovers after intervening to prevent the conquered Demi-Things from being impressed into a life of space piracy by the Octopus Men's boss, a human man named Otho. Just how he came to be on an extrasolar planet in the first place, let alone in charge of the place, is left unexplored, but since Flip drags him back to Earth to stand trial we must assume that that's where he started out. I have no idea what Flip thinks that the charges might be, by the way. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Unnamed Species: 

This unnamed fellow is remarkable mostly for being the antagonist of Flip Falcon's final adventure. He seems to live on a planetoid by himself, has captured space explorer Irwin Burns and demands help in his plan to go to Earth and kidnap a woman (he needs a "queen" and can't be bothered to date).

As befits the final Flip Falcon villain, this fellow gets exploded. It's a real shame that this is our last look at the Fourth Dimension as the cosmology was getting very weird: it's another dimension but also Hell and/or Purgatory and it connects to all space and time and as a result of this you can just kind of pass from our dimension to it by travelling far enough out into space? I mean, talk about a rich setting for cosmic horror. (Fantastic Comics 021, 1941) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636 UPDATE: THE SERPENT LADY

(Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

We all remember the Serpent Lady, who lived in an underwater city with a bunch of weird ghouls and used her pet sea serpent to kidnap people for her minions to eat. And we all remember how Sub Saunders showed up and killed her serpent but let her go free for some reason (the reason is because she is a sexy lady who walks around in a gold bikini top). Well, the Serpent Lady hasn't just laid down and given up, no sir. She is back.

So, just how does the Serpent Lady follow up her old operation that revolved around Mephisto the sea serpent, why with the hot new Diablo, a two-headed sea serpent. Surely the only problem with the old plan was that it involved an insufficient number of serpent heads!

Unfortunately for the Serpent Lady, not only does Diablo prove even less effective against Sub Saunders than Mephisto was (Mephisto took a whole four panels to die while Diablo goes down after three), but following his death her lieutenant Luco turns on her and attempts to take over the whole undersea snake thing by killing both her and Saunders.

Though Luca believes himself to be ready for the big leagues this is absolutely not the case, as Sub turns the tables on him and slays him with his own deathtrap with absurd ease. He then spurns the Serpent Lady's overtures of love and toddles off for the surface. BUT he also refrains from blowing her up, so there's still a chance for these crazy kids.

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 042

I hope you like aliens, because I just can't stop finding new ones. 

Kobolians:

The Kobolians are from the underwater city of Kobol in the year 10 000 CE, and while we don't learn too much about how their society functions we can intuit a certain amount of civic pride, given that their leader is named Lobok - did he rise to power on the strength of that name? Did he adopt it? Is the city named after him? Whichever it is, Lobok commands enough loyalty that the Kobolians go along with him when he decides to acquire a human wife via extortion. And not just any human either, but the daughter of Biran, leader of the Army of New America!

Though the Kobolians live in an underwater city, it is not flooded, indicating that they are amphibious rather than fully water-breathing. They might even be that most rare of things: the underwater species that is fully air-breathing!

Anyway, Sub Saunders blows the place up after rescuing Ms Nirab. (Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

Magyans:

Space adventurer Iron Munro (born on Jupiter in the 22nd Century and thus very physically mighty. If his name seems familiar it's because it was swiped by Roy Thomas and used as the name of the post-Crisis Superman replacement) and his companions, after being blasted into a "new universe" (contextually, a new solar system) by a rogue asteroid, find themselves in the middle of a conflict between two groups called the Magyans and the Tefflans. 

As explained by the Magyan leader, the roots of this conflict stem from a war between their ancestors and the underground-dwelling Tefflans on another planet, tens of thousands of years earlier, a conflict that resulted in the destruction of their mutual home continent as the remnants of both populations fled into outer space. Iron Munro takes an immediate wild swing and identifies this continent as Mu (why no Atlantis? Is Iron Munro a hipster?). 

If the Magyans are the lost inhabitants of Mu, then what does that make the Tefflans? Why, they are weird evil goat-men, and thus the basis for all of humanity's legends about demons and devils!

Munro and his pals side with the humans, of course, and over the next six issues there is an escalating back-and-forth war between the Magyans and the more technologically-advanced Tefflans that culminates in a devastating final attack in which the Magyans launch their twin moons Ma-Ran and Ma-Kanee at the Tefflan planet of Teff-El. It's a horrifying way to end a war! (Shadow Comics v1 002, 1940)

Man-Apes:

These Man-Apes serve megacreep Dr Wratt as muscle. They hold the particular distinction of being the least apelike ape-men that I have ever seen. (Jungle Comics 002, 1940)