MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 078

Lev Gleason characters for EVERYONE!

Daredevil **UPDATE**:

Daredevil had but one appearance in 1940, so it's no surprise that the character still had some changes and revisions to go once 1941 rolled around. Firstly, his costume gets an update, with yellow swapped out for red and the complicated "DD" design on the abdomen dropped entirely.

The most dramatic change, however, is that the Daredevil can now talk. Just how Bart Hill's traumatic muteness was alleviated is unaddressed - I'm sure that the real answer is that it was inconvenient to write around and so was quietly dropped, but imagining that his successful crimefighting career allowed him to let go of the past is nice.

Finally, Bart is now a wealthy playboy with a fiance (Tonia Saunders) who isn't too sure about marrying this manchild after all. Thankfully, Tonia discovers the truth about Bart's double life in her first appearance, because the Clark/Lois dynamic can get a bit tedious when grafted onto every super-hero's relationship by default.

Our final update from Silver Streak Comics 007 is this revelation that the Daredevil's mastery of the boomerang is so complete that, when thrown by the Claw, he can cause his own body to act like one. This here might just be a new contender for inclusion in lists of obscure and ridiculous super powers, folks.

In Silver Streak Comics 008 & 009, Daredevil employs a couple of high-tech fighter planes called "the Airdevil," which a top-notch example of a jokey super-accessory name. Both planes are destroyed during Daredevil's clashes with the Claw, and he seems to have given up on the idea of the custom plane, at least for the year 1941.

In Silver Streak Comics 015 Daredevil employs a decoy double named Chester to help in the capture of a villain named the Serpent. Who is Chester? No idea. Will he ever return? Probably not.

Finally, in Daredevil Comics 002, Daredevil engages in what I would say is some Spider-Man style super-hero quipping as he battles this horde of silent men. Not that super-heroes aren't constantly mouthing off, mind you, but it doesn't have this kind of flow. I shall be looking out for more of this kind of patter to see how long it takes to become an established thing.

Categorized in: Accessories (Airplanes), Day Job (Wealthy Socialite)

Presto Martin: 

Presto Martin, though voted "Least Likely to Succeed" in college, is now Captain of Detectives in the NYPD. More importantly for our purposes, he is a master of disguise who is for instance more than willing to take the place of a heavyweight boxer in the ring if it means that he can solve a big case. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

Per Silver Streak Comics 008, Presto is aided in his work by a super-moldable plastic putty of his own concoction.

Categorized in: Day Job (Police Captain), Powers (Master of Disguise), Team Membership (NYPD)

Zongar, the Miracle Man:

Zongar, the Miracle Man, is a functionally-omnipotent magical adventurer like so many of his peers, but rather than casting spells per se Zongar uses a mystical amulet to command the spirit Abaraxx to do his bidding. This might have lead to some interesting developments over time if, for example, a nogoodnik were to get ahold of the amulet but alas, Zongar had only one recorded adventure. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

Categorized in: Abstract Concepts (Miracles), Accessories (Amulets)

Cloud Curtis: 

Dashing young aviator Cloud Curtis has developed the super plane Golden Bullet, which he flies both as a job and against the enemies of the US and which has one of the goofier features of any comic book super plane in the form of that big propeller located halfway down the fuselage. Curtis is assisted by the apelike Crusher McCoy and the avuncular Pop Whistler as he keeps the airways safe from a series of increasingly unlikely airplane-based threats. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

Categorized in: Accessories (Airplanes), Day Job (Aviators)

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 004

More wounds for the wound god!

American Ace:

Minor Marvel adventure hero Parry Wade, aka the American Ace, is riddled through the torso and crashes his plane after a dogfight. He gets better. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)

Black X:

Shot in the left shoulder by agents of Vlamir Koran, then nearly dies of exposure while seeking aid. (Smash Comics 001, 1939)

Black X's aide Batu gets shot in the left shoulder on his next mission, while Black X himself gets his skull creased by a bullet. (Smash Comics 002, 1939)

Finally, Black X gets his right arm broken by a guy named Taneo. (Smash Comics 005, 1939)

Clip Carson:

Shot in the left shoulder by the dastardly Mister K. (More Fun Comics 068, 1941)

the Devil's Dagger: 

The Devil's Dagger's aide Pat Gleason is shot in the right leg by the dastardly Mr H. (Master Comics 015, 1941)

Jim Dolan: 

Two-fisted magazine editor Jim Dolan is not only thrown off a bridge to drown but machine gunned on the way down. Thankfully they only get his left shoulder. (Wow Comics 002, 1941)

Ka-Zar:

The Golden Age Ka-Zar is covered in shallow cuts as torture. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

A few issues later he gets shot in the (left? side by an unscrupulous hunter. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 011, 1940)

And a few issues after that, the same unscrupulous hunter shoots him in the (left?) arm. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941)

Tiny: 

The Ragman's sidekick Tiny is shot in the right arm by a Nazi. (Cat-Man Comics 005, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 923: PROFESSOR SKINN

(Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

The Skinn family is being killed off - at least seven of them have been murdered on their birthdays, leaving only the odius Mortimer Skinn, and he soon follows, despite police protection. 

Boy Inventor Dickie Dean hasn't been idle while this campaign of murder has been going on: thanks to a surveillance balloon he raised over the town for the purpose, he and his pal Zip Todd are able to track the culprit to his home. There. they learn that he is a blind beggar whom they had prevented Mortimer Skinn from beating some months prior, and that he is in fact Mortimer's brother and the sole surviving member of the Skinn clan.

Professor Skinn (unsettling name. unsettling family name) reveals that Mortimer and his other brothers attempted to kill him for his life insurance some years back but had only succeeded in blinding him and leaving him for dead. He spent at least some of the intervening time creating his frankly amazing looking cybernetic eye/helmet and planning a revenge that with the death of Mortimer is complete. And now he's ready to put his skills to use in the world of crime!

Dickie rebuffs Skinn's attempt to recruit him as a partner, so out comes the scalpel, the bone drill and the brain injection fluid, because Professor Skinn is not one to take no for an answer. Dickie Dean is promptly evilized and turned on to the benefits of a life of crime.

The new super-science criminal duo proceed to create a precious metal-attracting magnet and go ham on the town's gold supply.

Fortunately for Dickie's long-term viability as the lead character in a comic strip, Zip Todd gets himself free after days (weeks?) of imprisonment and turns the tables on Skinn thanks to some lax lab safety procedures that mean there's just vials of nitroglycerine lying around to grab. Skinn reverses the evilization procedure with a handy ray and is hauled away... FOR NOW.

(also Skinn is vulnerable to attacks on his enormous weak point, like a video game boss)

Professor Skinn returns in Silver Streak Comics 008, where he escapes prison with the help of his assistant Blubber's berserker strength. Please not that the Castleton PD saw fit to take away Skinn's helmet when they locked him up, thus rendering him blind - I'd call that cruel and unusual punishment.

Dickie, rightfully concerned about Skinn being on the loose, works on an invention that he can use to counter anything that the Professor throws at him, while Skinn does the same and then forces a confrontation by kidnapping Dickie's parents.

It's a tehnological showdown: disintegrator ray vs invisibility ray, and Dickie's invisibility gives him just enough of an edge to free his parents and destroy the disintegrator, though he himself is captured in the process.

Professor Skinn next sets out to loot Castleton again, this time with an army of remote controlled robots, but between Zip Todd (overlooked in the scuffle) leading the entirety of the Castleton PD back to his base and a still-invisible Dickie getting loose and causing a ruckus he and Blubber are ultimately forced to zipline down the mountain to freedom.

This is enough for Professor Skinn: he challenges Dickie to settle things with a war of inventions via singing telegram.

Silver Streak Comics 009: the war of inventions kicks off after both parties have had a couple of months to prepare, in a fairly horrific fashion as Professor Skinn shells the Castleton High School.

After putting some distance between them and their surviving classmates, Dickie and Zip Todd wait out the initial shelling in an impenetrable fort before sallying forth in a similarly impenetrable tank equipped with a force ray cannon. They are accompanied by a squadron of small but mighty robots to counter Skinn's own robot forces. Skinn, in addition to his mechanical infantry, has an air force comprised of trained, bomb-dropping birds, and is conducting his artillery barrage from a base concealed behind a waterfall. 

I must say that I was disappointed by Skinn's use of fairly conventional artillery, but he won me back with the robot army and sea gull air force.  

Professor Skinn is extracted from behind the waterfall when Dickie uses his force ray to bounce a few artillery shells back to their source, and then makes a bid for victory by having his birds carry off Dickie and Zip while he and Blubber steal Dickie's super tank. It all ends badly, however, as Professor Skinn and Blubber blow themselves up while trying to activate the force ray. Professor Skinn has finally joined the rest of his family in Hell.

OR HAS HE? 

No, it turns out, because Silver Streak Comics 011 features a final appearance in which he attempts to chase Dickie and his pals away from fixing up an abandoned theme park that he has been hiding out in. This is a definite step down for the Professor, from legitimate threat to Scooby-Doo villain.

Skinn's main Teen Removal tool in this issue is a very Silver Age vehicle called the Gadget Octopus that is equipped with various gag tentacles (boxing glove tentacle, kicking foot tentacle, net tentacle, kid spanking tentacle etc) as well as a fire cannon for when things get serious.

Once Dickie gets in a room with him, Professor Skinn is easily captured, as befits his fallen status. He's taken off to jail once more (hopefully with a better lawyer who can successfully argue against eye confiscation this time) and is never seen again. Did he wisely retire or did the fact that Pennsylvania - where "Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor" is plausibly set - is a death penalty state and Skinn is a multiple murderer come into play? 

Categorized in: Accessories (Various), Murder (Familicides), Origin (Blind Characters)