MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 100

You like minor super-heroes? We got more than four hundred of them!

the Night Bird:

The Night Bird might just have the simplest origin in the history of super-heroes: when newspaper Dell (just Dell) is captured by gangsters, her photographer Lens Crockett sets out to rescue her. Deciding that he needs a disguise, Crockett looks in the office storeroom and finds a full super-hero outfit stuffed in a bin - if it were about ten years later this might be a joke about Superman changing in the Daily Planet storeroom but he didn't really get up to that so much yet so it's just weird and random. Crokett's costumed outing goes well, so he decides to keep going out there and fighting crime. And that's the origin.

The Night Bird (aka the Nightbird) only has a bare handful of appearances, so he doesn't get a lot of room for character development. There are a couple of interesting things to note about him, however: firstly there isn't even a hint of romantic feeling between Crockett and Dell which is always nice if only for the change of pace from the typical setup. Secondly, and in common with his fellow newspaper photographer the Fox, Lens Crockett seems to be a legitimate clumsy doofus in his civilian identity rather than a suave coolguy putting on an act. (Green Mask v1 006, 1941)

The Night Bird also continues the grand Fox Features tradition of changing costume designs between issues with a palette swap between his first and second appearances. His costume continues to change in minor ways as time goes on, but this is the only major one.

Categorized in: Animals (Birds), Day Jobs (Newspaper Photographers), Locations (Temporal Locations)

the Tumbler:

When famous circus acrobat Lee Brothers, known professionally as the Tumbler, goes to visit his old mentor Sockey, he finds him mixed up with a gang of payroll robbers who have decided to use his property as a hideout. Lee and Sockey manage to escape with the loot but Sockey dies in the process and Lee is reported dead.

As is only sensible, Lee does not immediately clear up this mistake and go on with his life but takes this as an opportunity to adopt a costumed identity and get up to a little vigilante justice. His decision to do so while calling himself the Tumbler and thus inviting connection with the supposedly deceased Brother is a bit suspect, however. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

This is even more in his second (and final) appearance, when he does the traditional costume change and just starts wearing his old acrobat costume again. Does the Tumbler want to have his identity revealed?

Categorized in: Activities (Acrobatics), Day Jobs (Circus Acrobats), Professions (Acrobats)

the Mechanized Skeleton:

This was a surprising one! I really and truly thought that the Mechanized Skeleton was going to be a bad guy. This is mostly because he almost certainly was going to be one when he was first introduced, as can be deduced from the fact that the Skeleton's creator Chico is ranting an raving about "having power" and "showing them all" as he assembles and tests his creation. As the Mechanized Skeleton had a very minor appearance in the 1940 run of Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics with the bulk appearing in the 1941 books I recently read I have been awaiting his return for more than a year, real-time, with the expectation that I would see some science skeleton-on-science zombie battling once it and the Purple Zombie finally met.

Chico doesn't do much to dispel my assumptions about him and his creation in his next couple of appearances, as he demonstrates a very loose attitude to law and order: in Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 004 he attempts to steal Purple Zombie creator Kim Hale's car, only to lose his Skeleton (and inadvertently save Hale's life) when a car bomb goes off. Then in RFHC 005, Chico attempts to procure a set of clothing for the replacement Mechanized Skeleton he has just completed by driving a car off the road and killing all of the occupants. Was the car full of gangsters who had kidnapped the Purple Zombie in an attempt to recruit him into their gang? Yes it was. Did Chico know this? No he didn't - the car might have been filled with nuns and orphans as far as he was concerned.

(please note that issue 005 does feature my anticipated Purple Zombie/ Mechanized Skeleton battle and that the Skeleton is comically outmatched) 

Despite all of this evidence of Chico's villainous nature, once Kim Hale and the Purple Zombie get ahold of him he suddenly reveals that he, like Hale has created his scientific version of a Halloween monster not for evil but for the betterment of mankind. Specifically, he made them as a foil to a Nazi death ray that has been giving the Allies a lot of trouble - what better foil to a death ray than the already-dead, after all? Such is the power of Chico's newly-revealed convictions that the Purple Zombie goes with him when he sneaks off in the night to battle the Hun.

And it works! The Purple Zombie leads a squad of Mechanized Skeletons (all hilariously decked out in doughboy helmets) to victory in just a couple of pages!

Chico requests (and receives) a hero's burial for the Mechanized Skeletons, causing me to wonder for the first time just where he got the base materials for them from. Though they are gone for good, Chico himself stays on as a supporting cast member during the next phase of the Purple Skeleton's career as he and Kim Hale are basted back in time. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 003, 1940)

Categorized in: Origins (Face Turns), Origins (Robots), Supranormal Beings (Undead (Skeletons))

Man O'Metal:

In addition to having on of the more strangely-constructed names in comics, Man O'Metal, aka Pat Dempsey, has a bafflingly straightforward origin on par with his fellow Eastern Color character Fearless Flint: while working in a foundry one day, Dempsey is caught in a flood of an unspecified molten metal, and instead of dying horribly he transforms into a superhuman metal man. It's a weirdly modern style of origin in that there is absolutely no attempt to introduce an external catalyst for this change - if he were a DC Comics character he would just turn out to have the metagene, for example.

Man O'Metal is like Fearless Flint in a couple of other ways: firstly, his power switches off after a few minutes, but can be restarted by the touch of metal (including incoming bullets, which proves to be handy). This requirement later changes from metal to heat or electricity, but the bullets are evidently hot enough to qualify. 

Dempsey's boss is underwhelmed by the prospect of having a white-hot metal guy running around his foundry and so he just kind of gives him to the FBI without really consulting him on whether this is something he might want to do. The FBI have a bit more vision re: the potential inherent in a superhuman employee and happily accept. He is immediately sent off to Badagero, South America to root out subversives. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 007, 1941)

Categorized in: Elements (Metal), Origins (Material Mutates), Team Memberships (FBI)

Very Minor Hydroman Updates: Hydroman is confirmed as vulnerable to freezing (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 004, 1941), is now wanted by the police (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 007, 1941).

MEDIA IN COMICS 009

I hope you like media from comics, because I certainly do and I am going to keep doing these.

Comics:

Bullied bootblack Timothy Smith just wants to buy a comic book with his last nickel and he has a whole selection of Fox Features titles to choose from, but what draws his eye is a book called The Land of Magic, a comic so fantastical and majestical that he wishes himself away to live inside its pages the next time he gets beaten up. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

We never actually see the Colossal Guy comic book, but this Colossal Guy superfan is evidence enough that he is a character with get-up and go. Enough to inspire Captain Bruce Blackburn to invent his alter ego of the Destroying Demon, in fact. (Feature Comics 039, 1940)

"Ripley's Believe it or Not" had enough cultural caché in its time that there are innumerable plays on it in comics, just as there were imitators in real life. These mostly differ by how successful a play on the name they have: "Don't You Doubt It," as consulted by Eve Colby as part of one of Spy Smasher's cases, is about average. (Whiz Comics 005, 1940)

Magazines:

I have a lot of affection for the concept behind Jim Dolan, two-fisted magazine editor, who solves crimes and then writes about them for Daring Detective Magazine. The magazine itself is fine. (Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

Movies:

We never learn more about The Big Snatch other than that it is a mystery thriller. The big joke here is of course that the star of the film is comics creator Joe Devlin. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

Likewise, we never learn much about the Western Hearts of the Range other than the fact that it starred the blowhard Sheriff O'Toole. (All-American Comics 021, 1940)

Melody of 1941 here is likely a play on Broadway Melody of 1940 and as such a musical, and stars a couple of classic mixed-up name actors in Tyrone Taylor (Tyrone Power/ Robert Taylor) and Myrna Rogers (Myrna Loy/ Ginger Rogers). (Detective Comics v1 046 1940)

We have no information at all about Old Bill. It has a pretty big premiere for a movie with such a drab name, so it must have something going for it. (Action Comics v1 028, 1940)

Oriental Horror is the name of the hit movie that made Barry Moore's name just before he quit acting, moved back to Center City to become a police scientist and adopted the identity of the Scarlet Seal based on the yellowface character he played in the movie. I would venture a guess that the film is not considered an enduring classic in the present day DC Universe. (Smash Comics 016, 1940)

She Made Him Love Her! is the name of a romantic movie attended by Sisty and Dinky, aka the daughter of the future Red Tornado and the brother of teen cartoonist Scribbly, aka the future Cyclone Kids, after the former falls in undying love with the latter. And to be fair to her the duo are canonicall later married, so this is a proven tactic. Eventually.

The movie itself might be loosely based on the film They Knew What They Wanted, or I might be grasping at straws. (All-American Comics 012, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 984: THE GHOUL

(Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

The Ghoul has a simple, brutal, efficient racket: identify people who have large life insurance policies, murder them, and then extort the payout from their beneficiaries with threats of violence. What is unclear is exactly how long the racket has been going on, and whether the point we come in at represents some awkward teething troubles or a long-established operation beginning to crumble.

Either way, the Ghoul's last score is a mess: actor John Pierce is shot down mid-play and then the gang's lieutenant, Steve Pelley -himself a very recognizable New York crime figure scoops up Mrs Pierce in front of the theatre and brings her in to be shaken down. Aside from the fact that this is a sure way to draw attention to Pelley as the probable murderer (which he is)... the insurance claim hasn't even been filed yet! What the heck is the hurry?

Indeed, all of this suspicious activity attracts the attention of the Green Mask and Domino, who clean up the gang in short order. Please note the Green Mask's punch shattering the Ghoul's skull mask: this is a classic visual and always fun to see.

Categorized in: Extortionists, Murderers, Supranormal Beings (Undead (Ghouls))

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 051

A disappointingly humanoid bunch of aliens today.

Gigantians:

The Gigantians of Gigantia are the kind of advanced society who like nothing more than to gas on about how primitive and backward Earth is to space travellers like Rocket Rooney and his pal, but are still content to have a hereditary monarchy. True to their name, they are super huge in their natural state but have the good graces to shrink themselves down whenever their Earth visitors show up. (Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

Inhabitants of Starergo:

Though the Gigantians are a benevolent and technically advanced super species who live in a perfect society, they are frequently beset by various enemies who want nothing more than to utterly destroy them and who give them the opportunity to demonstrate their benevolent and advanced weapons systems - one might almost believe that they enjoy the opportunity to blast some of the nonenlightened now and again. 

These include the inhabitants of Starergo, who attack them on the same day every year and have done so for the past one thousand years, and even though the attack always ends in a Starergoan defeat, this does not deter them. We never actually see one of the inhabitants of Starergo, but the fact that their planet's name is "ogre rats" backward possibly indicates something of their character. (Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

Merzoatics:

The Merzoatics are another in the seemingly endless list of species who want the Gigantians dead, and since their attack is entirely ground-based (they have tanks and artillery in addition to the swords and pikes pictured here) we must assume that they are also native to Gigantia. This does not, alas, help them avoid the rays to the Gigantians' paralysis ray cannon. (Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace Comics 004, 1941)

Martians:

These Martians are from the year 3090 CE or thereabout, which means that it is reasonably probable that they are descended from Earth colonists rather than being native to Mars. Whatever their origins, they have let a bald jerk named Pytho rise to power and convince them to enact aggression on the peoples of Mercury, a situation which continues until Pytho is undone by the efforts of the heroic Planet Payson. (Planet Comics 006, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 983: GREEN MASK AND DOMINO IMPOSTORS

(Green Mask v1 006, 1941)

It's a classic scheme: dress up like a super-hero - or super-heroes in this case: the Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy - to commit crimes, and rely on the public and the police to draw attention away from you and toward them in the subsequent outcry and investigation.

The only real trick to the hero-imposture game is not to push your luck. As long as the super-hero is free to do so, they are highly motivated to find the real criminal, and the more times you pull the trick, the more opportunities they have to catch you.

To this duo's credit, they seem to have set out to pull a one-and-done heist, but their downfall comes when the Green Mask's ally News Blake gives him the benefit of the doubt and they get weirdly hung up on winning him over. To that end, they stage a second robbery to get photographic evidence, then beat up Blake and steal the pictures to really convince them of their veracity. And it works! Blake is set to rat out the Green Mask's real identity to the police!

Before this can happen, the false and real Green Masks and Dominoes the Miracle Boys finally meet up, and though the impostors manage to get away, they do so only after the Green Mask has gotten a good look at them and recognized the signature trick of circus acrobats Laverne and Tiny. The real crooks are quickly rounded up and all is well with the world. News Blake in particular gets off pretty lightly for a fellow who was willing to believe that one of his closest friends was a murderer. Also please note that the false Domino costume has the wrong kind of mask, which is a very nice detail for this kind of story.

Categorized in: Day Jobs (Circus Acrobats), Fraud (Identity Theft (Super-Heroes), Objects (Masks)