MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 085

Welcome to "The Four Characters Least Likely to Return in a Modern Comic" Theatre.

Marvex the Super-Robot: 

Marvex the Super-Robot! Created to be a slave by a Fifth Dimensional jerk named Bolo, Marvex rejects his fate, kills Bolo and his associates and accidentally blasts himself to Earth while smashing up Bolo's lab equipment.

If you're already aware of who Marvex is then it's likely because of the Michael Kupperman strip featuring the character during Marvel's 70th Anniversary run of comics, and indeed, Marvex' propensities for cartoonish violence, shutting down romance with sudden nudity and receiving twenty dollars all make him a perfect Kupperman character.

Sadly, the nudity and twenty dollar reward system go the way of Marvex' hair in his second and third appearances, but he never stops yelling about being a robot whenever his companion Clara gets a bit too comfortable around him. (Daring Mystery Comics 003, 1940)

Categorized in: Language (Superlatives - Super), Origins (Extradimensional, Robot), Supranormal Beings (Robots)

the Falcon:

The Falcon is Carl Burgess, assistant district attorney in an unnamed city who is kind of betraying the spirit of his office by meting out vigilante justice when he feels like the legal system isn't working. Though he is a pretty average costumed vigilante, the Falcon has precisely four interesting things to note. The first is that his name is weirdly close to that of Carl Burgos, the creator of the Human Torch. This might be a coincidence, but still. The second is of course that he is the original Marvel Falcon but by far the least-known of the half dozen or so Marvel characters to share that name.

Like the Eagle, the Falcon is a bit of a fashion plate or at least someone who adjusts his costume on every adventure and for the same reason: a different artist on every one of his appearances.

Finally, the Falcon has been retroactively assigned an accessory based on an assumption, just like his fellow Daring Mystery Comics alum the Fiery Mask and his morning star. In this case, it's that his suit gives him the ability to glide. I assume that this is because of a stylistic choice on the part of his various illustrators to have him dive down on his enemies like a falcon stooping on prey, because the suit does not come up in his handful of Golden Age appearances. (Daring Mystery Comics 005, 1940)

Categorized in: Animals (Falcons), Day Jobs (Assistant District Attorneys)

Marvel Boy:

Up until about 2012 I'd have confidently said that "Marvel Boy" was one of the most commonly-shared super-hero identities in the Marvel Universe, but it seems that the concept of the legacy identity has gone through a weird mutation in the last decade or so and I am now regularly surprised to find that there are way more Wolverines or Captains America than I had previously imagined. With that in mind, we'll revise my statement to be that there are more Marvel Boys than you might expect, like Starmans over at DC.

This particular Marvel Boy is the Earthly reincarnation of Hercules, come down from Valhalla (?!) to aid a world threatened by fascism. His human form is named Martin Burns and like a veritable Silver Age Superboy he is born with so much physical strength that he must constantly hold himself back lest he endanger those around him and out himself as something strange and different.

On Martin's fourteenth birthday a mysterious stranger (who is implicitly the Roman god Jupiter) delivers a package containing his heroic costume to him and then somewhat redundantly also appears in his bedroom to really spell out his whole deal and charge him to uphold democracy etc.

Marvel Boy is super strong, very agile and fast enough to run from New York City to Washington DC and back - carrying three grown men on the first leg of the trip - in the course of a night that also includes the aforementioned visit from Jupiter and busting up two fifth column cells.

Both this Marvel Boy and his successor (coming up in 1942) never returned after making a single appearance, and while I can't say just why they didn't have further Golden Age adventures, the lack of a modern appearance for either of them is almost certainly down to the fact that their origins both revolve around a dead Hercules, who is in fact more often than not a very living second- or third-tier hero in the Marvel Universe. They're also both named Martin Burns for some reason, which means that later handbook writers have felt compelled to differentiate them by giving them middle names based on their creators, making this one Martin Simon Burns.

Frankly, I think that the fact that the two Marvel Boys have origins that are incompatible with both Marvel Comics continuity and also one another is terrific fodder for comic book storytelling. Both of them should be BRUNG BACK immediately, preferably in a comic that also has Hercules in it. (Daring Mystery Comics 006, 1940)

Categorized in: Generica (Boys), Language (Superlatives - Marvels), Origin (Reincarnated God) 

the Flying Flame:

The Flying Flame is a red fighter plane flown for the RAF by the two-fisted American pilot Captain Red Ruff, who is also known as the Flying Flame due to his shock of red hair. During his brief comic book career, Ruff battled the Black Ace and ferreted out some spies at an airbase. (Daring Mystery Comics 006, 1940)

Categorized in: Activities (Flying), Elements (Fire), Team Membership (RAF)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 033

Aliens. 

Fifth Dimensional Beings: 

These big-headed fellows feature in the origin story of Marvex the Super-Robot, but since we only see Marvex' creator Bolo and his associates, we can't really say too much about the culture of these Fifth Dimensional creatures. They have big heads, certainly, and a high enough degree of technology that Bolo is able to whip up a sentient robot on a whim, but whether that's the sort of thing the population at large is getting up to or Bolo is the local equivalent of Lex Luthor is unknown and unknowable, alas. (Daring Mystery Comics 003, 1940)

Green Devils:

When Perisphere Payne seeks out a missing scientific expedition on an unnamed planet circling the star Polaris, he finds that they have come to mischief at the nubby little hands of the Green Devils, the planet's native inhabitants who probably don't call themselves that.

While the Green Devils are just another band of primitives, eager to sacrifice the nearest blonde woman to their gods, they are also the most alien aliens that we have seen in a while and so I have a great deal of affection for them. Just look at their long noodly limbs! Their buggy eyes! Beautiful. (Science Comics 006, 1940)

Pigwidgeons: 

The final act of the story of the adventures of the Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds involves him leaving the Diamond Empire in his namesake rocket and her abdicating her throne to stow away and go with him. The Queen's unexpected presence on the ship causes the Rocket to wreck the steering mechanism, and they crash on a strange planet.

When they recover, the two find that they have been captured Gulliver-style by a group of tiny, rabbit-riding people called Pigwidgeons, who are melodramatic but ultimately good-hearted, and whose initial hostility is due to them mistaking the duo for... 

... the Gromans, a species of human-sized fascists with a Roman Empire aesthetic to match their name. Though the Gromans have evidently been attacking the Pigwidgeons with impunity for some time, the arrival of the Rocket and the Queen shifts the balance of power, and over the next couple of issues the duo forge a new era of peace at the barrel of a ray gun. (Pep Comics 010, 1940)

Pluvians:

A plague is ravaging Earth in the far future of 1982, and Power Nelson has set aside his antipathy for the despotic government of Seng I to help them acquire the radium that they need to effect a cure. He sets out for the radium-rich planet Pluvius, where he meets the Pluvians, ruled by King Rari, and forget what I said about the Green Devils because these guys are my favourite aliens. Whether they have a smooth orange carapace or are wearing modified onesies is not specified and it doesn't matter because they look fantastic either way, particularly as the sleek and retro-high-tech look it gives them is contrasted with their apparently Medieval society.

The Pluvians agree to supply the needed radium in exchange for Nelson's aid against their rival society, the Hairy Guroos, about whom there isn't much to say. They're humanoids with luxuriant hair and beards living in a Medieval monarchy (albeit a matriarchal one, which is fun), and that's about it. They do use radium boulders as ammunition in their catapults, which is a good indication that Nelson has come to the right planet.

For once in a Golden Age comic the solution to a problem involving hostile aliens does not involve mass alien casualties. Instead, Power Nelson does a regime change, by kidnapping the warmongering Guroo Queen Wodo and leaving her more amiable sister Queen Leelee in charge. (Prize Comics 003, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 084

Obscure Marvel super-heroes, you say? But of course!

Monako, Prince of Magic:

Monako is a classic comic book magic hero in the Zatara vein, right down to the top hat, tuxedo and little mustache, though he does eventually switch to wearing a fez. His major distinction from his legion of peers is that he was brought back in a fairly recent Doctor Strange run, though as is so often the case he was dug up only to be horribly killed off.

Monako gets an origin story in Daring Mystery Comics 004, in which he is orphaned when an Indian group referred to only as "the Cruel Tribe" ritually explode the entire caravan that he and his parents were travelling in as missionaries (this at least gives us an answer to the perennial question of why bring your young child along on such a dangerous journey: because missionaries).

Young Monako (a last name? a stage name?) inexplicably survives the conflagration and is subsequently adopted by the chief of the Cruel Tribe, who teaches him the ways of magic. Just why he does this is not explored and will never be, because the British eventually show up to massacre the entire village and send young Monako back to England. Were he a going concern for the seventy-odd years between his final Golden Age appearance and his death, I'm sure that the question of just how a whole group of people with powers similar to the nigh-omnipotent Monako were killed with simple firearms, but alas, such was not the case. (Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

Categorized in: Locations (Unrelated Name), Power Categories (Magic), Royalty (Princes)

Phantom of the Underworld: 

"Doc" Denton is a surgeon-turned-detective who helps the police round up a gang boss named Perrone in his sole recorded adventure. I one hundred percent am including him here because "Phantom of the Underworld" is such a terrific name, even if nobody calls him that in-story. (Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

Categorized in: Day Jobs (Private Detectives), Locations (the Underworld), Supranormal Beings (Phantoms)

Trojak the Tiger Man: 

Trojak, orphaned son of a jungle explorer who made the inexplicable yet very popular decision to bring a baby along with him on his travels (perhaps as a difficulty boost? Was Trojak's father a gamer?), has grown up among a tribe his father died in defense of. As is so often the case in adventure literature, being a white guy in the jungle has made Trojak both stronger and cooler than everyone else, plus he can talk to animals like Balu, his geographically-anomalous tiger companion. (Daring Mystery Comics 002, 1940)

(he is a very intelligent tiger)

Categorized in: Animals (Tigers), Generica (Mans), Origin (Orphan Raised in Jungle)

Tigerman:

"Trojak the Tiger Man" becomes "Tigerman" for its final instalment, and it's a bit of a toss-up on whether the two characters are supposed to be the same or not. Both Trojak and Tigerman are orphaned youths who were raised by jungle tribe and who now adventure while in the company of a tiger named Balu, sure, but crucially "Trojak" is set in Africa while the Tigerman roams India. You'd be forgiven for assuming that Tigerman was Indian but no, he's American by birth - he's just the rare near-naked jungle guy who has the ability to get a tan. 

The one thing that could have cleared up the mystery of whether these two are the same guy or not would be more adventures featuring either one of them and sadly there are no more (Daring Mystery Comics 006, 1940)

Categorized in: Animals (Tigers), Generica (Mans), Origin (Orphan Raised in Jungle) 

K-4 and his Sky Devils:

K-4 is the code name of a "flying spy," and WWI/Spanish Civil War fighter ace (the youngest WWI ace, according to the text box, which would make him at most 18 as far as I can tell) who leads the Sky Devils, comprised of fellow WWI ace René d'Auvergne and makeup expert Ronald Wolverstone-Clodd. Some of the usual fun of the multinational team set-up is missing here because K-4 spends a lot of his time doing solo missions. (Daring Mystery Comics 002, 1940)

Categorized in: Alphanumeric (K, 4), Origins (WWI vets), Supranormal Beings (Devils)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 032

Aliens (and So Forth) abound!

Birdmen:

The Birdmen inhabit Sunev, which is either a planet that orbits perilously close to Earth or a second moon of Earth, and which was supposedly formed out of a piece of our planet which broke away in the distant past. Sunev has never been discovered because of some pseudoscientific gibberish about light rays, but space explorer Zephyr Jones and his assistant Corky Grogan make landfall there while testing out Jones' experimental rocket ship.

The Birdmen of Sunev have one of those advanced and peaceful societies that function with the rigidity and ruthlessness of a military dictatorship populated by political naifs. As such, the ambitious Birdman Roudo is able to frame Zephyr and Corky and have them sentenced to death for supposedly collaborating with...

Parrotmen:

The Parrotmen! These ancestral enemies of the Birdmen are just kind of caveman versions of them - they don't even have colourful plumage to justify the name (I know that these images are from a recoloured version but I checked and the original is like this too). Despite the fact that the Birdmen have a roughly Medieval level of technology (castles, steel, swords) they have not yet been able to come up with a way to contend with a bunch of big guys with clubs, and it's up to Zephyr and Corky to blow them away with the tommy gun that they very sensibly thought to bring along on their space adventure. (Daring Mystery Comics 002, 1940)

Center People:

The Center People are one of the many intelligent species that populate the far-off Asteroid Djung. Their king, Goro, has allied with the Djunga King Leon against space heroes Captain Venture and the Planet Princess Zyra. Despite being depicted as spear-wielding ape-men who perform human sacrifice to a pool of lava, they are also armed with a selection of high-tech devices such as Goro's Mind-Ray Projector, which he uses to briefly compel Captain Venture into his service. This dichotomy is not explored before the Center Person society is devastated by a volcanic eruption. (Master Comics 019, 1941)

Core Creatures:

The adventures of sci-fi hero Blaze Barton take place on an Earth ravaged by a freak orbital shift that brought it too close to the Sun in the year 50029 CE (or sometimes 3000 CE or 5029 CE). Blaze and a small human population survived this event by sheltering in a specially-built heat-proof city, and now must rebuild civilization on a radically altered world. 

One of the first and greatest challenges faced by Blaze et al is the emergence of the underground-dwelling Core Creatures from the great cracks that have developed in the planet thanks to the rapid changes in temperature it has experienced. 

The Core Creatures, and their king in particular, have an implacable hostility toward the human population, but also indulge in that hoary old trope of being super hot for human women. I do appreciate the fact that they appear to choose their king based on who has the most creepy skull face. (Hit Comics 001, 1940)

I try and I try to keep these entries at a reasonable four species length, but I am vexed at every turn. Two issues after the Core Creatures breach the surface, Blaze & Co turn the tables and explore the subterranean world, where they encounter:

Mud Monsters and Rock Men:

While the Rock Men act as supplementary antagonists to the Core Creatures over the next couple of issues, the Mud Monsters only appear in this single panel. This is a shame, because they are by far the more visually interesting of the two groups. At least the fact that they live in such close proximity to the Rock Men allows us to speculate that they might be related species? That's kind of fun. (Hit Comics 003, 1940)

Like so many nonhuman societies, the Rock Men have a monarchy. There are better ways to live, guys!

Pretty People of the Jewelled Caves: 

The Pretty People are a bunch of foppish hotties who live in a state perpetual danger between the nations of the Core Creatures and Rock Men, and who survive by playing the two groups off of one another. They are also monarchists. As the most human-looking and least hostile group, these are the ones who the surface humans end up allying with.

Speaking of alliances, the Core Creature and Rock Man Kings forge one in order to attack the Pretty People and are only driven off thanks to the intervention of the humans and their ray guns. Blaze Barton personally kills the Core Creature king here, ending the Core threat for good. (Hit Comics 003, 1940)

Crustmen:

In one final addendum, I reckon that these Crustmen, who attack the surface as part of a coordinated strike on humanity with a group of hostile Martians, are meant to be the Core Creatures. Given the differences in name and appearance I choose to believe that they are a related but distinct species of hostile sub-Earth humanoid.  (Hit Comics 007, 1941)