REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 022

What percentage of these people knew that they had ever been portrayed in a comic book, you reckon?

Adolf Hitler:

Hitler gets beaten up by the Silver Streak after he captures and attempts to kill Meteor. (Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941)

A particularly parodic version of Hitler deploys a super weapon that is ultimately thwarted by Dickie Dean.  (Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941) 

Charles Biro:

Gangster Chick Biro almost gets killed by his boss the Domino but is saved when Presto Martin takes his place. (Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941)

Genghis Khan:

The Bingham Boys and their friends hunt down the Sword of Genghis Khan to a Tibetan lamasery, where the Grand Lama claims to be the descendant of the Khan and thus entitled to conquer the world. Our heroes beat up the would-be Khan and spirit the sword away to an American museum. (Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941)

George Roussos: 

It's a classic case of slapping your fellow comic book creator's name on a background sign as "Presto Martin" scribe Bob Wood uses Roussos' name on an apartment building. (Silver Streak Comics 010, 1941)

Next issue of the same strip features the headline "Roussos Does it Again! Famous Cartoonist Meets Second Deadline! I can hardly wait to read Roussos' work in Daredevil Comics to see if he shoots back. 

Same issue features Roussos' Army & Navy Store, with a "Jerry Robinson, Prop." thrown in for good measure. (Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941)

George Washington: 

Deploys his personal agent Dan Dearborn to escort a gunpowder shipment and help protect it from capture by the British. (Silver Streak Comics 008, 1941)

George Rogers Clark: 

That gunpowder is transported downriver by Clark, a Revolutionary War hero whom I was unfamiliar with and whose Wikipedia page is predictably fraught. (Silver Streak Comics 008, 1941)

Captain John Neville: 

Commander of the Fort Pitt garrison at Pittsburgh, where he briefly meets Dan Dearborn. (Silver Streak Comics 008, 1941)

Mao Zedong: 

He doesn't play a direct role in the story, but Mao Tung here is definitely a stand-in for Mao Zedong, aka Mao Tse-tung. Captain Battle saves him from an assassination attempt by a Japanese spy. (Captain Battle Comics 001, 1941)

Samuel Goldwyn:

Goldbyn, head of Paragold Film Studios, is a classic stand-in for Sam Goldwyn of MGM. (Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941)

Unknown News Broadcaster Jimmie Fidler: 

As you can see, above, I was initially unable to find the reference point for Jimmy Fiddle here. The problem is that I have been conditioned to think a certain way about these stand-in names, so I spent a lot of effort looking for "James Diffle" and "John Oboe" and so forth, and didn't even consider that it might be something as simple as "Jimmie Fidler" until I remembered that we had already encountered a Jimmy Fiddle and filed him under Unknown. 

Sorry for disrespecting your 50+ year media career, Jimmie Fidler. In my defense, you retired when I was three years old. (Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 945: DR DRACULA

(Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941) 

With Dr Dracula, Captain Battle has now faced four Nazi or Nazi-adjacent villains in a row whose plans involve gathering up a bunch of guys and pretending to be monsters, in this case vampires. Was there a meeting about this at the regional Nazi spy headquarters or is this one of those things like when Hollywood makes two volcano movies at the same time? Maybe one guy had a good idea and the other three stole it. 

I'd have to say that Dr Dracula has the best name and possibly the best look out of the four, but the Mummy Master's Mummy Gang might take the gold in terms of best henchmen. 

As a supplement to the power of fake vampirism, Dr Dracula steals a new death ray from the hapless Professor Fosdick, who then serves as the first (human) target of its instant skeletonization effect. Horrifying! And visually striking!

(please note the fourth panel above, when Fosdick exclaims "Vampires! Vampires as large as men!" I believe him to be referring to vampire bats, which doesn't make a huge amount of sense given what he is looking at at the time but which is the only interpretation to make much sense. It is the kind of thing that comic book people shout when vampire bats are about, after all)

This is about the time that Captain Battle shows up to put a stop to Dr Dracula's plans, which gives he and his men the opportunity to demonstrate that they can all fly as they engage in thrilling aerial combat vs Captain Battle and his luceflyer (Hale Battle is lagging behind and can't be there for this fight). 

These wing suits are very cool and more importantly... way more strategically valuable than the death ray that they just stole? Like, yes: the death ray can instantly kill any target, but so can a good sniper, and you certainly could deploy more good snipers easily if you had flying infantry, right?

Having made his getaway, Dr Dracula gets down to the serious business of sabotaging American war production by turning people into goofy skeletons. Prof Fosdick must have had a sense of humour, because while the ray dissolves clothing it selectively leaves props such as cigarettes or blankets behind so that every tragic ray-gun death looks just a little bit funny.

Dr Dracula meets his end when Captain Battle throws a steel net over him and the death ray explodes. This is what happens when you steal an experimental piece of technology and kill the inventor, folks. 

Hale Battle must of course have his souvenir, and what better or more striking object is there than one of the false vampires' wing suits?

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 007

The right shoulder: unsung victim of the comics pages. 

Captain Battle: 

Captain Battle gets a fashionable bullet-creased skull on the docks of San Francisco. (Captain Battle Comics 001, 1941) 

the Cloak:

Being shot in the left shoulder is the inciting incident that leads Jeff Cardiff to adopt the Cloak identity in the first place. (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

the Face:

Shot in the right shoulder (Big Shot Comics 011, 1941)

Shot in the right shoulder again. (Big Shot Comics 018, 1941)

Shot in the left shoulder, which must have come as a relief. (Big Shot Comics 019, 1941)

the Fox:

Shot in the right shoulder. (Blue Ribbon Comics 012, 1941)

Kaänga: 

Shot in the right shoulder. (Jungle Comics 003, 1940)

Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians:

Shot in the right arm. (Big Shot Comics 012, 1941)

In what is probably the most sever non-fatal injury we have seen thus far, Marvelo takes an ape-powered throwing knife to the chest and is just barely alive for the remainder of the comic. (Big Shot Comics 016, 1941)

Skyman:

Skyman is shot in the ever-popular right shoulder, and no wonder: it's a big ol' target. (Big Shot Comics 002, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 944: PROFESSOR MARKUSYI

(Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941)

Professor Markusyi, the music teacher in question, is a man who is never seen at night and who *refuses* to go out at night, much to the amusement and consternation of those around him.

There are plenty of reasons why one might not want to go out at night (nyctophobia, love of an early bedtime, a jealous spouse, etc) but only a few of them are worthy of being the focus of a comic book plot, at least in the Golden Age. Markusyi's secret reason for being diurnal is that he is a werewolf, and specifically the kind of werewolf who transforms every night? And maybe can do it at will during the day? The mythology is murky at best. As is the anatomy: just look at the legs on that thing.

I gues we must give Markusyi some credit for containing the beast within for long enough to get a reputation as a night-hating crank, but there wouldn't be a plot if he didn't lose control, would there, so he murders one of his students for being "too beautiful to live" like a real creep.

Also please note the free rein that a literal wolf had to roam the streets in the 1940s. Are modern social and legal conventions about not allowing your dog to roam free secretly part of an anti-werewolf agenda?

We must now step back to the title page of this story for a look at a different messed-up drawing of a wolf (man), and while my initial instinct was to make fun of the anatomy on display (see above) I do kind of love the concept of a werewolf as a messed-up uncanny valley dog-thing, like the human part is trying to create the wolf part from memory and doing a bad job.

I also want to showcase the fact that the only thing that Markusyi is called other than his own name is here in the title and it's the Music Teacher, which is a good name for a villain but frustratingly not applicable here. I just love when villains have cool names, you guys. Calling them by their government name is a bummer.

Bart "the Daredevil" Hill is alerted to the case thanks to a police inspector pal with what I would call an unprofessional approach to law enforcement. Thanks to some research in one of those extremely comprehensive books on folklore that you get in horror movies, Bart is soon aware of just how exactly Markusyi's version of werewolfism works. Specifically, that he has to kill four... women? in order to be cured, and he's already killed three!

Markusyi's fourth target is the Daredevil's fiance Tonia Saunders, who he met and fixated upon thanks to an ill-conceived plan to gather information by signing her up for violin lessons with him. While this was a very dumb idea, it does allow Daredevil to find Markusyi before he commits his final murder (and becomes human just in time to have to get away from a crime scene) and seemingly beat him to death, which I guess that this kind of werewolf is unacceptable to. All's well that ends well, I suppose? For a certain value of "well"?

Categorized in: Doctors & Professors, Murder (Magical Reason), Origin (Lycanthrope)