MEDIA IN COMICS 005

This is the stuff that my counterpart in a comic book universe is writing his little blogs about.

Movies:

Not only does this theatre feature an appearance by Lady Luck (an impostor, alas), but it has screenings of Boris Scarloff in Mummy Blood and Myrna Powell and William Loy in Thinner than the Thin Man! (Lady Luck, the Spirit Section 1940)

The villainous Comrade Ratski might have founded Ratski Productions and filmed his opus The Great War as a cover for his espionage activities, but was it a real movie? Was he filming all of his crimes and if so who has the footage? (Speed Comics 009, 1940) 

Ted Parrish, aka the Man With 1000 Faces stars in Thundering Hoofs, which might appear to be a generic Western to you and I but which nets him the 1941 Oscar for Best Actor - sorry, Jimmy Stewart. (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

This is another Ted Parrish feature(, and though the title is partially obscured by that rude talking kid I am familiar enough with 1940s parody title conventions to confidently state that it is Went with the Gale. (Speed Comics 008, 1940)

Newspaper Columns:

"John Perry In the News," with its sassy little "Perry Says...." opening is said to be and written like a gossip column but like Bob Phantom before him John "the Black Fury" Perry seems to mostly write about crime. Also please note that both of these clippings have "Daily Standard" down the side even though Perry is consistently said to work for the Daily Clarion. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Martin Mitchell is another of these gossip columnist/ hard-core investigative journalist types, only he isn't a super-hero and so when he starts writing about ongoing criminal activity in "Martin Mitchell About Town" he just gets murdered. (Rocket Comics 003, 1940)

We don't get anything more about "The Tattler" than its title, and even that is concealed beneath part of the Press Guardian's name. Maybe Ted McCoy needs to dig up some hotter gossip. (Pep Comics 001, 1940)

Radio: 

Martin Mitchell (America's most popular columnist!) also has a radio show, and since we never learn its name I'm going to assume that it is also named Martin Mitchell About Town. (Rocket Comics 003, 1940)

We don't learn too much about The Brady's Better Bacon Program due to its star Biff Crossley being mixed up in a string of high-profile murders, but it certainly is well-attended. And it has a full orchestra!(Pep Comics 008, 1940)

Theatre: 

Tobacco Turnpike is one of those murder mystery plays that are so beloved of comic and television writers because of dramatic potential inherent in someone being murdered on-stage at the same time as they are supposed to be pretending to be murdered, as happens several times in this story before the Shield gets involved and reveals that the director is responsible and is trying to tank the play because he has sold half stakes in the play to at least four men and doesn't want to pay out or go to jail.

Tobacco Turnpike is such a specific name that I was sure that it was a reference to something. I almost gave up the quest for knowledge after my third unsuccessful search for a production of Cigarette Junction, before finally narrowing it down to a play called Tobacco Road. (Shield-Wizard Comics 002, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 093

Fox Features, you burned hot and bright and brought us so many minor super-heroes.

the Black Fury:

The Black Fury, like Bob Phantom before him, is a newspaper gossip columnist who moonlights as a costumed vigilante. What are the chances that we would have two of those? I enjoy his costume even if it is somewhat generic even for 1941, though I am a bit upset that the glowing gemstone on his and his sidekick's foreheads is never addressed. For instance: is it really glowing or is that a stylistic choice?

As of his first appearance, John has already been the Black Fury for an unspecified amount of time, having adopted the mantle after his father was killed by gangsters for writing "anti-crime editorials" in the newspaper, a thing that comic book criminals react to like they are a farm lobby trying to influence government nutritional guidelines. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Categorized in: Day Job (Newspaper Columnists), Origin (Crime Orphans), Supranormal Beings (Mythological - Furies)

Chuck:

John Perry relates his origin as the Black Fury to young Chuck Marley after Chuck's own father, Police Sergeant Marley, is killed by henchmen of the evil Fang. Chuck is essentially bequeathed to Perry as the elder Marley lies dying, which is a very straightforward way for a hero to acquire a boy for sidekick duties.

Chuck does not get his own super-hero name, alas (at least not right away, spoilers for some comics from 1942), but he does get his own costume, which is more than a lot of sidekicks can say. The fact that his costume is exactly the same as the Black Fury's does make it a bit difficult to tell them apart at times but that's a small price to pay for the peace of mind of knowing that Chuck's identity is at least somewhat protected. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Categorized in: Day Job (High School Students),  Origin (Crime Orphans), Origin (Sidekicks)

the Banshee:

The origin story of the Banshee involves a remarkable number of steps. First, Irishman Jim O'Donnell finds that his step-father has been murdered out on the moors by the evil Scorpion, who is only prevented from bumping off Jim as well because he is extremely superstitious, mistakes a wailing wind for the cry of a banshee and runs off.

Jim discovers that the Scorpion has set out for the United States and, unable to secure a visa ("I am seeking vengeance on my step-father's killer" seemingly not good enough. Probably they would have let him in if it was his full-on father, though) stows away on a steamship. He is spotted disembarking in New York, making him one of the small group of super-heroes whose civilian rather than super identities are wanted by the authorities and the only one that I am aware of who is wanted for entering the country illegally.

But just why is the Scorpion in America? Why, to murder Jim's step-father's niece, who, as his only remaining blood relative, will inherit some land that is rich in gold and which the Scorpion is trying to get his mitts on. Just why Jim is out of the picture is unexplained - he and his step-dad have a relationship that is at the very least strong enough for a vengeance quest, so why shouldn't Jim be in the will?

Jim once again benefits from the Scorpion's banshee-focused superstitions after he falls through a load of bedsheets and onto the villain's head, with an assist by a distant police siren. This might just be the rarest and dumbest of super-hero costume origins, the Dressed by Slapstick approach.

Having enacted his vengeance, Jim decides to remain in the US and continue his fight against crime as the Banshee. He throws together a more super-heroic version of his accidental costume and crashes on Joan's couch while he figures out what to do about work, and it's okay that Joan kind of becomes his love interest because she is only his step-cousin. 

All this just to have an Irish guy fighting crime in NYC.  (Fantastic Comics 021, 1941)

(from Fantastic Comics 022 on, Jim adopts a simpler version of his initial pass at the super-hero look. He also adopts the "banshee wail" as his calling card rather than simply relying on it to happen diegetically as needed)

Categorized in: Accessories (Style - Calling Cards, Costume Origins),  Origin (Crime Orphans), Supranormal Beings (Banshees)

Samson **UPDATE**:

Some time in mid-to-late 1941, Fox Features presumably decided to round out a few of their more prominent characters such as the Flame, the Green Mask and Samson and give them a supporting cast so that they weren't just ping-ponging from adventure to adventure without any sense of continuity. In Samson's case, he gained a love interest with the very on-the-nose name of Lila Dee, along with a moderately annoying comic relief character in the form of perpetually-horny artist J. Rembrandt Speedball.

The same issue marks the very first time that someone thought to have David use a sling instead of just going around lassoing people the whole time. Credit to Al Carreño for that one. (Fantastic Comics 022, 1941)

This is also when Samson takes a stab at having a secret identity, but since he still has to have his trademark shoulder-length hair and that is a Huge Giveaway in 1941, this involves wearing a Very Big Coat with a Very Big Collar that he can pull up around his ears. Did he even try a wig before going coat shopping, you reckon? (Fantastic Comics 023, 1941)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 044

Aliens! Mostly Martians!

Treemen:

Richard of Warwick, aka the Golden Knight, having gone to the Crusades, won the Crusades and returned home from the Crusades, now enters a fourth period of adventuring that is all about family. First, he rescues his little brother from the evil Black Baron, he now sets out to explore his father's gold mines including the boarded-up one where his mother disappeared twenty years earlier.

Inside, in addition to a variety of hostile reptile life, Richard encounters a some mostly-nude fellows called Treemen, who look like humans with very prominent upper canine teeth. I was pretty puzzled about their name until I looked a bit harder and saw that they also have awful-looking long curly fingernails. Is this where they get their name? From the fact that they look like they have roots? Horrible.

Though Richard does do well initially, ultimately falls to the Treemen and is captured. It's just lucky for him that the mighty Queen Martha of the Treemen turns out to be his mom. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Mar-Men:

The Mar-Men, under the leadership of the vile Craga, have been capturing human space crews to use as slave labour on their warships, a scheme that is ultimately foiled by the heroic Perisphere Payne. Being nothing more than green-skinned humans, the Mar-Men are generally unremarkable as aliens, though they are the only example that I am aware of of a Mars-derived species name that completely omits the "s" sound. (Science Comics 003, 1940)

Martians: 

As in every Space Rovers adventure, Ted Hunt and Jane Martin are just toddling around space one day when they notice a bunch of Martian soldiers seemingly lowering a woman to her doom in the Lost Valley of Mars. Upon rescuing her, they learn that she is the exiled Queen Mara of Thurn, whose kingdom has been usurped by her uncle/former regent Xark. The Space Rovers vow to help restore her to the throne, and as is so often the case are lucky to have picked a reliable narrator to back.

The Martians (or more specifically the Thurnians, I suppose), have one of those weird mixes of technologies that you get in sci-fi adventure comics: they have charming little flying machines armed with projectile weaponry, but their soldiers are all armed with swords. None of this is a match for the Space Rovers' tommy guns and rocket ships.

Mara is restores to her throne with a little help from Ted's jet pack and some phosphorescent paint, and Thurn is once more subject to the whims of the correct absolute monarch. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940) 

Martian Anthropoids:

These fellows are the major threat to Queen Mara in the Lost Valley, and while they're basically just Martian cavemen I do appreciate that they look like Simpsons characters. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940)

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)