MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 094

Super-heroes, coincidentally arranged in ascending order of notability!

Kalkor:

A faithful priest of Isis c.1000 BC, Kalkor is restored to life at the same time as Nagana, the Queen of Evil, as a foil to her power. He is empowered with the same immortality and comic book magic as Nagana so that he may combat her effectively (and perhaps as a way for Isis to make up for crushing him to death as a byproduct of collapsing a temple on Nagana to put an end to her evil ways).  

Important note: though many Golden and Silver Age super-heroes may act like they have taken a vow of celibacy, Kalkor is one of the few who may have actually done so, as part of his Christianity-influenced version of Isis-worship. (Fantastic Comics 022, 1941)

Kalkor is not really a super-hero in the traditional sense - he doesn't roam around looking for guys mugging old ladies or Fifth Columnists sabotaging munitions factories. Instead, he follows Nagana around and foils whatever scheme she pursues in her ongoing effort to conquer the world. And like many characters who operate purely in reference to the actions of others, Kalkor is kind of dull.

In order to get around our era more easily, Kalkor adopts the funny-about-twenty-years-ago-our time alias of John Kerry. He also seems to shop at the same Big Coat Store as fellow Fox super-hero Samson.

Categorized in: Day Job (Priest), Origin (Divine Empowerment, Mystic Mutate, Resurrected Mystic Champion)

the Gladiator:

The Gladiator is Dan Kenneth, a "famous art connoisseur." This baffled me hardcore until I realized that there was a pretty good chance that he was in fact an art conservationist or something like that, and sure enough a critical aspect of the villain's scheme in his first outing is having Kenneth "recondition" a painting he has just bought, and in his second and final appearance they just go ahead and call him an art dealer.

Kenneth gets mixed up in an overly-complicated plot by the aforementioned client to steal his own painting and still get cash - not insurance fraud but a second, stupider thing, see the upcoming entry on the Monster for further details - that is in fact so ridiculous that he can't even convince the police to help him out. What else can he do but engage in a bit of vigilante justice in such a situation. He puts on a Roman gladiator outfit that he happens to have laying around, grabs his favourite cestus and bowling pin and sets out to meet his destiny. And then, as so frequently happens, the one-time foray into vigilante justice becomes a full-fledged hobby. (Fantastic Comics 023, 1941)

Categorized in: Activities (Gladiators), Day Job (Art Dealer), Powers (Weapons Master)

the Avenger:

The Avenger is maybe the third most popular Street & Smith pulp character, and as such was adapted to comics in the early 40s and again every time the old gang gets together for another shot at the comics page in DC Front Line or wherever. Alas, just like his pulp career, none of the Avenger's forays into comic books last very long, especially as compared to those of Doc Savage or the Shadow.

Maybe I'm wrong, but the problem with comic book adaptations of the Avenger always seems to be that they take a premise like "solder of fortune loses family to criminals and thus sets out to balance the scales, armed with face that can be moulded like putty, a gun called Mike, a knife called Ike and a diverse cast of assistants called Justice Inc" and boil it down to "unsmiling widower tackles depressing crime." (Shadow Comics v1 002, 1940)

Categorized in: Accessories (Sidekicks), Origin (Mental Mutate, Motivated by Loss), Power (Moldable Face)

Betty Ross:

Betty Ross, aka Agent X-13, is a government agent who first appears as the seemingly-elderly-but-really beautiful guardian of the curio shop that conceals the super-soldier facility where Steve Rogers becomes Captain America (okay, it's not 100% clear that this is Betty Ross in the original comics, but retcons have firmly established that it is). She goes on to take part in many of Captain America and Bucky's Golden Age adventures - more, in fact, than the original Cap/Bucky duo (retcons again, being deployed to explain how they kept having adventures after they were supposedly frozen and dead, respectively. Or frozen and frozen, depending on the retcon). Late in the WWII era she even adopts a costumed identity of her own: Golden Girl.

Betty plays a big enough role in these Golden Age comics that I was tempted to give her a full-fledged Super-Hero page such as characters like Lois Lane or Alfred will probably get but alas, she has been almost entirely replaced by Peggy Carter in comics published in the Silver Age and beyond. Is this because she shares a name with the Hulk's love interest (who she was made the great aunt of in yet another retcon)? Possibly! (Captain America Comics 001, 1940)

Categorized in: Accessories (Rubberoid Mask), Day Job (FBI Agent), Team Membership (FBI)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 970: THE QUEEN OF EVIL

(Fantastic Comics 022, 1941)

Nagana, high priest of Isis in Thebes, achieves great power and the secret of immortality through her position and is seemingly consumed with megalomania. Importantly, these magical secrets do not appear to be tied to her faith in Isis so much as accessed as a result of it, as she retains them even after she rejects Isis and declares herself to be her enemy. She sets out to use this power to become the ruler of Thebes and sets her eyes on a hot new priest named Kalkor as her chosen consort.

Trouble is, Kalkor rejects her due to her casual Isis-disrespect (and possibly also a vow of chastity? It can be hard to pick out specifically why a super-manly comic book character is going "ew, girls") and Nagana attempts to have him killed for it. Kalkor survives due to his aforementioned manliness and confronts her, at which point she goes on a tirade so blasphemous that Isis drops the entire temple on them, killing hundreds spelling the end of Thebes as a major religious centre (in what is probably a big coincidence, the real-life Egyptian city of Thebes went also into decline about three thousand years ago, but due to an administrative scandal rather than divine wrath).

Though Nagana is immortal, Isis curses her and transforms her to stone, until she is unearthed in the present day and exposed to moonlight. So restored, she murders the man who found her and vows to take over the world.

Though Isis is much reduced in the modern world, she is able to resurrect Kalkor and give him the same powers as Nagana as a foil to her evil schemes (luckily for humanity, Kalkor hold Nagana responible for the destruction of Thebes rather than Isis' fairly broadly-applied wrath).

For all her big talk of taking over the world, Nagana's only evil scheme of 1941 consists of her attempting to con an old man out of his fortune using a fortune telling con that is enhanced by a little real magic. She is also foiled by Kalkor with almost ridiculous ease. But fear not! Nagana and Kalkor will return in 1942 for more thrilling conflict!

Categorized in: Day Jobs (Priests), Origins (Resurrected (Petrified Humans)), Royalty (Queens)

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 009

How can we have nice things if they keep getting so dinged up?

the Black Terror:

It might look like the Black Terror ('s secret identity) is knocked out by falling down a flight of stairs onto his head, but according to him it was actually a bullet creasing the old skull that did the trick. (Exciting Comics 010, 1941)

This is a tough one: the Black Terror is shot and nearly killed, and he kind of seems to be clutching his head but the gun is aimed at his torso as it fires. Guess we'll file this under "shot, unspecified." (Exciting Comics 012, 1941)

the Black Fury:

Shot in the left shoulder and tossed out of a moving car. (Fantastic Comics 020, 1941)

Chuck:

The Black Fury's sidekick Chuck is shot in the ever-popular left shoulder and knocked clean off of a building by one of the Fang's henchmen, but makes out okay nonetheless. (Fantastic Comics 019, 1941)

Dr Hypno: 

I never expected a fellow whose whole shtick is putting his mind into animal bodies to get mixed up in the action enough to take a wound, but here he is: poor ol' Dr Hypno getting branded on the chest by a crook. (Amazing-Man Comics 018, 1940)

the Mask:

The Mask, in his civilian identity of District Attorney Tony Colby, joins the "skull creased by a bullet" club. EDIT: I wrote this without checking and it turns out that this is the second time that the Mask's skull has been creased, so he was already a member of the club. My apologies. (Exciting Comics 011, 1941)

Mighty Man:

Mighty Man gets shot through the left shoulder. Considering his size at the time (enormous) he's lucky that the guy didn't score a headshot. (Amazing-Man Comics 014, 1940)

the Shark:

The Shark (temporarily weakened by the loss of his magic knife) gets whipped with belts by a bunch of jerk Nazis. (Amazing-Man Comics 011, 1940)

A couple of issue later, the Shark gets stabbed in the gut by his own dang knife. Yes, the stab wound is swiftly turned back on his attacker by the weapon's magic, but you can't tell me that the Shark doesn't get stabbed first. (Amazing-Man Comics 013, 1940)

Super Ann:

In one of Super Ann's handful of adventures she gets a real one-two: a bullet-creased scalp followed by a near-drowning. (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 046

Good lord! Aliens!

Mupha's Species:

Mupha, ruler of the undersea Land of Peril, is the kind of creep who sends his subjects to kidnap women to become his queen. This eventually brings him into conflict with underwater adventurer Sub Saunders -not because Sub is looking for kidnappees but because he happens to pass by the Land of Peril and makes Mupha nervous enough to open fire on his submarine.

As Mupha appears to have only two subjects we must assume that either a) his species is nearly extinct (which explains his quest for a mate but does not excuse it) or b) the Land of Peril is a breakaway group from a larger population somewhere, political exiles, perhaps, because of their pro-kidnapping policies. In either case, the group does not survive its encounter with Sub Saunders. 

Also please note their stylish hooves, a very unusual feature in an aquatic species. (Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

Martians:

The only example of this particular Martian species who we meet is Kodi, partner to Nick Nelson in the Space Patrol. At least, I think so. See, much like the adventures of Spacehawk, "Space Patrol" is a Basil Wolverton comic, and one thing that Basil Wolverton liked was drawing all kinds of different weird-looking aliens. So while Kodi is the only big-headed orange Martian who we see in the course of the series, there are also a variety of other Martians in a range of colours and shapes and who's to say whether they aren't all the same species? (Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 012, 1939)

Spider Men:

While there are also a variety of different Venusians depicted in the pages of "Space Patrol," I am pretty confident in my assessment that they are unrelated to the Venusian Spider Men. Encountered by Nick and Kodi as they pursue a fugitive into the deep jungles of Venus (Tropical Jungle Planet being one of the old sci-fi paradigms for the planet), the Spider Men are presented as relentless predators of intelligent humanoids. They also look great, even better than my beloved Martian Spider-Men. Imagine: a whole species of balding men with unkempt beards!

The Spider Men manage to drag Nick Nelson back to their cave home (where we learn that they are tool users!) but are ultimately no match for the Space Patrol's various beams and rays. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 012, 1939)

Mercurians:

While looking into the disappearance of a space freighter and its cargo of green diamonds, Nick and Kodi track its location to a volcanic crater on Mercury, where the ship's pilot has murdered the rest of the crew, stolen the diamonds and dumped the ship itself into a lava pit, with the aid of a crew of Mercurian Mole-Men. As is so often the case in a sci-fi story, our impression of an entire species must be formed by the actions of one of its worst members, and we simply must assume that this kind of theft and murder is atypical, or however would our nameless villain have gotten his job in the first place?

As for the Mole-Men, they don't get a lot of characterization beyond the fact that they are "the savage inhabitants of the underground regions," but as always I do enjoy Wolverton's use of morphological similarities (specifically the ears, nose and especially feet and legs) to show that they and our Mercurian friend evolved from some common ancestor. Plus it's hard not to love a cave-full of little glaring goblin-men. 

The Mercurian gets a bit to smug about the fact that he has Nick and Kodi at his mercy and manages to nearly blow his own head off with a phenomenally bad shot. I do not like his knees, but I do like that horde of rampaging Mole-Men.

Having made their way back to their ship, Nick and Kodi decide to just skip the tedious parts of the legal system (arrest, trial, state-mandated punishments, etc) and skip straight to the execution. A few well-placed atom bombs and the volcano takes care of both the Mercurian and the Mole-Men for them. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 003, 1940)