MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 102

You won't believe what I just found: more super-heroes!

the Liberty Scouts:

When fascist forces armed with high-tech weaponry begin attacking targets calculated to cripple US war capacity, they are repeatedly driven away by a trio of anonymous heroes who leave behind Liberty Bell calling cards. Both the fascists and US officials are eager to learn just who these so-called Liberty Patriots are, but President Roosevelt is the one who actually gets to find out, thanks to his association with patriotic millionaire Patrick Henry.

Henry drives FDR out to his country estate, Liberty House, where he introduces him to three mysterious youths beginning with Smokey, the inventive genius of the group, and whose amphibious tank is counted as a land vehicle for the air/sea/land theme that the three have going on.

Skipper, "the best sailor on the Seven Seas," is also clearly the group member who is most invested in the paramilitary aspect of the whole operation. He has a super-powerful miniature submarine.

Finally, we have Strut, the youngest of the group. He's got a souped up fighter plane called the Comet (initially the only named super vehicle in the bunch, though the tank is later named Ironsides), plus a cool-ass wingsuit. He's also the only one of the three with any discernible personality, even if it's "won't shut up about cherry pie."

So just how does Mr Henry know these three youngsters and why are they living in his house? Because they are his own sons! He loves his country so much that he has moulded his children into weapons designed to defend it, and the President loves it. (Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

The Liberty Scouts eventually change their name to the Liberty Guards after the Boy Scouts of America complain about their monopoly on the word "scout" being infringed.

Categorized in: Accessories (Calling Card Leavers), Groups, Origin (Patriotic Heroes)

Man of War:

Impatient with the slow progress of World War II, the god Mars decides to create a divine being imbued with the powers of the Greco-Roman pantheon and send them down to help the Axis conquer Europe faster and with more bloodshed. He gifts his champion with "the Strength of Hercules, the Speed of Mercury, the Wisdom of Zeus" (making him about 0.5 of a Captain Marvel) and arms him with the infinitely sharp Sword of Mars before sending him on his way.

In a legitimately funny twist, Mars forgets to account for the rotation of the Earth during the presumably-lengthy demigod-crafting process and shoots his new creation at Dayton, Ohio (okay, at one of the more than thirty Daytons in the United States. Or in another city that has an unrelated Dayton Munitions Factory. Probably Dayton, Ohio, though) instead of Berlin or wherever he intended for it to go. Thus, Man of War (as he calls himself) is instantiated in the "peace-loving nation" of the USA and is dedicated to virtuous, defensive warfare instead of awful slaughter in the name of power-hungry politicians (insert joke about the US war machine here. Man of War must have had a rough go of things as the 20th Century progressed).

So what are the powers of the gods? Mostly generic super strength and invulnerability, though Man of War is able to breathe and move freely underwater thanks to the gifts of Neptune. He also has one bespoke power gifted upon him by Mars: to disappear or appear in any explosion, up to and including those created when bullets are fired (which would be a bit more useful if he weren't already bulletproof). (Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

In Man of War Comics 001, Mars reveals Man of War's weakness to the dictator Luko: that he is powered by rays emitted by the planets of the Solar System, and that confining him in a lead-lined chamber will block those rays and render him merely human. This nearly works, but as the Sword of Mars is not planet-powered he is soon able to carve his way free.

Categorized in: Accessories (Swords), Activities (War), Origins (Demigods)

Vapo-Man:

Bradford "Brad" Cole is a chemist assisting at the laboratory of Dr Kreiner, who in turn is performing unspecified research that is evidently valuable enough to the US government that some fascist saboteurs blow it up. Cole, unlike Kreiner, is lucky enough not to be exploded but instead is showered with a randomized mix of chemicals that change him into a man of vapour.

The dying Kreiner explains that he is now a chemical man, which is apparently something that chemists have been trying to create for centuries. He extracts a promise from Cole that he will use this power to fight evil, and saddles him with the terrible name of Vapo-Man just before dying, thus ensuring that Crawford can never change it without feeling very guilty.

As Vapo-Man, Crawford can change all or part of his size, can fly, has at least some super strength, can disintegrate matter with a touch, and can become intangible at will. All of this adds up to make him feel a lot like a more mystical character like Phantasmo, though he lacks the charm to support it. (Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

Categorized in: Elements (Steam and Mist), Origins (Chemical Mutates), Powers (Intangibility)

Fire-Man:

Jim, a man working for the Civilian Conservation Corps in Utah sets out to battle the latest in a series of mysterious fires and finds himself being kidnapped by a mysterious silver-clad giant.

This turns out to be Gaston, henchman to a fellow known only as the Mad Scientist. The Mad Scientist has a dream: to incinerate a human in such a way that they remain alive and coherent but composed of gaseous rather than solid matter, and Jim is his latest unwilling experimental subject. Luckily for Jim, this time it works, and the only real change appears to be a significantly lower density, such that he is obliged to wear a weighted uniform (that doubles nicely for a super suit, natch) in order to keep from floating away. Even with it on, he light enough to leap around as if he were flying.

Jim is otherwise an ordinary human, but a miscalculation on the part of the Mad Scientist (dunking him in a vat of chemicals while trying to destroy him) also endows him with super strength.

Finally, Jim's new metabolism causes him to give off fire-retardant gasses as a part of his respiration, which is handy, as he chooses to go by Fire-Man, meaning that he, alongside the Mad Scientist's niece Nancy, ends up fighting a lot of arsonists (Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

Categorized in: Elements (Fire), Origins (Electrical Mutates), Powers (Decreased Density)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 996: THE BIRD KING

(Jungle Comics 022, 1941)

Zuko, aka the Bird King, is in a lot of ways a very classic minor super-villain. He has an obsession with birds and has both a flock of trained vultures and a set of working bird wings for personal flight that he uses in the pursuit of crime. He also has an obsession with diamonds that makes him jealously guard the ones that he has collected, and stop at nothing, including kidnapping and murder, to acquire more.

The really unusual thing about Zuko is the fact that all of this villainous potential exists in a guy who lives in a treehouse in the middle of a crocodile-infested swamp in the middle of a jungle in an unspecified part of Central Africa. He only learns that there are people nearby with diamonds that he might be able to steal when one of them accidentally wanders into his front yard. In the next issue of Jungle Comics some crooks come looking for Zuko's treasure so it's possible that he was a super thief somewhere else before moving to the jungle to hide but as presented in his own story it's kind of like if Dr Doom had just forged his mask and then stayed on the mountain with those monks.

The Bird Man makes a spirited attempt to steal the diamonds from Kaänga's adopted people but is unable to contend with jungle-man resistance. This all ends with him learning the ultimate lesson for people who choose the life of the wingsuit, all the way back to Icarus himself: they don't work very well if they are on fire.

Categorized in: Accessories (Wingsuits), Animals (Birds), Theft (Jewel Thieves) 

MEDIA IN COMICS 012

It's a very literary day here in Media in Comics Land.

Books:

There are many potential reasons to get into super-science and super-crime, but "reading a get-rich-quick scheme in a book" is one of the better ones, as demonstrated by Wizard Wells foe Mota here and his copy of Cash in Chemistry. (Crack Comics 010, 1941) 

Crime in the Afternoon (A J.J. van Snyde Detective Novel), enjoyed here by Nickolas, henchman to Black Condor foe the Sophisticated Lady. (Crack Comics 010, 1941)

This book, The Ritual, has the cover of a murder mystery or other popular bit of fiction, but seeing as the man reading it is a fanatical leopard-worshipper we must allow for it being something a bit more sinister, such as instructions of conducting a human sacrifice. (Jungle Comics 020, 1941)

As covered in the Bram Thirla entry, Billy Batson learns about the dos and don'ts of vampire hunting from a book called The Vampire Legend, written by HP Lovecraft. A different Lovecraft, perhaps, or did the regular one go in for a bit more of a reference works-based career in the Fawcett Reality? (Captain Marvel Adventures 001, 1941)

This particular comic adventure involves Darrell "Doll Man" Dane taking exception with the fact that some roughneck are using his local library. While I must decry the classism on display here, I must also begrudgingly acknowledge that Doll Man was right: these guys were learning for all the wrong reasons, specifically as part of a school of crime that the diminutive super-hero later breaks up. 

Titles on display include: The Art of Murder, Famous Crimes, How to Win Friends, Jiu-Jitsu, Right and Wrong and The Way of All Flesh. (Feature Comics 047, 1941)

Comics:

 

Golden Age comics companies loved to depict their characters reading their own comics, which is why it is not at all unusual that Doiby Dickles here is reading a copy of Flash Comics in an issue of All-American. What is unusual is that rather than describing one of the actual features in Flash, Doiby has apparently been reading some alternate version of the book that exists in the DCU and involves a character named "Colosso." (All-American Comics 032, 1941)

Magazines:

Though modern depictions of the original Dr Mid-Nite tend to categorize him as a crime novelist, his original job post-blindness was in writing for the crime pulps, and more precisely for Crime and Detective Tales. (All-American Comics 025, 1941)

Freedom Magazine is one of those patriotically-named publications that any good citizen of the 21st Century must immediately suspect of being a cynical way to whitewash fascism, but no, this one seems to be on the up-and-up. They give Les Watts, Radio Amateur a prize for being a cool teen!. (Flash Comics 023, 1941)

Peep Magazine, on the other hand, is merely concerned with the news, and is willing to help out patriotic hero Don Glory to get it. (Hit Comics 011, 1941)

It's possible that Scoop Magazine is entertainment-focused, as they send a photographer to cover this publicity-stunt party in support of a play by a new writer. A party that inspires the Masked Man's murder spree! (Batman Comics 008, 1941)

Movie Mag and Screen Stars are just two of the publications covering the meteoric rise of movie star Portia Storme, aka Julie Madison, the former fiance of Bruce Wayne. (Detective Comics 049, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 995: ORG

(Jungle Comics 015, 1941)

Org is a fellow with a gift - the power to play the drums hypnotically - and also the knowledge of the location of a hidden valley full of giant spiders. He combines these two factors as a part of his scheme to conquer "all of Jungleland," which probably means Africa and possibly means India but in my heart will always mean a humid pocket dimension summoned into being by Fletcher Hanks and his fellow Jungle writers' lack of geographic savvy.

Org quickly organizes a spider army with his sick beats, earning him one strike on Fantomah's personal "should I kill this guy" tracker.

This is often the point at which Fantomah gives her target a little hint that he might want to cut back on the wanton slaughter, etc. for his own sake, but Org is given no such grace - perhaps Fantomah just hates spiders. Or drummers. In any case, Org appears to be a pretty thoroughly rotten guy who delights in having his minions attack human and animal alike. It is at this point that I must point out the horrific fact that Org's spiders have what appear to be human hands on the end of each of their legs, which is gross.

Attacking people and animals like this were evidently strikes two and three, because it is at this point that Fantomah steps in, just a little too late as per usual. Org is paralyzed and unceremoniously fed to his own erstwhile troops, who in turn are shrunken down to the size of regular everyday spiders. We can only hope that there wasn't some sort of catastrophic megafauna that they were keeping in check with their predations, I guess.

Appropriately for what I am almost certain is our last Fletcher Hanks comic (but not out final Fantomah), our hero gives a little farewell at the end of the comic!

Categorized in: Accessories (Giant Spiders), Powers (Animal Control), Supercrime (Attempted Conquest)