MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 010

MORE MLJ ACTION

Doc Strong:

Doc Strong is a famous scientist living in the year 2041, in a world where WWII dragged on for an entire century and a new Mongol Horde has swept in and conquered the battered remnants of civilization. The strangely Doc Savage-like Doc Strong gathers a group of like-minded scientists and starts a new civilization called the Isle of Right from which to strike back at the invaders with such inventions as a ray gun that solidifies shadows. (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

the Fox:

Paul Patton, photographer for the Daily Globe, gets the tar beaten out of him by some fellows called the Night Riders and comes up with a plan:

That's right, he's about halfway between Spider-Man and Batman. Okay, he's mostly Batman but his wearable camera scheme anticipates Perter Parker's epic work hack by about twenty years. The Fox's first attempt at a costume is a bit rough, but eventually...

... he adopts one of the top costumes of the Golden Age! His adventures may be a bit regular but he looks great doing it.

BONUS FOX FACT: his "bat flies through the window" moment comes when he hears a song on the radio. (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

the Green Falcon: 

The Green Falcon feature is essentially a Robin Hood Elseworlds story in which Robin is a knight instead of a forest outlaw and his pals Tiny Tuck and Jolly Roundfellow kind of encapsulate a few Merry Men each. Prince John is still there, and Maid Marion, but there are more swordfights than arrow tricks. Hey, I never said it was a particularly compelling Elseworlds story. It is more high concept than you usually get in a Golden Age comic, though. (Blue Ribbon Comics 004-015, 1940-1941)

Ty-Gor:

Ty-Gor is MLJ's answer to Mowgli: a British child orphaned in the jungles of Malaysia and raised by tigers. Ty-Gor is a shortened form of his birth name, Tyrone Gorman, which he learns thanks to an absurd series of events pictured above.

I don't usually have a lot of time for jungle adventures but Ty-Gor does have a pretty fun twist in that after a half dozen issues he is brought to New York by explorer Dr Davis and his daughter Joan and Does Not Adapt. He's just a wild kid who knows about five word maximum thrust into the public school system and causing havoc. It's fun! (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

BONUS TY-GOR AS A BABY EATING GRAPES

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 522: THE NIGHT RIDERS

(Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940) 

There are plenty of Ku Klux Klan- inspired groups in comics and thusfar we've encountered a few: the Blue Devils, the Horned Masks, even the Purple's gang of idiots. All of those examples share one thing: they're just gangs that operate in the country using the intimidation tactics of the KKK but without the goals of reinforcing white supremacy - they're just regular comic book gangs, only in the country.

There's a part of me that wants to say that the Night Riders are closer to being the KKK than the rest of these groups but if I'm honest that's because they have no clear goals - they just go around the countryside abducting, beating and killing people for getting into their business without any clear indication of what that business is. It could just as easily be organized insurance fraud as domestic racial terrorism, because the real reason the Night Riders are doing all this is so that they can beat up newspaper photographer Paul Patton and inspire him to become the Fox.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 009

All Archie/MLJ edition!

Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog:

The Wonder Dog is an uncommon but distinct type of comic book hero and Rang-a-Tang here is typical of the breed: essentially a dog with human intelligence. Rang-a-Tang escaped from a cruel but evidently very talented circus dog trainer and almost immediately teamed up with police Detective Hy Speed, who was perhaps lashing out at the world for his own moniker when he gave his new dog one of the all-time worst names. I mean, I get that it's a knockoff of Rin-Tin-Tin but he also had a very bad name. 

By issue seven of Blue Ribbon Comics Rang and Hy had moved to Hollywood and acquired a third companion in Richy Waters, aka Richy the Amazing Boy, and apparently free-range child actor with no adult supervision to speak of. Richy gradually usurps Rang-a-Tang's place as the strip's protagonist over the next year or so, which is disappointing to those of us who enjoy dogs more than child actors. (Blue Ribbon Comics 001-022, 1939-1942)

Bob Phantom:

As far as his super-hero identity goes, Bob Phantom is fairly regular: he shares with many other Golden Age heroes the power to suddenly appear - in a cloud of smoke in his case (though crucially he is generating the smoke as opposed to appearing in a preexisting cloud like the Vision. Or preexisting fire like the Flame, preexisting water like the Shark, etc. You get it) - and also has some degree of intangibility - definitely enough that bullets don't affect him. Per his name, he's very into spooking crooks out via psychological torment.

Bob Phantom's civilian identity is that of Walt Whitney, writer of the newspaper gossip column "On Broadway" which he uses to taunt both criminals and the New York District Attorney for some reason. Possibly just to be a scamp. (Blue Ribbon Comics 002, 1939)

(between Bob Phantom, Top Ten character Jack Phantom and cartoon character Danny Phantom there are just enough characters with "Phantom" as a last name to make me think I'm missing some sort of very obvious pun)

Corporal Collins, Infantryman:

An American serving in the French Army (and later the British Army after the Nazis conquer France), Corporal Collins is for no apparent reason a super soldier with crack reflexes,  a danger sense that allows him to dodge enemy bullets and a "fabri-steel flexible repeller" that allows him to effectively deflect incoming bullets back to their source. The more overtly super-heroic aspects of  Collins get toned down after a couple of issues and he becomes just another comic book military paragon with a comic relief sidekick named Slapsie and a rivalry with fellow MLJ military hero Sergeant Boyle and his sidekick Twerp. (Blue Ribbon Comics 002, 1939)

Hercules:

It's time for another Hercules! This Hercules is the real deal Olympian, sent to Earth by Zeus to combat evil (and possibly also as a prank? He seems to be completely unprepared when he pops up in the middle of a New York City analog). Functionally, he's exactly the same as the other two Herculeses we've seen so far: a great big shirtless blonde guy with super strength. He even gets a job as a sideshow strongman like the both of them.

The real innovation in this version of Hercules is the assertion that his famous Twelve Labours were in fact "wiping out the evils of Ancient Greece" and then drawing parallels between them and his adventures in the modern day, including:

- the Slaying of the Nemean Lion -> killing gang boss Leo Nymia, the Lion of the Underworld (Hercules also steals Nymia's suit as a version of wearing the lion's hide)

- the Slaying of the Lernean Hydra ->  deposing political fixer Hy Dralerny and his "Nameless Nine" organization

- the Cleaning of the Augean Stables -> cleaning up crooked gambling at the local racetrack - very tortured and involves both a gambler named Augie King, and two jockeys named Tom and Dick Rivers who had to be "set in the right channels"

- the Capture of the Erymanthian Boar -> very disappointing. Hercules captures a fat pseudo-Nazi General (who isn't even named Hairy Man Ian) and because he shoots down a bunch of planes while doing it shoehorns in the Slaying of the Stymphalian Birds. Absolutely the worst of the bunch.

- Stealing the girdle of Hippolyta -> Contending with the villainess Natch, about whom we shall speak anon.

Sadly for the mythological completionists out there, Hercules stopped appearing after just six labours, so we'll never get to see him take on Mary Diomedes the Cannibal Equestrian or twin cattle rustlers Gary and Gerry Young. (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 521: RED DUGAN

(Blue Ribbon Comics 003, 1940) 

Red Dugan is a down-on-his-luck gang boss who turns to what will be a classic crime method in the Silver Age particularly: he kidnaps a scientist and forces him to science up a weapon for him to smite his enemies with. In this case, the scientist in question is one Dr Cardo, who seems oddly prepared for the task of making a Seafood Platter Man. Was he kidnapped just before embarking on his own reign of terror? We can only speculate.

Dugan sends his new monster to plant a bomb on the ship they are based out of, allowing it to show off its might via a cool underwater octopus battle. FEATURING: two very charmingly rascally fish enjoying a free buffet.

The story ends with a triumphant Red Dugan in full control of his monster, having disposed of his enemies and Dr Cardo (he thinks. In reality the monster was conditioned to be unable to harm its creator) and presumably ready to loot and pillage all water-accessible riches he can. We can speculate that he would have met his comeuppance in the next issue and that it would have been at the hands of nautical adventure trio the Devils of the Deep because their name was the title of the adventure but neither they, Red Dugan, Dr Cardo or the monster ever appeared again.

Bonus: One more look at those great fish. And they have some crustacean friends!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 520: THE HIGH PRIEST OF THOR

(Blue Bolt v2 006, 1941) 

We open on an aircraft factory. Suddenly, a strange vibration fills the air. After an initial moment of surprise, the workers all file out the door and into a cave in a nearby hillside. Inside?

THIS MAN!

This man is the self-proclaimed High Priest of Thor and before we get into what he's up to I'd like to commend his commitment to the costume. Your average religious-type villain is not going to these lengths to look ceremonial and in fact are more likely to be in the Robe and Cloth Mask club. I particularly like the helmet, which looks like it must be obstructing his vision and crushing his nose at the same time but which manages to combine wings and horns in a single Platonic Fake Viking Helmet. Also note the mustache, which flies off the first time he is punched and just reaffirms his commitment to the bit.

Of course the High Priest of Thor ends up being some sort of pseudo-Nazi spy looking to sabotage the US defense program. It's never explicitly laid out but his vibration machine seems to put its subjects into a mentally receptive hypnotic state and the Thor stuff is all a way of getting them to do what he wants: if Thor is real and they are fanatical Thor cultists like this guy says then why not blow up an airplane factory? Too bad for the High Priest of Thor that the Twister had to show up and ruin things but at least he got to look cool with a tommy gun before it was all over.

Bonus: this Thor explainer written by someone who did not have the gumption to look up anything about Thor.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 519: THE GHOST OF THE CYCLOPS

(Blue Bolt v2 004-005, 1941)

We open on a bit of... not hubris but it's often framed as hubris. I'm sure that TV Tropes has a name for it but danged if I'm going to go hunting for it. It's the phenomenon in which a character in an ongoing fictional setting jokes about how they're sure glad that *SPECIFIC THING* isn't real etc and that thing is the focus of the next story. In this case, Sergeant Spook says he's glad that mythology doesn't real and so Ghost Town doesn't have to contend with the ghosts of mythological characters and BAM the ghost of the Cyclops starts destroying Alaska.

Although the human world sees these attacks as merely a bizarre and terrifying natural disaster the ghosts of Ghost Town know what's up and dispatch Sergeant Spook northward. On arrival he is met and guided by several of the Cyclops' recent victims - always a handy part of being a ghost cop.

Spook's encounter with the Cyclops follows a fairly predictable pattern: cornered in a cave, he anages to temporarily blind the other ghost and then trace him back to his lair by clinging to his cyclopean sandals. This encounter does serve to further muddy the waters of how ghosts workin Sergeant Spook comics, however: can a ghost hit another ghost with a corporeal snowball? Is Alaska covered in a layer of ghost snow? Or is the Cyclops just super-vulnerable to eye-damaging attacks like a video game boss?

The second issue of this two-parter is a bit perfunctory: Spook arrives at the Cyclops' lair where we learn that when not translucent to signify that he is a ghost in the corporeal world the Cyclops is green. He is also served by other, unidentified ghosts who are presumably being bullied into servitude with the threat of violence like the Ghost of King Tut's slaves. He also captures Sergeant Spook with very little trouble. Things look bad, but then:

HERCULES! Because of course if the Cyclops is real then there's gotta be guys like Hercules (famous foe of the Cyclops) running around too. There's a bit of a scuffle and then he plants a slobberknocker on the Cyclops that decisively concludes things.

Hercules' reward: eternal vigilance. His ghost pledges to guard the Cyclops' ghost for the rest of time, which will presumably entail regular brawls whenever his charge wakes up and wants to cause more chaos. Maybe this is a good outcome for Hercules? I just hope that someone in Ghost Town thinks to ship him some ghost books or the like.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 518: COMMANDER SOOKA

(Blue Bolt v2 004-006, 1941)

There are hundreds if not thousands of antagonistic u-boat commanders in comics and very few of them are going to make the jump to super-villain. Commander Sooka, however... I did some cursory searching and it looks like the Axis forces sank around 1100 ships between 1939 and 1941, and the most successful u-boat captain of the entire war sank 47 ships total. What I'm saying is that if Commander Sooka's count of 735 ships is accurate, he is some sort of latter-day Greek demigod rather than a man.

Sooka ends his first encounter with the Phantom Sub with a declaration of vengeance (because they prevented him from blowing up a bunch of civilians, natch), but it is the Phantom Sub who strikes back first: accidentally stumbling upon Sooka's submarine base, the Sub's crew teams up with a lifeboat full of survivors of one of his sea raids to destroy the place.

They manage to blow most of his operation to hell and gone but the issue ends with Sooka and his personal submarine still afloat and making their way through the secret underwater tunnel to the ocean to seek further vengeance. Will Commander Sooka be a persistent thorn in the Phantom Sub's side going forward?

The answer is no. Commander Sooka technically has a three issue run but the beginning of the third issue is this here especially-vengeful survivor successfully collapsing his own undersea tunnel on his head. In the end Commander Sooka was merely fodder for an easy but meaningless cliffhanger ending.

NOTES - MAY 2024

Cops Shooting: 

I've been reading old Dick Tracy strips and while tracking all of the times that Tracy fires on a fleeing suspect would be a fool's errand I would like to note that so far in the 1933 he has been responsible for the shooting deaths of two non-criminals.

Nova Scotia:

Speaking of Dick Tracy and filled with home-town pride: this July 1933 strip and the next week or so take place in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 517: THE BULL

(Blue Bolt v2 004, 1941)

Community. That's what the Bull's all about. Specifically a crime community, one of the top kinds of communities (to read about at least - most of them don't sound too great to live in). Situated in the Florida Everglades, the Bull's nameless crime community consists of him, about five other guys and a pet crocodile living in a bunch of ramshackle shacks. It's not much, but it's home.

There's not much else to the Bull - if I'm honest he only gets the nod because I love crime communities and there aren't enough of them. He does a kidnapping and tries to burn down a town and the Twister runs him in for his troubles. The real victim here is that poor crocodile who has to find its way down from that tree. And also that kidnapped woman, of course.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 008

Some real highs and lows in this one.

the Twister: 

The Twister is a quite minor Golden Age super-hero - he managed more than one appearance but not more than seven - who has the distinction of having one of the most well-designed costumes of the era. Not my favourite costume, mind you, but boy oh boy, you can really tell that his creators (Ray Gill and Paul Gustavson as it happens) really sat down for a good think about how to evoke "tornado" via the medium of clothing.

The Twister turns out to be Bob Sanders, and he turns out to be a descendant of perennial fave Greek hero Odysseus. It turns out that the story of Aeolus gifting Odysseus two bags of wind and his men opening the bag of storm winds thinking that it was full of treasure was more than just another delay in Odysseus' Bad Voyage, it was akin to the opening of Pandora's Box and Aeolus had charged Odysseus or his descendants to round up all of the evil violent winds and return the to captivity. 

Evidently over the years the charge to gather up evil winds has expanded to fighting all evil, and the Twister's power set allows him to run roughshod over just about anyone using wind control, a tornado form and invulnerability to anything that couldn't harm actual wind. There is some attempt to establish that he is vulnerable to being locked up somewhere with no airflow but that proves even easier to defeat than all the times that Silver Age Aquaman is locked up and forced to source water from unexpected places.

The Twister's other claim to fame is that he was introduced as a mysterious tornado that appeared in the Blue Bolt, Sub-Zero and Dick Cole stories in the issue he first appears in, which is enough to be counted as a rare Golden Age crossover even though none of them shared words. (Blue Bolt v2 001, 1941)

Freezum:

On an adventure that takes him to Alaska, Sub-Zero happens upon a little Inuit or Aleut boy frozen in a glacier.

Thawing the kid out and finding him to miraculously be alive, Sub-Zero (as well as an unfortunate doctor) is further astounded to discover that they share the same sort of cold-based powers due to their similar near-death freezing experiences. The kid names himself Freezum, and that's just the first salvo of a barrage of tired comic relief sidekick shenanigans. Yes, we'll be sighing and rolling our eyes for the remainder of Sub-Zero's run - the joys of the Golden Age, friends! (Blue Bolt v2 005, 1941)

Lois Blake:

Lois Blake is a woman who Blue Bolt meets while attempting to take down a gang that was swindling immigrants using fake citizenship papers and decides to team up with. At some point when the gang is being particularly elusive he remembers that his pal Dr Bertoff down in the underground Kirby world has a viewscreen that can see virtually any location and so they head down there to use it. Bertoff then very helpfully offers to transfer some of Blue Bolt's power to Lois and a new crimefighting team is born! (small aside: Golden Age comics don't get a lot of praise for their art but I really enjoy both the small detail of Lois gripping Blue Bolt's arm for comfort in the first panel above and her delighted expression in the third).

Lois never gets a super-hero name and only really makes a handful of appearances before Blue Bolt ditches his costume and powers to become a regular if oddly-named soldier, but he's such a nonentity post Simon and Kirby that I can't help but love her for adding some life to the strip.(Blue Bolt v2 007, 1941)

the Marvel:

The Marvel is your classic mask-and-tuxedo vigilante, who specializes in showing up to bail reporter Scoop Cody out of the kind of jams you can get in when you've cracked a juicy crime story but not accounted for the possibility that the criminals involved might want to stop you from reporting on it.

Three things about the Marvel: 

1. The nose cutout never looks as cool as the full-face cowl does but I reckon it's a heck of a lot more comfortable, so you have to give him some credit for choosing function over form.

2. Scoop Cody and thus the Marvel only had two appearances and both of them had a teaser at the end promising that the Marvel's identity would be revealed in the next issue. It's always possible that they were planning on making the Marvel a completely new, never-before-seen guy but if they weren't then literally the only suspect is this guy, Scoop Cody's crusty old unnamed editor.

3. Love a super-hero calling card, even in the rare cases when it's a literal calling card.

Also here is the Marvel's second appearance in its entirety. (Blue Ribbon Coimcs 002, 1939)