(Amazing-Man Comics 010-011, 1940)
The Magician from Mars' final foe is a two-issue affair, but the first one is a bit of a nothing story: a mysterious terror attack at an airport turns out to be the work of a villain named the Hood who has found a way to... play a loud sound into a glass ball and then use it as a grenade. It's a weird contrivance even by sci-fi super-hero comic standards. In any case, the Magician from Mars blows up all of the Hood's factories and they flee into space.
I do appreciate a villain who takes the time to dress their henchmen in proper minion outfits though. Plus this is some great we-don't-quite-have-the-visual-language-of-comics-worked-out-yet-but-we're-trying jumping around from the Magician from Mars.
Next issue sees the Magician from Mars returning to her home planet where the Hood is leading an attempted rebellion - fairly successfully in fact, until a nigh-omnipotent superwoman joins the fight on the side of Martian King Marsu and his dishy son Prince Taal.
Though the Hood is on the ropes and on the run, she takes the time to end the budding romance between the Magician from Mars and Price Taal by shooting the latter as he tries to defend our hero. And what's that? I said "she"? Yes, because the Hood is in fact a woman! And what's more an older woman! And even more shocking, she's Jane "Magician from Mars" 6em35's aunt!
All of these revelations are only a bit out of left field. Jane's aunt was a character in her first appearance and was even a minor antagonist in that story, but rather than attempting to install herself as an iron-fisted dictator she was instead a cruel and controlling guardian who kept her ward in check due to her very unusual super-weakness of... a genetic predisposition to like her relatives. Notably, this version of Aunt Kinza (yes she could have more than one aunt but why complicate matters?) does not appear to have magical powers. Sadly, there were no further Magician from Mars stories, so the path that Kinza took to become the Hood, like Jane's eventual revenge for her lost love, will remain an untold story.
ADDENDUM: This is a very good vengeance-swearing panel. Look out, oh vile aunt.
No comments:
Post a Comment