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)
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