Wednesday, May 8, 2024

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 515: DR ZORKA

(Blue Bolt v2 002, 1941)

Dr Zorka is a probably-mad scientist who gets up to experiments in reanimating the dead on a small island off the coast of Cuba, like Dr Bruno Varoz before him. Unlike Dr Varoz, Dr Zorka has no overt intention of unleashing his creations on an unsuspecting populace.

It's too bad for him, then, that this is a Sergeant Spook comic and in a Sergeant Spook comic the dead are likely to, for example, make a long journey North to Ghost Town in order to recruit the Ghost Law for your Crimes Against Ghosts. Which is exactly what happens when Dr Zorka attempts and fails to reanimate the corpse of a man named Kola.

It's at first unclear why Kola has such a problem with Zorka if his mortal shell is not in fact shambling around on its own but once they (and Dr Sherlock) arrive on the island everything becomes clear. While the the bodies of Zorka's subjects are animated their spirits are doomed to wander the Earth as something much closer to a traditional ghost than Sergeant Spook and his contemporaries.

Further, Dr Zorka has developed technology that allows him to see ghosts and a chemical that theoretically is able to destroy them but is not tested because Zorka is a Classic Nerd and unable to throw worth a damn. This is big stuff! And as with all of the other game changing revelations about the nature of life and death that occur in Sergeant Spook comics it is forgotten once the immediate threat is over and done.

But no, the fundamental nature of the relationship between humanity and its dead is not altered, ushering in a new era of peaceful coexistence between all sentient beings. Instead Dr Zorka releases a gorilla in a futile last ditch attempt to kill what turn out to be three gorilla-proof ghost and is left to undo his zombifications under the watchful eye of Kola.

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