(Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)
As weird as Fletcher Hanks stories are, sometimes the hardest thing to parse are the seem-like-they-should-mean-something names. Take Rip-the-Blood here: is this just a weird way to present a fellow named Rip with the nickname of "the Blood" or does his name mean something more? Is he so tough he'll "rip the blood" out of you? I never know with this guy.
Whatever his name means, Rip-the-Blood is a bad dude: through his influence over US politics and control of the munitions industry he plans to push the world into total war and become the most powerful man alive.
The inciting incident that will start the big war is the kidnapping of FDR by a foreign-looking plane. This is not a bad plan! I have no notes on the big "plunge the world into war" scheme!
EXCEPT. Rip-the-Blood knows about Stardust the Super Wizard. He knows what Stardust did to the Spy Army (not covered here but they got messed up) and that he will probably be targeted as well - it should be no surprise to him when FDR is rescued from his kidnappers almost immediately. It shouldn't, but it really seems to mess up Rip's whole day/world domination scheme.
Rip's big anti-Stardust plan is to use a wind generator to blow him into something called a "glue pit" which I put in quotes only because I don't know what it actually is - it gets name-checked several times during the course of the story but never actually comes into play. Given Golden Age naming conventions I'm not willing to just assume that it's a literal pit full of literal glue - it could be anything from that to a cave with a giant slug in it.
Rip-the-Blood's associates get off surprisingly lightly for Stardust foes, being sent to some sort of private prison near Polaris, but the man himself is tossed from a cliff to his death. I personally would have involved the much-discussed Glue Pit, but who am I to judge a weird enormous spaceman?
No comments:
Post a Comment