Tuesday, October 1, 2024

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 629: QUEEN SULIA

(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940)


We begin with the old comic book trope of Ignoring Bad Feelings When a Woman Has Them, as Alice senses something in the wind and Sir Richard tells her to shut up just before a giant bird gets them both.


They are flown to Soulless Isle and meet its ruler Queen Sulia, along with her coterie of beastly subjects. She wants a sword fight and Sir Richard of Warwick is who she wants it from. If this weren't the 1940s I would suspect some double entendre was going on here. I kind of suspect it anyway.



If this is an extended sex metaphor then things are heating up, as Alice jumps in to take over for her reluctant boyfriend only to be overwhelmed by Sulia's technique, forcing Richard to join in. Phew!


The prize for defeating Queen Sulia in battle is her hand in marriage and Sir Richard of Warwick seems weirdly okay with doing so. If the beastmen hadn't sent a representative to him to reveal that they were in fact not just weirdos but regular folk transformed by Sulia's dark majicks I reckon that the tale of the Golden Knight would have ended with him shacked up on Soulless Isle.

But no, Sir Richard takes advantage of the beastmen's intel re: Sulia having a magical clotting disorder and  employs a spiked wedding band to fatally wound her finger. Oddly enough, this underhanded trick doesn't trigger his "thou shalt not fight women" chivalry. With Sulia slain and the beastmen restored to regular, Richard is free to return to Alice and I assume apologize to her.

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