NOTES - DECEMBER 2024

Drawn Without Reference: 

The Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds find themselves facing a very off-model spider in the lad of the Batmen. (Pep Comics 003, 1940)

Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects:

I was briefly tempted to give the cops of the MLJ universe a pass on shooting at the Comet because he did after all kill a bunch of them while mind controlled but then I remembered that a) that's still no excuse to gun someone down in the street, and b) it's still bad that they're just blazing away at a flying man in the middle of a large city full of other people. (Pep Comics 004, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 676: THE DEATH

(Miracle Comics 003, 1940)

A scientist/spy who is sabotaging diplomatic talks between the UK and South America by killing diplomats with fog-activated poisoned wallpaper, the Death, aka Jaeger, meets his end at the hands of Secret Agent K-7 and his assistant Yvonne. He's just the latest in a long line of villains with extremely metal names and not much else going on, except of course for the poisoned wallpaper.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 675: THE EYES

(Miracle Comics 002, 1940)

The Eyes is a spy chief (singular) who has a cool gimmick (contact lenses or similar which can emit powerful light beams to spooky effect) and goes all in on it as a theme. Specifically, the Eyes is all about destroying eyes via blinding light, acid or simple traumatic injury - honestly a pretty effective thing to threaten most people with, even if they are for example very loyal to the aircraft company they work for. It ultimately takes Dash Dixon, whose eyes are presumably three times as powerful as the average man's, to take him down.

One more thing about the Eyes is that his henchmen all have their own gangster-style nickname - variously Finger, the Switch and Trusty - and that's pleasing to me.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 674: THE SCALENE ANGLES

(Miracle Comics 001, 1940)

"Police athlete" Dash Dixon's first super-heroic adventure involves him travelling to the small European Republic of Scalene in search of the murderers of several US exporters. Turns out that they were killed to prevent arms and other supplies from being brought into the country, because the Scalene Angles, a group of wealthy jerks, were looking to conquer it.

The most important thing about the Scalene Angles is of course their name. It's fun, but it also depends on their country being named Scalene and once you consider that you have to imagine the whole nation being lousy with places like Triangle Square and Three Sides of Different Lengths Locksmithing and the Pythagoras Doesn't Know Us Bakery (and maybe a few places talking about the neck in some way). It's still a great name but it's also probably the name of a triangleball team that one of their kids plays on so no points for originality here.

(they do leave a note with a little triangle signature and I always like that, so one point to them there. But Dash Dixon does find and destroy them because of that note so the point is a treacherous one)