NOTES - JUNE 2025

Letters to the Editor: 

I rag on Novelty Press and their horrible and possibly fictional readership every chance I get, but I think I need to start presenting the letters they print in their comics so that I have some evidence to back up my grumbling. Here's Clarence Pool of Seattle Washington advocating for the nice sensible adventures of an Army Air Force cadet who manages to foil a Fifth Column plot ever week over the exploits of a magic robot. (Target Comics v1 011, 1940)

Skeletons with Jobs: 

Driver is a job, certainly. Onto the pile! (The Funnies 047, 1940) 

Honours: 

Mickey Kelly, sidekick to swashbuckling newsreel cameraman Speed Martin, gets a medal from the French Army for foiling a spy. (The Funnies 048, 1940)

Two issues later Mickey Riley (they forgot that he already had a last name, it seems) is decorated by the British for saving Gibraltar from the Axis. (The Funnies 050, 1940)

Heroes Going to Costume Parties as Themselves: 

Brenda Banks attends the Grand Costume Ball as Lady Luck, in an attempt to save a life. (The Spirit Section, "The Cinderella Murder Case", 28 July, 1940)

Mr Mystic also attends a costume party as himself in 1940, and a guy with no secret identity doing this might just be the most baffling thing I've read today, and this is the episode in which Mystic's fiance is seduced by Death. (The Spirit Section, 22 December, 1940)

Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects: 

Sure, the Spirit has just confessed to a murder he did not commit for complicated reasons, but forgive me if I don't agree with Mayor Aldrich here that that means that Commissioner Dolan has free license to shoot him in the back. (The Spirit "Eldas Thayer", 21 July, 1940) 

Interior Decoration: 

This child's ducky bed is just barely charming and not eerie. (The Spirit Section, 1 December, 1940) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 800: BRAINO

(Target Comics v1 009, 1940) 

Braino, a circus mentalist with sufficient actual psychic power to control the minds of animals, is looking to take over the circus that he works for and is make a play to do so while the circus train has been stranded by a storm and is being helped out by the boys of Boystate. This isn't a bad idea - take advantage of the chaos and confusion to bump off the boss and then swoop in to lead the circus in the aftermath! Classic stuff!

The problem with this plan is that it doesn't quite work on Braino's first attempt and rather than bide his time and wait for another opportunity down the road, he just keeps on trying, to the point that he is just walking up to Cristo the gorilla here and giving him mental orders while the entirety of Boystate watches him. It's a sufficient level of hubris that Braino should be grateful to have only ended up with a sock on the jaw from the Captain, rather than, say, getting mauled to death by an enraged ape.

Braino also marks our 800th minor super-villain! A huge honour for a terrible little man!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 799: GLORK

(Target Comics v1 009, 1940) 

Glork here is a candidate for election to the post of King of Mars who manages to lose despite massive political interference on his part. This is probably because he is a very unpleasant and transparently evil person.

Despite some recent real-world examples, Glork might still reign supreme as the worst-ever loser of an election. He immediately settles upon a plan to pull the moon Phobos down to the surface to destroy the entire Martian civilization, while he flees the planet in his personal spaceship to seek glory in the wider Solar System. 

It can't be a surprise at this point: Spacehawk does not take this kind of thing lying down. He busts into Glork's secret lair disguised as a Martian, reverses the polarity on the device so that Phobos returns to its normal orbit, and when Glork makes a run for it Spacehawk uses the attractor machine to crash his spaceship in his own pit full of man- Martian-eating beasts. 

Special shout out to this guy, who I completely thought was being set up to murder Glork in a fit of pique later in the story but who I guess was just an object illustration of what a jerk Glork was.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 798: DR DEATH

(Target Comics v1 008, 1940) 

Dr Death's initial outing, in Target Comics v1 008, is a pretty typical late-1940/early 1941 plot about trying to draw the US into WWII by attacking shipping and throwing blame for it on an enemy of the unnamed fascist nation that Death is working for. Notably, Dr Death does not appear in the issue and works through various minions whom he directs via loudspeaker.

Probably the most interesting thing about this first appearance is the fact that Dr Death has a few White Streak contingency schemes in place, including the addition of a coating of anti-electricity glass to his submarine-cum-torpedo superweapon. Despite this, and despite the fact that the White Streak is trapped inside the thing when it sets out to explode a portion of the US fleet, it is destroyed by the Streak because he simply left some electricity outside the sub before boarding, and not only was he able to direct its actions from inside but it was able to shove the submarine onto some rocks for him, disabling it and freeing him (the White Streak's power level has been ramping up pretty significantly as his series has continued - at this point he's basically magic).

Dr Death returns in Target Comics v1 009, and this time he's not just prepared for the White Streak but actively trying to kill him. He sends one of his minions to lead the Streak into a trap by murdering his captured agent Messer with a cool knife and then returning to Death's base at an easy-to-follow pace. This turns out not to work due to the fact that Messer was at the FBI's New York HQ and there was a considerable amount of competition between the White Streak and various law enforcement officials who were on hand.

(this seems like the place for an aside about Dr Death's choice of costume and all I really have to say is that it's great. Seven foot-tall green man with a radio speaker voice? Terrific stuff, no notes)

The White Streak picks up Dr Death's trail again when he visits his friend Dr Simms' lab for some assistance and finds the villain there murdering Simms' niece Betty. Dr Death comes out on top in this encounter thanks to a very specific ray gun that "dissolves" the Streak's electron vision but merely stuns the android himself.

Even a ray gun-wielding megacrook with steel-lined gloves is ultimately no match for an ancient super-powered Mesoamerican android, and Dr Death is eventually tracked down and unmasked beheaded to reveal that he is really... Dr Simms!? This is completely wild, friends. Simms, if you don't recall, is the archaeologist (later rounded up to all-around super scientist) who discovered the White Streak in his volcanic cocoon, and he has been basically the only member of his supporting cast ever since - contextually, this is like Batman pulling off Clayface's mask to reveal that he is actually Commissioner Gordon.

I can only assume that Carl Burgos had gotten tired of Simms and took the thirdmost direct way of getting rid of him (after having him be murdered and just never using him again), because this is some real off-the-wall behavior on Simms' part. Was he already Dr Death when he met the White Streak? If so, what a terrible decision to keep hanging around with the avowed and deadly enemy of all warmongers, and even moreso if he made the decision to take up the Dr Death mantle as the White Streak's friend, like meeting and befriending and hanging out with and helping a prominent environmentalist and then getting really deeply invested in dumping toxic waste into the ocean.

And on top of everything else, why suit up and challenge your super-human acquaintance to a head-to-head battle rather than just sneaking up behind him and bashing him on the head with something when he was not expecting it? Do you reckon that this was a mid-life crisis thing?

IT'S CALLED "NO, AND"

(Target Comics v1 007-008)

The of these two selections is from the end of the Bull's-Eye Bill story in Target Comics v1 007 and the second is from the beginning of the story in 008, and while the artist is clearly different it's a bit hard to tell if the writer has also changed. Anyhow, shout out to whichever member of the team looked at that absolute 100% lead-in to an adventure in an underground prehistoric enclave, said "I don't want to write and/or draw a bunch of cowboy vs dinosaur shit" and had them just walk back out of the cave into a story about Hollywood location scouts instead.

(I haven't read far enough to see if lone African American cast member Happy ever reappears after unceremoniously being left out of the second issue but if he doesn't I'm going to assume that he at least heeded the call to adventure and is off somewhere riding a quetzalcoatlus and having fun instead of punching cows all day)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 797: JARK AND ZORG

(Target Comics v1 007, 1940)

Jark and Zorg, an alien duo of unknown provenance, continue the trend of Spacehawk villains who could broadly be described as space pirates. They also a) have a very hard pair of names to remember without accidentally mixing up some of the letters and b) are possibly the most phallic-looking alien designs that weren't just ambulatory ding-dongs that I have ever seen.

Jark and Zorg's plan is... not simple, per se, but it doesn't have a lot of steps. It goes like this: 

1) get a planetoid and fit it with propulsion devices 

2) fly around until you are in the path of a space freighter 

3) use a tractor (bumper) beam to ensure that the freighter only crashes a little, so that the precious cargo is okay

4) unleash a bunch of creatures called Snurls to wipe out the passengers and crew

5) loot and profit

It's a solid enough plan, albeit one which requires a lot of advance effort and advanced technology, and Zorg even adds a step 6) kidnap a lady off of the first ship they bring down and transform her into an attractive phallus-alien for a little non-Jark companionship. Unfortunately for him, this particular lady is the same one who Spacehawk rescued from Grovak the Martian not two issues prior, and he seems to have some sort of Superman/Lois Lane ability to sense when she is in mortal peril, as despite Zorg's certainty that their planetoid will never be discovered by the hero he is in fact already in orbit.

Jark makes a go at taking care of Spacehawk with his atom rifle but it's simply not enough firepower and he ends up mashed to a pulp.

Zorg, building on his deceased partner's efforts, seems to succeed where Jark failed, and further managed to unmask the Spacehawk to reveal that he was a robot the whole time!

OR WAS HE? No, he wasn't. Instead, the Spacehawk turns out to be a man with a collection of robot doubles that can substitute for him or otherwise aid him in his crusade against evil. Zorg ends up joining his partner in whatever afterlife that ding-dong aliens get and Spacehawk gets a smooch.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 796: GREBO

(Target Comics v1 006, 1940)

Grebo is a simple guy, even if he is a Mercurian. He's on Venus with his pal Gogg hunting a lost stash of Mercurian platinum that was spirited away by the losing side of a long ago war in which Rogg and Grebo's ancestors were the victors. And heck, that'd be simple treasure hunting if the underwater city that the swag was in were uninhabited, right?

Sadly, it turns out that the defeated Mercurians (or the Draxions, as they call themselves) are very much in residence, having adapted to a watery existence as a way to hide from their ancient enemies. And it seems that their caution was entirely justified, as Grebo's first response to discovering that the platinum might in fact not be up for grabs is to shoot Draxion leader Tuok.

This little demonstration ensures that Grebo and Rogg have little trouble with the remainder of the peaceful Draxions, and they make their way to the platinum vault with little trouble. At which point Grebo makes some trouble, by murdering Rogg rather than split the loot with him. Classic villain stuff!

All good things must come to an end, however, and that includes reigns of terror: having been summoned by his friends the Draxions, Spacehawk soon arrives and sends Grebo rocketing into space to his doom. Would Grebo have survived the encounter if he had, say, a second person to back him up? Probably not, but it surely couldn't have hurt his chances.

I have to say that the real star of this story were the Draxions. The contrast between their goofy Wolverton faces and the deadly action is surprisingly evocative. Googly-eyed weirdos can have hopes and aspirations too, after all.

Once the danger is over, Spacehawk helps the Draxions re-adapt to land dwelling forms and I can't choose between the goofy pointy-headed aquatic Draxions and the more businesslike clearly-enjoying-all-the-air-breathing land Draxions. I love them both dearly.

Shout out as well to Grebo's ship full of different types of Mercurians (plus some Saturnian pilots), not only for being great little designs but for (intentionally or not) preemptively shutting down any nit-picking about alien designs not being consistent between Spacehawk adventures. It's because there are all kinds of different phenotypes, losers!

(the crew panics when Spacehawk shows up and ends up flying the ship into a mountain, if you were wondering where they were during that final confrontation)