MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 053

They really do just keep coming. 

**Update** The Arrow:

While the Arrow has always been portrayed as a mysterious seven-foot-tall physical prodigy, this particular adventure really goes all in on his being super-humanly strong. This seems significant somehow, even if it is is second-to-last appearance, by my reckoning. (The Arrow 002, 1940)

**UPDATE** the Flame: 

This is the first actual version of the Flame's origin that I've encountered in a comic book, so here it is. This is actually the first time that I've encountered the notion of baby the Flame being proclaimed as the Grand High Lama. It's a weird detail! (The Flame 001, 1940)

Phantasmo: 

And speaking of the ancient secrets of Tibet...

Phantasmo! He spent 25 years in Tibet learning mystic secrets and now he's returned to the US to mete out supernatural justice! Phantasmo! His main deal is that he can project his astral body and that in that form he is basically omnipotent! Phantasmo! He can grow, shrink, heal, kill, he is an invulnerable and infinitely strong magic man! Phantasmo! He does have one key weakness: while his astral form is out and about, his physical body is vulnerable, so teenaged Whizzer McGee tags along on his adventures to watch over it! Phantasmo!

Thanks to a combination of an already fairly minimal costume combined with his transparent nature and some odd colour choices, Phantasmo is possibly also the nudest Golden Age super-hero, at least in his cover appearances. (The Funnies 045, 1940)

the Black Knight: 

A young village blacksmith who first helps the Good King Victor of England when his leg is broken in a boar hunt and then goes on to foil several simultaneous attempts on the monarch's life, the unnamed youth receives the customary reward for doing an excellent job: additional responsibilities. The Black Knight acts as a sort of state-sanctioned vigilante, rooting out evil among the chivalry of England.

And speaking of England, the more history-minded of you might have noted that "Good King Victor of England" I mentioned as being very much not an actual British monarch. This raises the question of just when the Black Knight stories are set: it's broadly Medieval (5th to 15th Centuries), operating under the Chivalric Code (12th to 15th Centuries), the King has a Damascus steel sword (post 10th to 11th Century), there is talk of doctors being fairly available (13th Century at earliest)... so what does all this add up to? Absolutely nothing. The Black Knight exists in a pastiche of knight-haunted England that is as historical as your average retelling of the Arthurian mythos, and in fact the whole thing would be a lot neater is Victor were actually Arthur. We must work with what we have, I suppose. (The Funnies 046, 1940) 

ADDENDUM: I wrote this before I had read the last couple of Black Knight stories for 1940, and immediately after posting it I cracked open The Funnies 049, featuring a tale in which the Black Knight helps defend Cornwall (becomes part of England proper around the 10th to 11th Century) from a force of Huns (4th to 6th Centuries) and their enslaved Viking (8th to 11th Centuries) crew, and let me tell you I was relieved.