(Thrilling Comics 008, 1940)
Lobelo is a modern day pirate, as you might guess from the splash panel above, and while my strong pro-pirate bias means that he was an easy inclusion in the ranks of the minor super-villain he is also a source of great frustration to me.
First, though, I will note one thing that I really like about Lobelo and that is his array of costumes. Not only does he wear two distinct pirate outfits during the course of the adventure but he wears a separate classic early-1940s suit-cape-and-mask number while he is robbing the Metroploitan Museum in New York. This is clearly a man who loves an outfit - it's like he's padding out an action figure line over here.
My problem with Lobelo is that he goes into piracy because he is the descendant of the famous 16th Century pirate Redhand. He sets up his headquarters on Redhand's Crossbones Island and he is hunting for Redhand's treasure with the help of Redhand's map, which he stole from the museum. So why the heck doesn't he call himself Redhand, or Redhand II, or something other than his own last name? The gall of it!
(I'm also somewhat put out that the comic features a costume party and Doc Strange attends in a tuxedo rather than his super-suit. I suppose that Lobelo is attending in (one of) his super-villain outfit(s) at the very least)
Lobelo has a pretty good run thanks to some poison he feeds Doc Strange at the party having a long-term weakening effect but ultimately comes up against the simple fact that he is a man armed with a sword versus a man who is completely invulnerable to harm and able to powerbomb a battleship. Lobelo is so outmatched here that maybe Doc Strange doesn't need to kill him like a bear swatting a salmon, and yet he does. So long,
No comments:
Post a Comment