MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 061

Superfolk galore! 

the Buzzard: 

In an unnamed New-York-alike city, the gadgeteering mayor equips a young man with a suite of devices to help him engage in a vigilante crusade against crime. Chief among these gadgets is a gas that makes whomever it touches resemble a balding, big-nosed man in thick glasses and a tailcoat - the perfect disguise! Armed with this gas, plus some clawed gloves and a heat ray, the Buzzard begins tearing his way through the city's underworld. 

The gas also seems to allow the Buzzard to make his shadow resemble his namesake bird, an ability that is very useful for vexing the city's Buzzard-hating police chief who, it turns out, is also the father of the Buzzard's secret identity. 

I unironically love the Buzzard and his whole weird setup, and while I find most modern revivals of public domain Golden Age characters to be a pretty mixed bag, I'm pretty bummed that none of them have elevated him out of his single issue obscurity - he's got a real weirdo charm that the fiftieth version of the Nedor characters can't approach. (Wham Comics 002, 1940) 

the Cyclone: 

The Cyclone is really Peter Grant, a young man who has a fairly unique version of the Batman origin, which of course is when a tragedy inspires an obsessive dedication to training and working toward some related goal, i.e., in Batman's case the murder of his parents inspiring his eternal war against crime. The real twist in the Cyclone's case seems to be the total absence of a motivation: Grant just woke up one day and decided to turn his body into a living weapon to aim at evil.

The Cyclone is presented as being a regular human and so I had been assuming that the whirlwind patterns around his lower body when he jumps around were a stylistic choice meant to represent his fantastic leaping ability. They really are some enormous jumps, however, so it's also possible that the Cyclone is meant to have some sort of wind-assisted jumping power. He only had three adventures, alas, so we shall never know. (Whirlwind Comics 001, 1940)

Ibis the Invincible: 

Ibis the Invincible, aka Prince Amentep, is a 12th Dynasty Egyptian who just kind of spontaneously comes back to life after 4000 years as a mummy. Why? Well, it's not spelled out until the 1942 Ibis the Invincible series, but spoilers: his true love had been shot with an arrow that put her to sleep for those four millennia and he put himself in a magical sleep of his own in order to be with her again. 

Ibis achieves this state of mystic sleep with the aid of the Ibistick, a magical wand capable of very nearly anything. Much like his fellow Golden Age magical super-heroes, Ibis' near-omnipotence can occasionally seem plot-obliteratingly powerful. 

The key difference between Ibis and his contemporaries, however, is that the Ibistick is a small object that is constantly being lost or stolen. Further, it requires absolutely no special knowledge to be used and can be operated by both children and animals with ease. More than a few of Ibis' greatest foes (e.g., the Hobo-Millionaire) are simply regular humans armed with his own magic wand. The caveat to all this is the fact that the Ibistick will never harm its true owner, and will in fact inflict any baleful magic cast from it at him back on its wielder. This means that Ibis is able to defeat an evil wielder of the Ibistick by merely being annoying enough that they try to turn him into a toad or gold or ice or on on memorable occasion to mind control Taia into stabbing him to death and then wait for it to backfire on them. (Whiz Comics 002, 1940) 

Taia: 

Taia is the 4000-year-sleeping love for whom Ibis the Invincible made his way to the future. After a bit of moping around the globe he manages to track down her mummy and revive her, upon which they kind of implicitly are a married couple. While I very much enjoy Taia and the dynamic she has with Ibis, she does get a pretty raw deal - being your own husband's de facto sidekick is bad enough, but Taia very rarely gets to be anything more than a kidnap victim/bargaining chip. The few modern versions of Ibis the Invincible try to do more with her, but they still don't do much.

Taia is said to be cousin to "Senwosri III" who is probably meant to be Pharaoh Senusret III, given that Taia and Ibis are said to be from the 12th Dynasty. So that's something. (Whiz Comics 002, 1940)

 

SUPER-VILLAIN FILE 001: DR SIVANA

(Whiz Comics 002, 1940) 

Hearken back to yesterday's Captain Marvel entry and you will see a tale of woe in which I lament my own poor planning with regard to how I dealt with non-obscure super-heroes. Well, I didn't do much better with name-brand super-villains, I'll tell you what. The Super-Villain Yearbook was an okay idea, but I didn't really have a good implementation. I was going to be cluttering up my indices with links! Instead, we're going to have main entries for the cads and bounders, like this one, and do all the linking to later developments here.

So: Dr Sivana. Known very briefly as the Phantom Scientist in his first appearance, his initial scheme was a fairly straightforward ransom of the US radio broadcasting system. It is wild how thoroughly he is realized in this initial appearance, and how great a difference in quality there is between this story and some of the ones I've been reading lately.

A deadly enmity is almost instantly established between Captain Marvel and Dr Sivana. Not only do they hate one another forever, but Captain Marvel is pretty clearly trying to kill Sivana as the other way around for the first couple of years. Anyway: top notch villain, little creep, very fun.

UPDATES: 

Dr Sivana 1940 

HENCHMEN AND CREATIONS: 

the Beast-Ruler (Captain Marvel Adventures 003, 1941)

Z (Captain Marvel Adventures 001, 1941)

SUPER-HERO FILE 001: CAPTAIN MARVEL

(Whiz Comics 002, 1940) 

When I fist made this blog it was mostly as a way to keep up a twitter thread that I was really enjoying but which was not enough to keep me on a rapidly-curdling social media platform. This is why all of the early entries are so short: because they're just beefed-up tweets. This is also why I focused so heavily on obscure super-villains at first and only expanded my purview to include obscure super-heroes and more prominent super-villains gradually and haphazardly over time. Well, it's time for another expansion of scope, because there are all kinds of interesting things about the big-name super-heroes and I just gotta mention them when I see them. Thus, the Super-Hero Files, which, if all goes to plan, are going to act as landing pages for all of those interesting things. And as he's the first major super-hero to cross my computer screen since I decided to do this, our initial subject is Captain Marvel!

Any super-hero origin story has its weird and charming elements that are later revisited and iterated on throughout the years, but Captain Marvel's might just have the most of those? Let's count them as we go.

Billy Batson, the most downtrodden and good-hearted boy in the world (1) is approached by a mysterious shadowy man (2) and taken on a ride in a magical subway car (3).

(1) Future retelling of this origin try to double down on both the misery and the goodness but it's there from the start. He sleeps in a subway station, but he's upbeat about it.

(2) Remains mysterious until 1994, when Roy Thomas establishes that this is the ghost of Billy Batson's father.

(3) I don't know if the subway car is ever revealed to actually be Zeus' chariot or something but I am pretty happy that it keeps on showing up and hasn't been relegated to the "Too Silly FOR COMIC BOOKS" pile.

Billy enters a colossal cavern (4) and walks past statues of the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man (5). He is greeted by the wizard Shazam and given a brief tutorial on the meaning of his name (6). Also note the big globe and book flanking the wizard's throne (7).

(4) Eventually, this space is revealed to be located in the extradimensional Rock of Eternity, but as of 1940 it's just a big magic cave that you can just wander into if you start wandering around in the tunnels below the city.

(5) Pride, Envy, Greed, Hatred, Selfishness, Laziness and Injustice. The names get remixed occasionally - notably the more modern version read more like the Catholic Seven Deadly Sins - but this bunch will eventually get their own entry as minor super-villains after they come to life and battle Captain Marvel.

(6) Also a quick rundown of the powers of Captain Marvel! Solomon, wisdom of; Hercules, strength of; Atlas, stamina of; Zeus, power of; Achilles, courage of; Mercury, speed of.

(7) I don't know if these are ever given a real explanation - I see some claims that the book is Shazam's Historama but that's a retcon at best.

Shazam uses his Historama (8) to reiterate the miserable nature of Billy Batson's life: orphaned and then chucked out on his ear by his greedy uncle Ebenezer (9).

(8) See? The book is clearly closed in the same panel as the Historama is active.

(9) Billy's terrible uncle is an occasional recurring antagonist, but doesn't recur as often as I'd expect. 

Billy is given the power to become Captain Marvel by shouting the word SHAZAM (10), upon which the wizard, his work on Earth complete, is smushed by the symbolic granite block that has until that point hung above his throne on a slender thread (11). 

(10) Just a classic super-hero bit. Copied ad nauseam.

(11) I always forget that the wizard Shazam dies in his very first appearance, possibly because he continues to appear as a spectral advisor to Captain Marvel and the entire Marvel Family.

Returning to his life in Fawcett City (12), Billy manages to finagle a job as an occasionally-roving radio announcer (13) by making a deal with radio magnate Sterling Morris before foiling the schemes of Dr Sivana (14) for the first time. 

(12) Technically Golden Age Captain Marvel stories pretty clearly take place in New York City and Fawcett City doesn't really come into being until the DC Comics days, and while I'm normally a dumb stickler for that sort of thing, it just feels right to go with the retcon flow on that particular point.

(13) Just a great super-hero job, up there with reporter or newspaper photographer in terms of being in the know about developing situations. Too bad it's not as relevant today as back in the 40s - is Billy an Extreme Vlogger or something nowadays?

(14) Stay tuned for that guy.

In conclusion: yes there are a lot of touchpoints in Captain Marvel's origin, and that's without all of the later stuff like Mary that would be included right off the bat in later retellings. It's a rich text. 

UPDATES:

 

HONOURS:

Honours - Captain Marvel

TROPHY ROOM: 

Trophy Room - Captain Marvel 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 861: EMPEROR CORON

(Whirlwind Comics 003, 1940)

Earth in the far-off future of 1980 CE simply can't catch a break! This time they're being pelted with comets from somewhere in the vicinity of Jupiter and as per usual scientist-adventurer Bruce Barlow is on the case. And he's a good choice, as evidenced by the fact that even when he has a rocket mishap and ends up going entirely the wrong way, crashing on Venus...

... he still finds the source of the comets! This is Emperor Coron, ruler of Venus, who is attacking Earth for no stated reason. As  Barlow learns when he is thrown in jail, Coron has usurped the throne from his new cellmate Gola and not only has he had Gola's daughter Venus' tongue torn out (fuckin' yikes) but he intends to marry her to cement his claim to the throne. A true creep of the first water.

Luckily for both Gola and Venus, there is not a prison that Bruce Barlow cannot escape or a wedding that he cannot ruin. He and Gola crash the affair in a quite literal fashion by upsetting the idol to whatever god the Venusians worship onto at least one - hopefully evil - guest.

Once the people of Venus get word that their beloved Gola is alive, Coron's days are numbered. Mob justice wins again! Everyone wins but Coron! And of course poor tongueless Venus.

(I think I've mentioned before that the creator of the Bruce Barlow strip is unknown, but whoever they were I think we can safely say that they were fans of Jack Kirby. Just compare these Venusians to Iako for instance. I don't think it was Kirby himself, because his art was a lot more composed than this, but there's definitely some inspiration going on)

DIVINE ROUND-UP 012

Craig Carter's whole deal is summoning ancient gods out of his ring, and since he only had two issues in which to do so I am able to offer you a complete list of them here. With pictures!

Zeus: 

Zeus acts as the spokesgod of Craig Carter's magic ring, and seems to be the one in charge of summoning forth the other deities. He's called the "god of wisdom" here. I dig his little crown. (Wham Comics 001, 1940)

Pegasus:

Technically summoned by Zeus for Craig rather than directly from the ring, but who cares about technicalities: it's a divine flying horse! (Wham Comics 001, 1940)

Mercury: 

Mercury serves Craig as a land-based equivalent to Pegasus after he discovers that his adversaries are holed up in a cave. His super speed really saves Carter's hash on multiple occasions. (Wham Comics 001, 1940)

Pluto:

Pluto, styled as the "Master of Hades, Prince of All Black Magic", is summoned to deal with a Hindu mystic that Carter's second batch of foes has on call. He absolutely has the most personality of any of the gods summoned from the ring, and though the magic battle between the two suffers somewhat from Golden Age crudeness it does manage to look pretty intense and harrowing.

Pluto wins the duel, of course, then decides to stay on Earth and get up to some mischief instead of returning to whatever world exists in the ring. He is pretty clearly intended to be an antagonist for Carter going forward, but since the feature never reappeared this was to be it for him. A true shame - just look at that cartoonishly evil face. I bet he'd have been brilliant. (Wham Comics 002, 1940)

Thor:

The only non Greco-Roman god summoned in the two Craig Carter adventures, so we can only speculate on the extent of its god-summoning powers. Could you get Mithras out of it? What about a god that is currently being worshipped? What about Catholic saints?

Thor, like Pegasus and Mercury before him, is summoned as a mode of transport, via his goat cart, but sticks around to bust some heads. He also has a weird spiky halo that is never addressed.

In a very frustrating development at the very end of the second and final Craig Carter adventure, Thor takes the antagonists back into the ring with him to "lead a better existence," leaving us with even more questions about just what is going on with that thing than before. Is it simply a portal to the homes of the various gods, meaning that the thugs are now hanging out in Valhalla? Does it perhaps lead to some sort of amalgamated afterlife where all of the deprecated pantheons hang out together? We shall never know, alas. (Wham Comics 002 1940)

The Also-Rans:

The header of the first Craig Carter strip in Wham Comics 001 included three gods who never got to actually strut their stuff. It's hard to say who the two in the back were supposed to be (I might guess Hades for the one on the far right if we didn't get Pluto), but if that fellow with the club isn't Hercules (or indeed Herakles), I'll eat my hat.