Have a few mid-tier minor super-heroes, for a change.
the Black Terror:
Pharmacist Bob Benton is the kind of guy who will step in when a little kid is being roughed up by thugs, but despite this he is pretty relentlessly bullied by city Comptroller Rodney Clark* and (in a less overt but still insidious way) their mutual love interest Jean Starr.
* Clark is such a bully, in fact, that I assumed that he was going to eventually turn out to be crooked but instead he gets murdered** after a couple of issues.
** In fact I was wrong when I wrote this: he is merely almost murdered and seemingly never recovers sufficiently to return to the comic. I guess I was just hoping that he would get murdered because he is, again, such a bully.
Perhaps because of this, Benton spends his spare time working on a "tonic for run-down people," or so he says. I assume that he's going for something closer to anabolic steroids, and thanks to his new assistant Tim Roland (the kid who was getting beaten up earlier), he stumbles upon the formula for something even better: formic ether!
Thanks to those sweet sweet formic ether fumes, Benton becomes a super-human and in a real break for society decides to keep on being a decent guy rather than setting out for revenge on all those people who pushed him around when he was weak (though he does take the opportunity to give Rodney Clark a black eye every issue until he's murdered he retires). He gets his super suit in the most efficient way possible: by sending Tim down to the costume shop to see what they have in stock.
The formic ethers give Benton tremendous strength and a sort of mid-tier invulnerability: he can shrug off a sock on the jaw no problem, and eventually proves to be bulletproof, but he gets knocked around and knocked out an awful lot. (Exciting Comics 009, 1941)
Tim Roland:
Though Bob tells Tim that he can't join him on his quest for vigilante glory, he also just kind of leaves a smoking bottle of super power serum sitting out where anyone can get it - frankly he's lucky not to have to team up with Rodney Clark. Instead, Tim - who has had the foresight to pick up a second costume for himself, but not to pick a super-hero name - huffs a little formic ether and gets straight to busting heads.
Tim is the rare Golden Age sidekick who appears to be legitimately around eight to ten years old, instead of a stocky thirteen to fifteen like so many of his peers. Even more remarkably, he stays roughly in this age bracket for a couple of years, as far as can be ascertained (multiple artists mean that his height fluctuates quite a lot, but he pretty consistently wears short pants in his civilian identity). He's also one of those orphan boys who just kind of falls into a super-guy's orbit and becomes adopted by default. (Exciting Comics 009, 1941)
The Black Terror dabbles in the common practice of leaving a calling card in his first appearance, and makes the baffling decision to go with his domino mask as a design, rather than the cool skull-and-crossbones on his chest.
Categorized in: Accessories (Calling Cards), Body (Emotions - Terror), Origins (Chemical Mutates), Origins (Sidekicks)
the Sphinx **UPDATE**:
The Sphinx adopts the identity of the Domino Kid in order to have a very brief boxing career. (Exciting Comics 012, 1941)
Categorized in: Origins (Secondary Identities)
the Liberator:
Like many super-heroes, the Liberator starts out as a weedy nerd. Specifically, he is Dr Nelson Drew, lecturer in Chemistry at Claflin College. He is, troublingly, in love with Annabel, one of his students, who also serves as one of his major bullies - she is not only bored by chemistry (but you chose to take the course, Annabel!) but also scornful of Drew for caring about it when so much is afoot in the world, but... I don't actually know what her problem is? Like, chemistry was wildly consequential to the US war effort? Perhaps if he taught a social science I could see her point of view, if not agree with it.
While doing a little light research into Ancient Egyptian poisons (okay, this is arguably inconsequential), Drew discovers the lost formula for a drug called Lamesis which will supposedly make one into their physical ideal. Though skeptical, he brews up a batch and since his lab safety appears to be nonexistent (troubling indeed for a guy who is researching poisons) he immediately gets a snootful of the stuff, and turns into a big ol' hunk. I really enjoy how viscerally unpleasant the transformation process looks here - sadly this transformation conceit doesn't last more than a couple of issues.
This unexpected transformation isn't a dream come true for Drew, and he spends his first outing in his new body - the Lamesis turns out to be a temporary thing, you see - trying to figure out how to turn back, and engages in his first bout of super-heroism after discovering that the scientist he was trying to consult with had been murdered by fascists.
I also enjoy the origin of the Liberator's costume: there are plenty of super-heroes going around in their old Halloween costumes, but he might be the only one who gets his outfit by stealing someone else's. Would he have become such an explicitly patriotic hero if he hadn't ended up in a star-spangled shirt? (Exciting Comics 015, 1941)
Categorized in: Accessories (Drugs), Day Jobs (College Professors), Origins (Patriotic Heroes)
VERY MINOR UPDATES:
John Thesson, aka the Son of the Gods, after being a character of no fixed address for his first several appearances, finally settles down: he was in Washington DC in Exciting Comics 006, but it wasn't until 007 that it became clear that that is where he chose to hang his hat and offer his services to the US Government.
The Mask sheds two of his assistants, Silk and Butch, as of Exciting Comics 007, and becomes of interest to the law somewhere between 009 and 010.
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