(Dynamic Comics 002, 1941)
It's a story as old as comics and then some: an inventor has come up with a cool superscientific gizmo - in this case an invisibility serum - and no sooner are they done than some gangsters come stiffing around looking to exploit it. This particular gang is headed by an unnamed and trigger-happy fellow who guns down the scientist and then his own men in order to get his mitts on the single available dose of the stuff.
The gangster dubs himself "the Invisible Menace" and this is the only reason I am calling him that instead of "the Invisible Killer" as everyone else in the story including the caption boxes does.
There's a kind of critical and/or cultural debate over the madness of the main character in HG Wells' the Invisible Man, over whether the titular character goes mad with the power inherent in being invisible or the process itself has some flaw that warps the human mind. Whichever way you slice it, the Invisible Menace has Invisibility Madness: no sooner does he fade from sight than he is slaughtering people left and right. Not that he wasn't killing people while he was still visible but at least that was to some purpose. This is just wanton murder.
The big question is: is this guy invisible forever? Neither he nor we ever find out, and frankly it matters quite a lot because it's going to be pretty difficult to enjoy your riches as an invisible guy if the only other invisible guy anyone has ever heard of is famous for attacking a garden party with a tommy gun.
The question never really gets resolved thanks to one of the great flaws in any invisibility-related plan: that you are still detectable via other senses. Accordingly, the Invisible Menace is stopped at the fangs of the dog hero K-9.
Categorized in: Abstract Concepts (Menace), Body (Physical Qualities - Invisibility), Powers (Invisibility)
No comments:
Post a Comment