(The Flame 007, 1941)
The Black Legion is a mysterious cult who recruit members by sending them a sternly-worded letter through the mail. Presumably they have some way of researching their potential inductees to screen for susceptibility to peer pressure and so forth, because the initiation process involves carving a large letter D into your own chest while swearing fealty to the cult's leader, the skull-masked Master of Death.
The Black Legion takes its vows seriously, as member Graves finds when he tries to leave and is brutally murdered. Even Linda Dale, the niece of Black Legion co-leader Emma Dale, is almost killed when she asks a few too many questions about the secret ceremonies taking place in her basement on a regular basis. Lucky for her, then, that she has just become a member of the Flame's supporting cast, as has Pug, the newest prospective member of the cult.
So just what is the deal with the Black Legion? What ethos they espouse or dark deity they serve? What, in short, is the point of all this? As the Flame learns after busting the place up, it's all a huge scam. Emma Dale and the Master of Death have been recruiting gullible fools to the organization and then pocketing the mandatory membership fees, and making even more money off of sales of the mandatory green velour robes. It's a shocking indictment of the state of comic book cults.
Categorized in: Colours (Black), Fraud (Con Artists), Misc (Cults)
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