CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 011

We regret to inform you that more super-heroes have been wounded.

the Blue Beetle: 

The very first thing that happens in the very first Blue Beetle comic: Dan "the Blue Beetle" Garret gets shot in the left arm. (Mystery Men Comics 001, 1939)

Domino the Miracle Boy:

It's a miracle (a boy miracle?) that Domino survives 1941, because he gets hit by a dang car. (Green Mask v1 006, 1941)

Not two issues later, Domino gets shot in the ever-popular left shoulder (Green Mask v1 008, 1941)

the Green Mask:

I've been going through some old Fox Features comics for head traumas at the same time as reading The Green Mask v1 for the first time, which means that I've hit a real rich seam of injuries to the Green Mask in particular. Let's review:

The Green Mask gets shot in an unspecified place while swinging across a gorge and seemingly falls to his doom. Don't worry though: he's okay. (Green Mask v1 004, 1941)

The Green Mask continues this trend of getting shot in an indeterminate location from close range in his next appearance, first at the hands of freelance spy Dr Tsu...

And then by fascist spy chief Kurt Ebler. Despite Ebler's assertion that the Green Mask is not bulletproof, I am beginning to suspect that he is at the very least bullet resistant. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

Stepping back a bit: the Green Mask gets stabbed in the left shoulder. (Mystery Men Comics 013, 1940)

One issue later: shot in the left shoulder. (Mystery Men Comics 014, 1941)

Lest he be accused of neglecting the classics, the Green Mask sustains a textbook skull crease late in 1941. (Mystery Men Comics 022, 1941)

And finally: the Green Mask's left shoulder is "grazed by a bullet" hard enough to knock him off a car. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

MEDIA IN COMICS 008

We're not out of the extremely crusty scan woods yet, but the media of comics must be recorded, folks. Hang in there.

Books:

When Diamond Jack defeats his early foe the Witch and transforms her book of magic into 1000 Ways to Cook Spinach, there is one big unanswered question: did this spinach cookbook already exist or did his ring magically compile 1000 recipes on its own? (Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

Early Batman foe the Wolf, meanwhile, got his start after suffering a head trauma and fixating on the crime thriller he was reading, titled The Crime Master. (Batman Comics v1 002, 1940)

Human Knowledge, a book compiled by the sinister Professor Universe that contains "every fact known to man" is used by Slaughter Slade to imbue his assistant Dr Allirog with the mind of a human genius. (Special Edition Comics 001, 1940)

Usually when you hear about a reclusive scholar writing a book about how "sinister persons or forces plan to deliberately stave off the return of national prosperity" you're in for some paranoid fascist rantings, but in this case it's the early 40s, so the sinister forces discussed in Prosperity's Foe *are* the fascists. (Superman Comics 004, 1940)

Wretched Marine character Strut Warren attempts to peddle a book called The Jolly Homemakers' Manual around Bali in an attempt to win a prize, a typically tiresome adventure for the character. (Fight Comics 016, 1941)

When a mysterious virus called the Purple Plague starts ravaging Metropolis, Clark Kent and his pal Professor Henry Travers his the library to research a historical instance of the same disease, in a book also called The Purple Plague. It turns out that the Ultra Humanite had also checked out the same book and that it had given him the idea to unleash the modern plague in imitation of the original. (Action Comics v1 019, 1939)

Movies:

Air Circus is a airplane stunt-heavy film that is plagued by accidents while filming until pilot Gary Hawkes gets involved and exposes the scheming director's plot to scuttle the production and then turn a quick buck by buying up the incomplete footage. (More Fun Comics 039, 1939)

Its the same old story: a film called The General's Daughter shoots some scenes at the Army installation where Skip Schuyler works, there's a series of incidents and then Skip has to save the day. Not too sure what the movie is supposed to be about. (Adventure Comics 043, 1939)

It may be the crustiest and crunchiest lowest quality scan here, but Public Enemy #13 is a pretty fun name for a movie and I think that that makes up for it, at least a little. (More Fun Comics 040, 1939)

Newspaper Columns:

"Around the Avenue" is one of those old-school society gossip columns that they used to have in papers, and while Rennie McCavoy here is playing into Wesley Dodds' hands by writing him up as a wild party dude/ potential victim for the story's villain, it's hard to respect the journalistic effort involved in seeing a guy being quietly drunk at a nightclub and pouncing on him like this. (Adventure Comics 044, 1939)

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 010

I'm beginning to think that the super-hero scene is pretty hazardous.

the Blue Bolt: 

The Blue Bolt's first outing against the Green Sorceress is marred by the fact that he gets near-fatally clawed by her vulturoid monsters. (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

the Cloak: 

Jeff Cardiff, aka the Spy-Master, aka the Spay-Chief and the future Cloak, gets a classic skull crease. On purpose! This is the way that that goon chose to knock him out! Such confidence! (Big Shot 002, 1940)

Jeff's choice to adopt the Cloak identity comes after his identity as a government man gets around and enemy agents start gunning for him. Specifically, they gun him in the left shoulder. Twice! (Big Shot 015, 1941)

Being a costumed super-hero is no guarantee that you won't be shot, however, and Jeff gets his skull creased once more on his third outing as the Cloak. (Big Shot 018, 1941)

the Flame:

The Flame turns off his bullet-melting heat aura for just an instant to pick up a lady in need and gets his skull creased by a bullet. (The Flame 007, 1941)

Phantasmo:

Phantasmo is one of the last super-heroes who one would expect to get injured, seeing as how his whole deal is supposed to be sending out a huge, invulnerable astral form to fight crime. Nevertheless, he keeps on starting adventures in his very vulnerable human body, and so he inevitably gets shot in the left shoulder. (The Funnies 061, 1941)

Skyman:

Skyman dodges a bullet at close range - an impressive feat - but he still gets a bloody gash across his enormous chest. (Big Shot 003, 1940)

Zanzibar the Magician:

Zanzibar takes an arrow in the right shoulder courtesy of a dastardly Walrus Man. (Mystery Men Comics 005, 1939)

A couple of years later but the same shoulder: Zanzibar is shot. (Mystery Men Comics 023, 1941)

 And what Golden Age super-hero goes very long without getting his head creased by a bullet? (The Flame 006, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 096

Even the most minor of super-heroes gets the chance to shine brightly in the Round-Up.

Super-American:

I can't decide if I'm surprised or not that the development of the archetype of the patriotic hero was so rapid as to produce a character called "Super-American" less than a year after the debut of Captain America. He's simultaneously straight out to the sketchbook of a 60s underground comix guy (or indeed a more modern edgy comics guy) and a perfectly ordinary 1940s comic book character. Regardless: Super-American!

Super-American is an unnamed resident of the year 2350, who journeys back in time after Dr Allen Bruce uses his Chronopticon device to ask the President of 24th Century America for a little help with all the fascist spies and so forth who are causing trouble in 1940s America. 

This is way too early for a pop time travel story to get too worried about issues of causality and so forth, so I guess we must assume that Super-American uses the kind of time travel where your time travel escapades already happened so you can't actually change your own present. Or maybe the kind where the time you leave from is inevitable, so your actions in the past merely cause it to happen in a different way. Or even the kind where messing around in the past causes a divergent timeline, but the new futures he creates are similar enough to still produce a Super-American.

Thanks to good old-fashioned futuristic technology, Super-American is endowed with powers such as super strength and speed, invulnerability and flight. Plus, he's super-duper patriotic! Like, annoyingly so! As one might expect of someone who willingly wears that helmet. (Fight Comics 015, 1941)

Categorized in: Language (Superlatives (Super)), Locations (Specific Locales), Origins (Displaced in Time)

Captain Fight:

Patriotic hero Captain Fight is actually Jeff Crockett, gym teacher at Freeville High in Freeville, Maryland. Despite being held in contempt by his male students for turning down a career in prizefighting due to a conviction that violence should not be used frivolously, Crockett does not hesitate to don a sporty outfit and deal out fistic justice to the enemies of America when they show their faces in his specific small town. (Fight Comics 016, 1941)

Categorized in: Activities (Fighting), Day Jobs (High School Teachers), Generica (Captains)

Yank Adams: 

Unusually for a boy sidekick, Yank Wilson is not an easily-adoptable orphan, instead, he is one of Jeff "Captain Fight" Crockett's students and also the son of local inventor and espionage target Professor Adams. Yank recognizes Crockett through his weird mask pretty much instantly and a crime-fighting team is formed. (Fight Comics 016, 1941)

Categorized in: Day Job (High School Student), Origins (Sidekicks)

Zanzibar the Magician:

Zanzibar is a standard unit of magical super-hero who adventured in a variety of Fox Features books from 1939 to early 1942. Though his adventures are decently entertaining fare I'm afraid that the most interesting fact I can give you about Zanzibar himself is that at one point he switches from a red fez to a blue one. (Mystery Men Comics 001, 1939)

Categorized in: Locations (Place Names as Proper Names), Magic Users (Magicians), Powers (Various Magic)

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 026

Once again we point and go "Hey. It's that guy."

Adolf Hitler:

Captain Courageous has to deal with a few pseudo-Nazis working for Hitler-alike Hinkler. (Banner Comics 003, 1941) 

Real Hitler takes a scheme-foiling by Vulcan pretty hard. (Four Favorites 001, 1941)

Devil's Island:

Captain America and Bucky infiltrate Devil's Island to free a prisoner who is not only a victim of carceral justice taken to unjust extremes but also as an arm of the Nazi government in France. (Captain America Comics 005, 1941)

the Duke and Duchess of Windsor:

The Duke of Windsor, aka the former King Edward VIII of England and his wife Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, welcome Speed Martin to the Bahamas in the Duke's wartime role as the Governor General of that territory. (The Funnies 051, 1941)

FDR:

Super-American rescues the most obscured-by-shadow (and completely silent!) FDR we have yet seen from the evil Tyrannus. The usual shadowed-features treatment that he usually gets is so over the top in that it looks like the President is going to be dramatically revealed to be some sort of frog monster in the next panel. (Fight Comics 015, 1941)

By contrast, here's a very recognizable FDR congratulating newsreel cameraman Speed Martin on returning from Europe with some vital intel on the Axis war machine. (The Funnies 051, 1941)

And by contrast with that, here's "Mr Jones," the mysterious government official who recruits Captain Midnight into his country's service and who is heavily implied to be a disguised FDR, even though he lacks the President's famously large head. (The Funnies 057, 1941)

(don't worry: someone thought about the big head issue and inflated it by The Funnies 058)

the German-American Bund:

Very rare appearance of the German-American Bund under it's own name, even if the actual group was already in severe decline at the point this book was published. (Captain America Comics 005, 1941)

Harold R. Stark:

He's not named, but the Chief of Naval Operations seen here sure looks like the man who held the position at the time, Harold R. Stark. Did they do a photo reference this one time? (The Funnies 055, 1941)

Joe Dimaggio:

"Joey Diraggio," star player for the Brooklyn Badgers and victim of the Black Toad. (Captain America Comics 007, 1941)

the Venus de Milo:

The Venus de Milo is stolen by Zeus and brought back to Ancient Greece so that he can turn it into a human woman to be his wife. Zanzibar the Magician rescues the statue woman and brings her back to the present with him, but the question is never resolved: does he chop off her arms and turn her into a statue again? Is the Fox Features Universe minus one statue and plus one blonde lady? (Mystery Men Comics 002, 1939)

Winston Churchill:

Personally thanks Vulcan for escorting a convoy to England. (Four Favourites 001, 1941)