REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 027

Real people? In comic books? Now I've seen everything.

Abu Khan:

I sincerely cannot tell if this Black Knight foe is supposed to be Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, last ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanate, or if they just pulled a couple of syllables out of the air and added "Khan" to the end and called it a day. On the one hand, the real Abu Khan never tried to invade Egypt, as the Black Knight is trying to prevent him from doing, but on the other he is from about the right time to be a Black Knight character, i.e., within about two hundred years of all the other elements of the comic. (The Funnies 059, 1941)

Adolf Hitler:

Pays for the services of super-villain the Artist to facilitate the invasion of Tomania with his soul-stealing powers. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

Al Capone:

"Scar Lapone," used as a generic gangster name. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

Jean Lafitte:

A false vision of Lafitte is summoned by a fake medium. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

Napoleon Bonaparte:

Viewed through a time machine's viewscreen by the Black Hood. (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

Nero:

Kim Hale and the Purple Zombie, blasted back in time, are condemned to death by Emperor Nero for telling him about things that he hadn't heard of before. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 008, 1941)

Though the duo make it out of the gladiatorial arena okay, they almost get caught up in the Great Fire of Rome before being shunted to another time zone by their allies. Unusually, Nero is not shown fiddling at all. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 009, 1941)

Nero, or at least his ghost, appears in a very different form after being summoned by the would-be necromancer Ford. Is this barbaric Nero a reflection of how the Emperor saw himself, or did the artist just kind of wing it? (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

Paul Revere:

Minor comic book protagonist Paul Revere Jr is awfully smug for someone who just has the name of a famous patriot, and that goes double for his friends Betsy Ross and Patrick Henry.

His father Paul Revere Sr is at least out there writing a column called "America, Awake!" and putting himself in the crosshairs of local fascists. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

Sherlock Holmes:

Yet another comedy Holmes analog with a terrible if intriguing name. Foreclose is just close enough to a play on Sherlock to be particularly maddening. Featuring: a Watson analog named Batsin Belfry. (Great Comics 001, 1941)

Walter Winchell:

He only appears as a corpse, but gossip columnist Walt Willard is a clear play on Walt Winchell. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 005

More wounds for the Catalogue of Wounds!

Ace of Space:

Shot in the left arm during an attempted skyjacking. (Feature Comics 041, 1941)

the Black Hood:

As part of Kip Burland's journey to masked vigilantism he gets shot all to hell and back by the Skull's minions. The shots we can see happening are all hitting him in the torso, and according to his hermit mentor there were at least eight of them. Sheesh. (Top-Notch Comics 009, 1940)

Chic Carter:

Chic takes a bullet to his right arm while contending with the Phantom's very satanic boss. (Smash Comics 015, 1941)

the Comet:

Shot in the left shoulder by a gun-wielding member of an angry mob that is after him. (Pep Comics 004, 1940)

the Fox:

Severely whipped and beaten by the Night Riders during his origin. (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

Galahad: 

Takes a sword blow meant for King Arthur, and while all these bullet wounds and so forth can get a little abstracted, this is a real overhand chop that has to be threatening to hit his lung. Galahad only survives due to Merlin's magical intervention. (Top-Notch Comics 008, 1940)

the Green Falcon:

Takes an arrow to the left shoulder. (Blue Ribbon Comics 013, 1941)

the Shadow:

Shot in the left arm by Zevox, aka the Head. (Shadow Comics v1 004, 1940)

The Shadow's left arm can't get a break, as a few issues later it gets a throwing knife to the shoulder. (Shadow Comics v1 007, 1940)

the Spider:

I don't know the precise number of times the Spider is shot here while tanking bullets to scare a gang but it sure is enough to impress his doctor. (Crack Comics 007, 1940)

A year later, the Spider gets near-fatally shot in the chest by the Crow. (Crack Comics 018, 1941)

Whiz, King of Falcons: 

Silver Streak's animal companion Whiz is struck in the bird-shoulder by a machine gun round. (Silver Streak Comics 010, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 837: THE SKULL

(Top-Notch Comics 009, 1940)

 

The Skull is the recurring foe of the Golden Age Black Hood, and as is common for such characters he is a kind of generalist super-villain willing to dabble in everything from theft to kidnapping to espionage to murder as circumstances dictate. He even indulges in a little housebreaking on occasion, and it is while doing so that he is interrupted by police officer Kip Burland, who he frames for the crime and then eventually attempts to have murdered when he refuses to give up on proving himself innocent. 

This of course is the origin of the Black Hood, as Burland recovers and trains under the tutelage of one of the Skulls other victims. Accidentally creating your own nemesis is one of the occupational hazards of being a successful super criminal, after all, and the Skull is so successful as he kind of did it twice, as Kip Burland's mentor is a different lawman who the Skull framed and ruined who swore revenge on him but then took too long preparing and had to be content with weaponizing another to do the deed.

By the time that Kip Burland is prepared to go into action as the Black Hood, the Skull has devised the first of what I now recognize as his signature: an overcomplicated scheme. Specifically, he has targeted the debut/masquerade ball being held for wealthy socialite Barbara Sutton, and has not only informed all of the guests that they must show up in their best jewelry so that he can steal it but has also announced his plans in the papers. I think that the intent is to ensure compliance through fear, but it really seems like he's just introducing ways that his scheme can go wrong.

The Skull's instructions are clear: he will steal the jewels off of the guests during the party and they are to keep quiet about it. None of them manage this, and each victim ends up being killed via a blowgun dart tipped with a poison that turns the human head all green and corpsey. Plus - and this is hard to see but trust me - the dart leaves a little skull-shaped mark at the point of contact.

The Black Hood eventually works out how the Skull is doing all this: he has disguised himself as hostess Mrs Sutton and has been shooting the darts out of a blowgun shaped like a cigarette holder. One dunk in an oversized decorative vase later, the case is solved!

(also please note that the Black Hood is in attendance in costume as himself. It still counts even if this is his first public appearance in costume) 

After the Black Hood turns the Skull in to the police at the end of his first costumed adventure, his ally the Hermit predicts that they will be unable to hold him, and what do you know but he's right. The Skull dramatically breaks jail and immediately puts another overly complicated scheme into action. Major Quentin Duff has invented the unspecified-but-presumably-valuable Iota Ray, and the Skull wants it, but is not prepared to do anything so simple as to steal the plans. Instead, he implements a simple three-part plan:

Step One: ambush Major Duff at his house and murder him just after he hands the Iota Ray plans over to Mrs Duff for safekeeping. 

Step Two: While Mrs Duff and Barbara Sutton are taking the plans from Washington DC via train, kidnap Duff and gaslight Sutton into believing that she was never there. This requires at least a half-dozen confederates as well as an appearance by the Skull as a Dr van Luks, a backward name so annoying that I audibly groaned when I worked it out.

Step Three: Once the plan falls apart, just try to murder everyone and take the plans off of Mrs Duff's body. Please note that this step was an option from the start, and that the theft could have been committed using the Major's gruesome murder as cover.

As 1940 draws to a close, the Skull is left shaking his fist after a speeding train as the Black Hood escapes with the plans. We will see him again in 1941!

SKULL SCORE: A very generous 2/5, considering that this particular Skull isn't actually missing any facial features. The combination of his emaciated face, sunken eyes and perpetual rictus goes a long way nonetheless. Plus he's green.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 057

Two MLJ Round-Ups in a row! They're just churning out the heroes! 

Galahad:

Hey, it's Galahad! Or rather a version of Galahad who is standing in for a pretty wide array of different Knights of the Round Table with lesser name brand recognition. It's some clean-cut knightly action. (Top-Notch Comics 005, 1940)

Shanghai Sheridan:

Jack "Shanghai" Sheridan, aside from having a sounding like a cheeky nickname for a POW camp, is notable mostly for the fact that he is one of many characters who have "the Batman origin but for...", in this case, the Batman origin but for the Japanese invasion of China. His adventures are nothing particularly special, alas. (Top-Notch Comics 005, 1940)

Firefly:

Oh hey, it's the Firefly, wearing one of the great super-hero costumes of the Golden Age!

The Firefly is really Harley Hudson, a young biochemist who sought to understand the tremendous proportionate strength possessed by insects and found that it was as a result of their "muscular coordination," and further managed to unlock that same power within himself! Now he's on an anti-crime crusade, and I'm not sure if he's able to glow because of his muscular coordination abilities or he just has some phosphorescent paint slapped onto the front of his costume - the brief appearance of the character in the 60s Mighty Crusaders comic suggests the former, but they were also trying to make him some sort of equivalent of the Fireball and Inferno, so I don't know if I'm going to take that as canon. (Top-Notch Comics 008, 1940)

The Firefly also gets around in a "combination airplane and glider" called the Fireflier (or Fireflyer), which is an objectively great name for a subjectively terrible-looking vehicle. (Top-Notch Comics 009, 1940) 

the Black Hood: 

The Black Hood is perhaps the Archie/MLJ super-hero with the greatest number of different versions, both legacy and reboot-style. He also bumps the Wizard out of the top spot in Top-Notch as soon as he appears - someone at MLJ clearly really liked this guy from the start.

This original Black Hood (and a pretty decent percentage of his successors) is named Kip Burland, and he was a New York cop until he attempted to arrest super-villain the Skull while he was doing some crime and ended up framed and then murdered for his troubles. Except the murder didn't take, and Burland was found by an old hermit who nursed him back to health.

In an amazing coincidence, the hermit in question turns out to be a former sheriff who was also framed by the Skull, and who took so long in training for his revenge/redemption that he grew too old for the job. This turns out to be a perfect combination: the Hermit teaches Kip all that he knows, and the Black Hood sallies forth to mete out justice to the Skull. (Top-Notch Comics 009, 1940)