MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 975: THE SMILER

(Fight Comics 016, 1941) 

The Smiler! A grody-looking gang boss with a permanent crooked smile thanks to a facial scar! I can't actually figure out where this scar is actually supposed to be - I suppose that it must be there, but the Smiler's face is so covered in seams and divots that it doesn't stand out.

The Smiler is such a ruthless and dastardly crook that he accepts a commission from Nazi agent Blitz to steal the engine-killing ray that local inventor Professor Adams is developing for the US government. Any qualms that he might have about betraying his country in this way are smoothed over by the fact that Blitz is paying him a cool one million dollars to do it.

As is so often the case, the Smiler appearas to have come up with at least three viable plans to steal the ray but rather than committing to any one of them he just does them all at once. The first and second plans are similar in nature: the Smiler disguises himself as a mysterious figure called the Countess and moves into a mansion near Professor Adams' house, while his gang replaces the entire police force of Freeville, Maryland. Having successfully infiltrated Freeville society (twice!), the gang are now in a perfect position to acquire the ray via subterfuge, perhaps by arresting Professor Adams on trumped-up charges or arranging for the Countess to have a tour of the lab.

Instead, the fake police round up the entire adult population of Freeville and kill anyone who resists and then threatens to kill everyone if they don't give up the Professor. In addition to invalidating the effort that was put into the stealth-based aspects of the plan - the Countess part in particular is now just an excuse for a cheap laugh - this gives Adams time to make a fake ray that is in fact a time bomb to hand over and potentially sacrifice himself in the process to save the town.

It never actually comes to that, however, because Freeville is the home of patriotic super-hero Captain Fight, who teams up with Adams' son Yank to beat the absolute tar out of both the Smiler and Blitz (and possibly drown the latter?).

The Smiler returns in 1942's Fight Comics 017, but thanks to a change of artists has lost his signature crooked grin in favour of a more generic one. This time out he's stealing British supply ships to sell on to the Axis and gets beaten up for his trouble once more.

Categorized in: Accessories (Distinctive Scars), Body (Mouth), Misc (Gang Bosses)

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)