REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 021

They just love putting real folks and versions of real folks in comics and I just love finding them and putting them on my blog. 

Adolf Hitler:

An in-all-but-name version of Hitler gets mad at Citizen Smith for foiling his plans and plots. (Captain Fearless Comics 002, 1941)

Gang boss and Deacon foe Duke Adare's little toothbrush mustache is what initially drew my attention, even though that wasn't nearly as glaring a signpost of a character being a Hitler stand-in in the 1940s. As the story wore on it became clear that my instincts were correct, as Adare used overwhelming military force to overwhelm the lawmen of Midland City and loot its treasury. And then of course you get to the end of the story, where they're referring to him as a "would-be Crime Fuehrer". (Cat-Man Comics 005, 1941)

Minor appearances: 

Captain Fearless Comics 001, 1941 

Al Capone: 

Lou Pacone, gang boss and murderer of the Secret Circle's father, is yet another example of Al Capone's name being remixed to give someone a gangstery sounding moniker. (Choice Comics 001, 1941)

Axis & Allied Figures: 

"America's Air Army" was an extremely patriotic feature that was essentially US Army Air Force fan fiction about what would happen if and when the United States entered WWII, published just before they did. It's the tale of the US forces (with a little help from the Brits) curb stomping the Axis for about half an hour before we get this little scene, with Hitler surrendering while Goering, Walther von Brauchitch (recently relieved of duty when this comic was published), Cordell Hull (I think) and Churchill observe. (Air Fighters v1 001, 1941) 

FDR: 

The President gets kidnapped by Dr Sivana! And Rescued by Captain Marvel! (Whiz Comics 014, 1941)

Minor Appearances: Captain Aero Comics 001, 1941

Lord Haw-Haw: 

In his final Golden Age adventure, the Arrow aka intelligence agent Ralph Payne heads into Germany to apprehend the traitorous broadcaster "Lord Hawford." (The Arrow 003, 1941) 

Manuel Prado Ugarteche: 

Lance O'Casey and his pal Dan'l Doom wash up on the shores of Peru and get mixed up in a scheme to overthrow the country by the wicked El Tigre. They foil him and restore power to the rightful president, Alfredo Blanco, who is extremely not Manuel Prado Ugarteche, the Peruvian president in our version of 1941. (Whiz Comics 015, 1941)

Rudolph Hess: 

"Deputy-Dictator Brinker" lands in a farmer's field near Washington in what is certainly a reference to Hess' flight to Scotland but is in fact revealed to be part of a plan to invade the US. The whole thing is nearly undone by the fact that the FBI doesn't even bother to check on this seeming defection and just tells the poor farmer to deal with it. (Captain Fearless Comics 002, 1941)

Sherlock Holmes:

Dr Miracle is on the trail of a mystery, and who better to help than the summoned spirit of Sherlock Holmes Herlock Sholmes? Per the conceit of the story I guess this means that Sholmes was a real living guy at some point. (Champ Comics 012, 1941)

Unknown Dancers: 

Yet again we have an example of "this seems like a reference to something but I can't find specifics," in this case a dance team known as Velox & Costanza. The concept of a duo performing cultural dances from exotic locales crops up now and then as entertainment in comics but I'm never sure if the references to them are general or specific, and brief fads in live entertainment are among the trickiest things to casually research on the internet - it's more of a "comb through several years' worth of newspapers" kind of thing. (Whiz Comics 023, 1941)

Walter Winchell: 

As an example of why I include the Unknown entries in these round-ups: I had Walter Chinwell here listed as "Unknown Reporter" for something like two weeks before I came across Walter Winchell's name in a list of 1940s radio announcers. And Winchell is someone I had already heard of! (Silver Streak Comics 008, 1941) 

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 073

It's a fine day for a dose of minor super-heroes. 

Alias X: 

Alias, aka just X, is a mysterious master of disguise who has been cleaning up crime in NYC for the better part of a year and who, as of his first appearance, has now deigned to tell his origin story to Police Commissioner Malley and newspaper editor Hunch Armstrong.

Turns out that X was a small-town taxi company owner who was railroaded and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit, and that after two years in prison he managed to escape, became a master of disguise by sheer willpower and set out to battle crime until he could track down the crooks who really committed the crimes he was convicted for and clear his name.

The police commissioner must be a trusting guy, because he refrains from putting out an APB or whatever on Alias X after he hears this confession. 

As far as I can tell from a skim of the 1942 portion of Alias X's dozen or so adventures, he never catches up with the crooks who framed him - just one of the many loose ends of the comics. Please also note that Alias X is a calling card guy. (Captain Fearless Comics 001, 1941)

Citizen Smith: 

Citizen Smith! Plain old John Smith, who could be any one of us regular Americans! Just a regular guy! So why are we reading a comic book about him?

Citizen Smith is in actuality John Smith, an aircraft factory worker in Washington DC and also an orphan consumed with the desire to know just who his parents were. While stewing on this after work one day he wanders up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where he receives both great news and a great shock as a ghostly figure appears and tells him that he, the Unknown Soldier, is Smith's father.

Smith's new ghost dad charges him to keep America safe, with the promise that he will appear and aid his son if needed (sadly this does not occur in either of the two recorded Citizen Smith adventures). The newly-created Citizen's Guardian of Liberty and Guardian of the American Way then sallies forth to whale on fifth columnists with his two good all-American fists.

Now, I try to take comics as they are presented to me and not engage in a lot of "what if they were dead the whole time"-style fan theory nonsense but I will say that if I were writing a gritty early-2000s Citizen Smith reboot... all this ghost stuff would just be a hallucination brought on by his obsessions, right? Just a lonely man giving his life meaning by latching on to a powerful symbol to fill the hole in his life. But of course that is not who we are here. Citizen Smith is as he appears: a divinely ordained champion of the American Way. (Captain Fearless Comics 001, 1941)

Miss Victory: 

Miss Victory is Joan Wayne, a woman who works in Washington DC in secretarial and similar roles and who seems to have seen an opening for a two-fisted vigilante and filled it, no further origin necessary. There is some hint that her vigilantism is officially sanctioned in the first couple of panels of her first appearance, but if so she has very little oversight. She is much more willing to resort to violence than a lot of her female contemporaries, which is kind of refreshing.

Miss Victory does share with our old friend the Eagle the inability to really settle on a costume design, so I'm sure that we'll be revisiting her in that capacity. 

Case in point: this revised version of her costume from her second appearance, in Captain Fearless Comics 002. As with most of her costume changes it's a variation on the theme of her previous look and is probably explained by the fact that she  (Captain Fearless Comics 001, 1941) 

Mr Miracle: 

Mr Miracle is of course among the ranks of the obscure Golden Age characters who have the same name as a more well-known modern character, but he is also a member of a much more select fraternity: of characters whose origin involves a suicide attempt, though the precise reason that the unnamed man had for jumping is never given.

The future Mr Miracle is pulled out of the water by a helpful stranger and brought to the great scientist Professor Rietz, who revives him via a twenty hour session under his "mind-ray," only to be betrayed and shot by his assistant Sango at the final hour. Sango turns out to have been a foreign agent who was laying in wait for the mind-ray to be perfected, and now the hour has come.

The still-unnamed man wakes to a ruined laboratory and a dying Rietz, who reveals to him in addition to saving his life, the mind-ray has given him great if unspecified powers. He then extracts a pledge from the man that he will use this power to aid mankind and promptly dies.

The man creates a costume, renames himself Mr Miracle and sets out to use is vast array of abilities (transmutation, teleportation, telekinesis, intangibility, size control, flight, etc, etc. Though Mr Miracle is technically some sort of psychic mutate he is in effect a nigh-omnipotent comic book magic user) to bring Sango to justice. 

Mr Miracle gets to honour the promise he made to Prof. Rietz precisely one more time (by sinking a u-boat) before fading into the mists of comic book obscurity. (Captain Fearless Comics 001, 1941)