MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 539 UPDATE: THE CLAW (vs. The Ghost, 1941)

(Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

Everything gonna be all right - the Claw hasn't been seen for 10 days after he was set on fire and disappeared into the Hudson River.

Psych, he's back after maybe a month or two total, getting his huge fingerprints all over the skyscrapers and gassing on about taking over the US. And who will stop him this time, with the Daredevil out of the Claw-fighting game, Bill Hopkins understandably keeping a low profile and Jerry Morris a distant memory?

 A NEW CHALLENGER APPEARS!

The Ghost's self-appointed crusade against the Claw gets off to a great start, as he whales on him across the Manhattan skyline for seven solid hours and then forces his retreat with a crate of TNT. Given the punishment that we have seen the Claw take in the past I must ask: is any of this actually harming him, or does it just hurt? It's not like he is ever visibly harmed, after all. In any case, the day is saved!

Daredevil Comics 006: The Claw hatches a plan to demoralize the US that involves kidnapping 13 women and which is never actually explained.

The reason that it is never explained is because the Ghost shows up just before the Claw can finish his expository sentence and proceeds to bounce rocks off of his head until he passes out. Presumably this also takes several hours. The Ghost rescues the ladies and the Claw wakes up with an enormous headache. Here's hoping that he expands his villain portfolio in 1942, because there are only so many interesting variations on "the Claw attempts to conquer the US and gets his ass beaten for it."

Miss X:

Miss X is a spy sent by Adolf Hitler to organize the fifth column in the US during that ten day gap in which everyone was hoping that he might be dead, only to find him alive and just as huge as ever.

The Claw somehow gets wind of Miss X's presence in NYC and arranges a meeting with her to discuss a Claw/Nazi alliance to conquer North America. Hitler agrees despite his one unsuccessful and one disastrous prior alliance with the Claw. As a result, super spy Miss X spends the majority of her two 1941 appearances en route between German and NYC. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 539 UPDATE: THE CLAW (post-Daredevil, 1941)

In keeping with my decision to split the Claw updates for 1941 by heroic foe, here are the details of his three-issue dalliance with engineer Bill Hopkins.

When last we saw the Claw... he was in the Pacific, roughing up Adolf Hitler. But before that, at the end of his long back-and-forth with the Daredevil, there was the small matter of his asking Lucifer for aid and getting it, with the caveat that if he still lost in his next encounter with Daredevil he would be "banished into Asia forever!" And since he did lose, that means that he can't return to America, right?

Evidently not, because in  Daredevil Comics 002, the Claw kidnaps a train filled with 2000 soldiers as it passes through Pennsylvania, then sends a note to the president (note the custom signature) to ask for the complete US gold supply in ransom.

Meanwhile, the Claw is showing his prisoners home movies designed to bend them to his will. Note the Hitler impression: in 1941 this is shorthand for being a megalomaniac rather than a genocidal megalomaniac (though in all cases it marks you as being a bit of an uninspired hack). Whether he gets the gold or not, the Claw intends to use these men in yet another attempt to conquer the US.

One of these soldiers, Dick Hopkins, has a brother named Bill Hopkins, who has the radical idea to retrace the path of the original train in a second one and see if anything happens, which it does. This really erodes my confidence in the authorities of this fictional reality, frankly. You'd think "take a couple of lads and check the tracks between here and where the train disappeared" would be the logical first step to take but Bill seems to be the first one to think of it. 

Perhaps the Claw was able to return to America by sacrificing some of his power to Lucifer, because Bill Hopkins' thrown rocks and pistol shots are much more effective than such things as artillery and machine guns have been in the past.

The second part of Bill's plan, after "find out where the Claw has stashed 2000 men" is "come find me if I disappear" and accordingly, in Daredevil Comics 003, the US Army locates the Claw's base by following the extra set of train tracks that split off the main trunk and head directly into a cliff face. Once again, the Claw seems weaker than usual and the Army is pushing his forces back successfully enough that he orders his men to flood the base with poison gas. It is at this point that Bill has his best idea yet, as he steals the Claw's enormous gas mask and chucks it down a convenient bottomless pit.

The Claw is more affected by poison gas than the regular-sized humans in the room thanks to the fact that his big body needs more oxygen and thus are breathing in more gas, and while I love a well-rationalized weakness in a character it does call into question all future Claw foes for not immediately tear gassing him on sight.

What I don't love is that the Claw, already a distillation of Yellow Peril tropes, is one-upping himself by adopting what I just learned is called a wonton font in his speech bubbles. I think that it's supposed to be adding emphasis when he is yelling but at this point he is almost always yelling.

 Daredevil Comics 004: The Claw brought into NYC in chains/in triumph. He almost instantly escapes.

Seeking vengeance on Bill Hopkins, the Claw fords the Hudson River and in so doing becomes the first-ever super-villain to enter Hoboken.

Bill doesn't take this aggression lying down, and meets the Claw on a handy rooftop with a can of kerosene and a match, and this is a pretty good illustration of a though I have had while writing this: the Claw battling super-heroes is all well and good, but what I really enjoy is seeing him get it from regular folks. Bill Hopkins and his Home Alone energy might just be the best that the "Claw" feature ever gets, and it's a real shame that this is the last we will be seeing of him.

The Claw very reasonably exits via the river. So long forever, Bill. Next time: the Ghost!

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 023

It's an Axis-heavy Round-Up this time, for reasons which will soon become clear.

Adolf Hitler:

Daredevil Comics 001 might not have been the first comic book to feature its title character physically attacking Adolf Hitler on the front cover, but it makes up for this in sheer volume of different characters who are getting in on the act. And the comic itself is also 100% concerned with super-heroes beating up and otherwise inconveniencing Hitler.

Hitler's first appearance in the comic proper also includes a rogue's gallery of Third Reich figures, including Josef Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, Admiral von Roeder* and General Walther von Brauchitsch. Also present: the fortune teller who supposedly advised Hitler on a day-to-day basis.

*more on him later 

Though Daredevil is present to merely spy on the well-attended meeting above, he is found out and has to punch out not just Hitler but Goering and Goebbels as well in order to make his escape.

Hitler's second major humiliation in the issue comes at the hands claws of the Claw. He makes a deal with the giant villain on behalf of his Japanese allies, but the Daredevil gets involved in and ruins the whole operation.

Hitler has to pay a hefty bribe just to get out with his skin intact. This is a fine illustration of why most villains don't negotiate this sort of thing in person.

 

Finally, the suprisingly hands-on Hitler is coordinating a Nazi invasion of Africa when the Daredevil and jungle hero Lance Hale get involved, giving the Daredevil the opportunity to land two more punches and a boomerang-assisted trip on the dictator.

Lance Hale, meanwhile, pranks Hitler by giving him a shave with an incredibly accurate arrow, then almost body slams him to death before he is interrupted by Nazis. (Daredevil Comics 001, 1941) 

Benito Mussolini: 

A sad cameo from Il Duce after a portion of his fleet is sunk by the British. (Daredevil Comics 001, 1941) 

Heinrich Himmler:

Is Blackout's Nazi foe Heinrich Himmel meant to be a version of Himmler or is it just a very Nazi collection of syllables? Hard to say. (Captain Battle Comics 001, 1941) 

Hermann Goering: 

Like Hitler, Goering is surprisingly willing to lead from the front in this issue. He loses a dogfight with Cloud Curtis and almost kills himself over it. (Daredevil Comics 001, 1941)

Josef Goebbels:

Goebbels, meanwhile, steals a codebreaking machine devised by by boy inventor Dickie Dean.

He doesn't manage to hang onto it for long before he gets beaten up and mummified by Dean and the Daredevil (and Zip Todd, of course). (Daredevil Comics 001, 1941)

the Koh-i-noor Diamond: 

Once more a big ol' gem is given a name that sounds like "Koh-i-noor," in this case the (baseball-sized!) Kohnoor Diamond. (Captain Battle Comics 002, 1941)

Lord Haw-Haw: 

Lord Garnett here is a bit of a rarity as he starts out as a masked spy who will be appearing in the next Generic Costumed Villain Round-Up and then, after shooting Whiz, King of Falcons (see the next Catalogue of Wounds) flees to Germany and takes up a career in propaganda broadcasting, where his distinctive and annoying laugh earns him the epithet "Lord Hee-Haw."

His new career doesn't last very long, as he is shot down by the Silver Streak while doing some aerial broadcasting. (Daredevil Comics 001, 1941)

Admiral von Roeder:

Who is von Roeder is a very good question, because I can find no evidence that he actually existed. There are four plausible explanations for this:

1. He's a fictional Nazi who somehow got conflated with real ones. 

2. There was an Admiral von Roeder but he was only noteworthy for exactly the length of time it took for this comic to be written and he thereafter sank into such obscurity that he is no longer remembered.

3. The state of internet search is so wretched that a moderately obscure Nazi is currently unsearchable.

4. They couldn't come up with a real Nazi Admiral and so just made one up. 

Regardless of his actual historicity, this von Roeder is beaten up by both Daredevil and a time-travelling Pirate Prince. (Daredevil Comics 001, 1941) 

Winston Churchill: 

Churchill invites both Daredevil and Silver Streak (and the most obnoxious version of Whiz, King of Falcons) to No. 10 Downing St to solicit their help with the war effort. (Daredevil Comics 001, 1941)

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