MEDIA IN COMICS 009

I hope you like media from comics, because I certainly do and I am going to keep doing these.

Comics:

Bullied bootblack Timothy Smith just wants to buy a comic book with his last nickel and he has a whole selection of Fox Features titles to choose from, but what draws his eye is a book called The Land of Magic, a comic so fantastical and majestical that he wishes himself away to live inside its pages the next time he gets beaten up. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

We never actually see the Colossal Guy comic book, but this Colossal Guy superfan is evidence enough that he is a character with get-up and go. Enough to inspire Captain Bruce Blackburn to invent his alter ego of the Destroying Demon, in fact. (Feature Comics 039, 1940)

"Ripley's Believe it or Not" had enough cultural caché in its time that there are innumerable plays on it in comics, just as there were imitators in real life. These mostly differ by how successful a play on the name they have: "Don't You Doubt It," as consulted by Eve Colby as part of one of Spy Smasher's cases, is about average. (Whiz Comics 005, 1940)

Magazines:

I have a lot of affection for the concept behind Jim Dolan, two-fisted magazine editor, who solves crimes and then writes about them for Daring Detective Magazine. The magazine itself is fine. (Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

Movies:

We never learn more about The Big Snatch other than that it is a mystery thriller. The big joke here is of course that the star of the film is comics creator Joe Devlin. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

Likewise, we never learn much about the Western Hearts of the Range other than the fact that it starred the blowhard Sheriff O'Toole. (All-American Comics 021, 1940)

Melody of 1941 here is likely a play on Broadway Melody of 1940 and as such a musical, and stars a couple of classic mixed-up name actors in Tyrone Taylor (Tyrone Power/ Robert Taylor) and Myrna Rogers (Myrna Loy/ Ginger Rogers). (Detective Comics v1 046 1940)

We have no information at all about Old Bill. It has a pretty big premiere for a movie with such a drab name, so it must have something going for it. (Action Comics v1 028, 1940)

Oriental Horror is the name of the hit movie that made Barry Moore's name just before he quit acting, moved back to Center City to become a police scientist and adopted the identity of the Scarlet Seal based on the yellowface character he played in the movie. I would venture a guess that the film is not considered an enduring classic in the present day DC Universe. (Smash Comics 016, 1940)

She Made Him Love Her! is the name of a romantic movie attended by Sisty and Dinky, aka the daughter of the future Red Tornado and the brother of teen cartoonist Scribbly, aka the future Cyclone Kids, after the former falls in undying love with the latter. And to be fair to her the duo are canonicall later married, so this is a proven tactic. Eventually.

The movie itself might be loosely based on the film They Knew What They Wanted, or I might be grasping at straws. (All-American Comics 012, 1940)

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 004

More wounds for the wound god!

American Ace:

Minor Marvel adventure hero Parry Wade, aka the American Ace, is riddled through the torso and crashes his plane after a dogfight. He gets better. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)

Black X:

Shot in the left shoulder by agents of Vlamir Koran, then nearly dies of exposure while seeking aid. (Smash Comics 001, 1939)

Black X's aide Batu gets shot in the left shoulder on his next mission, while Black X himself gets his skull creased by a bullet. (Smash Comics 002, 1939)

Finally, Black X gets his right arm broken by a guy named Taneo. (Smash Comics 005, 1939)

Clip Carson:

Shot in the left shoulder by the dastardly Mister K. (More Fun Comics 068, 1941)

the Devil's Dagger: 

The Devil's Dagger's aide Pat Gleason is shot in the right leg by the dastardly Mr H. (Master Comics 015, 1941)

Jim Dolan: 

Two-fisted magazine editor Jim Dolan is not only thrown off a bridge to drown but machine gunned on the way down. Thankfully they only get his left shoulder. (Wow Comics 002, 1941)

Ka-Zar:

The Golden Age Ka-Zar is covered in shallow cuts as torture. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

A few issues later he gets shot in the (left? side by an unscrupulous hunter. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 011, 1940)

And a few issues after that, the same unscrupulous hunter shoots him in the (left?) arm. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941)

Tiny: 

The Ragman's sidekick Tiny is shot in the right arm by a Nazi. (Cat-Man Comics 005, 1941)

DIVINE ROUND-UP 015

Hate and deception abound in this batch of deities.

Wangwa, God of Hate: 

Wangwa, God of Hate is the personal god of Okoro, medicine man of the Blancas and enemy of Doctor Voodoo. I've never decided if the Evil Medicine Man trope is mere condescension toward native spiritual practices or a porting over of the Evil Vizier archetype to jungle comics, and in all honesty it's probably both. Anyway, Okoro fits the mould to a T and he worships the god of hate. Sorry he's so fuzzy.

God Style: Idol (Whiz Comics 008, 1940) 

Cheops:

Adventurer Clip Carson and his archaeologist companion Jim Blake are searching for the fabled lost tomb of Cheops one day when they find themselves in the midst of an entire cult dedicated to the worship of what is apparently the resurrected Pharaoh himself. Carson and Blake are captured by the cult, upon which the supposed Cheops - with very little prompting, mind you - reveals himself to be Sergeant Beatty of the local colonial government, out to seize the treasures of Cheops for himself. Blake and Carson of course escape, and along the way Beatty is exposed as a fraud and torn apart by his former devotees. 

The deep need for modern Egyptians in adventure fiction to turn to Ancient Egyptian religion, but only in the most secret, cultish, conspiratorial way is another one of those things that you end up wondering about once you read it enough times. Is it merely a fun and easy way to inject some mysterious action into your story? If so, why does it crop up instories set in Egypt so much more than ones set in Greece of Italy? Is it racism again? 

God Style: Complicated - Cheops/Khufu could be considered to be a deified ruler of Egypt, even though the practice of doing so became common something like a thousand years after his time. Plus this is just some dude posing as him. (Action Comics v1 016, 1939)

Doolong: 

Remember Korieg the Sea Devil from a little while ago? Well, the same island people who hate that guy just love to worship Doolong, "god of [their] ancestors". Not too much detail on Doolong, other than a) his idol is just a little face mounted on the wall and b) he slings a very accurate prophecy - he totally predicts the arrival of Tex Thomson and his party on the island, even if the small matter of Tex being the Princess' destined mate is inaccurate. 

God Style: Idol (Real?) (Action Comics v1 011, 1939)

the Druid God: 

This is possibly only obvious to someone who lives in the area, but the "group of islands" being indicated in the above image is clearly Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Was Cape Breton seen as a place just far enough outside of the everyday for things like shipwrecks and secret cults to happen in, or did "Reynolds of the Mounted" scribe and lifelong resident of New York State Art Pinajian just trace a random bit of Canadian coastline and call it a day?

Speaking of shipwrecks and secret cults, the first of those happens when Sergeant Reynolds heads toward the last known location of missing rich guy Johnny Westlake. Like Johnny, Reynolds washes up on the shore and is found and nursed back to health by local Pierre Dulac.

Westlake has been on the island long enough to be able to relate the local legend of the Druid Cave, a spooky cave surrounded by spooky rock formations and regarded with fear by the superstitious islanders, who believe that though the cave is full of gold it is also cursed and that anyone venturing inside will die. Reynolds and Westlake venture inside after finding a local fisherman dying on the nearby beach and discover that the cave does in fact contain an ancient treasure and that the curse is probably just plain old asphyxiation thanks to some natural gas deposits.

Here's where the cult comes in: the islanders just kind of spontaneously develop it after finding Westlake emerging from the cave shortly before an explosion rocks the countryside. Never trust a group who turn to human sacrifice as a first option, is what I always say.

In the end, the real culprit behind the murders and explosions turns out to be Pierre Dulac, who, far from being an altruistic soul, has been manipulating the situation to bring maximum chaos as a distraction while he sneaks off with the treasure. He didn't reckon with Reynolds' tenacity, of course, and ends up exploding along with the treasure and all evidence of whatever fantastic culture produced the Druid Cave. The islanders just kind of scatter, presumably to keep the worship of the Druid God alive in secret.

God Style: Invoked (Feature Comics 045, 1941)

PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 001

The kinds of character that are a part of comics history so it would be wrong to ignore them but are also pretty racist (usually - I'm sure that eventually I'll find something else distasteful enough to put here) and unpleasant to dedicate a whole lot of time to. We're going with a round-up!

Our first culprit is George Harvard AKA Big Sun, a guy with a way too complicated plan to sell oil to the Axis out of the Florida Everglades under the cover of being a geological surveyor or prospector or something. He comes to the attention of adventurer Clip Carson due to not accounting for his partner maybe poking around looking for samples like their job is supposed to be? It's a bad plan.

I'm mad at myself for finding Big Sun's mask so cool looking, but it's mitigated by how dumb his gimmick is: he has a shiny breastplate on under his robe and he reveals it flasher-style to blind his foes. Hence the name, I guess. (More Fun Comics 069, 1941) 

I didn't even know that Zingaro was an Italian slur for people of Romani descent until I looked up this guy - just why it was used as the name of a fellow trying to take over Mexico I will never know. On the one hand he is stopped by weirdo character the Voice so that's good. On the other, he gets away so there's a chance he could appear again, which is bad. It's okay though: the Voice only ever had two adventures and this is the second one.

Thankfully there aren't too many characters whose names are racial slurs. (Amazing-Man Comics 022, 1941)

I don't know if you could call it lucky, per se, but it is kind of fortunate for the purposes of this round-up that I'm hitting a lot of the major categories of racist super-villains all in one go. We'll see if this questionable luck holds for the fourth entry.

So: Banga the Elephant God is predicated on the old trope that indigenous peoples are so credulous and superstitious that they will believe that anything (eg, a big mean elephant with a guy in a skull mask on it) is a god or other supernatural occurrence - in this case the people of the hidden jungle civilization of Yenya are helped along by the fact that the human part of the Banga gestalt is actually their witch doctor (called a "wizard doctor" in this case, which is kind of a neat linguistic variation if nothing else). Banga is eventually unmasked by jungle hero Morak the Mighty and meets his dual ends.

As with so many racist characters it is very unfortunate that Banga the Elephant God looks sick as hell. (Super-Magic Comics 001, 1941)

The very next issue we have more of the same: a bunch of white guys dress up like the very cool looking Lizard-Lion Men of local legend and fleece ivory out of villagers in... Malaysia? If Rex King aka Black Fury stayed put between issues then it's Malaysia.

There's not too much to these guys: one of them hides inside the statue of the Lizard-Lion in the local temple and says for the locals to bring all of their ivory hence and then costumed goons go beat up anyone who refuses. And then Black Fury beats them up. (Super-Magician v1 002, 1941)

We didn't hit all the greats in one go - there's a lot of untapped racism coming up once we hit the comics of 1942 after all - but it's a good - bad? - sample.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 403: THE AVENGER

(More Fun Comics 073, 1941)

Just a Central American general trying to overthrow his government with crypto-fascist backing, foiled by Clip Carson because he and his men were covered with rice from their rice warehouse HQ. Much more interesting is the fact that this is one of the occasional comics set in a real country but with off-the-cuff, made-up information. In this case, it's the fact that Clip is in Honduras at the behest of its president, who is a man named Campano, and not the real-life in-office-for-more-than-eight-years Tiburcio Andino.