MEDIA IN COMICS 008

We're not out of the extremely crusty scan woods yet, but the media of comics must be recorded, folks. Hang in there.

Books:

When Diamond Jack defeats his early foe the Witch and transforms her book of magic into 1000 Ways to Cook Spinach, there is one big unanswered question: did this spinach cookbook already exist or did his ring magically compile 1000 recipes on its own? (Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

Early Batman foe the Wolf, meanwhile, got his start after suffering a head trauma and fixating on the crime thriller he was reading, titled The Crime Master. (Batman Comics v1 002, 1940)

Human Knowledge, a book compiled by the sinister Professor Universe that contains "every fact known to man" is used by Slaughter Slade to imbue his assistant Dr Allirog with the mind of a human genius. (Special Edition Comics 001, 1940)

Usually when you hear about a reclusive scholar writing a book about how "sinister persons or forces plan to deliberately stave off the return of national prosperity" you're in for some paranoid fascist rantings, but in this case it's the early 40s, so the sinister forces discussed in Prosperity's Foe *are* the fascists. (Superman Comics 004, 1940)

Wretched Marine character Strut Warren attempts to peddle a book called The Jolly Homemakers' Manual around Bali in an attempt to win a prize, a typically tiresome adventure for the character. (Fight Comics 016, 1941)

When a mysterious virus called the Purple Plague starts ravaging Metropolis, Clark Kent and his pal Professor Henry Travers his the library to research a historical instance of the same disease, in a book also called The Purple Plague. It turns out that the Ultra Humanite had also checked out the same book and that it had given him the idea to unleash the modern plague in imitation of the original. (Action Comics v1 019, 1939)

Movies:

Air Circus is a airplane stunt-heavy film that is plagued by accidents while filming until pilot Gary Hawkes gets involved and exposes the scheming director's plot to scuttle the production and then turn a quick buck by buying up the incomplete footage. (More Fun Comics 039, 1939)

Its the same old story: a film called The General's Daughter shoots some scenes at the Army installation where Skip Schuyler works, there's a series of incidents and then Skip has to save the day. Not too sure what the movie is supposed to be about. (Adventure Comics 043, 1939)

It may be the crustiest and crunchiest lowest quality scan here, but Public Enemy #13 is a pretty fun name for a movie and I think that that makes up for it, at least a little. (More Fun Comics 040, 1939)

Newspaper Columns:

"Around the Avenue" is one of those old-school society gossip columns that they used to have in papers, and while Rennie McCavoy here is playing into Wesley Dodds' hands by writing him up as a wild party dude/ potential victim for the story's villain, it's hard to respect the journalistic effort involved in seeing a guy being quietly drunk at a nightclub and pouncing on him like this. (Adventure Comics 044, 1939)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 023

Perhaps we should make ethics a mandatory subject for the sciences again.

Kruger: 

While tooling around in the desert one day, Diamond Jack encounters a young woman named Ruth West, whose physician brother has been captured by the diabolical scientist Kruger and taken to Terror Valley in order to help in Kruger's work turning men into hybrid creatures called Vulture Men, with the ultimate goal of using them to take over the world. If that plot sounds at all familiar, it's because it is almost exactly the same as the one in Wonderworld Comics 015, featuring the Flame and Dr Belos, right down to the name of the valley, the colour of the Vulture men and the fact that the scientist has his own private hydroelectric dam.

Just how did this happen? Three distinct possibilities spring to mind:

1. The Diamond Jack writer (Gus Ricca? He's got the generally accepted art credit) just plain old cribbed the story off of the Flame adventure, which came out about six months earlier

2. Gus Ricca and the Flame writer (unidentified) knew one another and came up with the idea for the story together in the reasonable expectation that nobody would notice. Alternately, the same person might have written both stories for two different artists.

3. The biggest coincidence in the history of mankind.

Whatever the reason for it, we are left with two very similar stories to compare:

Kruger's Vulture Men are much more appealing to me than Belos' - particularly their weird pawlike hands. While Belos' version does look a bit more like something you could do to a person via surgery (except for the part where they have functional dragon wings coming out of their backs of course), the lack of humanity in the bird heads of Kruger's really drives home the horror of their being transformed against their wills. I also appreciate their seemingly organic feather kilts.

Kruger also has a better look than Belos - his having a bit of the vulture to his look makes a lot of aesthetic sense! I do miss Belos' one long tooth, though.

The one place where Kruger loses out to Belos is in means of destruction. Being drowned by your own bursting dam doesn't hold a candle to getting fatally beaned with the skull of one of your own failed experiments (though "I'm drowning - AAAGH!" are pretty good last words). (Wow Comics 001, 1940)

Categorized in: Animals (Birds) 

Professor Stargaze: 

Professor Stargaze is a mad astronomer (nominative determinism) who discovers that the wandering and flaming planet Inferno will soon pass near Earth and wipe all life from its surface. Not only does Stargaze decide not to share this information with the world (possibly a morally neutral act) but he is so convinced that it is the right thing to happen that he tags along with Zambini the Miracle Man and tries to prevent him from stopping it (actively evil).

Stargaze is ultimately fried to a crisp when he attempts to assassinate Zambini with a flaming spear, then reincarnated as a rat by magic, then restored to his human form back on Earth once it is saved. Has he learned a lesson from all this? Unclear. (Zip Comics 002, 1940)

Categorized in: Day Jobs (Astronomers), Doctors and Professors

Doctor Igor:

Doctor Igor is a scientist with a vision: to develop a method of creating giant men via electrical stimulation of the pituitary gland, and to use an army of these men to take over the world. To that end, he has taken over a remote island (probably because it already has a castle on it) and used its inhabitants as guinea pigs.

Igor probably saw the fact that the island had a copra plantation on it as a plus, since it provided a supply experimental subjects for him, but what he failed to anticipate was that an interruption of commercial product is likely to draw the attention of an adventurer such as Lance Rand to investigate just what the heck was going on. Igor is ultimately undone when his own creation trips over some equipment and blows up the castle. (Cat-Man Comics 002, 1941)

Categorized in: Accessories (Castles), Doctors and Professors 

Borcia:

Borcia (also called "Garcia" one time which is probably an editorial oversight but possibly means that his name is either Garcia Borcia or Borcia Garcia) is a formerly-famous scientist whose mind cracked due to overwork and who now dreams of world conquest. And how better to achieve that dream than by stealing the magic gem owned by small-time super-hero Dr Diamond?

Once both the gem and Dr Diamond are in his clutches, Borcia reveals his world domination plot: let loose a moderately cool-looking giant robot called Najar to just kind of indiscriminately rampage through the nearby town of Verez, Mexico. Presumably there will be more robots later on. As for the magic diamond: it seems to play no real role in the plan. Borcia just wanted it, I guess.

As so often happens, Borcia is betrayed by his own step-daughter Elena, who just wants a normal, non-evil life and resents being part of a super-villainous household. Dr Diamond proves more than a match for Najar, and despite some typical super-villain bluster as he is lead off to jail, Borcia is never seen again. (Cat-Man Comics 003, 1941)

Categorized in: Accessories (Gems (Magic), Giant Robots), Location (Mexico)

DIVINE ROUND-UP 018

Idols, idols, idols! 

the Great God Khwass: 

Khwass, Great God of Vengeance, is a comparatively rare villain's god who actually follows through on his promises. He is invoked vs Dr Fung by the daughter of a former foe and not only replies to her prayers but deploys sleeping gas and a weird monster to aid her in her quest for vengeance. 

God Style: Real (Wonderworld Comics 016, 1940)

Ice God Emul:

Captain Venture and the Planet Princess Zyra's great enemy, King Leon of Asteroid Djung, loves to subcontract out his villainy, and to that end he has engaged the services of Frigo, King of the Ice Planet. Frigo is to kill Captain Venture and deliver Zyra to King Leon for marriage but of course betrays him and slates all three for sacrifice to the Ice God Emul.

The idol of Emul is destroyed in the subsequent battle and escape, and what's interesting here is that Emul is explicitly just the idol. As Frigo states, "the god Emul is no more." Wild.

God Style: Idol (Master Comics 015, 1941)

Bubastis & Isis:

In an early adventure in Egypt, Zatara comes across a member of a lost archaeological expedition who is on the verge of death, and who is magically revealed to have found a lost temple to Bubastis. Travelling there in hopes of finding the rest of the expedition, Zatara encounters the ancient priest Amen-Hotep, who is part of one of those weird remnant Ancient Egyptian populations that exist under the sands of Egypt in adventure fiction, and whose priestly magics are comparable to Zatara's own.

The temple of Bubastis also turns out to be a temple to Isis, as Zatara discovers when he meets a less-powerful but still magically potent priestess of Isis and is almost sacrificed by her. Amen-Hotep seems to be an Isis worshipper as well, as he animates a statue of the goddess to smite Zatara with - it's possible that the two goddesses are being conflated here.

Zatara ends up melting the statue of Isis and disintegrating Amen-Hotep. The priestess is "sent away," presumably with the rest of her people in tow, and the temple is turned over to the archaeologists to plunder.

God Style: Real (Action Comics 005, 1938) 

Khor: 

Khor is known as the Blind God because the magical diamond that was the eye of his idol was stolen long ago, and since that diamond subsequently became the source of super-heroic adventurer Diamond Jack's power, the priesthood of Khor is out for his blood.

The high priest animates the idol of Khor and sends it to destroy Diamond Jack and recover the eye. This is impressive but not innovative - we just saw the Amen-Hotep do the same with a statue of Isis, after all - but what is is the custom roadster-cum-juggernaut that the thing rides around in. Was ever aan evil god so sporty?

The whole thing ends back at the temple, as Diamond Jack disrupts the ritual that keeps Khor animated and the high priest ends up being crushed under the falling idol. So long, Khor. 

God Style: Idol (Real?) (Slam-Bang Comics 004, 1940) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 127: THE SKY DEMON

(Slam-Bang Comics 006, 1940) 

The Sky Demon is a heretofore-unseen old enemy of Diamond Jack who starts strong with an overall Satanic look and a little skull on the front of his trunks - just the right amount of accessorizing to make a pretty basic super-outfit pop.

I also love his plot to conquer Earth and/or wipe out humanity: get some gorillas, give them wings and revolvers and let them loose. I can't say whether or not his plan would have succeeded because he was fatally prevented from carrying it out by Diamond Jack.

Gorilla-based schemes aside, I really like the parallel of Diamond Jack the magic ring-powered hero vs the Sky Demon and his little magic cape. A sub-ecosystem of heroes and villains weilding magic items of various kinds sounds like it could be interesting comics fodder!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 124: MARIA, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES

(Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

I quite like Maria. Firstly, she is a vampire with bat wings, which is a feature that hardly ever shows up any more. Also she sleeps in a coffin filled with the bones of her victims, which is not a bit of vampire lore that I am familiar with but which does rule. She hangs out in a castle somewhere in the US and vampirizes random motorists in anticipation of the day that she has enough minions to take over the world. She even manages to turn Diamond Jack briefly but he manages to resist the full transformation due to being good and pure.

She has these weird minions that may or may not be another kind of vampire? They kind of look like bipedal panthers with bat wings. I love them.

Like I said she manages to vamp Diamond Jack, which she achieves by pretending defeat, offering to kiss his ring and then biting out the magic diamond. A clever move, but ultimately undone when the gem refuses to act against Jack and returns to his ring.

Ultimately, Maria ends up turned into a skeleton and her cool looking castle is transformed into a cemetery for the other vampires, who I guess were less redeemable than Diamond Jack.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 018: DIAMOND JACK

(Slam-Bang Comics 001-007, 1940)

Diamond Jack is pretty simple conceptually: he's a guy in a suit with a magic ring and he fights crime. He doesn't have much in the way of backstory or supporting cast - just your average Golden Age adventurer type.

He is canonically anti-Nazi, even though all of his appearances are from 1940, so that's a point in his favour. Mostly his stories are entertaining due to the number of wacky supernatural villains he battles. And as always I'm an advocate of BRINGING BACK magic item users as legacy heroes. A magic ring with a heroic history (and half a dozen pre-baked villains but virtually no other baggage) is a good starting point for a new hero, and Diamond Jack is even a completely gender-neutral name so they could be literally anyone!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 122: THE GREEN DEVIL

(Slam-Bang Comics 003, 1940)

I really like the Green Devil. He has a lot going on! He has an army of the living dead, an island base, and a hurricane generator. He's conservatively 10 ft tall and looks like the Devil (with green skin, natch)

His main scheme is to disrupt the laws of magic, which not only weakens his enemy Diamond Jack's magic ring but also for some reason causes regular stage magic and stuff like snake charming and sword swallowing to turn deadly in some of the more low-key gruesome panels I've read recently.

Finally, in classic magic villain style he meets a pretty ignoble end as he is transformed into a book and then blown up along with his HQ and zombies. A solid showing! I'd love to see the Green Devil BRUNG BACK to vex magic folk again.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 121: THE WITCH

(Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

On the one hand the Witch uses smoke-dragon magic in an attempt to kill Diamond Jack for some thugs. On the other, she's an old woman who Diamond Jack strips of her power and leaves weeping in her slum hovel. Still... technically a villain?