MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 856: THE PANTHER

(Famous Funnies 067, 1940)

The Panther is a no-nonsense Western gang boss who actually avoids a lot of the common missteps of the average super-villain by running an extremely tight ship in her munitions-smuggling gang. Is maintaining workplace discipline with a bullwhip the best idea? No, but it is better than workplace explosions.

The Panther's downfall starts when she puts a little two much trust in her lieutenants, Luis and Ramon, and they immediately go out and do some unsanctioned train robbing. Trouble is, the robbery was somehow pinned on Lone Rider, who ends up escaping the law and stumbling around in the desert until he passes out on the Panther's front door. It's hardly the most efficient way to infiltrate a gang, but it works.

The Lone Rider (going by the name Lightnin', which is his horse's name) proves his worthiness to join the gang by beating all of the Panther's specialists: he out-shoots Tex the gunhawk and out-fights Santos the strong man and then as a bonus because Santos is a poor loser the Panther gets to show off the fact that she can pick a knife out of the air with her whip.

Luis and Ramon eventually decide that they could do a better job at running the gang than the Panther (despite all evidence to the contrary) and rally the rest of the men to join them. The Panther proves them all wrong of course, when she deploys the knockout gas system that she had put in place outside of her fortified chambers for this very reason. The only unexpected variable turns out to be Lightnin', who reveals himself to be the Lone Rider and turns her over to the authorities.

Ultimately the Panther doesn't really get enough room to shine - she has sick whip skills, a pet panther, special lieutenants, a secret mountain base and good (criminal) business acumen - the conflict with Luis and Ramon is over expanding their purview to include kidnapping, and she is right to tell them no! They're running a clandestine smuggling operation, while kidnapping is by its very nature a very attention-getting crime! It's a hard life out there for a competent villain.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 049

Pretty diverse bunch this time.

the Lone Rider: 

Another masked cowboy hero dispensing justice from the barrel of the gun in the Old Modern West to throw in the pile. The Lone Rider does have the distinction of having been created by Jack Kirby for a very short-lived comic strip and recycled by Eastern Color for comic book content. 

Having read through a decent chunk of the Lone Rider's appearances, I'm pretty sure that Texas never actually put in an appearance, and that Pepito had maybe one panel to shine in - those are the risks you run when you start off with a cast of characters entry, I suppose. (Famous Funnies 062, 1939)

the White Streak: 

Discovered by archaeologist Simms and his guide Ramon in a temple that is inside of a small mountain that has risen out of a dead volcano (which is in turn in the fictional country of Payan, in  actual South America), the White Streak is an android built by the ancient dead civilization of Utopia, which perished in war and gifted their creation to the future as a way to prevent war from destroying any more civilizations. And by "the White Streak" I mean "Manowar," which was clearly intended to be his super-hero name but was changed  for some reason - he's barely even referred to as the White Streak for the first issue. Whatever his name, he took his mission very seriously: if you were in the business of promoting or profiting from war you could expect a very violent visit from the White Streak.

At first, Manowar's powers were limited to his electric vision and a bit of enhanced agility, but over time they expanded to include super strength, an electrical force field that still sometimes unnervingly came out of his eyes, and electrical constructs (most frequently a ladder, for some reason). (Target Comics v1 001, 1940)

UPDATES: 1940 

Boystate: 

Okay, so Boystate is an indeterminably large chunk of land somewhere in the US within a few hours drive from NYC, containing a city (Boyville, natch) and founded and run by a fellow known as the Skipper (the Confederate officer-looking fellow, above) and his aide the Captain (the other guy). Boystate is unsurprisingly populated by boys, and has as its charter a dedication to bringing those often troubled boys up to be fine upstanding men.

Of course this is all taking place in a comic that is written and set in 1940, so the comic's views on how boys might be guided into that upstanding manhood involve a lot of homemade militia activity and discipline through violence, as seen here as new recruit Speck is smacked down by Boystate Ranger V.Y.

The other hallmarks of the Boystate comics are 1) a deep love of pointless callsigns - everyone is V.Y. or X-1 and travel from Point 6-A to Tower 2-R and on and on in a way that makes your eyes glaze over, and 2) an absurd variety of cosmic ray-powered sci-fi technology, courtesy of the Skipper's genius.

In addition to the identity-stripping numerical designations, Boystate is simply chockablock with pseudo-military ranks and divisions for the boys to aspire to join so that they can spend their time patrolling Boystate airspace and riding her borders and chasing down passing cars to check if they're stolen... frankly, if they weren't collectively the protagonists of a comic book series in which they are described a good and true and aspirational Americans I would be tempted to call Boystate a nightmarish authoritarian police state/cult. Did I mention that the Skipper not only has a machine that can take video of anywhere in Boystate but also one that can read minds? (Target Comics v1 001, 1940)

Spacehawk:

As a big fan of Basil Wolverton, I wish that he'd had more opportunities to create science fiction comics during the time that he was interested in doing so, but in the absence of that, Spacehawk is pretty great. A mind-reading physical titan of unknown origin who metes out justice to the scum of the Solar System, Spacehawk is much more of a space-based super-hero than his contemporaries, and his alien foes are appropriately Wolvertonian grotesques who reflect their evil nature in their outward appearances.

Sadly, Novelty Press was The Company Where Whimsy Was Not Welcome, and in 1941 Spacehawk was relocated to Earth to battle the Axis instead of all of those unrealistic aliens. Don't get me wrong: Basil Wolverton comics about Spacehawk beating up Nazis are still pretty great, just not as great as ones about him beating up aliens. The move to 1940s Earth does introduce the as-far-as-I-know never answered question of just where all of the humans in the earlier Spacehawk comics were from, which is a fun if brief diversion.

Finally, there's a very minor bit of suspense in the first few Spacehawk stories over just what he is under that mask of his - an alien? a robot? something weirder? - but it turns out that he's a hunk. Spoilers, I guess. (Target Comics v1 005, 1940)