REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 013

Yet again we have a selection of comic book appearances of real-style people for you to enjoy.

Adolf Hitler:

Warak, dictator of Barbaria is a bit generic as far as pseudo-Hitlers go, but a pseudo-Hitler he is. (Smash Comics 017, 1940)

Scraggs, leader of the Green Shirts, is very much a "make the leader look like Hitler as shorthand for These Guys Are Fascists" character, a subspecies that will nearly die out some time in 1941 but survives in small numbers to this day. (Startling Comics 001, 1940)

Devil's Island: 

Black X has himself sent to, and then escapes from, Devil's Island in order to secure a fellow prisoner with valuable US defense secrets in his head. (Smash Comics 013, 1940)

FDR:

An off-model Roosevelt visits Carterville and is kidnapped by Devil's Dagger nemesis Jeff Marlowe (and thus retroactively by Marlowe's boss Mr H). This is a wild move for a regional crime boss to pull! (Master Comics 006, 1940)

Gill Fox:

Probably a different guy to the last "Gil Fox" to appear in a Clip Chance comic - this one is just a small town baseball player. (Smash Comics 015, 1940)

Groucho Marx:

Goucho's look lifted wholesale for this unnamed comedy character. (Star Comics 010, 1938)

Hollywood:

Autograph hound adds Shock Gibson to her collection along with "Cary Trooper" and "Glark Cable," aka Gary Cooper and Clark Gable. (Speed Comics 009, 1940)

Joe Devlin: 

Given the prior instance of Joe Devlin being referenced in a Clip Chance story I must assume that the "John Devlin" mentioned here is another. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

Joseph Stalin:

The Three Aces (but not the DC Comics Three Aces, the Harvey Comics ones) transport three anthropology-minded sisters to Paraguay to study the Guató people and stumble upon a plot by the sinister witch doctor Ni Lats to bring all under his sway via hypnotic mind control, for which crime he is drowned in a swamp.

(slight aside: the Guató are a real people being used as set dressing for an exotic locale, and weirdly, in checking to see if that was the case I'm pretty sure I stumbled across the exact reference that Klaus Nordling drew from - every detail in the brief entry on the Guató in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is reflected in the story. The mind control thing is added plot) (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

Samuel Goldwyn:

Is this movie producer named Sam meant to be Samuel Goldwyn or merely a lookalike reference to him? Regardless, this is clearly Samuel Goldwyn. (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 767: THE COUNT

(Speed Comics 009, 1940)

The Count is a fairly by-the-book pseudo-Nazi spy with a very audacious plan for acquiring US military secrets: kidnap the US Secretary of State (a moderately off-model Cordell Hull) and extract them from him via gear-based torture.

Unfortunately for the Count his plans were anticipated by the US Secret Service, who proactively substituted Ted Parrish, aka the Man With 1000 Faces, for Hull. Led to the spies' farmhouse hideout by a special radium tracking device, the agents gun down the Count and his hirelings with some degree of prejudice, while Parrish just kind of looks on from his torture machine. An unusually passive role for a super-hero but I suppose here he is about three to five identity levels deep, so perhaps he 's just confused.

NOTES - APRIL 2025

Aliens:

The adventures of Mars Mason, interplanetary mailman, are rife with amazing alien designs thanks to creator Munson Paddock, but the Tough-Tails of Planet Greentrees and their allies the top-hatted Spear-Men are possibly my favourite aliens that I've seen in a couple of years. (Speed Comics 009, 1940) 

The Speed Comics 010 Mars Mason adventure again features some more top-notch alien designs, including both the Mercurian leader with his enormous ears and his subjects with their amazing hats. The Uranian Monster-Men are okay, but the real star of that second set of panels is Mars Mason's amazing radiator suit that seems to help him weather both the cold of Uranus and the heat of Mercury with equal aplomb.

Drawn Without Reference:

A nice fuzzy spider created to menace Shock Gibson. (Speed Comics 010, 1940) 

Good Henchmen:

It's not really germane to the story, but I would like to highlight the emotional journey that this henchman goes through over the course of a scheme by upcoming Minor Super-Villain Comrade Ratski. midway through a scheme to release giant arthropods on an unsuspecting populace is a heckuva time to confront your dislike of bugs. (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

Honours:

Ted Parrish, aka the mystery man known as the Man With 1000 Faces, wins the Academy Award for his performance in a film called Thundering Hoofs. We must make some assumptions - that Thundering Hoofs was completed and released in 1940, for example - but I think that Parrish might just have gotten his Oscar at the expense of Jimmy Stewart's win for The Philadelphia Story. (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

Mars Mason, Interplanetary Mailman, has his likeness on the Mercury Mail five-something stamp. (Speed Comics 011, 1940)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 009

You know how it is with these guys. Their science is mad and/or criminal!

Felix Zurich, lab assistant to Professor Trent, has hidden the professor away in a castle improbably located in the middle of the jungle in Africa, all so that Zurich can force him to perfect his invention of the ever-popular engine-killing ray. This is a Blackstone the Magician story so of course Zurich is also an accomplished stage magician and there is a pivotal duel of illusions. Ultimately, a high-speed canoe chase ends with Zurich going over Victoria Falls while Blackstone and his companions serenely float down on parachutes. (Super-Magician v1 002, 1941)  

This here scientist and his brother are for some reason trying to turn young women into statues. They don't get very far before being beat up by Ted Parrish, the Man With 1000 Faces (Speed Comics 001, 1939)

Senor Anza here is one of your scientists with mysterious motivations: he's been blowing up passing ships on their way to or from the Panama Canal using his very cool Radium Ray, but just why he's doing it is not elaborated on. Top possibilities are "as a weapons test prior to some other scheme" and "on behalf of the Axis forces" with a possibility of "straightforward homicidal madness" but as Anza ends up stone dead at the hands of super-spy K-51 and his colleague/ fiance/ fellow super-spy Z-19 all speculation is purely academic. (Wonderworld Comics 004, 1939)

The Professor Maxon mentioned above never appears in person in the story but does carry a scientific rivalry far enough that he completes the extinction of the dodo rather than allow his rival Professor Stone get credit for his discovery of a remnant population. (Champion Comics 006, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 014

Some real niche characters this time.

the Lone Star Rider:

An Old West hero so generic he only appeared once and never even got to track down the owlhoots who killed his parents in order to steal their land. Good gloves. (Smash Comics 002, 1939)

Shock Gibson:

Like Barry Allen after him, Charles (later Robert) Gibson is a young scientist working late into a stormy night when he is simultaneously struck by lightning and bathed in chemicals. Though he is called the Human Dynamo, for the first chunk of his career he functions as more of a Human Battery who stores an electrical charge that can be used to fuel various superhuman feats - super-strength, super-jumping (later full-on flight), and a shocking grasp.

Shock Gibson goes through more than a few costume changes over the years - sadly this goofy helmet is axed during the first one - but one consistent element in his design is lotsa cool electricity crackle when he uses his powers. (Speed Comics 001, 1939)

Shock Gibson UPDATE 1940: He loses the hat.

the Man With 1000 Faces:

Ted Parrish, famous film star, is bored with his humdrum life and so turns his considerable talent for quickchange artistry and disguise to the task of crimefighting. Just where he gets all of his accessories from is not elaborated on, so it's equally likely that he scavenges them from the environment as it is that he just hauls around an enormous hockey bag full of clothing etc everywhere he goes.

Parrish's mission is obviously hampered somewhat by the fact that Los Angeles' criminal fraternity knows that the Man With 1000 Faces exists and they should be on the lookout for him. How did they find out? Did Parrish blab to up the challenge and excitement of it all? (Speed Comics 001, 1939)

the Wizard:

Blane Whitney, AKA the Wizard, is the latest in seven generations of Whitneys (some of whom were also called the Wizard) to dedicate their lives in patriotic service to the USA. Plus he was a child prodigy who was charged to use his abilities to better mankind by Woodrow Wilson. Plus he's an inventive genius in virtually all fields, particularly various forms of engineering. Plus he has nearly superhuman physical abilities and a mind so highly developed that it is superhuman in that he can employ remote viewing to locate dangers and clues.

The Wizard was a pretty big player at MLJ in the 40s but has largely been abandoned in the various attempts to revive the MLJ characters at Archie and elsewhere - his biggest post-Golden Age appearance that I am aware of was as a super-villain fighting the Mighty Crusaders in the 60s. What does this say about the character - that he's perfectly serviceable but not very conceptually exciting? Yes, I reckon that sums him up. (Top-Notch Comics 001, 1939)

UPDATE 1940a

UPDATE 1940b