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)

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 024

You just can't keep 'em out of comics, those real people.

Adolf Hitler:

Dispatches super-spy Miss X to America. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

Raymond Stokes, the actor playing Hitler in a British propaganda film about London (the super-hero, not the city) inexplicably also turns out to be a Nazi agent who attempts to murder the Prime Minister when he makes a cameo appearance in the movie. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

Al Capone:  

No-first-name Perrone here is another classic example of a crook lent a bit of legitimacy via a Capone-alike name. (Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

Charles Biro:

Carnival stunt-eater Ydlab Orib is a transparent Biro name-drop, though the "Baldy" part of his backward name doesn't really jibe with the pictorial record of the man himself. Whether he was a prodigious eater or not is unrecorded as far as I can find. I would venture that we are witness to a series of in-jokes here. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

Comics Folk:

Give a Golden Age comic creator like Edd Ashe a chance to write a list and you'll get a bunch of references to other Golden Age comics guys. For example, this collection of football stats features a (Harry "A") Chesler College, a (Gil) Fox University and a (Mort) Meskin Mining & Mech. And a double-barrelled reference to Bob Wood, with Wood Military College and also Woodro College, referencing a Bob Wood/Charles Biro combination pen name. (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

The list of schools also includes one called Lamont and I was ready to discount it, but then remembered that there was a reference to a Lamont in the previous issue, as a circus freak called the "Man of Wood," which made me think that this might be a third Bob Wood reference and wouldn't you know it some places list his middle name as Lamont or Lemont. What's with all the Bob Wood references, Edd Ashe? 

Franklin Roosevelt: 

Once again, President Roosevelt is placed in the unenviable position of being in charge of a country plagued by the Claw's particular brand of bullshit. He's also placed in shadow and a 3/4 reverse view, because comic artists didn't like to draw his face, presumably out of respect. (Daredevil Comics 002, 1941)

Fritz Julius Kuhn: 

I'll be honest: I had no idea who Fritz Kuhn was and certainly didn't twig to "Herr Kahn" here being a version of him until I took a look to see if "Nordic infested [...] Yorkville" was a real place and spotted his name associated with our favourite band of overhyped losers the German-American Bund on its Wikipedia page. Like the Bund itself, the spectre of Kuhn seems to have haunted comics long after he himself was relevant - he had already been slung in jail for tax evasion by the time this comic was published. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

I was curious, so I looked back at the various Bunds we have thusfar encountered to see if any of them had their own version of Kuhn, and the only real candidates to jump out at me were Fritz Kessel, leader of the Termania Bund (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940) and Fritz Hewn - presumably rhymes with Kuhn - leader of the Young Bundists (Blue Ribbon Comics 014, 1941)

George Roussos: 

Given the uncommon nature of the surname "Roussos" I have to assume that the crooked newspaper editor in this 13 story is yet another example of Lev Gleason reference-your-coworkers style yuck-em-ups. (Daredevil Comics 003, 1941)

Three issues later sees a murder be committed above the Roussos Pool Room. (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

And in the same issue, an index of insane asylum inmates yields a Roussos, a (Jerry) Robinson and a (Bob) Wood. And possibly others, but I can't place them.

Heinrich Himmler:

One of several Nazi officials vexed by the hero London and his "L" campaign (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

Rudolph Hess:

Rudolph Hess (or Hesst) and his flight to England are framed as a straightforward espionage mission, with Hesst landing along with fifty picked men via black parachutes. He is immediately captured by London. (Daredevil Comics 003, 1941)

Winston Churchill: 

Initially, I was all set to point out that this "London" adventure featured a completely made-up niece of Winston Churchill making a daring escape from Nazi-occupied Holland, but imagine my surprise when her uncle showed up and was a store-brand imitation Churchill with a mustache. I was particularly caught off guard by this as while US-based comics had a weird reluctance to portray or name FDR they usually had no such qualms about doing so with the PM. (Daredevil Comics 002, 1941)

The False-Churchill returns in the "London" feature in Daredevil Comics 004, and this time his inexplicable presence is highlighted by the unaltered name of Lloyd's of London in the upper left.

Finally, the Churchill-alike in Daredevil Comics 005 looks different enough from both the real deal and Mustache Churchill that we must assume that there has been some sort of regime change between issues. 

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 004

More mad science than criminal science or vice versa? You be the judge! 

This guy, who seems to be neither bald nor ironically hairy enough for his name of Baldy Fluger to make sense, has a hypnotic ray and a plan: to use that hypnotic ray for crime. The Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy have something to say about that. (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)

If there was any more to these three (respectively named Boris, Oscar and Unnamed Man) than what happens in the four panels above then I would be writing hundreds of words about them, but this is about it: three mad scientists, one of whom has one of the top lines in comics history ("They said I was a mad scientist but when I blast their children with my electron gun they won't call me mad anymore!") attack a steel mill for unclear reasons, possibly madness. The rest of the story involves them battling Lieutenant Drake of Naval Intelligence and Miss X. There's a lot of electron gunning but no children are involved. (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)

Renowned transplant surgeon Dr Moru just so happens to also be the mysterious person murdering people and stealing their hands, and all so that he can make beaucoup bucks giving gangsters brand new hands with brand new fingerprints. Until the Green Mask gets involved, of course. (Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)

Dr Murdo here had a death ray, an underground lair and a small army of goons but had the misfortune of crossing paths with Flexo the Rubber Man and being subdued with robot gas. (Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO 048: MISS X

(Mystery Men Comics 019, 1941)

Miss X is a pretty good example of the Female Guest Star Hero, an infrequent heroic archetype with a clearly identifiable arc: start out mysterious and hypercompetent and become less competent as the hero learns more about them. Our only other example so far is Clock ally the Orchid, but Miss X here is helpfully providing us with a three-issue speedrun of the archetype as illustration:

Issue 1, Mystery Men Comics 019: When her sister is killed by foreign spies (after helping them a little but not a lot) and unnamed honours chemistry student sets out to help Lieutenant Drake of Naval Intelligence round them up. Hero knows nothing; Miss X saves the day basically on her own.

Issue 2, Mystery Men Comics 020: Miss X returns in the next issue to help Lt Drake battle a trio of spies. Drake still knows little about her but her major contribton is now being the one who smacks around the lady spy. 

Issue 3, Mystery Men Comics 021: Captured and unmasked by a trio of weirdos, Miss X loses all mystery. She does get to deck the fourth, lady weirdo but this is it for her crimefighting career.