REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 020

Where would comic books be without real people, after all?

Easter Island: 

Lance O'Casey and his pal Dan'l Doom fight some wreckers on Easter island, and while I can't tell if the place saw enough ship traffic in the 1940s to make shipwrecking a profitable enterprise, I will say that the concept of Lance and Dan'l just casually passing by one of the most isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean while travelling from place to place is an eyebrow raiser.

The whole Easter Island aspect of the adventure honestly seems to just be a bit of set dressing, but I sure do love these extremely flat moai statues.(Whiz Comics 013, 1941) 

Fort Knox: 

As "Fort Gnox," robbed by Dr Sivana. (Whiz Comics 014, 1940)

FDR: 

Spy Smasher saves the president from being assassinated by probable-Nazi spy the Dark Angel, leading to what I can only interpret as a very awkward meeting between the two. (Spy Smasher 001, 1941) 

Fiorello La Guardia (Not): 

Wow Comics 004 features not one but two mayors who are not Fiorello La Guardia in comics previously established to be set in New York City. I'd say poor guy for not getting elected in two different versions of Earth-S but neither of these guys are exactly having a good time. (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

Harry "A" Chesler: 

The Zip Comics 007 Steel Sterling story involves a crooked moneylending firm called the Uwana Loan Company, and here we see the door of that company with H. "A" C. listed as president. Comic book publisher Harry "A" Chesler was a decent boss as far as I can tell, so once and future Chesler employee/ "Steel Sterling" scribe Charles Biro is probably indulging in some classic comic book yuk-em-ups here rather than a trenchant skewering. (Zip Comics 007, 1940) 

Henry L. Stimson: 

US Secretary of State. As "Secretary Simpson," almost gets assassinated and mummified by the Black Thorn. (America's Greatest Comics 001, 1941) 

J Edgar Hoover:

As "FBI Chief Doover" almost gets assassinated by the Ghost. (am greatest 001 1941)

Ken Crawford: 

The Mask adopts a reporter alias as part of an attempt to find out the Spy Smasher's secret identity, and there is no doubt in my mind that "Crawf Kenford" is a classic syllable-flip reference to venerable political correspondent Ken Crawford. (Whiz Comics 013, 1941)

Mort Meskin: 

You have to squint to read it, but that red sign says "M. Meskin, Fish" on it. (Zip Comics 007, 1940)

William Tell: 

Golden Arrow plays William Tell in a local school pageant, with love interest Carol Braddock as the apple-headed son. (Whiz Comics 012, 1941) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 898: THE DEATH BATTALION

(America's Greatest Comics 001, 1941)

Like Mr Skeleton before them (and possibly because I first encountered them both in the same comic), the Death Battalion is one of those super-villain concepts that really lodged itself in my brain and which I am glad to have finally appear here. Unfortunately, unlike Mr Skeleton, the Death Battalion isn't quite as great as I'd remembered. For one thing, I'd long thought that they were a Mr Scarlet revenge squad, but despite the fact that he put them all in jail, they seem to bear him very little ill will. Comparatively.

Instead, the six members of the Death Battalion are broken out of jail by a seventh fellow, the Brain, and enlisted into his plot to take over the US. Note the Nazi-ness of the Brain's operation, but also that there is no real connection to the Nazi Party. Instead, the Brain and his Death Battalion appear to be independent Nazis, like your neo-Nazis and so forth will be later on. If it were just a few months later they'd be heiling Hitler, but as it stands we're dealing with locally sourced indie hipster Nazis.

Like I said, this isn't a Mr Scarlet revenge squad - these just happened to be the six highest profile villains available to be broken out of El Catraz Penitentiary. But just what do they bring to the table?

the Black Clown: Former circus owner. Murderer and bank robber. Circus connections.

the Black Thorn: Fifth columnist. Murderer. Packs a mummy ray.

Doctor Death: Former concert pianist. Murderer. Poisons.

the Ghost: Former charity president. Embezzler. Sheet ghost costume.

the Horned Hood: Academic. Jewel thief. No special equipment.

the Laughing Skull: Former banker. Extortionist and murderer. Access to stone-cutting tools and shovels.

A motley crew indeed. There's a pretty wide range of skills and success levels on display here - like I said, the Brain seems to have prioritized breaking out the flashiest crooks over the most competent ones.

The Brain's plan is simple: murder six key men, thus setting in motion a destabilization of the US government that will allow the Death Battalion to swoop in and conquer the country. Let's see how that goes. 

Senator Hiram Dean: 

Spoilers, but I must lead with the fact that Doctor Death is the only one of the six to successfully kill his target. Specifically, he appears to scare him to death? Regardless of how it was done, this is the event that puts Mr Scarlet onto the Death Battalion's trail.

Kudsen: 

Kudson, head of a government defense program, comes very close to being killed by the Black Clown's gorilla due to his refusal to turn around and see if the enormous gorilla-shaped shadow that is advancing on him might indicate some sort of danger. It's only his dumb luck that his assistant is the one who gets aped first, and that Mr Scarlet shows up in time to prevent any further aping.

FBI Chief Doover: 

The Ghost is one the real odd men out in the Death Battalion. Consider that he was an embezzler whose main strength was the large group of men in spooky costumes in his employ and ask yourself just what chance he might have at assassinating the head of the FBI. It's only due to Chief Doover's nonexistent security that he almost manages to plant a knife in his back and only due to Pinky the Whiz Kid that he fails to do so.

Secretary of State Simpson:

The Black Thorn on the other hand, is quite a good choice when it comes to murder, particularly as he has somehow gotten his hands on another mummy ray. He comes pretty close to getting the Secretary of State but spends a bit too much time mummifying random committee members before Mr Scarlet turns up.

General Dodd:

The Horned Hood manages to screw up a simple murder while armed with a light machine gun from about ten feet away. This is absolutely on-brand for him as the biggest screw-up in the whole Battalion. The Hood's presence on this team is proof of some sort of super-villain corollary to the Peter Principle.  

Dollar-a-Year Man Phillips:

Finally, the Laughing Skull is sent to kill dollar-a-year man Phillips, which leads to the question: what is a dollar-a-year man? Turns out that the term describes a wealthy person who takes a nominal salary in order to be counted as an employee while essentially doing government work for free, and Phillips is one of them. Lucky for him, the Laughing Skull insists that live burial is the only acceptable way to murder someone, which gives Mr Scarlet and Pinky enough time to show up and save the day.

But what about the brain himself? What's his deal? Well, aside from being the leader of the whole enterprise, the Brain has precisely two things going on: he has a weird mesh bubble helmet that makes the head inside look enormous, and he "deals in poisons," which means that he tries to kill Mr Scarlet by dangling a tarantula at him on a stick in a display that is hilariously ineffectual looking even if you, like the creators of this comic, are working from the incorrect belief that the tarantula is massively venomous.

Having foiled all of the Death Battalion's attempted murders (but for that one), Mr Scarlet and Pinky make their way back to the group's HQ by employing a little subterfuge and then beat all five of them (the Horned Hood and Laughing Skull already being in custody) to a pulp. And just who does the Brain turn out to be? Why, none other than ex-Warden Loomis, who so prominently retired after six costumed criminals escaped from his prison. Presumably he now gets to revisit his old workplace!

The Death Battalion never needs to return, unless perhaps a flashback story needs a team of Nazi super-villains in it to be stomped, but as always I must whoop and cheer for the concept of a bunch of low-grade villains teaming up like this. It's just fun!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 894: BLUEBEARD

(Wow Comics 004, 1941) 

The piratical Bluebeard and his gang of fake sea dogs crash the costume ball of the wealthy van Hoffs and make off with Mrs van Hoff, demanding a ransom of one hundred thousand dollars for her return.

Since Bluebeard had already tried to do extortion on the van Hoffs by sending them threatening notes, Mr Scarlet and Pinky were already on hand to swiftly track down the kidnappers and beat them senseless. 

The post-beating unmasking reveals that Bluebeard is in fact Tom, possibly van Hoff, cousin to one or the other of the couple (or... both? Are the van Hoffs that kind of rich?), who has fallen on hard times and turned to costumed kidnapping as a means to scare up some quick cash. Some notes for Cousin Tom:

- It is a bold choice to choose a false chinstrap beard when you have a real mustache.

- Running around going "THEY'RE PROBABLY NOT IN THE CASTLE" when they are, in fact, in the castle is a really good way to draw suspicion down on yourself. Better to not mention the castle at all.

- It is very annoying to call yourself Bluebeard and hang out in a castle while sticking to a strict pirate theme when there is in fact a character called Bluebeard, famously castle-based, who is a direct threat to women, and who I personally think would make for a better theme.

In other words: make better choices next time. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 893: THE HUMMER

(Wow Comics 004, 1941)

The Hummer, "the deadliest killer on Earth" has just gotten out of jail and is out for revenge on those responsible for sending him away in the first place, starting with Taylor, the prosecutor.

Like so many of his peers in the murder community, the Hummer has an affectation: he hums while he kills, and also while preparing to kill and after he kills. He hums all the time. It's a bit of a liability, to be honest, as anyone who knows about him is able to keep an ear out for trouble. He's also a classic super-villain Bad Boss who kills his henchmen when they fail him.

Where many revenge killers are obsessive enough to stick to their predetermined list come hell or high water, the Hummer is of a more adaptive breed and dynamically expands it as he goes along, which is why Mr Scarlet and Pinky are marked for death. While this is evidence of a more flexible view of the world, I can't help but assume that it will lead to a never-ending vengeance quest as everyone who impedes the Hummer in any way is themselves marked for death.

One of the original targets on the list is Brian "Mr Scarlet" Butler's secretary Miss Wade, who was working for previous victim Taylor at the time that the Hummer was put away, This is an astonishingly petty grudge to hold, and also provides Mr Scarlet and Pinky with just that much more motivation to take the Hummer down. 

Revenge Killer Score: 1/10+

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 892: MR HYDE

(Wow Comics 004, 1941)

Mr Hyde is introduced to the reader as a homicidal maniac who murders future Mr Scarlet sidekick Pinky's mother one night for unclear reasons. He just bursts in and kills her and there is not even attempt to justify it. In fact... I'm not 100% certain that Pinky actually knows that Mr Hyde is the killer.

Pinky is relocated to Oaklawn Orphanage, under the care of director Dr Jelke, who we as savvy readers immediately recognize is going to turn out to be Mr Hyde. I must admit that upon first reading this story I thought that Jelke/Hyde might have been out murdering parents in order to keep his orphanage well-stocked with kids but alas, it seems that Pinky ends up crossing his path purely by chance.

Mr Hyde's next crime is to make the city safer for crime and criminals by murdering the mayor, and since Mr Scarlet has been pretty firmly established as operating out of NYC we must add the Honorable James T. Flynn to the list of alternate, non-Fiorello La Guardia mayors of New York in comic books. Perhaps La Guardia claims the mayoral role after Flynn's death - we'll have to watch the pages of Wow Comics to find out.

Mr Scarlet intercepts Mr Hyde (a rare battle between a super-hero and -villain with the same prefix!) but loses him just inside the orphanage walls. This of course again points straight at Dr Jelke as the fiend's alter ego but more importantly leads us to our main line of inquiry about this villain: Just What Kind of Jekyll/Hyde Situation is This?

We all know the basics of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in which Dr Henry Jekyll attempts to purge all evil from his body using a chemical concoction and instead creates a secondary, wholly evil identity that controls his body with ever-increasing frequency and power. The question is, which elements, and in what form, are being used in this particular story?

1. Does Dr Jelke know what Mr Hyde is up to? It appears that he does! Hyde turns back into Jelke to avoid Mr Scarlet and though Jelke's brush-off of Scarlet could be chalked up to his being a stuffed shirt, the fact that he then tries to locate Hyde's lost monocle indicates that he is wise to the situation.

2. How is the change effected? Though Mr Hyde has a small laboratory and loves to hurl flasks of acid around, the Jekyll/Hyde transformation in this story is not chemical but seemingly purely mental and brought on by Jelke reading the original novel. But there is something else going on! Namely...

3. Just how much of a transformation are we talking about? Jelke's switch to Hyde involves more than a robe, a monocle and a mussing of the hair - Hyde has claws and fangs and lacks a stupid little mustache! Clearly Jelke is onto something and is not just a homicidal maniac with a literary fixation.

All of these questions lead up to the big one:

4. Are these two personalities sharing one body or not? I gotta say no to this one. While the Mr Hyde persona appears to be more violent and less inhibited, all indications are that this is something that Jelke did on purpose, though his aims are never elaborated on beyond "personal gain." In a classic Jekyll/Hyde situation such as the Wolf's the good personality is oblivious to the actions of the evil one, and Jelke shows no signs of that.

Jelke does eventually follow in Jekyll's footsteps in one final way: once his experiments in identity are proven to be a bust he kills himself.