MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 100

You like minor super-heroes? We got more than four hundred of them!

the Night Bird:

The Night Bird might just have the simplest origin in the history of super-heroes: when newspaper Dell (just Dell) is captured by gangsters, her photographer Lens Crockett sets out to rescue her. Deciding that he needs a disguise, Crockett looks in the office storeroom and finds a full super-hero outfit stuffed in a bin - if it were about ten years later this might be a joke about Superman changing in the Daily Planet storeroom but he didn't really get up to that so much yet so it's just weird and random. Crokett's costumed outing goes well, so he decides to keep going out there and fighting crime. And that's the origin.

The Night Bird (aka the Nightbird) only has a bare handful of appearances, so he doesn't get a lot of room for character development. There are a couple of interesting things to note about him, however: firstly there isn't even a hint of romantic feeling between Crockett and Dell which is always nice if only for the change of pace from the typical setup. Secondly, and in common with his fellow newspaper photographer the Fox, Lens Crockett seems to be a legitimate clumsy doofus in his civilian identity rather than a suave coolguy putting on an act. (Green Mask v1 006, 1941)

The Night Bird also continues the grand Fox Features tradition of changing costume designs between issues with a palette swap between his first and second appearances. His costume continues to change in minor ways as time goes on, but this is the only major one.

Categorized in: Animals (Birds), Day Jobs (Newspaper Photographers), Locations (Temporal Locations)

the Tumbler:

When famous circus acrobat Lee Brothers, known professionally as the Tumbler, goes to visit his old mentor Sockey, he finds him mixed up with a gang of payroll robbers who have decided to use his property as a hideout. Lee and Sockey manage to escape with the loot but Sockey dies in the process and Lee is reported dead.

As is only sensible, Lee does not immediately clear up this mistake and go on with his life but takes this as an opportunity to adopt a costumed identity and get up to a little vigilante justice. His decision to do so while calling himself the Tumbler and thus inviting connection with the supposedly deceased Brother is a bit suspect, however. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

This is even more in his second (and final) appearance, when he does the traditional costume change and just starts wearing his old acrobat costume again. Does the Tumbler want to have his identity revealed?

Categorized in: Activities (Acrobatics), Day Jobs (Circus Acrobats), Professions (Acrobats)

the Mechanized Skeleton:

This was a surprising one! I really and truly thought that the Mechanized Skeleton was going to be a bad guy. This is mostly because he almost certainly was going to be one when he was first introduced, as can be deduced from the fact that the Skeleton's creator Chico is ranting an raving about "having power" and "showing them all" as he assembles and tests his creation. As the Mechanized Skeleton had a very minor appearance in the 1940 run of Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics with the bulk appearing in the 1941 books I recently read I have been awaiting his return for more than a year, real-time, with the expectation that I would see some science skeleton-on-science zombie battling once it and the Purple Zombie finally met.

Chico doesn't do much to dispel my assumptions about him and his creation in his next couple of appearances, as he demonstrates a very loose attitude to law and order: in Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 004 he attempts to steal Purple Zombie creator Kim Hale's car, only to lose his Skeleton (and inadvertently save Hale's life) when a car bomb goes off. Then in RFHC 005, Chico attempts to procure a set of clothing for the replacement Mechanized Skeleton he has just completed by driving a car off the road and killing all of the occupants. Was the car full of gangsters who had kidnapped the Purple Zombie in an attempt to recruit him into their gang? Yes it was. Did Chico know this? No he didn't - the car might have been filled with nuns and orphans as far as he was concerned.

(please note that issue 005 does feature my anticipated Purple Zombie/ Mechanized Skeleton battle and that the Skeleton is comically outmatched) 

Despite all of this evidence of Chico's villainous nature, once Kim Hale and the Purple Zombie get ahold of him he suddenly reveals that he, like Hale has created his scientific version of a Halloween monster not for evil but for the betterment of mankind. Specifically, he made them as a foil to a Nazi death ray that has been giving the Allies a lot of trouble - what better foil to a death ray than the already-dead, after all? Such is the power of Chico's newly-revealed convictions that the Purple Zombie goes with him when he sneaks off in the night to battle the Hun.

And it works! The Purple Zombie leads a squad of Mechanized Skeletons (all hilariously decked out in doughboy helmets) to victory in just a couple of pages!

Chico requests (and receives) a hero's burial for the Mechanized Skeletons, causing me to wonder for the first time just where he got the base materials for them from. Though they are gone for good, Chico himself stays on as a supporting cast member during the next phase of the Purple Skeleton's career as he and Kim Hale are basted back in time. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 003, 1940)

Categorized in: Origins (Face Turns), Origins (Robots), Supranormal Beings (Undead (Skeletons))

Man O'Metal:

In addition to having on of the more strangely-constructed names in comics, Man O'Metal, aka Pat Dempsey, has a bafflingly straightforward origin on par with his fellow Eastern Color character Fearless Flint: while working in a foundry one day, Dempsey is caught in a flood of an unspecified molten metal, and instead of dying horribly he transforms into a superhuman metal man. It's a weirdly modern style of origin in that there is absolutely no attempt to introduce an external catalyst for this change - if he were a DC Comics character he would just turn out to have the metagene, for example.

Man O'Metal is like Fearless Flint in a couple of other ways: firstly, his power switches off after a few minutes, but can be restarted by the touch of metal (including incoming bullets, which proves to be handy). This requirement later changes from metal to heat or electricity, but the bullets are evidently hot enough to qualify. 

Dempsey's boss is underwhelmed by the prospect of having a white-hot metal guy running around his foundry and so he just kind of gives him to the FBI without really consulting him on whether this is something he might want to do. The FBI have a bit more vision re: the potential inherent in a superhuman employee and happily accept. He is immediately sent off to Badagero, South America to root out subversives. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 007, 1941)

Categorized in: Elements (Metal), Origins (Material Mutates), Team Memberships (FBI)

Very Minor Hydroman Updates: Hydroman is confirmed as vulnerable to freezing (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 004, 1941), is now wanted by the police (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 007, 1941).

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 027

Real people? In comic books? Now I've seen everything.

Abu Khan:

I sincerely cannot tell if this Black Knight foe is supposed to be Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, last ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanate, or if they just pulled a couple of syllables out of the air and added "Khan" to the end and called it a day. On the one hand, the real Abu Khan never tried to invade Egypt, as the Black Knight is trying to prevent him from doing, but on the other he is from about the right time to be a Black Knight character, i.e., within about two hundred years of all the other elements of the comic. (The Funnies 059, 1941)

Adolf Hitler:

Pays for the services of super-villain the Artist to facilitate the invasion of Tomania with his soul-stealing powers. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

Al Capone:

"Scar Lapone," used as a generic gangster name. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

Jean Lafitte:

A false vision of Lafitte is summoned by a fake medium. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

Napoleon Bonaparte:

Viewed through a time machine's viewscreen by the Black Hood. (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

Nero:

Kim Hale and the Purple Zombie, blasted back in time, are condemned to death by Emperor Nero for telling him about things that he hadn't heard of before. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 008, 1941)

Though the duo make it out of the gladiatorial arena okay, they almost get caught up in the Great Fire of Rome before being shunted to another time zone by their allies. Unusually, Nero is not shown fiddling at all. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 009, 1941)

Nero, or at least his ghost, appears in a very different form after being summoned by the would-be necromancer Ford. Is this barbaric Nero a reflection of how the Emperor saw himself, or did the artist just kind of wing it? (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

Paul Revere:

Minor comic book protagonist Paul Revere Jr is awfully smug for someone who just has the name of a famous patriot, and that goes double for his friends Betsy Ross and Patrick Henry.

His father Paul Revere Sr is at least out there writing a column called "America, Awake!" and putting himself in the crosshairs of local fascists. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

Sherlock Holmes:

Yet another comedy Holmes analog with a terrible if intriguing name. Foreclose is just close enough to a play on Sherlock to be particularly maddening. Featuring: a Watson analog named Batsin Belfry. (Great Comics 001, 1941)

Walter Winchell:

He only appears as a corpse, but gossip columnist Walt Willard is a clear play on Walt Winchell. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

NOTES - JUNE 2026

Comics Crossovers:

In one of Golden Age comics' rare but casual crossovers, Judy Jackson, rival of reporter-hero Scoop Mason, is attending the same Governor's ball in the Bahamas as Newsreel cameraman Speed Martin. (The Funnies 051, 1941)

Then in the very next issue, Scoop Mason himself shows up to take in a football game! (The Funnies 052, 1941)

ADDENDUM: I just realized that the team that they're watching is Elmhurst College featuring star player Wally Williams, from his own feature in Popular Comics. Layers upon layers!

the Looming Spectre of Death:

Perhaps the most understated Looming Spectre of Death of all time, from the Philo Vance story "Murder Rings the Bell." (The Funnies 059, 1941)

Another, very cheeky Death, very appropriately wearing a mask. (The Funnies 062, 1941)

Presented Without Comment: 

(The Funnies 062, 1941)

Honours:

Both the Purple Zombie and Chico, creator of the Mechanized Skeleton(s) receive medals for defending an unspecified European nation from the death ray of an unspecified fascist nation, while Chico's skeleton troops get a hero's burial. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 006, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 029

They're trying, bless 'em.

Hydroman:

I was going to say that much levity has been mined from Hydroman's origin over the years, but realistically this guy is obscure at best. Some levity has been mined from Hydroman's origin over the years. Is it deserved? Certainly.

Scientist Harry Thurston is having fun mixing up chemicals (specifically water, alcohol and sulphuric acid, though there is some speculation that there might have been some mystery residue in the glassware used) and manages to get some on his hand, which promptly turns to water. In a panic, he calls his friend Bob Blake over to help, and when Bob arrives, fellow scientist Tom Kinsman dumps an entire bucket of the mixture over him like they're all in a dang slapstick comedy.

They manage to counteract the formula, at which point Bob agrees to have the formula injected into him, and while this works as comic book science (if a big splash turned me to water, surely an injection will allow me to control the process! Because it's deliberate and thus more scientific!), surely by all other metrics it is an insane decision. What's to say, for instance, that an injection won't merely turn all of your blood or veins to water, killing you?

Against all odd, the injection works and Bob Blake decides to use his newfound power to fight the wave of crime that is plaguing NYC. To go with his new role, Blake adopts a new moniker - Hydroman - and makes a super-hero costume in perhaps my favourite way, by scraping up all of the random crap in Harry Thurston's lab.

By issue 2, Hydroman gets what only I think of as his iconic look, a baggy suit of bulletproof Translite. It's objectively kind of dumb looking but also... kind of great? It might be the combination of the leather pilot's helmet and the riveted brass collar but the overall effect is very cool and retrofuturistic. Plus the transparent effect really plays well with Hydroman's whole water theme. Finally, note that Hydroman's assistant/ girlfriend Joyce Church is also wearing a bulletproof suit under her coat and I must commend him for being the rare Golden Age super-hero who thinks to distribute such protective super equipment to his civilian aides. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 001, 1940)

Update 1941 

the Purple Zombie:

Doctors Hale and Malinsky are partners, but while Hale was working to prolong human life, Malinsky was taking his research and using it to create an army of the undead in order to take over the world. His prototype is Zoro, the Purple Zombie, and once his zombification tech is proven to work (and once Hale starts mouthing off a bit to much), Malinsky decides that things might run a bit smoother if it was just him and the zombie and bumps off Hale.

Unfortunately for Malinsky, some quirk of the zombie technology has made Zoro 1) amoral 2) bulletproof and super strong, and 3) loyal only to Hale, and so he makes short work of not only his erstwhile master but also his three foreign investors.

Zoro is captured by the police and scheduled for an execution that hits a slight hitch when it turns out that in addition to bullets the Purple Zombie is immune to electricity (he also turns a more purpley purple when electrocuted!). Stymied, the authorities agree to release Zoro into the stewardship of Dr Hale (who survived the murder attempt, by the way). The Purple Zombie is not so much a hero as a gun that Hale points at people and situations, but as a pair they basically fit the brief. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 001, 1940)

Hyper the Phenomenal:

Visually, Hyper the Phenomenal is great. I really like the... well "retrofuturistic" is the best description of it but of course at the time it was just futuristic. I really like his look, particularly what I assume is a breastplate since it seems to be separate to the shirt - there aren't enough non-aquatic super-heroes with the courage to wear a big scallop shell as armour.

Hyper is really the oddly-named Don-Vin, a scientist who has some sort of affiliation with the US Secret Service, either as an official agent or just a helpful pal. His main tools in the fight against evil are his Neogas Helmet that allows him to fly (plus is has a nifty two-way radio inside) and his Magno-Hydro Gauntlets, capable of both magnetic attraction and repulsion and with which he can both perform feats of superhuman strength (equivalent) and deflect incoming bullets.

I chose the cover image above because it's probably the most dynamic and interesting view available, due to the unfortunate fact that in Hyper the Phenomenal's sole outing he does very, very little of note. His adventure on the Isle of Arunta was serialized over two issues and for fully half of that time (and somewhere between 1 and 2 days in-story), Hyper stands in front of a steel wall using his gauntlets to prevent a crushing room deathtrap from killing his ally Agent 2Y. A heroic act, to be sure, but not a visually interesting one. And since the first quarter of the story was devoted to setting up the action, Hyper only gets the final quarter to really strut his stuff, and even then he probably only gets the job done because the villains had oppressed the island's inhabitants enough to start a rebellion. A poor showing indeed, Don-Vin. (Hyper Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

Kaänga:

Run-of-the-mill Tarzan clone who was orphaned in the jungle at a young age and whose Jane equivalent is named Ann Morgan. Kaänga's only real point of interest is the umlaut on his second a, but he has close to 200 appearances over the years so I'm sure we'll be seeing more from him. (Jungle Comics 001, 1940)