MINOR SUPER-HERO 020: THE RED TORPEDO

(Crack Comics 001-020, 1940-1942)

The Red Torpedo is Jim Lockhart, a guy who came up with a design for the ultimate one-man submarine and turned that into his whole personality. This is a not-uncommon Golden-Age comics trope that kind of petered out once the world was no longer awash with mechanized combat - Silver Age super-vehicles tended more toward the exploration side of things.

So: Jim Lockhart, young US Navy officer resigns his commission after being told that his submarine design was unworkable. He builds it anyway, with the help of his fiancé, Meg, then seemingly leaves her behind as well - a "Peggy" show up as his assistant a few issues later but after that he's a strictly one-man operation. 

Lockhart shows up here and there in the extended DCU - most notably in a Roy Thomas engineered cull of the old Quality Comics characters in All-Star Squadron back in the day. Like most of the others killed off in that ish, Red Torpedo got better and shows up whenever someone needs a really good submarine for something.

Good luck finding it but the thing that really cemented my love for this guy is the Crack Comics installment of the Next Issue Project. A really lovely, simple, melancholy story about a submarine man.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 183: X-1

(Crack Comics 003, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? While X-1 is concerned with that most banal of crimes, insurance fraud, he does it at scale, employing a fleet of pirates in souped-up submarines to steal his own goods and sink his own ships for the sweet cash payout.

What is interesting about them? Well first off, his real name is Wilhelm Wotan, a true banger of a moniker the likes of which we have seldom seen so far. A real villain's name that is frankly wasted on this capitalist pigdog.

The real draw, though, is those submarine pirates! Check out those dreamy mantled masks, that skull-and-crossboned conning tower! It's hard to go wrong with submarine pirates but by Jove I've seldom seen any done more right.