MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 079

Look anywhere and you won't find finer minor super-heroes. That's our guarantee!

Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor **UPDATE**: 

Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor, continues to live up to his moniker and churn out the boy inventions in 1941. Some highlights:

- several different models of remote controlled robot

- an autopilot for ships

-a code-breaking machine

- a device for viewing the past

- force rays

- a drilling machine

- a rope that is attracted to hair

- indestructible metal

- an invisibility device

- both a lightning cannon and a means of making natural lightning strike at specific targets 

- an oil detector

- a vertigo ray 

To facilitate his boundless inventive genius, in Silver Streak Comics 015 Dickie salvages a bunch of treasure from the ocean floor and uses it to build and staff a laboratory complex with one security guard and such features as a huge uncovered pit of lye. The plot potential is enormous.

This actually happened in Silver Streak Comics 006 in 1940 but I neglected to note it: Dickie Dean no longer lives in the real New Castle, Pennsylvania but the fictional Castleton, presumably also Pennsylvania. This also prompts him to change the "N" on his shirt to a "C". For about five issues until someone forgot, that is. 

Categorized in: Accessories (Various), Location (Castleton, Pennsylvania)

the Daredevil II:

After the second engagement between the Claw and the Daredevil in their ongoing battle for the future of the United States (watch this space), the Claw ends up in jail, unable to use his powers and one week away from execution. This, reasons Daredevil, is the perfect time to go fishing in the South Seas. And as soon as he leaves the Claw breaks jail and threatens the sovereignty of the nation once more. This is just basic narrative causality, friends.

The Claw then has a series of triumphs, culminating in him capturing and killing what appears to be the Daredevil! It's an ignominious end for the hero, so it's a good thing that it wasn't really him: the dead Daredevil turns out to be the original's never-before-seen-or-mentioned, unnamed brother, who tried to stand in for his sibling in his absence despite not having been raised by boomerangs or whatever Daredevil's current origin is, and paid the ultimate price for it. 

"Daredevil II" Hill is not only never given a first name but is never mentioned and certainly never mourned after the above panel. It's very sad, really. (Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941)

Categorized in: Catalogue of Wounds, Origins (Legacy Characters)

Secret Agent X-101: 

Secret Agent X-101 is actually newspaper publisher Bart Benson of the Daily Record, and while he doesn't bring anything too unique to the secret agent comics genre in his two appearances he is the first example I am aware of of the secret agent/ civilian life divide being treated like a super-hero and their secret identity, so that's something. (Silver Streak Comics 008, 1941)

Categorized in: Day Job (Newspaper Publisher), Profession (Espionage), Team Membership (US Secret Service)

the Pirate Prince: 

A pompadoured pirate captain who, along with a crew of lovable rogues named things like Merry, Flip and Gilly, battles against the slave trade and other sea-borne evils of the Age of Sail. Given that he robs Jean Lafitte of his ill-gotten booty in his first appearance, I'd wager that he operates somewhere around 1810 CE or so. 

While this strip is pretty consistent in its anti-slavery, pro brotherhood-of-man stance, it is also a 1940s comic, so it features quite a lot of comic relief racial humour. It's a real mixed message! (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

Categorized in: Origin (Heroes of the Past), Profession (Pirate), Royalty (Princes)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 927: THE HIGH ONE

(Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941)

The High One is a fascist spy chief cum mad scientist who has been using an advanced poison to wage a surprisingly successful campaign to kill of the upper echelons of the US government. This has brought him into conflict with Bart Benson, aka Secret Agent X-101, who is soon captured by the High One's agents and bundled off to his HQ in the small town of Newburgh to be gloated at and then executed.

Though the High One is clever, he ultimately falls prey to pride: X-101 is able to lure him close enough by insulting him to get ahold of him, get free and chuck him out one of his ostentatiously huge windows. After that it's a simple matter of bringing down a planeload of poison before it gets to Washington DC and the whole operation is over.

I would like to note that before the High One is taken out he does manage to kill the US Secretary of State, which is a bit more of an impact than even super-villains are usually able to pull off. Is this in fact Henry L. Stimson or just some generic comic book man? Impossible to say unless we treat the Lev Gleason Comics Universe as a coherent thing and he shows up in, like, a Daredevil story some day.

The High One is also notable for having employed a femme fatale spy named Sandra who served as a recurring foil for Secret Agent X-101 and who is a part of that rarefied sisterhood of recurring female villains who ultimately get away with it because the feature that they appear in has been cancelled. So long Sandra; have fun hanging out with Fraulein Doktor's Daughter and Illyria, Queen of Spies.

Categorized in: Alphanumeric (One), Espionage (Crypto-Fascist Spies), Real Folk (Henry L. Stimson)