CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 010

I'm beginning to think that the super-hero scene is pretty hazardous.

the Blue Bolt: 

The Blue Bolt's first outing against the Green Sorceress is marred by the fact that he gets near-fatally clawed by her vulturoid monsters. (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

the Cloak: 

Jeff Cardiff, aka the Spy-Master, aka the Spay-Chief and the future Cloak, gets a classic skull crease. On purpose! This is the way that that goon chose to knock him out! Such confidence! (Big Shot 002, 1940)

Jeff's choice to adopt the Cloak identity comes after his identity as a government man gets around and enemy agents start gunning for him. Specifically, they gun him in the left shoulder. Twice! (Big Shot 015, 1941)

Being a costumed super-hero is no guarantee that you won't be shot, however, and Jeff gets his skull creased once more on his third outing as the Cloak. (Big Shot 018, 1941)

the Flame:

The Flame turns off his bullet-melting heat aura for just an instant to pick up a lady in need and gets his skull creased by a bullet. (The Flame 007, 1941)

Phantasmo:

Phantasmo is one of the last super-heroes who one would expect to get injured, seeing as how his whole deal is supposed to be sending out a huge, invulnerable astral form to fight crime. Nevertheless, he keeps on starting adventures in his very vulnerable human body, and so he inevitably gets shot in the left shoulder. (The Funnies 061, 1941)

Skyman:

Skyman dodges a bullet at close range - an impressive feat - but he still gets a bloody gash across his enormous chest. (Big Shot 003, 1940)

Zanzibar the Magician:

Zanzibar takes an arrow in the right shoulder courtesy of a dastardly Walrus Man. (Mystery Men Comics 005, 1939)

A couple of years later but the same shoulder: Zanzibar is shot. (Mystery Men Comics 023, 1941)

 And what Golden Age super-hero goes very long without getting his head creased by a bullet? (The Flame 006, 1941)

MEDIA IN COMICS 006

Now that's entertainment. 

Magazines: 

Are magazine titles in comics more likely to be plays on real ones than other forms of media? Perhaps. We'll just have to see how many variations on Life and Time we can find over the years. Pretending to work for Living has enough caché that it gets these fascists into a secure aircraft plant - how long has it been since magazines were so relevant? (Big Shot Comics 014, 1941)

Movies:

I never actually mentioned it in the entry on the Hunchback of Hollywood, but the anti-Nazi movie that incites the story's action is called The Tyrant. Featuring Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes and Sergeant Duffy in minor roles! (Captain America Comics 003, 1941)

Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog's boy companion Richy (the Amazing Boy) never seemed to be that impressive to me, but Hollywood disagreed and he was made both the star and subject of a film called Riverfront Richy with lots of animal stunts. (Blue Ribbon Comics 011, 1941)

There's never any real indication of what Scoopin' Jive is about - music seems likely - but it's such a baffling name for a movie that I must celebrate it (Crackajack Funnies 036, 1941)

Similarly, we never really learn what Wings Aflutter is about, other than being a "new Navy Air smash hit" with a terrible name. (Jumbo Comics 034, 1941)

Theatre:

Minor super-villain the Black Death of course takes his costume and MO from a character in a stage production called The Black Death. There's not quite enough of the play's plot in the story to know if the fictional Black Death is supposed to be a metaphor or something or some sort of slasher movie killer as it appears. I sincerely hope it's the latter. (Thrilling Comics 010, 1940)

One of Professor X's attempts to get Sub-Zero involves attacking him in the audience of a big stage musical that his girlfriend Mary is appearing in as part of the "Living Chandelier". "George Whyte's Sandels" is a very specific-seeming reference, but I am unable to easily connect it to a show of the era. (Blue Bolt v1 006, 1940)

Fuller Spunk, former star of stage and now Holmes-inspired detective, starred in the evocatively-named shows Hector's Last Gulp and The Gripes of Raft. (Hyper-Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

Waltz of the Vampires is a ballet performance that is narratively used to set off vampire Carlos Hubbelo's bloodlust, but more importantly, it kind of rules? Comic book media is so often a version of something from the real world that it's always very fun to see something like this that (as far as I can tell) is just a sincere depiction of a vampire ballet. (Blue Ribbon Comics 011, 1941)

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 007

The right shoulder: unsung victim of the comics pages. 

Captain Battle: 

Captain Battle gets a fashionable bullet-creased skull on the docks of San Francisco. (Captain Battle Comics 001, 1941) 

the Cloak:

Being shot in the left shoulder is the inciting incident that leads Jeff Cardiff to adopt the Cloak identity in the first place. (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

the Face:

Shot in the right shoulder (Big Shot Comics 011, 1941)

Shot in the right shoulder again. (Big Shot Comics 018, 1941)

Shot in the left shoulder, which must have come as a relief. (Big Shot Comics 019, 1941)

the Fox:

Shot in the right shoulder. (Blue Ribbon Comics 012, 1941)

Kaänga: 

Shot in the right shoulder. (Jungle Comics 003, 1940)

Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians:

Shot in the right arm. (Big Shot Comics 012, 1941)

In what is probably the most sever non-fatal injury we have seen thus far, Marvelo takes an ape-powered throwing knife to the chest and is just barely alive for the remainder of the comic. (Big Shot Comics 016, 1941)

Skyman:

Skyman is shot in the ever-popular right shoulder, and no wonder: it's a big ol' target. (Big Shot Comics 002, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 500: DR VYLE AND THE VULTURE MEN

(Big Shot Comics 020, 1941)

Dr Howard Vyle is a pretty disappointing villain to land on for the big Number 500, if I'm honest. He's just some guy from some country (Big Shot Comics 1940-1941 is rife with spies but the folks at Columbia Comic Corporation were even more cagey than the rest of the industry about indicating where those spies might actually be from - it's faintly possible he might be supposed to be a commie, even as late as December '41) who kidnaps a US Senator with colossal eyebrows in order to hypnotize him and use his influence over the government for the glory of his home country. 

This is all pretty regular comics stuff and depending on my mood on the day I encountered him Dr Vyle would normally find himself in the Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up or maybe not even there. Lucky for him as well as for my sense that there should be something interesting in these big round number entries, Dr Vyle did not limit himself to using his hypnotic gifts for dull old political plots:

He also used them to recruit hapless goons to be his costumed Vulture Men! So cool they appear on the cover!

I can't say there's too much to the Vulture Men beyond being a bunch of mind controlled goons in cool wingsuits, but after reading two years' worth of Big Shot Comics' array of spies and gang bosses a flock of guys in proper gaudy villain garb are a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately for Dr Vyle while mind controlled goons are certainly cheaper and less concerned with their personal safety than your more conventional salaried minions they also seem to lack some of the verve and personal initiative that you need to give a super-hero a run for their money. Skyman beats them up and then beats up their boss, in other words. The senator is saved!

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 008

Mad or criminal, it's the science that matters.

This fellow is known only as "the hypnotist" and has an unspecified plan to do... something that involves taking control of flights of Army bombers and having them blow up targets of his choosing. If the details seem thin on the ground it's because this fellow speaks precisely three words (see above) before being captured by Jeff Cardiff, Spy-Chief and so the only knowledge we have about his plans is that which can be extrapolated from his actions.

Bonus details: 1. he hypnotizes people with his large purple eyes 2. his plan requires a video hookup to the planes he is controlling, which I personally did not know was standard or even possible in 1940. (Big Shot Comics 008, 1940)

De Carva here developed an earthquake causing ray and almost managed to conquer the US with it but made the classic mistake of trusting in his deathtraps to finish off Skyman without bothering to confirm if he was, in fact, dead. This is known as hubris, kids. (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

Professor Scorp here is a mad Egyptologist! That's right, folks, we've got a mad social science case on our hands! Scorp suffered some sort of breakdown and his family made the unfortunate and retrograde decision to confine him on their island estate rather than, say, seek treatment for him. Eventually, two unscrupulous servants helped him escape as part of a plan to steal and resurrect the mummy of evil pharaoh Tut-Akum-Aut so as to learn the location of his legendary lost treasure. The reanimated mummy above is sadly merely an illusion conjured by Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians. But on a happy note, Professtor Scorp is taken somewhere for proper treatment at the end of the story! (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

UPDATE: Astonishingly, Professor Scorp returns in The Face 001!

This is Humpy Hudson, who has a moderately foolproof scheme (develop a substance that explodes the air around it but is itself unharmed and make it an innocuous shape, thus giving yourself a hard-to-spot, untraceable bomb, then bomb utilities until you can extort money out of them) hampered by some poor planning (he only has one reusable bomb and he made it in the shape of an onyx statuette). Humpy spends most of the issue trying to get his bomb back after it gets picked up by a youngster and sold at a pawnshop, then gets captured by Skyman. (Big Shot Comics 019, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 499: NELS LAMBERT

(Big Shot Comics 017, 1941) 

Like a lot of Skyman's enemies Nels Lambert is a disaster causing guy. Specifically, he has a rig called an Electrical Wave Generator, with which he can create waves - presumably of all sizes but as he is a criminal scientist he's mostly focused on the largest and most destructive ones.

A note on naming: the Electrical Wave Generator is an okay name at best but he does refer to his base here as Nels Lambert's Floating Island and I personally choose to believe that that is it's official name because it's extremely whimsical..

Like our old friend the Ice Menace, Nels Lambert's plan is to weaponize the ocean and demand ransom from nations bordering the Atlantic in return for not being flooded. And he almost gets away with it, thanks to the fact that the Electrical Wave Generator is a multifunctional doomsday device: not only can it be used to create waves using electricity but that same electricity can be discharged into the atmosphere around Nels Lambert's Floating Island™ in order to for example very nearly electrocute Skyman and his pal Chubby as they fly in to investigate the source of this wave nuisance.

And speaking of Skyman's pal! Chubby Weeks is an old college friend of Allan "Skyman" Turner who ends up going along on this adventure through medium-level plot contrivance. The real interesting thing about Chubby is that he's a radio news reporter and that according the the callsign in the background of this picture he works at Station WBSC, which is the same station that Tony "the Face" Trent owns and/or works at. This is my first time reading any comics from the Columbia Comic Corporation so I have no idea if there's any further crossover action in the future but this evidence of a very mildly shared universe is very mildly exciting!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 495: STENTOR

(Big Shot Comics 011, 1941)

Stentor is named after a character from the Iliad who was known to have an amazingly loud voice and from whom we derive the word "Stentorian". This is a real slap in the face to me, a mythology-obsessed kid who got a minor in Classics at university essentially by accident because I kept signing up for classes I found interesting. I have opinions on Greek heroes! I know who Philoctetes is! And yet Stentor, a guy who died in a shouting contest with Hermes, was unknown to me until today.

This Stentor has figured out some way of broadcasting his voice without use of obvious receiving equipment and is using it to harass FDR in hopes that he can get ahold of the entire USA.

By amazing coincidence, Skyman has been messing around with Rochelle salts in his lab, leading to the discovery that they are the secret to Stentor's technology (tl;dr on the Wikipedia article: they're crystals used in WWII-era A/V gear).

Skyman fully figures out Stentor's tech and starts razzing him, leading to our first view of the man. I must say I appreciate a super-villain who arranges to spend his entire scheme sitting down.

 

Don't worry about Stentor being a one-trick pony: he is in fact a two-trick pony, as he also has the capacity to cause Rochelle salts to explode, a capacity he employs in an attempt on the life of the President using a cunningly-placed Rochelle salt fish castle, surely one of the most ignoble ways for a world leader to be assassinated.

Stentor is at heart the kind of little weenie nerd who would pull an obscure mythological character to name himself after rather than calling himself the Voice like all of his peers, so once Skyman tracks him down he's swiftly wedgied into custody. Note also that Skyman has the same "ick no, girl cooties" reaction to being smooched as Golden Age Superman.

In conclusion: I like him! His technology is weird and niche and he manages to use it anyway. Plus I got to learn about a mythological guy I didn't know about! (EDIT: Looks like he was in an Assassin's Creed game a couple-three years ago. I am late to the Knowing About Stentor party)