CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 013

If I see a wound, I catalogue it.

Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire:

Shot in the back with an arrow. (Jungle Comics 019, 1941)

Captain Flag:

Nearly dies of the Black Hand's horrible hand disease. (Blue Ribbon Comics 016, 1941)

the Cat-Man:

Stabbed in the chest, to death (he gets better). (Crash Comics Adventures 004, 1940)

Killed by a blood-freezing ray. He gets better again. (Crash Comics Adventures 005, 1940)

Dynamo:

Dynamo gets his skull creased by a bullet in the classic fashion. (Science Comics 005, 1940)

the Green Mask:

Michael Shelby is shot in the chest, prompting pal Professor Lascomb to stick him in the machine that turns him into the Green Mask. (Green Mask v1 001 1940)

Domino the Miracle Boy:

Later in the same issue, the boy known only as Don gets seriously exploded and must also be placed in the machine. (Green Mask v1 001, 1940)

Kaänga: 

Not even being an off-brand Tarzan can save you from being shot in the left shoulder,, as Kaänga learns here. (Jungle Comics 010, 1940)

the Mask:

District Attorney Colby is blinded by acid as part of his journey to becoming the Mask. (Exciting Comics 001, 1940)

Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle:

Tabu is shot in the right shoulder by this jerk. (Jungle Comics 019, 1941)

Just one issue later, Tabu is speared in the right arm by a different jerk. (Jungle Comics 020, 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 009

How can we have nice things if they keep getting so dinged up?

the Black Terror:

It might look like the Black Terror ('s secret identity) is knocked out by falling down a flight of stairs onto his head, but according to him it was actually a bullet creasing the old skull that did the trick. (Exciting Comics 010, 1941)

This is a tough one: the Black Terror is shot and nearly killed, and he kind of seems to be clutching his head but the gun is aimed at his torso as it fires. Guess we'll file this under "shot, unspecified." (Exciting Comics 012, 1941)

the Black Fury:

Shot in the left shoulder and tossed out of a moving car. (Fantastic Comics 020, 1941)

Chuck:

The Black Fury's sidekick Chuck is shot in the ever-popular left shoulder and knocked clean off of a building by one of the Fang's henchmen, but makes out okay nonetheless. (Fantastic Comics 019, 1941)

Dr Hypno: 

I never expected a fellow whose whole shtick is putting his mind into animal bodies to get mixed up in the action enough to take a wound, but here he is: poor ol' Dr Hypno getting branded on the chest by a crook. (Amazing-Man Comics 018, 1940)

the Mask:

The Mask, in his civilian identity of District Attorney Tony Colby, joins the "skull creased by a bullet" club. EDIT: I wrote this without checking and it turns out that this is the second time that the Mask's skull has been creased, so he was already a member of the club. My apologies. (Exciting Comics 011, 1941)

Mighty Man:

Mighty Man gets shot through the left shoulder. Considering his size at the time (enormous) he's lucky that the guy didn't score a headshot. (Amazing-Man Comics 014, 1940)

the Shark:

The Shark (temporarily weakened by the loss of his magic knife) gets whipped with belts by a bunch of jerk Nazis. (Amazing-Man Comics 011, 1940)

A couple of issue later, the Shark gets stabbed in the gut by his own dang knife. Yes, the stab wound is swiftly turned back on his attacker by the weapon's magic, but you can't tell me that the Shark doesn't get stabbed first. (Amazing-Man Comics 013, 1940)

Super Ann:

In one of Super Ann's handful of adventures she gets a real one-two: a bullet-creased scalp followed by a near-drowning. (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941)

FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 014

Surely fascists will stop being such a problem eventually, right?

the German Help Club:

Probably the most straightforwardly cynical version of the German American Bund that we've seen so far, the German Help Club is simply a mass extortion scheme in which the German-American residents of NYC are forced to give up 15% of their earnings or see their relatives back in Germany be persecuted and jailed. Pat Patriot breaks them up with extreme prejudice. (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

Gorilla-Suited Saboteurs: 

This bunch of Nazis dress up in bulletproof gorilla suits in order to sabotage British operations in Uganda, but they are unable to contend with jungle adventurer ed Crane. (Exciting Comics 008, 1941)

the Nazi Bund:

The Nazi Bund is yet another riff on the German-American Bund as an actually impactful spy organization. Is Bund leader Fanz Mann a version of the real-life Bund leader Fritz Kuhn or just a Nazi with a generic German name? Hard to say, but in either case he gets smashed up by Samson. (Fantastic Comics 020, 1941)

Herr Arson:

Herr Arson runs one of those Fifth Column cells that gave 1940s comic book heroes so much trouble. He has three major claims to fame: 1) Herr Arson is a fantastic name for a Nazi saboteur, 2) Given that, the fact that, of four acts of sabotage he commits this issue, only one is arson is very funny.

3) Herr Arson might just get the most killed that I have ever seen in a comic, as the Flame uses his flame gun to utterly vaporize him in the middle of the street. (The Flame 006, 1941)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 044

Aliens! Mostly Martians!

Treemen:

Richard of Warwick, aka the Golden Knight, having gone to the Crusades, won the Crusades and returned home from the Crusades, now enters a fourth period of adventuring that is all about family. First, he rescues his little brother from the evil Black Baron, he now sets out to explore his father's gold mines including the boarded-up one where his mother disappeared twenty years earlier.

Inside, in addition to a variety of hostile reptile life, Richard encounters a some mostly-nude fellows called Treemen, who look like humans with very prominent upper canine teeth. I was pretty puzzled about their name until I looked a bit harder and saw that they also have awful-looking long curly fingernails. Is this where they get their name? From the fact that they look like they have roots? Horrible.

Though Richard does do well initially, ultimately falls to the Treemen and is captured. It's just lucky for him that the mighty Queen Martha of the Treemen turns out to be his mom. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Mar-Men:

The Mar-Men, under the leadership of the vile Craga, have been capturing human space crews to use as slave labour on their warships, a scheme that is ultimately foiled by the heroic Perisphere Payne. Being nothing more than green-skinned humans, the Mar-Men are generally unremarkable as aliens, though they are the only example that I am aware of of a Mars-derived species name that completely omits the "s" sound. (Science Comics 003, 1940)

Martians: 

As in every Space Rovers adventure, Ted Hunt and Jane Martin are just toddling around space one day when they notice a bunch of Martian soldiers seemingly lowering a woman to her doom in the Lost Valley of Mars. Upon rescuing her, they learn that she is the exiled Queen Mara of Thurn, whose kingdom has been usurped by her uncle/former regent Xark. The Space Rovers vow to help restore her to the throne, and as is so often the case are lucky to have picked a reliable narrator to back.

The Martians (or more specifically the Thurnians, I suppose), have one of those weird mixes of technologies that you get in sci-fi adventure comics: they have charming little flying machines armed with projectile weaponry, but their soldiers are all armed with swords. None of this is a match for the Space Rovers' tommy guns and rocket ships.

Mara is restores to her throne with a little help from Ted's jet pack and some phosphorescent paint, and Thurn is once more subject to the whims of the correct absolute monarch. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940) 

Martian Anthropoids:

These fellows are the major threat to Queen Mara in the Lost Valley, and while they're basically just Martian cavemen I do appreciate that they look like Simpsons characters. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940)