MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 020

Super-heroes! Minor ones. 

the Tulpa:

The Tulpa and its originator Tsang had the misfortune to appear only once, in Sun Publications' only proper comic, Colossus Comics 001. This is... a shame? No, it's probably not. As it stands, the Tulpa is an interesting idea: a Tibetan hermit Lama named Tsang manifests a superhuman thoughtform to battle a bandit/Nazi alliance who are preying on nearby monasteries, and as far as 1940s comics set in Asia go, the whole thing isn't even that racist!*

The Tulpa itself is a fairly generic bulletproof muscleman with a pretty great look - I tried to see if that sort of draped hood/cloak was an actual thing that people in Tibet wore at some point (it's just plausible enough looking that it might be inspired by actual clothing) but with the current state of image searching I think it's once again a case of me giving up once it becomes clear that I would have to do Actual Research to find the answer. I also really like the very subtle eyeliner/ domino mask.

*it's still racist, though. Just in comparison.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Tulpa is the fact that it has to be actively maintained by Tsang at a fairly high physical and mental cost. At one point he almost drops his ally down a cliff because a concerned member of the temple staff brings him some food and breaks his trance and later on that poor berated person is proven right because Tsang has to slither over to eat it cold lest he miss the climax of the story. I just think it's neat when a super-character doesn't have unlimited energy. (Colossus Comics 001, 1940)

Icarion:

What could meet the definition of a minor super-hero more than one who never actually appeared in a published story? Yes, poor Icarion (Child of the Sun) here was advertised on the back cover of Colossus Comics 001 as a feature in the second, never-produced issue. All we can say about him is that he could probably fly, but as a long-time comic-book thinker-abouter I have a few well-informed theories as to what his deal might have been:

-descendant or reincarnation of Icarus

-adventurer or archaeologist who has found Icarus' (or more plausibly Daedalus') wings

-winged alien or other nonhuman with a very coincidental name

-scientist or inventor who has created wing tech and chosen an allusive name

-non-flying adventurer with winglike cape (least likely but still possible)

Outside of an amazing lore dump from a long-lost journal or something, we shall never know. (Colossus Comics 001, 1940)

Strongman:

Strongman! Of course there was a Superman knockoff named Strongman, how could there not be? 

Rather than being rocketed to Earth from a doomed planet, Strongman here has been doing yoga (secret yoga) for years and now has super strength and speed as well as invulnerability to small arms etc, super breath and even telescopic vision. Pretty good yoga! He's also wearing a costume that today reads either "1930s sci-fi" or "WWII Nazi character created in the 1980s" (foreshadowing).

As far as secret identities go, Strongman is Percy van Norton, bored playboy complete with monocle, cigarette holder and coterie of socialites who sail around the world on his yacht with him, simultaneously giving him a reason to be in conflict zones and complicating his attempts to intervene in those conflicts. He also has one of the snottiest expressions ever depicted on a playboy - Bruce Wayne could only dream.

Strongman is the second character we have encountered to later be drafted into Roy Thomas' Battle-Axis of public domain super-heroes-turned Nazis and I have to say that he's the one I can actually see doing it, whether because I find his snotty expression so unlikable or because early on he's very against the US entering WWII and doesn't last long enough to get on board with the war effort, so I associate him with the kind of nativist/nationalist/fascist-adjacent types who kept on with those beliefs. I also appreciate that his revised serum-based origin also made him dumber. (Crash Comics Adventures 001, 1940)

the Blue Streak:

The Blue Streak (aka the Defender of the People) is an otherwise-unnamed man with a simple charter: protect the weak and persecuted from the strong. He's got an aide named Tago and together they fly all over the world righting wrongs and toppling a series of vaguely fascist dictators and generals. Technically he's just a guy in a costume but due to the nature of comic book storytelling he accomplishes several feats that could be called lightly superhuman. He's the kind of character who would be referred to as being in "peak physical condition" in a handbook or a who's who. I like him! He's got a simple charter and he sticks to it and most importantly if he showed up in a comic as a Nazi I'd figure that something was up. (Crash Comics Adventures 001, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 579: COLOSSUS

(Colossus Comics 001, 1940)

I included this cover here in order to indulge in a little personal nostalgia but instead I feel like I am going a bit mad. See, I know this cover very well, from somewhere. I thought it was from Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Supervillains, which I read through about one million times as a youth, but when I decided to check out the entry on Colossus in that book I could not find one. Ditto for the Encyclopedia of Monsters and even the Encyclopedia of Superheroes. As far as I can tell the oldest book I own with this image in it is Jon Morris' the Legion of Regrettable Supervillains, and that came out when I was 36 years old - will I ever learn where I encountered it as a young skeleton?

But enough of my memory crisis. The real important thing to note about this cover is that That's Not What Colossus Looks Like, or at least Dresses Like. Perhaps if this issue weren't his sole appearance he might have adopted something closer to the... well, I can only really describe it as a metal bondage outfit. The metal bondage outfit that he's wearing on the cover, then

Colossus is originally Richard Zenith, a humble lab assistant of the year 2640. He works for scientist Doctor Blitzmann, who is a good enough boss to know that Zenith's secret wish is to be a burly six-foot tall man like their colleague Bryn Hale (rather than *squints* his current burly five-foot-ten or so) but also a terrible enough boss that he says this in a shitty and humiliating way while injecting Zenith with growth serum.

Blitzmann's daughter Eve also works at her father's lab and it seems like she might not have gotten the job on merit because when she prepared the syringe of Hyper Catalyst VII growth serum for Zenith so that he would stop referring to himself as a "short king" she mixed it roughly 20 000 times stronger than needed. 

The serum seems to be more than merely biochemical in nature, as Zenith grows to thousands of times his original size without collapsing into a pile of viscera and broken bones. Plus, his clothes grow with him!

The power inherent in being a big big man immediately goes to Zenith's head and he declares himself "Colossus, Ruler of All the Earth!" and sets out to extract a surrender from Gregory Graves, head of the Tri-Planetary Federation's Solar Patrol, by threatening to destroy the Federation capital of Urbania. It's you classic case of a nerd being given power and immediately turning into a fascist.

In a fortuitous coincidence Earth's old enemies, the very cool Plantaliens are also attempting to conquer the planet at the same time as Colossus and so there is a bit of a turf war that is handily won by the unstoppable 2000 foot tall man. Too bad, Plantaliens! Try again in another 60 years!

Colossus Comics was reportedly a test by Sun Publications to see if it was worth getting into this crazy new industry, and if that was indeed the case then the answer was "no" because this is the only appearance of Colossus (next month, i.e., never, "Colossus over Europe"!)