MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 520: THE HIGH PRIEST OF THOR

(Blue Bolt v2 006, 1941) 

We open on an aircraft factory. Suddenly, a strange vibration fills the air. After an initial moment of surprise, the workers all file out the door and into a cave in a nearby hillside. Inside?

THIS MAN!

This man is the self-proclaimed High Priest of Thor and before we get into what he's up to I'd like to commend his commitment to the costume. Your average religious-type villain is not going to these lengths to look ceremonial and in fact are more likely to be in the Robe and Cloth Mask club. I particularly like the helmet, which looks like it must be obstructing his vision and crushing his nose at the same time but which manages to combine wings and horns in a single Platonic Fake Viking Helmet. Also note the mustache, which flies off the first time he is punched and just reaffirms his commitment to the bit.

Of course the High Priest of Thor ends up being some sort of pseudo-Nazi spy looking to sabotage the US defense program. It's never explicitly laid out but his vibration machine seems to put its subjects into a mentally receptive hypnotic state and the Thor stuff is all a way of getting them to do what he wants: if Thor is real and they are fanatical Thor cultists like this guy says then why not blow up an airplane factory? Too bad for the High Priest of Thor that the Twister had to show up and ruin things but at least he got to look cool with a tommy gun before it was all over.

Bonus: this Thor explainer written by someone who did not have the gumption to look up anything about Thor.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 517: THE BULL

(Blue Bolt v2 004, 1941)

Community. That's what the Bull's all about. Specifically a crime community, one of the top kinds of communities (to read about at least - most of them don't sound too great to live in). Situated in the Florida Everglades, the Bull's nameless crime community consists of him, about five other guys and a pet crocodile living in a bunch of ramshackle shacks. It's not much, but it's home.

There's not much else to the Bull - if I'm honest he only gets the nod because I love crime communities and there aren't enough of them. He does a kidnapping and tries to burn down a town and the Twister runs him in for his troubles. The real victim here is that poor crocodile who has to find its way down from that tree. And also that kidnapped woman, of course.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 008

Some real highs and lows in this one.

the Twister: 

The Twister is a quite minor Golden Age super-hero - he managed more than one appearance but not more than seven - who has the distinction of having one of the most well-designed costumes of the era. Not my favourite costume, mind you, but boy oh boy, you can really tell that his creators (Ray Gill and Paul Gustavson as it happens) really sat down for a good think about how to evoke "tornado" via the medium of clothing.

The Twister turns out to be Bob Sanders, and he turns out to be a descendant of perennial fave Greek hero Odysseus. It turns out that the story of Aeolus gifting Odysseus two bags of wind and his men opening the bag of storm winds thinking that it was full of treasure was more than just another delay in Odysseus' Bad Voyage, it was akin to the opening of Pandora's Box and Aeolus had charged Odysseus or his descendants to round up all of the evil violent winds and return the to captivity. 

Evidently over the years the charge to gather up evil winds has expanded to fighting all evil, and the Twister's power set allows him to run roughshod over just about anyone using wind control, a tornado form and invulnerability to anything that couldn't harm actual wind. There is some attempt to establish that he is vulnerable to being locked up somewhere with no airflow but that proves even easier to defeat than all the times that Silver Age Aquaman is locked up and forced to source water from unexpected places.

The Twister's other claim to fame is that he was introduced as a mysterious tornado that appeared in the Blue Bolt, Sub-Zero and Dick Cole stories in the issue he first appears in, which is enough to be counted as a rare Golden Age crossover even though none of them shared words. (Blue Bolt v2 001, 1941)

Freezum:

On an adventure that takes him to Alaska, Sub-Zero happens upon a little Inuit or Aleut boy frozen in a glacier.

Thawing the kid out and finding him to miraculously be alive, Sub-Zero (as well as an unfortunate doctor) is further astounded to discover that they share the same sort of cold-based powers due to their similar near-death freezing experiences. The kid names himself Freezum, and that's just the first salvo of a barrage of tired comic relief sidekick shenanigans. Yes, we'll be sighing and rolling our eyes for the remainder of Sub-Zero's run - the joys of the Golden Age, friends! (Blue Bolt v2 005, 1941)

Lois Blake:

Lois Blake is a woman who Blue Bolt meets while attempting to take down a gang that was swindling immigrants using fake citizenship papers and decides to team up with. At some point when the gang is being particularly elusive he remembers that his pal Dr Bertoff down in the underground Kirby world has a viewscreen that can see virtually any location and so they head down there to use it. Bertoff then very helpfully offers to transfer some of Blue Bolt's power to Lois and a new crimefighting team is born! (small aside: Golden Age comics don't get a lot of praise for their art but I really enjoy both the small detail of Lois gripping Blue Bolt's arm for comfort in the first panel above and her delighted expression in the third).

Lois never gets a super-hero name and only really makes a handful of appearances before Blue Bolt ditches his costume and powers to become a regular if oddly-named soldier, but he's such a nonentity post Simon and Kirby that I can't help but love her for adding some life to the strip.(Blue Bolt v2 007, 1941)

the Marvel:

The Marvel is your classic mask-and-tuxedo vigilante, who specializes in showing up to bail reporter Scoop Cody out of the kind of jams you can get in when you've cracked a juicy crime story but not accounted for the possibility that the criminals involved might want to stop you from reporting on it.

Three things about the Marvel: 

1. The nose cutout never looks as cool as the full-face cowl does but I reckon it's a heck of a lot more comfortable, so you have to give him some credit for choosing function over form.

2. Scoop Cody and thus the Marvel only had two appearances and both of them had a teaser at the end promising that the Marvel's identity would be revealed in the next issue. It's always possible that they were planning on making the Marvel a completely new, never-before-seen guy but if they weren't then literally the only suspect is this guy, Scoop Cody's crusty old unnamed editor.

3. Love a super-hero calling card, even in the rare cases when it's a literal calling card.

Also here is the Marvel's second appearance in its entirety. (Blue Ribbon Coimcs 002, 1939)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 343: THE TWISTER

(Master Comics 008, 1940)

Not a particularly distinguished entry today: the Twister is a gang boss who employs child pickpockets and keeps them in line with the threat of some semi-eponymous neck-twisting. No idea why he bothers with the robe and cowl - El Carim doesn't even bother to unmask him.

More fun than the Twister himself, in fact, is that his old gang is loyal enough to try to take revenge on El Carim in the next issue - a rare bit of continuity for the Golden Age.