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)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 096

Even the most minor of super-heroes gets the chance to shine brightly in the Round-Up.

Super-American:

I can't decide if I'm surprised or not that the development of the archetype of the patriotic hero was so rapid as to produce a character called "Super-American" less than a year after the debut of Captain America. He's simultaneously straight out to the sketchbook of a 60s underground comix guy (or indeed a more modern edgy comics guy) and a perfectly ordinary 1940s comic book character. Regardless: Super-American!

Super-American is an unnamed resident of the year 2350, who journeys back in time after Dr Allen Bruce uses his Chronopticon device to ask the President of 24th Century America for a little help with all the fascist spies and so forth who are causing trouble in 1940s America. 

This is way too early for a pop time travel story to get too worried about issues of causality and so forth, so I guess we must assume that Super-American uses the kind of time travel where your time travel escapades already happened so you can't actually change your own present. Or maybe the kind where the time you leave from is inevitable, so your actions in the past merely cause it to happen in a different way. Or even the kind where messing around in the past causes a divergent timeline, but the new futures he creates are similar enough to still produce a Super-American.

Thanks to good old-fashioned futuristic technology, Super-American is endowed with powers such as super strength and speed, invulnerability and flight. Plus, he's super-duper patriotic! Like, annoyingly so! As one might expect of someone who willingly wears that helmet. (Fight Comics 015, 1941)

Categorized in: Language (Superlatives (Super)), Locations (Specific Locales), Origins (Displaced in Time)

Captain Fight:

Patriotic hero Captain Fight is actually Jeff Crockett, gym teacher at Freeville High in Freeville, Maryland. Despite being held in contempt by his male students for turning down a career in prizefighting due to a conviction that violence should not be used frivolously, Crockett does not hesitate to don a sporty outfit and deal out fistic justice to the enemies of America when they show their faces in his specific small town. (Fight Comics 016, 1941)

Categorized in: Activities (Fighting), Day Jobs (High School Teachers), Generica (Captains)

Yank Adams: 

Unusually for a boy sidekick, Yank Wilson is not an easily-adoptable orphan, instead, he is one of Jeff "Captain Fight" Crockett's students and also the son of local inventor and espionage target Professor Adams. Yank recognizes Crockett through his weird mask pretty much instantly and a crime-fighting team is formed. (Fight Comics 016, 1941)

Categorized in: Day Job (High School Student), Origins (Sidekicks)

Zanzibar the Magician:

Zanzibar is a standard unit of magical super-hero who adventured in a variety of Fox Features books from 1939 to early 1942. Though his adventures are decently entertaining fare I'm afraid that the most interesting fact I can give you about Zanzibar himself is that at one point he switches from a red fez to a blue one. (Mystery Men Comics 001, 1939)

Categorized in: Locations (Place Names as Proper Names), Magic Users (Magicians), Powers (Various Magic)

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 026

Once again we point and go "Hey. It's that guy."

Adolf Hitler:

Captain Courageous has to deal with a few pseudo-Nazis working for Hitler-alike Hinkler. (Banner Comics 003, 1941) 

Real Hitler takes a scheme-foiling by Vulcan pretty hard. (Four Favorites 001, 1941)

Devil's Island:

Captain America and Bucky infiltrate Devil's Island to free a prisoner who is not only a victim of carceral justice taken to unjust extremes but also as an arm of the Nazi government in France. (Captain America Comics 005, 1941)

the Duke and Duchess of Windsor:

The Duke of Windsor, aka the former King Edward VIII of England and his wife Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, welcome Speed Martin to the Bahamas in the Duke's wartime role as the Governor General of that territory. (The Funnies 051, 1941)

FDR:

Super-American rescues the most obscured-by-shadow (and completely silent!) FDR we have yet seen from the evil Tyrannus. The usual shadowed-features treatment that he usually gets is so over the top in that it looks like the President is going to be dramatically revealed to be some sort of frog monster in the next panel. (Fight Comics 015, 1941)

By contrast, here's a very recognizable FDR congratulating newsreel cameraman Speed Martin on returning from Europe with some vital intel on the Axis war machine. (The Funnies 051, 1941)

And by contrast with that, here's "Mr Jones," the mysterious government official who recruits Captain Midnight into his country's service and who is heavily implied to be a disguised FDR, even though he lacks the President's famously large head. (The Funnies 057, 1941)

(don't worry: someone thought about the big head issue and inflated it by The Funnies 058)

the German-American Bund:

Very rare appearance of the German-American Bund under it's own name, even if the actual group was already in severe decline at the point this book was published. (Captain America Comics 005, 1941)

Harold R. Stark:

He's not named, but the Chief of Naval Operations seen here sure looks like the man who held the position at the time, Harold R. Stark. Did they do a photo reference this one time? (The Funnies 055, 1941)

Joe Dimaggio:

"Joey Diraggio," star player for the Brooklyn Badgers and victim of the Black Toad. (Captain America Comics 007, 1941)

the Venus de Milo:

The Venus de Milo is stolen by Zeus and brought back to Ancient Greece so that he can turn it into a human woman to be his wife. Zanzibar the Magician rescues the statue woman and brings her back to the present with him, but the question is never resolved: does he chop off her arms and turn her into a statue again? Is the Fox Features Universe minus one statue and plus one blonde lady? (Mystery Men Comics 002, 1939)

Winston Churchill:

Personally thanks Vulcan for escorting a convoy to England. (Four Favourites 001, 1941) 

DIVINE ROUND-UP 031

It's a wide-ranging and complicated theological world out there. 

the Death Orchid:

Once again we have a giant flower - in this case a carnivorous one - that is being worshipped as a god. Interestingly, the people doing so are Lamas, which I think might be being incorrectly used as a general term for Tibetans of a religious inclination, unless there are some major aspects of Tibetan Buddhism that I haven't heard about.

Adventure aviator Captain Kidd flies a fellow named Professor Teller to Tibet to find this fabled plant only to nearly be sacrificed to it with him and ultimately to destroy it. The price of scientific inquiry, I suppose.

Lamas! 

God Style: Animist (Fantastic Comics 019, 1941)

Isis: 

This version of the goddess Isis is okay with her followers being evil and scheming, as evidenced by the fact that her high priest is Nagana, aka the Queen of Evil, but not so hot on blasphemy, as seen here when she drops her own temple on Nagana as well as the faithful Kalkor and hundreds of others. 

Then when Nagana manages to come back to life in the present day she immediately starts badmouthing Isis again, prompting the goddess to show up (topless, in a repeat of the last time we saw her) and introduce an immortal foe for her in the form of Kalkor.

GOD STYLE: Real (Fantastic Comics 022, 1941)

the Black Sword:

The theology of the Black Sword Cult is not entirely clear, so the fact that they worship this swordfish is at least partially speculation on my part. They do use it to conduct human sacrifices, and the high priest does kill herself after Oran of the Jungle slays it, so I'm gonna go ahead and call this as a swordfish cult.

God Style: Animist, probably (Fight Comics 012, 1941)

Zeus: 

Zeus has a reputation for being weird and horny all the time, but this version of him might take the cake. He has stolen the Venus de Milo from the present and taken it back to Ancient Greece to bring it to life and marry it. Wild stuff. Featuring Hercules for a split second before Zanzibar the Magician turns him into a bird! 

God Style: Real (Mystery Men Comics 002, 1939)