NOTES - MAY 2025

Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects: 

The Raven, a nonviolent thief who crucial only steals ill-gotten gains from the wealthy and powerful, draws a lot of police fire over the course of his activities. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

Treasury agent blazes away at a fleeing diamond smuggler in the middle of NYC. (Target Comics v1 004, 1940)

A Good Line to Exit A Burning Building With:

Especially if you have no intention of being a waffle. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

Insufficiently Advanced: 

This "aging machine" has to be the most low-rent bit of alien tech ever featured in any bit of fiction. Just locking someone up for fifty years isn't a particularly impressive feat of extraterrestrial engineering, so-called King of the Brainmen. (Sure-Fire Comics 003b, 1940)

The March of Progress:

A fun exercise in just how recent the Satanic Panic and its preoccupations were: this puzzle, in which a goat-man demonstrates how to draw an inverted pentagram, is presented as a fun activity for kids, something that would have caused an American parent from c.1987 to spontaneously combust with the speed at which they would have been travelling to contact the authorities/the news media/the evangelical church. (Famous Funnies 054, 1939)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 583: THE SPACE EMPEROR

(Exciting Comics 001, 1940) 

The Space Emperor first makes himself known to the solar authorities of 3964 AC (and no, I do not know what the C stands for) by either sending or allowing to escape an intelligence agent named Sperling who was investigating trouble on Jupiter for the President of Earth. Sperling has been transformed into a beast-man so horrible to behold that the President's assistant kills him on sight but not before he can get the word out. Clearly, this is a job for Major Mars.

Major Mars beards the Space Emperor in his lair via the classic "pretend to be captured" gag but immediately loses him. It seems that this villain has a few tricks up his sleeve! Specifically, he has acquired "the Magic Belt of the Ancients," an artifact of some long-vanished Jovian race which allows him to become invisible and/or intangible and is presumably also what allows him to turn humans into ape men.

Per his name, the Space Emperor has big big plans for these powers. His first step toward universal domination is to take over Jupiter by both turning the Earth colonists into apes and forging a cult/revolutionary force out of the native Jovians (who absolutely should revolt, let's be clear - the Earth colonists use them as mine labour and limit their rights in some very historically familiar ways). 

While he seems on track to take over Jupiter, the Space Emperor absolutely suffers from a classic excess of ambition. With a movement based on personal appearances and frequent demonstrations of power (not to mention the Jovians' preexisting devotion to the Ancients), he is going to have a heck of a time scaling up even to a conquest of the Solar System without some significant changes.

The Space Emperor is ultimately defeated when Major Mars gets him with a surprise attack and manages to wrest the Belt of the Ancients from him (and this is why you don't advertise the source of your power, folks). He of course turns out to be Vice-Governor Kells, the only extraneous named character in the story, and the day is saved!

MINOR SUPER-HERO 025: ACE OF SPACE

(Feature Comics 038-041, 1940-1941)

Pretty fond of the Ace of Space. As you can see above he has the fairly common origin of finding an alien spaceship and [getting powers accidentally from alien technology/ getting powers as a reward for helping the alien/ looting the deceased alien/ taking on the dying alien's mission and technology]. In this case, he has to defend the Earth from invading Slogoms. 

Also, I demand that you appreciate that cool looking alien. What a cool guy!

 

The alien's power belt gives A.C. "Ace" Egan the standard power array of enhanced flight, strength and speed, plus telepathy and, best of all, makes him 9 feet tall. He also inherits the alien's spaceship, which can usefully turn invisible. 

As with most forgotten DC/ Marvel super-heroes I reckon that Ace of Space should be brung back as a legacy hero (or as himself after having relativistic adventures in his spaceship! I'm easy!) because if there's one thing that I love about a sprawling shared super-hero universe it's all the weirdos and obscurities. Any group shot at a super-meeting would only be enhanced by a 9 foot tall dude in jodhpurs and a flight helmet. Or his great grand-niece who is still 9 feet tall but dresses like a rockabilly lady - as I said, I'm easy.

(the Slogoms are also very cool aliens)