PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 009

It it the nature of comic books that we will always be doing Problematic Updates.

Dr Finkle:

Dr Finkle himself is nothing special: he's a psuedo-Nazi teamed up with the pseudo-Japanese Matsui in a scheme to steal securities belonging to Axis-conquered countries that are held in America. The real issue lies with Finkle's primary agents, who you may notice being referred to as "Indian Monsters" in the final panel above.

These "Indian Monsters" are straight out of something like Bone Tomahawk: inhumanly huge, fast and strong, barely verbal, ravenous cannibals that Finkle keeps under control with a steady diet of human flesh... literally monsters, in other words.

I was going to say that the only good thing about them is that they eventually eat Dr Finkle but no, I must be thinking about some other monster-men. Instead, a special agent named Betty shoots Finkle and they immediately transfer allegiance to her thanks to "ancient Indian folklore." It's enough to tire a guy out. (Four Favorites 002, 1940)

Loanga:

Loanga is your regular old 1940s voodoo witch doctor, though he deviates from the norm by not being from Haiti but from another Caribbean island named Naseba, a name that feels like it should be in reference to something but if it is I cannot figure it out. Loango aims to take over the world with his zombie hordes and is starting with the United States, having captured and zombified Secretary of State Brant and compelled him to push for the disarmament all US military installations.

As usual it is interesting to note the specifics of Loanga's zombies. They are created out of living people using a combination of drugs and mind control and though they are still alive and able to speak, they cannot be killed by conventional means. They are cured and go back to normal when Loanga dies - whether this means that the ones who were dealt lethal wounds just fully die is not explored. Finally, they cast no shadows, and there's something going on with their eyes - the ones who we see trying to pass as regular folk all wear dark glasses, but no reason for doing so is given.

Loanga is ultimately undone by his own belief in the power of sympathetic magic: when comic relief artist character J. Rembrandt Speedball paints his portrait and then destroys it in a fit of pique at the thought of being executed by firing squad, he drops dead. All the zombies are freed or dead and the world is saved! (Fantastic Comics 023, 1941)

the Big Boss:

The Big Boss, a mysterious masked Chinese man who controls the opium trade in the Western city of Middletown (highly inaccurate name btw) unsurprisingly turns out to be J Harold Stetson, the prominent banker who has been making a lot of noise about how much he hates all this opium smuggling (and please note the misspelling that initially has his middle name as the weirdly amusing "Harlod"). (Lightning Comics v2 002, 1941)

the Death Patrol:

Here's the tragic thing about the Death Patrol: it's mostly something that I really like. I'll lay out the setup and you see if you can spot when we get into Problematic territory.

The Death Patrol is formed when wealthy pilot/failure Del van Dyne's plane is hijacked by a quartet of escaped convicts (and the pal who helped them break out). Del manages to weaponize his sense of rich guy ennui/ desire to make a difference in the world to convince the five to join him in volunteering to help the RAF defend the UK from Axis aggression, and thankfully all five are expert pilots in addition to their professional skills so this is a bit more plausible than it might otherwise be.

The hook of the early Death Patrol stories, and the source of their name, is the fact that they only take on the most dangerous missions and have an attrition rate of one member per adventure. (Military Comics 001, 1941)

The original lineup of the Death Patrol is as follows:

Del van Dyne: Wealthy failure and leader of the group. Alive at the end of 1941.

Butch O'Keefe: Safecracker. Sacrifices himself to stop a Nazi bomber group by crashing into them.

Gramps: Pickpocket. Alive at the end of 1941.

Hank: Rustler. Alive at the end of 1941.

Peewee: Forger. Shot in the back by Nazis in the very first Death Patrol adventure.

Slick Ward: Con artist. Dies in an exploding Nazi dirigible.

Additional members added in 1941 as the death toll rises: 

Stoney Rock: Arsonist. Shot by Nazis on his first mission. (Military Comics 002, 1941)

Zazzy: Kleptomaniac. Dies while rescuing workers from an exploding Nazi factory. (Military Comics 003, 1941)

Chief Chuck-a-lug: Former Wild West show performer stranded in Europe due to the conflict, and yes, congratulations, you spotted it. This is where the Death Patrol officially becomes Hard to Recommend, because from this point forward there will always be one or more racist comic relief characters running around and, for instance, yelling about scalping people. Alive at the end of 1941. (Military Comics 004, 1941)

King Hotentot: The ruler of a small African country that has been occupied by the Axis, King Hotenetot is a prime example of the Educated Savage, a classic unfunny comedy trope in which a character speaks eloquently due to a classical education but still, for example, runs around with a spear threatening to eat people like he's just flown in from a hateful jungle adventure. Still alive at the end of 1941. (Military Comics 005, 1941)

Jumping back to some of the fun things about the Death Patrol, here are their fun prison-themed flightsuits and skull-in-a-hat insignia which is personalized with a custom hat for each pilot. Fun! 

The Death Patrol also flies around in eccentric homemade airplanes, which is whimsical! It's the sort of thing that makes you want to recommend the comic to a friend, until you remember all the Problems.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 998: THE CHIEF

(Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

The Chief is one of two things, either a not-very-specific Hitler stand-in who is leading his forces from the front in an attempted invasion of the US, or the representative of such a figure in such an invasion. Either way, he is clearly a pseudo-Nazi. When we meet the Chief he is preoccupied with discovering the identities of the mysterious figures (who we know to be the Liberty Scouts) who have been thwarting his attempts to weaken the US war effort.

Though he makes a decent try at it, the Chief just barely fails at an attempt to destroy both the Liberty Scouts and the President of the United States while they are meeting at Liberty House. Their next encounter, by contrast, ends with him capturing the Scouts and gloating about his plans before leaving them tied up next to a bomb. It doesn't work out, of course, but setting up a deathtrap that will kill the hero while you are in a second location is a core super-villain activity. It's enrichment for them.

The Chief is at the forefront of Axis superweapon technology, with such innovations as a secret naval base in a hollowed-out iceberg off Newfoundland, a fleet of remote-controlled ships housed in that base, and heat ray cannons mounted on those ships, with which New York City as the first move in his invasion of the US.

Though New York ends up taking some heat ray fire, the Liberty Scouts (conspicuously not dead, as is the norm when super-heroes are left in deathtraps) show up in time take control of the robot fleet and turn the rays on the Chief's own forces.

Though the Chief makes a valiant attempt to escape to fight another day, he ends up flying his plane directly into the path of a heat ray and exploding.

The Liberty Scouts face a second Chief in Liberty Scouts Comics 003, who is also attempting to conquer the US on behalf of the same faux-Nazi government (they have the same crossed-knives symbol standing in for the swastika). This time the plan hinges on stealing a super knockout gas developed by Liberty Scout member Smokey and deploying it nation-wide, and once again the Chief's deadliest enemy proves to be aviation safety, and he doesn't even have a convenient heat ray cannon to blame for it: he just up and crashed his plane.

Categorized in: Generica (Chiefs), Ideologies (Crypto-Fascists), Supercrime (Attempted Conquest (United States))

FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 015

If there's one thing I know it's that the world has a seemingly-inexhaustible supply of odious little fascist worms.

the All-American League:

The All-American League is nothing so exciting as your Nazi spies trying to poison the reservoir or prevent and/or encourage the US entrance into WWII. Instead, they are the more banal type of fascism that is popular nowadays, in which patriotism is weaponized as a way to enrich and empower a few petty men (yes, yes that's what the Axis was too but they killed a lot of people while doing it so we hold them in higher esteem). The Flame is more than a match for a collection of small-minded opportunists.

Please note that this is the one and only adventure in which the Flame is said to live in a place called Metropolis before someone presumably thought better of it, and that it features an ethnic neighbourhood with the hilariously on-the-nose name of "Foreign Town." (The Flame 007, 1941)

the Nazi Bund:

This is our second instance of a group called the Nazi Bund and as the other one occurred in Fantastic Comics I would be tempted to posit that it represents a rare connection between two Fox Features titles. Not a strong connection, as this particular branch is completely annihilated by the Green Mask, just as that other was by Samson. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

the Yellow-Jackets:

Though the Yellow-Jackets, the recurring foes of America's Air Ace Bill Barnes, are described as a kind of freelance band of international bandit spies, in practice they are just another bunch of Nazis-by-another-name. It's a good name, though. Menacing. (Shadow Comics v1 002, 1940)

Unnamed Saboteurs:

This band of Nazi saboteurs are not the most distinguished but also not the least. Their big plan involves starting a forest fire outside of the war production centre of Brownstown and then burning down the town itself while everyone is out fighting the first blaze. Not a bad plan, if doomed to failure because of the presence of human fire extinguisher Fire-Man, but what really sets these guys apart is their weird cloth masks that sport one big central lens to see out of. These are not given any sort of narrative justification, so one must presume that they are worn solely to look cool. (Man of War Comics 001, 1941)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 027

A series of cautionary tales for budding young scientists.

Orid Dass:

Orid Dass is your standard jungle scientist: he's out there making apes into men and men into apes, all for the love of the ape-man game. He also has the distinction of being the only foe faced by Fantomah the one post-Fletcher Hanks adventure in which she is still kind of a jungle demigod rather than a jungle hero who knows some magic.

In that capacity, Fantomah does a little man/ape transformation of her own, turning both Dass and his ape-men into little green monkeys until he reverts his latest victim (a white guy) to human form, though why she couldn't just do it herself is not explored.

Dass briefly gets one over on Fantomah by dropping her into a pit lined with radioactive ore, as this is also the one issue in which her powers are neutralized in the presence of radiation, but is subsequently crushed when his entire base collapses on top of him - the downside to the convenience of building your science compound on top of a huge radioactive cavern system, I guess. (Jungle Comics 016, 1941)

Doktor Teufel:

Doktor Teufel lives on the aptly-named Death Mountain and spends his time enslaving passing US aviators and building advanced radio-powered technology, implicitly in service to some nefarious plot against the United States. He's a prime example of the kind of villain who is perfectly positioned to achieve all of his goals but who has not planned for the fact that a radium-powered super-hero - specifically Radior, the X-Ray Powerman - is going to walk fly a convertible through his front door and dismantle his entire operation in twenty minutes. (Key Ring Comics, 1941)

Dr Dietz:

We meet Dr Dietz after he has successfully stolen a high-powered experimental aircraft, and he spends so much time bragging about this and about how great a weapon it will make once he has mounted his disintegrator ray cannon (or "death-beam") on it to Federal Agent Steve Crawford* that he never actually gets around to mentioning whether he intends to use it for espionage or for personal gain. He himself is disintegrated before he gets a chance to clarify. (Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

*Referred to as "Steve Crawford, Undercover Man" despite the fact that in this, his only recorded adventure he is operating under his own name and openly as a lawman.

the Mad Scientist:

The aptly-named Mad Scientist has been setting forest fires as a way of capturing strapping young firefighters from the nearby CCC* base as fodder for his experiments. He is aided in this by his mind-controlled niece Nancy and a huge goon named Gaston (who wears a very cool-looking protective suit while traipsing through the burning forests).

And just what is the radical theory that has driven the Mad Scientist to both the fringes of society and the outskirts of scientific ethics? Why, he believes that if he electronically incinerates a human body just right then it will become "solid gas." Exactly what does this mean? I cannot really say, but going by the available evidence from his eventual successful creation the result is a living, tangible human with a massively decreased density and a radically different metabolism. 

*the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal work program.

As I said, the process is eventually successful, turning a CCC firefighter named Jim into the mighty Fire-Man, but while the Mad Scientist was able to conceptualize and bring into existence an entirely new form of life he was not as visionary about the benefits of proper lab safety and both he and Gaston were fatally exploded in Fire-Man's subsequent attempt to escape his captor. (Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 986: THE ZOMBIE MASTER

(Jackpot Comics 001, 1941)

Zarro, the Zombie Master, is yet another take on an evil Haitian voodoo practitioner: we've seen 'em before and we'll see 'em again. He is recruited by a couple of pseudo-Nazis named Karl Bezdek and Hugo Kempf for help in setting up a factory that uses zombies as workers in the production of war material for the Axis. Like the other Zombie Master we have covered, this one is a vibrant shade of green, just like a cartoon zombie, though I'm not entirely sure when that particular colour association started.

I am going to lay out Karl and Hugo's plan before telling you why I'm mad about it:

1. Pose as magazine photographers in order to get total access to the defense factories in the as-yet unnamed city that Mr Justice calls home (the risk of targeting a city with a super-hero is leavened by the fact that it has the world's most gullible mayor).

2. Photograph as many workers as possible.

3. Zarro uses the photographs as sympathetic magic links to the workers (plucking them out of the photographs = very cool) and kills them.

4. The worker's bodies are stolen and shipped to Haiti for use in the factory.

So why does this plan make me mad? Because I want to critique it but I can't. See, it's a bad and inefficient plan with a lot of unnecessary steps, but only if the only goal is to make money. But that isn't the goal! Karl and Hugo are spies for a fascist nation! Their goal is to hamper US war production while simultaneously boosting that of their own country using the Haitian zombie factory, and they have done both! It's maddening! The only real flaw I can find is that the graverobbing and body shipping are a bit involved but I can't really think of a good alternative that doesn't introduce more points of failure to the plan.

The risk of super-hero vs reward of gullible mayor calculation that we discussed earlier does in fact prove to be the trio's downfall, as Mr Justice is able to make his way to Haiti (and please note the surprisingly grody-looking zombies that he finds there) thanks to a minor kidnapping subplot and strangle the Zombie Master, which in turn restores the workers to life. One smashed up Axis factory later, everyone is on the way back to [CITY NAME NOT FOUND].

Categorized in: Generica (Masters), Powers (Magic (Create Zombies)), Supranormal Beings (Zombies))