DEMONIC ROUND-UP 002

Look out! Its demons!

Lucifer: 

Dastardly voodoo man the Voodoo Man has this version of Lucifer possess a young woman for some dang reason. He's got a pretty good look with the sideburns and all, but is surprisingly easy to chase away with an anemically-presented crucifix. (Weird Comics 006, 1940)

the Unholy One: 

The Unholy One is an infernal servant of some kind who has been summoned as a sort of demonic search engine by the Green Sorceress. He appears in the early Simon & Kirby days of Blue Bolt, so he gets an appropriate level of gravitas and "this guy's face is too gross to show you" angles to render him nice and memorable. I like him! (Blue Bolt v1 005, 1940)

Unnamed Being: 

If I'm honest I must admit that I have no idea what this guy is. Heroic former uggo Sir Champion encounters him while searching an extradimensional dreamscape for his liege/lover Camilla after she is abducted to there by the wizard Thoth. He is generally helpful, but "capricious, horned extradimensional being" equals "demon" in my eyes. Plus he's nude! (Jungle Comics 011, 1940)

the Fire-Devil:

Perhaps you will recall our old friend the Witch-Master, lord of the witches of Salem. Well, he in turn serves this fellow, who is referred to as the Fire-Devil throughout the adventure due to the fact that he is summoned out of a bonfire. The various titles that the Witch-Master gives him - Great King of Evil, Great King of Inferno, etc - indicate that he is held in some esteem, but the fact that he can't endure the "level stare" of preteen Mark Kent does diminish this somewhat.

Also humiliating: the fact that a simple bucket of water is sufficient to banish him back to the underworld. (Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

DEMONIC ROUND-UP 001

I think that demons and devils are the only category of comic book guy I don't have a running round-up for yet (and having said that I'm sure that there will be more), so here we go:

Satan: 

If we're going do do demons, why not start with the one with the most name recognition of all: Satan. As seen here he has been vexing jodhpured adventurer Tippy Taylor in the form of a mad scientist, only to be defeated when his own transformation of Taylor into a greasy-haired demon made him too powerful to handle. (The Arrow 002, 1940) 

Mephisto: 

Stuart Taylor and his pal Dr Hayward are up to their old time travelling tricks, and have stumbled across a wizened old alchemist named Scarpo who has made a deal with the demon Mephisto. Two notes about this exchange: 1. Scarpo is a very bad negotiator. Trading your soul for the secret of transmuting lead into gold is one thing, but then having to go kidnap a queen on top of that? Haggle a bit, bud. 2. Taylor and Hayward witness this demonic bargain and then just wait around for Scarpo to hobble off the Queen Lenore's castle, kidnap her and then hobble back before they get concerned enough to step in.

Once they do deign to get involved, the two time travellers are quite hands-on as demon battlers, and despite Mephisto's jacked bod he is ultimately unable to contend with an axe to the skull from Dr Hayward. (Jumbo Comics 012, 1940)

the Genii 

Genies occupy a weird cosmological space and maybe if they were more prevalent in comics I'd find a more nuanced way to categorize them - I reckon we'll just go on a case by case basis, and this here is a bad'un so he gets shelved with the demons.

Time traveller Stuart Taylor and his pal Dr Hayward have been sent back in time yet again, this time to Baghdad in the very-hard-to-specify period in which pastiche Arabian Nights stories are set. Because Taylor and Hayward are riding on a flying carpet when they enter the city, Stuart is acclaimed as the legendary Cloud Prince, come to claim his throne. This arouses the ire of previous claimant Jir Haffa, who summons the Genii from its fountain home to wreak vengeance on the interlopers.

There's nothing too special about this genie, though he does have a very pleasing pomposity to his speech. The real fun thing about him is that you can explode him with a camera snap because "the genii, being non-physical fails to make an image on the film." Fun! (Jumbo Comics 029, 1941) 

the Kings of Darkness:

By far the best thing about the Genii, however, is that he summons these fellows to deal with Stuart and Dr Hayward. Identical demonic swordsmen/kings? Named Ologa, Kahmo and Madru? And even if you defeat one, his body can be used as the material component to summon five more kings? Just excellent stuff all around. (Jumbo Comics 029, 1941) 

PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 003

This edition of the Problematic Round-Up is devoted to minor MLJ character Fu Chang and his foes.

Fu Chang:

Reading Charlie Chan comics has absolutely messed my head up in a specific way: because Charlie Chan is so clearly a project with the set goal of having a Chinese character who is not an overt racist Yellow Peril stereotype (while, yes, being pretty racist in a bunch of other ways) I give it more of the benefit of the doubt than I otherwise would. For instance, I just kind of skim most of what Charlie Chan says because actually parsing it is very painful. 

The problem is, I keep automatically giving various other series featuring Chinese American detectives the benefit of the doubt, and very few of them are also earnest-but-flawed attempts to avoid the overtly racist tropes of the day. This is all to say Fu Chang and his adventures are pretty racist and it caught me off guard and I had to work through it here.

So: Fu Chang is an American educated Chinese man (with a more Caucasian skin tone than the bright yellow Evil Chinese such as the Dragon, below) who is very dedicated to his (personal? family?) god and as a result has been gifted a chess set with "all the magic powers of Aladdin's Lamp" (and this smearing of everything East of the Mediterranean into one big exotic mess is classic Orientalism) which in effect means that he has a bunch of little guys at hand to do his bidding.

If there's one fun thing about Fu Chang, it's trying to figure out exactly what the heck kind of game this chess set could be used for. Here are the known pieces:

- the Warrior - just a little guy, used to spy on folks

- unnamed stage magician - has ESP or other way of locating hidden objects

- the Little Man of Magic - a magician in the Indian mystic vein. More talkative and proactive than many others. Able to paralyze humans via magic 

- the Doctor - healing plus some hand-to hand. Also has wings in one story

- the Mermaid - amphibious

- the Woodsman - tree-chopping action

- a pilot - can fly a plane but the plane is sold separately

- group of men in suits plus military officer and a jodhpured adventurer - engage in combat with the Tiger-Devil

- Seen but never used: the shirtless guy, the blonde lady in the red dress, the policeman, the crook, the fat bald guy

- winged people - obviously they can fly. As the series goes on the winged figures show up more and more until the last few adventures feature nothing but up to a couple of dozen of them.

I suppose it's possible that you could cobble together a complete chess set out of those. Obviously the winged guys would be the pawns, but where would the mermaid come in? Even more concerning than the fact that there might not have been a complete Fu Chang lore bible with detailed breakdowns of all the chess pieces and their powers is the constant slander of Aladdin's lamp. Unless Fu Chang and his god have a chronic lack of imagination, this is a pretty weak showing from a fabled object. (Pep Comics 001, 1940)

the Dragon:

The Dragon is really notable only for his fantastic name as well as to illustrate the weird vibes-based skin-colouring in the Fu Chang comic - the more good and Westernized you are, the pinker your skin. Otherwise he's a creep and a low-level Yellow Peril gangster. (Pep Comics 001, 1940)

the Cult of the Tiger-Devil: 

While I love the Tiger-Devil itself, the Tiger-Devil Cult that serves and has summoned him is some pan-Asian degeneracy nonsense straight out of Lovecraft. Serves them right for summoning a demon to conquer the world with that it gets beaten up by a bunch of little chessmen - though the Tiger-Devil has dominion over all men, the chess pieces are no men. 

If the MLJ Universe hadn't stopped being a continuous continuity in the early 90s it might be more significant that the Tiger-Devil ends up sealed in a jar and dropped into San Francisco Bay. Alas. (Pep Comics 002, 1940)

the Drug-Master:

It's a Fu Chang sweep for this instalment of the Problematic Round-Up with Ghor here, aka the Drug-Master, a very hard-core name that I wish I could celebrate a bit more but no: he's yet another Yellow Peril type with a bit of added spice in that he is also involved in the sinister Asian Drug Trade. Specifically, he's bringing a powerful new drug into San Francisco's Chinatown, one so addictive that it makes anyone his slave rather than do without it, even Fu Chang's fiance Tay Ming. It's so potent, in fact, that withdrawal induces a suicidal/homicidal frenzy and since the Drug-Master does not seem to be a particularly good boss, he's letting his drug slaves go into withdrawal all over town. As is usually the case, the skills that make a criminal successful in human circles are of little use against a bunch of Fu Chang's tiny guys and the Drug-Master ends up blowing himself to kingdom come. (Pep Comics 003, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 664: THE DEVIL

(Jungle Comics 007, 1940)

Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire, having made the transition from capricious villain to noble hero and staved off a couple of attempts on her throne and her life, is getting ambitious. She is determined to descend into the Cave of Sighs, a local portal to Hell, and banish the Devil from her lands.

Together with the reformed assassin Caredodo, Camilla passes the Copper Gates of Hell after a brief encounter with one of my favourite things: an anthropomorphic personification! Specifically, they encounter Temptation, who almost ensnares poor Caredodo with her wiles and mug of delicious-looking potion before Camilla sends her packing.

Also there to greet them is Mephistopheles of Faust fame in a much more charming turn than comic book demons usually get to be, probably as a deliberate contrast to the main attraction, the Devil himself, in a wildly more grotesque form than one usually sees in comics before the late Sixties. Ordinarily, your Devils and Satans are a lot closer to Mephistopheles there than this soggy lump of flesh and even the more monstrous of the bunch are still red humanoids along the lines of MLJ's Devil.

The Devil wants Camilla's help to escape into the world of man and take over the place. Ambitious, sure, but a bit pedestrian for Satan himself. What use is temporal power to the Lord of Hell?

In a slightly odd turn of events, Camilla defeats the Devil by hewing a cross out of stone and holding him at bay with it. Since Camilla originally worshipped Thor and the other Norse gods and later restored her empire with the aid of the pantheon-unspecified god Bal, I had assumed that the Lost Empire was established some time before the conversion of the Norse to Christianity. I'd be tempted to blame that pill Jon Dale for converting her but she has engaged in some paganism since his departure from the strip, so I am forced to conclude that Camila subscribes to some sort of syncretic faith that incorporates elements of many religions. Fun!

(This is also the mission that ends with the Angel of Faith rewarding Camilla by transforming Caredodo from a Nottie to the Hottie Sir Champion, in case you were curious about when that happened)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 609: LUCIFER

(Fantastic Comics 006, 1940)

Scientist-adventurer Flip Falcon has a machine that allows him to enter the Fourth Dimension and come out, effectively, anywhere. He's used it to visit various other planets and will use it to travel through time - it's an adventure machine, basically. The fact that it can detect something as vague as "a disturbance somewhere" is both on point and completely meaningless - when you can go anywhere and anywhen, you can always find a disturbance (he does sometimes let Adele come along, by the way).

This turns out to be Flip's first adventure to take place in the Fourth Dimension itself and the first time that the Fourth Dimension is suggested to have a supernatural element, as he encounters Lucifer himself! And his magical mouth!

Perhaps I gave the disturbance-detector too hard of a time, because the disturbance it somehow detected was Lucifer getting ready (did he finally accrue enough power or just make the decision?) to destroy planet Earth!

Lucky for the Earth and all who dwell on her, the trail of energy that Flip leaves behind as he travels not only functions as a lifeline to his home but in a bit of a deus ex machina turns out to have anti-demonic properties! Flip securely ties up Lucifer and then... just goes home. It's a very confident move, assuming that the Great Adversary, a being capable of destroying whole planets, will never escape from your improvised knot, and if he does (he does, we'll be seeing him again) he won't bother blowing up the planet out of embarrassment or something. And just because that's exactly what happens is no reason not to ask questions.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 562: THE HARBINGERS OF DEATH

(Wonderworld Comics 008, 1939)

As part of Yarko the Great's second encounter with Death, he and the hapless Madame Punai journeyed to a sort of pastiche underworld (e.g., their journey took them through the Biblical Valley of Death but also involved this unnamed boatman ferrying them across the River Styx). And as with any good underworld pastiche there are some allegorical foes to get past before their goal is reached - the Harbingers of Death!

Like I said, these guys are allegorical demon guardians, so there isn't much more to them than the expression of their allegory. First Pain, aka Burning Pain, appears to crush Yarko to his burning body. Good allegory! Pain can overwhelm you - though in a more in-depth work perhaps Yarko would be left with a burn or other lingering reminder of this battle rather than walking away unscathed after hurling pain into the abyss.

Fear appears next, and I really appreciate that he himself is a fearful creature rather than the more common monstrous fear-beasts that inflict fear by being big and spiky. Like Pain, Fear cannot stand up to Yarko's overwhelming machismo and slinks back into the shadows from whence it came.

Finally, Horror is a master of the jump scare and as someone who is particularly vulnerable to that tool of the filmmaker's art I really appreciate seeing him (them?) be flung off a cliff, probably not to their doom due to being a demon but at the very least to their major inconvenience.

And there you have it: three lil' henchmen, three anthropomorphic personifications, three notches in Yarko the Great's belt.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 556: THE DEVIL

(Wonderworld Comics 003, 1939)

Maybe it's because the MLJ version of the Devil is so fresh in my mind but... this is an underwhelming version of the Devil. He teams up with Death - and it's a measure of how lacklustre this Devil is that I'm going to deal with the Death separately rather than treat them as a duo - to eliminate their common enemy Yarko the Great. Death does all the legwork toward this goal so we'll discuss that later (I am however going to count them as our first Revenge Squad, one of the best things in comics).

Aesthetically, this is a classic Devil, though one missing the trident and tail. And like many interpretations of the classic Devil, it suffers from the fact that it looks like a guy in a costume, down to the fact that the horns seem to be incorporated into a cowl rather than being organic. And that can work! I've seen plenty of interpretations of the purposely foppish Devil getting one over on those who underestimate him. This Devil, by contrast, has a guy named Beppo with a knife and a skin-tone shirt.

The Devil does in fairness manage to capture Yarko by the simple expedient of having his other, non-Beppo henchman (Killer Kirby, if you must know) blindfold his magic eyes. The Devil attempts to roast Yarko alive in a special chamber but Yarko escapes by the simple expedient of wiggling his magic eyes out from under the blindfold, and any deathtrap that a guy can blink his way out of has got to be counted as a dud.

With Yarko free, the devil is immediately

BANISHED TO HELL

and it says something that the coolest part of his whole endeavour is the moment that he was soundly defeated. Frankly, he might as well have been a costumed gang boss as the Prince of the Damned, and it just occurred to me how wild it would be if he was just a guy in a costume trying to put one over on Yarko and getting banished to Hades for his efforts. Real of Fake, the Devil bit off more than he could chew.