DIVINE ROUND-UP 011

Lookit'm go!

Thor: 

This particular version of Thor, Norse God of Thunder invests mortal man Grant Farrel with his powers, but while most ancient gods who get up to that sort of thing in comics are looking for an agent to fight against or promote a cause or agenda, Thor seems to just seems to want to see his powers being used in adventures. It's kind of wholesome!

Please also note the weird discs on Thor's helmet. What the heck is up with those? 

God style: real (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

the Slave Giants' Goddess: 

Space-time adventurer Flip Falcon (back when he was called Flick Falcon, before someone realized that "flick" in comic book block lettering is awful close to "fuck") spent his first few escapades getting in the middle of a conflict between various Martian races and an invading three-armed species. As a part of this, Fli(ck/p) and his companion Adele come up with a scheme to substitute her for the idol that the Three-Arms had been using to control the credulous Martian Giants.

This works well enough that it causes a minor holy war among the Giants, but I suppose that all's fair in planetary defense. 

God style: idol/ fake (Fantastic Comics 003, 1940) 

the Sun God: 

A big tree worshipped by a group of hominids known as "flat heads" via human hominid sacrifice. Fortunately for Og, Son of Fire and his companions, they represent a slightly more quick-witted type of hominid and manage to escape this grisly fate. 

God style: animist (The Funnies 013, 1937)

Zagu: 

Source of conflict between a local tribe who insist that he lives in a mine site and the guy who really wants to mine there. Unsurprisingly, the Red Panther shows up to take the mine owner's side.

God style: invoked (Jungle Comics 003, 1940) 

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 011

What ho! Aliens!

Martians: 

These Martians attack Earth for reasons that will remain unclear forever, because the story they appear in never actually gets an ending. In fact, they never even show their faces, instead attacking from their very cool-looking ships and sending their very cool-looking robots to act as ground troops. The initial invasion is driven off by superhuman scientist Greg Gilday and his associate Joan and then the Martians just never bother to return for another shot. (War Comics 002, 1940)

Barrangees: 

After their initial encounter with the giant insect life of Planet Barrang, Captain Tornado and his companions end up falling in with the Barrangees, a humanoid species who were forced underground when the insects began to increase in size and intelligence, and despite the common cause that they had made with the purple ant faction, the trio are far more comfortable around an non-insectoid race.

(wildly, this extends to not even questioning the Barrangee caste system in which servants are surgically rendered mute as a symbol of their subservience and children are raised in total darkness to give them enhanced night vision)

The Earth-people quickly resolve to help the Barrangees return to surface life using their knowledge of firearms and insecticides. Their main obstacle to this, other than the insects themselves, is the Barrangee High Priest, leader of a religion that worships the Sacred Centipede and by extension all of Barrang's insect life. Captain Tornado eventually resolves this by shooting both the High Priest and the Sacred Centipede dead. (Popular Comics 048, 1940) 

the Batmen:

The Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds seem to run into another hostile humanoid species every time they leave the walls of the hidden Diamond Empire, and the Batmen are yet another of these, which they end up in the clutches of after crashing the Rocket's ship into an underground cavern. The king of the Batmen is of course a creep who lusts after the Queen and attempts to dispose of the Rocket via gladiatorial combat vs a giant turtle, but once the Rocket learns that the Batmen are mortally afraid of fire it's all over. Quite literally, because he accidentally burns down their city. (Pep Comics 003, 1940)

the Batmen of Kordano: 

It's been a while since I read "Air-Sub DX" and the world-building was never its main focus, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but as I recall it was set in an undefined future on a planet that I have written down as "Tago-Lor" but could have just as easily been a far-future Earth. The crew of the titular Air-Sub contend with the machinations of various bald guys, including Klawger here, who has assumed the identity of the administrator of some sort of mining colony. 

All this is to say that I have no idea what the deal is with the Batmen of Kordano, aka the Living Dead Men, aside from the facts that a. they look cool, b. they have two great names, and c. they ride around in squat cylindrical vehicles called "mobile pillboxes," which is fun. Aside from that, no idea. Why so aggro? Where or who or what is Kordano? No idea. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 005, 1939)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 058

A number of minor Fox Features characters for your perusal and delight.

the Bird Man: 

The Bird Man, descendant of "an ancient Indian god" (no further detail provided) uses his weird demigod wing-flaps to fly around the American Southwest and render aid to people. (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

In Bird Man's final appearance, in Weird Comics 004, he has conformed to the heroic norm a bit more by moving to a penthouse apartment in what might be NYC (please note that he keeps a little statue of his divine ancestor on top of his TV). He also has slightly more conventional wings in this appearance, but I have to say that I prefer the flaps.

Typhon: 

Typhon is a near-future undersea adventurer who not only has access to various super-submarines and ray guns and so forth but also sometimes has a magic ring that allows him to combat the various supernatural threats of the deep ocean. (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

Thor, God of Thunder: 

Thor, God of Thunder (the Norse god) gets restless one day in 1940 and decides to invest a mortal man with some of his power, making him Thor, God of Thunder (the super-hero). This is a not-uncommon origin story for a super-hero to have, but the really important thing to note is that the human, Grant Farrel, is not some paragon of virtue or descendant of Thor, and that he isn't being sent out into the world to combat injustice on Thor's behalf. No, he's just kind of a sad sack who just got dumped and Thor hands him the power with a kind of "have fun with it" attitude. Grant seems like he might be the type to get into super-heroics of his own accord but he doesn't really have any choice because Glenda, the girl who dumped him, is a real magnet for spy rings and secret invasions of France and so forth. They do eventually get back together, don't worry.

Like many of his contemporaries, Grant/Thor goes through a lot of different costume variants over the course of a short career, but the thing I really want to highlight is this very weird style of Viking helmet that both he and Original Thor wear in hist first three or four appearances. I mean, what's with the discs? 

Thor is of course wildly over-powered, as shown in this pretty awesome sequence in which he lassos an entire Luftwaffe attack on Paris and throws it at Berlin. He can also throw both his hammer and thunderbolts to devastating effect, and kind of alternates between flying under his own power and cartoonishly riding around on a big jagged bolt of lightning.

In his final appearance, in Weird Comics 005, Thor is sans hammer for no particular reason. This doesn't really slow him down but even so he gets a bit of divine aid via the gift of Thor's strength-boosting gauntlet. (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

Dynamite Thor:

Dynamite Thor, the Explosion Man, is actually Peter Thor, wealthy mine owner and explosives expert. I was all ready to roast him for including his surname as part of his superhero identity, but on review of his five appearances it appears that the actual name he goes my is merely Dynamite. This also leaves me with no material with which to roast Thor's fiance Glenda (same as our last Thor - what is it with Thors and Glendas?) for not realizing just who the mysterious man she so idolizes it.

In his initial appearance, Dynamite Thor is merely a man with a belt-full of explosives and a pretty hammer-and nail approach to problem-solving. Crooks holed up in an old shack? Blow up the shack. Crooks getting away in a vehicle? A controlled explosion will bring a nearby object down and stop their flight. A big fire? Blow it up.

By his second appearance in Weird Comics 007, someone had evidently decided that Dynamite Thor needed more of a hook or perhaps they just couldn't figure out a good explosion-themed vehicle for him to fly around, because he gets his signature move, which is absolutely the only reason that he is still talked about: he flies by the simple expedient of setting off a series of explosions under his ass. Finally, by his next appearance in Blue Beetle Comics 006, 1941, he is explicitly mentioned to be immune to these explosions, something that must have come as a great relief to him (edit to add: I was mistaken and they do make sure to mention that he is immune to explosions at the same time as he starts flying around on a column of them). (Weird Comics 006, 1940)

DIVINE ROUND-UP 010

Pad out your pantheon with some of these:

Death:

This version of Death may lack the social graces necessary to welcome Kardak the Mystic and his pal Lorna rather than attempt to murder them for entering his domain, but he does have a very good version of the classic "robed skeleton" look. And his house is charmingly coffin-themed, to boot! 

God Style: Anthropomorphic Personification (Top-Notch Comics 008, 1940)

Ramu, God of Fire: 

Ramu, God of Fire is another one of your deities created so that a group of "primitive savages" will have a reason to menace some "noble explorers" with the threat of being human sacrificed. Ramu at least is kind of fun because while he might have started out looking like the figure depicted on those red sacrificial poles, by the end of the comic this image has been supplanted by that of the miniature rocket ship that Minimidget and Ritty accidentally pilot into the middle of the ceremony.

God Style: Idol  (Amazing-Man Comics 010, 1940)

the Sacred Steam God:

The Sacred Steam God is worshipped by the Quadropel Men, who themselves are notable for living beneath the land of Aquatania, which itself lies below the Marquesas Islands. Worship of the Sacred Steam God of course involves human sacrifice, but erstwhile victim Terry is saved when Chuck Hardy topples the inexplicably-full-of-scalding-water idol onto the crows of spectators. 

God Style: Idol (Amazing-Man Comics 009, 1940)

Sakka: 

Sakka is, yes, another figure to whom some Noble White Explorers are almost sacrificed while making their way through the jungles of Matto Grosso in Brazil. Here's the difference, though: Sakka isn't just some idol, he's an ancestor spirit, and his name and his ancient sword are all that the big-eyed Earth-Men need to keep their faith strong and bloodthirsty, at least until adventurer Rocky Ryan picks up the sword and is acclaimed the second coming of Sakka, that is. 

God Style: Invoked (Big-Shot Comics 014, 1941) 

DIVINE ROUND-UP 009

I came across Jumbo Comics 031 while filling in gods from my backlog in another Divine Round-Up entry and realized that the array of entities represented in the Stuart Taylor story in that issue should be presented as a block.

Mercury: 

This story begins as most Stuart Taylor stories do, with reckless use of time travel technology. Specifically, Taylor's love interest Laura Hayward has travelled back to Ancient Greece to buy a new hat, because as we know: women be hat shopping. It's practically all they think about!

Laura's Twentieth Century charms are apparently too much for the local deities to bear, because before Stuart can collect her and be condescending about headwear she is kidnapped by Mercury and spirited away to Olympus, which among other things places the gods of this issue in the hybrid Greco-Roman Pantheon.

the Oracle of Delphi: 

Stuart and Dr Hayward's next move is to consult with the Oracle of Delphi to get a line on how exactly they might follow Mercury and recover Laura from him, and I must say that I really enjoy this weird wisp-of-air version of the Oracle, despite it being tremendously off-model. 

Medusa: 

The Oracle directs Our Heroes to seek information from Medusa, who turns out to be depicted in typical style, though somewhat more enormous than is generally the case. I do appreciate that this issue answers the age old question: "is Medusa vulnerable to ray gun blasts?" 

the Evils Contained in Pandora's Box: 

The final stop on Stuart and Hayward's quest is to retrieve a laurel wreath from inside of Pandora's Box, which is just sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere. The comic kind of glosses over the fact that Stuart Taylor is responsible for unleashing the Evils of Mankind, but I am fully prepared to do so, as it might just be his worst snafu in a career full of the reckless and unthinking use of time travel. 

The specific evils released from this version of Pandora's Box are: 

Disease - a classic for a reason. The generic ghost look suggests that the artist did not want to draw a lot of pustules.

Greed - an evil little pig man. 

Hunger - another one right out of the classic Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse set. Much more gruesome than Disease, when the opposite is usually the case.

Intolerance - I was going to call this guy an unusual inclusion, but on reflection I'll bet that most Pandora's Box lineups include Hate, which isn't far off. Definitely looks intolerant.

and bringing up the rear... 

War, aka Mars: 

What is unusual inclusion is not War, who I reckon is there pretty often, but specifically Mars, God of War. Is the implication that this fairly major god was powerless until released by human hands? Is the War who is usually depicted in PB lineups some sort of aspect of war or a specific type of warfare? No clue. What is certain is that Stuart Taylor knocks this War's block off.

And speaking of block-knocking, that's what also happens to Mercury once Taylor, Laurel wreath firmly on brow, makes his way to Olympus to finally rescue Laura. The story ends on a fairly limp callback joke about women and their genetic predilection for hat-shopping, one which I rolled my eyes at even before I realized that Laura wearing the divine laurel wreath as a regular hat at the end would be a much better bit. (Jumbo Comics 031, 1941)