MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 056

Some hot Archie/MLJ super-hero action. 

**Hero Update** Bob Phantom:

Perhaps in honour of his making the jump from Blue Ribbon Comics to Top-Notch Comics, Bob Phantom gets two hitherto-unseen powers: super-breath powerful enough to turn aside oncoming bullets and the ability to summon cyclones by flapping his cape. (Top-Notch Comics 003, 1940) 

Bob Phantom also demonstrates super strength sufficient to tear an airplane to pieces in mid air. (Top-Notch Comics 004, 1940)

And not content with three new super powers, in Top-Notch 010, Bob is shown to be completely bulletproof.

Bob Phantom's modus operandi, to reveal crimes and taunt both police and criminals in his gossip column as Walt Whitman and then bust things up as Bob Phantom, has never been particularly kind to the police of his corner of MLJ New York, and at this point they openly hate him in both of his identities. (Top-Notch Comics 009, 1940) 

**Hero Update** the Wizard: 

The Wizard's powers also get expanded once 1940 rolls around: not only can he now hypnotically mind control people with a mere glance but he can mentally contact his thralls across distances of at least 500 miles (the above message was broadcast from somewhere in the vicinity of Dallas to somewhere in Mexico). 

1940 is also the year that the Wizard's already-formidible strength was rounded up to full-on super, seen here as he is bodily heaving an entire u-boat Bundonian submarine out of the water with only the power of his little kicking feet to hold him up.

The Wizard's arsenal of weapons and gadgets also gets a fair few additions this year, including:

- more rays guns than one would assume could fit in a suit with such clean lines: death rays, two different engine-killing rays (the vibra-ray gun and the neutronic ray gun), an explosive ray (the destructo-ray), a metal-melting ray (the VB-ray gun), a paralysis ray (the electrolysis ray), a rainmaking ray (the H2-VX-0 ray), fire-extinguishing ray (the Hydra Gun), and the dynamagno saw ray projector, a cutting ray which can be tuned to selectively destroy mechanical parts such as the wires that hold a plane together.

- secret chemicals including: Secret Chemical L-77 (solidifies liquids), Ethyl Formula 2X-Y-BZ (superfuel additive) and Super-Caloric Capsules and Secret Formula Ho Mg 4, which put pep back in a weary Wizard's step.

- special vehicles, the greatest of which is the Contra-Gravity Flask, pictured above, which allows the Wizard to float harmlessly to the ground from a height or run through the air, merely by virtue of being in his pocket.

(Top-Notch Comics 002, 1940) 

I somehow also failed to note in the original Wizard entry that he is not only a calling card guy but an obnoxiously patriotic one. (Top-Notch Comics 001, 1939) 

After being blinded by his enemies the Mosconians, the Wizard changes out his tuxedo costume for a more super-heroic one with even less room for ray guns. This is supposedly to protect him from getting acid splashed in his eyes again, but since the Mosconians don't actually get a chance for a second try the actual mechanism by which the same mask but a different shirt might help in that situation is not explored. (Top-Notch Comics 007, 1940)

Finally, Blane Whitney abandons the life of the wealthy playboy to become a crusading newspaper publisher with ex-fiance Jane Barlowe as his star reporter, though he of course does not get a break for this. (Top-Notch Comics 008, 1940)

Roy the Super-Boy: 

He's not quite the Sensational Character Find of 1940, but Roy the Super-Boy is the Marvel of 1940 and that has to count for something. He's also our first Archie/MLJ sidekick (yes, yes, Tommy the Super-Boy, but he was a reference to Roy and we only covered him first because of the alphabet and its tricks). Does he suffer the "just running around without a mask calling yourself by your own name" problem common to a lot of Golden Age sidekicks? Sure he does, but at least he has a partial code name. And I was wrong: he totally wears a mask most of the time! 

As is often the case, Roy is just a scrappy young orphan making his way in the world as a bootblack, when he ends up in a fight with some grown-ass men and impresses the Wizard with his sweet moves and devotion to justice. He soon finds himself with an invite to a rich man's private gymnasium!

Thanks to an intensive training regimen, Roy is quickly developed into an impressive physical specimen. The Wizard claims that they are equivalent barring the Wizard's mind-powers, but I haven't seen Roy bench-press a submarine yet. (Top-Notch Comics 008, 1940) 

Kardak the Mystic: 

There is a general consensus online that Kardak the Mystic is the same character as the Mystic, who appeared in Top-Notch Comics 001 and 002, but I ain't buying it. For one, where the Mystic was an ordinary stage magician who used his skills at slight-of-hand to battle crime, Kardak has actual magical power. For another, where the Mystic was already engaged to an unnamed woman in his first adventure, Kardak's adventures are all set in motion when a girl he just met on a cruise to India is kidnapped by undersea creatures. Certainly, relationships break up all the time, but not the Mystic and Unnamed Woman! Their love is forever!

Kardak's adventures take him and his gal-pal Lorna from the bottom of the Indian Ocean to Louisiana, where they enter a series of extra-dimensional lands populated by hostile weirdos. It's a pretty good setup to showcase the power of a magical hero without having story after story of him just destroying regular gangsters.

Kardak also acquires the services of Balthar, a huge dude with a magic turban, and he's just as annoying as Tong and the other members of the Shirtless Broken English Magicians' Assistants Collective. (Top-Notch Comics 004, 1940) 

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 050

Novelty Press character round-up, more like.

the Chameleon:

An unnamed master of disguise (throughout his 1940 appearances, at least) who dispenses vigilante justice on an ad hoc basis, the Chameleon's major distinction is that his name is always written in cursive. Other than that: he's got a chauffeur/sidekick (Slim) and a bumbling police nemesis (Inspector Parks) and somehow manages to simultaneously be one of those heroes who is wanted by the law and whose identity and address are just kind of common knowledge. (Target Comics v1 006, 1940)

the Blue Zombie:

"Fantastic Feature Films" was a strip that ran in the first couple of years of Target Comics, with the same conceit as Ed Wheelan's Minute Movies: that the stories being presented were films in which the were being portrayed by a pool of fictional actors - the titular Blue Zombie of this feature, for instance, was played by Orson Black, a Boris Karloff-style Man of a Thousand Faces. This is a fantastic fictional conceit and I am surprised that it hasn't cropped up more over the years.

In the fictional movie The Blue Zombie, Bolshemanian scientist Igor Zamoisky rebels against his country's warmongering dictator and heads to the neighbouring country of Coreland in order to put his scientific discoveries to use in thwarting a Bolshemanian invasion. Discovering a lost Bolshemanian battalion that succumbed to the harsh Corelian winter, he attempts to restore one of them, his old friend Nicholas Samousk, to life. Instead of a restored Samousk, his experiment produces a bright blue zombie version of his friend who responds to his mental commands but cannot think for itself. Zamoisky restores the rest of the battalion in a similar fashion and uses them to crush the Bolshemanian invasion of Coreland, then sets off with his zombie army to free his homeland. 

Obviously describing a one-off like the Blue Zombie as a super-hero is a bit of a stretch, but a) he's not that far off of the Purple Zombie in his origin and general deal, b) I wanted an excuse to talk about the fictional-actors-in-fictional-film conceit and c) the Blue Zombie is a really good name. (Target Comics v1 006, 1940)

the Target: 

It's always fun when an old-school anthology comic book gets a character to match its name fairly late in the game and to prove my point here's the Target, showing up in the tenth issue of Target Comics.

The Target makes his debut with a big advertising push to really get the word out that he is out to crush crime in his version of NYC: full page newspaper ads, messages on the radio, threatening telegrams sent directly to crooks... at one point a lady calls that number that used to tell you the correct time and a recording of the Target tells her to keep her nose clean. It's really the opposite of the modern Batman as Urban Legend school of superhero mystique.

The Target's gimmick is also Batman adjacent: like 50s 60s 70s whichever era's Batman first justified the yellow circle on his chest as a bulletproof target for crooks to aim at, the Target is running around with a literal target painted on his chest (and back) because he has a bulletproof leotard on underneath. Just why the fact that his legs are unprotected is a) necessary and b) emphasized is never really addressed.

Finally, the Target has a thematically appropriate calling card, a dart. We'll see how long he keeps using it for. (Target Comics v1 010, 1940)

the Targeteers:

The more astute readers among you might have noticed that I didn't really go into the actual origin of the Target in his own entry, and that's because it's tied in with that of his sidekicks the Targeteers and so we're covering them all at once.

So: Niles Reed is a brilliant but aimless metallurgist whose only relative, brother and New York City District Attorney Bill Reed, is framed for murder and scheduled to be executed at Sing Sing.

Niles dons a domino mask and attempts to bust Bill out during his final prison transfer but the guards manage to hit Bill during their escape. After a heartfelt "why me?" Bill dies and Niles buries him in an unmarked grave, which means that he's still considered to be at large, an evocative detail that I had hoped would lead to something like Niles hinting that the Target is actually Bill to throw suspicion off of himself and flush out the crooks who framed him, it never really seems to come up again.

This would ordinarily be the point in an origin story in which the costume would come into play, there's one more step to the Target's origin and that's the Targeteers.

See, Niles is wandering the streets at night, trying to figure out just what he can do in the face of an uncaring world in which innocent district attorneys are gunned down in the street for merely trying to break jail, when he runs off some thugs who are attempting to kill or at least maim two teenage boys, Dave and Tommy. It turns out that the kids are both orphans who also hate crime because the crooks had already killed their father (well, one father and one unofficial adopted father, but why get technical).

Having two young wards who love to talk about getting real beefy and wiping out crime is the final catalyst for Niles, who remembers that he has some superscientific bulletproof material and three super-hero costumes just lying around, and since the three were playing darts when they came up with the idea the whole endeavour ends up being dart and target themed (and as this is possibly my favourite style of generic supersuit it's nice to see three people running around in it at once).

The two lads collectively go by the Targeteers, which is a nice change of pace from teen sidekicks who just go by their own names. Finally, according to some dialogue later in the comic the jailbreak, ad hoc funeral, befriending of the boys, making costumes and the initial Target adventure in the previous issue (including the entire publicity blitz) all take place in about a week, which is very efficient. (Target Comics v1 011, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 046

Enjoy these ancient delights!

the Black Spider:

Mild-mannered district attorney Ralph Nelson, like many comic book lawmen, sallies forth at night in order to deal with criminals that the law can't touch. Nelson is despised by his colleague Police Inspector Stern for being too soft on crime/ dedicated to the letter of the law to allow the cops to torture confessions out of people, while the Black Spider is hated by Stern for showing up the police by being so good at torturing confessions out of people. It's a real dichotomy!

Nelson's secretary Peggy Dodge has a classic "love one identity and hate the other" relationship with the Black Spider and her boss that gets resolved when she learns his secret during the first Black Spider adventure. It's a nice change of pace from your standard Lois/Clark arrangement, plus Peggy has the distinction of being one of the few noncostumed super-heroic aides to remember to wear a mask while on crime-fighting duty! (Super-Mystery Comics 003, 1940)

Davey: 

One day while fighting crime, Magno rescues Carole Landis and her kid brother Davey from a bombed-out building and learns about the crime that they were investigating and also that Davey is such a big Magno fan that he has his own Magno costume and also would Magno like to see it? Magno of course gives the kid the old brush-off.

Seeing as he first met this kid after he had tagged along with his sister on a dangerous assignment, it should not have surprised Magno to find Davey chasing him down the street in full Magno cosplay. The two get mixed up in various life-or-death situations before Magno can get rid of Davey and by the time things calm down they have formed a battle-bond or something. Magno figures out how to temporarily give Davey a portion of his powers for about an hour (the time limit gets dropped eventually, presumably because bookkeeping isn't very fun) and becomes the latest in a long line of super-heroes to have a sidekick with no code name. (Super-Mystery Comics v1 004, 1940)

the Sparkler: 

Red Morgan's father has invented an invisibility suit, but what he should have been working on was a don't-blab-your-secrets-all-over-town suit, because the local gang boss Baldy Spade has heard that there's some big scientific discovery in the works and has sent a guy to kill Morgan Senior and steal it. A vengeance-minded Red dons the suit and exacts justice on Baldy before going on to have a handful of adventures as the Sparkler, so named because the suit flashes and sparks as it returns to its user to visibility. (Super Spy 001, 1940)

the Night Hawk: 

Horse Rancher John Rogers was murdered some time ago, and his unnamed son has seemingly wandered the West ever since, doing vigilante justice while looking for murderer Baldy Crane. In his one recorded adventure he finally locates and guns him down before riding into the sunset. (Super Spy 002, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 041

Another assortment of guys for your delectation.

the Sky Wolf:

Just another masked pilot in a souped-up named plane (originally the Silver Bullet, followed by the Golden Bullet), the Sky Wolf loses both his place in Silver Streak Comics and his plane's name to fellow pilot Cloud Curtis once 1941 rolls around, and to add insult to injury, in 1942 the far more successful character of Skywolf debuts over at Hillman, ensuring that he doesn't even have good SEO. (Silver Streak Comics 004, 1940)

Whiz, King of Falcons:

The Silver Streak is not immune to the sting of pride, so when aviator Sir Cedric Baldwin challenges him to a race around the world to prove who is the fastest man on Earth, he accepts, and is of course fast enough that he not only wins but is able to have a very culturally-sensitive adventure in Saudi Arabia along the way. Silver Streak is knocked out and captured at one point, and the falconry-obsessed villain takes advantage of this to inject his favourite bird with some super-fast blood. 

Astonishingly, this works, despite our only account of the Silver Streak's origin being as a result of hypnotic conditioning coupled with a near-death experience - perhaps the hypnosis was so deep that it mesmerized his very blood? That would explain the falcon's immediate shift in loyalty from its owner to its super-heroic blood doner, at least.

"Whiz, King of Falcons" is technically not this guy's name until Silver Streak Comics 007, which was published in 1941, but I reckon that calling him "Unnamed Falcon Companion" here and then correcting it in six months' time would be extremely wilfully obtuse of me. (Silver Streak Comics 006, 1940)

the Daredevil:

The Daredevil is Bart Hill, a vigilante in the Batman mould, having lost his parents to a gang of crooks and subsequently vowed to revenge himself on crime. Further, those same crooks tortured Bart himself, rendering him mute in the process, and due to a boomerang-shaped brand they left on his chest he devoted himself to the study of the weapon, adopting it as one of his heroic signatures. The Daredevil is one of the longer-running non-Marvel or DC/Fawcett/Quality characters of the Golden Age so he will be making a few appearances here going forward, but there are a few notable things about him:

- his origin will undergo some revision between his first and second appearances, most notably the fact that his muteness is discarded - presumably to enable for easier storytelling

- his costume is also somewhat revised, which is fun particularly because, like his Silver Age namesake, he switches from a yellow to a red colour scheme

- this Daredevil's Golden Age popularity, combined with his public domain status, means that he's a popular choice for modern revivals, but the fact that there is a currently-published character with the same name (and owned by Disney, to boot) means that nobody dares to actually call him Daredevil in their stories and so the more recent versions of him have a wide range of variably terrible alternate names including the Death Defying 'Devil, the Daring Devil and Doubledare.

(Silver Streak Comics 006, 1940) 

Iron Vic:

Iron Vic is a frustrating beast. He first appears as a mostly-dead body washing up near the island laboratory of Professor Carvel, who applies a "certain rare serum" to the task of saving his life before dropping dead from the strain. Vic, as the man comes to be known, is rendered both amnesiac and superhuman by the process. He has one proper super-heroic adventure against Carvel's old colleague Dr Spagna before the strip transitions into one primarily about baseball (and in case you're wondering there is no mention of the ethical quandary that a superhuman participating in regular human sports would cause). The really frustrating part is that Dr Spagna implies that he knows something about Iron Vic, but the Spagna story is never actually resolved anywhere. Vic is merely an amnesiac baseball player until I think he enters the Army at some point? WHERE OH WHERE IS MY RESOLUTION (Single Series 022, 1940)