(Feature Comics 032-074, 1940-1943) Eyyy, it’s Zero the Ghost Detective! I have a blanket love of the psychic detective genre and unusually for the Golden Age Zero’s cases almost always end up being actually supernatural as opposed to being a crook in a sheet – the above panels are from a case wherein a bitter old man dies and comes back as a three-fingered ogre to drag the rest of his family into death with him. It’s usually something gruesome…
(Feature Comics 040, 1941) It’s a common enough story in comics: a patriotic scientist (Dr Devlin) develops a bit of cool super-science (a speed serum) and his treacherous (and possibly dangerously Foreign, if his occasional Yoda-isms are any indication) assistant (Karl) appropriates it for criminal purposes. Karl’s real innovation here is that he’s prepared to scale up his operation beyond what a treacherous lab assistant usually does – per the panel caption above he has at least 30 super-fast men…
(Doll Man 001, 1941) I truly love the Black Gondolier, as he is to my mind the Platonic ideal of the kind of crook that every super-hero universe should be crawling with: a guy who gets together some gadgets and works out a little scheme and very briefly becomes the scourge of shipping in New York Harbor. Why’s he got a motorized gondola? No idea! Where did he get his climbing gear? Doesn’t matter! What does matter is that in…
(Doll Man 001, 1941) Just n’ Right is perhaps my favourite forgotten Golden Age super-hero, or at least the one I’ve thought about the most. I’m not sure I can adequately explain why but since he only ever appeared in a single six-page story I can at least present the entire thing to you and note the things that prey on my mind in the wee hours. So: the setup. Justin Wright is a lumberjack and an orphan who has…
(Doll Man 001, 1941) The Vulture! Flying thief extraordinaire! Terror of NYC for about a week! In reality the Vulture if a very weird looking guy named Aylmer who is predictably upset at his treatment by an uncaring world but seemingly mostly about being short. Hey, if Quality Comics New York is an accepting enough place that that’s all this guy gets bullied about then I have to give it to them, honestly. The really interesting thing about Aylmer/ the…
(Doll Man 001, 1941) The Phantom Duelist is and example of a couple of my favourite comic book story setups: 1. the eerie local legend used as a basis for crime and 2. the murder mystery with a whole passel of suspects. Plus there’s a dose of “aren’t Hollywood people weird!” for flavour. So: movie producer Reynolds decides to drum up a bit of publicity by buying a haunted castle and importing it to Hollywood. The only problem: Reynolds is…
(Doc Savage Comics v1 004, 1941) Professor Kyll is your regular-style scientist who develops a working humanoid robot and immediately starts thinking in terms of world conquest. My eyes might have glazed over and completely missed him if not for the fact that in the very same town was another scientist, a benevolent one, working on a humanoid robot made of rubber! Now, Flexo the Rubber Man has not come up on this here blog yet because I’ve fallen behind on my…
(Doc Savage Comics v1 004, 1941) An unnamed dwarf performer at the Famous Three Ring Circus, billed as the Smallest Man in the World, the Imp is even more remarkably able to secretly build himself a robotic gorilla-shaped exoskeleton in secret while travelling with said circus. As is so often the case when a comic character becomes a villain in response to societal scorn and rejection, the Imp ends up taking things too far by using his gorilla suit to…
(Detective Comics v1 058, 1941) Comic book character of the year Claudia Carol, folks. Names: (Doc Savage Comics v1 003, 1941) Bit of nominative determinism going on. The protagonist of this piece is Brad Marshall: Marshal Brad Marshall: Crook name of Bat Crawley (Feature Comics 040, 1941) I’m only mostly certain, but I think that “Fasdick” here might be subbing in for “fascist”. The government in question does bear all the hallmarks of being a stand-in for one of the Axis powers,…
What was the Penguin up to in 1941? (Detective Comics v1 058) ‘Untitled’ **First Appearance** Heeeey, it’s the Penguin, the perennial second-tier Batman villain! The Penguin really hits the ground running: he’s already got his look and his suite of trick umbrellas, so all he really needs is his weird bird-obsession, which kicks in in 1942. As is frequently the case with a recurring villain, the Penguin’s first outing is one of his most successful: he takes over a gang…