(Captain Battle Comics 002, 1941) The Sisters of Fear, a trio of witches who either are the Three Witches of “Macbeth” fame or who take a lot of inspiration from them, have a new scheme: to create a horrible creature to spread death and destruction across the face of the Earth. As part of the prep for this task they gather together all of their fiendish allies, the Demons of Land, Sea and Air, and I must commend them on being a…
(Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941) Nazi U-Boat commander Captain Skull-Face has two major claims to fame: firstly there is his eponymous skull face. Even without that, however, he is absolutely loaded down with Nazi superweapons, any one of which would have been enough to carry a comic book story. Starting off, Skull-Face has a submarine “the size of a big battleship.” Big enough to be mistaken for a small island Secondly, the u-boat is equipped with a vibration machine capable…
Lotta visually striking characters this time, plus Pioneer. Pioneer: Pioneer is a man of limited education and experience (and possibly intellect) who has seemingly lived his entire life at the bottom of the inescapable Death Gorge in Yellowstone Park. He comes into contact with the outside world when a trio of fleeing gangsters crash their car near his home and he nurses them back to health. The three then take Pioneer with them once they manage to attract help from…
(Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941) Here’s the thing about the Ghoul, aka “the Most Dangerous Madman of All Time”: he’s a stock character, the basic 1940s idea of the homicidal madman. He does have an obsession with collecting dead bodies as part of his attempts to restore the dead to life – hence the name – but he’s otherwise very regular. There are, however, several interesting things to note in the Ghoul’s appearance: First is the fact that the Daredevil’s initial…
What percentage of these people knew that they had ever been portrayed in a comic book, you reckon? Adolf Hitler: Hitler gets beaten up by the Silver Streak after he captures and attempts to kill Meteor. (Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941) A particularly parodic version of Hitler deploys a super weapon that is ultimately thwarted by Dickie Dean. (Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941) Charles Biro: Gangster Chick Biro almost gets killed by his boss the Domino but is saved when…
(Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941) With Dr Dracula, Captain Battle has now faced four Nazi or Nazi-adjacent villains in a row whose plans involve gathering up a bunch of guys and pretending to be monsters, in this case vampires. Was there a meeting about this at the regional Nazi spy headquarters or is this one of those things like when Hollywood makes two volcano movies at the same time? Maybe one guy had a good idea and the other three…
The right shoulder: unsung victim of the comics pages. Captain Battle: Captain Battle gets a fashionable bullet-creased skull on the docks of San Francisco. (Captain Battle Comics 001, 1941) the Cloak: Being shot in the left shoulder is the inciting incident that leads Jeff Cardiff to adopt the Cloak identity in the first place. (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941) the Face: Shot in the right shoulder (Big Shot Comics 011, 1941) Shot in the right shoulder again. (Big Shot Comics 018,…
(Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941) Professor Markusyi, the music teacher in question, is a man who is never seen at night and who *refuses* to go out at night, much to the amusement and consternation of those around him. There are plenty of reasons why one might not want to go out at night (nyctophobia, love of an early bedtime, a jealous spouse, etc) but only a few of them are worthy of being the focus of a comic book…
Another batch of dumb-dumbs for the fire. the Green Shirts: Though only mentioned by crooked political boss and aspiring fascist bigwig Pete Rosky, these Green Shirts are the same kind of palate-swap allusion to the Nazi Brownshirts and/or the Italian Blackshirts that we’ve seen so many times before. Their Rosky-led attempt to take over the US-government is nipped in the bud by the Human Meteor. (Champ Comics 012, 1941) Categorized in: Colours (Green), Ideology (Crypto-Fascists), Objects (Shirts) the Black Legion:…
(Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941) This issue continues the trend of Captain Battle foes being fascist spies who are weaponizing fear by dressing up as the undead. In this case Herr Death is, as the name implies, a desiccated corpse version of Death, accompanied by a horde of the walking dead (not, I must stress, zombies. This is more “the dead have come out of their graves” kind of thing which, yes, would be classified as zombie behaviour now but which…