(Blue Ribbon Comics 008, 1941) Technically, Natcha is just another costumed gang boss, but she has a lot more style than you usually get with those. This being MLJ’s Hercules, Natcha is thematically linked to one of his iconic Twelve Labours, in this case the theft of the Girdle of Hippolyta. Of course, this version of Hercules was ridding the ancient world of evil rather than atoning for his own crimes via arbitrarily hard tasks, so the girdle doesn’t come…
MORE MLJ ACTION Doc Strong: Doc Strong is a famous scientist living in the year 2041, in a world where WWII dragged on for an entire century and a new Mongol Horde has swept in and conquered the battered remnants of civilization. The strangely Doc Savage-like Doc Strong gathers a group of like-minded scientists and starts a new civilization called the Isle of Right from which to strike back at the invaders with such inventions as a ray gun that…
(Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940) There are plenty of Ku Klux Klan- inspired groups in comics and thusfar we’ve encountered a few: the Blue Devils, the Horned Masks, even the Purple‘s gang of idiots. All of those examples share one thing: they’re just gangs that operate in the country using the intimidation tactics of the KKK but without the goals of reinforcing white supremacy – they’re just regular comic book gangs, only in the country. There’s a part of me…
All Archie/MLJ edition! Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog: The Wonder Dog is an uncommon but distinct type of comic book hero and Rang-a-Tang here is typical of the breed: essentially a dog with human intelligence. Rang-a-Tang escaped from a cruel but evidently very talented circus dog trainer and almost immediately teamed up with police Detective Hy Speed, who was perhaps lashing out at the world for his own moniker when he gave his new dog one of the all-time worst names….
(Blue Ribbon Comics 003, 1940) Red Dugan is a down-on-his-luck gang boss who turns to what will be a classic crime method in the Silver Age particularly: he kidnaps a scientist and forces him to science up a weapon for him to smite his enemies with. In this case, the scientist in question is one Dr Cardo, who seems oddly prepared for the task of making a Seafood Platter Man. Was he kidnapped just before embarking on his own reign…
(Blue Bolt v2 006, 1941) We open on an aircraft factory. Suddenly, a strange vibration fills the air. After an initial moment of surprise, the workers all file out the door and into a cave in a nearby hillside. Inside? THIS MAN! This man is the self-proclaimed High Priest of Thor and before we get into what he’s up to I’d like to commend his commitment to the costume. Your average religious-type villain is not going to these lengths to…
(Blue Bolt v2 004-005, 1941) We open on a bit of… not hubris but it’s often framed as hubris. I’m sure that TV Tropes has a name for it but danged if I’m going to go hunting for it. It’s the phenomenon in which a character in an ongoing fictional setting jokes about how they’re sure glad that *SPECIFIC THING* isn’t real etc and that thing is the focus of the next story. In this case, Sergeant Spook says he’s…
(Blue Bolt v2 004-006, 1941) There are hundreds if not thousands of antagonistic u-boat commanders in comics and very few of them are going to make the jump to super-villain. Commander Sooka, however… I did some cursory searching and it looks like the Axis forces sank around 1100 ships between 1939 and 1941, and the most successful u-boat captain of the entire war sank 47 ships total. What I’m saying is that if Commander Sooka’s count of 735 ships is…
Cops Shooting: I’ve been reading old Dick Tracy strips and while tracking all of the times that Tracy fires on a fleeing suspect would be a fool’s errand I would like to note that so far in the 1933 he has been responsible for the shooting deaths of two non-criminals. Nova Scotia: Speaking of Dick Tracy and filled with home-town pride: this July 1933 strip and the next week or so take place in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Honours: Black X…
(Blue Bolt v2 004, 1941) Community. That’s what the Bull’s all about. Specifically a crime community, one of the top kinds of communities (to read about at least – most of them don’t sound too great to live in). Situated in the Florida Everglades, the Bull’s nameless crime community consists of him, about five other guys and a pet crocodile living in a bunch of ramshackle shacks. It’s not much, but it’s home. There’s not much else to the Bull…