(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) We open on Mephisto, the Dreaded Poison Serpent, attacking a small boat and making off with its inhabitants. For a split second I am excited – maybe this is our long-sought criminal animal! – but then I remember the lessons I learned from Cephalopoda the Octopus and rein myself in. And it’s a good thing I did, for Mephisto is a mere tool of the mysterious Serpent Lady, who lives in a golden city in an…
(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) Kaos, a Venusian scientist, has a plan that in true comics book fashion is both simple (invade the Earth with overwhelming force, thus taking over almost immediately) and overly complicated (hypnotize the local population of giant vultures and then feed them super vitamins extracted from a specially-bred vine, thus making them even more giant and so fast that they are unbeatable, then teleport them to Earth as your main invasion force). Also: those are some crazy…
(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) King Raton is a fellow met by the Golden Knight and his companion/ lover Alice after the earth near a pool of water gives way and they are dropped into a cavern. He demands that they fetch a potion for him from Kataka, Witch of the Volcano, under threat of death – this is a source of conflict not only because of the threats but because he wants the potion in order to conquer Blackamoor Forest,…
Once again the also-rans. A bunch of small-time crooks get paid to fake the death of Titano (the largest gorilla in captivity!) for an insurance scam and of course use him to rob a series small-town banks. If only they had thought a bit more ambitiously they might have made the big time. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940) This Yank Wilson adventure features a fairly by-the-book super-spy ring headed by Count Lustig von Blackgard. They plot, they scheme, they are ultimately…
(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) Flip Falcon’s Fourth Dimension Machine has served various roles as a sort of all-purpose portal to adventure over the course of his tenure in Fantastic Comics, starting out as an interplanetary teleporter allowing access to the various planets of the Solar System and later acting as a time machine. Now it is entering what I believe to be its final form as a gateway to the Fourth Dimension itself, a weird hellscape of the imagination briefly…
(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) The Boss is actually Roulf, editor of the Daily Standard newspaper in NYC. He pulls the classic villain mistake of acting as a concerned citizen recruiting the protagonists – in this case Samson and David – to investigate his own villainous alter ego. It’s the kind of error that you can emphasize with to a certain extent: how better to ensure that a super-powered busybody doesn’t unexpectedly show up and wreck your plans then by controlling…
(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) THIS. IS. GREAT. We open on the trial of Dablo, Last of the Ray Men, and immediately we must ask: who are the Ray Men? And let me tell you that there is no answer beyond “guys who could shoot rays.” Dablo here shoots rays out of a big hole in his forehead but did they all do that? No clue! This is the kind of worldbuilding that people like Alan Moore will eventually get up…
(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) Every once in a while a comic book crook will organize a gang along military lines and that’s just what Skullface Kurd here has done. He’s got super-tommy guns. He’s got an air force. He has three hundred thousand men, which is more than a hundred thousand more than were in the US Army as of 1939. Hell, they’re in New York City and according to the historical population numbers on Wikipedia about one in 24…
Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects: The NYPD (or the cops in some other town. but probably the NYPD) attempt to murder the Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy because they were wearing masks near a crime and had the audacity to run away. (Green Mask v1 003, 1940) Vexing Conundrum: These panels are from a strip called Flyin’ Jenny, the details of which are not important, save for the fact that a character has cheated in an air race…
(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) We begin with the old comic book trope of Ignoring Bad Feelings When a Woman Has Them, as Alice senses something in the wind and Sir Richard tells her to shut up just before a giant bird gets them both. They are flown to Soulless Isle and meet its ruler Queen Sulia, along with her coterie of beastly subjects. She wants a sword fight and Sir Richard of Warwick is who she wants it from. If…