Our last Sub-Mariner update (heroic) included a bit where New Yorkers were booing Namor for the several times he had attacked their city already and in that I noted that it was just and good that they do so because of human nature and also because he deserves it. With that in mind, today’s Sub-Mariner (villain) update, from Human Torch v1 005b, 1941, provides much of the rest of the world with a reason to hate the guy as well….
Time for some good old-fashioned aliens. Space Men: These aliens, clad in the classic comic book green/purple colour scheme, come to Earth after just wandering around the universe for an unspecified amount of time – the implication being that they are some sort of space explorers. Though the fact that they mention being outside of their galaxy of origin means little given the state of astronomical knowledge among 1940s comic book writers, I am going to count them as our…
(Military Comics 001, 1941) Aviation comics are, to me, one of the more boring of the sub-genres which makes it especially galling that they are filled with gimmicky pilots with special names and super planes and so forth who clearly meet all of my criteria for being counted as a super-hero or -villain. But even if I let the boredom I felt at reading page after page of lovingly-detailed airplanes zooming around rule me and discounted all the pilot-heroes and…
Get ready for some real people, now in comic form! Adolf Hitler: Just as a musician knows that they have made it in a certain way because they have been parodied by Weird Al Yankovic, when a 1940s comics character has vexed Adolf Hitler or a transparent analog of him they can rest easy in the knowledge that they have done their part for history. This particular Hitler is vexed by aviation-based duo Shot and Shell. (Military Comics 003, 1941)…
It’s only his third year in operation (and technically just his second year as a super-hero) but 1941 is the biggest year yet for our old pal the Sub-Mariner! The biggest development in Namor’s status quo happens in Sub-Mariner Comics 001, when Emperor Thakorr is killed in an attempted Nazi invasion of Atlantis. This makes Namor the new Emperor and turns his hatred of the Nazis from a somewhat arbitrary thing based mainly on distaste to a matter of national pride….
They may not all be actual aliens, but they are all aliens and so forth. M’Bujies: We only really hear about the M’Bujies from the mouth of soldier/Blue Tracer sidekick Boomerang Jones, which makes me want to take his words with a pinch of salt, given, you know, the history of the world and whatnot. On the other hand, he is one of the protagonists of a fairly uncomplicated adventure comic so we can probably take most of the information…
Toro may be the forgotten child of the Golden Age today, but let’s see what exciting developments occurred in his life c. 1941. Marvel Mystery Comics v1 019: Toro is severely wounded in a deathtrap set by the Hag and requires a “flame transfusion” to recover. This process leaves him canonically just a little less cool and powerful than the Human Torch, which seems like a very deliberate move on the part of Carl Burgos to draw a distinction between…
You’re never going to believe how many dang aliens we have around here. Meteor-Monsters: When biology Professor Rudolph Norsen finds some seeds on a recently-fallen meteor you just know that he’s going to plant them on the off chance that they might sprout. And they do! In no time at all they have grown into tuberous plant monsters sporting prehensile tendrils, eyestalks and long serrated tonguelike structures – as far as plant monsters go the only thing they’re missing is…
(Human Torch v1 004, 1941) The Patriot is the heroic alter ego of Jeff Mace, reporter for the Consolidated Press. He is a pretty bay-the-book patriotic hero who would certainly be relegated to the ranks of the minor super-hero page if not for the fact that the integrity of Marvel Comics continuity had become important enough by the mid-70s that the question “if Captain America was frozen in 1945, just who was having all those adventures?” had to be answered….
It’s time once more to see some real folk in comics form. Adolf Hitler: Captain von Marz of the battleship Kaiser Adolf is a particular type of comic book Hitler: the Nazi officer who just kind of looks like a parody of his own supreme leader. These guys are pretty handy for any 1940s comic book creator who wants to blow Hitler to atoms in the course of the story without having to account for his presence in later comics….