The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Dynamo

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 721: THE GENIUS

    (Science Comics 003, 1940)

    Dynamo has been stirring up trouble in the Unspecified City underworld. He’s captured Rats Rako and a significant portion of his gang and now Rats’ lieutenant Gun Ramey must figure out just how to deal with a superhuman do-gooder. It’s lucky for him that Unspecified City has a resident criminal scientist, the Genius (ignore the fact that they’re calling him Electro, this is from his first adventure before he changes it).

    I’ll be honest, my first instinct was to chuck the Genius into the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up, but between the name and the fact that he looks like someone did one of those awful clickbait art exercises where they do a “realistic” version of a cartoon character, in this case Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, and then ran that picture through a filter to make it look like an illustration. He is very distinct looking is what I am saying. And look at the size of that melon!

    The Genius lives up to his reputation, and one week later he is able to depower Dynamo and drop him in a pit with almost laughable ease. And then Gun Ramey make one of the classic inexplicable blunders and decides to save some money by stiffing the Genius on the bill, and as usually happens when someone in fiction cheats the person who specializes in deathtraps and murder, Gun finds himself in a deathtrap, about to be murdered.

    Luckily for Gun, the Dynamo and basically everyone in Unspecified City other than the Genius, the particular deathtrap that the two find themselves in is not a bespoke one that was made specifically in order to dispose of an electricity-powered superhuman but an old workaday deathtrap that the Genius has been using for years, to the extent that Gun knows all about it (and yet still got lippy with the Genius about his fee – probably the reason Gun is still a gang lieutenant rather than a gang boss). And a key thing about this deathtrap is that it not only features a spiked ceiling that lowers and crushes the occupants but also an exposed wire, so that the Genius’ victims must grapple with the choice of whether to wait for the spikes or end it all with the wire. Dynamo/Electro obviously chooses the latter and, revitalized, zaps the Genius into submission.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 038

    Second- and third-tier Fox Features heroes: ACTIVATE

    Dynamo:

    Jim Andrews is an electrical scientist who heroically risks his own life by using his own body as a conductor to prevent some crazy bit of machinery from blowing the whole laboratory he works at to high heaven. And since he lives in a comic book world, the reward for his bravery is some super powers! He can now emit electricity, create an electrical forcefield, kind of fly by throwing a lightning bolt and then riding it through the air and even be super strong, with the minor caveat that he has to charge himself up from time to time (over time and for narrative convenience he also develops the powers to freeze water, to repair smashed up items by shooting electricity at them and to travel interstellar distances under his own power).

    Andrews originally calls himself Electro but swaps that name out for Dynamo in his second appearance. There is some speculation that the name change comes about because there was already an extant Electro over at Marvel.

    Dynamo’s costume choices over his two years of adventuring range from “generic” to “kind of dumb-looking,” and the real kicker is that the Fox Features cover artist consistently puts him in this incredible red number. (Science Comics 001, 1940)

    ADDENDUM: In Science Comics 005, Dynamo, already wildly powerful, invents a device with the fairly ominous name the Brain-Wave Trap which allows him to read the minds of everyone on Earth and indeed for hundreds of light years around. Ir’s a significant power boost for something that is mainly used to keep the plot chugging along.

    UPDATE: Weird Comics 1940

    the Eagle:

    The Eagle is Bill Powers, a wealthy young gadabout who has developed an “anti-gravitation fluid” which allows him to fly when applied to his wing/flaps.

     

    The Eagle might just have the greatest number of costume variations before finding his groove, though I suppose a number of them can be ascribed to the whims of the colourist on any given day. While the flying squirrel style flaps are fun for their uniqueness and that fourth version has far nicer-looking wings than Hawkman was sporting at the same time I can absolutely understand the impulse to move toward a more traditional super-hero costume without a bunch of fiddly little feathers all over it. BUT! the Eagle’s costume has not reached its final form – something to look forward to once we get to Fox Features’ 1941 offerings. Or just look up on your own, I suppose.

    I don’t think that it’s intentional so much as a product of many busy hands being involved in making most if not all Fox Features comics, but Bill Powers is one of the better realizations of the “wealthy young playboy” super-hero alter ego. He really and truly comes off as someone who is just kind of doing things, including fighting crime, to keep himself occupied and the greatest example of that is all the little projects such as his “crime cartoons” or his “book on crime” that he keeps mentioning once and then never ever returning to. Plus he has a butler named Jason, whom I love.

    Finally, the Eagle might just have the most mysterious of all calling cards, an unseen “mark like that done by an eagle.” (Science Comics 001, 1940) 

    UPDATE: Weird Comics 1940

    Marga the Panther Woman:

    Marga, formerly a nurse at the asylum housing the mad physiologist von Dorf, finds herself kidnapped and made into a panther/ human hybrid. Is there just a hint of weird race science in the way that Marga going from blonde to black haired is a sign of her primitive nature being brought forward? Maybe just a skosh.

    Marga adapts fairly well to her new situation, even when it means that she is now an obligate carnivore. She just kind of accepts that her life is no longer that of a nurse but that of a jungle predator.

    Marga’s first few adventures take place in what is pretty clearly the future but a series of comics with different creative teams ends with her being a contemporary 1940 figure. (Science Comics 001, 1940)

    Navy Jones:

    Navy Jones (and let me tell you I groaned audibly about two hours after I fist read that name, when I figured out that it was a pun on Davy Jones) is a submarine commander of the future who meets with disaster when his submarine hits a free-floating mine and everyone on board but him is killed. Lucky for Jones, he is picked up by some passing Fish-Men and taken to their city, where he befriends their king.

    Things take a turn when the evil Prime Minister uses the presence of this outsider in the halls of power as a catalyst for rebellion, and Navy Jones is almost killed. In another stroke of fortune, the king happens to be a skilled surgeon and saves Jones’ life at the cost of his ability to breathe air. Jones rescues the kidnapped Princess Coral from the Prime Minister and puts down the rebellion, becoming the city’s champion (and in a final stroke of luck, the Fish-Men are the kind of comic book species where the more aristocratic you are, the more human you look, so Jones’ new Princess love interest is barely a fish at all!). (Science Comics 001, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 038

    MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 038

    Second- and third-tier Fox Features heroes: ACTIVATE

    Dynamo:

    Jim Andrews is an electrical scientist who heroically risks his own life by using his own body as a conductor to prevent some crazy bit of machinery from blowing the whole laboratory he works at to high heaven. And since he lives in a comic book world, the reward for his bravery is some super powers! He can now emit electricity, create an electrical forcefield, kind of fly by throwing a lightning bolt and then riding it through the air and even be super strong, with the minor caveat that he has to charge himself up from time to time (over time and for narrative convenience he also develops the powers to freeze water, to repair smashed up items by shooting electricity at them and to travel interstellar distances under his own power).

    Andrews originally calls himself Electro but swaps that name out for Dynamo in his second appearance. There is some speculation that the name change comes about because there was already an extant Electro over at Marvel.

    Dynamo’s costume choices over his two years of adventuring range from “generic” to “kind of dumb-looking,” and the real kicker is that the Fox Features cover artist consistently puts him in this incredible red number. (Science Comics 001, 1940)

    ADDENDUM: In Science Comics 005, Dynamo, already wildly powerful, invents a device with the fairly ominous name the Brain-Wave Trap which allows him to read the minds of everyone on Earth and indeed for hundreds of light years around. Ir’s a significant power boost for something that is mainly used to keep the plot chugging along.

    UPDATE: Weird Comics 1940

    the Eagle:

    The Eagle is Bill Powers, a wealthy young gadabout who has developed an “anti-gravitation fluid” which allows him to fly when applied to his wing/flaps.

     

    The Eagle might just have the greatest number of costume variations before finding his groove, though I suppose a number of them can be ascribed to the whims of the colourist on any given day. While the flying squirrel style flaps are fun for their uniqueness and that fourth version has far nicer-looking wings than Hawkman was sporting at the same time I can absolutely understand the impulse to move toward a more traditional super-hero costume without a bunch of fiddly little feathers all over it. BUT! the Eagle’s costume has not reached its final form – something to look forward to once we get to Fox Features’ 1941 offerings. Or just look up on your own, I suppose.

    I don’t think that it’s intentional so much as a product of many busy hands being involved in making most if not all Fox Features comics, but Bill Powers is one of the better realizations of the “wealthy young playboy” super-hero alter ego. He really and truly comes off as someone who is just kind of doing things, including fighting crime, to keep himself occupied and the greatest example of that is all the little projects such as his “crime cartoons” or his “book on crime” that he keeps mentioning once and then never ever returning to. Plus he has a butler named Jason, whom I love.

    Finally, the Eagle might just have the most mysterious of all calling cards, an unseen “mark like that done by an eagle.” (Science Comics 001, 1940) 

    UPDATE: Weird Comics 1940

    Marga the Panther Woman:

    Marga, formerly a nurse at the asylum housing the mad physiologist von Dorf, finds herself kidnapped and made into a panther/ human hybrid. Is there just a hint of weird race science in the way that Marga going from blonde to black haired is a sign of her primitive nature being brought forward? Maybe just a skosh.

    Marga adapts fairly well to her new situation, even when it means that she is now an obligate carnivore. She just kind of accepts that her life is no longer that of a nurse but that of a jungle predator.

    Marga’s first few adventures take place in what is pretty clearly the future but a series of comics with different creative teams ends with her being a contemporary 1940 figure. (Science Comics 001, 1940)

    Navy Jones:

    Navy Jones (and let me tell you I groaned audibly about two hours after I fist read that name, when I figured out that it was a pun on Davy Jones) is a submarine commander of the future who meets with disaster when his submarine hits a free-floating mine and everyone on board but him is killed. Lucky for Jones, he is picked up by some passing Fish-Men and taken to their city, where he befriends their king.

    Things take a turn when the evil Prime Minister uses the presence of this outsider in the halls of power as a catalyst for rebellion, and Navy Jones is almost killed. In another stroke of fortune, the king happens to be a skilled surgeon and saves Jones’ life at the cost of his ability to breathe air. Jones rescues the kidnapped Princess Coral from the Prime Minister and puts down the rebellion, becoming the city’s champion (and in a final stroke of luck, the Fish-Men are the kind of comic book species where the more aristocratic you are, the more human you look, so Jones’ new Princess love interest is barely a fish at all!). (Science Comics 001, 1940)