Some more dubious theology for you. the Stone Tablet: The pompous jackasses at the British Archaeological Club really get Mr Mystic’s goat when they treat the theories of his friend Doctor Gadasky like trash, so he does the only sensible thing and uses his magic to travel back to 1 000 000 CE to see for himself. Gadasky claims that Cro-Magnons had a religion based around the worship of a stone tablet, and wouldn’t you know it, he’s right! Mr…
More gods means more options. Katagwah, the Rain God: An unseen Native American rain god whose most fanatical adherent is attempting to perform a human sacrifice to bring rain to the Mojave Desert when Mr Mystic steps in to help the intended victim’s brother put a stop to the ceremony. I felt certain that the story would end with a rainstorm brought on by Mystic chucking the aggressor into the sacrificial canyon, but no such luck. God style: invoked. (The…
Can you ever have enough made-up gods? the Goddess of Fire: Crooks Raoul and Victor Ladron hatch a scheme while hiding out on the South Pacific island of Kumoni: since the idol of the local Goddess of Fire looks identical to former super-villain Elena they will engineer her kidnapping, hypnotize her into impersonating the goddess and then kill her to prove that they are more powerful than her and thus deserve to make off with the temple gold. This plan…
I think that demons and devils are the only category of comic book guy I don’t have a running round-up for yet (and having said that I’m sure that there will be more), so here we go: Satan: If we’re going do do demons, why not start with the one with the most name recognition of all: Satan. As seen here he has been vexing jodhpured adventurer Tippy Taylor in the form of a mad scientist, only to be defeated…
Oh so spiritual, we are. Koli Tow: Hal Hazard and his brother Hoagy are adventuring in the South Seas when they get shipwrecked, which is not really an excuse for just wandering into a local temple to eat the food offerings but I guess when you’re hungry a little sacrilege is easy to justify. Even so, the local worshippers of Koli Tow aren’t particularly understanding about it, and given the nature of the comic there’s a human sacrifice in the…
(Target Comics v1 007, 1940) Boystate is under attack! At first, it’s a relatively innocuous disruption of the power supply, which from what I’ve been able to glean is broadcast power derived from cosmic rays, but it swiftly escalates until all contact with the rangers operating outside of the Boystate boyborders is lost. And just in case there’s any confusion, this disruption attack is swiftly followed by a barrage of poison gas missiles, and the Boystate child army must be…
(Science Comics 001, 1940) Dr Doom, another super-villain with his own series (I swear that they’re rare over all but 1940 sure is a fertile year for them), lives in an unspecified future and is your classic mad science polymath, as demonstrated by his various schemes: In his very first outing, Dr Doom decides to do some extreme testing of his latest formula and uses it to shrink Jan and Wanda, two otherwise-nondescript youths who just happen to also be…
(Planet Comics 005, 1940) Gale Allen was a long-running feature of Planet Comics, which meant that she was a creation of many absent-minded hands. She is always an officer in a gendered space organization, but whether that is the Women’s Space Battalion, the Girl’s Patrol, the Girl’s Squadron and so forth varies from issue to issue. The story is set in the far-off year of 1990 but drifts farther into the future over time. She turns blonde eventually. You get…
What’s that? The sign of who? That’s the guy. And the greatest and most unhinged sign of the Blue Beetle of all: (hover for issue numbers)
Once again we must discuss the fascists. The Black League are a pretty regular-style gang of fifth columnists with two points of distinction: 1) they call one another “Black One”, which is kind of fun and 2) they are trying to steal this completely awesome WWII mech suit and get beat up by Dick Cole, Wonder-Boy for their efforts. (Blue Bolt v1 011, 1941) The nation of Bundonia deploys this crack squad of idiots, the Bundsters, to Hollywood to prevent…