(The Arrow 002, 1940) It’s an occupational hazard for the costumed adventurer: eventually someone is going to dress up like you so that they can do crimes and get away with it while you take all the blame. And when the hero in question is a mysterious and half-legendary figure like your typical masked cowboy tends to be, why, it must be all the more tempting, as Betty aka the Headless Horseman learns to her dismay when she learns that…
It’s Day Three of Round-Up Week here at the Curse of Skeleton Munroe. **UPDATE** the White Streak: Novelty Press is back at it again, exercising their compulsion to tone down the “fantastic” in their comic book stories. The White Streak has gotten a job as an FBI agent, and so he gets plastic surgery in order to make his inhuman face into that of a square-jawed white guy. Now instead of being the utterly fantastical ancient android in a bright…
We’re stretching the definition of the term “generic” this week, folks. Carr, the self-styled Planetary Potentate, is released from the insane asylum that he is imprisoned in when a resurrected sub-sea dinosaur called the Amphisaur crashes into it. He sets out to claim his rightful place at the head of society, along with his friend/ companion/ army, the wild man Simeo. While murdering and robbing a gas station attendant, Carr learns of the Amphisaur and its role in their escape…
(Super Spy 001, 1940) A series of bank robberies rock the community of Unnamed Comics Book City, USA. Witnesses place local physician Doc Anderson at the scene of each crime, but when detectives look into it they find that he has a terrible alibi for each one: he was home alone. It sounds like an open and shut case, but another robbery occurs while the police are at his house. Just what is happening? Could the fact that the title…
Enjoy these ancient delights! the Black Spider: Mild-mannered district attorney Ralph Nelson, like many comic book lawmen, sallies forth at night in order to deal with criminals that the law can’t touch. Nelson is despised by his colleague Police Inspector Stern for being too soft on crime/ dedicated to the letter of the law to allow the cops to torture confessions out of people, while the Black Spider is hated by Stern for showing up the police by being so…
Yet again we have a selection of comic book appearances of real-style people for you to enjoy. Adolf Hitler: Warak, dictator of Barbaria is a bit generic as far as pseudo-Hitlers go, but a pseudo-Hitler he is. (Smash Comics 017, 1940) Scraggs, leader of the Green Shirts, is very much a “make the leader look like Hitler as shorthand for These Guys Are Fascists” character, a subspecies that will nearly die out some time in 1941 but survives in small…
Buncha mooks this time. The ship that picked up scientist-adventurer Dean Denton and his pals from the island of Baron Blood just so happened to have a pseudo-Nazi spy (fake name Lieutenant James, code name K-192, real name unknown) committing murders on it for unclear reasons. Despite composing a crime scene to contain nothing but clues pointing to other members of the crew Denton rounds him up pretty quickly. (Masked Marvel 003, 1940) Pilot Prop Powers has to defend his…
(Masked Marvel 002, 1940) Kardo, Maker of Monsters, is not quite a super-villain but that’s about the closest thing to what he is and I’m not making up a new category for every guy who doesn’t quite fit the existing ones. What is Kardo then, you ask? A world-famous scientist with the soul of a clown and a compulsion to make creatures and beasties – when we first meet him he is sharing a drink with his friends Dr Melvyn…
(Masked Marvel 002, 1940) The Eraser Gang, aka the Erasers, aka the Dead Erasers, are a gang with a gimmick: they don’t just hijack armoured cars, they make the cars and their occupants disappear completely, to the consternation of the authorities. But just why do they do this? It’s never actually spelled out but as the Masked Marvel discovers when he is captured by them their actual weapon of choice is not a dissolving ray or a powerful acid but…
(Masked Marvel 001, 1940) Wings is the otherwise-unnamed leader of a gang with a pretty good gimmick: model planes loaded with explosives and rigged with a device that homes in on magnets. Using these, they cause a series of “mysterious explosions” at banks, etc, and loot to their hearts’ content in the ensuing chaos. The real key thing about a scheme like this is that it works best when there is a sense of fear and confusion. If you don’t…