The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: notes

  • NOTES – MARCH 2024 PART 2

    I used up all the tags on the first one.

    Honours:

    Dick Cole gets the Carnegie Hero Fund Medal for saving a baby and a shirtless lunatic (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

    Dick Cole also saves the Princess of the fictional European nation of Dania from pseudo-Nazis and is awarded the Danian Order of the Exalted Knight for his efforts. (Blue Bolt v1 012, 1941)

    Sub-Zero saves the city of Centro from a volcano and gets a banquet in his honour (and more importantly goes from a wanted fugitive to a civic hero) (Blue Bolt v1 002, 1940)

    Ten issues later, Sub-Zero saves the South American nation of Latonia from invasion by crypto-Nazis and is given an unspecified medal (Blue Bolt v1 012, 1941)

    Train engineer Runaway Ronson gets a medal from the Governor of… some state for saving a town from a flood with his train – the story takes place in the Mississippi River Valley which is not exactly a precise geographical location. (Blue Bolt v1 003, 1940)

    Runaway Ronson and his pal Pat also get a personal visit from FDR after stopping some spies from their nefarious train-based plotting (Blue Bolt v1 006, 1940)

    Sergeant Spook is honoured by former President of the US and current president of Ghost Town, George Washington! (Blue Bolt v1 008, 1941)

    Trophy Room:

    Sub-Zero just gives away a huge ruby to his gal pal Janet Ware at the end of his encounter with the Great Green Turtle (Blue Bolt v1 004)

    Kid inventor Edison Bell wins the *checks notes* National Gas Midget Auto Race complete with a trip to the South Seas (Blue Bolt v2 004, 1941)

    Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects:

    PANG! PANG! The cops are trying to shoot fleeing teen Dick Cole in the back after he is framed for murder. (Blue Bolt v1 007, 1940)

    Twice!

    Crossdressing:

    Sub-Zero might just have the least amount of gender panic of any crossdressing Golden Age hero bar Madam Fatal. (Blue Bolt v2 003, 1941)

  • NOTES – MARCH 2024 PART 2

    NOTES – MARCH 2024 PART 2

    I used up all the tags on the first one.

    Honours:

    Dick Cole gets the Carnegie Hero Fund Medal for saving a baby and a shirtless lunatic (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

    Dick Cole also saves the Princess of the fictional European nation of Dania from pseudo-Nazis and is awarded the Danian Order of the Exalted Knight for his efforts. (Blue Bolt v1 012, 1941)

    Sub-Zero saves the city of Centro from a volcano and gets a banquet in his honour (and more importantly goes from a wanted fugitive to a civic hero) (Blue Bolt v1 002, 1940)

    Ten issues later, Sub-Zero saves the South American nation of Latonia from invasion by crypto-Nazis and is given an unspecified medal (Blue Bolt v1 012, 1941)

    Train engineer Runaway Ronson gets a medal from the Governor of… some state for saving a town from a flood with his train – the story takes place in the Mississippi River Valley which is not exactly a precise geographical location. (Blue Bolt v1 003, 1940)

    Runaway Ronson and his pal Pat also get a personal visit from FDR after stopping some spies from their nefarious train-based plotting (Blue Bolt v1 006, 1940)

    Sergeant Spook is honoured by former President of the US and current president of Ghost Town, George Washington! (Blue Bolt v1 008, 1941)

    Trophy Room:

    Sub-Zero just gives away a huge ruby to his gal pal Janet Ware at the end of his encounter with the Great Green Turtle (Blue Bolt v1 004)

    Kid inventor Edison Bell wins the *checks notes* National Gas Midget Auto Race complete with a trip to the South Seas (Blue Bolt v2 004, 1941)

    Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects:

    PANG! PANG! The cops are trying to shoot fleeing teen Dick Cole in the back after he is framed for murder. (Blue Bolt v1 007, 1940)

    Twice!

    Crossdressing:

    Sub-Zero might just have the least amount of gender panic of any crossdressing Golden Age hero bar Madam Fatal. (Blue Bolt v2 003, 1941)

  • NOTES – JANUARY 2024

    Police Attempted Murder:

    The Green Mask broke an accused murderer (innocent, framed) out of jail so the NYPD attempt to murder him and Domino the Miracle Boy (Mystery Men Comics 020, 1941) 

    The police (behind the green car) attempt to gun down the Blue Beetle with no regard for the innocent witness standing next to him (Mystery Men 027, 1941)

    Future History:

    A stark vision of the state of the mortuary industry in the far-off year 2000, courtesy of Rex Dexter (though as is the nature of many sci-fi comics the setting seems to have drifted into at least  the late 2500s according to some of the headstones in the Moon graveyard) (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)

    COMMIES:

    Not too many Communist antagonists show up in the window between the advent of comics and Russia joining up with the Allies, but here we have some attempting to steal a new bomb prototype for their leader “Nilats” (and I guess to be completely accurate there are a lot of  spies with Russian-sounding names etc but almost all of them are clearly meant as crypto-fascist pseudo-Germans more than anything. These fellows being capital-c Communists is a rarity) (Mystery Men Comics 022, 1941)

  • NOTES – JANUARY 2024

    Police Attempted Murder:

    The Green Mask broke an accused murderer (innocent, framed) out of jail so the NYPD attempt to murder him and Domino the Miracle Boy (Mystery Men Comics 020, 1941) 

    The police (behind the green car) attempt to gun down the Blue Beetle with no regard for the innocent witness standing next to him (Mystery Men 027, 1941)

    Future History:

    A stark vision of the state of the mortuary industry in the far-off year 2000, courtesy of Rex Dexter (though as is the nature of many sci-fi comics the setting seems to have drifted into at least  the late 2500s according to some of the headstones in the Moon graveyard) (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)

    COMMIES:

    Not too many Communist antagonists show up in the window between the advent of comics and Russia joining up with the Allies, but here we have some attempting to steal a new bomb prototype for their leader “Nilats” (and I guess to be completely accurate there are a lot of  spies with Russian-sounding names etc but almost all of them are clearly meant as crypto-fascist pseudo-Germans more than anything. These fellows being capital-c Communists is a rarity) (Mystery Men Comics 022, 1941)

  • NOTES – SEPTEMBER 2023

    Memes of Yore:


     Women be loving hats. (All-Flash 001, 1941)

    Decoration:

    On the island nation of Felicia, the chairs are monogrammed with a big F (Master Comics 001, 1940) 

    UPDATE: And the shields.

    Drawn without reference:

    The majestic pterodactyl. (Master Comics 007, 1940)

  • NOTES: AUGUST 2023

    Pets:

    Jerry “the Thunderer” Carstairs has a pet dog named Mike. (Daring Mystery Comics 007, 1941)

    Cops Attempting to Murder Fleeing Suspects:

    A really concerted attempt to murder the Challenger by the cops in this issue. (Daring Mystery Comics 007, 1941)

    Legitimately surprised to see a reference to drinking a Zombie cocktail in 1941 but it seems that it dates from 1934 (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

  • NOTES: JULY 2023

    Another “renegade white“:

    (Jumbo Comics 034, 1941)

  • NOTES: JUNE 2023

    Where is Camp Lehigh?

    As noted previously, Camp Lehigh has been assigned a retroactive location of Virginia, but when that happened is hard to pin down– the earliest citation on the Marvel Comics Wiki is Captain America: White in 2008, which is recent enough that I’m surprised that the MCU location of New Jersey didn’t take precedence when the 2011 movie came out. Was it in fact established earlier? More notes follow:

    -nothing in the various Handbooks of the Marvel Universe

    -nor any issues of What If?, which I thought might have added a little detail like that to the scene-setting portion at the beginning of a Cap issue

    -various officers stationed at Camp Lehigh are shown to live in NYC

    -travel between the camp and NYC is frequent and speedy. Bucky’s class visits New York Harbor on a lark

    -BUT Captain America Comics 006 places Camp Lehigh within a similar distance of San Francisco, leading me to conclude that it’s the Brigadoon of army camps, popping up where it’s needed.

    At this point I guess it’s just a matter of watching out for the word “Virginia” to be explicitly written next to the words “Camp Lehigh” because that’s all we can really hold onto.

    EDIT: A late addition to the fun confusion: Captain America Comics 009 introduces “Lehigh City” as the nearby urban area that Cap and Bucky visit and it’s clearly one of your classic NYC stand-ins, down to the lions on the Lehigh Public Library:

  • NOTES: JUNE 2023

    Where is Camp Lehigh?

    As noted previously, Camp Lehigh has been assigned a retroactive location of Virginia, but when that happened is hard to pin down– the earliest citation on the Marvel Comics Wiki is Captain America: White in 2008, which is recent enough that I’m surprised that the MCU location of New Jersey didn’t take precedence when the 2011 movie came out. Was it in fact established earlier? More notes follow:

    -nothing in the various Handbooks of the Marvel Universe

    -nor any issues of What If?, which I thought might have added a little detail like that to the scene-setting portion at the beginning of a Cap issue

    -various officers stationed at Camp Lehigh are shown to live in NYC

    -travel between the camp and NYC is frequent and speedy. Bucky’s class visits New York Harbor on a lark

    -BUT Captain America Comics 006 places Camp Lehigh within a similar distance of San Francisco, leading me to conclude that it’s the Brigadoon of army camps, popping up where it’s needed.

    At this point I guess it’s just a matter of watching out for the word “Virginia” to be explicitly written next to the words “Camp Lehigh” because that’s all we can really hold onto.

    EDIT: A late addition to the fun confusion: Captain America Comics 009 introduces “Lehigh City” as the nearby urban area that Cap and Bucky visit and it’s clearly one of your classic NYC stand-ins, down to the lions on the Lehigh Public Library:

  • NOTES – MAY 2023

    Folk:

    Luther Robinson and Lynne Harris! These folks are hard to categorize! They’re not villains, despite being antagonists to Namor the Sub-Mariner, because Namor is very much a villain at least half of the time. They’re not heroes, despite eventually allying with Namor to fight Nazis, because they definitely attempt to commit at least one genocide against the people of Atlantis. 

    They’re adventurers, they’ve both been surgically modified by Atlantean scientists to be amphibious, and Lynne is one of a long line of women to be abducted by Namor with romantic ill-intent (and she’s, like, third one, in a mere handful of stories). They’re interesting artifacts of the way comic book universes come together, and that’s great.

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 010-026 (sporadically), 1940-1941) 

    Vision foe Rhamu Rondi is your bog standard crooked mystic character and will make no further appearances here, but the Buddha Signal is objectively great – even early Jack Kirby knew what was up with regard to villainous décor.(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 015, 1941)

    Names:

    Fella name of Barney Bailey here, which is a pretty great moniker for an exhibiter of curiosities to have. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941)

    Panel fun:

    Sub-Mariner x Human Torch (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 017, 1941)

    Whether this is Namor’s personal flag/ crest or a more general Atlantean symbol, this bit of regalia must be noted. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 018, 1941)

    Biographical Details: Namor the Sub-Mariner weighs 198 pounds, according to the ring announcer during his foray into the world of boxing (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 020, 1941)