Fate of the Wreck of the Athenia Showing tremendous respect for the dead, the Blue Tracer uses the wreck of the Athenia as armour while attacking a Nazi battleship. (Military Comics 005, 1941) Honours Marine pilots “Loops” McCann and “Banks” Barrows are “decorated for valor” after a barroom brawl in a Shanghai nightclub leads to the destruction of a Japanese spy cell (Military Comics 005, 1941) On Crypto-Fascism: As I’ve said before, the US was officially Not Involved in…
(Captain America Comics 002, 1941) The Wax Man is a bit of an oddball. For one thing, he’s not explicitly a Nazi, just “in the pay of a hostile foreign power,” which is only strange in that this is Marvel Comics, the only big publisher not hedging their bets about calling bad guys Nazis – the story previous to this featured Captain America and Bucky punching out Hitler and Goering and leaving them in trash cans, for heavens sake. But…
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941) Karl Schwab is part of a long tradition of villains who spend years and years meticulously preparing for their big moment, only for it to come crashing down the second that a super-hero, adventurer or plucky kid with a pet monkey gets involved. Usually this involves lurking in an old castle or cemetery lair while tinkering or planning or brewing or growing homunculi but Karl actually managed to get caught already, somewhere around 1931,…
(Detective Comics v1 058, 1941) Comic book character of the year Claudia Carol, folks. Names: (Doc Savage Comics v1 003, 1941) Bit of nominative determinism going on. The protagonist of this piece is Brad Marshall: Marshal Brad Marshall: Crook name of Bat Crawley (Feature Comics 040, 1941) I’m only mostly certain, but I think that “Fasdick” here might be subbing in for “fascist”. The government in question does bear all the hallmarks of being a stand-in for one of the Axis powers,…
(Detective Comics v1 057, 1941) A simple concept but a good one: the Fencer is the head of a vaguely-Axis espionage group that has been trying to kill anti-fascist author Jules Vortez for the past two issues using methods including causing plane crashes while still on the plane, duplicates, hypnosis and, sadly, blackface. Aside from the latter, this is exactly the sort of over-the-top behavior that should be going on all the time in a super-hero universe, so it’s only…
(Detective Comics v1 055, 1941) Dr Deker is a spy chief and a fifth columnist from the heady days before the US entered WWI, so of course he’s from an unnamed Fatherland and no further clarification is needed. He has the not-uncommon plan to kidnap prominent American scientists and steal their secrets, abetted by his very first acquisition: the Truth Machine, a device which unsurprisingly forces one to truthfully answer all questions. All of this is pretty comics-regular and poor…
(Crackajack Funnies 038-040, 1941) It’s my favourite Golden Age Batman knockoff the Owl again and this time he’s up against the Madespos, a whole family of homicidal maniacs with their very own gorilla pal! The Madespos had already been collared by the Owl (in an unseen adventure of his civilian guise of Nick Terry, PI) some time earlier, so our tale begins with their escape from Lenmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane with the help of their well-dressed gorilla friend. In…
(All-Star Comics 004, 1941) What makes them a super-villain? Sheer scale! The Leader AKA Fritz Klaver is the top spy for the “dictator nations” in America, commanding units of his subversive Grey-Shirts as well as other less blatant agents in numbers estimated at 30 000. They come real close to saying he’s a Nazi, too, but it’s about a year out from comics folks being willing to actually do that. What makes them interesting? The real deal interesting thing about…
(Adventure 061, 1941) Ivan Borloff is a strange combination of things: a scientist with a super airship (the Cylindecraft) and a metal-destroying ray, he rains destruction down on New York City in pursuit of his goal of conquering the US (and by implication, the world), but also, it’s implied that he is affiliated with *foreign powers*, ie, fascists – possibly ones who didn’t quite know what they were getting into. His name ringing more Russian might mean that he is…
(Action Comics v1 040, 1941) Yet another foreign agent looking to weaken America, the Purple does so by forming what is supposedly a patriotic society but in reality is a collection of fervent dupes that can be aimed at whatever target he wishes. Mr America steps in and lays out the truth for the Purple Gang but I fear for the future of a community filled with that many dim bulbs. As always, massive appreciation for a villain who dresses…