A few classic minor super-heroes. Bulletman and Bulletgirl in particular have just barely managed not to remain relevant – I suppose the pointy helmet is too much of a hurdle for the modern audience.
Bulletman:
Jim Barr is perhaps the most thoroughly-motivated super-hero of the Golden Age. He is:
a. from a long line of police officers
b. the son of a famed police officer who was murdered for being too good a cop and who
c. told the young Jim that he must become a police officer while on his death bed
d. and after all that he was too scrawny and bookish to be a cop and so had to settle for being a forensic scientist
Jim ends up working in his father’s old station under the command of Sergeant Kent, a pro-torture bully who is often held up as the greatest of all the cops in the city, and who is also the father of love interest Susan Barr.
Jim’s personal project is a serum that will destroy “all germs and toxins” in the human body, including that which he believes to be the source of crime and violence. He chooses to test this serum out on himself and his body, freed from a variety of invisible ailments, develops into a physical paragon over the course of a night’s sleep.
(Sergeant Kent really earns his reputation as a great police officer by failing to notice that his colleague has basically doubled in size over night. In his defense, Jim is wearing big clothes)
Jim decides that the best way to use this new power is to operate outside of the law, probably due to all of his time hanging around with top cop Kent. He uses his now super intelligence to build the Gravity-Regulator Helmet, which allows him to fly and also generates a force field that augments his natural resilience to make him nigh-invulnerable and able to smash through things head-first (I swear that somewhere I read a story in which it was explained that it made him bulletproof by drawing the bullets to the helmet but danged if I can find it now.). His costume, yellow jodhpurs and all, is assembled out of things that were lying around at the police station, no mention of where. (Nickel Comics 001, 1940)
If I had to classify Bulletman’s personality, I would go with “extremely no-nonsense” or maybe “wooden, which is why it is important that he is eventually joined by his female counterpart:
Bulletgirl:
Bulletgirl is the aforementioned Susan Kent, daughter to good cop/bad cop Sergeant Kent and member of Bulletman’s supporting cast from the beginning. For about the first year of Bulletman’s adventures she fills a low-effort version of the Lois Lane role: curious about the hero’s identity but not especially proactive about trying to uncover it. She also gets kidnapped and targeted for death a lot thanks to her father’s skill at making enemies. Then, in Master Comics 012, Bulletman is knocked out in a collision with Triple Threat’s super vehicle and Susan learns that he is actually Jim Barr. Jim obligingly tells Susan the secret of his origin but resolutely refuses to consider teaming up with her.
Susan of course injects herself with the serum and crabs a spare Gravity-Regulator Helmet and costume (though she goes for hot pants over jodhpurs) the instant that Bulletman is out of the room, and This is a very good illustration of why I am so fond of Bulletgirl: she has all of the personality that Bulletman lacks. She’s scrappy and quippy and after an issue or two of “too dangerous for girls” chauvinism from Jim is a full partner in the superheroic exercise. She does get kidnapped and left behind a bit more than I’d like but that’s comic books in a nutshell.
In conclusion: Bulletgirl! (Master Comics 013, 1941)
Minute-Man:
Like Jim Barr, Jack Weston is the son of a dead hero, though Jack’s father Robert Weston died during the Battle of Chateau-Thierry in World War I. We don’t get nearly as much background on Jack, other than the fact that he was raised by his father’s friend General Milton, but thanks to Milton, Jack becomes Minute-Man, a patriotic super-hero, in what is kind of presented as a draft.
Jack is sent to join the Army as a lowly Private so that he can keep an eye out for sabotage and espionage affecting the armed forces. Despite having no super serum or particular special training, he proves to be physically near-superhuman as he engages a variety of costumed and non-costumed foes over the course of his mid-length career.
Minute-Man also dabbles in leaving calling cards, which I always like to make note of. (Master Comics 011, 1941)
Doctor Voodoo **UPDATE**:
In Whiz Comics 017, Doctor Voodoo returns home to find that Maxinya (the Heaven-Woman, natch) has gone missing. He tracks her abductors through the jungle until he comes across their destination: a European castle, smack in the middle of the Amazon.
The mystery deepens as Voodoo enters the castle and finds what seems to be an entire Medieval court, headed by the boorish King Richard, who seeks his aid in conquering the jungle.
Doctor Voodoo refuses to help King Richard, and so is forced to meet the knight Sir Ganal in combat. Voodoo prevails and wins Ganal over to his side, complete with a promise to reveal the origin of the castle’s presence in the jungle. Alas, this shall never come to pass, because the story does a hard pivot in the next issue.
King Richard plays the whole jungle conquest/attempted murder thing off as if it was some sort of test, and sends Doctor Voodoo off to meet with his court wizard. He. in turn, transports Voodoo back in time to the 1400s or thereabouts to retrieve a magical McGuffin called the Golden Flask, with another promise to explain what this whole affair is about once he returns.
Unfortunately for all us completionists out there, the explanation never comes because Doctor Voodoo never returns. He bops around the oceans for about a year and actually does manage to get his hands on the Golden Flask but his feature is cancelled before he can return it to the wizard and find out just what the heck is going on. Maxinya is waiting for him still, presumably. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)
