Pretty diverse bunch this time.
the Lone Rider:
Another masked cowboy hero dispensing justice from the barrel of the gun in the Old Modern West to throw in the pile. The Lone Rider does have the distinction of having been created by Jack Kirby for a very short-lived comic strip and recycled by Eastern Color for comic book content.
Having read through a decent chunk of the Lone Rider’s appearances, I’m pretty sure that Texas never actually put in an appearance, and that Pepito had maybe one panel to shine in – those are the risks you run when you start off with a cast of characters entry, I suppose. (Famous Funnies 062, 1939)
the White Streak:
Discovered by archaeologist Simms and his guide Ramon in a temple that is inside of a small mountain that has risen out of a dead volcano (which is in turn in the fictional country of Payan, in actual South America), the White Streak is an android built by the ancient dead civilization of Utopia, which perished in war and gifted their creation to the future as a way to prevent war from destroying any more civilizations. And by “the White Streak” I mean “Manowar,” which was clearly intended to be his super-hero name but was changed for some reason – he’s barely even referred to as the White Streak for the first issue. Whatever his name, he took his mission very seriously: if you were in the business of promoting or profiting from war you could expect a very violent visit from the White Streak.
At first, Manowar’s powers were limited to his electric vision and a bit of enhanced agility, but over time they expanded to include super strength, an electrical force field that still sometimes unnervingly came out of his eyes, and electrical constructs (most frequently a ladder, for some reason). (Target Comics v1 001, 1940)
UPDATES: 1940
Boystate:
Okay, so Boystate is an indeterminably large chunk of land somewhere in the US within a few hours drive from NYC, containing a city (Boyville, natch) and founded and run by a fellow known as the Skipper (the Confederate officer-looking fellow, above) and his aide the Captain (the other guy). Boystate is unsurprisingly populated by boys, and has as its charter a dedication to bringing those often troubled boys up to be fine upstanding men.
Of course this is all taking place in a comic that is written and set in 1940, so the comic’s views on how boys might be guided into that upstanding manhood involve a lot of homemade militia activity and discipline through violence, as seen here as new recruit Speck is smacked down by Boystate Ranger V.Y.
The other hallmarks of the Boystate comics are 1) a deep love of pointless callsigns – everyone is V.Y. or X-1 and travel from Point 6-A to Tower 2-R and on and on in a way that makes your eyes glaze over, and 2) an absurd variety of cosmic ray-powered sci-fi technology, courtesy of the Skipper’s genius.
In addition to the identity-stripping numerical designations, Boystate is simply chockablock with pseudo-military ranks and divisions for the boys to aspire to join so that they can spend their time patrolling Boystate airspace and riding her borders and chasing down passing cars to check if they’re stolen… frankly, if they weren’t collectively the protagonists of a comic book series in which they are described a good and true and aspirational Americans I would be tempted to call Boystate a nightmarish authoritarian police state/cult. Did I mention that the Skipper not only has a machine that can take video of anywhere in Boystate but also one that can read minds? (Target Comics v1 001, 1940)
Spacehawk:
As a big fan of Basil Wolverton, I wish that he’d had more opportunities to create science fiction comics during the time that he was interested in doing so, but in the absence of that, Spacehawk is pretty great. A mind-reading physical titan of unknown origin who metes out justice to the scum of the Solar System, Spacehawk is much more of a space-based super-hero than his contemporaries, and his alien foes are appropriately Wolvertonian grotesques who reflect their evil nature in their outward appearances.
Sadly, Novelty Press was The Company Where Whimsy Was Not Welcome, and in 1941 Spacehawk was relocated to Earth to battle the Axis instead of all of those unrealistic aliens. Don’t get me wrong: Basil Wolverton comics about Spacehawk beating up Nazis are still pretty great, just not as great as ones about him beating up aliens. The move to 1940s Earth does introduce the as-far-as-I-know never answered question of just where all of the humans in the earlier Spacehawk comics were from, which is a fun if brief diversion.
Finally, there’s a very minor bit of suspense in the first few Spacehawk stories over just what he is under that mask of his – an alien? a robot? something weirder? – but it turns out that he’s a hunk. Spoilers, I guess. (Target Comics v1 005, 1940)
