The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: crossdress

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 573: THE OWL

    (Champion Comics 005, 1940)

    Journalist Penny Wright is on the trail of a notorious spy named the Owl! While I am of course broadly anti-spoilers I will give you a hint to the Owl’s identity: there are four named characters in this comic and poor Hafiz Bey is murdered on the first page.

    Setting aside the compelling and difficult mystery of the Owl’s identity for a moment, we must consider the very concept of the notorious spy known for their distinctive appearance. I mean, yes, adopt a persona and stick to it while working so as to remove yourself from suspicion, but once you are known to be a man wearing thick glasses why continue to appear as such? Why is the Owl still running around as the Owl?

    The Owl of course turns out to be Cora Zender[s], popular diplomatic hostess, because of course he does. OR DOES HE? I put it to you that Cora is just a decoy, sent to take the fall while the real Owl gets away. After all, the only evidence pointing to Cora was the piece of her dress found in the garden – circumstantial at best! If the Owl and Cora were in fact the same highly successful spy then she surely would have at the very least dropped the easily spotted disguise, if not swapped it out for another look altogether! No, the only conclusion that can reasonably be reached is that Cora is not the Owl, merely a pawn, and that the real culprit is long gone.

    Or this was a throwaway story loosely plotted in haste in order to fill pages on an anthology book, but who’s gonna believe that?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 538: THE WHISP

    (Funny Pages v3 008, 1939)

    There’s not much to the Whisp, which I suppose is appropriate. A bloodthirsty jewel thief, the Whisp makes off with some star sapphire bracelets and pulls a switcheroo by using a garage’s loaner car to make their initial getaway before swapping back to their own car for the long haul.

    The final trick is that the Whisp is not, in fact, a fresh-faced young man but a woman! And unlike some of our other cross-dressing characters this seems to be purely for the purpose of disguise rather than some sort of gender non-conformity. And it works! The dumb local cops are seemingly about to jail the poor garage owner based on the fact that he claims that two men borrowed his car even though it contained some long blonde hairs and thus… I can’t actually even begin to piece together why that would implicate him, honestly.

    Of course while the cops are being dummies our hero the Arrow is on the case. It’s a bit uncharacteristically gentle but he merely runs the Whisp and her companion off the road into a gorge and partially drowns one of them – as opposed to his usual methods, of course, which involve a lot of arrows impaling people. It’s probably because the Whisp is a woman?

    In conclusion, the extra ‘h’ in Whisp is very annoying.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 530: THE MAD BOTANIST

    (Blue Ribbon Comics 019, 1941)

    The Mad Botanist is an assassin “in the employment of a foreign power” which in 1941 as good as means that he was working for the Axis. His nom de guerre comes from the fact that his preferred method of murder is via deadly plant life, including the African Tentacle Vine, the Mediterranean Poison Cornflower and of course the insidious Man-Eating Clam-Plant. The Botanist’s somewhat bizarre physical appearance is never commented upon in the comic so it’s a real toss up whether they’d have gone with “he works with deadly plants after being rejected for his appearance” or “working with deadly plants has really messed up his body”.

    Helping the Mad Botanist in his work are the rock stupid cops of whatever city he works out of, who not only adopt an “arrest the first person we see upon arriving at the crime scene” attitude but also seemingly facilitate this man’s death by arresting Captain Flag while he is actively trying to save him from strangling vines.

    This is a shorter story so the Mad Botanist doesn’t actually get to do that much: he kills one guy with vines, almost kills another by dressing up as an old lady and selling him a poison flower and then ends up in his own Man-Eating Clam-Plant after a final confrontation with Captain Flag. Is the percentage of villains who employ carnivorous plants and then die to them higher than that of similar villains who employ robots or trained animals? I suspect that it is, if only because artists don’t want to draw a giant flytrap without the satisfaction of drawing it chomping someone.

  • 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)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 465: THE HOOD

    (Amazing-Man Comics 010-011, 1940)

    The Magician from Mars’ final foe is a two-issue affair, but the first one is a bit of a nothing story: a mysterious terror attack at an airport turns out to be the work of a villain named the Hood who has found a way to… play a loud sound into a glass ball and then use it as a grenade. It’s a weird contrivance even by sci-fi super-hero comic standards. In any case, the Magician from Mars blows up all of the Hood’s factories and they flee into space.

    I do appreciate a villain who takes the time to dress their henchmen in proper minion outfits though. Plus this is some great we-don’t-quite-have-the-visual-language-of-comics-worked-out-yet-but-we’re-trying jumping around from the Magician from Mars.

    Next issue sees the Magician from Mars returning to her home planet where the Hood is leading an attempted rebellion – fairly successfully in fact, until a nigh-omnipotent superwoman joins the fight on the side of Martian King Marsu and his dishy son Prince Taal.

    Though the Hood is on the ropes and on the run, she takes the time to end the budding romance between the Magician from Mars and Price Taal by shooting the latter as he tries to defend our hero. And what’s that? I said “she”? Yes, because the Hood is in fact a woman! And what’s more an older woman! And even more shocking, she’s Jane “Magician from Mars” 6em35’s aunt!

    All of these revelations are only a bit out of left field. Jane’s aunt was a character in her first appearance and was even a minor antagonist in that story, but rather than attempting to install herself as an iron-fisted dictator she was instead a cruel and controlling guardian who kept her ward in check due to her very unusual super-weakness of… a genetic predisposition to like her relatives. Notably, this version of Aunt Kinza (yes she could have more than one aunt but why complicate matters?) does not appear to have magical powers. Sadly, there were no further Magician from Mars stories, so the path that Kinza took to become the Hood, like Jane’s eventual revenge for her lost love, will remain an untold story.

    ADDENDUM: This is a very good vengeance-swearing panel. Look out, oh vile aunt.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 465: THE HOOD

    (Amazing-Man Comics 010-011, 1940)

    The Magician from Mars’ final foe is a two-issue affair, but the first one is a bit of a nothing story: a mysterious terror attack at an airport turns out to be the work of a villain named the Hood who has found a way to… play a loud sound into a glass ball and then use it as a grenade. It’s a weird contrivance even by sci-fi super-hero comic standards. In any case, the Magician from Mars blows up all of the Hood’s factories and they flee into space.

    I do appreciate a villain who takes the time to dress their henchmen in proper minion outfits though. Plus this is some great we-don’t-quite-have-the-visual-language-of-comics-worked-out-yet-but-we’re-trying jumping around from the Magician from Mars.

    Next issue sees the Magician from Mars returning to her home planet where the Hood is leading an attempted rebellion – fairly successfully in fact, until a nigh-omnipotent superwoman joins the fight on the side of Martian King Marsu and his dishy son Prince Taal.

    Though the Hood is on the ropes and on the run, she takes the time to end the budding romance between the Magician from Mars and Price Taal by shooting the latter as he tries to defend our hero. And what’s that? I said “she”? Yes, because the Hood is in fact a woman! And what’s more an older woman! And even more shocking, she’s Jane “Magician from Mars” 6em35’s aunt!

    All of these revelations are only a bit out of left field. Jane’s aunt was a character in her first appearance and was even a minor antagonist in that story, but rather than attempting to install herself as an iron-fisted dictator she was instead a cruel and controlling guardian who kept her ward in check due to her very unusual super-weakness of… a genetic predisposition to like her relatives. Notably, this version of Aunt Kinza (yes she could have more than one aunt but why complicate matters?) does not appear to have magical powers. Sadly, there were no further Magician from Mars stories, so the path that Kinza took to become the Hood, like Jane’s eventual revenge for her lost love, will remain an untold story.

    ADDENDUM: This is a very good vengeance-swearing panel. Look out, oh vile aunt.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 450: COUNTESS BELLADONNA

    (Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)

    We first see Countess Belladonna at the Westchester Flower Show, where she meets young Brenda Talmadge and murders her for her recently-inherited Riviera Ruby.

    Now here I’m going to jump ahead and spoil the twist of a comic book that was published more than 80 years ago: Countess Belladonna is actually Judge Talmadge, stepfather to Brenda Talmadge. As with any modern reading of a story with gender ambiguity there is a temptation to read more into things than was perhaps intended by the author, but here we go: whereas there are a lot of cases where a crossdressing man in a comic is clearly doing so for convenience, Judge Talmadge appears to have maintained Countess Belladonna as an alternate identity at least long enough for her to become established in New York society, which would presumably take months if not years – it was easier to establish a false identity in the era before electronic records but you had to put in at least some effort.

    Does this dedication to the role indicate that it is an expression of Talmadge’s gender identity? No way to tell, really. Countess Belladonna does go on a murder-and-theft spree immediately thereafter but whether it’s because she was an identity created solely for that purpose or because the murder was spur-of-the-moment and Talmadge/ Belladonna figures he/she might as well get as much cash as possible before abandoning the identity is too close to tell.

    One thing is for sure: Talmadge and Belladonna both have a weird toothless rictus grin and that’s probably how the Blue Beetle cottons onto them.

    Countess Belladonna returns in the next issue, this time adding a third identity: Dr Zinn the carnival barker. Or possibly Dr Zinn has replaced Judge Talmadge as the new second identity, as he is effectively absent from the story bar these few panels. This time the Countess has retired her poisoned knitting needles for a skull-bedecked fan that not only dispenses pepper but can be used to hypnotize people. He also has bunch of Native South American dudes in a cage as circus attractions/ henchmen, so this is one of those “very racist” comics we all love so much.

    Anyway, Dr Zinn is just as reckless as the other two identities, as not only does he return to NYC York City rather than going literally anywhere else in the world. Plus he spends a fair amount of time trying to kill Blue Beetle love interest Joan Mason – not a great way to avoid attracting attention to yourself in a super-hero comic. 

    Countess Belladonna ends up getting away and probably would have returned in another few issues with another identity or two, but this is just before the Blue Beetle’s publishing status gets weird for the first time as he moves from Fox Features to a publisher called Holyoke for a few years. Nobody at Holyoke remembered the Countess, it seemed, and by the time the Blue Beetle was back at Fox, nobody there did either. A pretty slick escape, I must say.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 450: COUNTESS BELLADONNA

    (Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)

    We first see Countess Belladonna at the Westchester Flower Show, where she meets young Brenda Talmadge and murders her for her recently-inherited Riviera Ruby.

    Now here I’m going to jump ahead and spoil the twist of a comic book that was published more than 80 years ago: Countess Belladonna is actually Judge Talmadge, stepfather to Brenda Talmadge. As with any modern reading of a story with gender ambiguity there is a temptation to read more into things than was perhaps intended by the author, but here we go: whereas there are a lot of cases where a crossdressing man in a comic is clearly doing so for convenience, Judge Talmadge appears to have maintained Countess Belladonna as an alternate identity at least long enough for her to become established in New York society, which would presumably take months if not years – it was easier to establish a false identity in the era before electronic records but you had to put in at least some effort.

    Does this dedication to the role indicate that it is an expression of Talmadge’s gender identity? No way to tell, really. Countess Belladonna does go on a murder-and-theft spree immediately thereafter but whether it’s because she was an identity created solely for that purpose or because the murder was spur-of-the-moment and Talmadge/ Belladonna figures he/she might as well get as much cash as possible before abandoning the identity is too close to tell.

    One thing is for sure: Talmadge and Belladonna both have a weird toothless rictus grin and that’s probably how the Blue Beetle cottons onto them.

    Countess Belladonna returns in the next issue, this time adding a third identity: Dr Zinn the carnival barker. Or possibly Dr Zinn has replaced Judge Talmadge as the new second identity, as he is effectively absent from the story bar these few panels. This time the Countess has retired her poisoned knitting needles for a skull-bedecked fan that not only dispenses pepper but can be used to hypnotize people. He also has bunch of Native South American dudes in a cage as circus attractions/ henchmen, so this is one of those “very racist” comics we all love so much.

    Anyway, Dr Zinn is just as reckless as the other two identities, as not only does he return to NYC York City rather than going literally anywhere else in the world. Plus he spends a fair amount of time trying to kill Blue Beetle love interest Joan Mason – not a great way to avoid attracting attention to yourself in a super-hero comic. 

    Countess Belladonna ends up getting away and probably would have returned in another few issues with another identity or two, but this is just before the Blue Beetle’s publishing status gets weird for the first time as he moves from Fox Features to a publisher called Holyoke for a few years. Nobody at Holyoke remembered the Countess, it seemed, and by the time the Blue Beetle was back at Fox, nobody there did either. A pretty slick escape, I must say.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 047: THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN

    (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 003, 1940)

    Just a cheeky super-hero for you today: the Headless Horseman! The Headless Horseman is an utterly standard western hero except for their lack of a head. They made maybe two appearances in Centaur comics before fading into the mists of history. A shame, because I really like the simple spin a fake supernatural Western hero gives things – I can’t think of too many of them other than the various Ghost Riders. The cowboy ones, not the motorcycle ones.

    You may have noticed a cheeky gender neutral pronoun or two up above and that’s because the Headless Horseman… is actually a Head-Having Horsewoman! Her name is Betty and in addition to having no assigned last name she is pretty scantly characterized outside of her vigilantism – she was educated Back East, she runs a saloon along with her… mother? and is friends with the doofus sheriff’s deputy, who functions as her source of breaking crime information.

    Utterly charming concept. BRING her BACK immediately, someone.