The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: minor super-hero

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 003

    King of Darkness: 

    Radio engineer Bruce King develops the amazingly-named Black Zero Transmitter that selectively allows him to negate light and/or heat in its range of operation, plus an insulated costume and night-vision goggles so that he is immune to its effects. He ends up dealing with nosy reporters and spies inadvertently egged on by said nosy reporters and so adopts the alias of the King of Darkness. Probably the best thing about him is the fact that he will just drive around with the Black Zero Transmitter in his car (or boat! or plane!), with a column of darkness travelling at highway speeds and presumably giving people religious experiences. (Amazing-Man Comics 024, 1941)

    The Blue Lady:

    The Blue Lady is Lucille Martin, who gets mixed up in an attempt to smuggle gold out of China to aid the war effort and ends up gaining super strength from a weird gas released from inside an ancient ring. And since the ring had a bird on it, she has a bird on her hat! Delightful! Unfortunately, this comic came out in 1941 and involved Chinese people, so while it doesn’t indulge in every racist Yellow Peril storytelling trope it does hit a lot of them, including multiple instances of yellowface by the Blue Lady herself. Far less delightful! (Amazing-Man Comics 024, 1941)

    Nightshade:

    Howard Hall is Nightshade, who has the power to control, see, speak etc via his own shadow, with his strength increasing proportional to the shadow’s size. This is, frankly, much cooler than most shadow powers in comics. He’s got little ankle-mounted spotlights to throw shadows with! (Amazing-Man Comics 024, 1941)

    Captain Courageous:

    It’s not especially clear from the couple of appearances I have access to but Captain Courageous seems to be the Uncle Sam kind of patriotic hero – a guy made up of free-floating patriotism. He has the standard array of superpowers – flight, enhanced strength, invulnerability to small arms fire – and I would classify him as a medium-level annoying patriot. He also has a mask that looks very annoying to wear. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 003

    King of Darkness: 

    Radio engineer Bruce King develops the amazingly-named Black Zero Transmitter that selectively allows him to negate light and/or heat in its range of operation, plus an insulated costume and night-vision goggles so that he is immune to its effects. He ends up dealing with nosy reporters and spies inadvertently egged on by said nosy reporters and so adopts the alias of the King of Darkness. Probably the best thing about him is the fact that he will just drive around with the Black Zero Transmitter in his car (or boat! or plane!), with a column of darkness travelling at highway speeds and presumably giving people religious experiences. (Amazing-Man Comics 024, 1941)

    The Blue Lady:

    The Blue Lady is Lucille Martin, who gets mixed up in an attempt to smuggle gold out of China to aid the war effort and ends up gaining super strength from a weird gas released from inside an ancient ring. And since the ring had a bird on it, she has a bird on her hat! Delightful! Unfortunately, this comic came out in 1941 and involved Chinese people, so while it doesn’t indulge in every racist Yellow Peril storytelling trope it does hit a lot of them, including multiple instances of yellowface by the Blue Lady herself. Far less delightful! (Amazing-Man Comics 024, 1941)

    Nightshade:

    Howard Hall is Nightshade, who has the power to control, see, speak etc via his own shadow, with his strength increasing proportional to the shadow’s size. This is, frankly, much cooler than most shadow powers in comics. He’s got little ankle-mounted spotlights to throw shadows with! (Amazing-Man Comics 024, 1941)

    Captain Courageous:

    It’s not especially clear from the couple of appearances I have access to but Captain Courageous seems to be the Uncle Sam kind of patriotic hero – a guy made up of free-floating patriotism. He has the standard array of superpowers – flight, enhanced strength, invulnerability to small arms fire – and I would classify him as a medium-level annoying patriot. He also has a mask that looks very annoying to wear. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 002

    Still lotsa super-heroes to add.

    the Marksman: 

    Single appearance hero trained by his father to be completely accurate with thrown or projectile weapons. Uses the alias John Courage. Throws a spear through a guy’s head one time. (Amazing-Man Comics 023, 1941)

    Miraco the Great:

    Circus magician with real powers. His one adventure involved running a sex pest gorilla trainer out of the circus. (Amazing-Man Comics 023, 1941)

    Super Ann:

    A young woman who was given super strength by a weird old cave-dwelling alien man as a child. She’s very charming! I particularly like how straightforward her crimefighting is – most of the time she just walks up and punches a fool, as someone who grew up with super strength might. This does leave her vulnerable to sneaky attacks, but lucky for her her fellow hero Mighty Man has decided to follow her around and keep her out of trouble. (Amazing-Man Comics 024, 1941)

    And speaking of Mighty Man…

    Mighty Man Update:

    When Mighty Man debuted he was just a 12 foot tall guy, then in Amazing-Man Comics 012 a scientist performed an operation on him that allowed him to change his size at will (and then promptly got himself murdered, natch). At first he could merely grow and shrink but pretty quickly he developed more refined shapechanging abilities, including changing his appearance and, most upsettingly, changing the size of individual parts of his body. By the time he began shadowing Super Ann, Mighty Man was just as likely to be a weird little gremlin with one huge arm, or, as in the panel above, a big ear in order to freak out a goon or Nazi. Unpleasant!

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 001

    Some minor super-heroes I only have a small amount to say about:

    the Wraith:

    The Wraith is a very similar concept to the Spectre: a murdered cop comes back to mete out justice. They even have the same white/ green colour scheme, only reversed. A few things about the Wraith that sets him apart: though he does have some general ghost powers his main trick is possession, he is limited to the hours between midnight and dawn, and he has weird gross arms. A major difference between him and the Spectre is that whereas the latter broke up with his fiance the minute he became a dead guy, the Wraith is all about the romantic possibilities of being a ghost, as seen in the second panel above where he seems to be erotically passing through a nude woman. (Mystery Men Comics 027-031, 1941-1942)

    Dr Hypno: 

    Dr Hypno, “psychologist, chemist, hypnotist and criminologist” develops a technique for temporarily placing his mind into an animal and lucky for him there’s always one handy when he sees a crime go.(Amazing-Man Comics 014-021, 1940-1941)

    Dash Dartwell, the Human Meteor:

    Like a surprising number of other Golden Age speedsters Dash Dartwell (who incidentally has the most on-the-nose name I have seen in a long time) gets his powers from his teacher, in this case one Dr Moss. Dartwell remains a student at “Dravrah University” so his adventures hew closer to those of a college sportsman with lots of unscrupulous gamblers attempting to influence the results of sporting events between Dravrah and their rival Elay. Also, Dartwell’s powers wear off pretty quickly so he’s constantly popping Metabo-Accelerater pills while he messes up college track statistics for everyone. (Amazing-Man Comics 021, 1941)

    Tommy the Amazing Kid:

    Amazing-Man already had a cool sidekick named Zona Henderson but I guess Robin or some other kid sidekick was a bit too popular because she was replaced with her younger brother Tommy, who was hiding under a couch when Aman got a power boost and was left with enhanced strength and the ability to fly. He’s a little wiener who says things like “jumpin’ jellybeans!” all the time. It’s a real downgrade. (Amazing-Man Comics 023-026, 1941-1942)

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 053: T.N.T.

    (Amazing-Man Comics 021, 1941)

     A single-appearance hero notable for two reasons: 

    1) His name is Treve N. Thorndike and he got his super-hero name because he was careless enough to wear a belt with his initials on it while crimefighting (in his mild defense the more well-known super-hero named TNT also has those initials – maybe it’s a compulsion associated with having a cool name)

    2) TNT carries a gun that is powered by atomic fission but he mostly uses it like a regular pistol except for one time when he shoots a goon’s bullets out of the air.

    As with all one-off super-heroes it’s a toss-up whether he chose not to continue adventuring after one success or was immediately shot dead the next time he set out.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 052: ZARDI, THE ETERNAL MAN

    MINOR SUPER-HERO 052: ZARDI, THE ETERNAL MAN

    (Amazing-Man Comics 011, 1940)

    Zardi, Prince of Zandipore, the Eternal Man. The immortal guy is a fun character type that is usually assigned to villains, presumably because someone with endless knowledge and resources will prove a challenge to even the most seasoned of heroes. Plus they can have inscrutable long-range goals! In Zardi’s case, he just wants to have a good rest (reasonable as he is upwards of 15 000 years old) but will rouse himself to combat evil using his magic cape (restores Zardi’s youth, invisibility, flight), magic cane (magical multitool and focus for spellcasting) and array of magics (including illusions, sleep, tlekinesis, etc). He also has an implied network of agents around the world but we only meet his manservant Nogi and a young woman named Janni Bayless.

    All that is by way of setting the scene: the thing I really want to look at is the series of vignettes used to highlight Zardi’s immortal nature.

    We’re going to tally everything up down at the bottom. See you there!

    Grand totals!

    Concrete events:

    – Knows the secret of the Sphinx: |

    – Saw the Egyptian kings buried: |

    – Saw the Flood: |

    – Saw the Fountain of Youth hidden away forever: |

    – Saw the parting of the Red Sea: ||

    – Saw the Pyramids built: |||

    – Witnessed the fall of Babylon: |

    and the more ephemeral:

    – Knows every form of magic: |

    – Knows the locations of various riches: ||

    – Learned the secret of Chaldean magic: |

    – Saw Hindu magic created: |

    What does this tell us? Well, for starters the Bible is real, at least up to Exodus (was Zardi on the Ark or was he just immortal enough to float around for a month plus? no clue). Zardi really likes Egypt and the Middle East. 

    Magic? Real, and Zardi knows all of it. The Fountain of Youth? Real, and Zardi was there to see it. I imagine that “we found a whole new continent” is a very exciting thing to hear when you’re an immortal. Even one who doesn’t travel much.

    In conclusion, there’s not as much meat on this bit as I imagined! Oh, and Zardi the Eternal Man is pretty okay.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 051: HERCULES

    (Mystic Comics v1 003)

    Every long running super-hero universe is going to acquire some Herculeses and the Marvel Universe might just have the most of all – I counted an even dozen just now and I’m sure there are more that aren’t properly documented on the fan wikis – the DCU doesn’t come close even if you count reboots of the same characters. Why? Not sure!

    This Hercules is the son of one Dr David, raised on Snow Island in the Arctic to be a mental and physical paragon. He’s super-strong and though his height is pretty inconsistent he’s gotta be at least eight and up to ten feet tall. He busts up one mad scientist and saves a town from a flood but that’s about it. Personally I think that he should come back (sorry, BRUNG BACK), just to add a little confusion to the modern Marvel Hercules scene.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 050: THE BLUE BLAZE

    (Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)

    Spencer Keen AKA the Blue Blaze is an interesting character. His origin for example has a couple of classic elements that were not yet classic at the time because it was 1940. Or rather it was 1852 because Spencer Keen is from the Past.

    Costume: like Barbara Gordon twenty-odd years later, the reason that the Blue Blaze has a super-suit ready to go is that he was on the way to a costume party when his origin happened.

    Origin: while the Blue Blaze is possibly the earliest super-hero to have the costume party outfit origin (and a cursory search turns up Miss Fury as the only other contender), the origin of his powers was probably already a cliche in the pulps. My Science Dad Made a Thing and I Got Powers From It has to be one of the all-time most common origins (particularly once Science Moms start getting equal representation) – heck, you could probably include Superman’s origin in that category if you were feeling puckish.

    Spencer Keen’s Science Dad discovered a weird blue flame that killed whatever it touched, only for them to come back stronger after some time had passed. For slightly unclear reasons he had resolved to destroy this blue blaze (the name of the guy! that’s where it’s from!) but before he could do so a tornado ripped through the area. Spencer Keen was seemingly killed buy in actuality was blasted with blue flame.

    (the tornado also ties into the origin of the Blue Blaze’s costume, by the way. It killed so many people that they were all buried as quickly as possible, meaning that Keen went into the ground in fancy dress)

    Spencer Keen hibernates in his coffin for 88 years, then emerges as the Blue Blaze when he is disturbed by graverobbers working for Professor Maluski. As the Blue Blaze, Keen is generically physically and mentally enhanced and invulnerable to small arms. He also has some degree of telepathic power – he passively absorbs knowledge about the world while in hibernation and has some sort of sense of where and when danger is afoot. Initially, the Blue Blaze operated as a regular-style super-hero with a secret lair, a laboratory and a cool car, but his last adventure introduced the very cool concept of him returning to the grave once he had dispensed justice upon some fools and then reemerging in a new location when he is needed once again.

    I am honestly surprised that the Blue Blaze hasn’t been BRUNG BACK in some capacity yet. Not only is he conceptually interesting with his whole “emerge from the grave to smite evil” gimmick but he’s preloaded with an interesting state of being: a completely knowledgeable and up-to-date human whose social development stopped when he was early 20s at latest, in the 1850s. Rife with potential!

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 049: FLEXO THE RUBBER MAN

    (Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)

    It’s Flexo the Rubber Man! A rubber robot filled with some sort of gas created and remote controlled by scientist brothers Joel and Joshua Williams! Flexo can make huge gas-filled jumps and bound across the cityscape!

    Flexo can stretch!

    Flexo can squeeze through tight spaces and absorb small arms fire without harm! He can also expel his gas to subdue his foes! Truly Flexo is a marvel of the age!

    Flexo is also the recipient of a major retcon: recent stories have revised his origin such that the Williams brothers found a Venom-style symbiote and built a robotlike organism out of it. This is cool! Marvel’s frequent revisions to their own history are an interesting contrast to the DC Comics reboot style of doing things in which current comics have no retroactive effect. The only real downside to the Marvel approach is in online spaces, as fan-run wikis absorb retcons like Ancient Egyptian dynasties – actual information on the contents of old comics is metaphorically torn down and replaced by the sun-god of the retcon it can frequently be hard to find information on old comics that does not incorporate the retcons in a misleading way.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 049: FLEXO THE RUBBER MAN

    (Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)

    It’s Flexo the Rubber Man! A rubber robot filled with some sort of gas created and remote controlled by scientist brothers Joel and Joshua Williams! Flexo can make huge gas-filled jumps and bound across the cityscape!

    Flexo can stretch!

    Flexo can squeeze through tight spaces and absorb small arms fire without harm! He can also expel his gas to subdue his foes! Truly Flexo is a marvel of the age!

    Flexo is also the recipient of a major retcon: recent stories have revised his origin such that the Williams brothers found a Venom-style symbiote and built a robotlike organism out of it. This is cool! Marvel’s frequent revisions to their own history are an interesting contrast to the DC Comics reboot style of doing things in which current comics have no retroactive effect. The only real downside to the Marvel approach is in online spaces, as fan-run wikis absorb retcons like Ancient Egyptian dynasties – actual information on the contents of old comics is metaphorically torn down and replaced by the sun-god of the retcon it can frequently be hard to find information on old comics that does not incorporate the retcons in a misleading way.