The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: minor super-hero

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 048: MISS X

    MINOR SUPER-HERO 048: MISS X

    (Mystery Men Comics 019, 1941)

    Miss X is a pretty good example of the Female Guest Star Hero, an infrequent heroic archetype with a clearly identifiable arc: start out mysterious and hypercompetent and become less competent as the hero learns more about them. Our only other example so far is Clock ally the Orchid, but Miss X here is helpfully providing us with a three-issue speedrun of the archetype as illustration:

    Issue 1, Mystery Men Comics 019: When her sister is killed by foreign spies (after helping them a little but not a lot) and unnamed honours chemistry student sets out to help Lieutenant Drake of Naval Intelligence round them up. Hero knows nothing; Miss X saves the day basically on her own.

    Issue 2, Mystery Men Comics 020: Miss X returns in the next issue to help Lt Drake battle a trio of spies. Drake still knows little about her but her major contribton is now being the one who smacks around the lady spy. 

    Issue 3, Mystery Men Comics 021: Captured and unmasked by a trio of weirdos, Miss X loses all mystery. She does get to deck the fourth, lady weirdo but this is it for her crimefighting career.

  • 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.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 046: THE SNIPER

    (Military Comics 005-034, 1941-1944)

    Not that Golden Age super-heroes didn’t often kill their enemies, but the Sniper here is an example of a style of hero that had a brief niche to themselves in the 40s and then didn’t really reemerge until the 70s – I am talking of course about heroes who deliberately hunt and kill their foes. Those foes are specifically Axis in the case of the Sniper and his colleagues the Marksman, the Americommando, etc.

    Not that the Sniper’s adventures are grim, Punisher-esque murder sprees. He has fun with his prey! Like a cat!

    TRIVIA: the Sniper’s first adventure is a flashback to 1940, published in 1941, and his second is a contemporary adventure published in 1942, so he has no recorded activity in 1941! Not very interesting, but true!

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 045: YANKEE EAGLE

    (Military Comics 001-008, 1941-1942) 

    Yankee Eagle is the code name of Jerry Noble, an uncostumed adventurer who can communicate with and command the loyalty of all animals. Aside from some nice art, Yankee Eagle is a fairly run of the mill character until you drill down into his origin: being rich. His mother left him a fortune and he used it to buy a private zoo and that ‘s how he learned to talk to all animals. Step aside Bruce Wayne! Move over, Tony Stark! There’s a new chairman of the Rich Boy Super-Hero Club!

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 044: THE Q-BOAT

    (Military Comics 001, 1941)

    This is stretching the idea of what a “minor super-hero” is quite a bit but I ultimately had to defer to my judgment rule about criminal groups: if one person were doing this would it make sense to categorize them such? And it would! The Q-Boat is just that, a warship disguised as a harmless four-masted schooner in order to prey on Nazi convoy raiders. Swap out the disguised ship for a submarine and you have the Red Torpedo, a personal fave!

    There are two interesting things about the Q-Boat the first is the fact that although it was a one-off story, whoever wrote it (probably Henry Kiefer?) left a lot of details to be filled in later. Specifically: what the heck is going on with the Q-Boat?

    As presented, the Q-Boat is not just a battle-capable schooner but a super-advanced miniature warship. It is crewed by Captain Foghorn (descended from John Paul Jones, speech balloons indicate that he’s speaking at top volume at all times) and a bunch of teen boys, including Bob Wayne, Dick Martin and Marmaduke “Freckles” van Weyden. Questions such as “where did the Q-Boat come from?” “why all the teen boys?” and “why is Freckles so good at making guided missiles?” all go unanswered (Captain Foghorn’s son-in-law is mentioned as having developed some of the tech on the Q-Boat but that just adds “who the heck is this son-in-law?” to the list).

    The second interesting thing about the Q-Boat is the fun sibling dynamic between the child soldiers.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 043: MISS AMERICA

    (Military Comics 001-007, 1941-1942) 

    I am not the first to note this by a country mile but it must be said every time she comes up: she wishes to have all of the powers of the Statue of Liberty and then the Statue of Liberty visits her in a dream and gifts them to her. If USA didn’t exist then this would be a shoe-in for “most outlandish patriotic hero concept” but as it stands I reckon that they’re tied.

    Those powers, by the way, aren’t “being enormous and made of bronze” like you might expect but rather a host of generic Golden Age magical abilities such as teleportation, telekinesis and transmutation – particularly of goons into birds and trees and such.

    Miss America gets brought back every once in a while but the most noteworthy thing about her, her wild origin, was retconned in the Eighties. Now instead of wishing for the powers of the Statue of Liberty and then getting them (absurd, laughable) she wished for the powers of the Statue of Liberty near the entrance to a secret government project underneath the statue and was given powers by them (high concept, realistic).

    In conclusion: I quite like Golden Age Miss America but find it hard to get excited about her later incarnations.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 042: THE BLUE TRACER

    MINOR SUPER-HERO 042: THE BLUE TRACER

    (Military Comics 001-016, 1941-1942)

    The Blue Tracer is your standard guy-with-a-super-vehicle hero: “Wild Bill” Dunn, an American engineer serving with the British in Ethiopia, finds himself the only survivor of an ambush by a race of would-be world-conquering superhumans called the M’bujies. He and Anzac Boomerang Jones team up to build the multienvironment supercraft the Blue Tracer and foil the M’bujie plans (by killing them all).

    There seems to be a consensus online that the vehicle is the Blue Tracer and Bill Dunn is not but I will not be joining them in that: there is a long tradition of super vehicle pilots sharing a name with their craft and anyone who goes to the trouble of putting together an outfit as ostentatious as Dunn’s is deserves to have a code name.

    The Blue Tracer itself just might have the distinction of being the ugliest super vehicle I have ever seen – it looks like something that really was kitbashed together out of random WWII vehicles in a homemade workshop. It’s so ugly, in fact, that I find it charming. 

    I looked up whether it was ever referenced again and evidently one of the Freedom Fighters teams used a cool plane called the Blue Tracer. Booooooo! Bring back the ugly Blue Tracer! The Blue Tracer can’t be cool.

    Also charming: Boomerang Jones, Bill Dunn’s Australian gnome of a sidekick. It is both weird and refreshing to encounter an Australian character in an era before the tropes of the accent were really embedded in the popular consciousness.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 041: ZORO THE MYSTERY MAN

    (Slam-Bang Comics 006-007, Master Comics 007-022, 1940-1942)

    It’s easy to quantify Zoro because his name says it all: he is a Mystery Man – nobody knows anything about him: nation of origin, real name, nothing. He has an amazing outfit and a sword cane and a pet cheetah named Cheeta. 

    Zoro hangs out a swanky clubs and parties and visits his swanky friends and occasionally gets involved in the mysteries that crop up in such circles. Does he have super powers? Maybe! Or maybe he’s just a gifted illusionist – who knows? He’s a MYSTERY MAN.

    (Zoro should absolutely be BRUNG BACK with absolutely no explanation of what he’s been doing for the last 80 years. I HAVE SPOKEN)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 341: THE LEOPARD MEN/ MINOR SUPER-HERO 040: NEDDA, QUEEN OF THE ELEPHANTS

    (Master Comics 007, 1940)

    The Leopard Men are whatever. Groups of evil African (or South American or Indian or Native American etc etc) warriors who dress up like big cats or other animals are a dime a dozen in jungle adventures and I usually don’t find them noteworthy enough for inclusion here (also the racism inherent in the whole Jungle Adventure genre kind of dampens the ol’ enthusiasm).

    Why include them here? Why because they are the arch-foes of Nedda, Queen of the Elephants, of course! If there is one thing I like enough to take some of the bad Jungle Adventure taste out of my mouth, it’s the hint of a larger world inherent in one hero crossing paths with another. Like in Halloween 4, when Doctor Loomis hitches a ride with what is clearly another man on his way to confront a different evil in another, unseen movie. Or in this case, Lee “Jungle King” Granger finding himself in the middle of a Nedda, Queen of the Elephants story.

    I think I like Nedda, Queen of the Elephants a disproportionate amount precisely because she only appeared this once. She was raised by elephants, she battled the Leopard Men because they were after her herd’s tusks, she teamed up with Jungle King and Eric the Lion. FINIS. No additional baggage. Never bring her back because it can only go downhill from there.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 341: THE LEOPARD MEN/ MINOR SUPER-HERO 040: NEDDA, QUEEN OF THE ELEPHANTS

    (Master Comics 007, 1940)

    The Leopard Men are whatever. Groups of evil African (or South American or Indian or Native American etc etc) warriors who dress up like big cats or other animals are a dime a dozen in jungle adventures and I usually don’t find them noteworthy enough for inclusion here (also the racism inherent in the whole Jungle Adventure genre kind of dampens the ol’ enthusiasm).

    Why include them here? Why because they are the arch-foes of Nedda, Queen of the Elephants, of course! If there is one thing I like enough to take some of the bad Jungle Adventure taste out of my mouth, it’s the hint of a larger world inherent in one hero crossing paths with another. Like in Halloween 4, when Doctor Loomis hitches a ride with what is clearly another man on his way to confront a different evil in another, unseen movie. Or in this case, Lee “Jungle King” Granger finding himself in the middle of a Nedda, Queen of the Elephants story.

    I think I like Nedda, Queen of the Elephants a disproportionate amount precisely because she only appeared this once. She was raised by elephants, she battled the Leopard Men because they were after her herd’s tusks, she teamed up with Jungle King and Eric the Lion. FINIS. No additional baggage. Never bring her back because it can only go downhill from there.