One must always take note of what super-hero costumes were made of in the age before spandex. In this case, the Sub-Mariner is sporting wool trunks.
(Marvel Mystery Comics 004, 1940)
Category: Marvel Mystery Comics
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NOTES: APRIL 2023
One must always take note of what super-hero costumes were made of in the age before spandex. In this case, the Sub-Mariner is sporting wool trunks.
(Marvel Mystery Comics 004, 1940)
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 262: DR MANYAC & THE GREEN FLAME
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 004, 1940)
Dr Manyac here is a perfectly fine criminal scientist with a very good name. It’s just too bad for him that he is in the very common position of being completely overshadowed by his henchmen:
THE GREEN FLAME! Very very cool looking guys who are also some of our first simple examples of evil opposites, as their green flame burns cold to contend with our pal the red-hot Human Torch. Using the threat of the Green Flame’s cold causing buildings to crumble and collapse, Manyac aims to ransom New York for big bux.
Unfortunately for his plans, and especially for his henchmen, the Green Flame’s suits aren’t quite robust enough to stand up to the Human Torch’s flame. They all end up roasted, while Manyac is carted off to jail, never to be seen again (until he’s brought back and killed off in 2009, natch)
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 261: THE SACRED ONE
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)
The Sacred one is a pretty bog-standard cult leader in a way that was cliched even in 1940: he’s got a bunch of people in a castle in the New York countryside somewhere and they kidnap beautiful white women to sacrifice to their Fire God until the Angel shows up to murderize them.
The only really interesting things about him are the questions that the loose plotting leaves you with: he has hypnotic powers – were these given to him by the Fire God or did he have them already and use them to set himself up as a cult leader? Are all of these guys sequentially using the same castle or is NY just lousy with them?
The biggest question (and the creepiest part of the story) is what exactly is the nature of the Sacred One’s cult. Once he takes a header into his own pit trap, the cultists all silently line up and shrink down into nothingness. Is this the Sacred One’s death curse? Some sort of ritual suicide? Did they never actually exist in the first place but rather were the creations of either the Sacred One or the Fire God? We will never know!
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 261: THE SACRED ONE
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)
The Sacred one is a pretty bog-standard cult leader in a way that was cliched even in 1940: he’s got a bunch of people in a castle in the New York countryside somewhere and they kidnap beautiful white women to sacrifice to their Fire God until the Angel shows up to murderize them.
The only really interesting things about him are the questions that the loose plotting leaves you with: he has hypnotic powers – were these given to him by the Fire God or did he have them already and use them to set himself up as a cult leader? Are all of these guys sequentially using the same castle or is NY just lousy with them?
The biggest question (and the creepiest part of the story) is what exactly is the nature of the Sacred One’s cult. Once he takes a header into his own pit trap, the cultists all silently line up and shrink down into nothingness. Is this the Sacred One’s death curse? Some sort of ritual suicide? Did they never actually exist in the first place but rather were the creations of either the Sacred One or the Fire God? We will never know!
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DYNAMIC ACTION MARTIANS!
(Marvel Mystery Comics 003, 1940)
These Martian invaders who showed up for one Human Torch story in 1940 are definitely my favourite comic book aliens in a while, if only because of this extremely cool car stunt.