(Fantastic Comics 013, 1940) Yank Wilson, Super Spy Q-4 (who started out as a near-future character and maybe isn’t any more but until I see a clear sign otherwise still is to me) is after Prusslandic spies Karl Wolff and the Black Hood down in Florida and is going about his search with all the subtlety of a character in a point-and-click adventure game. It’s his bad luck that the first person he asked was an agent of Prussland Intelligence…
(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) King Raton is a fellow met by the Golden Knight and his companion/ lover Alice after the earth near a pool of water gives way and they are dropped into a cavern. He demands that they fetch a potion for him from Kataka, Witch of the Volcano, under threat of death – this is a source of conflict not only because of the threats but because he wants the potion in order to conquer Blackamoor Forest,…
Once again the also-rans. A bunch of small-time crooks get paid to fake the death of Titano (the largest gorilla in captivity!) for an insurance scam and of course use him to rob a series small-town banks. If only they had thought a bit more ambitiously they might have made the big time. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940) This Yank Wilson adventure features a fairly by-the-book super-spy ring headed by Count Lustig von Blackgard. They plot, they scheme, they are ultimately…
(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) Flip Falcon’s Fourth Dimension Machine has served various roles as a sort of all-purpose portal to adventure over the course of his tenure in Fantastic Comics, starting out as an interplanetary teleporter allowing access to the various planets of the Solar System and later acting as a time machine. Now it is entering what I believe to be its final form as a gateway to the Fourth Dimension itself, a weird hellscape of the imagination briefly…
(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) The Boss is actually Roulf, editor of the Daily Standard newspaper in NYC. He pulls the classic villain mistake of acting as a concerned citizen recruiting the protagonists – in this case Samson and David – to investigate his own villainous alter ego. It’s the kind of error that you can emphasize with to a certain extent: how better to ensure that a super-powered busybody doesn’t unexpectedly show up and wreck your plans then by controlling…
(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) We begin with the old comic book trope of Ignoring Bad Feelings When a Woman Has Them, as Alice senses something in the wind and Sir Richard tells her to shut up just before a giant bird gets them both. They are flown to Soulless Isle and meet its ruler Queen Sulia, along with her coterie of beastly subjects. She wants a sword fight and Sir Richard of Warwick is who she wants it from. If…
(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) Sometimes it’s nice to read a story about a straightforwardly criminal scientist, and that’s just what Professor Donaldson is. He’s invented an “electronic exploder” which can turn steel to dust and by gar if he isn’t going to use that to extort some money out of people with steel things that they would like to stay intact, such as the superstructure of a skyscraper. Donaldson is also prepared to pivot: when his original attempt to set…
(Fantastic Comics 010, 1940) Chong is basically just a pirate, but there are three things worth noting about him. The first is that his name is Chong in a comic book published in 1940 and he is not a horrendous Asian stereotype of one sort or another. It’s a low bar and he cleared it with aplomb. The second thing is Chong’s weapon of choice, an enormous spiked wheel that rises out of the depths to wreck ships. It’s not…
(Fantastic Comics 009, 1940) Sub Saunders is just cruising around in the ocean when his submarine is swept into an underground cave, the home of the fantastic Cave Things! I was very excited when this comic started but sadly this is the most we see of Cave Things slithering and creeping around like this. They still have a lot going for them as far as humanoid creeps go but it’s real sad that we don’t get to see more creeping…
(Fantastic Comics 009, 1940) Captain Kidd is once again back in Africa, this time in search of a lost explorer named Perez, and has once again bribed a local into taking him somewhere dangerous only to get that local killed (this happens about a third of the time with Kidd – not quite often enough to make a very depressing supercut). Kidd and his unfortunate hireling Wango track Perez to the Lost Valley, where they discover and are captured by…