The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Three Aces

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 024

    Not a lot of depth to this batch of gods.

    the Tiger God: 

    When the Tiger’s Eye Emerald, formerly installed as the eye in an idol of the Tiger God in India, is stolen, detective Dan Dare is brought in on the case and almost immediately captured by the tiger-worshippers who were responsible for the theft. As usual it is only the current and not historical owner of the stolen artifact who is considered legitimate and so after slaying the avatar of the Tiger-God pictured above, Dan returns the emerald.

    God Style: Idol (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

    the Sun God:

    Samar of the Jungle gets into it with a local tribe and ends up captured and slated for sacrifice to their Sun God. Disappointingly, though this involves being burned, it is at a boring old stake rather than by the sun itself. Just as well that he manages to escape.

    God style: Animist (Feature Comics 049, 1941)

    Takal:

    The final adventure of the Bob Kane-created kid gang Rusty and His Pals concerns a hunt for lost treasure, specifically the Idol of Takal, stolen by a group of villainous ex-circus performers called the Unholy Four twenty years earlier. Takal doesn’t actually feature too prominently into Rusty and the Pals’ attempt to re-steal the idol for themselves, aside from being made to talk via ventriloquism to awe his worshippers. 

    God Style: Idol (Adventure Comics 049, 1940)

    Tanis: 

    In one of the two separate adventures in which the Three Aces find a remnant of lost Atlantis, they travel deep blow the Azores to settle a conflict over Atlantean succession caused by power-grasping courtiers. The ultimate solution: use surface world chemistry to simulate an intervention by the god Tanis by setting the throne room on fire. It’s unorthodox, but it works! 

    God Style: Invoked (Action Comics v1 038, 1941)

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 020

    Human sacrifice is the order of the day with this bunch of deific bad-boys. 

    Shem: 

    Shem, the Sun God, is worshipped in the Land of Shem by the Shemmites, aka the Men of Shem. It’s a very well-branded religion. 

    The Shemmites capture and attempt to sacrifice Kalthar, king of the jungle, but fail to reckon with his tendency to grow to fifteen feet tall and be invulnerable to harm, and are ultimately driven from their lands. 

    God Style: Invoked (Zip Comics 004, 1940) 

    Marro: 

    When the Three Aces set out into the Amazon jungle to investigate rumours of an ancient flying machine they end up discovering a lost colony of Atlantis for the second time in their careers – an astonishing hit rate (though their memories were wiped after leaving the first one and a language barrier probably prevented them from knowing about the Atlantis connection this time, if we’re going to be scrupulously accurate). Upon arriving, they are immediately captured and prepared for sacrifice to the Atlanteans’ god Marro. 

    Luckily for the three aviators, Marro turns out to be the very ancient aircraft they seek, sealed against the ravages of time in a glass dome. They manage to convince the Atlanteans to not sacrifice them if they can make the god fly again as it did in their legends, and being the expert fliers that they are, the Aces pull it off without a hitch. 

    God Style: Animist (Action Comics v1 043, 1941)

    Moloch: 

    The set up for this is a bit convoluted, but here goes: an anthropologist named Dr Chadwick is showing Zero, the Ghost Detective a weird skull that he dug up in Egypt one day when the ghost of the skull’s former owner shows up to take it back, and makes off with Chadwick’s daughter, to boot. Zero pursues the ghost back to Egypt and through a portal to Ancient Egypt, where he finds himself in a temple to Moloch and learns that the skull had been stuffed full of jewels sacred to the god. Zero manages to escape back to the 20th Century with the girl but wisely leaves the jewels behind.

    There is of course a lot of business involving human sacrifice to Moloch via the white hot hands of his idol, and while Moloch himself only shows up in the form of the idol the question remains: just who is raising all these ghosts and powering this time portal?

    God Style: Idol (Real?) (Feature Comics 041, 1941)

    the “Monster-God”: 

    The Monster-God is not this fellow’s name. We never learn what, in fact, it is, because the adventure he appears in is another boilerplate heroic-white-explorers-versus-evil-native-heathens adventure, handled with all of Fawcett Comics’ trademark cultural sensitivity. I include him only for completions’ sake and to point out that I like how gangly he is.

    God Style: Idol (Whiz Comics 006, 1940)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 013

    REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 013

    Yet again we have a selection of comic book appearances of real-style people for you to enjoy.

    Adolf Hitler:

    Warak, dictator of Barbaria is a bit generic as far as pseudo-Hitlers go, but a pseudo-Hitler he is. (Smash Comics 017, 1940)

    Scraggs, leader of the Green Shirts, is very much a “make the leader look like Hitler as shorthand for These Guys Are Fascists” character, a subspecies that will nearly die out some time in 1941 but survives in small numbers to this day. (Startling Comics 001, 1940)

    Devil’s Island: 

    Black X has himself sent to, and then escapes from, Devil’s Island in order to secure a fellow prisoner with valuable US defense secrets in his head. (Smash Comics 013, 1940)

    FDR:

    An off-model Roosevelt visits Carterville and is kidnapped by Devil’s Dagger nemesis Jeff Marlowe (and thus retroactively by Marlowe’s boss Mr H). This is a wild move for a regional crime boss to pull! (Master Comics 006, 1940)

    Gill Fox:

    Probably a different guy to the last “Gil Fox” to appear in a Clip Chance comic – this one is just a small town baseball player. (Smash Comics 015, 1940)

    Groucho Marx:

    Goucho’s look lifted wholesale for this unnamed comedy character. (Star Comics 010, 1938)

    Hollywood:

    Autograph hound adds Shock Gibson to her collection along with “Cary Trooper” and “Glark Cable,” aka Gary Cooper and Clark Gable. (Speed Comics 009, 1940)

    Joe Devlin: 

    Given the prior instance of Joe Devlin being referenced in a Clip Chance story I must assume that the “John Devlin” mentioned here is another. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

    Joseph Stalin:

    The Three Aces (but not the DC Comics Three Aces, the Harvey Comics ones) transport three anthropology-minded sisters to Paraguay to study the Guató people and stumble upon a plot by the sinister witch doctor Ni Lats to bring all under his sway via hypnotic mind control, for which crime he is drowned in a swamp.

    (slight aside: the Guató are a real people being used as set dressing for an exotic locale, and weirdly, in checking to see if that was the case I’m pretty sure I stumbled across the exact reference that Klaus Nordling drew from – every detail in the brief entry on the Guató in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is reflected in the story. The mind control thing is added plot) (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

    Samuel Goldwyn:

    Is this movie producer named Sam meant to be Samuel Goldwyn or merely a lookalike reference to him? Regardless, this is clearly Samuel Goldwyn. (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 013

    REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 013

    Yet again we have a selection of comic book appearances of real-style people for you to enjoy.

    Adolf Hitler:

    Warak, dictator of Barbaria is a bit generic as far as pseudo-Hitlers go, but a pseudo-Hitler he is. (Smash Comics 017, 1940)

    Scraggs, leader of the Green Shirts, is very much a “make the leader look like Hitler as shorthand for These Guys Are Fascists” character, a subspecies that will nearly die out some time in 1941 but survives in small numbers to this day. (Startling Comics 001, 1940)

    Devil’s Island: 

    Black X has himself sent to, and then escapes from, Devil’s Island in order to secure a fellow prisoner with valuable US defense secrets in his head. (Smash Comics 013, 1940)

    FDR:

    An off-model Roosevelt visits Carterville and is kidnapped by Devil’s Dagger nemesis Jeff Marlowe (and thus retroactively by Marlowe’s boss Mr H). This is a wild move for a regional crime boss to pull! (Master Comics 006, 1940)

    Gill Fox:

    Probably a different guy to the last “Gil Fox” to appear in a Clip Chance comic – this one is just a small town baseball player. (Smash Comics 015, 1940)

    Groucho Marx:

    Goucho’s look lifted wholesale for this unnamed comedy character. (Star Comics 010, 1938)

    Hollywood:

    Autograph hound adds Shock Gibson to her collection along with “Cary Trooper” and “Glark Cable,” aka Gary Cooper and Clark Gable. (Speed Comics 009, 1940)

    Joe Devlin: 

    Given the prior instance of Joe Devlin being referenced in a Clip Chance story I must assume that the “John Devlin” mentioned here is another. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

    Joseph Stalin:

    The Three Aces (but not the DC Comics Three Aces, the Harvey Comics ones) transport three anthropology-minded sisters to Paraguay to study the Guató people and stumble upon a plot by the sinister witch doctor Ni Lats to bring all under his sway via hypnotic mind control, for which crime he is drowned in a swamp.

    (slight aside: the Guató are a real people being used as set dressing for an exotic locale, and weirdly, in checking to see if that was the case I’m pretty sure I stumbled across the exact reference that Klaus Nordling drew from – every detail in the brief entry on the Guató in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica is reflected in the story. The mind control thing is added plot) (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

    Samuel Goldwyn:

    Is this movie producer named Sam meant to be Samuel Goldwyn or merely a lookalike reference to him? Regardless, this is clearly Samuel Goldwyn. (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

  • NOTES – OCTOBER 2023

    Ripped from the headlines:

    The acclimation of a new Dalai Lama must have been big headlines in 1941 because not only did Zoro the Mystery Man save him from being kidnapped for ransom… (Master Comics 014, 1941)

    … but over on Earth-Two, the Three Aces did the same! (Action Comics 032, 1941)

    Great Folk:

    Wizzar, Father of All Magic, teacher and mentor of El Carim, dead and returned as a spirit who appears “when some great crime against the dead remains unpunished” is that all-too-frequent thing in comics: a cosmic plot-hook-delivering entity used only once and never seen again (Master Comics 015, 1941) 

    Also, Wizzar sends El Carim to the planet Zaam to battle the tyrant Rashtala and basically everyone on Zaam has an amazing look:

    Just great.

    Grandfather Oyster, the big oyster that eats people when they try to get the little oysters, is a really terrific sea monster concept. Is this the only hostile oyster in comics history? Probably! (Master Comics 017, 1941)

    Memes of Yore: COWARD!

    Very unsympathetic crowd of Goat-People watching space hero Captain Venture fight a space dragon. (Master Comics 021, 1941)

    Nobody ever delivers a long monologue on why kicking people is an unmanly way to fight but there are a lot of expressions of distaste, like Spike of the Companions Three is uttering here. (Master Comics 021, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 076: THE BLUE RAIDER

    (Action Comics 027, 1940)

    What makes them a super-villain? It’s 100% the name plus the fact that “air pirate” along with “submarine pirate” and for that matter “regular pirate” are styles of crime that just reek of super-villainy for me.

    What about them is interesting? Aside from the inherent romantic nature of the air pirate, the only real thing of note about the Blue Raider is that his plane is named Hank.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 004: THE THREE ACES

    (Action Comics 018-063, 1939-1943)

    The Three Aces consist of Gunner Bill (blonde, bland), Fog Fortune (fat, Cockney – the kind of character who starts out 1% comic relief and increases by increments until he is unrecognizable. In this case he gets fatter and more faux-Cockney until his word balloons are up to 1/2 apostrophe) and Whistler Will (dark haired ladies man – more on him in a moment). They’re fairly standard aviator type heroes except for a couple of things: they have a greater than average rate of running into stuff like lost civilizations and minor super-villains and they have Whistler Will.

    Okay, maybe I’m bigging up Will a bit. For most of their adventures he’s just your standard square-jawed lothario, but in Action Comics 022 they did a peek into his backstory and it made a big impression on me:

    Whistler Will is some sort of feral desert child or fey spirit of the American Southwest or something, an implacable and free spirit of justice. He has a mystic othersense that tells him in this issue that his adopted sister is in trouble with enough advance notice to fly across the continent to help her. He does stuff like this fairly regularly and his mystic senses express themselves as eerie whistling. All of this is very cool. All of this is never referenced again.

    Anyway, the Three Aces all fought in WWI so I guess I’ll mark them as dead, with a dead? for Will because maybe he just went back to his home in the halls of Avalon or wherever.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 062: QUETZAL

    (Action Comics 023, 1940)

    Quetzal’s actual motivations are unexplored in his encounter with the Three Aces, but his methods – living in a lost Aztec city and using a fleet of remote controlled planes piloted by zombies to destroy anyone who approaches – are fairly indicative of a villainous turn of mind. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 062: QUETZAL

    (Action Comics 023, 1940)

    Quetzal’s actual motivations are unexplored in his encounter with the Three Aces, but his methods – living in a lost Aztec city and using a fleet of remote controlled planes piloted by zombies to destroy anyone who approaches – are fairly indicative of a villainous turn of mind. 

  • THE FATE OF ATLANTIS

    Lost cities get a lot of play in comic books, especially Atlantis. Sometimes it seems like enough little fragments and offshoots managed to survive the place that it would be surprising to hear of anyone dying. Here are a selection of fates of Earth-Two Atlantis:

    -Earth’s second moon collides with the planet, causing the sinking of Atlantis. the colony city of Ophir in Africa and an underwater remnant survive (Action v1 017-018, 1939)


    (this is the Atlantis that Zatara encounters with Setap. Doubles as a Fate of Ophir entry: the pseudo-historical Biblical city is a remnant of Atlantis until Zatara blows it up)


    -Some portion of the people of sunken Atlantis move to the underground regions of the Arctic, founding the nation of Ugar (Adventure 052, 1940)

    (Earth-Two is riddled with underground kingdoms such that it would be surprising if no Atlanteans ended up down there)

    -A portion of the population of sinking Atlantis relocates to a vast cavern under the Azores (Action v1 037-038, 1941)

    -A portion of the population of sinking Atlantis relocates to the interior of Brazil (Action v1 043, 1941)

    (Both of the latter two involve aviator-heroes the Three Aces, yet they fail to even mention the Azorean Atlanteans to the Brazilian Atlanteans)

    More updates as I encounter ’em!