It’s back-to-back round-ups this week! Moon People: Spacehawk seems to make friends easily, and wherever there is an evil alien space menace he must battle there is seemingly a friendly alien species nearby to help out. In this case, the space menace is on the Moon, and the friendly folk are the Moon People or Moon Men, barrel-chested fellows with the faces of cartoon mice. I like them, even if their eyes do freak me out. (Target Comics v1 008,…
I’ve highlighted some particular aliens before but what is this blog but an exercise in making note of every dang thing I come across. And so: aliens! We’re going to stick to our old familiar way of dealing with things that will have a lot of examples with little info: the round-up, and since I’ve been reading Target Comics recently, we’ll be seeing all of the alien weirdos that Basil Wolverton designed for Spacehawk to encounter! As time goes on…
(Target Comics v1 011, 1940) Hammerfist is a good old-fashioned gang boss-with-a-gimmick, in his case an iron ball in place of his missing right hand. He’s on a mission to take over the night club scene in New York City by the simple expedient of shooting up clubs until business gets so bad that everyone is willing to sell cheap rather than go bankrupt. More importantly, Hammerfist is the person responsible for framing Niles “the Target” Reed’s brother Bill for…
Time for another round! Of round-up! Adolf Hitler: When time traveller Whiz Wilson journeys to the far future world of 1960 CE he gets mixed up in a scheme hatched by agents of this fellow, ruler of “the dictator realms of Europe.” Is he meant to be Hitler or merely evoke him? Hard to say, but I for one think he’s supposed to be Old Hitler. (Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940) He’s not that much of a Hitler, but Don Ruizen,…
Novelty Press character round-up, more like. the Chameleon: An unnamed master of disguise (throughout his 1940 appearances, at least) who dispenses vigilante justice on an ad hoc basis, the Chameleon’s major distinction is that his name is always written in cursive. Other than that: he’s got a chauffeur/sidekick (Slim) and a bumbling police nemesis (Inspector Parks) and somehow manages to simultaneously be one of those heroes who is wanted by the law and whose identity and address are just kind…
(Target Comics v1 007, 1940) Boystate is under attack! At first, it’s a relatively innocuous disruption of the power supply, which from what I’ve been able to glean is broadcast power derived from cosmic rays, but it swiftly escalates until all contact with the rangers operating outside of the Boystate boyborders is lost. And just in case there’s any confusion, this disruption attack is swiftly followed by a barrage of poison gas missiles, and the Boystate child army must be…
Letters to the Editor: I rag on Novelty Press and their horrible and possibly fictional readership every chance I get, but I think I need to start presenting the letters they print in their comics so that I have some evidence to back up my grumbling. Here’s Clarence Pool of Seattle Washington advocating for the nice sensible adventures of an Army Air Force cadet who manages to foil a Fifth Column plot ever week over the exploits of a magic…
(Target Comics v1 009, 1940) Braino, a circus mentalist with sufficient actual psychic power to control the minds of animals, is looking to take over the circus that he works for and is make a play to do so while the circus train has been stranded by a storm and is being helped out by the boys of Boystate. This isn’t a bad idea – take advantage of the chaos and confusion to bump off the boss and then swoop…
(Target Comics v1 009, 1940) Glork here is a candidate for election to the post of King of Mars who manages to lose despite massive political interference on his part. This is probably because he is a very unpleasant and transparently evil person. Despite some recent real-world examples, Glork might still reign supreme as the worst-ever loser of an election. He immediately settles upon a plan to pull the moon Phobos down to the surface to destroy the entire Martian…
(Target Comics v1 008, 1940) Dr Death’s initial outing, in Target Comics v1 008, is a pretty typical late-1940/early 1941 plot about trying to draw the US into WWII by attacking shipping and throwing blame for it on an enemy of the unnamed fascist nation that Death is working for. Notably, Dr Death does not appear in the issue and works through various minions whom he directs via loudspeaker. Probably the most interesting thing about this first appearance is the…