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Category: Electro

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 029

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 029

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Time for a heaping dose of real folk from Golden Age Marvel comics. Adolf Hitler: Kalph Belgri, dictator of Torpis, takes his own life when his invasion of neighbouring Molivia is thwarted by Electro. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940) The Human Torch encounters Adolphe Hiccup, dictator of Slaveland, while foiling a plot to fool his sidekick Toro into aiding their war effort. He is seen colluding with his ally Benny Musclein, who is such a clear Mussolini stand-in that…

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CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 006

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 006

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Why of why do they keep on hurting our boys? Meteor: Silver Streak’s partner Meteor is shot in the back by a Nazi, but it’s okay: the bullet only “nicked” his back. (Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941) Electro: Professor Zog, the brains behind Electro, is shot in the left arm. (Marvel Mystery Comics 016, 1941) the Sandman: The Sandman has a very rough 1940, starting with a shot to the right shoulder… (Adventure Comics 047, 1940) … then a shot…

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REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 009

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 009

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Some day these won’t inevitably start with Hitler. Some day. Adolf Hitler: Rix, a human living on Venus in the peaceful year 3090 CE, learns about dictators thanks to the time capsule from the 1939 New York World’s Fair and immediately sets out to make himself into the Hitler of the future. Beat down by interplanetary troubleshooter Planet Payson. (Planet Comics 008, 1940) Aviator Ted O’Neil is brought down in the warlike nation of Gestapia (one of the more on-the-nose…

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MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 038

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 038

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Second- and third-tier Fox Features heroes: ACTIVATE Dynamo: Jim Andrews is an electrical scientist who heroically risks his own life by using his own body as a conductor to prevent some crazy bit of machinery from blowing the whole laboratory he works at to high heaven. And since he lives in a comic book world, the reward for his bravery is some super powers! He can now emit electricity, create an electrical forcefield, kind of fly by throwing a lightning…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 276: THE INVISIBLE SLAYER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 276: THE INVISIBLE SLAYER

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 019, 1941) There’s a bit in the introductions to the Top 10 anthologies in which Neopolis mayor John Q. Public lays out the exponential propagation of super-heroes, -villains, -pets, -monsters and so forth that takes place in a comic universe that I think of often as I read through these old adventures. Heroes inspire sidekicks and imitators; their enemies build robots and create doppelgangers to counter them, etc, until you have superhumans everywhere.  There’s one thing that isn’t…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 273: MOR THE MIGHTY

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 273: MOR THE MIGHTY

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 017, 1941) Mor the Mighty is part of one of my favourite types of super-villain: the magic user who has mastered a couple of spells and intends to see just how far they can get with them. In this case, our friend here seems to be limited to enlarging animals and conjuring stacks of explosives – though he might be juicing the stats of the animals a bit, too. That’s not bad for a guy with…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 271: PRINCE OMEI

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 271: PRINCE OMEI

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941) This guy’s a real ding-dong, and I was sorely tempted to just pass him by. I couldn’t in good conscience not mention a guy who not only hypnotizes Professor Zog and (by proxy) Electro as his minions and does so while wearing both an eye patch and a monocle. PLUS he’s one of my favourite types of villains: a complete failure. Literally all he does after acquiring his new giant robot/ robot operator team is…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 270: DR LORROF

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 270: DR LORROF

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 015, 1941) Dr Lorrof is your true mad scientist’s mad scientist. He’s all worked up about being “cast out of science,” and he’s not going to take that lying down. To the contrary, he’s going to go way overboard and try to destroy Titan City with a blob that he made out of crabs. Plus, not only does he refer to himself in the third person but he does so while attempting to steal a radium…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 268: GNORR

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 268: GNORR

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 013, 1940)   The history of spaceflight is of course very different in a super-hero universe. For example, Empress Nara of Ligra, featured in a previous post about Professor Zog being knighted, was actually an Earth-woman who arrived on Ligra as an infant because her father invented an interstellar spacecraft sometime around 1920 or so. This it is practically unremarkable that Professor Zog was invited on a trip to the Moon in 1940 by Dr Simon…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 267: THE SHARK

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 267: THE SHARK

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 012) The Shark is a submarine pirate, a thing that is fairly common in comic books and as far as I can tell has never actually happened in real life. He’s a bit more ambitious than most such guys, and at the beginning of this particular story is trying parlay a successful streak of piracy into a general toll on shipping. He’s also a pretty snappy dresser. The US, of course, does not take an extortion…

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