The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Atom Blake Boy Wizard

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 024

    Today we journey into the far future! 

    Cave-Dwellers: 

    The hunt for Atom Blake’s father takes him from Earth to Mercury, to Mercury but millions of years in the future, where he encounters these little fellows. Driven out of their surface city by invaders, the Cave-Dwellers are understandably hostile to outsiders, but Atom manages to win them over eventually, free his father (the hunt, though long in distance and time, was short in terms of steps) and retake the city.

    What I really appreciate about these guys his how much they resemble a version of the sensory homunculus. (Wow Comics 003, 1941)

    Peoples of the Year 2 000 000 000: 

    Not to be outdone by some kid, in Detective Comics v1 023, Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan travel two billion years into the future after meeting scientist Professor Kenton, fresh off of completing his time machine and not interested in any sort of half measures like trying to go to next week.

    Please note the “city rises and falls outside the window to mark the passage of time” bit, later used to much effect in Futurama. 

    Slam and Shorty are almost immediately separated from Kenton and captured by a big bird that flies them into a fantastic futuristic metropolis nearby. There. they are confronted and captured by three beings: a human, a bird-man and a plant-man, and this is our first inkling that this isn’t the lame kind of future where everything is just a reskin of the present, not only because Earth is populated by three distinct intelligent species but completely alien technology, such as the weaponized recorders used to paralyze our heroes.. 

    More alien weirdness follows, as it is revealed that these three fellows have been condemned to death for gambling on a holy day (the anniversary of their leader’s tonsillectomy, which is silly, yes, but culturally very interesting. They have a god-emperor of some kind!). They also do not speak English but communicate via a thought transmission device. 

    Despite their seeming reverence for their leader, these three fellows want to take advantage of the time machine to get out of town and avoid their fate. They eventually try to steal the device outright and are killed in a firefight with Slam, Shorty and Kenton but before that the plant-man gets to show off this cool and very thematic flower weapon.

    He’s not really an alien, but as long as I’m talking about this adventure I would like to mention Iron-Fingers, a giant cyborg pitted against Slam Bradley in gladiatorial combat as a form of execution after Slam refuses to grant the petulant god-king access to the time machine. Specifically, Slam is sentenced to be “plucked to pieces” by Iron-Fingers, which is an image that really sticks with you. (Detective Comics v1 023, 1939) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 887. MIGHTY ADWAHL

    (Wow Comics 002, 1941)

    Once Atom Blake, Boy Wizard sets off on his interplanetary search for his father, his first stop is Mercury. Why? For no stated reason and seemingly just because it’s the first planet out from the Sun, and for that matter, Blake’s reason for starting his search in space rather than on Earth is simply because he can. Once he arrives on Mercury, he is almost immediately captured by an intelligent species of hive-dwelling insectoids. 

    These Mercurians come very close to killing Blake before using their innate gifts of telepathic communication to determine that he does not in fact work for Mighty Adwahl, the planet’s tyrannical leader, who has systematically enslaved them to work in his mines. Side note: I really like the size variance in these Mercurians. Very fun species trait.

    Atom Blake, determined to help anyone in need, travels to Adwahl’s capitol city, where he is captured again, this time by a second species of Mercurian who are a bit more enthusiastic about serving the tyrant and who look a bit like green humanoid camels. When Blake is marched into the throne room for judgment he is shocked to discover that the Mighty Adwahl is… another human?!

    Mighty Adwahl is in fact a former gang boss named Scarface Louie, and is presented as having been a pretty bit deal circa Prohibition before fleeing the planet on a spaceship he stole from an inventor. The wildest part of this is that it seems to be public knowledge, since sixteen year-old Atom knows about it. Like, just imagine that the story of Al Capone ends with him using a hijacked shrink ray to escape into a subatomic world. Wild stuff.

    Mighty Adwahl demonstrates a remarkable lack of curiosity and summarily sentences Blake to a life of slavery in his gold mines rather than inquire as to how a teen boy might have made his way to Mercury. Though Atom does manage to lead a slave revolt among the miners, the subsequent storming of Adwahl’s throne room is spoiled somewhat by the fact that the first group of Mercurians decided to follow Atom’s lead and had already stormed the palace and killed him.

    (for the curious: Atom was completely right to come to Mercury, as the same Mercurian who initially captured him not only knew his father personally but is able to guide Atom to the time portal that his father left the planet through)

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 067

    Something for everyone* in this one.

    *not really. 

    Zambini the Miracle Man: 

    Zambini the Miracle Man, aka Zambini the Great, is your fairly typical comic book magic man, albeit a bit more flamboyantly dressed than even that crowd normally are.

    Though Zambini has a lot of the regular magic abilities of his peer group his signature trick involves his magical Boomerang Amulet, which causes evil to rebound on its sender. This takes forms as diverse as a cobra returning to the one who released it to bombs flying back up to the plane that dropped them to magic spells rebounding on their casters. 

    (please also note the final panel above, in which Zambini is being made a Knight of Ritania, which I here recognize as an honour)

    Finally, while I generally do enjoy when a magic user has a weakness to counter their nigh-omnipotence, Zambini might just have the worst one in comics: the touch of a human hand renders him completely powerless and unable to resist, to the point that this Hundanian spy is able to gently lead him to their headquarters and he is only saved when her boss gets jealous – thank heavens that Hundania doesn’t have a robust anti-workplace romance policy. This weakness kind of falls by the roadside as time goes on but does occasionally crop up now and then in horrible ways. (Zip Comics 001, 1940)

    Perhaps the most interesting thing about Zambini is his magical system: for his first two appearances he casts spells by spouting nonsense words (as far as I can tell), but from Zip Comics 003 onward, he uses a version of Ubbi Dubbi that involves inserting the syllable “ab” instead of “ub”. I don’t know if it’s strictly better than speaking backward, Zatara style, but it certainly is unique.

    Atom Blake, Boy Wizard **UPDATE**:

    I had read the 1940-1941 issues of Wow Comics before embarking on my great comics-reading project, so I already knew going in that Atom Blake would essentially speed-run the process of getting tired of living among mere mortals and heading off into space, Dr Manhattan style, but I had forgotten that he is doing so in order to look for his long-lost father. Also, while I did remember that Blake duplicated himself before setting out I had misremembered it as him leaving behind a non-super version of himself on Earth while the superhuman part set off for adventure. What I’m saying here is that the version of Atom Blake that I had remembered is way more interesting than the actual character. (Wow Comics 002, 1941) 

    the Hunchback: 

    The Hunchback is in actuality wealthy playboy Allan Lanier, who became obsessed with the figure of Quasimodo after seeing the 1939 film version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame (or possibly a literal picture of the character – the text box isn’t 100% clear) and combined that with his interest in wiping out crime to become a weird spectre of the night, Batman-style.

    Lanier is refreshingly up-front about his interest in criminology, to the extent that he is seen droning on and on about it before a date with his fiance Betty Brenton. I don’t know if I’d like every fellow with a secret identity to abandon the “disaffected socialite” act, but it is nice to see the odd one do without it and just be a weird eccentric.

    The Hunchback really leans into two specific aspects of his inspiration: he is absurdly acrobatic, and he metes out insane and terrifying violence to his foes. The latter has git to be one of the better justifications for the dread a masked figure of the night inspires among the criminal fraternity.

    We’re on a bit of a run of characters who share their secret identity with their love interest and Alan Lanier is one of them: his fiance Betty has to be told before she will let the Hunchback help her (this might be the downside of the whole “reputation for insane violence” thing). (Wow Comics 002, 1941)

    In the Hunchback’s second adventure, in Wow Comics 003, Lanier switches to a slightly more conventional super-hero outfit. It’s a generic but not terrible design, and I always appreciate a character making a bold hat choice, but I think that it is perhaps a bit too twee for a character who is supposed to be some sort of rampaging engine of madness and destruction. The old uniform came back out of the closet for the Hunchback’s remaining appearances.

    Pinky the Whiz Kid: 

    Pinky the future Whiz Kid (not technically called that until 1942, but whatever, we’re loose and goosey around here) is already a fan of Mr Scarlet before he is rendered a crime orphan by the villainous Mr Hyde (upcoming), who seemingly randomly murders his mother.

    Pinky ends up at Oaklawn Orphanage, which just so happens to be run by Mr Hyde’s alter ego, Dr Jelke. When Hyde/Jelke and Mr Scarlet inevitably clash, Pinky is right there in his homemade sidekick costume to help out.

    Pinky is adopted by District Attorney Brian Butler, ostensibly to keep him out of trouble, but since Pinky has worked out that Brian is secretly Mr Scarlet he is able to blackmail him into becoming his sidekick. It sounds more sinister than it reads, honestly.

    The real downside to Mr Scarlet getting a sidekick is that Miss Wade, formerly a romantic sparring partner for Brian and occasional daring assistant in her own right, is relegated to the role of scolding caretaker as she sensibly attempts to prevent a teenager from flinging himself into danger. It’s a real loss to the comic.(Wow Comics 004, 1941)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940) 

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940) 

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 065

    Our themes today are “scarlet,” “family tragedy,” and “inadvisable human experimentation.”

    Mr Scarlet: 

    Brian Butler, NYC* district attorney,** is frustrated by the limitations inherent in working within the law and so like so many of his peers adopts a costumed identity in order to get the better of crime via acrobatics and punching. A classic origin, but Mr Scarlet’s real claim to fame is in being created by Jack Kirby (with Ed Herron) and thus starting off with a real dose of comic book charisma that subsequent artist Jack Binder manages to keep going – both, for example, illustrate his acrobatic explots with such flair that to this day people assume that he’s meant to be flying.

    * although it’s referred to as “Gotham City” in the one caption that names his location, I simply must assume that it’s meant to be the NYC nickname rather than some Earth-S version of Batman’s hometown, earlier than both concepts even exist.

    ** he’s pretty consistently called a “special prosecutor”, but there’s just enough evidence to clarify that he’s a DA rather than an impartial lawyer brought in to prosecute cases involving possible conflicts of interest, which I just learned is what a special prosecutor is.

    Brian Butler’s secretary/love interest Cherry Wade learns his secret in Mr Scarlet’s first published adventure, and I must say as always that I appreciate a Golden Age comics with a straightforward hero romance to contrast with the widespread aping of the Clark Kent/Lois Lane situation. Even if it is an HR nightmare. (Wow Comics 001, 1940)

    Atom Blake, Boy Wizard: 

    Atom Blake, a youngster attending Lincoln High in Collegetown, USA, is curious about why he has a different last name than the people who are raising him, and perhaps more pointedly, why his is physically and mentally superhuman. His foster father, Professor Joseph Page, has the answer in the form of a note left for Atom by his biological father, Stuart Blake. Written in a mathematical code that Atom is instinctively able to read, the note tells of the elder Blake’s experiments in creating a super-element composed of all 93 known regular elements* and how the infant Atom was given treatments to make him super-human enough to utilize the power of the super-element (called sun-metal in later Atom Blake stories but not here) without evaporating like Blake Sr’s poor experimental orangutan.

    *always a good bit when it crops up. I just looked up the history of the discovery of elements to see how long the count of 93 was good for and it looks like about 4 years, though plutonium was discovered in 1941 but kept secret until 1948. More impressive is the fact that at least four of the elements known in 1940 weren’t yet discovered in 1923 when Blake did his work!

    An encounter between Atom and some bank robbers soon reveals that the super-element was stored in the ring that Stuart Blake left with Atom as a baby, and he gains access to a suite of deus ex machina powers. Will this sixteen or seventeen year old boy be able to deal with unlimited power in a healthy way? Stay tuned! (Wow Comics 001, 1940)

    UPDATE 1941 

    Steel Sterling: 

    John Sterling is your classic crime orphan: after losing his father to gangsters at a young age, he devotes his life to battling crime. But rather than become a living weapon through intense training, Sterling takes a note from his father’s death by gunfire and spends his formative years developing a chemical treatment that will give his body the properties of steel, dramatically catalyzed by a dip into a vat of molten metal in a sequence with more on-panel male nudity than you usually see. Please also note the final panel above, which showcases Sterling’s weird riveted metal briefs.

    And Sterling isn’t just blowing smoke about having all the properties of steel: in addition to being bulletproof and super strong thanks to his new density, he also has the magnetic properties of the alloy, which he, like many of his magnetic brethren, employs to fly around by “magnetizing himself to” various things. Later this is rounded up to simply being able to fly and thank goodness for that.

    Finally, Steel Sterling has one of the better secret identities, as he establishes private detective John Sterling as his own twin brother (and also as a sort of cowardly jerk so that he can establish the usual Lois Lane/Clark Kent dynamic with love interest Dora Cummings). (Zip Comics 001, 1940)

    the Scarlet Avenger: 

    I know I bagged on the Defender for just being the Avenger with the serial numbers filed off, but dang it if the Scarlet Avenger doesn’t feel even more like someone just took Richard Benson out back and slapped a little red paint on him. Real name Jim Kendall, the Scarlet Avenger loses his wife and child as a result of a gold robbery on the airplane they are riding in. Kendall alone survives the subsequent crash but loses the ability to form facial expressions, leading to his nickname as The Man Who Never Smiles. 

    The Scarlet Avenger’s calling card, seen above making the text box hard to read, is a flaming arrow for no discernible or stated reason. Later on it is often depicted with a decorative skull.

    The Scarlet Avenger lacks the ability to reshape his facial features that his inspiration possessed, and instead of being a master of disguise is more of a gadgeteer, variously employing a paralysis ray, bulletproof cloak, electrically wired suit that allows him to deliver lethal shocks, mind reading device, compact miniature parachute, shoe knife, personal smokescreen, rocket car and rocket ship in his pursuit of justice. 

    The other point of similarity between the Scarlet and regular Avengers is the extensive network of agents that both employ, though the Scarlet Avenger’s narrows somewhat over time as he begins a romantic relationship with Inez Courtney, aka Operative 1. More trouble for HR.  (Zip Comics 001 1940)