The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Steel Sterling

  • MONSTER, CRITTER AND CREATURE ROUND-UP 001

    I’ve threatened to do it for long enough, it’s time for the creatures to have their day.

    Alligator Men:

    Our very first creatures are also our first tough call. Steel Sterling fights these Alligator Men in Brazonia, South America while on the trail of Dr Yar (aka the Black Knight), and with any group of intelligent humanoids there is the question: did our villain make them using the power of mad science, or did he find them in the jungle and convince them to follow him?

    The thing that sways my opinion on the Alligator Men is the fact that Dr Yar also has this swarm of giant mosquitoes at his command. If someone is going to the trouble of overcoming the square cube law to create a not-very-successful trap for his arch enemy then bioengineering a batch of alligator-headed goons has got to be a walk in the park, comparatively. (Zip Comics 003, 1940)

    Alligoscerous:

    This alligoscerous, a lake monster native to the hidden Diamond Empire in Asia and burdened with a most unlovely name, makes an attempt to dine on the Rocket and his allies and pays for it with its eyes. (Pep Comics 004, 1940)

    Allosaurus:

    Abdallah is a minor Centaur Publications character who has fantastical adventures in 10th Century Arabia, such as in this instance, when a caravan he is leading is attacked by a pack of allosaurus. It’s honestly giving me a warm flashback to AD&D adventure modules.

    Continuing in the tabletop RPG theme, later in that same story Abdallah must travel through an underground dungeon of sorts to save his father’s life, and does battle with this very heraldic griffin. (Funny Pages v3 008, 1939)

    Amphisaur:

    The amphisaur, an ancient dinosaur hibernating below the sea floor, is awakened by Naval manoeuvres and immediately begins laying waste to the works of mankind. It’s very Gozilla-before-Godzilla, though without the poignancy of the nuclear war metaphor.

    Though the beast’s hide is proof against all conventional weaponry and it is even immune to mummy-turned-super-hero Mystico’s arcane power for the slightly contrived reason that it dates from before magic was invented, it is ultimately undone when an entire skyscraper is repurposed into a jumbo-sized spear to impale it. (Startling Comics 004, 1940)

    the Sea Dragon:

    The Sea Dragon, which pops up to vex and befuddle the US Navy in Hawaii, is in reality a classic (and astonishingly huge) submarine disguised as a monster and operated by an unnamed, not-quite-Japanese, Navy. (Captain America Comics 005, 1941)

    Tangako:

    Adventurer Reef Kinkaid and his companions, stranded in a lost valley filled with prehistoric life in the Amazon jungle, must confront a variety of monsters, including the horned cave-ape tangako, which Reef grapples to death…

    … the cave-dwelling alagasaurus, which he grapples and beats to death…

    … and the annoyingly-spelled pterodactl, which he grapples to death. (Amazing-Man Comics 016, 1940)

    Bonus Dinosaurs!

     

    These random dinosaurs and prehistoric mammals are encountered by the Black Hood during a confusing trip through time. (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

  • MEDIA IN COMICS 010

    Is the media in comics any good, do you think? Do super-heroes get to watch good movies?

    Movies:

    Arizona Nights is a Western being produced by King Studios when a climactic gunfight scene is used as cover for a real-life murder. Detective Sergeant Carey clears up the mystery (it was the cameraman) but we never learn if the footage of a man dying in real life was used for the added verisimilitude. (More Fun Comics 052, 1940)

    Call of the North, a Mounted Police picture by Pioneer Films, is not marred by murder, but if the Quality Universe IMDb userbase is on the ball the trivia section for the movie includes the fact that several of the mountie actors were used as backup by RCMP Sergeant Reynolds in the apprehension of a kidnapper. (Feature Comics 037, 1940)

    Dread Castle has a place in comic book history as the film that drove Basil Karlo over the edge and into the persona of Clayface, as he saw the attempt to remake a movie that he saw as one of his greatest roles as an insult to him personally. Both Dread Castles are medieval films about a murderous hunchback called the Terror – not a terribly exciting prospect without the excitement of all the real-life murder that went on during production of the second one. (Detective Comics v1 040, 1940)

    The other Basil Karlo role that we learn about in his initial appearance is the one that he takes his criminal moniker and appearance from, a movie seemingly also called Clayface. (Detective Comics v1 040, 1940)

    Music:

    Is “Star Dust” Clark Kent’s favourite song as he claims it is while big-dogging this club maître d’? I sure hope so. No idea what kind of song it is, but you can slow dance to it. (Superman Comics v1 007, 1940)

    Newspaper Columns:

    “Town Talk” is the kind of snotty gossip column that inspired a thousand murder mystery plots. In this case, columnist Walt Willard turns up dead and Steel Sterling has to comb through the wealth of suspects to figure out whodunnit. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

    “Around the Town with Joe E. Brown” is your standard gossip column-as-exposition-vector, though why the writer has the same name as an old-time film comedian is unknown to me. (Special Edition Comics 001, 1940)

    Paul Pryer, writer of the imaginatively-titled “Paul Pryer’s Column” is one of those comic book celebrities who I am certain is based on a real person, but whether it’s just someone like Walt Winchell or there’s a Paul Prowler out there just waiting for me to learn about him is up to chance. (All-Star Comics 003, 1940) 

    Meanwhile: “Society,” the most pragmatically-named society column of all time. (Batman Comics v1 001, 1940)

    We don’t get to actually see “Tom Peeping’s Column” in this Minute Movies strip, but I like to imagine that it features a cheeky little cartoon of the writer with big binoculars at the top. (Flash Comics 004, 1940)

    Newsreels:

    I don’t know enough about newsreels to know if they normally had titles, but the Ace Films company is trying to capitalize on their beautiful camerawoman “Dot Daring,” aka Beautia Sivana and so chooses to call this one Flirting with Death. (Whiz Comics 010, 1940)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 027

    Real people? In comic books? Now I’ve seen everything.

    Abu Khan:

    I sincerely cannot tell if this Black Knight foe is supposed to be Abu Sa’id Bahadur Khan, last ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanate, or if they just pulled a couple of syllables out of the air and added “Khan” to the end and called it a day. On the one hand, the real Abu Khan never tried to invade Egypt, as the Black Knight is trying to prevent him from doing, but on the other he is from about the right time to be a Black Knight character, i.e., within about two hundred years of all the other elements of the comic. (The Funnies 059, 1941)

    Adolf Hitler:

    Pays for the services of super-villain the Artist to facilitate the invasion of Tomania with his soul-stealing powers. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

    Al Capone:

    “Scar Lapone,” used as a generic gangster name. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

    Jean Lafitte:

    A false vision of Lafitte is summoned by a fake medium. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

    Napoleon Bonaparte:

    Viewed through a time machine’s viewscreen by the Black Hood. (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

    Nero:

    Kim Hale and the Purple Zombie, blasted back in time, are condemned to death by Emperor Nero for telling him about things that he hadn’t heard of before. (Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics 008, 1941)

    Though the duo make it out of the gladiatorial arena okay, they almost get caught up in the Great Fire of Rome before being shunted to another time zone by their allies. Unusually, Nero is not shown fiddling at all. (Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics 009, 1941)

    Nero, or at least his ghost, appears in a very different form after being summoned by the would-be necromancer Ford. Is this barbaric Nero a reflection of how the Emperor saw himself, or did the artist just kind of wing it? (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

    Paul Revere:

    Minor comic book protagonist Paul Revere Jr is awfully smug for someone who just has the name of a famous patriot, and that goes double for his friends Betsy Ross and Patrick Henry.

    His father Paul Revere Sr is at least out there writing a column called “America, Awake!” and putting himself in the crosshairs of local fascists. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

    Sherlock Holmes:

    Yet another comedy Holmes analog with a terrible if intriguing name. Foreclose is just close enough to a play on Sherlock to be particularly maddening. Featuring: a Watson analog named Batsin Belfry. (Great Comics 001, 1941)

    Walter Winchell:

    He only appears as a corpse, but gossip columnist Walt Willard is a clear play on Walt Winchell. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 027

    Real people? In comic books? Now I’ve seen everything.

    Abu Khan:

    I sincerely cannot tell if this Black Knight foe is supposed to be Abu Sa’id Bahadur Khan, last ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanate, or if they just pulled a couple of syllables out of the air and added “Khan” to the end and called it a day. On the one hand, the real Abu Khan never tried to invade Egypt, as the Black Knight is trying to prevent him from doing, but on the other he is from about the right time to be a Black Knight character, i.e., within about two hundred years of all the other elements of the comic. (The Funnies 059, 1941)

    Adolf Hitler:

    Pays for the services of super-villain the Artist to facilitate the invasion of Tomania with his soul-stealing powers. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

    Al Capone:

    “Scar Lapone,” used as a generic gangster name. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

    Jean Lafitte:

    A false vision of Lafitte is summoned by a fake medium. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

    Napoleon Bonaparte:

    Viewed through a time machine’s viewscreen by the Black Hood. (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

    Nero:

    Kim Hale and the Purple Zombie, blasted back in time, are condemned to death by Emperor Nero for telling him about things that he hadn’t heard of before. (Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics 008, 1941)

    Though the duo make it out of the gladiatorial arena okay, they almost get caught up in the Great Fire of Rome before being shunted to another time zone by their allies. Unusually, Nero is not shown fiddling at all. (Reg’lar Fellers Heroic Comics 009, 1941)

    Nero, or at least his ghost, appears in a very different form after being summoned by the would-be necromancer Ford. Is this barbaric Nero a reflection of how the Emperor saw himself, or did the artist just kind of wing it? (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

    Paul Revere:

    Minor comic book protagonist Paul Revere Jr is awfully smug for someone who just has the name of a famous patriot, and that goes double for his friends Betsy Ross and Patrick Henry.

    His father Paul Revere Sr is at least out there writing a column called “America, Awake!” and putting himself in the crosshairs of local fascists. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

    Sherlock Holmes:

    Yet another comedy Holmes analog with a terrible if intriguing name. Foreclose is just close enough to a play on Sherlock to be particularly maddening. Featuring: a Watson analog named Batsin Belfry. (Great Comics 001, 1941)

    Walter Winchell:

    He only appears as a corpse, but gossip columnist Walt Willard is a clear play on Walt Winchell. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 032

    A more fantastical bunch of genericos than usual! How fun!

    Benjie Frazier: 

    This mysterious cloaked figure hires femme fatale Sonia, aka Princess Cleo, to help him drive all of the inhabitants out of “center of New York society” Formal Park (99% certain that this is a substitution for former real-life society hub Tuxedo Park). To that end, the pair deploy such tools as squads of hooded goons, a mysteriously appearing brand to indicate that their victims have suffered “the Pharaoh’s Curse”, and a drug that drives regular people into a murderous frenzy. 

    Things come to a head when the socially prominent Dudley “Mr Satan” Bradshaw and his scornful love interest Doris O’Day are invited out to a Formal Park event and end up unmasking their host Benjie Frazier as the mastermind behind the scheme. And just why has he been murdering people in such elaborate ways? A damn land grab, the most boring possible motivation for supercrime. He wanted to get rich by selling land to the state for a reservoir, folks. Shaking my damn head over here. (Zip Comics 008, 1940)

    Unnamed Brain-in-Jar Men: 

    Another cover illustration with no bearing on the story inside – very very sad. Are these headless men with their brains in little glass backpacks the creations of a mad scientist? Some sore of weird aliens? A transhumanist mafia? We shall never know. (Zip Comics 009, 1940)

    the Lion-Man: 

    This were-lion is remarkable not only for being in the Amazon (which I can only assume is way out of its natural range if we can apply such concepts to supernatural beings) but also because it only appears in the first half of a six-page story as an unrelated distraction while some crooks to steal diamonds from Doctor Voodoo’s home village. Just tremendous disrespect on the writer’s part for the gravity of a lycanthropic* foe. (Whiz Comics 014, 1941)

    *yes I’m aware that the lycan part of the word is referring specifically to wolves but I’m being lazy about my language, okay? The footnote is still lazy because most of the words in it are short.

    Queen Zoe: 

    Queen Zoe is the ruler of a lost kingdom called El Casa del Oro deep in the Amazon whose culture appears to be a mixture of Inca and Conquistador and who is not overtly evil but who for instance threatens to throw someone into a volcano for interfering in her proposed seduction of Dr Voodoo.

    Queen Zoe’s secret is that she is actually thousands of years old thanks to the fact that she has the Fountain of Youth in her basement. She tries to sweeten her seduction of Dr Voodoo with the promise of eternal life but the Fountain is evidently a big prude because it chooses to stop working the exact second that Zoe makes her pitch and instead of getting some action she instead crumbles to dust. (Whiz Comics 015, 1941)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 020

    Where would comic books be without real people, after all?

    Easter Island: 

    Lance O’Casey and his pal Dan’l Doom fight some wreckers on Easter island, and while I can’t tell if the place saw enough ship traffic in the 1940s to make shipwrecking a profitable enterprise, I will say that the concept of Lance and Dan’l just casually passing by one of the most isolated islands in the Pacific Ocean while travelling from place to place is an eyebrow raiser.

    The whole Easter Island aspect of the adventure honestly seems to just be a bit of set dressing, but I sure do love these extremely flat moai statues.(Whiz Comics 013, 1941) 

    Fort Knox: 

    As “Fort Gnox,” robbed by Dr Sivana. (Whiz Comics 014, 1940)

    FDR: 

    Spy Smasher saves the president from being assassinated by probable-Nazi spy the Dark Angel, leading to what I can only interpret as a very awkward meeting between the two. (Spy Smasher 001, 1941) 

    Fiorello La Guardia (Not): 

    Wow Comics 004 features not one but two mayors who are not Fiorello La Guardia in comics previously established to be set in New York City. I’d say poor guy for not getting elected in two different versions of Earth-S but neither of these guys are exactly having a good time. (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

    Harry “A” Chesler: 

    The Zip Comics 007
    Steel Sterling story involves a crooked moneylending firm called the
    Uwana Loan Company, and here we see the door of that company with H. “A”
    C. listed as president. Comic book publisher Harry “A” Chesler was a
    decent boss as far as I can tell, so once and future Chesler employee/
    “Steel Sterling” scribe Charles Biro is probably indulging in some
    classic comic book yuk-em-ups here rather than a trenchant skewering.
    (Zip Comics 007, 1940) 

    Henry L. Stimson: 

    US Secretary of State. As “Secretary Simpson,” almost gets assassinated and mummified by the Black Thorn. (America’s Greatest Comics 001, 1941) 

    J Edgar Hoover:

    As “FBI Chief Doover” almost gets assassinated by the Ghost. (am greatest 001 1941)

    Ken Crawford: 

    The Mask adopts a reporter alias as part of an attempt to find out the Spy Smasher’s secret identity, and there is no doubt in my mind that “Crawf Kenford” is a classic syllable-flip reference to venerable political correspondent Ken Crawford. (Whiz Comics 013, 1941)

    Mort Meskin: 

    You have to squint to read it, but that red sign says “M. Meskin, Fish” on it. (Zip Comics 007, 1940)

    William Tell: 

    Golden Arrow plays William Tell in a local school pageant, with love interest Carol Braddock as the apple-headed son. (Whiz Comics 012, 1941) 

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 031

    They’re not good people and they’re not good at what they do and yet they still have a certain charm. 

    This guy is exclusively called “the Fiend” in narration boxes even though he is introduced as “the Great Master” and “Mako”. He practices voodoo and just sort of generically terrorizes the Haitian countryside until Yarko the Great comes at the behest of the intriguingly named Doctor Medico to settle his hash. And speaking of names, this issue features multiple characters referring to voodoo practitioners rather than their subjects as “zombies,” which is a new one on me unless of course you count the Grand Zombie. (Wonderworld Comics 019, 1940)

    Called “the Wolf” by detective Dr Fung as he is hunting him down, this masked fellow is actually Horace Bailey, a Wall Street financier who killed his partner to gain full control of their firm and made the mistake of involving a super-sleuth in the execution of his perfect murder. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940)

    Don Cervantes is a fellow who discovered silver in the hills near the small probably-Mexican town of Toranto and decided that the best way to keep it all to himself was to revive the practice of human sacrifice in the area. This does not prevent Nevada Jones from moving in and deposing him, of course. (Zip Comics 007, 1940)

    Comic books having cover illustrations that do not reflect the action in the book itself are nothing new, but this is the first time I have felt the need to highlight any of the characters on them whose adventures have gone unchronicled. Here’s to you, Executioner, Green Guy with Sickle Claw and Tiny Green Guy, I’m sure that you were very dastardly. (Zip Comics 008, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 877: TWISTO THE RUBBER MAN

    (Zip Comics 009, 1940) 

    The Tingling Bros Circus is in trouble! Someone has been killing the performers, mid-act, with throwing knives, and it has caused enough financial disruption to the show that owner Jack Tingling is on the verge of bankruptcy!

    As you might have surmised from the fact that this entry is about him, the person responsible for the murders is sideshow attraction Twisto the Rubber Man, and we’ll get to his motivations in a second because they are one of two notable things about him. First, though, we must take note of the other notable thing: his powers. According to his own patter he was born with them, which I suppose makes him some sort of mutant. Whatever the reason, he is able to stretch and twist his body to a superhuman degree, as if he were completely boneless. He doesn’t seem to be able to extend his limbs at will, but his fist does continue travelling under its own momentum to sock new Steel Sterling sidekick Loony in the head in the above panel. He is also able to mould his face into a new shape as if it were made of putty – all in all, he’s a much more limited version of stretching characters like the soon-to-debut Plastic Man.

    But just why did Twisto do all of those murders? Why to drive down the value of the circus so that he can buy it, make his lion-taming wife Lilli a star and grow rich, of course! It’s a foolproof plan, spoiled only by the fact that Lilli considers it “bad” and “wrong” and “illegal” to murder her friends and coworkers for a shot at the big-time.

    Having been rejected by the woman that he loves over a few measly murders, Twisto has a bit of a mental break and turns to the only solution he knows: more murders. First on the agenda is Lilli, whose big cat act he sabotages by giving the beasts a taste of his own blood, thus transforming them into uncontrollable man-eaters (this is one of those tropes that crops up a fair amount, that an animal, once it tastes human blood, can’t stop craving it. Is it true? No idea). 

    At this point, Twisto is so deep in the murder hole (not to mention probably a bit light headed from all that missing blood) that he kind of talks himself into becoming a serial killer by extrapolating from “my beautiful, intelligent wife rejected me because of the crimes I did” to “all beautiful, intelligent women are my enemies and must die.” He almost starts his misogynistic murder spree with Steel Sterling love interest Dora Cummings, but is stopped by the timely intervention of Steel himself.

    Twisto’s progressive mental break continues: his murderous mania transitions into a childlike passivity and he is led away to jail without issue. This isn’t the last you’ll see of ol’ Twisto the Rubber Man, however, as he seemingly snaps out it and escapes immediately after being left alone. We’ll see him again in 1941, presumably with a whole new range of criminal motivations.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 869: THE BLACK KNIGHT

    (Zip Comics 001, 1940)

    Shortly after giving himself super powers, Steel Sterling gets word of a brutal bank robbery in the town of Beeville and sets out to bring the culprits to justice. Determining that the crooks must have been guided by a mastermind of some sort, he trails their plane to a mountaintop fortress.

    The bow-wielding guards outside the Black Knight’s fortress (spoiler: it’s the Black Knight’s fortress, but what were you expecting) are notable for being the one time that he has anything related to his chosen theme around, and even they are supposedly only there to prevent… mountain cops?… from hearing the sound of gunfire. Inside, it’s plain old gangsters.

    Gangsters armed with ordinary machine guns are of course no match for a man with all the properties of steel, and Steel Sterling quickly makes his way to the Black Knight’s throne room, where he is immediately dropped into a deep pit full of rats.

    I’d just like to take a second here to appreciate the fact that the Black Knight’s costume is a) 100% brown and yellow with no black at all and b) a pretty conventional super-person getup aside from what appears to be a leather jerkin or similar. Historical, yes, but not particularly knightly. 

    A pit full of rats is also not enough to stop Steel Sterling, and he makes his way out, causes the Black Knight himself to fall in, and sets out after the fleeing gangsters just in time to avoid a secondary deathtrap as the fortress explodes behind him. The Black Knight is finished, it seems.

    The Black Knight is not, in fact, finished, and is soon (Zip Comics 002) hard at work robbing gold and fur shipments coming out of Alaska. Though he manages to capture Steel Sterling when he infiltrates the villain’s fake iceberg base he does a bad job of coming up with a suitable deathtrap for the hero and ends up in the hands of the US Navy.

    Steel Sterling’s next case brings him to the South American nation of Brazonia, where a man called Dr Yar has taken the famous scientist Walter Cummings in order to force him to develop weapons of war and help conquer the gold-rich country. 

    Dr Yar is of course eventually revealed to be an alias (or possibly the real identity?) of the Black Knight. Just why he has abandoned his old moniker is unstated but perhaps it is as simple as a desire not to attract the attention of Steel Sterling again. His new look is at least still visually interesting – particularly the periscopiscopes, which are of course goggles which allow 360 degree vision.

    Dr Yar really leans into the scientist aspect of his new identity, and deploys gadgets such as: flying tanks, oil bombs, electric rays and various viewscreens and visualizers.

    Plus: he not only has Alligator Men at his disposal but also a swarm of giant mosquitoes straight out of an ad for a pest control company (being big does not help them bate through steel skin, alas). 

    Once again the Black Knight/Dr Yar apparently meets his end, and this time it’s explicitly at the hands of Steel Sterling, who stuffs him into the barrel of his own super-howitzer before it fires. A truly brutal end, even for a dedicated super-villain. (Zip Comics 003, 1940)

    Steel doesn’t have to live with any guilt he might feel for long, however, as the Black Knight returns in the next issue, this time climbing the rungs of the aristocracy from mere knighthood to become the Radium King. His new plan is simple: steal the entire US radium supply and then ransom it back for 30 million dollars.

    The Radium King has appropriately impressive digs: an underwater base in Lake Superior that would probably be pretty hard to find if one of his minions hadn’t blabbed under threat of a beating from Steel Sterling.

    The Radium King costume turns out to borrow heavily from the original Black Knight getup, although without a lot of the yellow elements. I’d say that it’s better than the Dr Yar outfit but not as composed as the original, and that the half-mask/mustache combo is particularly unpleasant. Speaking of Dr Yar, the Radium King reveals that he survived Steel’s attempted cannon execution by simply crawling back out of the cannon.

    Not to be robbed of a kill, Steel Sterling uses the Radium King’s own submarine to blow him and his base to high heaven. Surely he’s dead this time! (Zip Comics 004, 1940)

    Not quite! The Black Knight’s fifth and final appearance (under the original name, this time) is probably his most ignominious, though it does feature his cool underground city headquarters, seen above. In it, he engages in a campaign of sabotage, kidnapping and extortion against his former kidnap victim/current minor member of Steel Sterling’s supporting cast Walter Cummings, who has gone into the munitions manufacturing game and has gotten the contract to produce the mysterious Zeta Ray for the US government. Somehow, if the Black Knight can delay production of the US Zeta Ray for long enough then his own scientists can produce one for him and that will be good, and if that description seems vague to you then I must assure you that it is 100% accurate to the comic. I don’t even know what the Zeta Ray does, for heaven’s sake.

    Though Cummings’ first factory is destroyed and his second collapses due to some sabotaged cement, Steel Sterling steps in and has almost completed a third when the Black Knight decides to take a personal hand and ram a tanker truck full of TNT into it. Now here’s the embarrassing part: not only does Steel Sterling handily prevent the truck from destroying the factory, but the first time that he is even aware that the Black Knight is involved in the plot against Dr Cummings is when he spots him just one fraction of a second before he is atomized in the explosion. It’s not even as dignified an end as being shot out of your own cannon would have been. (Zip Comics 005, 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)