The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Companions Three

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 016

    Gods aplenty! 

    Tyalpo: 

    The god worshipped by Ibis the Invincible villain Piang the Terrible. Probably real, in that Piang has real magical power that he calls upon Tyalpo to activate, even if the god himself shows up only in idol form.

    God Style: Idol (Real?) (Whiz Comics 009, 1940) 

    Goddess of the Jungle: 

    Sandor is a jungle hero who doesn’t so much adventure as get into one long series of scrapes and situations in Northern India, the second most popular location to be a jungle hero by my reckoning. One of those scrapes involves him nearly getting sacrificed to the Goddess of the Jungle, about whom we never really learn more than her name. 

    God Style: Invoked (New Comics 006, 1936)

    the Golden Dragon: 

    “The Golden Dragon” is a serial that ran in Adventure Comics for around three years (and in fact started back when the book was called New Comics), about a group of adventurers and soldiers of fortune travelling from China to Mongolia in search of the fabled treasure of the Golden Dragon, while fending off attempts by the villainous Torgadoff to halt their journey, presumably so that he can seek the treasure himself. 

    Adventure Comics 034 finds de facto expedition leader Ian Murray at the end of the trail, which turns out to be a very much still in-use Temple of the Golden Dragon, with Torgadoff turning out to be one of the high priests. Does this dampen his desire to strip the place of its treasure? Absolutely not! This is a 1930s adventurer we’re talking about! The presence of a non-Christian religious practice only increases his lust for gold!

    Even the treasure-hungry Murray is taken aback, however, when the Golden Dragon shows up and turns out to be a real, living creature – presumably some sort of giant snake rather than a more traditional dragon based on how dumb it seems to be. 

    Murray’s reverence for this wonder of the natural world extends about as far as his respect for other cultures, and he ends up blasting the Golden Dragon at the first opportunity (but not before tossing Torgadoff into it’s crushing coils). The death of their god causes the worshippers to retreat, and the heroic adventurers are able to loot the temple and retire to lives of ease and luxury.

    God Style: Animist (Adventure Comics 034, 1939) 

    the Golden God: 

    The Golden God is one of the innumerable gods worshipped by the uncountable made-up Amazon tribes that comics are full of, and like so many of these gods, the Golden God is sought out by adventurers because it is represented by an idol of solid gold. Heroic adventurers the Companions Three seek out the idol after being hired by a woman named Cassie Bennett to find her father, Professor Bennett, who is supposedly after it on anthropological grounds 

    As usual, the anthropological value of an artifact outweighs the fact that the idol in question is still being used, but that turns out to matter a bit less than it normally does because the Golden God has in fact been discarded in favour of an unnamed new god, This new god in turn is revealed to be the Companions’ antagonist Hook Harroday, who is himself after the gold.

    Harroday’s plan to messily murder the Companions Three falls apart under a barrage of punches, and the group escapes with the idol of the Golden God, which Professor Bennett sells to a museum in a real triumph for selfless anthropology. 

    God Style: Idol (Master Comics 015, 1941) 

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 016

    Gods aplenty! 

    Tyalpo: 

    The god worshipped by Ibis the Invincible villain Piang the Terrible. Probably real, in that Piang has real magical power that he calls upon Tyalpo to activate, even if the god himself shows up only in idol form.

    God Style: Idol (Real?) (Whiz Comics 009, 1940) 

    Goddess of the Jungle: 

    Sandor is a jungle hero who doesn’t so much adventure as get into one long series of scrapes and situations in Northern India, the second most popular location to be a jungle hero by my reckoning. One of those scrapes involves him nearly getting sacrificed to the Goddess of the Jungle, about whom we never really learn more than her name. 

    God Style: Invoked (New Comics 006, 1936)

    the Golden Dragon: 

    “The Golden Dragon” is a serial that ran in Adventure Comics for around three years (and in fact started back when the book was called New Comics), about a group of adventurers and soldiers of fortune travelling from China to Mongolia in search of the fabled treasure of the Golden Dragon, while fending off attempts by the villainous Torgadoff to halt their journey, presumably so that he can seek the treasure himself. 

    Adventure Comics 034 finds de facto expedition leader Ian Murray at the end of the trail, which turns out to be a very much still in-use Temple of the Golden Dragon, with Torgadoff turning out to be one of the high priests. Does this dampen his desire to strip the place of its treasure? Absolutely not! This is a 1930s adventurer we’re talking about! The presence of a non-Christian religious practice only increases his lust for gold!

    Even the treasure-hungry Murray is taken aback, however, when the Golden Dragon shows up and turns out to be a real, living creature – presumably some sort of giant snake rather than a more traditional dragon based on how dumb it seems to be. 

    Murray’s reverence for this wonder of the natural world extends about as far as his respect for other cultures, and he ends up blasting the Golden Dragon at the first opportunity (but not before tossing Torgadoff into it’s crushing coils). The death of their god causes the worshippers to retreat, and the heroic adventurers are able to loot the temple and retire to lives of ease and luxury.

    God Style: Animist (Adventure Comics 034, 1939) 

    the Golden God: 

    The Golden God is one of the innumerable gods worshipped by the uncountable made-up Amazon tribes that comics are full of, and like so many of these gods, the Golden God is sought out by adventurers because it is represented by an idol of solid gold. Heroic adventurers the Companions Three seek out the idol after being hired by a woman named Cassie Bennett to find her father, Professor Bennett, who is supposedly after it on anthropological grounds 

    As usual, the anthropological value of an artifact outweighs the fact that the idol in question is still being used, but that turns out to matter a bit less than it normally does because the Golden God has in fact been discarded in favour of an unnamed new god, This new god in turn is revealed to be the Companions’ antagonist Hook Harroday, who is himself after the gold.

    Harroday’s plan to messily murder the Companions Three falls apart under a barrage of punches, and the group escapes with the idol of the Golden God, which Professor Bennett sells to a museum in a real triumph for selfless anthropology. 

    God Style: Idol (Master Comics 015, 1941) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 360: MISTER MASK

    (Master Comics 019, 1941)

    If you’re ever at a party and a guy shows up with a mysterious bequest for the host and then is murdered by an unseen party before he can hand over what turns out to be a huge diamond then take it from me: you are in a comic book. If there’s a guy named “Rajah Kohur” there to declare the diamond to be cursed, well that’s just what we call further evidence.

    Now you’re going to want to watch out for costumed crooks – in this case they’ve gone for a vague Indian/ religious theme to play up the cursed nature of the gem and are using a weird tube that shoots darts made of crystallized poison to kill people because simplicity and costumed villainy don’t mix.

    Anyway, you’re going to want to keep an eye on any guardians, uncles, family lawyers, that sort of folk. Mister Mask turns out to be the heiress’ foppish cousin Dariustrying to get her to sell the “cursed” diamond cheap (Rajah Kohur is of course a con artist). His biggest error was in trying all of this at an event attended by the Companions Three – there’s no reason to handicap your own attempt at an already difficult task.

  • HONOURS

    (Master Comics 015, 1941) 

    Minute-Man receives the “highest award for valor” from the South American nation of Rinaldo for stopping a load of Nazi stand-ins from blowing up their Washington embassy.

    (Master Comics 016, 1941)

    The Companions Three receive the Decoration for Valor of the European nation of Cabarro for facilitating and then stopping the theft of their crown jewels.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 352: THE CRYSTAL

    (Whiz Comics 015/ Master Comics 014, 1941)

    Basics first: the Crystal is nothing particularly special. He’s a businessman or something named Mr James who has a wealthy ward named Ronnie Keller and covets the money that he is charged with administering. It’s a pretty common turn of events in comics and Mr James is part of the significant minority of greedy guardians who decide to skip the simple embezzlement and advance straight to costumed thuggery. He’s got goons and everything!

    There are two other things about the Crystal, an annoying one and a tragic one. The annoying one is that due to the way that early anthology comics were shuffled around fairly frequently, the first of the two-part Companions Three story he appears in is in Whiz Comics 015 and the second is in Master Comics 014. Thus, 80-odd years later and reading books in a collated way rather than as they arrive on the shelves of your local newsagent you never ever end up reading them concurrently. It’s maddening! For me! About once every ten years!

    The tragic one is simply that the Crystal has a pretty great costume! Just look at that dome! But ten years later the Red Hood would really just blow this costume out of the water. It’s not even close! The Crystal’s good costume was doomed to obscurity in that moment.

  • 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)