The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Elena

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 019

    MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 019

    Science for all! Whether they want it or not! 

    Doctor Ivan has been pursuing a scheme in which he is systematically taking out insurance policies on everyone he knows and then having them murdered, and he is extremely smug about it. Now, I’m no expert in insurance fraud, but I have to say that I am certain that it requires a bit more subtlety than that, even if you’re doing it as a one-off. Forget the fact that the Flame shows up after the third murder; I would expect some raised eyebrows down at the insurance company after the second. (The Flame 003, 1940)

    Dr Gung is an old associate of magical arch-criminal Elena, and is the one who saves her from execution after the Karoly Gore affair by means of some death-simulating drugs. 

    Gung’s main line of inquiry is the use of his signature ray to destroy men’s minds and turn them into mindless robot soldiers, something that works perfectly well on regular guys sourced from the nearby populace but when tried on Mr Mystic goes badly enough that Dr Gung ends up shrunk to a few inches tall and then blown to smithereens along with his entire mansion. (The Spirit Section, 23 June 1940)

    Ghantse is one of those mad scientists who talk a lot about their grand plans but don’t actually get a chance to put them in motion, so it’s a real mystery whether he actually would have been able to fuse several human brains together into a single entity who would “know all” like he claimed or not, but he sure was willing to try. Along the way, he made two major mistakes: 1) targeting Mr Mystic for brain extraction and 2) somehow ending up with the Shadowman, the literal embodiment of death, on his payroll, the latter being compounded by the fact that the Shadowman hates Ghantse’s guts, and so not only releases Mr Mystic from his chemically-induced paralysis before Ghantse can extract his brain but also blows Ghantse’s entire base to kingdom come. (The Spirit Section, 22 September, 1940)

    Doctor Zorn, an eccentric roboticist living on Puerto Rico, is possibly the world record holder for escalation, as he manages to go from an argument about a late loan payment to unleashing his voice-controlled super robot (aka the Monster) to activating his lab’s self-destruct mechanism in the space of about half an hour. 

    Given that this is what he started shouting immediately after showing off his robot to a young woman, I do suspect that Doctor Zorn was primed for this kind of thing and was just looking for an excuse, like a man who has just bought a katana standing in his kitchen. (Thrilling Comics 005, 1940)

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 005

    Once again we add to the scriptures. 

    the Shadowman: 

     

    Like his predecessor/inspiration Yarko the Great, Mr Mystic also has a semi-friendly/ semi-adversarial relationship with the personification of death. In this case, Death is a guy in a cool suit with a half-cape, and he is called the Shadowman, presumably because of his perpetually-in shadow face.

    The Shadowman’s first couple of appearances cast him as a mysterious stranger who helps Mr Mystic in his battle against various evils (including scientist Ghantse, who the Shadowman seems to work for in his initial appearance). At this point the Shadowman is merely a mysterious man who has a miraculous ability to survive the most deadly of situations.

    In the 17 November 1940 Spirit Section, Mr Mystic ventures into the Land of Mythology on a quest for the Ring of the Gods, which turns out to be held by Death. This version of Death is a traditional Grim Reaper style skeleton in a robe, and he swears vengeance on Mr Mystic for the theft of the ring. 

    The Grim Reaper version of Death is never explicitly tied to the Shadowman, and it’s possible that they were intended to be different in some fundamental way – different aspects of death, perhaps. The Whole Ring of the Gods incident is not brought up by the Shadowman the next time he meets Mr Mystic (1 December 1940), so Mystic might be off the hook for that. It’s a bit of a moot point, however, as this installment of “Mr Mystic” is all about him saving the life of a little girl named Joan Barton, and it allows us to get more of a grip on the Shadowman’s code: he objects to bot murder and life-saving interventions as equally disruptive to the natural order. Mr Mystic now has two threats from Death hanging over him. 

    (this episode also establishes the deal with the Shadowman’s shadowy face: if you look at it sans shadow, you die) 

    The second-to-final Mr Mystic comic of the year (22 December 1940) features the Shadowman’s revenge on Mystic: he is going to seduce/kill his fiance Elena.

    While the Shadowman seems to have access to some sort of primordial seductive power relating to the inevitable entropic march toward the grave, he is not above employing cheap romantic comedy plot devices to drive a wedge between the lovers.

    Death is the inevitable winner of the contest, of course, and Elena goes off with him to… the afterlife? His home? Are they married now or is she just dead? We shall never know, alas, though we will see the Shadowman again.

    God Style: real anthropomorphic personification (The Spirit Section, 22 September, 1940)

    Jwang Tyoy:

    We don’t get a lot of the teachings of Jwang Tyoy beyond the fact that he is the god of a South American “anti-civilization” cult. The focus of the comic is much more focused on the very off-model pterodactyls that the cult leader uses to do he bidding, and for good reason!

    God Style: idol (Shadow Comics v1 004, 1940) 

    Kutu: 

    Kutu, aka Tuku, is possibly a moon god, definitely South American, and has the traditional jewel socketed into his idol for adventurers to steal and get into Big Trouble. 

    God Style: idol (Comics Magazine 002, 1936)  

    Nahapatan: 

    Nahapatan, the Golden Idol, is housed in a hidden Aztec city, where it is the subject of active worship. Does this stop Professor Roberts, his nephew Tim and adventurer Ken Masters from barging in and stealing it to put in Robert’s museum? It does not.

    God Style: idol (Masked Marvel 001, 1940)

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 005

    Once again we add to the scriptures. 

    the Shadowman: 

     

    Like his predecessor/inspiration Yarko the Great, Mr Mystic also has a semi-friendly/ semi-adversarial relationship with the personification of death. In this case, Death is a guy in a cool suit with a half-cape, and he is called the Shadowman, presumably because of his perpetually-in shadow face.

    The Shadowman’s first couple of appearances cast him as a mysterious stranger who helps Mr Mystic in his battle against various evils (including scientist Ghantse, who the Shadowman seems to work for in his initial appearance). At this point the Shadowman is merely a mysterious man who has a miraculous ability to survive the most deadly of situations.

    In the 17 November 1940 Spirit Section, Mr Mystic ventures into the Land of Mythology on a quest for the Ring of the Gods, which turns out to be held by Death. This version of Death is a traditional Grim Reaper style skeleton in a robe, and he swears vengeance on Mr Mystic for the theft of the ring. 

    The Grim Reaper version of Death is never explicitly tied to the Shadowman, and it’s possible that they were intended to be different in some fundamental way – different aspects of death, perhaps. The Whole Ring of the Gods incident is not brought up by the Shadowman the next time he meets Mr Mystic (1 December 1940), so Mystic might be off the hook for that. It’s a bit of a moot point, however, as this installment of “Mr Mystic” is all about him saving the life of a little girl named Joan Barton, and it allows us to get more of a grip on the Shadowman’s code: he objects to bot murder and life-saving interventions as equally disruptive to the natural order. Mr Mystic now has two threats from Death hanging over him. 

    (this episode also establishes the deal with the Shadowman’s shadowy face: if you look at it sans shadow, you die) 

    The second-to-final Mr Mystic comic of the year (22 December 1940) features the Shadowman’s revenge on Mystic: he is going to seduce/kill his fiance Elena.

    While the Shadowman seems to have access to some sort of primordial seductive power relating to the inevitable entropic march toward the grave, he is not above employing cheap romantic comedy plot devices to drive a wedge between the lovers.

    Death is the inevitable winner of the contest, of course, and Elena goes off with him to… the afterlife? His home? Are they married now or is she just dead? We shall never know, alas, though we will see the Shadowman again.

    God Style: real anthropomorphic personification (The Spirit Section, 22 September, 1940)

    Jwang Tyoy:

    We don’t get a lot of the teachings of Jwang Tyoy beyond the fact that he is the god of a South American “anti-civilization” cult. The focus of the comic is much more focused on the very off-model pterodactyls that the cult leader uses to do he bidding, and for good reason!

    God Style: idol (Shadow Comics v1 004, 1940) 

    Kutu: 

    Kutu, aka Tuku, is possibly a moon god, definitely South American, and has the traditional jewel socketed into his idol for adventurers to steal and get into Big Trouble. 

    God Style: idol (Comics Magazine 002, 1936)  

    Nahapatan: 

    Nahapatan, the Golden Idol, is housed in a hidden Aztec city, where it is the subject of active worship. Does this stop Professor Roberts, his nephew Tim and adventurer Ken Masters from barging in and stealing it to put in Robert’s museum? It does not.

    God Style: idol (Masked Marvel 001, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 817: ELENA

    (The Spirit Section, 9 June, 1940)

    Elena is Mr Mystic’s recurring female foe, the Tigress to his Zatara. Unlike the Tigress, however, Elena isn’t in it for the money but rather as an agent of chaos out to maximize the amount of war and bloodshed in the world, as in her first appearance, in which she is acting as the power behind the throne of fascist dictator Karoly Gore.

    The final confrontation between Elena and Mr Mystic is also the introduction of the concept that two magic users are unable to affect one another via magic, which is foundational to the Mr Mystic mythos and also a pretty good way to make your wizard duels more likely to be fist fights if that’s what you like to draw. Don’t worry about Elena in that last panel – it’s a deceptively short cliff, and Mr Mystic collars her soon after this jump.

    Though she is set to be executed for her role in Karoly Gore’s administration, Elena escapes by means of some death-feigning pills provided by her old friend Dr Gung, and hopefully it’s the kind of fake death that put you in a coma of some sort because she has to be shipped from Central Europe to Hong Kong before Gung can wake her up and that would be a heckuva long time to stare at the inside of a coffin lid. Though Mr Mystic shows up soon after Elena to harsh the vibe, he focuses a bit more on Dr Gung’s unholy experiments than making sure that she doesn’t get away. Dr Gung WILL RETURN in the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up.

    Elena returns a few weeks later to interfere in the politics of the… Asian? country of Cadiwa, which is styled as India-ajacent, yes, but whose premier meets up with Elena in Nigeria and so, given the lack of any other geographic hints, I keep wanting to say is in Africa. This appearance marks the beginning of a potential romance between Elena and Mr Mystic, expressed by both when Elena is wounded while trying to escape.

    Budding romance or not, the next time that Mr Mystic pops in to check up on her he finds that she has been up to her old chaotic tricks and has been influencing King Bahroud of Cadiwa to declare war on his neighbours, thus ending centuries of peace. Clearly, this cannot stand. 

    Mr Mystic and Elena bicker their way into a magical duel, and while I said earlier that magic-users not being able to affect one another with their spells led to a lot of fist fights, that was only a partial truth, because it also leads to this kind of magical battle in which each party summons proxies, such as Mr Mystic’s giant kitty cat, to fight on their behalf. 

    Elena is defeated and reveals that her magic was granted to her by a “Cardin the Terrible” on the condition that she never lose a magical duel. Which she has just done, so bye-bye magical powers. Further, losing her magic causes Elena to turn into a small child.

    Now… there is an important question about this whole situation that is never actually answered: does Elena turn into a child as a part of the “lose a duel; lose your powers” curse as a cheeky little joke by Cardin the Terrible or because she was a child given the form of an adult as part of getting those powers? This is important mainly because Mr Mystic returns her to her adult form at the end of the episode and then they basically immediately become engaged, and it’s a very different situation, depending. 

    Cardin the Terrible himself shows up in the next installment, looking to torture Elena to death for failure, but we don’t learn too much more about him than this classic Bad Boss behaviour. Just why did he send an agent out into the world to spread chaos and war? Not a clue. What is certain however is that Mr Mystic totally murderizes him, which weirdly would indicate that he was less magical than his own protege.

    Elena spends the remainder of 1940 keeping her head down as Mr Mystic’s companion/fiance, though she does spend some time in the future as a captive of the Moon King and almost getting murdered in place of the Goddess of Fire.

    Elena’s run in the Spirit Section and as Mr Mystic’s fiance comes to an end in the second-to-last episode of the year, on 22 December, 1940. Mr Mystic had butted heads with his occasional ally/personification of death/future Divine Round-Up subject the Shadowman a few times in the weeks leading up to this, and the Shadowman’s response was to take away the thing that Mr Mystic loved best, i.e., Elena. There’s some pretty heavy allegory work going on that makes it unclear if Elena has fallen in actual love with the Shadowman and gone to live with him in the afterlife, or if the whole thing is just standing in for her dying and the love that Elena is expressing is just an expression of the natural cycle of life and death. Either way, Mr Mystic is sad, but worry not: he’s standing next to his new love interest Penny Douglas in that second last panel. The man move fast!

    So here’s to Elena, a fun villain and adequate supporting cast member who I hope is somewhere in a loving relationship with Death. Eat your heart out, Thanos.

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 004

    Can you ever have enough made-up gods? 

    the Goddess of Fire: 

    Crooks Raoul and Victor Ladron hatch a scheme while hiding out on the South Pacific island of Kumoni: since the idol of the local Goddess of Fire looks identical to former super-villain Elena they will engineer her kidnapping, hypnotize her into impersonating the goddess and then kill her to prove that they are more powerful than her and thus deserve to make off with the temple gold. This plan is of course complicated by the fact that Elena is engaged to the nigh-omnipotent super-hero Mr Mystic, and the Ladrons meet a fiery end. 

    God style: idol only (The Spirit Section, 3 November, 1940)

    the Gansha:

    Adam Starr of the Space Legion is on the hunt for space pirate extraordinaire Black Michael, and no mealy-mouthed warning about a “water-god” who has “destroyed all who ventured near his cursed waters” for “untold ages” is going to stop him from searching the Martian canals.

    Starr’s manly skepticism doesn’t pay off this time, as Gansha the Water-God turns out not only to be real but to be a monstrous carnivorous fish that almost devours both him and his submersible without even needing to chew.

    Sadly for monster fans and fish fans alike, Gansha is unceremoniously blown to smithereens when Black Michael attempts to use it as a deathtrap to get rid of Starr without checking to see if he might have a ludicrously overpowered atomic sidearm on his person. Presumably the Martians are happy – the ones who like boat rides and don’t belong to any kind of Gansha-worshipping sect, at least.

    God style: animist (Crash Comics Adventures 003, 1940) 

    Golo:

    We get little in the way of detail on Golo, save that they are worshipped “from Ubangi to the Sudan” and that displaying a Golo fetish can grant safe passage in those areas. And that adventurer Ted Crane thinks it’s all poppycock, of course.

    God style: idol only (Exciting Comics 005, 1940) 

    the Ice Gods: 

    Stuart Taylor and his pals have been time travelling again, and this time they’ve ended up in the clutches of a prehistoric trip at the surprisingly rapid dawn of the last Ice Age, the environmental effects of which have been personified as the malevolent Ice 

    God style: animist (Jumbo Comics 028, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 814: SARKU

    (The Spirit Section, 25 August, 1940)

    I’ve mentioned before that the foes faced by magical Golden Age super-heroes break down into roughly three types: 1) regular crooks who are there to be clowned upon, 2) legitimate threats with equivalent magical power of their own and 3) crooks with a little magical power, who provide a Iof a challenge but are ultimately also clowned upon. Sarku is the third type, and has set out, fresh out of prison, to get revenge on those who put him there. Also, like all magic users in “Mr Mystic,” Sarku has an innate resistance to magic that makes even low-level practicioners more of a challenge to Our Hero than they would be to a Zatara or a Yarko.

    By the time Mr Mystic has been brought in on the case, Sarku has already murdered the (police?) Commissioner of the unnamed Indian city he was incarcerated in and escaped via some handy teleportation magic. Though Mystic interrupts his attempt on the life of the French Consul, Sarku escapes again, this time into the far future world of 2050 AD.

    (just what had prevented him from time travelling or indeed merely teleporting out of his prison cell over the ten years of his incarceration is not elaborated upon. Perhaps he only just got the knack)

    Sarku does a bit of premature gloating before learning that Mr Mystic can also travel through time, and the two are quickly engaged in a high-speed rocket chase to the Moon. 

    Mystic ends up shooting Sarku down as they approach the Moon’s surface, and he makes the grim choice to pop his corpse into a handy corpse container (originally intended for the evocatively-named by alas never-seen “Moon King’s mummy”) as a sort of general warning to all would-be murderers who might be wandering around on the Moon. That’s it for Sarku!

    But perhaps I spoke too soon! Sarku is back in the next “Mr Mystic” installment, and though we don’t get to see any mummies, we are treated to a Moon King, as a not-so-dead Sarku is brought before Tan Tan, King of the Moon by his subjects. It turns out that he wasn’t quite dead when Mr Mystic shoved him in that tube, which is great for him now but horrifying in retrospect.

    Tan Tan turns out to have a weird crush on the (to him) historical figure of Elena, former Mr Mystic villain and current Mr Mystic fiance (stay tuned for her entry), and trades Sarku a space fleet for her.

    Sarku’s attempt to get revenge on the entire population of Earth for a 1930-1940 AD prison sentence that almost nobody in 2050 AD would have been alive at the same time as, let alone had anything to do with, is foiled once again by Mr Mystic, who leaves nothing to chance this time as he socks Sarku out the spaceship’s hatch and into the void of space (Tan Tan, by contrast gets a mere sock in the jaw for his creepy Elena-napping. The perks of royalty, eh?).

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/2+