Criminals! Unnamed Gambler: Not much is revealed about this fellow, but what we do know for sure is that he has access to a super strength drink and that he has been using it to clean up on gambling by slipping it to boxers and race horses with long odds. He also relies on the potion to help him escape from the cops, which backfires on him because Presto Martin, having taken the place of one of the boxers, is…
(Silver Streak Comics 012, 1941) The Lady Killer makes his debut at the glamorous Crane Club, in which he attacks and nearly kills rising stage star Betty Crawford and takes a moment to grandstand a bit before making his escape. The name is a somewhat presumptuous one here, given the fact that he has yet to kill a lady. He makes up for this over the next few days as he murders a whopping fourteen women and injures a similar…
I wonder if we’ll ever synthesize a unified theory of comic book religion out of this stuff. Isis: While attempting to thwart the magical con man Ahman-Ka-Lukor, Doctor Miracle calls upon the power of the Egyptian goddess Isis, who aids him by summoning the shade of the man whose reincarnated soul is now Ka-Lukor’s, and all so that Doctor Miracle can compare the two and make sure that he has the right man – it’s the most elaborate alternative to…
(Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941) For the third issue in a row, a souped up super-plane takes to the skies of probably-California to menace law-abiding aviators. The Ripper, like the Heater before it, is a vehicle with a singular name being run by a group, which is a mildly interesting taxonomic trend that unfortunately does not continue to occur. Where the Wingers and the Heater were armed with sci-fi ray cannons, the Ripper relies on a comparatively low-tech blade that…
I’ve often mentioned how comics as a medium has a grand tradition of not using the real names for people (see about half the entries in our collection of Real Folk in comics) places (see the grand list of fictional countries on every continent of our list of Locations) and things, so I hope that it won’t surprise you when I say that they make up all the media, too. And since I have a big list of all the…
I’ve often mentioned how comics as a medium has a grand tradition of not using the real names for people (see about half the entries in our collection of Real Folk in comics) places (see the grand list of fictional countries on every continent of our list of Locations) and things, so I hope that it won’t surprise you when I say that they make up all the media, too. And since I have a big list of all the…
(Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941) The Domino is dead! All those murders he did and more importantly admitted to when he was trying to extort the NYPD have caught up to him via the electric chair, and all of New York breathes easier. Not for long, however, as the various witnesses at the Domino’s trial, and particularly the members of his own gang who turned state’s evidence, begin turning up dead with a domino – that has the Domino’s fingerprints…
Look out! It’s the hordes of Hell! Storm-Demon: Summoned by the evil magic-user Trug to destroy Ibis the Invincible and Taia, the Storm-Demon proves to be no match for the god Osiris, summoned by Ibis in self defense. Really appreciate the route one, “guy made out of storm clouds,” aesthetic of this fellow. (Whiz Comics 016, 1941) She-Devil: Despite the failure of his first demonic minion, Trug employs this She-Devil to lay in wait for Ibis and Taia along the…
(Silver Streak Comics 010, 1941) Having so recently weathered the cold-based threat of the Wingers, the US aviation community is now faced with another elemental enemy in the form of the Heater, a mysterious plane that is attacking aircraft with a heat ray. Cloud Curtis, self-appointed defender of the airways, is of course keenly interested in this development. Unlike the Wingers, the Heater’s motivations are never explored. They could be spies, territorial smugglers, extortionists like their predecessors, any number of…
The Claw simply has too many appearances in 1941 and if we covered them all in one post it would be exceptionally long. Thus, we are breaking things up into three chunks. The first and longest of these chunks concerns the Claw battling his most famous opponent, the Daredevil, across five issues of Silver Streak Comics. The Claw is now firmly established as being based in Tibet and he has a brand new headquarters: a cool skull-shaped castle. He also has a…