(Wow Comics 003, 1941) Inventor Phineas Cox has created a mummy ray, which is a device that fires a beam that instantly mummifies living tissue, a horrible thing that could only be used ethically by the mortuary and possibly the jerky industries. Cox intends for the weapon to be used in the defense of the United States, and to that end takes it not to the military but to something called the Defend America League, where he is somewhat predictably…
(Wow Comics 002, 1940) The Scorpion is mostly a regular gang boss, but with just enough extra oomph to take him over the edge into super-villainy. First thing: he is a very Bad Boss in that particular “execute under-performing employees as an example to the others” kind of way that all corporate overlords wish that HR would let them be. Secondly, he is perhaps the closest thing to a super-villain was faced by Allan Lanier, aka the Hunchback, seen here in his civilian guise…
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…
(Wow Comics 002, 1941) If a comic story opens on a description of a gem or art object like the Maharajah Jewel here the you can be sure that that item is about to be stolen by a nefarious individual. It’s just science! Sure enough, no sooner does Professor Cadiz finish his lecture on the gem and its provenance than rictus grin-sporting gang boss the Horned Hood is sending two of his top men into the Upstate Museum to grab…
(Wow Comics 002, 1941) After a particularly fraught meeting of the Orphan Society, at which the charity’s president Henry Suffridge accuses everyone present of potentially being responsible for some recent embezzlement, board member Jones is accosted by some spooky scary ghosts and skeletons while muttering to himself on his way home. They warn him in no uncertain terms to leave town – is he the embezzler, being punished for his misdeeds by the spirits of the dead? No he is…
(Spy Smasher 002, 1941) Yet another not-quite Nazi spy for Spy Smasher to smash. I really like the Eye’s little “hey” pose in the splash panel, like even he knows that he’s not quite dynamic enough to be there. Like so many of his peers, the Eye is after Spy Smasher ally Admiral Corby (at least once mentioned as being chief of the US Secret Service but usually just generically Important), and ends up kidnapping his daughter (and Spy Smasher…
(Spy Smasher 002, 1941) After the heady times of having an actual Nazi agent in the person of the Red Death last time, we are back in the realms of plausible deniability and no-name fascism in the person of the Tigress. Though the Tigress does indulge in some activities relating to her chosen theme, including somewhat gruesomely using her two trained tigers for corpse-disposal duties, her main line is in murdering US officials such as Senator Whitney here and then…
(Spy Smasher 001, 1941) We’ve entered 1941 and the crypto-fascist spies are getting closer and closer to being just plain old Nazis. Case in point: the Dark Angel, a classic femme fatale spy with just enough plausible deniability to satisfy comics’ compulsion to stay just barely technically politically neutral. The Dark Angel’s name might be straight out of the mid-90s but her plans are 1941 all the way down. As the story opens she is sending two of her men to blow…
(Zip Comics 009, 1940) Mr Nimbus is a simple kind of crook: he has developed or otherwise acquired a liquid that creates a corrosive green gas and he is going to use that to kill people and steal riches from them. No dreams of world domination, no grand designs, just good old fashioned murder and robbery. But also no especial care taken, as he leaves behind a very big clue to the location of his next crime for the Scarlet…
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…