(Wham Comics 002, 1940) Just after Blue Fire gets his powers and vows to use them to beat up “criminals, racketeers and foreign spies” he is served a chance to do so on a silver platter when his local newspaper carries an account of a ship at sea being sabotaged by a very cold man who just stood around in the engine room until everything broke. Making his way to the ship in question, Blue Fire uses his intangibility power…
(Wham Comics 001, 1940) In what is sadly the final appearance of Speed Centaur, he and his pal “Reel” McCoy travel to the Arctic ruins of the City of Centaurs to explore Speed’s birthplace. Almost immediately upon setting foot inside, they are ambushed and captured by wild-eyed men who escort them to their leader, a man called the King, who unusually has gone with an eccentric hair choice in every available part of his face but the mustache zone, and…
(Famous Funnies 067, 1940) The Panther is a no-nonsense Western gang boss who actually avoids a lot of the common missteps of the average super-villain by running an extremely tight ship in her munitions-smuggling gang. Is maintaining workplace discipline with a bullwhip the best idea? No, but it is better than workplace explosions. The Panther’s downfall starts when she puts a little two much trust in her lieutenants, Luis and Ramon, and they immediately go out and do some unsanctioned train…
(Weird Comics 009, 1940) The Beast is the Eagle’s first and perhaps only recurring foe, and it’s unfortunate that he makes his first appearance at the very end of the 1940 run of Weird Comics because I really want to highlight the similarities between the Beast and his fellow Luis Cazaneuve creation the Rook, but danged if I have enough material for a real compare-and contrast on them yet. For now, we’ll just hit the obvious, such as the fact that they look…
You thought that I couldn’t keep doing it but I can. MORE SUPER-HEROES the Dart: On the one hand, the Dart is just another guy with cape and a mask who fights crime alongside his kid sidekick, but on the other, he has a few interesting twists on what is already a tried-and-true formula: In the first place, the Dart was originally an Ancient Roman named Caius Martius who was magically sealed in a block of stone by his enemies, only…
(Weird Comics 008, 1940) The Sorceress of Zoom is up to her usual tricks: attempting to steal some random guy from his lady friend, getting mad that he won’t fall in love with her, attacking the city he lives in and turning their tank patrol (!) into a series of ornamental trees, and finally abducting people willy-nilly in order to turn them into furniture. Regular stuff. In the city council’s hour of need it is approached by an eccentrically dressed…
(Weird Comics 001, 1940) Dr Mortal, in contrast to his fellow Weird Comics character the Sorceress of Zoom, is your typical comic-headlining super-villain, in that he is a mad scientist with an obsession with making monsters. Like most of his ilk, Mortal is opposed by a heterosexual couple of upstanding moral character, and in his specific case they are his niece Marlene Mortal and her lover Gary Brent (as Marlene’s surname is never actually given in print, I’m just making an assumption that…
Look out! Its demons! Lucifer: Dastardly voodoo man the Voodoo Man has this version of Lucifer possess a young woman for some dang reason. He’s got a pretty good look with the sideburns and all, but is surprisingly easy to chase away with an anemically-presented crucifix. (Weird Comics 006, 1940) the Unholy One: The Unholy One is an infernal servant of some kind who has been summoned as a sort of demonic search engine by the Green Sorceress. He appears…
(Weird Comics 004, 1940) The Wizard of Zoro really takes the prize for the Most Charming Atrocity of 1940 when he swoops down on a small town and turns everyone into the kind of semi-anthropomorphic giant frogs that you get in Victorian greeting cards. Do I love that he then enslaves the frogs? No. Do I endorse the fact that he singles out an attractive young woman for special torment by turning her boyfriend into a snake? Of course not….
(Weird Comics 003, 1940) The Wizard is the first of five villains to challenge the Sorceress of Zoom for the role of top villain in her own dang feature. He is unique among that group for being the only villain in the story he appears in, as while the rest of his peers come at the Sorceress while she is engaged in some nefarious activity, the Wizard shows up while she is peacefully hanging out with her friend Allan. Once…