(Jungle Comics 022, 1941) Zuko, aka the Bird King, is in a lot of ways a very classic minor super-villain. He has an obsession with birds and has both a flock of trained vultures and a set of working bird wings for personal flight that he uses in the pursuit of crime. He also has an obsession with diamonds that makes him jealously guard the ones that he has collected, and stop at nothing, including kidnapping and murder, to acquire more. The…
Mostly a case of the Usual Suspects today here in the Real Person Round-Up, I’m afraid. Adolf Hitler: The bulk of the comic this panel comes from is MIA as far as people without hundreds of dollars of Buy Golden Age Comics money are concerned, and this is the only real look we get of this slightly off-brand Hitler and Goering. I might not have bothered to include them here devoid of other context except for… … the splash page…
I’ve heard of comics in the media, but media in comics? Books: This book is only our second example of a piece of media called Crime Does Not Pay! but I am confident in predicting that that particular phrase – the regular shouting of which appears to be the major means by which people in the 1940s discouraged children from adopting a life outside the law – is going to be the one we see the most as time goes on….
(Jungle Comics 013, 1941) The Vahines, aka the Tiger-Women of Wildmoon Mountain, have a plan: kill every other woman in the world, which will then give them ultimate power over all men. Some thoughts on this setup: 1. The logistics of this plan are trash. There are maybe 15 to 20 Vahines total and estimates put world population at around 2.3 billion in 1940, so murdering half of those people will be a full-time job that will probably take the…
If there’s one thing I know it’s that the world has a seemingly-inexhaustible supply of odious little fascist worms. the All-American League: The All-American League is nothing so exciting as your Nazi spies trying to poison the reservoir or prevent and/or encourage the US entrance into WWII. Instead, they are the more banal type of fascism that is popular nowadays, in which patriotism is weaponized as a way to enrich and empower a few petty men (yes, yes that’s what…
A series of cautionary tales for budding young scientists. Orid Dass: Orid Dass is your standard jungle scientist: he’s out there making apes into men and men into apes, all for the love of the ape-man game. He also has the distinction of being the only foe faced by Fantomah the one post-Fletcher Hanks adventure in which she is still kind of a jungle demigod rather than a jungle hero who knows some magic. In that capacity, Fantomah does a…
It’s a big year for the jungle-based heroes of Fiction House, and also Radior is here. Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire **UPDATE**: 1941 is the year of change for Camilla. First off, she faces a series of threats to the Lost Empire itself, beginning when an evil magician nearly conquers and partially razes the city. (Jungle Comics 014, 1941) Next issue, the otherwise-unremarkable lech Prince Renardo finishes the job and burns the city to the ground as part of…
(Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 003, 1941) The first chunk of the story that the Emperor appears in is not available anywhere that I can find, but what remains is enough to evaluate him and determine that yes, he is a super-villain. Specifically, he is a scientist who discovered “the secret of atomic power” and decided that the best way to use it was as part of an attempt to conquer the world. Plus he has all of his…
(Bill Barnes, America’s Air Ace Comics 003, 1941) The first chunk of the story that the Emperor appears in is not available anywhere that I can find, but what remains is enough to evaluate him and determine that yes, he is a super-villain. Specifically, he is a scientist who discovered “the secret of atomic power” and decided that the best way to use it was as part of an attempt to conquer the world. Plus he has all of his…
the Looming Spectre of Death: An impressive Grim Reaper complete with bloody scythe and optional army helmet looms over an Alaskan town in this Liberty Scouts Guards tale. (Man of War Comics 001, 1941) Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects: It’s a good thing that these cops don’t quite manage to murder the Raven for aggressively running away from them like this, because they all know his alter ego Danny Dartin and it’s the one time they would actually feel bad…