I feel like we could avoid some of this unpleasantness if we made the Mad Arts a required part of the curriculum again. Unnamed Sorcerer: The Golden Knight and Alice are up to some good old-fashioned adventure, as they travel into the land of Kongola to seek out the cause of mysterious disappearances of people in adjoining Kooran. Just where are Kongola and Kooran? I’m going to say somewhere in what is now the United Kingdom since that that is…
Once again I must regretfully inform you that some comic books are problematic. Like, racially. the Laughing Hyenas: Hey, it’s our first racial hate group, and I think I’m just going to preemptively file these under “problematic” because they’re a) not fun to talk about and b) necessitate talking about hate-crimes even if I, for example, choose not to use the panels with lynchings in them. The Laughing Hyenas are actually kind of a hate group by proxy, as they…
Super-heroes, coincidentally arranged in ascending order of notability! Kalkor: A faithful priest of Isis c.1000 BC, Kalkor is restored to life at the same time as Nagana, the Queen of Evil, as a foil to her power. He is empowered with the same immortality and comic book magic as Nagana so that he may combat her effectively (and perhaps as a way for Isis to make up for crushing him to death as a byproduct of collapsing a temple on…
(Fantastic Comics 022, 1941) Nagana, high priest of Isis in Thebes, achieves great power and the secret of immortality through her position and is seemingly consumed with megalomania. Importantly, these magical secrets do not appear to be tied to her faith in Isis so much as accessed as a result of it, as she retains them even after she rejects Isis and declares herself to be her enemy. She sets out to use this power to become the ruler of…
How can we have nice things if they keep getting so dinged up? the Black Terror: It might look like the Black Terror (‘s secret identity) is knocked out by falling down a flight of stairs onto his head, but according to him it was actually a bullet creasing the old skull that did the trick. (Exciting Comics 010, 1941) This is a tough one: the Black Terror is shot and nearly killed, and he kind of seems to be…
(Fantastic Comics 021, 1941) The Scorpion is an Irish super-criminal who, in a classic villain move, inspires the creation of his own nemesis when he slays a man on the moors near Cork one dark night (and whether there are any moors in that area is surprisingly tedious to find out, so just colour me generically skeptical) as part of a scheme to acquire a gold deposit. The future nemesis in question is the man’s stepson, Jim O’Donnell, whose subsequent…
Surely fascists will stop being such a problem eventually, right? the German Help Club: Probably the most straightforwardly cynical version of the German American Bund that we’ve seen so far, the German Help Club is simply a mass extortion scheme in which the German-American residents of NYC are forced to give up 15% of their earnings or see their relatives back in Germany be persecuted and jailed. Pat Patriot breaks them up with extreme prejudice. (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941) Gorilla-Suited…
No matter how many comic book aliens we catalogue, there are always more to see! Fish-Men: While fish men are nothing new, these particular ones have a couple of points of distinction: firstly they just look kind of nice, a bit more gracile and svelte than your usual humanoid fish. Secondly, they are in fact Moon Fish-Men, as they serve demi-god(?) and would-be King of the Moon Bakalma. This also makes them Moon Fish-Men from the 12th Century, as Bakalma is an…
Comics Crossovers: In one of Golden Age comics’ rare but casual crossovers, Judy Jackson, rival of reporter-hero Scoop Mason, is attending the same Governor’s ball in the Bahamas as Newsreel cameraman Speed Martin. (The Funnies 051, 1941) Then in the very next issue, Scoop Mason himself shows up to take in a football game! (The Funnies 052, 1941) ADDENDUM: I just realized that the team that they’re watching is Elmhurst College featuring star player Wally Williams, from his own feature…
(Fantastic Comics 018, 1941) The Black Rider is a ruthless bandit chief who has not only terrorized the countryside but has had the audacity to kidnap Bill Carrol, Captain Kidd’s best friend, an unforgivable sin. While the Black Rider & Co. might look like they are straight out of a comic set in the American West, Captain Kidd’s 1941 adventures have taken place exclusively in Africa, and given the mention of a city called Tanga above, I think that we…