The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Flame

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 024

    You just can’t keep ’em out of comics, those real people.

    Adolf Hitler:

    Dispatches super-spy Miss X to America. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

    Raymond Stokes, the actor playing Hitler in a British propaganda film about London (the super-hero, not the city) inexplicably also turns out to be a Nazi agent who attempts to murder the Prime Minister when he makes a cameo appearance in the movie. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

    Al Capone:  

    No-first-name Perrone here is another classic example of a crook lent a bit of legitimacy via a Capone-alike name. (Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

    Charles Biro:

    Carnival stunt-eater Ydlab Orib is a transparent Biro name-drop, though the “Baldy” part of his backward name doesn’t really jibe with the pictorial record of the man himself. Whether he was a prodigious eater or not is unrecorded as far as I can find. I would venture that we are witness to a series of in-jokes here. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

    Comics Folk:

    Give a Golden Age comic creator like Edd Ashe a chance to write a list and you’ll get a bunch of references to other Golden Age comics guys. For example, this collection of football stats features a (Harry “A”) Chesler College, a (Gil) Fox University and a (Mort) Meskin Mining & Mech. And a double-barrelled reference to Bob Wood, with Wood Military College and also Woodro College, referencing a Bob Wood/Charles Biro combination pen name. (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

    The list of schools also includes one called Lamont and I was ready to discount it, but then remembered that there was a reference to a Lamont in the previous issue, as a circus freak called the “Man of Wood,” which made me think that this might be a third Bob Wood reference and wouldn’t you know it some places list his middle name as Lamont or Lemont. What’s with all the Bob Wood references, Edd Ashe? 

    Franklin Roosevelt: 

    Once again, President Roosevelt is placed in the unenviable position of being in charge of a country plagued by the Claw’s particular brand of bullshit. He’s also placed in shadow and a 3/4 reverse view, because comic artists didn’t like to draw his face, presumably out of respect. (Daredevil Comics 002, 1941)

    Fritz Julius Kuhn: 

    I’ll be honest: I had no idea who Fritz Kuhn was and certainly didn’t twig to “Herr Kahn” here being a version of him until I took a look to see if “Nordic infested […] Yorkville” was a real place and spotted his name associated with our favourite band of overhyped losers the German-American Bund on its Wikipedia page. Like the Bund itself, the spectre of Kuhn seems to have haunted comics long after he himself was relevant – he had already been slung in jail for tax evasion by the time this comic was published. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

    I was curious, so I looked back at the various Bunds we have thusfar encountered to see if any of them had their own version of Kuhn, and the only real candidates to jump out at me were Fritz Kessel, leader of the Termania Bund (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940) and Fritz Hewn – presumably rhymes with Kuhn – leader of the Young Bundists (Blue Ribbon Comics 014, 1941)

    George Roussos: 

    Given the uncommon nature of the surname “Roussos” I have to assume that the crooked newspaper editor in this 13 story is yet another example of Lev Gleason reference-your-coworkers style yuck-em-ups. (Daredevil Comics 003, 1941)

    Three issues later sees a murder be committed above the Roussos Pool Room. (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

    And in the same issue, an index of insane asylum inmates yields a Roussos, a (Jerry) Robinson and a (Bob) Wood. And possibly others, but I can’t place them.

    Heinrich Himmler:

    One of several Nazi officials vexed by the hero London and his “L” campaign (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

    Rudolph Hess:

    Rudolph Hess (or Hesst) and his flight to England are framed as a straightforward espionage mission, with Hesst landing along with fifty picked men via black parachutes. He is immediately captured by London. (Daredevil Comics 003, 1941)

    Winston Churchill: 

    Initially, I was all set to point out that this “London” adventure featured a completely made-up niece of Winston Churchill making a daring escape from Nazi-occupied Holland, but imagine my surprise when her uncle showed up and was a store-brand imitation Churchill with a mustache. I was particularly caught off guard by this as while US-based comics had a weird reluctance to portray or name FDR they usually had no such qualms about doing so with the PM. (Daredevil Comics 002, 1941)

    The False-Churchill returns in the “London” feature in Daredevil Comics 004, and this time his inexplicable presence is highlighted by the unaltered name of Lloyd’s of London in the upper left.

    Finally, the Churchill-alike in Daredevil Comics 005 looks different enough from both the real deal and Mustache Churchill that we must assume that there has been some sort of regime change between issues. 

  • FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 011

    The fools! The fascist fools.

    the Steel Guard: 

    The Steel Guard are a home-grown fascist group in the Balkan country of Murania, who plot to sell out their country and its oil wells to the Nazis. They fail to recognize the threat inherent in leaving a camera in the hands of crack magazine photographer Fran Frazer and she ruins their entire setup with a few evidence-heavy snaps. (Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940)

    the Redshirts: 

    The Redshirts are a homegrown US fascist group whose ideology is unexplored in their sole appearance, as some of their members have already been captured as the story begins and thus their focus is on freeing them via a quick gubernatorial kidnapping. The Dart, as can be seen above, does not take this lying down. (Weird Comics 006, 1940)

    the Termania Bund:

    Yet another German-American Bund stand-in, the Termania Bund has the temerity to appropriate the flag of Switzerland (or possibly the Red Cross) as their symbol before being destroyed by the Flame. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    the Gnatzis: 

    It’s not quite the same as our usual collection of subversives and bundists, but I simply had to highlight one of the most dismissive stand-ins for the Nazi Party I have ever encountered. Gnatzis, heh. Plus a lot of them get beaten up by Captain Marvel, which you always like to see. (Whiz Comics 012, 1941)

  • FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 011

    The fools! The fascist fools.

    the Steel Guard: 

    The Steel Guard are a home-grown fascist group in the Balkan country of Murania, who plot to sell out their country and its oil wells to the Nazis. They fail to recognize the threat inherent in leaving a camera in the hands of crack magazine photographer Fran Frazer and she ruins their entire setup with a few evidence-heavy snaps. (Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940)

    the Redshirts: 

    The Redshirts are a homegrown US fascist group whose ideology is unexplored in their sole appearance, as some of their members have already been captured as the story begins and thus their focus is on freeing them via a quick gubernatorial kidnapping. The Dart, as can be seen above, does not take this lying down. (Weird Comics 006, 1940)

    the Termania Bund:

    Yet another German-American Bund stand-in, the Termania Bund has the temerity to appropriate the flag of Switzerland (or possibly the Red Cross) as their symbol before being destroyed by the Flame. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    the Gnatzis: 

    It’s not quite the same as our usual collection of subversives and bundists, but I simply had to highlight one of the most dismissive stand-ins for the Nazi Party I have ever encountered. Gnatzis, heh. Plus a lot of them get beaten up by Captain Marvel, which you always like to see. (Whiz Comics 012, 1941)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 019

    For various definitions of the word real. 

    Adolf Hitler: 

    Just why this nonsense-language-speaking pilot henchman of the Mask is named Reltih is a mystery, but it’s also a fact. BONUS VERY ANNOYING THING: I can decipher the nonsense in that second panel as “I’ll murder the bum” but this makes me think that I should be able to do the same with the rest of his half-dozen or so lines of dialogue but I can’t. Utterly vexing!

    The Mask also employs an English-speaker with the very annoying name of Inilossom in the same issue. (Whiz Comics 010, 1940)

    Here’s straightforward Hitler analog King Rodend of Kalnar about to be beaten up by the Flame. (Wonderworld Comics 011, 1940)

    Wretched humour comic “Don Quixote in Modern Times” features villain “Adolphus Stalini”. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940)  

    Devil’s Island: 

    Newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day covers a prisoner’s revolt on the penal colony in what might just be the least sympathetic portrayal of Devil’s Island in comics. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    J. Edgar Hoover:

    Minor appearances: 

    Whiz Comics 003a, 1940 

    Whiz Comics 005, 1940 

    John Galt: 

    File this one under “amazing coincidences”. A character named John Galt, a full seventeen years before Atlas Shrugged is published. And to top it off:

    Dr John Galt’s radium has been stolen by Dr James Kirk (aka Doctor Death), a full twenty-six years before Star Trek debuts. Would it be a bit more narratively satisfying if John Galt was the selfish shitheel and James Kirk was the selfless hospital administrator? Sure, but that’s just details. (Whiz Comics 002, 1940)

    the Koh-i-Noor Diamond:

    Reporter Scoop Smith is sent on assignment to find the fabled South African Rooirand Emerald, which his editor sees as a direct parallel to the Koh-i-noor. Just how this is the case is what baffles me – I initially thought that it might have been stolen and editor Lane was thinking of the Agatha Christie novel in which that happened, but the more I look at it the more I think that it’s just a big gem that some white guys are trying to steal. 

    (this story also has one of the more stupid desus ex machina endings in all comics, when the sacred snake handler of the isolationist tribe that worship the emerald turns out to be Sam Jones, African American train porter and eternally loyal to Smith because of a five dollar tip) (Whiz Comics 004, 1940) 

    Lázaro Cárdenas del Rio: 

    You know me: I love to dunk on old comics for their portrayals of in-office world leaders, and let’s just say that if you look up a picture of Lázaro Cárdenas, president of Mexico from 1934 to November of 1940, he doesn’t have a long white beard. I didn’t bother to check if the President of Mexico has an enormous ornate throne to sit in, but I can only hope. (Whiz Comics 005, 1940)

    Mata Hari: 

    Hundanian spy Mata Dara, the latest in a long line of women in espionage to have a sound-alike name to Mata Hari. (Zip Comics 001, 1940)

    Senusret III: 

    Mentioned as being a cousin of Taia’s in Whiz Comics 002, “King Senwosri” aka Pharaoh Senusret III then makes an appearance in person as he rises from the dead to punish an American explorer for violating the sanctity of his tomb. He returns to his eternal slumber after an intervention by cousin Taia and cousin-in-law Ibis the Invincible. (Whiz Comics 003b, 1940)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940) 

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 868: THE HOOD

    (Wonderworld Comics 019, 1940)

    The Hood, a mysterious figure (who leaves a note with an unfortunately cut-off symbol that I can only assume/hope is a hood-and-crossbones) is terrorizing an unnamed city with a series of murders – eight in one week! 

    Going by the old wisdom that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, the Flame waits at the site of the latest murder and is rewarded when the Hood does just that. He is however unsuccessful in capturing the fiend due to the twin facts that a) the Hood thought to bring some guys along with him and b) an unfortunate woman happens by just in time to be taken hostage. 

    The Flame and the never-named woman are taken prisoner and spend some time escaping while the Hood lines up his next victim, a store owner who lives near the Sea Clock mentioned in his taunting note. This is when we finally get some inkling of the Hood’s motivations: far from being an ordinary homicidal maniac, he is instead forcing his victims to sign over their property to him before murdering them.

    (I would just like to take a second here to roast the Unnamed City authorities for the sheer amount of consternation they evince at the notion of a “sea clock” when they live in a town that has such a large clock tower located on its waterfront)

    The Hood is finally unmasked and turns out to be the Unnamed City Mayor’s personal secretary, Jenkins, who the Flame had held in deep suspicion for the entire issue for using the word “extraordinary” to describe the killer. This sort of thing is always highlighted when it pays off, but how many times does a crime go unsolved because of such unwarranted suspicion of a person with a weird vocabulary or a tendency for malapropisms, hmm?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 868: THE HOOD

    (Wonderworld Comics 019, 1940)

    The Hood, a mysterious figure (who leaves a note with an unfortunately cut-off symbol that I can only assume/hope is a hood-and-crossbones) is terrorizing an unnamed city with a series of murders – eight in one week! 

    Going by the old wisdom that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, the Flame waits at the site of the latest murder and is rewarded when the Hood does just that. He is however unsuccessful in capturing the fiend due to the twin facts that a) the Hood thought to bring some guys along with him and b) an unfortunate woman happens by just in time to be taken hostage. 

    The Flame and the never-named woman are taken prisoner and spend some time escaping while the Hood lines up his next victim, a store owner who lives near the Sea Clock mentioned in his taunting note. This is when we finally get some inkling of the Hood’s motivations: far from being an ordinary homicidal maniac, he is instead forcing his victims to sign over their property to him before murdering them.

    (I would just like to take a second here to roast the Unnamed City authorities for the sheer amount of consternation they evince at the notion of a “sea clock” when they live in a town that has such a large clock tower located on its waterfront)

    The Hood is finally unmasked and turns out to be the Unnamed City Mayor’s personal secretary, Jenkins, who the Flame had held in deep suspicion for the entire issue for using the word “extraordinary” to describe the killer. This sort of thing is always highlighted when it pays off, but how many times does a crime go unsolved because of such unwarranted suspicion of a person with a weird vocabulary or a tendency for malapropisms, hmm?

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 064

    MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 064

    Oh my gosh! It’s more minor super-heroes! 

    the Phantom Rider: 

    The Phantom Rider is Tex Maxon, who was already a wandering cowboy who meted out justice for a while before getting into the masked vigilante game. Where a lot of masked cowboy vigilantes are doing a classic secret identity or concealing their identity for more specific reasons like being wanted for a crime they didn’t commit, the Phantom Rider thing honestly just seems like a fashion choice on Maxon’s part, like he found a big black cloak one day and decided to roll with it.

    The above speculation is undermined somewhat by the fact that the Phantom Rider outfit changes to this yellow cowboy shirt/jeans/mask combo pretty quickly, but maybe Maxon just found the cloak too cumbersome (or the artist found it too annoying to draw).

    Far more annoying is the fact that this strip that was clearly set in the Old West from long before the Phantom Rider identity was established switches to a Modern West setting in Wonderworld 015. Have some consistency, people. (Wonderworld Comics 011, 1940)

    **UPDATE** the Flame:

    Once again we have the origin of the Flame, and as I suspected the previous version of this that we had encountered was cut down from this one. Notably, this is the first time that the Flame is given any sort of name, Charteris, and the lack of a first name is even kind of textually supported: he is washed away in the flood immediately after being born – his parents might not have had time to name him yet. He is made Grand High Lama as a baby in this one too, which is still weird to me. (Wonderworld Comics 011, 1940)

    **UPDATE** Yarko the Great:

    In a bit of Silver Age “give everything a significant origin” style storytelling, the jewel on the front of Yarko the Great’s turban is revealed to be the Ada-La-Hoda, one of the Twin Jewels of Blood required for this one Chosen One to become ruler of all India, in a mystical sword-in-the-stone way. Unfortunately for him, his choice to wantonly murder anyone who might get in the way of his acquiring the gem leads Yarko to determine that he is unfit for the role and keep the dang thing in hopes that the next Seventh Son of the Seventh Son of the Order of Aribah might be more reasonable. (Wonderworld Comics 011, 1940)

    the Secret Band of the Purple Hood: 

    The Secret Band of the Purple Hood are a vigilante organization that operate in the city of Shanghai and who induct super-detective Dr Fung into their ranks mid-case as both he and they are attempting to battle the worshippers of Khwass, Great God of Vengeance. Sadly, as this adventure ends in a cliffhanger that is as far as I can tell never resolved, we don’t get to see the Secret Band do much more than beat up a couple of priests, but I’m just so chuffed to find a vanishingly-rare example of non-title-character masked vigilantism that I simply had to include them. (Wonderworld Comics 016, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 029

    You’ll never believe how close these guys get to being name-brand super-villains! 

    The Great-Great-Grandson of Lafitte is a flamboyant character who runs a protection racket on coconut plantations on the US Virgin Islands. Is he really a descendant of the great pirate captain? Who can say, but what is certain is that he puts on a good show before getting his block absolutely knocked off by US Navy goofs Spark Stevens and Chuck Lawson. (Wonderworld Comics 009, 1940)

    Some classic fake haunting shenanigans by a group of spies assigned to disrupt the work of US government scientist Dr Sloan. Punched and apprehended by K-51. (Wonderworld Comics 013, 1940)

    The Killer is head of a gang of extortionists and kidnappers who target rich men around an indeterminate US metropolis. True to his name, the Killer murders his targets whether they pay up or not, which I personally think might be a poor long-term strategy. We shall never know, because in the short term the Flame gets involved and roasts the entire gang before delivering the Killer to the authorities. (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

    Professor Z has so many villainous accessories – an eye patch, a castle, a tiger, terrible hair, henchmen dressed in colour-coded, vaguely sci-fi uniforms – that it may surprise you to learn that his entire operation is set up so that he can commit insurance fraud. Perhaps the out-of scale trappings are what attracts the attention of the Phantom Rider.

    This adventure is personally annoying to me because while the Phantom Rider was previously absolutely set in the Old West, at the end of this one he calls for the authorities and two regular cops rock up. It’s yet another time that the line between the past and present in a Western comic is so blurry that you could ride a horse through it and I will never stop grumbling about this when it happens. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)