(Crack Comics 019, 1941)
Black Condor skips out on receiving a Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing FDR from being kidnapped by Nazis but his secret identity Senator Tom Wright ends up getting one for discovering that FDR had been kidnapped in the first place.
(Crack Comics 006, 1940)
The best thing about the Master is absolutely his henchmen, the Kite Men. Identical shirtless bald guys who shoot lightning from their bracelets as they soar above unnamed, probably American cities, the Kite Men are some terrific weirdo henchmen. They all get blasted by the Black Condor by the end of the story, but until then they have a good run.
The Master himself is your typical world conqueror, whose motivation seems to be that he’s sick of being laughed at because he’s a dwarf. And as if to illustrate, when Black Condor discovers the leader of this plot who has already killed tens or hundreds of thousands of people, he too laughs. HE’S PART OF THE PROBLEM.
(Crack Comics 001-031, 1940-1943)
There are a lot of elements to the Black Condor’s origin so I shall be presenting them in a bulleted list:
-His father, archaeologist Richard Grey, brought his wife and newborn baby along on an expedition to Mongolia. This did not pay off, as their caravan was massacred by bandits and the only survivor was the baby, Richard Jr, who was carried off by a mother condor.
-Experiencing cross-species maternal instincts, the condor chose to raise the child instead of eating it. Grey eventually not only learned to communicate with condors but through imitation managed to teach himself to fly (later on this explanation of his power was considered far too ridiculous. Instead, he was exposed to a radioactive meteorite while living with the condors, which makes a lot more sense).
-Teen Richard then has a run-in with some eagles that leaves him seriously injured. He is found by kindly hermit/ missionary Father Pierre, who nurses him back to health and teaches him English. And names him Black Condor – because of his black hair, oddly enough. All is well until bandits kill Father Pierre while Black Condor is out and about. This puts him at 3/4 parental figures lost to crime, giving him the motivation of 1.5 Batmans.
-Black Condor becomes a foe of crime across Eurasia, with enough success that it’s reported on globally. The narrative culmination of this effort comics in Hindustan, where he confronts and kills Gali Kan, the bandit chief who had killed Father Pierre (later retellings of the origin make him explicitly the one who killed Condor’s parents too, because that’s very narratively satisfying)
For the first year of Black Condor adventures he bummed around the world defeating various tyrants using his black-ray gun (never explained) but then! He encounters young US Senator Tom Wright! Who is his double! And who is then killed! And Black Condor, a man who was raised by birds and has known how to speak for maybe five years max, assumes the man’s identity, position in the US government and fiancé. With the fiancé’s father’s blessing.
Anyhow, real good comics. It’s a shame that a character with such a lot of wild stuff going on doesn’t really show up any more. He has successors but other than being able to fly they’re pretty separate character concepts, to be covered in about 50 subjective years, I guess.
(Crack Comics 001-031, 1940-1943)
There are a lot of elements to the Black Condor’s origin so I shall be presenting them in a bulleted list:
-His father, archaeologist Richard Grey, brought his wife and newborn baby along on an expedition to Mongolia. This did not pay off, as their caravan was massacred by bandits and the only survivor was the baby, Richard Jr, who was carried off by a mother condor.
-Experiencing cross-species maternal instincts, the condor chose to raise the child instead of eating it. Grey eventually not only learned to communicate with condors but through imitation managed to teach himself to fly (later on this explanation of his power was considered far too ridiculous. Instead, he was exposed to a radioactive meteorite while living with the condors, which makes a lot more sense).
-Teen Richard then has a run-in with some eagles that leaves him seriously injured. He is found by kindly hermit/ missionary Father Pierre, who nurses him back to health and teaches him English. And names him Black Condor – because of his black hair, oddly enough. All is well until bandits kill Father Pierre while Black Condor is out and about. This puts him at 3/4 parental figures lost to crime, giving him the motivation of 1.5 Batmans.
-Black Condor becomes a foe of crime across Eurasia, with enough success that it’s reported on globally. The narrative culmination of this effort comics in Hindustan, where he confronts and kills Gali Kan, the bandit chief who had killed Father Pierre (later retellings of the origin make him explicitly the one who killed Condor’s parents too, because that’s very narratively satisfying)
For the first year of Black Condor adventures he bummed around the world defeating various tyrants using his black-ray gun (never explained) but then! He encounters young US Senator Tom Wright! Who is his double! And who is then killed! And Black Condor, a man who was raised by birds and has known how to speak for maybe five years max, assumes the man’s identity, position in the US government and fiancé. With the fiancé’s father’s blessing.
Anyhow, real good comics. It’s a shame that a character with such a lot of wild stuff going on doesn’t really show up any more. He has successors but other than being able to fly they’re pretty separate character concepts, to be covered in about 50 subjective years, I guess.
(Crack Comics 005, 1940)
What makes them a super-villain? As his name suggests, the Sapphire king is motivated by his desire for and love of sapphires – he seems to love them for themselves and also for the wealth and by extension power they grant him. And he gets sapphires by using giant eagles to kidnap ships’ crews and take them to his island in the Indian Ocean, there to labour in his underwater sapphire mines (?) until giant octopus or some other death claims them. So: ruthless pursuit of an obsession using extreme methods over practical ones (kidnapping an endless stream of sailors vs draining the sapphire pool): that’s a super-villain.
But even an eagle-rich island sapphire colony is not immune to interference from meddling super-heroes: the Black Condor shows up and slays both the birds and the Sapphire King himself, sending the former mine slaves on their way with some compensatory gemstones.