(Smash Comics 004, 1939) We will be seeing more of Madame Doom, as she is Black X’s only real recurring foe (I think), but as far as 1939 goes she made one appearance and this is it. Madame Doom, a freelance spy, is working for “the dictators” in an attempt to steal US defense plans and prevent the signing of a pretty vague treaty that acts as a deus ex machina reason for war not to have broken out yet…
(Smash Comics 003, 1939) It’s a good name but I’m afraid that the Hooded Terror is just a stock crypto-fascist European saboteur attempting to destroy the Panama Canal and trap the US fleet in the Pacific in order to set up an invasion of the East Coast. It’s no great loss to fiction when he gets cold-cocked by G-2 agent Wings Wendall and left behind in a sinking submarine to drown. Other than some degree of admiration for his ability…
(Smash Comics 003, 1939) When a mysterious monster-man robs a London apartment by ripping a safe clean out of the wall, Captain Cook of Scotland Yard somehow intuits that this may be the work of disgraced London University scientist Professor Dwyer and manages to track him down to an abandoned castle on the moors outside the city (I take no responsibility for checking if there are moors just outside London. Or castles). His intuition is of course correct and he…
(Smash Comics 002, 1939) An art thief, but an audacious art thief. “?” is so-named because he sends a message signed thus to the Paris Prefect of Police warning that he would steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre and then actually does it from under the noses of the Prefect, the police and Captain Cook of Scotland Yard. Like, while in the same room as them – he just hits the lights and grabs the painting. Then, a couple…
Once more they ride: the REAL PEOPLE OF COMICS Abraham Lincoln: Lincoln’s shadow is used to symbolize the power of the US exerting a calming effect on the European belligerents. (Smash Comics 005, 1939) Adolf Hitler: Chancellor Rudolf of Wurtberg here is a more dynamic than usual Hitler analog (Smash Comics 004, 1939) Misc minor appearances: Getting some bad news about Nazi operations in Yugoslavia (Blue Ribbon Comics 015, 1941) Captain Kidd: For no particular reason this aviator/ adventurer is…
(Smash Comics 001, 1939) We open on a city (later established as almost certainly NYC) in the grip of terror. A robot known as the Iron Monster is wantonly robbing and murdering and also stealing one or more babies for reasons that are never made clear. Seriously, we never find out what the deal was with those babies. The Iron Monster is the creation of Dr von Thorp, your classic scientist rejected from society for his outre beliefs, though considering…
(Smash Comics 001, 1939) Vlamir Koran, Argentinean Adolf Hitler pastiche in charge of Nazi pastiche the Black Spot, takes over the entirety of South America in about half a page, because the real action of the story is centred around his attempt to continue his conquering ways into the United States. Koran’s first couple of attempts to invade the US are stymied by technology and tactics, so he hires the “greatest of all spies”, Mata Hari pastiche Mara Hani, to…
More. MORE! Spiritman: It’s impossible to say if Spiritman’s real name is Spirit Malcolm or if Spirit is just a nickname. The Golden Age is definitely a time in which nicknames are clearly signposted with quotation marks (including names like “Hank” half the time) but they’re also an age of inconsistent editorial standards. Let’s assume it is his given name, because then it’s another fun case of comic book nominative determinism. Spiritman is a scientific hero: armed with a Rayodine…
(Silver Streak Comics 001, 1939) Just a regular group of modern-day masked rustlers notable for two things: their better-than-average name and… … their insanely bad opsec. “Adventure-Hunter” Barry Lane waltzes into sight, makes up a fake toughguy name and backstory and before you can blink twice he has the entire lowdown on the gang’s operations and an invitation to join. And all this in a crowded bar. And the local sheriff had to specifically bring in help to hunt these…
(Silver Streak Comics 001, 1939) Simply a man who reacts to losing his pilot’s license in a very rational way: he sabotages planes at the local airfield and also booby traps all the parachutes so that they will strangle anyone that uses them. Upon being hunted down by two-fisted detective the Duke, the Hooded Figure makes the common mistake of trying to get away in a plane that he himself had already sabotaged. Ah, irony.