The Fates of Various Nazi Warships: Given the penchant for featuring even quite famous and obvious things under false names in comics, I always end up noticing when something or someone shows up under their own moniker, which is why I was very surprised when Royal Navy submarine captain Tom Niles, aka the Undersea Raider, is responsible for sinking several real Nazi warships in this 1940 comic. The casualties include the cruiser Admiral Scheer (sunk in 1945 in our world)…
(The Spirit Section, 25 August, 1940) I’ve mentioned before that the foes faced by magical Golden Age super-heroes break down into roughly three types: 1) regular crooks who are there to be clowned upon, 2) legitimate threats with equivalent magical power of their own and 3) crooks with a little magical power, who provide a Iof a challenge but are ultimately also clowned upon. Sarku is the third type, and has set out, fresh out of prison, to get revenge on those…
I think that demons and devils are the only category of comic book guy I don’t have a running round-up for yet (and having said that I’m sure that there will be more), so here we go: Satan: If we’re going do do demons, why not start with the one with the most name recognition of all: Satan. As seen here he has been vexing jodhpured adventurer Tippy Taylor in the form of a mad scientist, only to be defeated…
(The Spirit, “The Death Dolls”, 4 August, 1940) In terms of villainy, Yagor ain’t much. Formerly chief engineer at the Battle Arms Co, Yagor murdered the inventor Kalin and stole his inventions and is trying to sell them on when the Spirit tracks him down in a small New England town. Though he gets the drop on the Spirit and captures him when he shows up to take him in, Yagor is undone by his own poor salesmanship and the…
More gods for you to worship. Goddess of the Jungle: The Goddess of the Jungle is an idol stolen by an adventurer named Stero while he was roving around Africa. Returning to America with it, he attains some fame and success as a film director, which he attributes to the influence of the Goddess on his life. Is the Goddess of the Jungle really real, or can the whole affair be blamed on the fact that Stero has apparently spent…
(The Spirit, “Palyachi the Killer Clown”, 28 July, 1940) Ah, the crime clown. Always glad to see another one, and one with such an illustrious name, kind of! (I wanted to do some sort of riff on “but doctor, I am Palyachi” but a) it seems like the basic joke has existed jince the 1800s, the first place that Pagliacci was specifically named as the sad clown on the doctor’s couch might actually have been in Watchmen and b) I couldn’t think of one)…
(The Spirit Section, 14 July, 1940) Queen Rana is the bearer of the Amulet of Ra, a mystic artifact that grants immortality and invulnerability to the one who wears it. Rana’s one ambition in her immortal life is to have a “huge rock of gold” and to that end she has established herself as the ruler of a jungle tribe and turned them to banditry. Is this a good use of eternal life? No it is not. Is it likely…
(The Spirit, “Mr Midnight”, 14 July, 1940) Mr Midnight is your classic police taunter, a crook who not only thinks that they have the wherewithal to pull off the perfect crime but is so confident that they decide to tip off the cops to their plans. In this specific instance, the villain is a dapper blue-skinned fellow who has not only informed the police but the Spirit as well, and further has declared that he will commit his murder in the very…
Oh so spiritual, we are. Koli Tow: Hal Hazard and his brother Hoagy are adventuring in the South Seas when they get shipwrecked, which is not really an excuse for just wandering into a local temple to eat the food offerings but I guess when you’re hungry a little sacrilege is easy to justify. Even so, the local worshippers of Koli Tow aren’t particularly understanding about it, and given the nature of the comic there’s a human sacrifice in the…
(The Spirit Section, 7 July, 1940) Our first Mr Mystic foe! Mystic’s old pal Mr Cooper brings him in because he’s worried about his daughter Erica’s involvement with a religious group (cult) called the Temple of Lin. It’s always a real toss-up whenever this kind of thing crops up as a comic book plot, between the cult being a total con job and it having some legitimate but sinister basis, and in this case it’s the latter. Mr Mystic goes…