Presented for your delectation: some very minor super-heroes. Mantor the Magician: Mantor the Magician is a magic-using hero in the classic mold. He has a single Golden Age appearance in which he helps a damsel in distress, gets knocked out once and foils a plot by some fake ghosts. Years later (about two years ago as I write this) he is brought back and killed off as an easy way to raise the stakes on a super-threat. It’s all so…
Soon there will be more minor super-heroes than there are humans for them to protect. the Sentinel: In 1783, on the Boston Common, the newly-minted Spirit of America charges a cannon with the “powders of patriotism” in anticipation that someday a champion will be needed to defend the new nation from destruction. Finally, in 1941 (the Civil War not, apparently, being enough of a reason), the cannon fires on its own and releases the Sentinel, mystic champion of the American…
(Jungle Comics 024, 1941) The Zombie Witch (aka the Queen of the Zombies, aka Celie) is, as the name suggests, a witch with a penchant for raising the dead – often while they are still actively being mourned. She demonstrates a few other magic powers (e.g., scrying in a bowl of water, crocodile charming) but the zombie thing is her bread and butter. So what, specifically, does she want a bunch of reanimated corpses for? Well! I won’t say that…
(Jungle Comics 013, 1941) While searching for her champion Sir Champion (annoying thing to have to write and the main reason I’m happy that he eventually fades into obscurity), who has failed to return from a hunt, Camilla, Queen of the Lost Empire is confronted by the ghostly vision of a blonde lady who rules an ancient lost castle. This is just a kind of person you get in the undefined part of Africa that houses the Lost Empire. The…
(Military Comics 001-007, 1941-1942) I am not the first to note this by a country mile but it must be said every time she comes up: she wishes to have all of the powers of the Statue of Liberty and then the Statue of Liberty visits her in a dream and gifts them to her. If USA didn’t exist then this would be a shoe-in for “most outlandish patriotic hero concept” but as it stands I reckon that they’re tied….