(Crack Comics 010, 1941) The Jester is your standard costumed thief. He commits a series of daring robberies that would in the normal course of things land him in the slammer at the end of a super-hero’s fist. But before Madam Fatal, the hero of this particular feature, can get around to the business of stopping the Jester, the man himself shows up, knocks out Fatal’s civilian guise Richard Stanton and kidnaps his friend Professor Mason. OR DOES HE? No,…
(Crack Comics 010, 1941) The Sophisticated Lady is a femme fatale thief of the kind that comics love. She has a decent career going as the comic opens but the Black Condor shows up to put the kibosh on it. Sadly she doesn’t actually get to do that much on-panel, but the terrific name makes up for it a little.
(Crack Comics 009, 1941) I’ll be honest: the Screw is about as generic as it gets. He’s a hooded gang boss who runs a protection racket and just so happens to turn out to be the very head of the Chamber of Commerce who has been pressuring the police to take care of this awful Screw Gang. Pretty regular costumed villain stuff: his only real point of distinction is his fairly cool name.
(Crack Comics 009, 1941) The Tiger Woman is another in a long line of characters who are vilified for pushing back against colonialism – in this case, American explorers appropriating her peoples’ treasures. Or she would be if the way she was pushing back wasn’t murder, which tends to muddy the righteousness of any cause. She does have a really great costume, though. Top marks for style.
(Crack Comics 009, 1941) The Tiger Woman is another in a long line of characters who are vilified for pushing back against colonialism – in this case, American explorers appropriating her peoples’ treasures. Or she would be if the way she was pushing back wasn’t murder, which tends to muddy the righteousness of any cause. She does have a really great costume, though. Top marks for style.
(Crack Comics 008, 1940) Kind of a weird and somewhat problematic case – Stuporman, like the Largest Man in the World before him, is a superhuman man of limited intelligence who is used as a living weapon by crooks until being killed by the hero of the piece, in this case the Clock. He comes from Mongolia, which is, like, the most remote and mysterious place that 1940s comics writers could think of. Frankly, the only real reason I include Stuporman…
(Crack Comics 007, 1940) There is no textual evidence for this, but since this guy is dressed exactly like the unnamed boss of the Skull Gang (plus some rad horns) and uses the very similar tactic of dosing his minions (the Robbers from Hades – good name) with toxins that make them all shriveled and weird (and in this case more pliable and obedient), I like to think that it’s the same guy back for another shot at making his fortune…
(Crack Comics 001-022, 1940-1942) Madam Fatal is the alter ego of one Richard Stanton, famous actor and female impersonator. Shortly after retiring to settle down, Stanton’s young daughter was kidnapped by a vengeful enemy and his wife died of grief. Going undercover as the elderly Madam Fatal in order to avoid recognition Stanton spent the next nine years looking for his child. In the first Madam Fatal adventure, he finds the kidnapper but not the kid and since the kidnapper…
(Crack Comics 007, 1940) This is a weird guy. I’m not entirely sure what his deal is, to be honest. He’s developed some sort of revolutionary hydroelectric generator and some sort of lightning projector and claims that they are “useless commercially” but doesn’t really outline why. He extorts men with the last name Garr for some reason. I mean, it seems like it should be that the Garrs all got together and quashed his funding because he threatened their own…
(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.