The most minor bunch so far! Don Rance and the Mysticape: Don Rance saves an old man from a tiger in the Indian jungle and is given a mystic cape as a reward. In his single documented adventure he runs into spy trouble while ferrying some papers from the American embassy in London to Washington DC and must use the cape’s powers (generic physical enhancement and slow falling or some other way to jump from a plane and land safely…
(Detective Eye 001, 1940) Not the first knockoff of Count “the Most Dangerous Game” Zaroff we’ve met, and certainly not the last. Baron Blood incorporates quite a lot of elements that you’ll find in various adaptations of the story: the island castle with built-in lighthouse to draw victims in via shipwreck, the monocle and prominent facial scar and the pack of hunting dogs and huge hunting guide/servant. What sets the Baron apart from the rest of the bored island-dwelling human-hunting…
Cops Shooting Fleeing Suspects: The cops try to gun down the fleeing Sphinx. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940) Aliens: Can’t get over how much these alien bat-folk look like they’re Simpsons characters (Exciting Comics 005, 1940) It’s a shame that these Mercurians are weird misogynists, because I really dig their look. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940) A few issues later, Flip is back on Mercury and meets these giant insect-men and their queen, whose father (never seen) somehow made his way to…
(Cyclone Comics 005, 1940) Henry Short is a pretty middling super-villain (it’s been a particularly dry stretch of comics, what can I say) but he certainly has the confidence for the major leagues. He’s a guy who lives in a castle so nice that it is pointed out by tour guides but who pays a hundred bucks a year in taxes and when local treasury agents come around to inquire about this he openly threatens to put them in the…
There’s a little super-hero in all of us, I reckon. Volton: Volton comes on strong. I mean, look at the guy: crotch-forward, power device on a chain welded around his waist, moisturized, in his lane. The very second he figured out how to have super-powers he was in his element. And because Volton (aka Guy Newton) HATES CRIME and HATES CRIMINALS he heads on down to the local police station in his only-the-most-confident-heroes-wear-them sweater vest and beats up cops until…
We have mad scientists at criminal scientist prices. Dr Koch is one of the many people hungry to get their hands on the secret vitamin supplement that turned the Champ (derogatory) into the Champ (aspirational) after its creator Dr Marlin is murdered. Koch’s mild claim to fame is the fact that he’s the first one to get ahold of the formula long enough to do anything with it. What he did, specifically, was to mix up a big batch and…
You can’t deny that they were real people. Adolf Hitler: This unnamed leader of the unnamed forces that the Flying Trio are battling on behalf of the little nation of Sylvania is a real Hitlerian fellow (Crash Comics Adventures 005, 1940) Amelia Earhart: Two variations on a theme: using the story of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart as fodder for a damsel-in-distress story. The first (Amazing-Man Comics 018, 1940) involves the Shark rescuing Amelia Reinhardt from an old man who…
They’re just these guys, you know? the Solar Legion: The Solar Legion is the brainchild of Adam Starr, a 23rd Century man about whom very little is ever revealed. Emerging from a concealed base on Io, he sets out to rid the Solar System of the scourge of space piracy via the most direct route possible: blowing up all of the space pirates. Starr’s exploits have their intended effects: 1. many pirates are blown up and 2. the authorities are…
(Crash Comics Adventures 001, 1940) Black Michael is the leader of a band of space pirates based on Pluto and beginning in the year 2140 he terrorizes the solar system, killing and plundering at will. It’s unclear in the original story how long this state of affairs persists for, but a later installment of “the Solar Legion” takes place in 2260, suggesting that Black Michael and his crew might have been going strong for upwards of 120 years. That’s a…
Super-heroes! Minor ones. the Tulpa: The Tulpa and its originator Tsang had the misfortune to appear only once, in Sun Publications’ only proper comic, Colossus Comics 001. This is… a shame? No, it’s probably not. As it stands, the Tulpa is an interesting idea: a Tibetan hermit Lama named Tsang manifests a superhuman thoughtform to battle a bandit/Nazi alliance who are preying on nearby monasteries, and as far as 1940s comics set in Asia go, the whole thing isn’t even…