SHORTEST-LIVED SUPERHEROES FOR THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR

To mark the shortest day of the year, Balladeer’s Blog’s escapist weekend superhero post will look at even more Marvel Comics (back then called Timely Comics) 1940s heroes who made only ONE appearance. 

MERZAH THE MYSTIC

Real Name: Merzah

Appeared In: Mystic Comics #4 (August 1940)

Origin: Merzah was a mutant born with his powers.

Powers: This hero could read minds, communicate telepathically and perceive people’s emotions. His psychic senses alerted him to impending dangers. In addition, Merzah could see into the future as well as the past. 

Comment: Merzah’s sidekicks were his romantic partner Diana Lanford and his chauffer Jose Abejaron. In his sole adventure Merzah the Mystic defeated a Japanese spy named Satokata Matsu. Though America had not entered World War Two yet, Matsu was sabotaging U.S. infrastructure and stealing defense secrets. Merzah stopped the villain from derailing a loaded train. 

FIGHTING YANK

Real Name: Bill Prince

Appeared In: Captain America Comics #17 (August 1942)

Origin: Fighting Yank was a trained military intelligence operative.

Powers: This hero was in peak physical condition and exceled at all manner of armed and unarmed combat. He was also a master of military tactics and an expert with explosives.

Comment: Fighting Yank (no relation to Nedor’s Fighting Yank) worked with China during World War Two, leading a few military units against the Japanese invaders. He did not suspect that his sidekick Ah Kee was secretly working for Japan. 

MICROMAN

Real Name: Jimmy Everett

Appeared In: Human Torch Comics #2 (Fall 1940)

Origin: Jimmy drank a chemical formula of his employer Professor Schmidt and gained superpowers.

Powers: Professor Schmidt’s formula enabled Microman to shrink down to the size of a paperclip. A separate formula from the professor would return him to normal size.

Comment: Microman was only 8 or 9 years old, so maybe Microboy would have been a better nom de guerre.

PHANTOM BULLET

Secret Identity: Allan Lewis

Appeared In: Daring Mystery Comics #2 (February 1940)

Origin: Millionaire Allan Lewis often slummed as a reporter for The Bulletin when stories caught his eye. While investigating some unsolved murders he met a scientist who had developed a high-tech gun that criminals wanted to steal from him.

The scientist was killed but managed to pass along his invention to Allan Lewis, who donned a costume and took on villains as the Phantom Bullet.

Powers: The Phantom Bullet was in peak human condition and excelled at armed & unarmed combat. The experimental gun he wielded compressed moisture from the air into ice bullets which melted, evaporated and left no traces in the evildoers whom he shot to death. That was why the media dubbed him the Phantom Bullet.

Comment: This hero battled former explorer Alvarez Monez. As part of his extortion/ theft/ murder ring he commanded a Lost Race he had captured in Africa. That Lost Race had seven fingers and were part human, part ape, so naturally he called them … Bird-Men. (?)

Rather than wear a mask, this hero disguised his features with makeup when he went into action. 

MONSTRO THE MIGHTY

Real Name: Monstro

Appeared In: Comedy Comics #10 (June 1942)

Origin: Monstro was the freakishly gigantic son of Ares/ Mars, the god of war. He blanched at the thought of endless combat so his father angrily exiled him from Mt. Olympus during World War Two. Monstro wound up working for the American armed forces against Imperial Japan.

Powers: As a fifty-foot tall giant, Monstro possessed enormous strength and invulnerability. He could also blow strong winds from his mouth.

Comment: Monstro the Mighty landed in the New England states, where members of America’s Flying Intelligence Service communicated with the giant and recruited him. A kaiju-sized operative had enormous (sorry) potential but after defeating female Japanese spy Little Poison he had no more recorded adventures.     

ROKO THE AMAZING

Secret Identity: Lon Crag

Appeared In: U.S.A. Comics #5 (June 1942)

Origin: Talented high school artist Lon Crag desired to become a hero to take on all the evil in the world like his idol Captain America. When the teen was drawing a picture of Menelaos a powerful entity contacted Lon and granted him superpowers. He used those powers as Roko the Amazing.

Powers: On uttering the word “Illium” Lon Crag could change back and forth between his teen identity and his adult, beefed-up superhero identity, Roko. He could fly, had the cunning of Odysseus, the fighting skill of Agamemnon and the invulnerability of Achilles. 

This hero possessed a degree of super-strength. Roko also wielded a magic shield which sported a Greek triskelion logo (NOT an Aryan symbol, like some sources claim).

Comment: Obviously, Roko the Amazing was Marvel/ Timely’s attempt to imitate Billy Batson/ Captain Marvel over at Fawcett Comics.

AMERICAN AVENGER

Secret Identity: Don Caldwell

Appeared In: U.S.A. Comics #5 (June 1942)

Origin: 21-year-old American Don Caldwell attended college in Argentina. While there he mastered all the skills of the gauchos. He graduated and planned to return to the U.S. but one of his Argentine friends persuaded him to stay in Buenos Aires and battle Axis spies.

Powers: The American Avenger was in peak human condition and was more agile than an acrobat. He was a master of armed and unarmed combat and was especially proficient with a whip, bola and a lasso.

Comment: A ring of Nazi spies fell to this hero in his only story.

DYNAMAN

Secret Identity: Lagaro of Korug

Appeared In: Daring Mystery Comics #6 (September 1940)

Origin: The ancient civilization of Korug possessed futuristic technology but one day collapsed under the waves.The sole survivor of that lost civilization was Lagaro, called Dynaman in the outside world. He roamed around looking to combat the forces of evil.

Powers: Dynaman could fly, lift 7 tons and possessed a large degree of invulnerability. He was able to psionically understand any language spoken to him as well as recall everything he saw or read with perfect clarity.

Comment: In his lone Golden Age story this hero battled the Gurban army, which wielded primitive weaponry and had harnessed long-lost dinosaurs as mobile attack vehicles. 

TAXI TAYLOR

Secret Identity: Jim Taylor

Appeared In: Mystic Comics #2 (April 1940)

Origin: Taxi Driver Jim Taylor was also a gifted mechanic and inventor. He designed what he called the Wonder Car, a versatile vehicle that he tried selling to the U.S. War Department. The government rejected the project so Jim built it himself in his spare time. He wound up piloting it himself, too, to foil foreign spies called “Swastikans” and decided to keep using the Wonder Car to battle evildoers.

Powers: Taxi Taylor was very talented at mechanical sciences. His Wonder Car could reconfigure itself physically, changing from a cab to an airplane to a submarine as needed, all at the command of the interior controls.

The vehicle had a six-inch thick steel hull, high-tech sensors and defense systems plus it could pick up and broadcast radio transmissions. It could also shoot magnetic repulsor rays, snare objects magnetically, shoot chemicals or water to fight fires, as well as absorb and eject water at sea.

Comment: I understand the War Department official who rejected Jim Taylor’s Wonder Car project later worked in the music industry, where he refused to sign a young band called the Beatles.

YOUNG AVENGER

Secret Identity: William Bryon

Appeared In: U.S.A. Comics #1 (August 1941)

Origin: Teen William Bryon was visited by a shadowy being like the one that visited BOTH 1940s Timely Comics superheroes called Marvel Boy. The being granted William superpowers and a costume and sent him on missions against the forces of evil.

Powers: Young Avenger possessed the strength of several men and a degree of invulnerability.

Comment: This hero fought Nazi saboteurs in his only adventure. Intriguingly, there was a kind of “Peter Parker and Aunt May” feel to the relationship and interactions between William Bryon and his mother, who had no idea he was a superhero.

MISTER E

Secret Identity: Victor Jay

Appeared In: Daring Mystery Comics #2 (February 1940)

Origin: Wealthy sportsman Victor Jay was inspired by the proliferation of costumed crimefighters to indulge in the ultimate sport of taking on criminals. He adopted the costumed identity of Mister E. 

Powers: Mister E was in peak physical condition and was more agile than an acrobat. He was an expert at unarmed combat.

Comment: In his lone appearance this hero was said to be in action for a while already, even having an archenemy called the Vampire – a black-cloaked and black masked criminal who used the name as his alias. The Vampire was a mad scientist who, among other high-tech weapons, used a gas that caused the victim’s heart to burst. 

SUPER SLAVE

Secret Identity: Never revealed.

Appeared In: Mystic Comics #5 (March 1941)

Origin: A fisherman and his daughter were shipwrecked on an island. They found a magic bracelet which, when rubbed, conjured up an 8-foot tall, white male genie who told them that they had freed him after 1,000 years. Oh, and he was now their slave. The genie used its powers to save the duo from various dangers and criminals.

Powers: Super Slave could grow to dozens of feet tall or shrink himself down to a few inches in height. He was bullet-proof, was able to part the waters of the sea and presumably would have demonstrated other abilities if this had become a series.

Comment: Hey, how come THIS superhero has never appeared in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Oh … right. Well, if it helps, there’s a reference to Super Slave appearing from within a green mist when he’s summoned so just change his handle to the Green Mist and voila!   

MOON-MAN

Secret Identity: Never revealed.

Appeared In: Mystic Comics #5 (March 1941)

Origin: Unknown. In his one story, Moon-Man had been in action for a while already. He struck only on the nights of the full moon.

Powers: Moon-Man was in peak physical condition and was skilled at unarmed combat. He wielded a handgun, was a master of many sciences and was very wealthy. He worked out of a penthouse apartment that had a secret hallway to his hidden car. That car displayed no high-tech gadgetry during this story.

Comment: In his lone adventure, this hero avenged dozens of children who were poisoned nearly to death by tainted meat being sold to orphanages by Boss McGool. This hero battled McGool and his pair of thugs. 

CAPTAIN DASH

Secret Identity: Never revealed.

Appeared In: Comedy Comics #9 (April 1942)

Origin: Captain Dash lived in 31st Century New York City and was the head of New York’s Security Air Fleet.

Powers: Cap was in peak human condition and was skilled at both armed and unarmed combat. 31st Century science made Dash and other humans of his time a bit stronger and healthier than we are in the 21st Century. He flew rocket aircraft that went from New York to London in half an hour and he wielded a variety of ray-guns and other futuristic weaponry. His costume used antigravity technology. Dash had a lifespan of at least 165 years, like others of his time period.

Comment: Unlike his subordinates, Captain Dash wore a mask.

MANTOR THE MAGICIAN

Secret Identity: Never revealed

Appeared In: Human Torch Comics #2 (September 1940)

Origin: Mantor, a man from the Middle East, learned various mystic arts and used them to take on the forces of evil.

Powers: Mantor employed a variety of magical gestures which let him shoot flames, create temporary Tulpas of himself or others, transform matter, move objects via telekinesis and teleport objects to himself.

Comment: “Fezzes are cool.”   

THE PHANTOM REPORTER

Secret Identities: Dick Jones and Van Engen

Appeared In: Daring Mystery Comics #3 (April 1940)

Origin: Dick Jones worked as a reporter for The Daily Express. He also had another life in which he was millionaire socialite Van Engen. Those two identities gave him all the resources he needed to help his third identity, the Phantom Reporter, fight crime.

Powers: The Phantom Reporter was in peak physical condition, was a master of unarmed combat and was a skilled investigator. His mask glowed in the dark, a feature which Timely Comics oddly thought was cool (see the Laughing Mask and the Fiery Mask).

Comment: In his lone appearance, no explanation was given for the Phantom Reporter’s two civilian identities. Unless you count blatant imitation of the Shadow.   

SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

Secret Identity: John Steele

Appeared In: Daring Mystery Comics #1 (January 1940)

Origin: John Steele was an American mercenary fighting for the Allies in World War Two long before the U.S. itself would enter the war. No explanation was given for his super-strength during his lone appearance.

Powers: This hero was strong enough to tear off the hatch of a tank with his bare hands. He excelled at armed and unarmed combat.

Comment: In battle, Soldier of Fortune met a French spy using the codename “Marie Antoinette.” He helped her get her mysterious information to a general.

MARVEL BOY

Secret Identity: Martin O. Burns

Appeared In: U.S.A. Comics #7 (February 1943)

Origin: Teen Martin O. Burns was on a field trip to a museum when a mummy case accidentally tipped over and fell on him, opening up a cut on his body. Some ancient, arcane fluid from the mummy dripped onto the teen’s body, seeping into his wound. That night a shadowy being (see Young Avenger and the OTHER 1940s Marvel Boy) visited Martin, gave him a costume and told him the fluid had given him superpowers with which to combat evil.

Powers: Marvel Boy could lift 7 tons, run over 120 miles per hour and could fly at super-speed. He also had a degree of invulnerability.

Comment: The shadowy being told this hero he was now strong like Hercules, swift like Mercury, and wise like … Abraham Lincoln. I’m not kidding. Who knew Abe was from Mt. Olympus?

FOR LONGER-LASTING 1940s MARVEL SUPERHEROES CLICK HERE.