Reaction to my recent look at the forgotten superheroes from MLJ Publishing has been through the roof! We live in a superhero- crazed world right now as evidenced by movie releases in recent years. As a nice little encore here’s another MLJ superhero for you:
THE MARVEL Continue reading
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With the flood of superhero movies every summer in recent years Balladeer’s Blog will feature periodic examinations of the more obscure comic book companies. This time out it’s MLJ.
THE FOX
Secret Identity: Paul Patton, newspaper reporter and news photographer.
Origin: When his co-worker Ruth Ransom got kidnapped, Paul Patton felt he could fight crime AND enhance his journalism career by first donning a costume and thwarting criminals as the Fox and then getting a “scoop” on those adventures, complete with photos. And this was decades before Peter Parker made a living with news photos of his exploits as Spider-Man.
First Appearance: Blue Ribbon Comics #4 (June 1940). His final Golden Age appearance came in 1942.
Powers: The Fox was at the peak of human condition. He had acrobatic skills greater than Olympic athletes and was a master of all forms of unarmed combat. His stealth skills were the equal of any burglar or ninja. The white eye-lenses on his mask permitted him to see in the dark. Continue reading
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With the flood of superhero movies every summer in recent years Balladeer’s Blog will feature periodic examinations of the more obscure comic book companies.
THE CAVALIER
Secret Identity: Rance Raleigh, owner of an antique and curio shop
Origin: In Raleigh’s store was a portrait of the Duke de Chantreigh, sometimes said to be an ancestor of Rance. When that portrait would frown it was a supernatural sign that danger was coming. Rance would then suit up as the Cavalier and go into action. The first time was when Jake Miles, who was investigating munitions factory sabotage was hit by a truck outside Raleigh’s shop before he could tell him what he had discovered.
First Appearance: Thrilling Comics # 53 (April 1946). His final Golden Age appearance came in 1948
Powers: The Cavalier possessed the strength of a normal athletic male but was highly skilled with a sword and at unarmed combat. In addition he often used esoteric weapons and relics from his shop, just like the Golden Age Hawkman would wield artifacts from his museum. Continue reading
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With the emphasis on superhero movies these days Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at another forgotten superhero – or in this case a pair of superheroes.
PROFESSOR SUPERMIND AND SON
Career: Popular Comics # 60-71
Years Active: 1941-1942
Professor Warren, a man who suffered from the lack of a first name, and his son Dan Warren did superduty fighting criminals and Nazis. The Professor fully understood that super-powers don’t come without a certain risk, which is why he was happy to use his son Dan as a human guinea pig for his High Frequency Energy Builder.
Periodic sessions hooked up to this device – which so help me resembles nothing so much as an electric chair – provided the Prof’s son with “strength equal to a thousand horse-power”, or “enough to kill a hundred men.” Sometimes even more.
Adopting the aliases Professor Supermind and Supermind’s Son the team used the same division of labor employed by Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin (or Jake and the Fatman if you prefer): the Prof sat around in their home base or their invisible rocket-ship (Wonder Woman, eat your heart out!) doing the brain work while Dan went out in the field taking all the risks and getting all the lumps. Continue reading
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With the emphasis on superhero movies these days Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at another forgotten superhero.
THE CONQUEROR
Career: Victory Comics 1-4
Years Active: 1941-1942
Comment: Pilot Daniel Lyons accidentally crash-landed his plane in the Rocky Mountains one day. Luckily for him he landed near the remote laboratory of Dr James Norton. Dr Norton rescues Dan from the wreckage of his plane and, since the pilot is near death anyway, uses him as a human guinea pig for his Cosmic Ray Lamp.
After being subjected to the lamp not only does Dan recover, but he finds his strength, stamina and intelligence have all doubled, along with his capacity for healing. Dr Norton convinces Dan to use his second chance at life to battle the Nazis. Continue reading
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With the emphasis on superhero movies every summer these days I’ll periodically look at some of the stranger costumed crime-fighters who have come down the road over the years. The Black Condor will remain my blog’s Official Weird Superhero, so have no fear.
DOCTOR HORMONE
Career: Popular Comics 54 through 60
Years Active: 1940 into 1941
Comment: This bizarre superhero had the most convenient last name this side of Dr Stephen Strange. The good doctor was 75 years old before he perfected a special treatment that restored him to age 25, possibly for good. (His series got canceled long before the writers had to worry about retconning or sliding time-scales.)
Dr Hormone injected his own elderly self with special hormones he had been whipping up in his lab and followed that up with exposure to Vita Rays “Angstrom Rays”, thus de-aging himself. With great hormones come great responsibility, however, and our intrepid hero decided to fight the forces of evil with his new youthful body and his scientific genius. His hormone chemicals allowed our hero to change his opponents’ height, weight and manipulate their anatomy in other weird ways. (This guy would have made a better villain!) Continue reading
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PAT PATRIOT – Last time around I examined the forgotten Golden Age superheroine Fantomah. Since Liberals and Conservatives have to inject their bickering into everything my look at Fantomah prompted Conservatives to accuse me of secretly being a Liberal because, after all, only ONE of Fantomah’s villains was non-white. For my look at Pat Patriot I’m sure Liberals will stage an “AHA” moment and accuse me of being a Conservative because of the heroine’s all-American, red white and blue nature.
Introduced in Daredevil Comics in August of 1941 Pat Patriot – “America’s Joan of Arc” – was, in reality, Pat Patrios, a Greek-American woman who by day worked on an assembly-line. By night she pursued her dream of show-biz stardom by appearing in a minor stage musical, costumed like a female Uncle Sam for a patriotic song and dance. One night Pat was walking home after the show with her boyfriend Mike Brown (no relation to the thuggish robber of convenience stores).
The pair stumbled across a plot by “European” conspirators (America had not entered the global war yet so even though the villains were clearly supposed to be German they weren’t openly identified as such) to steal airplane motors and smuggle them to the Axis Powers. Still clad in her stage outfit Pat used her fists and some brutal high kicks to thwart the evil plan. The press mistook her name for “Pat Patriot”, but our heroine happily embraced that as her nom de guerre. Continue reading
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Balladeer’s Blog’s examination of the neglected Golden Age superheroine Fantomah concludes with a look at the final eight stories penned by the one and only Fletcher Hanks under his pseudonym Barclay Flagg.
VII. JUNGLE ACTION #8 (August 1940)
Locale: The Temple of the Boiling Mud, hidden deep within Fantomah’s jungle territory.
Villain: Mister X, another Great White Hunter type, who plans to steal the sacred relic in the Temple of the Boiling Mud then ransom it back to the natives for a fortune.
The Tale: Fantomah discreetly follows Mister X as he makes his Indiana Jones-ish way to the Temple. After he succeeds in crossing over the boiling mud pit that surrounds the tiny patch of land that the Temple stands on, he penetrates into the Temple itself. Fantomah appears to Mister X and warns him against stealing the relic. The natives believe that if the relic is removed the boiling mud will rise up and flood the entire jungle, wiping out all life. Continue reading
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Balladeer’s Blog presents the first in my new series about neglected comic book superheroes and heroines of the distant past. With superhero movies and television shows being so popular right now it put me in the mood for some of the obscure and forgotten figures from the Golden Age. Here are my pithy story-by-story takes on our debut figure.
FANTOMAH – This superheroine was created in February of 1940 by Fletcher Hanks under one of his pseudonyms – Barclay Flagg. Hanks is a piece of work all by himself and is described as anything from “a primitive who created Outsider Art” on the good side to “the Ed Wood of comic books” on the bad side.
All of Fletcher Hanks’ comic book creations read like the chronicled psychotic episodes of a not particularly skilled ten year old artist, but his Fantomah stories are my all-time favorites. In the works of Hanks perspective, relative sizes and coloring can all change from frame to frame and the text often doesn’t even match what is being drawn. Continue reading
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