OK, not really
bitter dregs. But let's wrap up our sojourn in
1941 by looking at a few interesting things I wasn't able to get to in previous posts.
From
Wow Comics #2:
**Wealthy playboys had really
strange ideas in the 30s and 40s.
Alan Lanier, inspired by the
Hunchback Of Notre Dame, decided to put on a hunchback costume and fight crime. Apparently, this sent the underworld "
into spasms of fear and trepidation."
From
Smash Comics #24:
**Among his other powers,
The Ray could fly...so why is he always
running everywhere?
**I know
The Purple Trio was just yet another non-powered group of friends who went about solving crimes--hey, why not--but...
...when you get a team of a
strong man, a ventriloquist and a midget, you have to take notice. Plus, they kind of remind me of a
Golden Age version of
The Enforcers.
**An awful lot of policeman also put on costumes back in the day. I guess they didn't have a lot of faith in their own system. Rookie cop
Chuck Lane, however, decides to dress a little more gaudily than most:
Yes, crooks will be scared of
that--just look:
If a caption says it, it must be true!!
Like many of his
Quality compatriots, the
Jester got a couple of cameos in
All-Star Squadron, and name-checked in an issue of
Starman.
Sadly, like
too many other Golden Age Heroes, he was turned into a homicidal madman by modern writers: in the most recent run of
Freedom Fighters,
Palmiotti and
Gray reveal that Lane went on to become head of the "uber-patriotic" terrorist group the
Arcadians who kidnapped the Vice-President and took out a team of federal agents with a suicide bomb.
Good on you, Palmiotti and Gray.
**The Golden Age made for some very...
odd...racial situations, none odder than the
Scarlet Seal. Former actor and current police lab tech (see!! cops again!!)
Barry Moore decided that the best way to fight crime was to dress up as a
Fu Manchu, Yellow Peril-type villain, the Scarlet Seal.
Yeah, it was even odder than it sounds, as something of a
Clark/Lois/Superman triangle developed between Moore, his girlfriend, and the Scarlet Seal:
This issue was the Seal's last story, and the girlfriend figured out the ruse. So, brace yourself for the
most uncomfortable word balloon of the week:
**Last up was the cover star of
Smash Comics, Bozo The Robot:
He was a robot. He was named Bozo. He fights crime.
DC has done
nothing with the concept in the past 70 years. There is no justice.
From
Feature Comics #46:
**
Doll Man was the cover feature of Feature Comics. Doll Man--
Ant-Man without the interesting part of the powers!!
**
Samar was, of course, yet another
Tarzan clone. And I know you all have dirty minds, but...
...those two are fighting there, no matter what that pose may look like.
Really. Fighting.
**From the
Bruce Blackburn, Counterspy strip, we see that Nazi spies will use everything--literally
everything--to bring down America:
**Then things get
weird:
In
1777, an unnamed little girl died while trying to deliver threads from the first American flag to her uncle,
Sam (no relation?). Her ghost was unleashed in 1941, and the entity (
?) became
USA, The Spirit Of Old Glory, the living embodiment of the US flag!!
Really.
How does she know when there's trouble?
As...
odd...as the concept is, this girl/ghost/living flag can
kick ass:
**Now, presenting, the
BEST evil villain plot
ever:
Freaking. Brilliant.**In
Bulletman #1, we learn that
Bulletgirl's dad is
pretty damn dense:
**Finally, this was a DC title, but I just have to comment:
Not only is
More Fun Comics a
great title for a comic, and DC should revive it immediately; but each issue featured
Doctor Fate and the
Spectre, fighting demons and extracting vengeance upon murderers--so
that definition of More Fun pretty much fits in what 21st century DC thinks
fun is...
