Number 1003
The Mist is a gas!
Black Hood was out of the superhero stable of MLJ Comics, which after a few years became Archie Comics. "MLJ Leads The Way" was an early slogan, and I'm not sure they led, but they were pretty good followers. Black Hood appears to be patterned after Batman--no super powers, but athletic--and has that square-jawed look that comes right out of the Bob Kane school. Like Batman, Black Hood had some wild adversaries, including the Mist, who could "vaporize his body." In this story Black Hood's savior, the Hermit (see Black Hood's origin in Pappy's #382, and the follow-up story in Pappy's #467), invents a liquid that turns the Mist's gas into a solid. It's a comic book, folks...anything goes.
The story is credited on the splash to Al Camy and Harry Shorten, from Top-Notch Comics #16, 1941:
I showed the very last Golden Age Black Hood story in two parts: part 1 in Pappy's #959 and part 2 in Pappy's #960.
I wonder how long this pre-dated the Sandman villain The Mist.
ReplyDeleternigma, I hadn't thought of the Sandman's Mist, but it seems like kind of a natural, doesn't it? I mean, for a superhero comic, that is. I'm sure writers and comic creators were scrambling for ideas, and some of them were bound to be close.
ReplyDeleteOops, pardon me, I meant Starman, not Sandman....
ReplyDelete