I like Friar Diablo’s magic words, which are just common words with an “o” on the end. For instance, all you would have to know is the everyday word, disappear, then shout “disappearo!” and your enemy would be gone. Very cool; I may try it on someone sometime.
Although they are shown flying, Captain Battle and his son cannot fly on their own. They are using Luceflyers strapped to their backs. Public Domain Superheroes tells us this about Captain Battle: “He had no superpowers but has advanced technology, including the Curvoscope, which allowed him to see anywhere on earth, a Dissolvo Gun which disintegrated matter, a gyroscope-like Luceflyer, and a jetpack.” (Hmm, I’d be interested in something called a Curvoscope, and a Dissolvo Gun sounds very handy.)
At the very end of this adventure Captain Battle tells his son, “This race for treasure isn’t over yet!” but alas, it was. The story appeared in Silver Streak Comics #21 (1942), which was the last issue of that comic. With issue number 22 it continued on as Crime Does Not Pay — where the bad guys didn’t use magic, just tried-and-true guns and knives to get rid of their enemies.
The Grand Comics Database has no guess for a writer, but they credit Jack Binder with the artwork.
Hale Battle was not Captain Battle's son, just his sidekick, Captain Battle Jr. was a separate action character who never teamed up with the Captain.
ReplyDeleteScott, I got the information from Public Domain Superheroes online, which states, "Besides his various assistants, such as his secretary Jane Lorrain, he was partnered with his son, Captain Battle Jr. and sidekick, Nathan Hale. Captain Battle also teamed up with heroes such as Lance Hale."
ReplyDeleteSo do they mean "his son, Captain Battle Jr and sidekick, Nathan Hale" are three separate characters? To me, "his son, Captain Battle Jr" is one person. If not, then blame the writer's sloppy punctuation for my confusion.
There's some nice art in this, especially for 42. I especially like the bad guys.
ReplyDeleteI do have to say, the bad guy makes the exact same mistake a lot of 40s bad guys with very ill-defined powers do -- not doing anything twice. The stone spell worked great! Use that again! Why the dragons and skeletons crap? He could just turn them to stone, without Jr around to mess it up!
Pappy—
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, many people don't get the logic of commas. When I bothered with fixing Wikipedia, much of my time went to adding commas to end unrecognized offsets.
The passage that you cite is very badly written. Basically, the comma after “son” offsets for a clarification, but the writer incompetently fails to return from the offset with a comma after “Jr”. And, if he had, then the sentence would parse abiguously, because the clarification would be syntactically indistinguishable from a second item. Had the writer omitted both commas, then the sentence would work unambiguously. Had he or she written “Captain Battle Jr (his son) and Nathan Hale” then the sentence would work unambiguously.
A note elsewhere at PDSH says that Captain Battle Jr is not to be confused with Nathan Hale.
I haven't read the stories with Captain Battle Jr, but I did read the one introducing Hale, and he's an orphan that the hero takes under his wing.
ReplyDelete