I think someone had a bad experience as a youth in Sunday School. The unknown writer, and possibly also the unknown artist of this story tell of evildoers who are all from the Bible: Judas, Cain...and of course, the devil, or Satan or Lucifer or whatever name you append to him. They are part of a group called The Greatest Sinners of History, who have come back to “kill all good and its champions,” including the Hooded Wasp. But, who is the Hooded Wasp, you ask? Well, I don't know because the usual places I go for info, Public Domain Super Heroes and Don Markstein’s Toonopedia don’t have him. Just from looking at this story, done by an unknown writer and equally unknown artist, Hooded Wasp hangs out with a girl named Honey Wasp and his young friend, Wasplet.
The story also brings up the concept of sin. The story’s bad guys are sinners. Sin is a religious idea. Some religions consider all human beings sinners. The only good thing about sin is that most of the religious sins are not illegal under the law. While I am trying to make my way through life during my time on Planet Earth, I am only worrying about things that might send me to jail, and the list of sins I have accrued so far don’t include any felonies...maybe a few misdemeanors, but I think the statute of limitations has expired on most, if not all, of them.
From
Shadow Comics, #30 (formally numbered Volume 3 Number 6, 1943).
I wonder when this story was actually drawn. So much about it looks like stories from three or four years earlier. The art is primitive. The hero's costume includes a dorky helmet. The clearly identified villains are drawn from Christian mythology. And so forth.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Pappy, while I accept that you've never had felonious intent and believe yourself never to have committed a felony, given the laws now on the books and the rejection (unless the accused does has political pull) of the principle that criminality requires mens rea, I'd be very surprised if you'd not committed multiple felonies.
http://jessnevins.com/encyclopedia/hoodedwasp.html
ReplyDeleteDaniel, I have not been guilt-free, but if I have committed any felonies I have either forgotten, or at the time I was completely ignorant of committing a felony. I could have done them while under hypnosis by some criminal third party, or, like some politicians, I lie about everything I do and have done for my entire wretched life, and my protestations of innocence cannot be trusted.
ReplyDeleteScott Nesmith, thanks for leading me to the Jess Nevins website. I was not aware of it until you pointed it out.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to see Judas depicted as some sort of "evil old man." I'm not aware that he's shown up very much in Western non-religious comics. Just scanning the artistic depictions on Google, he's usually depicted as being as young as Jesus. I guess his most famed appearance in art is in Dore's engraving of the INFERNO, where he and other traitors are being eternally devoured by Satan, but you can't really tell Judas's age from that one.
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