The author of this story must have been familiar with H.G. Wells’ novel,
The Island of Dr Moreau, where animals are turned into “men.” The 1896 novel was made into a 1933 movie with Charles Laughton,
Island of Lost Souls. The Hooded Wasp has a young
protégé, Wasplet, who likes to dance jitterbug style with a girlfriend he has not yet kissed. “Sissy and unhygienic” is what he says about kissing. She is trying to get him to make out with her when both are kidnapped by a wildcat dressed like a human. The wildcat is a creature created by a mad scientist who is transforming people into animals for his human zoo.
Of the animals, my favorite is Beaver-man. If you want someone to gnaw a rope holding you prisoner, then Beaver-man is the guy to do it.
The story is signed by Jack Binder, but I am sure it is a job from Binder’s comic art shop; various artists, including Binder, worked on it. It’s from
Shadow Comics Volume 2, Number 11 (whole number 23), 1943.
I showed another Hooded Wasp story last January. You can find it
here.
So what happened to the "robbers and murderers" who "liked" Dr. Zandricks? Everyone is cheering the Wasp at the end of the story but some of them were hardened criminals who you'd think would still be trying to kill the Wasp. Did the Hooded Wasp simply kill them all as he did the Wolf man?
ReplyDeleteI guess it's safe to say that "off panel" these animal men would have been rounded up and placed in cages for safe keeping until the proper authorities arrived. They'd be easy enough to distinguish from the good guys because they "liked" Dr. Zandricks and of course had all been transformed into some kind of predatory animal like the hyena man or wolf man. We all know that predatory animals are "evil" and not "good" like the non predatory beaver man.
Kissing is sissy stuff? I'd have a very different take on a teenage boy who refuses to kiss his girlfriend.
Why is he called the "Hooded" Wasp when he doesn't wear a hood? It looks like a helmet to me.
ReplyDeleteRick, you hit it on the head. Methinks the kid protests too much about "sissy" kissing.
ReplyDelete