Number 2420: Thanksgiving Turkey Award: Dan Hastings and the baby killer

It is the American Thanksgiving Day, where the traditional bird of choice to eat is a turkey. A turkey is not very intelligent, so I have named my annual award the Thanksgiving Turkey Award. It gives me a chance to show what I consider the worst/most unusual/weird or whatever-it-is comic book story chosen for the year.

This one is definitely one or all of those. It has a mad scientist who sends huge bugs to kill children, and a couple of killings are shown in graphic detail.

Dan Hastings, according to Public Domain Super Heroes, is a copy of Flash Gordon, which was not unusual at all in early comic books. It explains why he wears a gaudy costume yet uses his real name. Dan has a Dr Zarkov-like friend, Dr Carter. Dan and Dr Carter’s daughter, Gloria, are a couple. After the gruesome beginning of the story, it turns into another mad scientist story, with the girlfriend of the hero, in a bondage scene, being threatened with death. The anonymous comic book writer in 1942 had a disturbing imagination.

The story is from Scoop Comics #2, and skeletons of bug-stabbed infants earn this story three and a half turkeys.

No writer or artist is credited by the Grand Comics Database.

More Thanksgiving Turkey Awards! Just clink on the thumbnail.

Number 2392: Master Key’s penetrating ray

Master Key, a creation of the Harry “A” Chesler publishing company, doesn’t wear a costume. He sticks to his dapper civilian wardrobe. Master Key, also known as Ray Cardell, was zapped through a telescope by some oddball ray, and it gave him the power of x-ray vision and also the power to zap people with that ray. Ray and his ray, you might say.

This episode, from Scoop Comics #2 (1942) has the usual set of spies trying to do in the hero. They make the mistake many villains make. They create a deathtrap. When exactly, in movies or serials or pulps or comic books does a deathtrap work? Never, I think.

No credits from the Grand Comics Database for an artist or writer.

Number 2368: The scoop on Rocket Boy

Billy Woods got mixed up with a gang. Or rather the gang wanted to mix it up with him. Hearing of his problems Rocketman and Rocketgirl sent him a jet pack to wear, and hopefully some instructions. Rocketman and Rocketgirl aren’t seen in the story, but you can see them by clicking on a link below.

There is an act of sadistic violence in this origin story when the gang leader orders his men to throw a knife at a bound police officer. The gangster who hit the cop in the head with the knife got $100. As far as I can tell Rocket Boy didn’t gain extra powers, no super strength or invulnerability when gifted by the flying pair, so the gang must’ve been inept in order to be beaten by a single youngster, jet pack or not.

Rocket Boy appeared in Scoop Comics numbers 2 and 3, Major Victory Comics #3. and Punch Comics #12. His short career was in comic books from Harry “A” Chesler, a publisher who also had a comics shop, and various accounts among other publishers. This is from Scoop #2 (1942). There is no credit listed for the writer, but the artist is identified as Bill Madden.

Here is the Rocketman and Rocketgirl story I showed in 2014, also from Scoop Comics #2. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2128: Firebrand zaps right out of the comics

There were two Golden Age characters named Firebrand: one from Quality Comics (see the link below) and one from Harry “A” Chesler. The Quality Firebrand lasted 13 issues in Police Comics, and the Chesler Firebrand made it for one issue of Yankee Comics. (There were reportedly more stories of the character in Harvey Comics later, but I have never seen them. According to the Public Domain Superheroes website, there is a question as to whether it is the same Firebrand as the one from Yankee.)

This Firebrand, from the aforementioned Yankee Comics #1 (1941). drawn by Charles Sultan, was a lineman who got zapped while working on a power line. He was taken into care by a professor who experimented and juiced him up good with electrics. All he had to do was clench and unclench his fists. And he could leave the ground by just jumping and the electricity made him airborne. Wow. He took care of the bad guys, and yet apparently no readers felt a tingle of electricity from the pages when they read about him. Or, perhaps since he appeared after the Quality Firebrand, Busy Arnold, Quality’s publisher, may have called Harry “A” and threatened to bring down some legal lightning bolts. At this late date nobody really knows, and this Firebrand is one of those one-and-done superheroes from early comic books.

Here is a tale of the Quality Firebrand from Police Comics #5, which I posted in 2013. It is included with a tale of a strange Batman, and a link to a Bad Batman. You have been warned!

Number 2048: Punched out

Captain Glory was short-lived in Harry “A” Chesler’s Punch Comics. He appeared in issues #1 and #2, then #12, a reprint of #2. Three issues, two stories. It could have something to do with a non-super hero G-Man wearing a domino mask a la the Spirit. J. Edgar Hoover’s usual scowling face would have gotten even more scowly if he’d seen “G-Man” Captain Glory. This story is the reprint from #2 (1942), scanned from issue #12 (1945).

So why show it? Well, because I like the skeleton costumes the bad guys wear. Publishers have known since sales trends were tracked that images of sex and death sell magazines, books, and comics. The cover by Gus Ricca, rendered in a pulp magazine style, is an especially good example of a symbolic death’s head cover

The Grand Comics Database has no artist listed for the story, but it may have been worked on by various hands from the comic art shop Chesler headed. His shop also provided art for other publishers, including Fawcett.

Number 1826: Satan is a lady two ladies

It isn’t hard to see that the writers who created both Madam Satan and Lady Satan thought of women as devilish. In the case of Madam Satan, she is married to the Prince of Darkness himself, and Lady Satan is a “master (sic) of black magic," which has connotations of Satanism.

Ah, but they make good characters, even if both of these Satanic females were not the stars of the comics in which they appeared. Both were short-lived. Madam Satan, appeared in a handful of stories for MLJ during its pre-Archie years as a publisher with a line-up of characters sure to displease parents, teachers and the censorious types looking at them. The Lady Satan shown here is actually the second of two characters with that name, the first having fought the Nazis in France, this Lady Satan fighting supernatural menaces in the post war era. This lady also had a short-lived comic book career, appearing in comics published by Harry "A" Chesler.

These two episodes of Madam Satan were published in Pep Comics #18 and #19 (1941), with artwork credited by the GCD to Harry Lucey. The werewolf story starring Lady Satan appeared in Red Seal Comics #17 (1946), The artist isn’t identified. Lady Satan had her mask whited out when the story was rewritten and published as “The Werewolf Howls” for St. John Publishing’s  Weird Horrors #1 in 1952.