Number 1824: Dr Synthe has the Midas touch

Do you remember when I showed the first Dr Synthe story a few months ago (Pappy’s #1741)? At the end of that story he is asked to make gold, and in this story he does! He even sells $10,000,000 of it to the U.S. Government! What a pal!

Dr Synthe takes his powers from space itself, where he can gather particles of celestial matter and form objects, including body parts (see the aforementioned first story). For people needing organ transplants he would be a handy guy to have around, but then, as now, no individual lives mattered as much as gold. With it Dr Synthe and his friends can buy their own apartment building. What a fantasy that must have been for New York apartment dwellers of the time.

As usual, all that glitters, etc... Making gold just brings down more troubles, in this case a foreign power trying to kidnap him. In this episode Dr Synthe shows another power of his, the ability to grow tall, like the villain, the Claw, and another superhero of the era, Phantasmo. I scanned an entire book of black line Phantasmo reprints in 2012. Just check the link below.

This story is from Stars and Stripes Comics #4 (1941).

As promised, here is Phantasmo:

Number 1741: Of godlike powers: giving Betty new lungs

Dr. Synthe (short for “synthesis”) has the ability to make things from the stuff that is floating around in space, including mechanical objects — a car — or money, or even new lungs for Betty, a woman he just met after arriving from space.

The short-lived character (appearances in four issues of Centaur’s Stars and Stripes Comics) was born of the superhero boom of the prewar comic book explosion. He is credited to grandly-named Harry Francis Campbell, writer, and a fellow grandly-named artist, Henry Weston Taylor.

Despite his godlike powers, Dr. Synthe is unable to fix his rocket ship, and he crash lands on Earth. I said he had godlike powers, not that he is smart with them. He thinks it would be fun to be stranded on a world with people. Even godlike entities from space must have weaknesses, including wanting to be around people. This introduction of Dr. Synthe is from Stars and Stripes Comics #3 (1941).

Number 1379: Ace of Space, meet Space Ace

With a comment in Pappy's #1346, reader Darci sent me on a hunt for the character, Ace of Space. Ace Egan is considered to be a precursor to Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. The story is from Feature Comics #38 (1940), and crams a lot into an origin story, but whether it inspired editor Julius Schwartz or writer John Broome, who knows? It’s an interesting thought. The writing on this five-page origin story is clumsy, especially as Ace discovers his powers. After putting on the power belt bequeathed him by the dying alien he says, “I seem to know the answer to all problems!” Despite growing to be nine-feet tall, jumping a quarter mile or having super vision, I’d think just having answers to all problems would be power enough. Harry Francis Campbell did the artwork, and H. Weston Taylor the writing.

I’ve included the Space Ace story by Gardner Fox and Fred Guardineer from Manhunt #4 (1948). Here Space Ace is Jet Black, a “space patrolman” (space would be a mighty big patrol area). The Space Ace character from the four issues of Jet (Jet Powers, not Jet Black) a couple of years later, also published by ME, is more of a pirate.