Number 1878: The Fantom and the Big Robot

Any information I have on the Fantom of the Fair comes from an informative entry in Don Markstein’s Toonopedia website. Quickly, though, the Fantom is one of the very first non-DC superheroes to appear in comic books (Amazing Mystery Funnies Vol. 2 No. 7, July 1939) after Superman...Fantom was never shown with a secret identity, no origin story, no reason given for doing what he did...lived in a lab under the New York World’s Fair, protected Fairgoers. Later he was renamed Fantoman and earned his own short-lived comic book, but then Centaur went out of business and it was goodbye to the guy. He was probably created by Paul Gustavson, who went on to a prolific career in comics of the forties.

Today I have a story of the Fantom protecting those Fairgoers from a giant robot. And really, that is almost my sole reason for showing it. Historic or not, in my mind the Fantom is secondary to a huge, clanking, stomping, havoc-wreaking mechanical man. Paul Gustavson gets the byline for drawing (and probably writing), and Frank Thomas gets the honors for drawing the dramatic cover.

From Amazing Mystery Funnies Vol. 2 No. 11 (1939):

Number 1877: Hang 'em low

As is true of many Western outlaws and gunmen, some of the tales that have grown up around Texan Bill Longley are exaggerated and false. Longley was a murderer, an army deserter, and all-around bad guy, but he was not saved from a lynch mob hanging by a stray bullet splitting the rope, as shown in this story from Desperado #1 (1948). I have said several times that “true” is a floating concept in crime comic books, and when matched up with legends, the legends usually take over. Much more visual, you know.

Longley killed people, but his own boastful nature, inflating his misdeeds, probably helped do him in. He was eventually sentenced to hang. The detail missing from the comic book version is more gruesome than anything shown. The gallows were built, but the sheriff miscalculated how long the rope needed to be. Bad Bill, a six-footer, hit the ground, then was dragged up and strangled by the noose. It took 11 minutes before a doctor could pronounce him dead.

The 1948 version, drawn by Fred Guardineer, was published decades before the eventual true outcome of Bill Longley’s story. His grave was located and his remains confirmed by DNA testing in 2001. That part of the story, with the science involved, is taken for granted by us nowadays, but in Bill Longley’s day would have been wilder and more improbable than any of the stories told about this Texan badman.

Number 1876: Starr Flagg in South America: Jiu Jitsu, torture and atomic bombs

I don’t know if it was a requirement for scripter Gardner Fox to include girl fights in his Undercover Girl stories, but he managed to get them in. There is nothing wrong with a good girlfight (you Ronda Rousey fans know that), but Starr seemed to get one in during every undercover assignment she took. In this one, alas, we only get a panel of her flipping a sexy señorita on her back. But as a bonus we get torture scenes with a couple of men hanging by their wrists in a basement, and we see the lash marks across their backs. I guess for a 1948 crime comic that was a pretty good total of sex and violence for a six-page story.

There is a plot involving missiles with atomic war heads, and oh, yeah, for a little local color we get some guys in sombreros to let us know it is taking place south of the border, near a “small South American town.”

I scanned “The House that Hate Built” from the reprint in Undercover Girl #5 (1952). It was originally published in M.E.’s Manhunt #8 (1948). Art is by Ogden Whitney, and the cover is by Dick Ayers.

I have shown a couple of Starr Flagg adventures before. For some more sexy thrills and girls fighting just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1875: Heaping it on

In 2013 I showed an origin of the character, the Heap, by Tom Sutton and Robert Kanigher, from Skywald’s one-shot issue of The Heap (1971). You can see it by clicking the link below this story. The origin I am showing today is the one told a few months earlier, in issue #2 of Skywald’s black-and-white publication, Psycho.

If you hang around this blog long enough you will catch up on all of these crazy stories. Read this origin, then follow up with the second origin, and then picture Pappy in 1971 with a puzzled expression on his face.

More Heap origins! This one from the one-shot color comic, The Heap, from Skywald, the other is the original Heap from Air Fighters Comics #3 (1942); Just click on the thumbnails.

Number 1874: Liberating the Liberator

The blog, A Dispensable List of Comic Book Lists, lists the origins of American patriotic superheroes, including the Liberator:

“First appearance: Exciting Comics #15 (Nedor, 12/41). The details of Liberator’s origin story don’t suggest much of a patriotic motive for his actions: chemistry professor Nelson Drew discovers an ancient Egyptian formula that temporarily gives him superhuman strength, speed, invulnerability, and the ability to hold his breath for an extended length of time. But that was the 1940s for you: you get superpowers, you cut up a flag for your costume, you go out and kick the asses of whatever fifth columnists you could find, including X-3, the ‘diabolical Nazi spy and man of a thousand faces!’ His final Golden Age appearance took place in Exciting Comics #35 (10/44), but like a lot of other public-domain superheroes he was revived by Alan Moore for his 1999 Tom Strong series. A guy could do a lot worse than end up in an Alan Moore story.”

This is the Liberator’s first appearance, and is not an origin story as such. Nedor didn’t spend their valuable paper ration on long-winded explanations of the pseudo-science needed for making ordinary people into super people. They just got right to that ass kicking the above short article mentions. It is best not to think too much about it anyway.

No credits are given by the Grand Comics Database for writing or art .