|
 
 
 
 
|
Eagle:
1940, Science Comics #7 (Fox). Last appearance 1941. Captain Billy
Powers is a scientist and gives himself the basic superpowers of
flight, some limited super strength and invulnerability. He and kid
sidekick Buddy (usually dressed in identical patriotic costume)
fight the enemies of America. One of his more colorful foes was
a google-eyed crook called the Beast. |
|
|
The
Echo: 1941, Yankee Comics #1 (Harry "A" Chesler). When he graduated
from college, Jim Carson learns that his father, a surgeon, was
killed by gangsters to prevent his identifying them. He also learns
he has family, a sister Cora and an older brother called Doctor Doom living
at Doom Hall. Good with his fists and an expert ventriloquist (he
studied it in college), he is also given a belt that will make him
invisible and a radioactive ring that allows him to shoot paralyzing
rays from his eyes. In most of the stories, his powers beyond ventriloquism
are not evident. |
| |
El Kuraan, the Desert Eagle: 1945, Red Circle Comics #3 (Rural Home). Oil is discovered in Arabia by the village of Santar. Keeping the money offered to lease the land for himself, the Pasha instead orders the tribe that lives there to move to the desert. The chief El Hassin El Kahn sends word to his son Jahn to find out the meaning. Jahn is a well known newspaper man in the capital as well as being americanized in dress and manner. So, he adopts native garb and masks himself as El Kuraan, the desert eagle, to lead the tribe against the Pasha, to force him to pay the people the money they are owed. Even though he is a bit americanized, El Kuraan should be noted as being a native Arabian hero, the star of his own strip. |
|
Electric Ray: 1942, Amazing Man Comics #26 (Centaur). Ray works in a plant making parts vital for the war effort. When he comes across a clue about some saboteurs, he is knocked through a skylight onto a dynamo. Instead of killing he, he becomes super-charged, his touch enough to electrocute a man. After he tracks down the saboteurs, he decides to start wearing rubber shoes in order to avoid accidentally killing innocent people. |
| |
Rex
Elliott: 1943, All New Comics #2 (Family/Harvey). Rex Elliott
is an aviator hero operating out of a "secret Army Air Base near
Australia" fighting the Japanese. |
|
|
The
Enchanted Dagger: 1941, Yankee Comics #1 (Harry "A" Chesler).
Henry Chalmers once saved the chief of the African Mountain Men
from a beast and is promised that when he returns, he shall receive
the "enchanted dagger." Years pass, he dies and his son Roger Chalmers
makes the trek back to the jungles. He finds the tribe as they are
being attacked by the Longees tribe. He fights them off and is given
the dagger which even creeps him out. On the dagger is inscribed:
The true owner shall forever be immune to it's great powers.
Turns out when thrown next to someone, they freeze and are compelled
to answer questions truthfully. |
| |
Ermine:
1940, Fantoman #2 (Centaur). In the early days of colonial America a woman's fiance is killed on the eve of their marriage by indians. Mad with grief, she flees the settlement and wanders for several days until she is lost in the woods. She settles in a cave and becomes adept at hunting, fishing and being self-sufficient. One day she spots an indian with a white baby and she kills him with an arrow to the back. The baby boy has a small ermine cap and she raises the boy as her own. He grows to adulthood Tarzan-like in this semi-uncivilized state: able to hunt and track with the best of them and a rapport with the animals, disappearing sometimes for days, spending time with them and learning from them. As he reaches adulthood, on one of his wanderings he spies a group of indians raiding a cabin and confused, he goes home and tells his "mother". She tells him the truth of her life and his upbringing. He asks then for a buckskin like outfit made of ermine skins, complete with ermine tails where fringes would be and an ermine skin hat with a white ermine head on the front instead of a coonskin hat ala Disney's Davy Crocket. He then wages a one-man war against the indians, leaving ermine tails as his signature, with the hope that as the legend of the Ermine grows, maybe his parents (if still alive) will make the connection to their lost baby boy in the ermine cap. So, he regularly returns home to have new tails added to his shirt. As an old woman, his "mother" looks like a robed witch in her cave home. A decidedly non-PC strip. |
|
|
Rick
Evans: 1944, All Good Comics #1 (Fox). Rick Evans and his friends
Astra and Stringbean are teens who fly around in a spaceship and
fight crime. |
| |
Explorer Joe:
1951, Explorer Joe #1 (Ziff Davis). A heroic explorer of the wilds
of Africa. |
| |
The Eye: 1939,
Keen Detective Funnies V2 N2/#16? (Centaur). The Eye is one of the
odder characters from the time. A giant disembodied eye that shoots
magical rays and hunts down criminals. At times, it operates as
a being that helps people help themselves against the evil machinations
of others ala DC's Phantom Stranger. |
|
|
