All-American Comics, which will become half of DC Comics, debuts one of their better titles this month with
Flash Comics #1.
This was the birthplace of several major DC franchises, most notably the Flash. I had reviewed the Flash story already in
the very first issue of The Trophy Case, though not with the level of specificity I've achieved since on this blog, so I will have some more notes here.
First off is some more consideration of where the Flash's stories were located. I had written before about how the Flash could have been a Midwestern hero. He does move to New York City to attend Coleman University for his graduate studies, but at the
start of his origin story, Jay Garrick (the Flash) went to Midwestern University -- and there was a real Midwestern University already in 1940, then in Chicago, Illinois.
Jay is so addicted to cigarettes that he has trouble waiting for his smoking break; indeed, one could argue that it is Jay's anxiety about being without a cig for so long that leads to the accident that gives him his powers.
Professor Hughes, the teacher supervising Jay's experiments, and at least one doctor at this unnamed Chicago hospital, are the first to learn Jay's secret, even before he tells his friend Joan. Then he reveals his super-speed to an entire football stadium, completely tossing out the pulpish trope of keeping a secret identity.
An entire year seems to pass during The Flash's origin story!
How fast is the Flash? A caption already describes him as moving at the speed of light, but it sure seems like the Flash only sprints at under Mach 2; that means he's using the Race the Bullet power.
Next up is
Cliff Cornwall, Special Agent. Cliff is revealed to already have some field experience, as the Army borrows him from the FBI for this mission because of his reputation.
Cliff requisitions a monoplane fighter, with a machine gun mounted over the single prop, for the flight out to Alaska. And he's just 1st level? I suspect some brevet ranks here. I also can't identify the plane type. It looks like a Blohm and Voss Ha 137 because of the wing configuration, but that was a German plane.
The biplane that attacks Cliff gains surprise, demonstrating that surprise rules even apply to vehicular combat.
Mount Logan is a real location in Alaska; it is the highest mountain in Canada and the second-highest peak in North America, after Denali.
It seems awful convenient that the enemy aviators who shot down so many planes then left them all lying in a valley, still flyable, and stocked with bombs. But it is still a smart tactic of Cliff's to bomb the enemy runway first, so none of their planes can take off.
Cliff's reward for helping the captured Army flyers escape is to get more work from the Army in the future. He also got a Supporting Cast Member out of the deal, Lys Valliere, an Alaskan native who can shoot, fly a plane, and doesn't mind being called "honey girl."
The Hawkman is next. Carter Hall is said to be a wealthy research scientist, though this origin story does not specify the science. Later stories will tell us it is archaeology, though perhaps metallurgy would be more appropriate. Also, like Jay Garrick, we see Carter Hall is a pipe smoker.
Carter has discovered the "ninth metal", that defies gravity; this is a reference to the John Carter of Mars books and the metal hull of their airships. We also find out later that ninth metal repels electricity, though I don't know how many comic book writers have remembered that since.
Magic is subtle in Hawkman's world; his knowledge of his reincarnated past comes to him like a dream, and Hath-Set's most impressive spell seems to be Darkness 15' Radius. Borrowing a trope from science fiction, magic is said to be one of the "older sciences."
At least one of the soldiers fighting Prince Khufu (Carter) is armed with what appears to be a period-accurate khopesh sword.
Abydos is a real place, and is indeed one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt. Khufu apparently ruled from there.
The hawk helmet is implied to be an Egyptian relic, a ceremonial mask of the Egyptian hawk god. The hawk god is called Anubis by the narrator, though who he meant was Horus.
On the other hand, perhaps Carter's field of study is electrician, as he invents a "dynamo detector" that tells him exactly where his enemy is using one, miles away. It isn't clear what Dr. Hastor's plans are, exactly, or how channeling electricity through subway tunnels is going to help him rule the world. I guess extortion is his game?
Hawkman's initial weapons are a wooden quarterstaff (wise against a foe wielding electricity, I suppose) and a crossbow.
It is unclear what caused Carter, Shiera, and Hastor to all remember their earlier reincarnations around the same time.
Johnny Thunder's real name is John L. Thunder. He was kidnapped by Badhnisians in August 1918, for having been born at precisely 7 am on the 7th of July in 1917.
The island kingdom of Badhnisia is fictional, as are their enemies, the people of Agolea. But we know this is somewhere in Asia because a woman flees from their war with Johnny to nearby, and real-world, Borneo.
The story picks up with Johnny at the age of 23, in 1939. He inadvertently casts Charm Person to make a man "go jump at a duck." He inadvertently makes a falling man stop falling with Levitate. On another day, he inadvertently casts Gust of Wind by telling two Badhnisian agents to "blow away."
There is no mention or appearance of Johnny's Thunderbolt in this story. For now, Johnny's power only works one hour per day, which does not exactly fit with how magic-users work in
Hideouts & Hoodlums. But Johnny is still clearly a magician.
Johnny has two siblings who we only hear about.
Next is a one-shot story called "The Demon Dummy." The villain is a corrupt (private) detective and the hero is a ventriloquist. But this is no hero like Dean Denton; our ventriloquist gets framed for murder, arrested, and pines for the girl he lost until finally being released from prison the month after she died.
In the time of Zorro, or circa 1840 anyway, El Castigo --
The Whip -- also protected the people of Mexico. He could use a whip to disarm a gunman or unhorse a rider. A century later, Rod Gaynor is a bored rich boy on the road, brought by random coin tosses to the real community of Seguro, California (though, here, it seems to be an incorporated town). He is moved by the plight of the local poor and the legend of The Whip and dons century-old gear just in time to stop a lynching.
As The Whip, Rod can entangle someone with a whip and drag them. He can make a horse break down a door. He defeats the corrupt sheriff (equal to a captain, so 5th level?), though a lot of that is because of superstitious locals shouting that this is the ghost of The Whip unnerving the sheriff.
Don's disguise is supplemented with an outrageous fake accent. Marissa, a local girl, guesses Rod is the new Whip. Rod also has an Asian manservant named Wing.
(Flash story read in
Golden Age Flash Archives vol. 1; the rest read at readcomiconline.to.)
I like how Vera is so mean-spirited that even when throwing the message she hopes it hits Sky Wizard. It's a pretty innocuous way to deliver the message; if they had really wanted to hurt SW, they could have at least taken the time to find a bigger rock.
You know, rather than take the time to paralyze them, it looks like they could have just hit Sky Wizard with their plane and been done with it.
