We've traded in our whooshing death ray for a b-z-z-z-ing mummy ray (bandages not included!) in this week's deja vu loaded installment of Mummy Monday, via the Fall 1941 issue of Wow Comics #3! We've also swapped out crazy Captain Battle for the ever hilarious Mr. Scarlet, a shameless, mustachio'd masked hero who is not above the use of an innocent victim's corpse as a distraction device against his fiendishly foolish foes! And okay, since these "mummies" aren't the usual type of actual Karloffy mummy we've all come to love around here, I've also included a special one page tutorial on "How To Make A Mummy" from the November 1973 issue of Skywald's Psycho #15. Also of note: the more observant of you may notice a rather striking similarity in the overall writing vibe and art of Mr. Scarlet, and that's because it's by Otto and Jack Binder, the same dynamic brother duo who delivered all the great Captain Battle horror hero action last week. Enjoy!
5 comments:
Another grisly ray invented by a lone scientist who (and there's a twist!) gets it swiped. I wonder what I've done wrong with my life that I don't have a basement lab where I invent rays that turn people into skeletons or mummies!
I love Mr. Scarlet. Cap Battle at least had a gimmick (the jet pack) but a pencil thin mustache does not count as a gimmick. He's pretty much a brawler who the bad guys got the drop on twice, and almost blown up once. Golden age superheroes were really bad at crime fighting!
He even gets saved from his own blundering at the end!
Twice he pulls the corpse trick. I love the ray, I love the white dried out husks (really, it's a ray that dries you out, but mummy ray is a great name.) These comics reveled in showing you the grim results of death rays. There's more death ray usage than actual superhero-ing! Panel trickery still high but quite a bit less than the previous tales.
The art in How to Mark a Mummy is great, from the font, down to the living mummy.
I'm having a lot of fun with this current batch of nutty golden age shenanigans!
And don't forget the villain with the single unicorn horn on his head again, too!
"Hope I'm not to late! I am too late!" Its not often we see a superhero arrive too late to stop the bad guys.
The victims seem to be turned into zombies instead of mummies, but thats forties comics for you, the rules are whatever the writers make up.
Mummy madness on Manic Monday, a great way to start the week.
"Too dangerous a weapon to exist! Never make another one, Cox!"
I think that, except for stories with a lot of social comment, it's surprising to hear that line about a dangerous weapon. Usually it's, "We'd better hand this over to the government - THEY'LL know how to handle it responsibly!"
(Yeah, right!)
Yeah, I don't see that the mummy ray is all that much more lethal than a flame thrower. Where was Mr. Scarlet to bust up the demo model back when those were invented?
It's hard to tell, from the publication dates, in what order to imagine these stories were produced. But this one feels the creakiest to me (so far!). Maybe it was produced earlier, or more hastily, or by someone with a hangover or something. Or maybe I'm reading it under similar conditions. But I honestly do not think the visual impact of instant desiccation has the same psychotronic panache as a skeleton ray. So I guess they did pretty well here, considering that handicap.
I quite like page six. It's a lot of fun on purpose, but it also benefits from a misregistration of the magenta screen, which lends a pretty neat bit of dynamism to the last panel (without making much difference anywhere else). Also I really dig the dried up twist of corpse in the Scarlet costume. I sure hope our hero remembered to pencil in the 'stache.
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