Moppo the Marionette
Created by Frank Borth
Appears in Champ Comics #25 (1943)
Except for a cantankerous attitude, there’s nothing particularly unusual about clown-like marionette Moppo at first sight. He’s not magical, he’s not a scientifically-advanced robot, he wasn’t brought to life by a child’s wish -- As advertised, Moppo is little more than a standard marionette. But when a COP is murdered by a NAZI in front of the toy shoppe window which Moppo inhabits, then Moppo comes to life!
The irascible effigy enjoys only one adventure, but he packs it full of punch. In short order, Moppo liberates himself from his strings, escapes his store, hops on a nearby tomcat pursues the killer on cat-back, cleans house on the entire crew of a Nazi U-Boat (!), and saves important American military plans from sinister Axis possession. Not bad for a Muppet!
Moppo’s machinations are grim and inevitable.
Naturally, he performs all of these feats in his own inimitable style. Just in order to accommodate his diminutive stature and lack of firepower, Moppo doesn’t directly attack the U-Boat in question. Instead, he sabotages it here and there -- blacking out the periscope in one instance, and firing the gun on deck to attract an American patrol boat in another.
Then there’s just what we’ll call “The Moppo Way of Doing Things.”
Please stop manhandling the cop’s corpse, Moppo.
The most grim example of which involves Moppo peeling open the eyelid of the recently-murdered cop, peering at the unresponsive orb and declaring “Hey, this fella’s DEAD!’ as he effectively desecrates the corpse. Moppo is also given to unique exclamations -- Lawzy Days, Hotchapeedy and Zoodu -- which may as well constitute a unique language.
Moppo creator Frank Borth was best known for creating socialite Dianne Grayton — a.k.a The Spider Widow, a crimefighting debutante who was romantically involved with another costumed crimefighter, The Raven. When Borth later took over the Phantom Lady feature in Police Comics, the trio would make guest appearances in each others’ titles. This eventually grew into comics’ first (and possibly only) cross-title superheroic romantic triangle of the Golden Age. Personally, I just think of them as comics’ first Throuple.
Wrapping up his adventure, Moppo returns to his toy shoppe window and collapses -- luckily reattached to his strings -- under the sign which advertises his sale price (a whopping $25.00 -- that’s $450.00 in contemporary dollars!).
“Hey kids!” shouts an unknown young passerby, a blonde boy pointing at Moppo through the glass, “Lookit Moppo,” he adds, “He looks tired. He looks like he’s been somewhere.” However short-lived his crimefighting career, it’s clear that the neighborhood children are really in tune with the moods of Moppo.
Kid, you’re playing with fire.
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