How Weird was Weird Comics? Part 1

 

I dunno, I feel like I’ve seen weirder comics.

For twenty issues, between April 1940 and January 1942, Fox Publications released an anthology series titled Weird Comics. The stories inside those pages were light on internal continuity, represented a wide variety of genres — including westerns, sci-fi and jungle action — and were produced almost exclusively under pen names (although creators Don Rico, Louis Cazeneuve and Joe Simon, to name a few, have their fingerprints over broad swaths of the titles).

There were seventeen features across the lifespan of Weird, some better than the others — but the real question is “How weird were they?” If Weird Comics is going to promise weird comics, then they better deliver!

In Part One, we’ll meet southwestern superhero Bird Man, modern-day cowboy Black Rider, literary swordsman The Rapier and the wicked wandering witch called the Sorceress of Zoom, as well as one of comics’ earliest incarnations of Thor (God of Thunder!), and the totally inconsistent undersea adventures of Typhon …

Well, that was a short career.

BIRD MAN by Arnold Mazos
Appears in issues: 1-4

As origins go, Bird Man keeps it brief: “A descendant of an ancient Indian god,” explains an introductory caption, naming no names, “Bird Man is gifted with the ability to fly and the keenness of a bird of prey!” These powers manifest as underarm winglets and deadly skill with a bow and arrow.

Exposure and predators are as much a danger as anything else in the high-flying hero’s desert home, so Bird Man spends a certain amount of time protecting stragglers and desert-dwellers alike from environmental menaces. He is also occasionally called upon to tackle supernatural foes, such as the brutish wizard Stone Man, or a gaggle of all-consuming elephant-sized reptiles. 

Besides the power of flight, he’s quick with a knife and has some influential allies among the animal kingdom (A bear kicks a lion’s ass on Bird Man’s behalf, et al).

Check out Abbot and Costello over there.

Bird Man’s first three adventures explicitly take place in the deserts of New Mexico. By his fourth outing, the hero has moved to New York City. Joining the ranks of the many American superheroes who spent their time cruising the streets for saboteurs, Bird Man levels up to a luxury apartment and three-piece suit approach to living. And that’s not all that’s leveled-up — Bird Man is now capable of flying at the speed of light! 

He’s so darn fast that he’s able to swipe a fink scientist from a mid-Atlantic flight and put him back before the plane lands, destroying an enemy nation’s entire military fleet along the way! He even has time to reform the guy before the Fasten Seatbelt light goes on!

Bird Man’s creator, “Arnold Mazos,” is a staff name used at Fox Publications. Bird Man’s actual creator – like the character itself and its divine parentage – is unnamed.

How weird was Bird Man? Well, in his final appearance, Bird Man’s ancestors’ are revealed to have originally come from a remote island in the North Atlantic, which is a real hike from northern New Mexico. 

…AND he knows French!

BLACK RIDER by Hal Courtney
Appears in issues: 17-20

In the still-wild, modern-day West where gold mines dot the hills, Jack Cody adopts the disguise of The Black Rider to ensure that justice triumphs over crime and greed! 

In fact, protecting a single family’s gold mines makes up the majority of the Rider’s adventures.

 Prospector’s daughter Alice Colt depends on The Black Rider to fight the racketeers and creeps who threaten to steal her late father’s gold mine, and even her uncle Ronald must call on the Black Rider to protect his half of a separate claim!

Well, now, this hardly seems appropriate.

Jack is assisted by his comic-relief sidekick Zeke, and Zeke’s stubborn but clever mule Jezebel, whose kicks can knock down walls. Meanwhile, Jack rides the ebony steed Black Devil, whose intelligence – in the tradition of cowboy stories – is practically human.

In his first adventure, Jack’s disguise was limited to a domino mask stolen from one of the crooks harassing Alice Colt. Later, he adopts colorful boots and gloves, and briefly sports a cape. 

Most superheroes crash through windows now and again, but the Black Rider does it on a horse, which ups the difficulty level – and it looks fantastic! 

In his fourth adventure, the Rider exchanges his frontier trappings for a haunted castle on a spooky island. The property was willed to Alice, meaning that in four adventures straight, the Black Rider’s primary concern was protecting the wealth of the Colt family. What’s in it for this guy?

How weird was Black Rider? A modern-day cowboy, right down to the slapstick sidekick and the purty maiden with the deed to her dead dad’s goldmine in her personal papers. It’s never explained where Black Devil hangs out when Jack is wandering the big city or kicking around the brooding swamp. The mighty stallion simply pops up when needed, as though the Rider was keeping him handy in a shirt pocket.

Control yourself, Cyrano.

THE RAPIER
Appears in issue 20

Swashbuckling superhero The Rapier is, in reality, the actual historical Cyrano de Bergerac, famed poet, playwright and swordsman of 17th-century France! 

Fatally injured in the streets of Paris – not by rival swordsmen, whom he dispatches with eloquent ease, but rather by a falling flowerpot inadvertently knocked over the edge of a high wall – Cyrano’s life is preserved by a local doctor’s last-minute application of an experimental serum!

The good news is that the serum eventually returns Cyrano to full health, healing his fatal injuries completely. The bad news is that it takes 300 years to work, during which time Cyrano enjoys a bracing deathlike coma while interred in the family mausoleum.

Cyrano emerges from the crypt to find his beloved Paris overrun with Nazis – even if he doesn’t know what those are! 

He's gonna shit himself when he sees what Gustav Eiffel left lying around.

After humiliating or dispatching his fair share of foreign fascists, the newly-resurrected Cyrano finds himself joining the French underground in the company of Janine – not only the direct descendant of Roxane, the woman for whom Cyrano pined in his own century, but also her exact twin!  

It seems that “The Rapier” is meant to refer not only to Cyrano’s weapon, but also his razor-sharp wit. This alleged brilliance primarily manifests itself as spontaneous compositions of ragged doggerel, generally about whatever sort of violence De Bergerac is dispensing at the moment. “If you know any prayers, say them now” he improvs while running down Nazi officers on his horse, “For soon you’ll be dead and that’s my vow.” 

On another occasion, as he rescues Janine from Nazi dickheads, he poetically waxes “Manhandle a girl and you’ll never be bored – For you’ll soon die at the end of my sword.” Burma Shave. 

How weird was The Rapier? It’s a testament to Cyrano’s legendary profile that his modern-day detractors make a passing reference to his nose and not to the fact that he’s dressed like an off-model Captain Hook.

I think she got called out in The Gas Face.

SORCERESS OF ZOOM by Sandra Swift
Appears in issues: 1-20

The only feature to run in all twenty issues of Weird Comics, The Sorceress of Zoom is also one of only two features (along with Dr.Mortal) to be helmed by an incontrovertible villain!

Oh no, she’s dry-clean only!

The vain and wicked Sorceress rules the flying city of Zoom, which perches atop a great cloud. Seeking mindless slaves and other treasures, Zoom sometimes descends to encircle unsuspecting cities on the surface of the Earth and rob them blind.

Routinely disrupting the Sorceress’ efforts are – rather than a single lantern-jawed hero – an ongoing series of lantern-jawed heroes! The Sorceress seems to have a weakness for handsome men, and her efforts to plunder the world are often disrupted by her wandering eye.

Over the course of most of the Sorceress’ run in Weird Comics, the stories follow a predictable pattern: The Sorceress’ craves some resource or treasure, descends to Earth to steal it, and is distracted by a hunk. 

At this point, a lot of wild magic gets thrown around, the Sorceress is either defeated by her burly beefcake or realizes that they have an enemy in common and abdicates the field.

In fact, the Sorceress has found herself entangled in such a fashion over Paul, Dan, Allan, Ted, two Toms, a Ronald and a Bob, five Jims (plus a Jimmy), a Jon, and even a Gareth. Nonetheless, at the end of every adventure, these men reunite with their best girls (In no particular order: Janice, June, Lydia, Sally, Jean, Elsa, Elaine, three apiece of Joans and Marys, a Helen, a Lana and a Janet).

Not having the security of Zoda threatened by the Sorceress of Zoom is the first item on many wedding registries.

The formula is so consistent that the final panels of each adventure often take place on a balcony on which the hero, his best girl (and probably a scientist who helped defeat the Sorceress) overlook the retreat of Zoom. 

The Sorceress has many equals in battle, including the water-wizard Druid, Tundra of the Dead Forest, and even Satan! Her last few adventures saw the Sorceress seeking treasures of monetary value, such as jewels and chests of coins. Those battles with Satan take it out of a girl! 

Sorceress of Zoom was credited to “Sandra Swift." The majority of the episodes seem to be the product of Don Rico, with Harry Lucey having provided the arc of the last four issues. 

How weird was The Sorceress of Zoom? At one point, the Sorceress transports Zoom into the past, because present-day warfare was cutting into her slave supply. That’s a pretty heavy thought for a comic made for kids...

THOR, God of Thunder by Wright Lincoln
Appears in issues: 1-5

When we first meet socialite-scientist Grant Farrel, he is stating his case to his hard-hearted girlfriend Glenda, who despises him for his timidity. “I suppose you’d like me to lose my life over some foolish heroics” he suggests, adding peevishly “I’m not the romantic he-man type, Glenda.” 

Somehow, Glenda proves unmoved in the face of such powerful rhetoric - hey, the heart doesn't want what it doesn't want! 

In their first appearance, Glenda ducks out on Grant halfway through a date on the arm of some other dashing young dude, leaving Grant to walk a lonely, moon-lit mile back to his home. 

There, in his unfurnished bachelor’s apartment, a humiliated Grant slumps on the end of his bed and considers ending it all.

Someone’s got to have seen him do that.

Luckily for Grant, however, Thor – “Son of Odin, Supreme Ruler of Valhalla” – happens to be scouring the Earth for a worthy human to inherit the powers of the mighty God of Thunder. And, for some reason, Grant fits the bill! 

Thor interrupts the young man’s morbid ideations by blasting through the ceiling in an explosion of lightning. In the blink of an eye, Grant is brought to Valhalla, gifted the powers of Thor, trained in their use and then plopped back on the very bed from which he was plucked - but with new power and sense of purpose!

From the lofty perspective of Valhalla, Grant is able to determine that Glenda’s new fella is actually some sort of rowdy international spy whose interest in Grant’s girlfriend was solely for use as a hostage. That’ll show her. 

Transforming into Thor, Grant uses his amazing powers to smash the spies and rescue his on-again off-again inamorata. Glenda falls for Thor, but the otherwise-predictable romantic triangle is avoided when she susses out the secret of Grant’s dual identity early on.

Along those lines, it’s never really clear whether Grant becomes Thor, or simply gains the power of Thor. He is described as “transforming into the body of Thor,” but is also depicted in Thor’s company, whether in his mortal identity or his superheroic self. Grant’s transformation into Thor is sometimes silent, and sometimes accompanied by the crash of lightning. 

Shirtless and bare-legged, Thor nonetheless isn’t bold enough to leave the house without his cloak and winged helmet. Also always in his possession is Thor’s magical mallet, a weapon so mighty that it commands thunderbolts to strike and breaks lightning bolts to pieces </Muhammad Ali voice>. 

Thor also possesses invulnerability, tremendous strength, and boasts the power of flight. When truly speedy travel is needed, he rides a bolt of lightning to his destination, looking for all the world as though he were sitting on a carousel horse.

Wheeeeee!

Grant was occasionally gifted with other weapons from his Norse namesake, including a powerful gauntlet which increased his strength. As Thor, he could grow to the size of a giant, wield lightning as weapons, and was depicted as being able to communicate across long distances by projecting his likeness into a ball of lightning, like Facetime but much more electric than usual.

Thor primarily battled invading forces of ersatz-Nazis, from South America to Europe to the heartland of America. 

His one super-villainous exception was Dr.Hsin, a mad scientist who planned to exsanguinate every living creature on the planet in order to repopulate the bloodless world with foul creatures of his own design. The guy was full of surprises.

After five appearances in Weird, Thor hands off his feature slot to another character using a similar sobriquet (see Dynamite Thor). 

His short run may have something to do with his power levels. He was portrayed as inordinately stronger than Fox’s flagship “Big 3” characters – Samson, The Flame and Blue Beetle – which was bad for branding. 

At the same time, National was having a field day bringing lawsuits against other comics publishers who boasted any character who could conceivably be derivative of Superman. Thor - with his streaming cape and tremendous strength – almost undoubtedly had a target upon his back. 

Thor was credited to Wright Lincoln. Illustrator Pierce Rice (with inker Arturo Cazaneuve) is acknowledged to have provided the expansive, uncluttered visuals of most of Thor’s run, including his debut.

How weird was Thor, God of Thunder? Joining the American military, Grant is pretty relaxed about hiding his secret superpowers. “We don’t have a decoration for miracle men in the army” complains his sergeant. Later, a colonel awards Grant a medal for having single-handedly routed an entire invading army. I guess the lesson is that at least someone in the army knows where they keep the medals.

The most confusing character in the Seven Seas.

TYPHON by Phillips Judge
Issues: 1-7

Typhon may not have been the weirdest feature in Weird Comics, but there’s a good chance that it was the most baffling. 

Boasting at least five distinct creative teams working under the same pen name over a mere seven consecutive appearances, even broad details of the strip would change from episode to episode.

For instance...

• The super-scientific submarine piloted by the protagonist was, at different times, called the A-14, the M.T.-07, and the Tarpon. 
• Sometimes it was accompanied by a single sister vessel, and sometimes by a small fleet. 
• Of the many super-scientific devices which he wields, only Typhon’s underwater ray-gun makes more than a single appearance. 
• He sometimes possesses an amazing magic ring, handed down by ancient mariners, and sometimes ... well, he does not.

His supporting cast, his uniform, even his purpose is reinvented between issues. In the middle of his run, Typhon discovers the unknown and isolated land of Javaar, a discovery which ends on a dramatic but unresolved cliffhanger – and which may as well never have happened, as far as further stories were concerned.

Jubilations! Yippee!

Some of Typhon’s greatest battles include defeating a lion-faced and fire-breathing King Neptune, conquering a cotillion of Sea Demons, foiling the Giant Tidal Annihilator, and slaughtering a Kraken who is described as “a giant cuttlefish, 1000 years old! It fears nothing!” (He accidentally electrocutes a whale and several of his own men in that last attempt, but it still counts as a W).

On his last appearance, the Adventurer of the Underseas and his crew head off to the North Pole. Doubling down on their earlier unresolved cliffhanger, the series ends with the promise that we’d next see Typhon passing under the North Pole, which sounds like a threat.

How weird was Typhon? Enormously, just look at this:

That guy has a warm smile. 

Coming up in Part 2: The futuristic Blast Bennet, the insidious Doctor Mortal, the explosive Dynamite Thor, undersea adventurer Navy Jones and barnstormer Swoop Curtiss …