Evolution being this jerkish is why I’m a creationist.
Superworld Comics #1
Komos Publications, Inc (April, 1940)
It’s a brand new comic, and one I’ve never heard of. I guess the anti-comics crusade had gained ground by this point, because the inside cover goes on and on about how it’s educational and the science is totally possible you guys…and then you look back on the outside front cover and see…those things. I know it’s the 1940s and science is still limited, but if that’s believable science then science is screwed! Trying to get teachers to use this as a teaching tool? I can see where the focus is going to be this issue.
It looks like we’re going full sci-fi, no superheroes or ordinary crooks. This is a first issue, so it has three or so issues to convince me to stay on the reading list. Or does it? Let’s see how well it succeeds out the box.
Mitey Powers Battles The Martians On The Moon
Well the names aren’t believable. Was “Mitey” a popular name in the 1940s? I first read that as Bitey Powers. Maybe that’s the name in Pac-Land? Mitey Powers will earn his name partway through the story. Mitey’s girlfriend’s father discovers the Martians are shooting meteors from the moon, but almost nobody believes him. Mitey builds a spaceship to uncover the truth, naming it after his girlfriend, but she sneaks aboard when it takes off. The Nina lands on the moon, learns that’s what the Martians are doing, and even though the Martians kill everyone else, they leave our heroes and another character alive so the rest of the story can happen. The narration is poorly placed and the dialog is occasionally clunky but overall it wasn’t a bad story.
Science report: lower gravity and no air on the moon checks out. Spaceships are not quite accurate but work for the time. The aliens actually do look like they do on the cover, poor suckers.
Buzz Allen: “The Invisible Avenger” by Derwin Lesser & Raymon Burley
Buzz and his friend Will Laurence are messing with a ham radio setup when they try a new tube and the radio set turns invisible. I don’t think we even need a science report for this one. So Buzz decides to get revenge on the mobsters that killed his father for not paying protection money for his sporting goods store and still wants Buzz to pay the fee. So why let the bad guys see you turning invisible? If they hadn’t all died you’d be in trouble because they’d want your new power. It also has the narration in the wrong corner, but at least there isn’t as much narration. It’s not a great story.
Science report: In addition to the anti-science of the invisibility belts Buzz and Will use, the protection racket mob has a floating island levitated by helium. I…guess that would work in the same way science works in MacGyver. It just seems a bit more for a two-bit protection racket.
Introducing Hip Knox: Super Hypnotist
Somebody needs to introduce him to a stylist because that outfit is horrid! Wait, some of that is his actual head? So some guy wants to change the world by making someone a super hypnotist. A woman abandons her son the worst doorstep possible when she chooses his. The child dies from the cold, but this guy somehow brings him back with an operation that requires staring at the dead baby like the wall-building vision in Superman IV. This gives him a big eyes and forehead and that super hypnotism. Darn lucky for the world he becomes a crimefighter. After a montage of finding everybody, Hip matches wits with a stand-in from the guy who stole Amazing Fantasy from the guy now publishing this comic, or so Comic Book Plus claims. Somehow this is the story that figures out how narration should work in comics. Too bad it doesn’t come with a story worth narrating.
Science report: I know little to nothing about hypnotism, and even I’m calling BS on this story.
I’m going to ignore the gag comics, including the one that looks like it was made by someone’s kid, and the attempt to defend their depiction of Martians and go right to the next actual story.
Detective Crane: “The Case Of Super-Speed” by Homer Porter
Someone is able to rob a moving train with nobody seeing, and Detective Crane is sure he knows who’s doing it because he suddenly has a bunch of money. Okay. Sure, he’s right, but only because the story says so. Crane discovers how the crooks do it while undercover, but gets caught. Lucky the cops show up to save him. It’s just a plot. It goes through the motions but nothing really keeps the story interesting once the mystery is uncovered. Speaking of which…
Science report: So they undergo some process to speed up in time, with “speed cylinders” on their backs that are never explained. Somehow this is based on real science? Maybe how time seems frozen to Crane and the crooks, but that’s about it.
A bunch of comedy shorts, three pages tops each, some fun magic, image, and number tricks, and some Little Nemo stories take up the rest of the comic.
overall
Yeah, I think I’m done here. When they place captions right the stories are still clunky, the science is questionable for a comic bragging itself as a teaching tool, and there was nothing interesting in any of it. I only have so much time, and I just don’t see myself fitting this into the rotation.
