O.G. Spider Woman

What if a Scooby-Doo bad guy was really a good guy? Harry Chesler's Dynamic Comics took this that concept for their first issue of Major Victory in 1944 and created the original Spider-Woman. In the Ozarks, the wily Earl Parker(convenient!)robs a bank with his gang and takes young Jimmy as a hostage as they escape in their getaway car. For a hideout Earl decides to use the old farm of deceased insectologist Dr. Goddard which is occupied by his daughter Helen. This girl doesn't believe in using a gun to ward off trespassers but instead wears an immaculate costume as she refers to herself as Spider Woman. Jimmy briefly escapes from Earl's gang who are spooked off by the butt-ugly bug monster. The bandits zoom back to the Goddard house while being chased by the sheriff. Spider Woman ooga-boogas them out the house into a net she already had set up to catch them. Helen had the idea of a Scooby-Doo villain and combined it Fred Jones' obsession with traps. The really inconsistent thing is the image at the beginning with Helen trapping the bandits which has a radically different costume where in the story is more covered up like a cloak with a spider head on it. The connection between Dr. Goddard's profession and his daughter's scare tactics doesn't get brought up at all, like any mention that the costume comes with suction cups for climbing walls. The premiere Spider Woman was more like a mobile scarecrow on her own farm than an actual monster/superhero. Her single appearance didn't warrant her being a full time crimebuster.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

All I Need Is A Miracle Man

Image
Mick Anglo was one of the earliest creators of British comic books, mostly known for making the character Marvelman which was later rebooted in the 80s by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. The idea behind Marvelman was after DC Comics had shut down Fawcett's production of Captain Marvel comics blaming it for being a copycat of Superman. That ceased European reprints that Miller's publishing company of L. Miller And Sons was doing, so they created their own version as a young blonde titled Marvelman. This included an entire superhero family with supporting heroes Young and Kid Marvelman making it available to a wide range of readers. Mick Anglo decided to come out with a copy of his own copy of a copycat superhero for Spanish readers billed as Superhombre, that was also the name eventually used for Spanish reprints of Superman. Anglo's Superhomrbe was written by Juan Llarch and drawn by Emilio Giralt Ferrando with black and white interiors in 1958, and was later reprinted for Engl...
Read more

Bingo The Racist Wonder Boy

Image
"Comics" McCormick could be viewed as being history's first fan fiction writer. Created by Ed Wheelan, the young boy named Comics is a member of the The Little Conquerors Social And Reading Club where they talk about comic book characters. Mr. McCormick would regularly have dreams where he had crossovers with the various fictional superheroes that run in the comics that "Comics" is a fan of. In Terrific Comics #5, "Comics" and his friends are fanboying about the latest character, Bingo, who was a parody of the original Captain Marvel(the Shazam one). In his own story, whenever Jerry Jones Jr. would say "Ka-bang", he changes into Bingo the Wonder Boy, which of course is a name out of a baker's dozen of young comic book characters with a similar moniker, including Batman's old chum. "Comics" tries out the magic word and summons up Yama Lama of Ka-Bang, a racist caricature of a Tibetan guru which here is a wish-granting genie. ...
Read more

The Super-est American Hero

Image
When you need help defeating the Axis powers, you cut to the chase by building the Chronopticon to travel to the year 2350 and get a mutant super soldier. Lasting for only four issues of Fight Comics in 1941, Super-American was a fusion of Superman and Captain America. Allan Bruce is the world's first timelord and uses his new time machine to get help from Americans in the future where everyone has superpowers. They send back one of their unnamed citizens to assume the role of a stars and stripes sporting superhero. This reverse-Buck Rogers uses his powers of strength, speed, flight, and invulnerability to first take on some pesky fifth columnists assaulting Washington lead by the Nazi stooge Tyrannus. Their initial mission fails, so Tyrannus gets help from his commanding officer, the sneakily named Vultro, while Super-American flies all the way over to Europe to stop their plan to use brand new "air torpedoes" on the Allied Forces. Further installments show the original ...
Read more