G is for Golden Lad & Golden Girl

Teenager Tommy Preston was helping out in his grandfather's antique shop when he found the Heart of Gold, an artifact holding the power of "the blood of a thousand martyred Aztecs." It gives him the ability to turn into Golden Lad at will while granting him super strength, the ability to fly, and x-ray vision.

Golden Boy, as drawn by creator Mort Meskin

Golden Boy was the lead feature in the series that bore his name. It debuted in 1945, and it lasted for five issues. The final issue, like so many comics magazines during the Golden Age, showed no sign that cancellation was impending. In fact, it added a major new element to the Golden Lad Universe--Peggy Shane, a love interest/stalker for Tommy who becomes Golden Girl after she triggers the same magical transformation in herself by holding a chip off the Heart of Gold.

Golden Girl transforms for the first time. Artist & Writer Unknown.

Despite the promises of more adventures of both Golden Boy, Golden Girl, and even the all-new superhero team of Shaman & Flame, Golden Boy #5 marked the end of the road not only for the series and the characters within its pages, but for publisher Spark as well. Spark opened its doors as the comic book market was going through a major contraction, and the outfit simply didn't have the market presence to survive. It's a shame, because Spark was a company that was founded by and with some heavy-duty talent, with Mort Meskin and Mac Raboy being foremost among them.

Golden Lad and Golden Girl will be receiving their own book as part of NUELOW Games' line-up of rpg/comics hybrid books. Shaman & Flame are slated to appear in a future issue of Complete Golden Age Oddballs. (Golden Lad and Golden Girl will also be given stats in both the ROLF! and OGL Modern game systems.)

F is for Front Page Peggy

Front Page Peggy is to reporters what Jill Trent is to entrepreneur inventors... in the sense that she's a successful woman in a male dominated field who can beat the living hell out of any bad guy who crosses her path. She headlined four stories (in Startling Comics #41 - 43 and The Fighting Yank #27, all during 1946) where she was seen chasing down stories and knocking out villains with a dedication that puts her male counterparts to shame. (Even when she is assigned a social page article, Peggy sniffs out a far more important story.)

The first look at Front Page Peggy. Art by Al Camy

Peggy is an example of the crusading/adventuring journalist that was a popular figure in movies, pulp fiction, comics during the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps the best-known example of this character type is found in His Girl Friday starring Cary Grant and Roselind Russell.

The first two "Front Page Peggy" adventures were drawn by Al Camy, the primary artist on "Jill Trent, Science Sleuth." We will be including those in issues of Newshounds, our planned series collecting Golden Age comics featuring two-fisted reporters. (For a look at Al Camy's Jill Trent, check out any issue of Science Sleuths.)

Here's "Front Page" Peggy ala ROLF!:

PEGGY JENSEN (Female)
aka Front Page Peggy
Brawn 22, Body 18, Brains 7
   Traits: Improv Master, Nimble
   Battle Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Debate Philosophy, Dodge, Disarm, Knock Out, Murderous Mitts, Seduce
   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Fashionable, yet practical, hat and dress (clothes). Purse (Small Melee Weapon, deals 1 point of damage).

E is for Electric Ray

Electric Ray had his one and only appearance in 1942, in the 26th and final issue of Centaur Publishing's Amazing Man series. Ray is working in a plant manufacturing things vital to the U.S. war effort when it becomes a target of saboteurs. While he is conducting his own investigation into the matter, he is set upon by enemy agents who throw him from the factory's roof onto a dynamo, which overloads with a spectacularly. The blast of electricity leaves Ray's body permanently charged with a lethal amount of electricity, which he can release through touching his bare skin to conductive material or other human beings.

Electric Ray is one of those characters that mostly likely couldn't exist today in the innocent form he does here. Instead of being a cheerful adventure story (with a fairly high body count, as no bad guy walks away from their encounter with Ray), I think it would swiftly turn into a Twilight Zone-esque horror story and Ray would soon be on the path to being a villain or a monster. For example, what will happen between Ray and his wife the first time they get intimate after Ray has gained the ability to light up the room in more than just metaphorical ways? And while this panel was probably intended as humorous back in the day, it seems like the sort of sentiment that would always have gotten Ray put on any number of watch lists:

Electric Ray's single appearance will be included in a future issue of Complete Golden Age Oddballs, along with some original writing that incorporates him into the NUELOW Games Heroes & Villains line-up. (And, while not much thought has been put into it yet, I suspect Ray will end up as one of the darker characters.)

D is for the Duke of Darkness

The Duke of Darkness saw print three times during 1945, in three different one-shot comics from Holyoak/Gerona -- Triple Threat Comics (which featured five different characters, oddly enough), K.O. Comics, and Top Spot Comics. He used to be  a cop killed in the line of duty, but who is actually happy to be an earthbound spirit as it frees him up to do a different kind of crime-fighting. How did he come by the name the Duke of Darkness? That's a question that's as mysterious as the "physics" that disembodied spirits operate under in the world of this series. In the Duke of Darkness series, ghosts can become visible at will, but they can also become fully solid. In fact, they can become so solid that they can be knocked unconscious, which happens to the Duke and leads him to be sent to jail. A running gag in the series is that he's sneaking in and out of his cell to fight crime while serving his sentence.

The Duke of Darkness, created by Sam Cooper and John Giunta

The second Duke of Darkness is story is by far the most interesting one, both due to it being the most unusual and weird but also from a historical perspetive. Readers familiar with this blog and the Shades of Gray blog, or of the Science Sleuths series have read about the possible connection between Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's creation Spider-Man and the obscure heroine Spider Queen. Well, in the second of the Duke's adventures, he fights a nightmare spirit that's pretty much identical to the Dr. Strange villain Nightmare created by Lee & Ditko. It seems someone on that partnership may have been mining 20 year old comic books for ideas to plunder whole-cloth....

We were considering making the Duke of Darkness the star of a future installment of Complete Golden Age Oddballs, but our sources might be too degraded to make a decent-looking book. We'll see what we can make happen, though.

C is for the Corsair Queen

The Corsair Queen and her ship Destroyer prowled the waters of the Caribbean in issues 25,26, and 27 of Buccaneers from Quality Comics. Her true name was Lila Evans, and she was the daughter of the governor of Cartago. When her father was murdered in a pirate raid, Lila took to the high seas in search of revenge and adventure. While posing as a pirate, she became the scourge of all injustice.

Corsair Queen is an example of how it was far more common-place for major publishers to have regular series that weren't superhero-centric. We will be presenting the two best of her adventures later this year in our Speak Like a Pirate Day Special in September. That product will also feature a ROLF! Battle Scenario that pits her against the very first woman to take up the mantle of the Black Cat. (By then, we may even include some rules for Lester Smith's CORE RPG. Time will tell!)

In the meantime, here she is ala ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters.

Lila Evans, the Corsair Queen (Female)
Brain 20, Body 17, Brains 7
Traits: Busty, Nimble, Honorable
   Battle Manuevers: Backflip, Basic Attack, Castrate, Disarm, Disembowel, Double Strike, Seduce, Strike Pose
   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Flintlock Pistol (Small Ranged Weapon, deals 2 points of damage. Ignores armor. Cutlass (Medium Melee Weapon, deals 3 points of damage).

B is for Beau Brummell

NUELOW Games is taking part in the A to Z Blogging Challenge by shining a little bit of a spotlight on an obscure Golden Age comic book character that is slated to appear in one of our future products.

B is for Beau Brummell

Beau Brummell was a dapper millionaire and amateur detective who first appeared in the pages of Triple Threat Comics #1. In that story, he stopped a disgruntled department store employee from endangering one of his investments. In his second appearance (in Atomic Bomb Comics #1), he finds himself the only person who can save the careers of several kidnapped singers. Brummell never breaks a sweat while taking on crazed thugs, and he defeats them with an arsenal of novelty items that would make The Prankster jealous. At the end of each of this two appearances, an attractive woman throws herself at him, but Beau Brummell is a gentleman who travels alone, and his closing line in each tale involves him offering to arrange a cab to take her home.

As with so many minor (and a few major) Golden Age comics characters, the identities of Beau Brummell's creators is lost to history. The artist on the second story is generally assumed to be Nina Albright, but the other talents are even unguessed at. We're happy to adopt this orphan, however. We haven't quite decided where we're going to reprint his two appearances, but if he doesn't end up in an issue of Complete Golden Age Oddballs, he'll be the star of this year's Christmas in July ROLF! special.

And speaking of ROLF!, here's Beau Brummel in that game system....

Beau Brummell (Male)

Brawn 16, Body 18 (includes +1 Hat Bonus), Brains 6

   Traits: Coldhearted, Comic Relief, Improv Master

   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Debate Philosophy, Dodge, Double Strike, Strike Pose, Withering Insult

   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Top Hat (+1 to Body when worn), Evening Wear and Cape (Armor/Cloches, absorbs 1 point of damage). Walking Stick (Medium Melee Weapon, deals 2 points of damage). 2 Gag Items (One-shot Small Ranged Weapons that deal 1 point of damage).

Beau Brummell and lady friends. Art by Nina Albright

A is for Atomic Thunderbolt

I'm going to be spending the A to Z Challenge writing role-playing game material for comic book characters published between 1939 and 1954 who only appeared in 1 - 6 stories and then slipped into oblivion. In some cases, I will throw in a game tidbit or two, or I will beg L.L. Hundal to step up the plate and lend a hand. (Anyone out there can play along, too, if you want to add something to an entry. That's what the comments section is for.)

By the time i'm done, a couple dozen more heroes will have been added to the NUELOW Games line-up, and you will have received previews of the content for upcoming issues of Complete Golden Age Oddballs and other of our comics/rpg hybrid books.

And here's today's hero:

A is for Atomic Thunderbolt

Comics writers (and readers) for the past 20-30 years have liked to congratulate themselves on how mature and edgy their comics are these days. They like to describe the comics of previous decades as kiddy stuff. Well, the truth of the matter is that there were mature themes in comics from the earliest days.

Take for example Atomic Thunderbolt. Here's title the star of which came into existence because a mad scientist, frightened by the destructive power of the atom bomb, had devised a method to transform humanity into creatures who could survive atomic blasts and radiation. Willy Burns, a WW2 vet suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and severe depression, volunteers to be the scientist's test subject, because he feles he has nothing left to contribute to the world. It perhaps goes without saying, but the scientist's experiment goes horribly wrong, causing a massive explosion that kills him, destroys his laboratory and all his inventions... but leaves a transformed Willy as the only thing standing in the wreckage. Willy vows to use his newly gained powers for good, to fulfill the scientist's dream of a better tomorrow for humanity. (Those "newly gained powers" included the ability to fly, to create explosions with his bare hands, and to generate waves of force at will.)

Atomic Thunderbolt, drawn by Mort Lawrence

In the space of less than a dozen pages, the debut story of Atomic Thunderbolt tackled the long-term damaging effects war can have on those who wave it, the threat that atomic weapons posed (and still pose) to life on Earth, and even the dangers of scientists who feel their ends justify their means--the to Willy apparently benevolent scientist was willing to force someone to be his test subject if he hadn't happened upon Willy. Even more, the story makes it clear that he was one of the minds behind the invention of the atom bomb. I think this maturity level of the ideas in this story measure up to anything that we saw in the 1980s and 1990s when it was hip to blather on about how "grown up" comics were. And the anonymous writer of Atomic Thunderbolt told his story without needing to resort to profanity.

Aside from his origin story, Atomic Thunderbolt appeared in one more adventure. In it, he crossed paths with Rigor & Mortis, a pair of screwball immortal alchemists whose sorcery might be as dangerous as atomic weapons if they weren't so inept. The adventure with Rigor & Mortis was the second story in Atomic Thunderbolt #1, as in 1946 it was still typical for a comics magazine to contain numerous short stories in various genres and featuring different characters.

While each of the four stories included in Atomic Thunderbolt #1 ended with a plug for issue #2, no such issue ever saw print. In fact, this was the one and only comic book to ever be published by the Regor Company. Atomic Thunderbolt never flew again... until now! He will return in a future issue of Complete Golden Age Oddballs along with Rigor & Mortis and an all-new ROLF! battle scenario!