X is for X of the Underground

"X of the Underground" was a short-lived series that ran in Military Comics 8 - 13 from Golden Age giant Quality Comics. Edited by Will Eisner and created by Vern Henkel (who wrote and illustrated the first 3 episodes), the series was about a mysterious femme fatale who roamed Nazi occupied Europe, building a network of women underground resistance fighters and helping Allied agents when she could. She frequently operated in disguise, often cross-dressing as a German military officer to accomplish her mission.

X swings into action. Art by Lee Ames.

The "X of the Underground" series consists of fast-paced war-time espionage stories, with X inspiring the oppressed to fight back and engineering poetic (or just plain lethal) justice for loathsome Nazis. She also spends her time dodging an American war correspondent who has identified her and who wants to write her story, help in her efforts, and probably get her naked in a hayloft somewhere. The series is of high quality throughout, with the best episodes being drawn by the aforementioned Henkel, and by Lee Ames and Bob Hebberd. We will be publishing five or six of the "X of the Underground" stories in an upcoming book... we just need to decide on the presentation.

In our minds here at NUELOW Games, X is the same person as Lady Satan, even if X may be a little less coldblooded. We imagine that after she became too well-known around Paris, she gave up the red mask and cloak, honed her disguise skills, and widened her activity base. The "X of the Underground" serve as a nice bridge between the Lady Satan stories in this book, and the Lady Satan fiction and comic story we published here.

V is for Vapo-Man!

Another weird creation from the comic book production studios run by Harry "A" Chesler was Vapo-Man! He by-product of a lab accident caused by enemies spies, he had the ability to turn into a gas, become large or tiny, fly, disintegrate matter (living or otherwise), and probably anything else the writers might have dreamed up. He spent the first three published stories running around in his skivvies, but by his fourth appearance, he was given a proper superhero costume.

Vapo-Man appeared in Liberty Scouts #2 and #3, and here he battled a corrupt official, the "Director of Defence" and the enemy spy ring he secretly headed up. At the end of each story, he promised that he would be taking ot the Director next issue.. but he never did.

Or maybe he dispatched the Director and his spies between issues, because when Vapo-Man next coalesced in Man of War #1, he was fighting Nazis and the Director and his agents were nowhere to be found. With Man of War #2, Vapo-Man, freshly outfitted with one of the goofiest looking outfits any superhero ever dared to wear in public, fought his last. With the cancellation of his second home, he was never seen again.

All four Vapo-Man stores were drawn by Sam Gilman, an artist who appears to have worked only briefly in comics, with only a dozen or so stories to his credit, all in magazines from Centaur Publishing during 1940 and 1941. Given the disconnect between the Vapo-Man storyline in Liberty Scouts and Man of War, I can only assume that he didn't write the stories... although that could be a bad assumption, as continuity was not a priority during the Golden Age, and Chesler's crews seemed to ignore such niceties more often than many others.

Vapo-Man is a great example of the no-holds-barred weirdness and casual violence of early Golden Age stories. He may have been an attempt to capture the success of Centaur's more successful hero Mighty Man, as the two characters share some powers in common, but that was not to be. Readers may also feel that he reminds them of Plastic Man, but the two characters debuted the same month, so any similarity there is probably just coincidental.

Vapo-Man is one of the characters we hope to include in a future issue of Complete Golden Age Oddballs.

U is for the Unholy 3

The Unholy 3 are such an obscure set of characters that no one has even bothered given them a write-up at Public Domain Superheroes... or anywhere else really. Except in NUELOW Games publications.

Meet the Unholy 3. Art by Bill Madden

The Unholy 3 are a trio of con artists who have turned their skills from fleecing the innocent to grifting grifters, and making sure they end up behind bars. Flash provided the brawn (and a sexy distraction for the lady targets), Pearl provided the brains (and a sexy distraction for the male target), and Dale provided the sarcastic barbs (and to dress up like a baby when the need arose). They were featured in two stories that were originally published in Punch Comics #1 and #2 and later reprinted in Major Victory #1 and #2. The series was a product of Harry "A" Chesler's comic book production studios, which supplied content not only for his own titles (such as Punch Comics) but for virtually every other comics publisher operating between 1938 and 1942.

The writer on "The Unholy 3" will probably forever remain unknown, but the artist was NUELOW Games' favorite Bill Madden. He appears to only have drawn a handful of stories, most of them for Chesler during 1941 and 1942. It's possible that he continued as a cartoonist, or penciler elsewhere and we just haven't come across his work yet. We hope to re-present all of his published work in our titles, eventually, as we think it's a shame he does not get more recognition than he does. (We've already published the Unholy 3 stories in The Unholy 3 and OGL Trickery, all three Mother Hubbard stories in the title of that same name, all his Dynamic Boy and Yankee Boy stories in Madden's Boys,and stories that he only penciled in Al Plastino Early Work: 1940 - 1941 and The Werewolf Hunter #1. There are a few more stray items--like the story we featured in Carnival--that we are still looking for ways to present, but by we will get there eventually.

Meanwhile, I'm going to renew my request that if anyone knows something about artist Bill Madden (aka William J. Madden), please get in touch. I would love to be able to write something a little more detailed about him and his career.

T is for T.N.T.

When the United States government was recruiting scientists to work on the Manhattan Project, they overlooked one of the most brilliant nuclear scientists to ever live. Not only did Treve N. Thorndyke manage to split the atom in his personal workshop (while avoiding killing himself in the process), he also managed to invent an "atom gun" that was far more surgical in its killing capacity than any other atomic weapon devised by humanity. Thankfully, Thornedyke chose to use his invention for good rather than evil, putting on a mask and cape and joining the superhero set as T.N.T.

T.N.T. made his one-and-lonly appearance in the pages of Amazing Man Comics #21. Published by Centaur with a cover date of March 1941, this series was the most successful of all the titles featuring creations from the studios run by Harry "A" Chesler, and it was a treasure trove of exciting and bizarre comic book heroes--the strangest of which being Mighty Man, who is best described as a cross between Paul Bunyan, Hercules, and Plastic Man. (I'm going to be putting a book or two together of Mighty Man's weirdest adventures at some point.)

T.N.T. is one of artist Dan Gormley's first published professional works; Chesler and his editors had a great eye for talented artists and they gave many industry giants their first paying comics gigs... including Joe Kubert, who swept up around the studio as a young boy while getting pointers from the artists as they labored over their drawingboards. By mid-1941, Gormley was a staff artist at Dell/Western, and he would eventually become one of the premiere illustrators of children's comics.

As for T.N.T., although his one appearance ends with a great set-up for future adventures--he's wanted by both the law AND the underworld--he was never heard from again. We will rectify that ever-so-slightly, as he is slated to join the Science Sleuths line-up of characters. Look for him in Issue #6 in a couple of months, where he'll be featured in an all-new roleplaying game adventure!

S is for the Sword

By 1941, it was obvious to all comics publishers that masks and capes is what the readers wanted. A flood of costumed superheroes swept onto the newsstands/ Even some established characters took to wearing costumes, such as Quality's crusading crime-beat reporter Chic Carter.

In Smash Comics #24, Carter was framed for murder, so he adopted a costumed identity to clear his name. When his series moved to Quality Comics' new title Police Comics (which featured such soon-to-be legendary characters as Plastic Man) he continued to operate as the Sword.

Carter's masked mystery man phase was very short-lived, however. By Police Comics #5, Carter hung up his cape for good, making the Sword's career a total of four adventures before Carter went back to his standard issue blue suit and fedora. The real-world reason was that series writer/artist Vern Henkel had no interest in superheroes. The in-world reason for Carter giving up the mask is probably found in the last panel of the story from Police Comics #3:

That smart cookie is Gay Nolan, Carter's co-worker and girlfriend. In that panel, she proved herself to be smarter than 98% of all comic book characters.

Marking 4/20: Chic Carter Takes Down the Marijuana Ring

Two-fisted, pistol-packing investigative reporter Chic Carter set out to protect America's youth from the Devil Weed in issue #8 of Smash Comics, originally published in 1940. Read this story carefully, take it to heart! Click on the individual pages for larger, more legible versions.

You can carry Chic's crusade for truth and justice in ROLF!: The Rollplaying Game of Big Dumb Fighters by using these pre-generated characters:

CHIC CARTER (Male)
Brawn 20, Body 14 (Includes +1 Hat Bonus), Brains 5
   Traits: Honorable, Short-tempered
   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Dodge, Murderous Mitts,  Seduce, Walk and Chew Gum
   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Fedora (Hat, +1 to Body ATT when worn). Nice Suit (Clothes). .45 Colt Automatic (Small Ranged Weapon, deals 2 points that ignore Armor).


MARY NEEL (Female)
Brawn 14, Body 12, Brains 4
   Traits: Improv Master, Left-handed
   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Disarm, Dodge, Strategic Bleeding
  Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Fashionable Dress (Clothes).

GENERIC MOBSTER, SMOKING DOPE OR OTHERWISE (Male)
Brawn 11, Body 10, Brains 3
   Traits: Coldblooded, Improv Master
   Combat Maneuvers: Basic Attack, Dodge. Knock Out
   Important Stuff Worn/Wielded: Pistol (Small Ranged Weapon, deals 2 points of damage that ignore armor) OR Tommy Gun (Large Ranged Weapon, deals 4 points of damage that ignore armor).

Q is for Quicken

There is only one character I could find that fits the theme of this series whose name starts with "Q" -- and that would be the Queen of Evil. Using her would not only be more than just a little bit of a cheat, since her actual name is Nagana. There's also the added problem that I already wrote about her in the next material included in John Kerry vs. the Queen of Evil,

So, instead, I'm going to add another talent tree to the OGL d20 System that was introduced on this very blog, and the basics of which was published in their entirety in Madden's Boys.

NEW SUPER TALENT TREE: QUICKEN
   Prerequisite: Any one Minor Power feat
   Fast Acting: You gain a +2 bonus to all initiative rolls.
   Fast Moving: You gain a +2 bonus to all Sleight of Hand checks, as well as a +2 bonus to Defense Rating if not caught flat-footed.
   Prerequisite: Fast Acting
   Fast Working: You can complete any skill that normally takes more than one round in half the time without suffering any penalties.