Z is for Zaza the Mystic

I'm closing out A to Z April with a character who I love the idea of, but whose series left a lot to be desired in its execution.

Zaza the Mystic graced the pages of two issues of her self-titled series, starring in six short stories between them. She was a type of character who is the villain in hundreds of pulp fiction and comic book stories--a gypsy con artist tricking people into believing she has the ability to foretell the future. Zaza, however, uses her  highly honed powers of observation, deductive reasoning skills, and talents in delivering cold readings in pursuit of stopping crime rather than committing it. Together with her police detective boyfriend, she stops jewel heists, stock swindles, murders, and more.

The image that introduced Zaza the Mystic. Artist Unknown

The series was written by the great Jerry Seigel and illustrated by a rotating roster of interchangeable artists with bland, mid-1950s romance comics art style. It's a shame publisher Charlton didn't have more unique talent on the strip, as I think the concept deserved a far better presentation than it got.

I also wish the strip had a bit more of an edge to it. However, in 1954, Zaza the Mystic #10 and #11 were among the first publications to sport the Comics Code Authority logo, so you can bet every eggshell was left intact as these stories unfolded. Zaza was a completely "domesticated" gypsy, living in a completely white world where even the bad guys had good manners. As much as I like the concept of the character, I couldn't help but think of Dick Briefer's fantastic Bronze Terror strip (the best of which I compiled in Real American #1). Here was a character who was a modern-day Native American, whose ethnicity was part of who the character was and how the stories unfolded. Racism and bigotry came up several times in the course of the Bronze Terror series... because, well, racists exist and they made great villains even in the 1940s. But, with the self-censorship brought on by the Comics Code. even if Siegel had considered including bigotry against Zaza because of her heritage, it probably wouldn't have passed muster. (And what about the lesson it would teach kids--reminding them that the blondhaired, blue-eyed police officer was dating outside his race?)

We planning to put out a collection of the four best Zaza stories, along with the usual game material in support of it. When exactly we'll do that remains to be seen... there are soooo many great characters that we think need to be brought to the public again, and that we want to play with and create new material for--however meager some of our creations end up being. We hope some of you will want to get to know.these characters and that you'll choose to pick up some of our comics/rpg hybrid e-books.

And with that plug and bit of hopeful thinking. A to Z April comes to a close. I hope some of you out there had as much fun with as I did.

See you in a funny pages!

(PS: Due to foolishness on my part.. R (Rex the Seeing Eye Dog) and W (White Princess of the Jungle) well through the cracks. Look fo rthem soon!)

Y is for Yankee Girl

Among the obscure superheroes that came out of Harry "A" Chesler's production studios perhaps Yankee Girl is the most obscure--but also among the most well-known. She had two appearances, none of which were in titles Chesler himself was involved with publishing and one of these sat undistributed in a warehouse from around 1947 until 1964. However, she was revived by AC Comics in the 1990s, and she was most recently seen in a 2012 graphic novel titled Stars and Stripes Forever. I don't know anything about the AC version, other than they seem to have explained where her magic powers came from.

Yankee Girl takes flight. Artist ID uncertain, but maybe Ralph Mayo

Yankee Girl is secretly socialite Lauren Mason, who, when she utters "three magic words" of Yankee Doodle Dandy, is transformed into a flying, super-strong defender of truth and justice. The source of the magic she draws upon, and the extend of her powers are unknown, but it is established that she is not invulnerable, as she knocked unconscious by bad guys in her first appearance. Or maybe she is invulnerable in some cases, as she seems sturdier (perhaps even bullet proof) in her second appearance.

Yankee Girl first took flight in Dynamic Comics #23 (from Superior), with her second adventure showing up in Danger #16 from I.W. Publishing where she was featured on an excellent cover by Ross Andru and Mike Espostio.

The writer and artist on the Yankee Girl stories is (are?) unknown. Ralph Mayo is credited as the writer and aritst on both her appearances by some sources, but I think someone else whas doing the inking when I compare the on Yankee Girl to his many Judy of the Jungle stories, especially the ones we're including in Judy of the Jungle: Warriors of the Laughing Hyena..

Our discovery of Yankee Girl was the final piece we needed to firm up our plans for volume of Complete Golden Age Oddballs to coincide with the Fourth of July this year. She'll be joined by Major Victory, and we'll be revealing the REAL source of her magic (at least in the NUELOW Heroes and Villains universe.)

And, just for fun, here's a totally off-the-cuff Talent Tree for use with the OGL d20 Modern superpowers system featured introduced on this blog, and expanded upon in Madden's Boys and the Complete Golden Age Oddballs series. This hasn't been play-tested and it amounts to little more than me typing thoughts as they occur. If someone DOES have an opinion on this talent tree and its playability (or lack thereof), please speak up; That's what we have a comments section for! (The rest of the post is Open Game Content and may be reproduced in accordance with this license.)

NEW SUPER TALENT TREE: MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION
You have transformative powers!
   Prerequisite: Any one Minor Power Feat.
   Simple Transformation: When you utter a magic phrase, your clothes become your superhero costume. The transformation lasts until you say the magic word again.
   Minor Transformation: Same as above, but you gain +1 increase to two stats of your choice (determined when this talent is chosen).
   Prerequisite: Simple Transformation
   Major Transformation: Same as above, except you gain an additional +1 increase to your chosen stats, as well as two Minor Power feats (determined when this talent is chosen).
   Prerequisite: Minor Transformation.
  Total Transformation: Same as above, but all attributes are increased by +2, you gain 2 bonus talents, and two bonus feats, Minor Power feats or any others available in the campaign).

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.