“Super heroes” have long been a source of confusion to researchers of the Wold Newton Family. Who they were, what they were capable of, and which of their actions were real, as opposed to fictional or propaganda, are all questions that have hindered the quest for truth of various scholars for decades.

MN has now turned his attention to this matter, and while he has not answered every question regarding “super heroes” in the WNF, he has, once and for all, resolved the question of one such super-team.

Marvel Comics, during the 1940s, was known as “Timely Comics.” It was begun in the summer of 1939 with the publication of Marvel Comics #1, and was soon a success. Although never the leading comic book publisher in the industry, Timely sported three very successful characters, one of whom, Captain America (the fictionalized version of the real-life war hero), was one of the three or four best-selling characters in the industry.

Timely lagged behind its rival DC Comics in one vital respect, however. Timely had no team of super-heroes, like DC’s “Justice Society of America.” The “JSA” was a best-seller for DC, and while Timely had enough heroes in its stable to form a super-team they never made one, with the exception of the “3Xs,” a fictional version of Jack Packard, Doc Long, and Reggie York, a trio of Los Angeles-based private investigators and adventurers.

That changed, however, in 1946, when Stan Lee returned from his service in the American military and formed the “All-Winners Squad.” Consisting of “Captain America,” “Bucky,” “The Whizzer,” “Miss America,” the “Human Torch,” “Toro,” and “Namor, the Sub-Mariner.” Unfortunately for Timely, the post-war era showed a greatly declining interest in superheroes, so that the debut of the “All-Winners Squad” came at exactly the wrong moment. The Squad appeared only twice in 1946. In the 1970s the Squad was brought back by writer Roy Thomas, who introduced a new member to the Squad, the British “Union Jack.”

The “All-Winners Squad” was never more than a third-string curiosity in superhero comics. Unlike the “JSA” no reputable scholar of the WNU has ever alleged that the “All-Winners Squad” had any ties to reality.  However, as MN has discovered, there was in fact a curious truth behind the fiction.
 

The All-Aces Squad: Super Heroes At War


In late 1941 Stan Lee was the Editor-in-Chief and Art Director of Timely Comics, a profitable and successful company putting out several comics every month and helping to place the genre of superhero comics firmly in the minds of the children and teenagers of America. He had shot to the top at Timely, having started out writing filler copy for Timely in early 1941. Superhero comics were in his blood, and he loved them.

Then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and life changed in the United States. By March 1942 much of the staff at Timely Comics had left for the military, with Stan Lee volunteering for the Army.

Lee’s actual wartime service was limited to creating and writing training films and instructional manuals for various branches of the service. He was one of only nine men to earn the Army’s “playwright” classification. It would seem, on cursory examination, that the “All-Winners Squad” was what it appeared to be: the creation of Stan Lee and Stan Lee only, with no ties to reality.

However, MN, while researching the next article in this series (“Secret Wars,” a shocking look at the underside of America’s involvement in the Cold War), discovered a curious set of parallels between the “All-Winners Squad” and several real-life figures who fought the Axis. MN, on further investigating, discovered that Lee was easily in the position to learn about these figures. MN’s conclusion is that Lee, whether deliberately or accidentally, incorporated bits and pieces of information that he knew to create the “All-Winners Squad.”

The All-Winners Squad: The Real Story

There was, in real life, no “All-Winners Squad.” The Allies had no team of “super-heroes” fighting for them. There were, however, select individuals of sometimes extraordinary capabilities who fought lonely wars against the Axis powers and their pawns, from the comfortable confines of the United States to the grim reality of Eastern Europe and the Russian Front. While information on these individuals was not generally available to most civilians or to the general population of the Allied military, rumors occasionally filtered down to the rear echelon and the home front. These rumors varied, sometimes speaking of U-Boats being destroyed under mysterious circumstances, sometimes relating the odd story of entire German outposts along the front being found deserted, or filled with dead bodies, and sometimes describing Axis spy rings being revealed despite the American or British police’s ignorance. The men and women supposedly responsible for these actions, the mysterious figures who were looking out for the Allies and fighting the good fight where no one else could be found, were called “America’s Aces,” or (in the case of the more lethal and bloodthirsty figures) the “Ace of Spades,” as in “The Ace of Spades struck again.” Later in the war, when a unit of soldiers was particularly efficient at killing the enemy, they were referred to as the “All-Aces Squad.”

Documents from Timely Comics show that the original name of the “All-Winners Squad” was the “All-Aces Squad.” It is likely that Stan Lee’s original title was taken from the wartime lingo that he was exposed to.

Again, there was no “Human Torch” or “Toro” or other “All-Winners Squad” members, with the exception of “Namor.” But there were real individuals on whom the Squad members were based, even if only two of them “teamed up.”

“Captain America”

There was, of course, a real Captain America. As has become well-known in recent years, a young man named Steve Rogers volunteered for a special set of experiments led by Professor Reinstein. These experiments included Rogers being given a special formula which transformed him from a small and weak individual into a man at the peak of human physical condition. He was then trained to become a living weapon and used as a symbol of the Allied cause.

However, Captain America’s duties during the way were many and varied. He was active in every theater of World War Two, from the Arctic to Burma, often spending days and weeks at a time in occupied territory, leading small unit in guerrilla battles against the Axis. He was as much a secret agent as a front line soldier. His actions during the War were, in sum, Classified, and although the entire world could not help but hear about the exploits of Captain America, especially following his more visible front line actions, the vast majority of what he did was unknown to both the public and all but a small handful of the Allied armed forces. Stan Lee would have heard rumors about Captain America’s activities, of course, but his actual knowledge about Captain America had to have been very small, certainly far too small to have provided as much material as was used for Captain America in the Timely comics bearing his name.

However, there was one figure quite similar to Captain America whose actions were visible and about whom information was available. This man was Private Lee Powell, aka the Yankee Commando., It was not until recently that the source of Powell’s abilities became known. He, like Steve Rogers, had been a test subject in Professor Reinstein’s “Project Rebirth,” but Powell had not received the final injection of the “super soldier serum” which gave Steve Rogers his exceptional abilities. Consequently Powell’s abilities were roughly half of Rogers’.

This still left Powell far beyond what other men and women were capable of, and the American government and its spymaster, “Wild Bill” Donovan, wasted no time in setting up a “super hero” identity for Powell as the “Yankee Commando” and putting him in a gaudy costume. Unlike Captain America, however, the Yankee Commando was used in very public ways, his actions being closely covered by the press and given a great amount of coverage, all in the name of propaganda and keeping the American people focused on the war effort.  Although he is mostly forgotten about today, his actions subsumed into the general legend of Captain America, during the war Lee Powell was far more visible and received much more press than Captain America ever did.

MN’s theory is that the Captain America of Timely Comics and the “All-Winners Squad” was in fact based primarily on the Yankee Commando. Lee would have known that Captain America’s name and costume would have a greater iconic value in the comic, but the information he had to draw upon was about the Yankee Commando.

“Bucky”

In the Timely Comics Captain America had a kid sidekick, “Bucky.” “Bucky” was actually “James Buchanan Barnes,” an orphan who hung around Camp Lehigh, the home front camp at which Steve Rogers was stationed. Barnes accidentally discovered Rogers’ real identity, and then put on a mask and began accompanying Captain America on his wartime missions as his sidekick “Bucky.”

This is, of course, patently absurd. No adult with even a shred of conscience would allow a child to accompany him or her on combat assignments, most especially those on the front lines and into occupied territory. No child could survive four years of combat against adults, especially trained soldiers; few children could survive even one such fight. And, needless to say, orphans were not generally adopted by Army camps.

Stan Lee is on record as hating “Bucky,” but kid sidekicks were expected in comics during the 1940s. Even so, the idea of the real Captain America or the Yankee Commando teaming up with a child and bringing them into combat situations is ludicrous. Neither Rogers nor Powell were capable of such an attack.

But there was one real-life figure who was, as a child, active against the Axis forces, although he only ventured overseas on a few occasions. His name was Rick Brant, and although he became famous for his actions after the war, he deserved acclaim for what he did during the war.

Rick Brant, as mentioned in an earlier article in this series, was the grandson of "Electric Bob" Driscoll, a teenaged adventurer in his own right. Brant, of course, gained fame as the subject, in the late 1940s and early 1950s, of a series of worshipful and highly fictionalized boy books, the "Rick Brant" stories. One aspect of the series which was significantly altered by Harold L. Goodwin was Brant's past. The first "Rick Brant" novel, The Rocket's Shadow, portrayed Brant as having led a relatively normal life before his involvement with the Spindrift Island coalition of scientists and their pursuit of the Stoneridge Grant. The Rocket's Shadow also portrays Brant as not having met his friend Donald "Scotty" Scott before 1947. And, finally, The Rocket's Shadow portrays Brant as not having invented any instruments or objects worthy of note before the novels events, in 1947.

This is, to put not too fine a point on it, a lie. Whatever Hal Goodwin's reasons--and as an employee of, variously, the Federal Civil Defense Administration, NASA, and the United States Information Agency, we may depend upon Mr. Goodwin as having been patriotically motivated--Brant's involvement in events of historical moment extends for some years before 1947, to 1941.

The declaration of war by the United States on Japan, following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, resulted in an enthusiastic and sizeable response by the American public, with large lines at the enlistment offices and those men and women not volunteering for the armed forces eagerly helping the war effort in other ways. For teenagers the idea of a war with the hated Japanese and Germans held a great deal of appeal; they felt this way out of ignorance of the horrors of war, but it was an honestly felt enthusiasm. Many were eager to join up and felt frustrated at being barred from service because of their age. There were, in fact, several teenagers who lied about their age to join the Army or Navy.

Rick Brant was not one of them. In 1941 he was eleven years old, and though emotionally and intellectually mature for his age was simply not physically large enough to pass for an eighteen year old. He knew this, of course, but he knew something far more interesting, which was that there were other ways to help the war effort than by becoming "just another grunt."1 Even at age 11 he had inherited in full the family knack for inventing, and had begun to create objects, such as his “Sonic Investigator,” which could easily be used as weapons.

Brant, following the declaration of war, hurriedly produced several weapons2 and began fighting the Axis. Although his war records remain classified, no doubt due to his involvement with the “Spindrift Island” group (more on this shadowy scientific clique will be found in the forthcoming “Secret Wars” article), rumors did begin to spread, both among civilians and the military. The rumors spoke of a boy or young teenager, dressed in a crude and possibly home-made costume, breaking up Axis spy rings all by himself, of taking one-man airplanes to Europe and Africa and Burma and inflicting huge amounts of damage on Axis installations. While these rumors might be seen as simply propaganda spread by the American government for morale purposes, some of the rumors are too close to the established historical truth for all of the rumors to be false. The circumstances behind Niels Bohr’s escape from Copenhagen in 1943 remain somewhat curious, with some whispers, circulated by the Danish resistance at the time, speaking of a “young American.” Other rumors, speaking of a more active role for Brant, must wait to be confirmed.

There is enough information, however, for MN to confidently state that the “Bucky” figure was based on Rick Brant, who spent the war fighting against the Axis both at home and abroad in a costume of his own making. Stan Lee, in his position in the Army, undoubtedly heard stories of this Axis-fighting child and used this rumor to create the “Bucky” character.

The “Human Torch” and “Toro”

There was no “Human Torch” or “Toro.” At least, not in the sense of an android capable of bursting into flames and flying, or a human child capable of doing the same. While androids are hardly unknown, none display that sort of ability. Likewise, with the exception of the “Superman,” the number of individuals capable of such science fictional abilities and feats are few and far between, and the abilities of the “Superman” can be traced to his alien ancestry.  However, there were two individuals who used extraordinary means to fight against the Axis, both home and abroad, and did so using, among other things, fire-based gimmicks. There is even evidence that the two “teamed up.”

The first of this pair was the world-famous “Norgil the Magician.” “Norgil” was actually Francis Loring, the descendant of Sir Nigel Loring, leader of the “White Company. “Norgil” is simply an anagram of “Loring,” but in time-honored tradition Loring decided to use a more vivid stage name rather than his actual surname. Norgil was renowned as a stage magician, and in the years before the War performed, as the saying goes, before Presidents and Kings. Although he is not much remembered today, in the 1930s he was a celebrity on the level of a modern movie star. He was also a crime fighter, although far fewer people knew this about him. He was quite skilled at putting criminals behind bars and solving seemingly impossible crimes, even and especially those committed by other stage magicians.

The last of his recorded appearances took place in 1940, with allusions being made to him in 1941 and 1942. But for the most part he was absent from the public eye during the war. He stopped touring and seemingly vanished. Under other circumstances his disappearance would have raised eyebrows, but in the frenzied years of the War, he was just another notable individual lost in the press of events. The truth is, however, that Norgil went undercover to fight the Axis. Like Rick Brant, his wartime record remains Classified, but some information has been acquired on his activities.

Despite F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover’s comments, in late 1942, that all of the Axis spies in the United States had been captured, there were many Bundists, saboteurs, spies, moles, and Axis sympathizers active within the U.S. and Canada. Rick Brant had success against them. So, too, did Norgil. And, like Brant, Norgil was also active in Occupied Europe and Africa, using his skills as a stage magician to intimidate the enemy. Reportedly one trick he had great success with in Europe was the “flaming man” or “human torch” trick, where the magician, covered thoroughly in clothing, douses himself in a combination of petrol and tar and sets himself on fire. This trick goes back at least to the 18th century, when Edward Teach, better known as “Blackbeard the Pirate,” practiced a variety of it. Teach, who sported a long, luxuriant beard and very long black hair, twisted the hair on his head and beard into many little tails, dipped them in pitch or tar, and set them on fire. Because of the pitch, the fire burned slowly and did not consume the hair, and could be put out without any harm coming to Teach. To observers, however, it appeared that Teach was wreathed in flame and smoke.

The “flaming man” trick worked (and works) in something of the same manor. The magician is covered in a flammable substance, but the flames burn slowly, can be easily extinguished, and if the magician is careful and covers himself completely the fire never touches the magician’s flesh. To onlookers, however, it appears that the magician is completely on fire.

This trick was very intimidating to the enemy, especially when they tried to gun Norgil down and had no success. Reportedly Norgil wore a bullet-proof vest beneath his “human torch” outfit; the vest may have been made by Doc Savage himself, and was easily proof against the German and Japanese guns. Norgil used other tricks to intimidate and frighten the enemy, but the “flaming man” was particularly successful.

The second individual to use gimmicks involving flame was Click Rush. Rush, also known as “the Gadget Man,” never gained national prominence but was known in certain circles for being a skillful and intelligent private investigator.  (The stories that he was guided by “Bufa,” a talking frog, must be discounted as a fabrication by his biographer, Lester Dent) Rush was primarily known by his nickname, “the Gadget Man.” He was a skilled and clever inventor who created a wide range of object very useful for his chosen profession. Among his creations were a portable x-ray device, phone-tapping equipment, a bulletproof vest, a repeating hypodermic needle he used to deliver a knockout drug; exploding matches; knockout gas vials; and containers of liquefied tear gas.

Rush’s last recorded adventure was 1938, although we know, from a passing reference by his friend Algernon Heathcote “Smitty” Smith, that he was active in late 1941. Like Norgil, after the declaration of war Rush began fighting the Axis in whatever ways he could, and ended up a part of the war effort both domestically and on foreign ground. We will never know when and where Rush met Norgil, but it seems likely that the bullet-proof vest Norgil wore underneath his “human torch” costume was Rush’s invention. The trick that Rush used to create the impression that he was a flaming man may have been something similar to his exploding bullets, or perhaps liquid phosphorous, or something else altogether. We do know that it was gimmick-based, however, and his own invention.

Again, Lee undoubtedly heard about Norgil and Rush in his job with the Army and decided to incorporate them into his “All-Aces Squad.”

The “Whizzer”

Superspeed–that is, the ability to move and run at incredibly fast speeds–is a beloved and much-used motif in superhero comics. From the original Flash of the 1940s to the modern hero Quicksilver, many comic book heroes have had superspeed and used it to fight crime. However, as far as is known no human or alien has had this ability–and with good reason, as it is highly implausible.

Implausible, but not impossible, and MN’s researches have discovered at least one example of superspeed in real life. This example, not coincidentally, was the source of the “Whizzer.”

One of the better-known scientists of the 1890s was Professor Alfred Gibberne, a German expatriate living in London. His work on the effect of drugs on the human nervous system had brought him a “great and deserved” reputation and the friendship of several of the notable writers and scientists of the time, including H. G. Wells. In 1898 or 1899 Gibberne succeeded in creating a drug which he called the “accelerator.” This stimulant gave the human body superspeed; that is, once taken a human being could run at speeds so great that other humans were reduced to statues, and miles could be covered in the space of seconds. Gibberne persuaded Wells to take the “accelerator” with him. The results were summarized in Wells’ story “A New Accelerator,” which was taken by the public to be another of Wells’ “scientifiction” stories but was in fact a chronicle of true events.

Life, however, does not end on convenient points, as fiction does, and Gibberne’s story continued after the conclusion of “A New Accelerator.” Wells, in the story, mentions Gibberne’s plans to market the drug and to work on a “Retarder” which would dilute the drug’s effects and potency. Unfortunately, Gibberne never invented this “Retarder,” and was unable to make the drug any less potent.

Worse, Gibberne discovered the drug’s negative side effects. He was in some way dissuaded from making the “accelerator” publicly available–someone may have persuaded him that the effects of superspeed on English society would be deleterious–and retreated to his laboratory. He began experimenting on animals, giving them reduced doses. Reportedly, a 1900 experiment involving lab rats had the effect of granting them superspeed for an hour and then killing them, sometimes causing their bodies to burst into speed and other times simply exploding their hearts and burning out their nervous systems.

This experiment was responsible for Gibberne’s never taking the drug again. While under its effects he had noticed that he suffered from wind friction and that his body built up a great deal of heat. He undoubtedly extrapolated from this what repeated exposures, or too great a dose, might do to his (or anyone else’s) body, and so never injected himself with the “accelerator” again. Instead, he turned his mind to other experiments, which seem not to have been so successful.

Much of Gibberne’s life is unknown, for he was involved with the “Spindrift Island” group in its early stages. At some point during World War One he made the “accelerator” formula available to the British military, which began using it against the Germans and Turks. They discovered men and women who took the “accelerator” not only died (often in spectacular fashion) after taking more than one dose, but also that those who attempted to run (rather than walk) at superspeed burst into flame. Moreover, almost two-thirds of those who took “accelerator” died during the first dose or immediately after its effects wore off; for those people, their systems were simply not equipped to handle the massive stimulation.

Even with this drawback the British military used “accelerator” during World War One and afterwards, but in very careful and limited doses and situations. World War One being in large part a static war, the men and women who used “accelerator” mostly operated behind enemy lines, disrupting the enemy’s supply lines and taking out select targets, human and otherwise. Because they operated in a clandestine fashion away from the eyes of the soldiers, they were never seen and their existence barely a whisper. During World War Two, however, when the men and women who took “accelerator” (and shortened and in many cases ended their lives by doing so) were active both at the front and behind the front, the secret of the “accelerator” could not be hidden for long from the soldiers and sailors, and so rumors begin to propagate. Lee undoubtedly heard this rumors and consolidated them into one figure, the “Whizzer.” Lee never knew that the men and women who took “accelerator” and died because of it were British, so he made the “Whizzer” an American.

“Miss America”

“Miss America,” in the Timely comics, was a woman who was in a lighthouse when it was struck by lighting and so gained a variety of powers. This very comic book creation origin would not work in reality, of course. A woman struck by lighting, or in a building struck by lighting, would simply be shocked, injured, or killed.

Needless to say, there was no “Miss America.” There was, however, a woman with an extraordinary ability who fought against the Axis. Her name was Scarlet O’Neil, and she was an extremely potent weapon for the Allies.

Her story actually begins with her father, Dr. Terence O’Neil. O’Neil, a native of Boston, grew up in that city’s South End, the Irish enclave of the city. He attended Harvard and MIT and earned two Ph.D.s by age 24. He married Eileen O’Flaherty, his high school sweetheart at 25, and she gave birth to two daughters, Scarlet and Nora, the following year, in 1920.

However, their marriage abruptly disintegrated in 1921 following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Eileen was, like Terence, of Irish descent, and both felt strongly about Irish independence, having funneled money to the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the 1916 Easter uprising. However, Terence was more naturally moderate and felt that the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which gave Ireland limited self-government, was the best that Ireland could hope to achieve. Eileen felt that the Treaty was a betrayal of the cause. Terence and Eileen’s disagreements on this issue became increasingly heated and poisonous, until she finally left him and went to Ireland. She took Nora with her, and raised her to become a “freedom fighter” for the Irish Republican Army. Nora later became known as “Lady Nora O’Neil,” and was one of the most feared Irish terrorists.

Terence raised Scarlet to be everything her mother was not: moderate, caring more for justice than for more selfish principles, and thinking of herself as an American, not an Irishwoman in America. Terence meanwhile concentrated on making weapons and technology for America, at some point becoming a member of the “Spindrift Island” coalition of scientists. (He was known there as “Dr. Wisecarver”)

In 1940 Terence was working on perfecting a ray which would turn its targets invisible when Scarlet stuck her finger into the ray’s beam. The interruption in the ray gave Scarlet the ability to turn invisible but unfortunately created a feedback loop which destroyed the ray. Terence was never able to reconstruct the ray or make a working duplicate, and so was left with Scarlet instead of an army of invisible agents. She, patriotic to the core, volunteered her services in the fight against the Axis, and used her abilities to fight spies in the US and the enemy on its own ground.

Like most of the other figures in this article, “Invisible Scarlet” O’Neil’s activities during the war remain Classified. However, rumors spread during the War about mysterious “angels of mercy” who helped American and Allied troops at odd times, especially during the invasion of Europe in 1944, and Stan Lee would undoubtedly have heard these rumors. Lee probably turned this image of a female “angel of mercy” into the superheroine “Miss America.”

“Namor the Sub-Mariner”

Obviously, there was a real “Namor.” His existence is well established; he was the child of the Queen of a race of aquatic humanoids who lived underneath the Antarctic ice floes. His rampage in 1939 and subsequent conversion to the Allied cause are well documented.

The “Namor, the Sub-Mariner” who was a part of the “All-Aces Squad,” however, was based on two separate historical figures. The first was the historical Namor. The second was a little-known figure named “Neptune Perkins.”

Perkins’ personal history is extremely complex. He was the grandson of Arthur Gordon Pym, a mysterious figure about whom little is known for certain but much is conjectured. The definitive treatment on his life remains Professor Jean-Marc Lofficier’s “Who Was Nobody?” which covers Pym’s life in such depth that I will only recap it extremely briefly.

Pym was Joseph Balsamo, aka Cagliostro, a voyager who made us of the mysterious “vril” energy of the subterranean “Dzyan” race to empower himself. Pym raised a son, “Ross,” who grew up to hate Pym for piratical acts that Ross suspected Pym of. Ross married a survivor of the sinking of the Titanic, and the pair conceived a child while exposed to the “vril” energy. This child, born a mutant with the ability to breath underwater, grew up normally but lost his parents to an attack by Germans hoping to goad Perkins into leading them to Pym. Perkins instead began waging war on the Germans, using his peculiar abilities to frustrate their naval efforts.

While Lee would obviously have been aware of Namor, many o f the anti-German activities commonly credited to Namor were in fact committed by Neptune Perkins, and the “Namor, the Sub-Mariner” character of the “All-Aces Squad” is in fact a combination of the real Namor and of Neptune Perkins.

“Union Jack”

There was no real “Union Jack;” as mentioned, he was the creation of a comic book writer of little talent. Britain, as far as is known, was absent of costumed Axis-fighters during World War Two. It was not, however, without extraordinary individuals who performed courageous deeds against the Germans, both in England and in Occupied Europe.

One of the foremost examples of these men was Norman Conquest. Conquest, an adventurer of independent means, had dedicated himself before the war to fighting all those crooks who were beyond the law. He had a significant amount of success, against both low-level crooks (evil lawyers, smugglers, and the like) and world-class threats (criminal syndicates, mad scientists, and such), and was highly regarded in some circles. During the Blitz his home and beloved Hispano roadster were destroyed and his wife nearly killed. This prompted him to stage a one-person invasion of Germany, and for the rest of the war Conquest was extremely active in England and on the Continent.

Like the other figures in this article, most of his activities have been classified, but there were enough rumors about him incorporated into many of the history books that it is in all likelihood Norman Conquest who Roy Thomas based his “Union Jack” character on.

Footnotes

1 The quotation was taken from an interview with Brant. MN refuses to speak about its provenance, however, saying that to reveal more would not only tip his hand about his upcoming article, "Secret Wars," but might also expose him to possible harm.

2 Like so much else of Rick Brant’s life, the specific nature of his WW2 weaponry is unknown, still being classified Classified by the United States government, but MN has found mention of a “Sonic Investigator,” an “Acid Splash,” an “Electrical Invigorator,” a “Lightning Staff,” and the “Auto-Gyro.”

Works Referenced

Brooks, Edwy Searles. The “Norman Conquest” stories.
Dent, Lester. The “Click Rush, the Gadget Man” stories (1937-1938).
Fortier, Ron, and Jeff Butler. Sting of the Green Hornet #1-4 (1992)
Grant, Maxwell. The “Norgil the Magician” stories (1937-1940).
Harkins, Peter and Harold L. Goodwin. The Rocket's Shadow (1947) and following "Rick Brant" stories.
Lofficier, Jean-Marc. The “Neptune Perkins” stories.
Morse, Carlton E. “I Love A Mystery.” (1939)
Nevins, Jess. The Timely Comics Story.
Powers, Dennis. “Little Big Men”
Simon, Joe, and Jack Kirby. Captain America #1 (1941) and following “Captain America” stories.
Small, John Allen. “A Case of a Case of Secret Identity Recased:” A Brief History Of The Super-Heroic Era Of The Wold
Stamm, Rusell. The “Invisible Scarlet O’Neil” stories.
Stewart, Clive. The “Lady Nora O’Neil” stories.
Wells, H.G. “A New Accelerator.” (1899)

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