League of Extraordinary Oddballs: SPITFIRE

Our continuing review of peculiar superhero-types now takes us back several centuries to the era of tall ships and piracy on the high seas.  Daring buccaneer “Black Douglas” is an expert swordsman, sailor and devoted Englishman pensively perambulating his poop deck when he spies a pirate ship on the horizon.

So that’s what a “grim smile” looks like.  “Black” strikes one as an odd name to enter on a birth certificate, and since he’s blonde, it doesn’t even seem like a very logical nickname, either. As we’ll see, however, this disconnect sets the tone for the rest of the feature, where illogic rules the day.

Black and his crew engage the pirates in battle, but come out on the losing end.  Offered the chance to join up with the villains and become a pirate himself, Black declines and so is set adrift in a rowboat to perish from starvation and/or heat stroke.  Instead, he lands on a deserted island.

The “steam,” which looks more like fire (or maybe red ink the artist spilled on the page) turns out to be a gas with mysterious properties.  Obviously unconcerned about it one way or the other, Black takes a nap next to the strange emissions and later awakens to set out again in his rowboat. Unexpectedly (it seems fair to say), he is captured by a Nazi submarine.  It turns out the gas had placed him in suspended animation for 200 years and he finds himself in the middle of World War II.

The Nazis find Black amusing (and one suspects, awfully cute) and they promise to take him back to England, but Douglas eventually divines their true nature.

Coming from a guy with knee-high boots, a red cape and a Bette Davis hairdo, I think that qualifies as an “expert opinion.”

Interestingly, the Germans are referred to throughout the story as “Naztis,” with an extra “t,” and not before the “z” where you’d expect it from an erroneous phonetic spelling. Possibly the “gag” is that we’re supposed to pronounce it “Nasties,” like that’s worse than their true name?

Anyway, Black’s instincts are spot-on; the Nazis just want to take Black to England so he’ll have a ringside seat when they torpedo the British fleet.  Regardless of the century, however, Black is still an Englishman through and through. His patriotism stirred, Black throws himself into a spirited slugfest with the goose-steppers, in the process discovering a previously unknown super-power…if you can call it that: He can now exhale sleeping gas.

Escaping from the sub, Black swims to a beach and looking skyward, witnesses an aerial dogfight between English Spitfires and German Stukas.  A British pilot is injured in the battle but manages to land his plane not far from where Black is standing.  Black pulls him from the cockpit, climbs in and takes off to resume the battle, despite being from the 1700s and having never even SEEN an airplane until this very moment.

Note to self: To successfully pilot an aircraft through take-off, simply “turn every gadget.”  Simplicity itself. Why do they make those manuals so needlessly complicated when that’s all there is to it?

Wooden ship, horse, WWII fighter plane, what’s the difference? I mean, how hard could it be? Just think how much money is wasted every year on pointless “flying lessons.”

Anyway, Black outflies the German air force and shoots down a bomber and several escort fighters.  The rest of the squadron flees in panic, but Black follows them all the way back to Germany.  Eventually he runs out of fuel, being clueless to the workings of internal combustion engines, but with his famous beginner’s luck, he makes a “miraculous” (to put it mildly) dead-stick landing and emerges from the cockpit with plenty of fight left in him.

By now it’s night time (because the narrator tells us so, though he doesn’t seem to have clued in whoever colored the sky light blue), so the Nazis come running with torches to find him.

Good thing Nazis were so famously averse to using firearms. Fun fact: Just in case you were wondering what Adolph was screaming in all those rousing speeches, it pretty much translated to, “Remember, boys: we want them alive.”

Now our golden-tressed hero has a true brainstorm. As any fun-loving youngster can tell you, expelled gases plus an open flame equals DIY flamethrower, and Black Douglas luckily is chock full of gas, so it’s Nazi-roasting time.

Oh, okay.  I see what you did there.  Spit…Fire.  Clever.

Except the dimbulbs back at Nazi High Command are too dim to put it together…

What?  No! Honestly, Fritz, he gave it to you on a silver platter and you still missed it.  “Hmm…an Englishman…who spits fire….I shall call him…The Human Flame-Thrower!”

Seriously, how did it take us five years to beat these idiots?

Black’s adventures continue behind enemy lines, where it proves difficult to keep a low profile given his appearance.

And so it goes, as our hero struggles to figure out modern motorcycles, jeeps and tanks while routing Nazis with his sword, flintlock pistol and a never-ending supply of gas in his lungs.

Or anyway, that’s how it goes for two issues, after which the comic is cancelled and the Spitfire and the other stars of the book — including a Police Commissioner who, frustrated by the limitations of the legal process, fights crime at night while dressed as a circus clown — fade into the mists of time.

Still, even two brief appearances is good enough for admission to the League of Extraordinary Oddballs.  After all, how many heroes can claim halitosis as their super-power?