The League of Extraordinary Oddballs: DR HORMONE

In an unusual introduction to what will prove to be a very unusual “superhero,” we first meet the celebrated Dr Hormone in Dell’s Popular Comics #54 as an old man at death’s door. It’s unclear whether “Hormone” is a family name, but as the good doctor has devoted his career to finding miraculous medical and scientific uses for hormones, it may just be a nickname assigned to him by a grateful world. At any rate, his time’s up and now he lies dying of old age.  But wait! We almost forgot, there’s a hormone to fix old age, too, and his grand-daughter Jane gives him a dose.

With that settled, Dr Hormone is ready for another adventure. He offers to aid the nation of Novoslavia, currently besieged by fascist invaders from neighboring Eurasia. However, upon his and Jane’s arrival, Hormone’s identity is called into question because, after all, he’s supposed to be an old man as far as the world knows.  Rassinoff, a high-ranking Novoslavian official who is secretly a spy for Eurasia, has our hero thrown into jail as an imposter, but not before the quick-thinking young Jane slips a hormone pill into Rassinoff’s coffee. She probably knows what the hormone will do, but it sure comes as a surprise to Rassinoff when he grows the ears and tail of a donkey and starts braying like one, too.

Adding insult to injury, the now donkey-like official is referred to as “Assinoff” for the rest of the series.  However, unfortunately for the good guys, being a donkey-man also means acquiring certain donkey powers…

Novoslavia’s army is outnumbered 10-to-1 by Eurasia’s but Dr Hormone offers to even the odds by making all Novoslavian males from boys to senior citizens the correct age to fight and just for good measure, immune to death.  Which should probably do the trick, right? As proof of his claims, he restores the aged Prime Minister to vigorous youth, then he saves a sick baby by making it an adult (?).

Umm…thanks? Good luck with those diaper changes. But seriously, how does that hormone even work? If the baby’s in the process of dying, and the hormone somehow moves its taker forward in time, shouldn’t the baby just die instantly?

Anyway, Eurasia still has the advantage in tanks and bombers, so they bomb and shell Novoslavia mercilessly, until Dr Hormone commandeers a bomber plane and drops another type of hormone on the invaders, this one reprogramming their brains to convert them into loyal Novoslovians.  Those invaders who get a dose of the hormone open fire on their comrades who haven’t been dosed, and they wipe each other out. So yay, Novoslavia is saved. But wait, Dr Hormone is still up in that bomber plane. He’s done okay so far, for someone who’s never taken flying lessons, but alas he doesn’t know how to land a plane, so he and little Jane have to parachute back to earth and leave the plane flying around in circles with no pilot at the controls, a fact which almost ends up ruining the victory celebrations later in the day.

Oops.

Alas, peace and tranquility do not endure for long, because in the next issue, Assinoff is back again, this time attacking Novoslavia with germ warfare.  Disguising himself as Dr Hormone, he offers to save the populace from those nasty germs with what he claims is an immunity hormone, but which turns out to be a hormone that changes humans into animals.  All things considered, they seem to take it pretty well.

There’s a wrinkle in Assinoff’s plans, though, because the pilots of Novoslavia’s air force all turn into Eagles.  Until now, they didn’t have enough planes to go around, but now they can carry bombs personally.

Since this is turning out to be “war by hormones,” Dr Hormone naturally takes charge of Novoslavia’s defense efforts.

Anyway, before it’s all over, the Novoslavians are transformed into locusts, bees, wasps and rats and make short work of their Eurasian tormentors.

With their work in Novoslavia complete, Dr Hormone and Jane are off to fight the Nazis, who’ve developed their own hormone-based warfare and used it to turn prisoners into fleas.  Because that’s useful, somehow. Dr Hormone restores the poor fellows to human form, which sparks some colorful dialog in 100% accurate German.

Though restored to human appearance, the Flea Men retain the jumping powers of their flea days and pounce on the Nazis, then celebrate their arrival in America by leaping to the top of the Statue of Liberty.

In later adventures, the Flea Men continue to aid Dr Hormone with their flea-derived powers of speed, jumping and strength.  Eventually our heroes run afoul of the Ku Klux Klan (!), who try to burn Dr Hormone and Jane to death on crosses (!!!).

Salvation comes at the last moment, as thousands of tiny, patriotic fleas sacrifice themselves by swarming over the crosses, smothering the flames.  Then still more fleas attack the Klan members, who are driven mad with itching and immolate themselves in desperation.

Ha, he said “Kluckers.”

In their next adventure, Hormone and Jane have to parachute from a damaged plane and as they descend, they pass first the Wright Brothers’ plane, then burning Rome, then a Viking ship and finally dinosaurs, because as it turns out they are falling not just through the air but through time as well (because remember kids, the time stream is vertical).  Arriving in a mysterious realm with classical architecture, they’re addressed by the disembodied voice of “The Thinker,” who compels them to take a long nap. 

Make that a really long nap, like 80 years and counting; this is the last anyone will ever see of Dr Hormone and Jane as the strip ends with this issue.

So sadly our hormonal odyssey is over, but hey, think of all we’ve learned about the science of hormones along the way. Turns out they can reverse or accelerate the aging process, impart invulnerability, reprogram minds, give humans the features and abilties of animals or change them completely into animals or even insects. Basically hormones are magic. It’s never quite clear where our hero carries them all; he doesn’t appear to have a doctor’s bag or a briefcase. Are the hormones admistered by injection or do they come in pill form? Given the “logic” of the stories, maybe he just waves his hands, says something like “I declare the hormone given!” and things just magically work. Anyway, it’ll have to remain a mystery, along with what if any first name Dr Hormone might have had. Personally, I like to think his full name was “Ray Gene Hormone.” Anyway, not until the 1990s would comics again be so utterly obsessed with hormones, albeit of a different sort entirely.

For now, however, let us close with my vote for the greatest “last words” of all time.