Biggest bronc I ever roped! Pardon my high heels and spurs!
Leading Comics #3 is an issue of the series Leading Comics (Volume 1) with a cover date of June, 1942.
Appearing in Seven Soldiers of Victory: "The Tyrants of Time"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Billy Gunn
- Dr. Moresby
- Zipper (beggar)
- Dusty (beggar)
- Wild Bill Dickson, former sheriff
- Sammy Singer, stowaway
Antagonists:
- Doctor Doome (Apparent Death)
- Alexander the Great
- Attila the Hun
- Genghis Khan (Secretly Vandal Savage, see notes)
- Tartar warriors
- petty criminals
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Duke
- Turk
- Spivy
- Nero Claudius Caesar
- his Praetorian Guards
- Horatio
- Marcus
- his Praetorian Guards
Other Characters:
- Sylvester Pemberton's father
- Ulysses
- Leo Starr, inventor (Dies)
- Bill Bates, fisherman
- Sammy Singer
- slave oarsmen
- Greek warriors
Animals:
- Winged Victory (Shining Knight's winged horse)
- An American crocodile (Alexander thought that it was a crocodile from the Nile)
- A rattlesnake
- A polar bear
- A whale
- A dinosaur (On a TV or computer screen)
- A mammoth (On a TV or computer screen)
- Scraps (Sammy Singer's dog
Locations:
Items:
- Dr. Doome's time-travel equipment
- Leo Starr's robots
- Oscar
- Trojan Horse
- Platinum
- Gold
- Radium
- Uranium
- Tantalum
- Catapult
Vehicles:
Synopsis for Seven Soldiers of Victory: "The Tyrants of Time"
Dr. Wilfred Doome invents a time machine, and uses it to recruit five conquerors: Nero, Attila, Bonaparte, Genghis Khan, and Alexander the Great, to accomplish a series of crimes in 1942. During a preliminary robbery, on Wall Street, the gang encounters and escapes from Green Arrow and Speedy, who call in the rest of the Seven Soldiers for a meeting. The villains have by bad luck acquired a walky-talky radio from Speedy, set to transmit, and Green Arrow holds the other radio, enabling the team to do some intermittent eavesdropping, and assemble some clues. Then they split up.
In Canada, the Star Spangled Kid and Stripesy pursue and defeat Napoleon Bonaparte; in Florida, Green Arrow and Speedy hunt down Alexander the Great; in Alaska, the Shining Knight and Winged Victory engage and defeat Genghis Khan and his Mongols and some hoodlums; in South Dakota, the Vigilante and Billy Gunn outgun Attila and his Huns; at sea, near Dr. Doome's lighthouse hideout, The Crimson Avenger and Wing have some setbacks then overcome Nero's forces. All five of these historic despots have escaped their opponents by using Doome's equipment to return to their own times and places.
In the process of beating Nero, the Crimson Avenger has learned that the lighthouse is the base of the main villain, and soon the Seven Soldiers work their way through some death-traps, then corner Doome, who escapes by fleeing to the time and place of the Trojan War. Speedy finds a piece of Doome's machinery, and enables the team to pursue him. In the shadow of the Trojan Horse, Sir Justin briefly converses with Odysseus (here called Ulysses), persuading him to turn against Dr. Doome, who again flees, back to 1942, and again is pursued through time itself. Doome desperately tries to flee, this time into the future, but his time machine explodes with him in it.
Notes
- The Tyrants of Time is reprinted in The Seven Soldiers of Victory Archives Vol. 1.
- This story was presented in seven parts:
- Introduction
- Chap. 1: "Defeat Before Waterloo"
- Chap. 2: "Alexander The Great"
- Chap. 3: "The Man Who Told a Fish Story"
- Chap. 4: "The Spirit of Wild Bill Dickson"
- Chap. 5: "Fiddler's Farewell"
- Conclusion
- This story was retold with additional details in All-Star Squadron #29 (1984).
- In Green Lantern #10, immortal caveman Vandal Savage claimed to have been Genghis Khan. While some of Savage's other assertions in that story have been shown to be false, this one has not been disputed.
Trivia
- Wing is portrayed as stereotypical Chinese, changing "R"s to "L"s.
- Nero is portrayed as playing a fiddle. The fiddle (aka violin) was not invented in Nero's time; He actually played a cithara.[2].
- Alexander refers to Jupiter while in battle, but Jupiter is a Roman god; as a Macedonian, he surely would have referred to Zeus instead. It was fixed in the retelling in All-Star Squadron #29.
- Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy fight Napoleon near the Canadian border, where a spur line from Quebec gold mines meets the main line. Clearly this is not New York. Three possible places: Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
- Guards from a unnamed asylum take Napoleon. When retold, the asylum is retconned as the Arkham Asylum.
- Green Arrow mentions that history says that Alexander will die at 31 y.o. by excess of wine. Actually, Alexander died at 32. Wine is only regarded as one of the possible causes. On Earth-One, Alexander, along other conquerors throughout history, had their destinies doomed by an artifact known as the Emperor Eagle Statue.
- Loafers in Alaska refer to whales as fishes... but you know that the whale is a mammal, don't you?
See Also
- Discuss Leading Comics Vol 1 3 on the forums
- Cover gallery for the Leading Comics series
- Images from Leading Comics Vol 1 3
Recommended Reading
Links and References
- ↑ This is the century which Attila was active.
- ↑ https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/nero1.htm
