Ultra really was an awesome Superman villain

It's been months since I last blogged about Golden Age Superman, but I'm going to get back into it. I left off at Action Comics #20, when Superman's first (and at the time, only) recurring villain was the mad scientist, Ultra (formerly the Ultra-Humanite, but I guess that was too unwieldy a name). Ultra had transplanted his brain into a young actress, intentionally choosing that body and becoming a transgender character. In the next issue, Action #21, she seduces a male scientist in order to steal his atomic disintegrator technology. Siegel and Shuster never indicated what Ultra's sexuality was before he changed gender, so it's easy to imagine that he always identified as female and was attracted to men. That's pretty amazing for a comic from 1941.

I suppose we could dismiss it since Ultra's a villain and not meant to be a role model, but I think it's also important that the comic never condemns or even comments at all on Ultra's change. It's very matter-of-fact; not at all presented as evidence of depravity. I mean, Ultra is clearly insane, but no one ever talks about that being connected to her changing gender. Was that assumed or implied? Maybe, I guess. Golden Age comics were always light on explanations and motivation. Readers had to fill in a lot of blanks themselves. But that's one of the things I love about the Golden Age and it's awesome to be able to read about a transgender character where that's just a part of who she is. I'd love to know what grown-up readers of the day thought about that, if anything. Were Superman comics such works of fantasy that no one wondered about these kinds of questions?

As fascinating as Ultra's gender identity is, it's not the only thing the character had going for her. Also in Action #21, Superman learns that she's built a domed city inside an extinct volcano and has populated it with giant robots as guards.

Guys, why is nobody using this character anymore?

Lois Lane: Septuplet?

There sure were a lot of women running around the DCU looking exactly like Lois Lane in the Golden Age. I counted seven in just four, consecutive issues of Action Comics. Maybe Lucy isn't Lois' only sister.

Take this random victim from Action #17, for instance.



Or this telephone operator from the same issue.



Here's a blackmailer from Action Comics #18.



And Lois from Action #18, for comparison.



This librarian from Action Comics #19 looks like maybe she's seen that nurse before.



And check out this murderous actor in Action Comics #20.



The homicidal headliner has an interesting story, by the way. She's Dolores Winters, but when she commits her crimes, it's not longer Dolores' mind controlling her body. It's the evil scientist Ultra whom Superman thought he murdered at the end of Action #19. As she explains to Superman, her henchmen revived her...



Interesting that Ultra specifically instructed (at the time) "his" henchmen to put his brain in a female body. That makes Ultra an intentionally transgender character. I've known for a long time that Ultra spent time in a female body, but always assumed that was accidental. Ultra's super interesting and I'm actually not looking forward to her being replaced by Lex Luthor as Superman's main villain. Especially now that she looks exactly like the woman to whom Superman is most attracted in the world. I'm guessing no one's ever followed up on that thread though.

Something else interesting about Ultra in this story is how Superman figures out what happened.





That's quite a leap of logic, Superman, but it turns out he's right. Those eyes don't lie.

Superman kills

Action Comics #19 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) is weird for a few reasons. First of all, the super-intelligent Ultra (as they're still calling him) isn't so smart. He's revived a medieval plague in an attempt to destroy humanity and start his own race, but decides not to eliminate the one threat to his plan: a scientist named Travers who's working on a cure. Ultra knows that Travers is getting close, but rather than kill the scientist before he succeeds, Ultra chooses to simply monitor him until Travers actually has a cure. I thought that maybe Ultra planned to use the cure as part of his own plan, but there's no evidence of that in the story and there's not a logical reason for it in the first place.



Another weird thing is the reaction of the scientific community to Travers' research. The "purple plague" has already killed hundreds of Metropolitans and the medical world is "mystified" (according to a newspaper headline), but without even inspecting his research they automatically assume that the one person close to a potential cure is a "sensation-seeking opportunist."

Unfortunately, they're right that Travers hasn't quite got to the cure yet, but when his tests fail, they blackball him, even to the point of a chemical company's refusing to sell him supplies. Which leads to the third weird thing:



Superman, who's been encouraging and supporting Travers the whole time, breaks into the chemical company and steals the supplies Travers needs. He doesn't even pull the classic, leave-the-money-on-the-counter trick. He just straight up takes them and dares a guard to stop him.

That's not the last morally questionable action Superman takes in the issue either.



In his final confrontation with Ultra, the mad scientist shoots some kind of weapon at Superman. There's no explanation for what the gun does or whether it would affect Superman at all, but let's assume it could actually harm him somehow. Rather than simply dodge out of its way, he grabs Ultra and pulls the man into the blast, killing him.

Or at least Superman believes it's killed him. It's probably not a huge spoiler to suggest that Ultra may have survived, but Superman mistakenly declares him dead. Clearly he meant to murder the villain, though (as we find out in the very next issue) Siegel and Shuster didn't.

Humanite no more?

Three things I noticed in Action Comics #17 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster):

1. Superman's leadership

While rescuing a passenger ship that caught fire, Superman doesn't just put out the fire himself, but organizes the crew and passengers so that they can save themselves. This is about the same time that Lois gave Superman her "inspire ordinary mortals" speech in the daily newspaper strips and this an early example of Superman's putting that idea into practice. I like to think that's not a coincidence.



2. Your secret identity is slipping.

Clark's investigation of the fire leads him to the company that owns the ship. When the manager's assistant tells Clark that the manager is out, Clark not only doesn't believe him, he forces his way into the office with what appears to be a feat of superhuman strength. This also lines up with events in the newspaper strip from around that same time where the line between Superman and Clark became a lot more relaxed.



3. Humanite no more

Fortunately for me, the Ultra-Humanite is behind the ship line's woes. Curiously, Siegel tries a new nickname on the villain, dropping the "Humanite" from not only in dialogue, but in narrative captions as well. The change wouldn't stick.

By the way, not only does Superman not catch "Ultra" at the end of this issue, he never even encounters the villain. The best he can do is shut down the mad scientist's current operation.

Superman's first archnemesis, the Ultra-Humanite

In Action Comics #14 (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster), Superman investigates what he (and the reader) thinks is a simple case of a construction company's using inferior materials. But when he's chasing some bad guys and their car disappears into thin air, he realizes that there's more to it.

Sure enough, the Ultra-Humanite has returned, having escaped death after his encounter with Superman in the previous issue. The Man of Steel is able to shut down the villain's current operation, but Ultra-Humanite escapes again and the issue ends in two panels that show each man worrying and planning about how to defeat his enemy.

Clearly Siegel and Shuster were planning for Ultra-Humanite to become Superman's official archnemesis. I'm curious to see how he'd become supplanted by a different bald scientist.

 

Daily Panel | 'It was inevitable that we should clash!'

From Action Comics #13 (June 1939). Written by Jerry Siegel; drawn by Joe Shuster.

What begins as a typical story of Superman's war on a protection racket takes a surprising turn when he learns that there's a super powered mastermind behind it. The bald man in the wheelchair calls himself the Ultra-Humanite, a play on Superman's own name, but instead of being super strong, he's super intelligent.

It looks like the Ultra-Humanite dies at the end in a plane crash, but Siegel and Shuster knew that they'd hit on something special and call attention to Superman's not finding the villain's body in the wreckage. "That finishes his plan to control the earth," Superman says. "Or does it?"