Manic Monday Bonus--The Best Argument Against Plastic Surgery!

It seems that we will never, ever get enough of the"underground plastic surgeon altering criminals' faces so the cops can't find them" trope. Batman '89 did it, Kid Eternity stories have done it. Movies and comics and TV shows and pulps and probably narrative poems and operas have been doing it for decades.

Which is maybe kind of nuts, no? I mean, plastic surgery is pretty specialized stuff. I can see that there might be plenty of defrocked general practitioners, or even regular old surgeons, out there, looking to ply their trade on the sly by helping criminals. But even if there are tons of renegade plastic surgeons out there, really, how much demand for them can there be? I'm sure that even the most crime-infested city probably couldn't supply enough potential patients to keep the dissolute plastic surgeon in business. Because really, who wants to change their face?

Anyway, Marko the Magician, with his amazing powers of illusion, knows how to thwarts this scandalous trade in underground face alterations:

"Doctor Alter." Heh.

"Thriving business." I guess i was wrong!

YOW!!

Thank you, Marvo!!


From Lightning Comics V1 #4 (1940)

Maybe Marvo Can Help With My Powerball Tickets?

The Golden Age must have been a glorious time to be alive, as there must have been 20 or 30 magicians just wandering around, righting wrongs and having adventures.

But Marvo the Magician had a monkey, and didn't speak backwards, so he's probably the best.

Being the Golden Age, his powers seemed to vary from story to story, but for the most part, he just cast illusions, Mastermind-style.

For example, when he is wandering around "the most corrupt and wicked city in the Midwest":

Sounds like time for a classic distraction!

Of course, he have to give Tito the monkey a few bits in every story, because everybody loves monkeys!

And when Marvo leaves, the illusion wears off...

Well, Marvo agrees to help the attractive mayor break the grip this casino and its mobbed-up owners have on her town!

How did he do that?

Wait, wait, wait--that's totally cheating, isn't it?

It also makes you wonder why Mastermind and other illusion-casting villains are wasting time in the Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants and the like, when they could be getting filthy rich without having to fight anyone? Who needs Magneto or Sebastian Shaw always calling you names and abusing you, when you could just walk into any casino (and appear as anyone you want, so "not welcome here" lists wouldn't work) and walk out with a cool million or ten?

Marvo also "breaks the bank" at roulette:

Oh, don't be too judgemental of Marvo. It turns out the casino was plenty crooked:

Way to go Tito!

And as for the money Marvo "won"?

All right, we'll let you get away with it this time, magician!

From Lightning Comics V1 #4 (1940)

This Had Better Happen In The Doctor Strange Movie!!

One of the problems with modern magic heroes in comic books is all they do is stand around and throw colored lights at each other:

I mean, that's fun and all, and it's nice that we finally have a good enough CGI to portray that on the silver screen.

But back in the Golden Age, magicians actually did things, and made stuff happen:

See, now THAT'S what a comic book magician-hero should be doing!!

I'm sure that nothing remotely that cool will happen in the Doc Strange movie...

From Sure-Fire Comics #2 (1940)

Monkeys > Magicians!

Marvo the Magician has a sidekick, Tito the "highly-trained" monkey.

And honestly...

...when you have a monkey who can do that, who needs magic?

We're looking forward to it, Marvo!

From Sure-Fire Comics #2 (1940)