The Crusader, a.k.a. 'the Man in Black' (who is dressed in green)
The Crusader is a detective hero from The Golden Age of Comic Books, created by Kermit Jaedicker and published by Hillman in Victory Comics #1-4. It concerns a mysterious detective, also called the Man in Black, as he solves various crimes and battles Nazi spies.
This comic contains examples of:
- Arch-Enemy: Emil Groff, a Gestapo agent with hypnotic eyes, serves as the Crusader's most dangerous and sole recurring foe.
- Heroic Willpower: The Crusader has such a strong will that he's the only man immune to Groff's hypnosis.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Emil Groff can mind control people into doing whatever he wants, up to and including Psychic-Assisted Suicide, via Eye Beams he unleashes.
- Protagonist Title: The Crusader is the hero of the comics.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax:
- The Big Bad of Victory Comics #1 is a Nazi spy who disguised himself as a ghost to hide his experiments.
- Count Rustavic, from Victory Comics #2, disguises himself as a vampire to conceal his theme to get blood for the Nazi soldiers.
- Shout-Out: The Crusader nicknames his arch nemesis Groff Svengali due to the two characters having similar hypnotic abilities.
- Spiders Are Scary: The Big Bad of Victory Comics #1 has as his weapon being spiders that can drive people into a madness where they think they're spiders themselves.
- Starter Villain: Carl Meyer, a Nazi spy masquerading as a ghost to hide his experiments and secure ownership of his base of operations. He's arrested, presumed to be executed later, by the end of the issue.
- Would Hurt a Child: Count Rustavic, from Victory Comics #2, steals some blood from a child to further his scheme.