Mop

Meet Silver Streak, the only superhero I know of that has given a blood transfusion to a falcon.

He used to be just an ordinary nameless Taxi Driver (seriously, he's never given a name) until... he got hypnotised by a Swami (look, with Public Domain Superheroes you can't take too many steps before stumbling upon something at least mildly racist), some stuff happens with a racecar or something, and now he has magic gravity-defying blood that makes him fast!

At some point, he accidentally gives a random boy (Mickey O'Toole) a blood transfusion, which results in the boy gaining superpowers. This leads to him joining Silver Streak's side as Mercury. The Public Domain Superhero Wiki also seems to be convinced that "Meteor" is a separate sidekick to Mercury, even though they look identical, they're never seen in the same room together, and the latter's existence is never explained if they are indeed a separate character. Since his blood transfusion with the boy was so successful, Silver Streak decided to give it a go on his pet falcon, Whiz, resulting in him both gaining super speed and the ability to talk.

Now, time to bring up the main issue with this character. I've danced around it for long enough, but I assume you're dying for this to be acknowledged, so here it goes. He's called "Silver Streak", but his costume is red and yellow! Sure, I don't think comic printers could print greys well back then (even decades later, that was an issue they ran into with the Hulk back when he was grey), but I would've accepted Blue. Red?

Not everyone knows what they want their career to be at the start. Sometimes this realisation is instant, sometimes it takes years. Throughout TNT Todd's run, he experienced quite a career change indeed. He started as just your average G-Man, going around punching criminals on behalf of the FBI. He was so average in fact that the magazine he was found in (Keen Detective Funnies) was full of, like, fifty other characters that not only fulfilled the same role but also looked exactly like him, and had similarly alliterative names like Dan Dix (I mean, it makes sense, you buy a 69-page magazine called "Detective Funnies", you'd probably want 69 pages of detectives doing funnies).

For 7 issues, he does basically that... but then something really funny happens in his eighth issue (or Issue 21, Vol 2 of Detective Funnies). The comic starts with him in his Lab (a thing that he apparently has), dicking about with chemicals. "I've mixed T.N.T. with Magnetic X-19," he says out loud to no one as though it means anything. The result? Purple gas fills the room and he ends up getting SUPERPOWERS!

Yep, 8 issues in and he just suddenly becomes a superhero. This purple gas gives him the ability to fly and shoot explosive beams out of his hands. After learning this, he takes a leave of absence from his job at the FBI and goes out to fulfil his true passion: flying around in a weird suit (he's never shown making it, so one has to assume that he just had that thing lying around) and zapping criminals with his hand beams. Later in this same issue, a criminal electrocutes him. This makes him "more powerful", but it's never elaborated on or demonstrated in what way.

One funny consequence of this sudden career change is that he's one of the few Public Domain superheroes that actually has an issue dedicated to explaining their backstory (a lot of others were just published, fully formed as though they were trying to convince comic buyers that they had always been there).

So, how successful was TNT Todd's superhero career? He appeared in one more issue and then was never seen again. Can't fault a guy for trying, I suppose.

This guy's motives are just inscrutable to me. By day he's a Police Commissioner named Nick Nolan. He's already technically stopping crime (y'know, in the fictional superhero world where cops are just 100% good), so why he'd want to also do it while dressed as a Clown is beyond me.

I'm sure it will be shocking to learn that he only appeared in two comics before promptly being forgotten.

Maybe as a fun creative writing exercise, you should come up with your own edgy reboot of the Clown, complete with a tragic and deep reason for him to want to solve crime in a clown costume.

Some superheroes are based on mythological figures, and some are based on figures from public domain literature, but it’s not often that a hero is based on a historical figure who was also the centre of a Shakespearian tragedy. Introducing The Dart!

Now, given his McDonald's-esque colour scheme and his ability to fly (side note, apparently that was just a thing anyone can learn how to do in this universe? He also teaches his boy sidekick, Ace, how to fly in a later issue). Caius Marcius, aka Coriolanus. To be fair, apparently Coriolanus also had curly hair if his Bust is to be believed.

Now, obviously he can't just go around saying his name is "Caius Marcius" in modern-day (1940s) America, that's a weird name for someone to have, so he had to give himself a new civilian alias. "Caius Wheeler". Nailed it, no one will suspect a thing.

And remember: due to a weird thing with the American Copyright system, nobody can stop you from putting the Dart in your own comics (I think, probably, I'm not a lawyer nor am I American).