What sorts of heroes were the Black Masks expies for?

[Jhamin]

The Black Mask lineage has become kind of an important background element of my Teen Champions campaign.  As such, I've started to really appreciate my gaps in understanding around what kinds of adventures the family has had over the centuries.  Each one is an extraordinary individual, and each of them has been a Skilled Normal (no out and out powers).  They also each seem to fit well within the genre tropes of their era.  Thing of it is, I'm not sure that I really know what the tropes of each 'Masks era were.

 

One thing that I've noticed is that Black Mask I, by being involved in the US Revolutionary War has a whole host of stuff to pull from.  Black Mask IV has a similar "schtick" around being involved in the US Civil War and reconstruction.  Masks V and VI were cowboy Black Masks and I can dig into the "wild west" and "weird west" genres for a lot of their adventures, even pulling in some Jules Verne if I want to get fancy.  The Masks from VIII onward start mapping pretty well onto more modern genres of Hero.  Mask VIII = Pulps & WWII, Mask IX = Silver Age supers, Mask X = Iron Age supers (maybe not as grimdark in the ChampsU, but a good era to look at, and my continuation of the family Black Mask XI adventures in a semi-reconstructed "modern Supers" era.

 

Which makes me realize the gaps in my own knowledge.  What sorts of adventures & enemies did Black Masks II, III, and VII have?

Black Mask II adventured from 1797 to 1818 in Boston, Black Mask III adventured from 1822-1850 in Philadelphia.  I know a lot happened then & I could work them into real world events, but what were the big adventurous fictional tropes of those eras?  What kinds of fiction would have had a mysterious do-gooder like a Black Mask at their center in 1810 or 1830?

 

Black Mask VII lives in a similar gap in my genre knowledge.  He adventured from 1876-1929 in Chicago and Montana.  This puts him at the twilight of the American West but *before* the rise of Organized crime in Chicago and the many Pulp tropes that his Son Black Mask VIII would have been all about.  He probably got involved state-side in WWI related events but he was based in Chicago which limits some of the tropes there.  What were the adventurous fictions of *that* era?

[Lord Liaden]

Well, for a starter, you could look at my suggestions/background that I posted to your "Trophy Room" thread:

 

[Lord Liaden]

It occurs to me that there are a few official supervillains who are ageless, and have been active for centuries or more. While they have superhuman powers, those would have been much weaker prior to the Walpurgisnacht Working in 1938. Black Mask III could have come up against a couple of female super-thieves, the mutant Heather McGowrie also known as Cateran (Champions Villains Volume Three), and Handrel, one of the Empyreans (described but not statted in Hidden Lands.)  It could be amusing if one or both of them also encountered successive Black Masks.

 

Oh, that gives me another thought for a "giant penny" analogue. Since BM III lived in Philadelphia, one of those thieves could have stolen the Liberty Bell for a wealthy collector, swapping a copy for the real bell. Both of them could have been strong enough to physically carry away the bell. If Black Mask recovered the Liberty Bell, he might have been awarded or purchased the fake one as a souvenir.

Edited June 13, 2023 by Lord Liaden

[Clonus]

Black Mask II or IIi would have run into at least one villain who was fond of death traps like the classic pendulum trap or burying or immuring people alive.  This sort of thing was rather popular in the gothic fiction of the time although it survives into the present only through Edgar Allen Poes "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "Cask of Amontillado".  The old "tying someone to the railroad tracks" gimmick was a continuation of the trope, although that started in the 1860s when they had the necessary railroads.  That time frame is also when the sexy vampire was first invented with Byron-inspired Lord Ruthven in 1819, which led to Varney the Vampire in the 1840s and then Carmilla, the first sexy lesbian vampire in the 1870s.  

[Clonus]

Characters of the time period who could inspire supervillains include "Melmoth the Wanderer" (1820) a man who traded his soul for great longevity but now tries to to find others willing to sell their souls in order to fend off the approaching end of his bargain and Doctor Frankenstein and his monster (1818), Volkert the Necromancer, a German charlatan who pretends to be able to summon and communicate with the spirits of the dead, using stage magic to sell the act, 

Edited June 18, 2023 by Clonus

[steriaca]

Doctor Maubus (sp!), The Gambler also comes to mind. A Jewish crimelord who pretends to be a humble gambler in order to lead people into temptation and self destruction.

 

Svengali is another coded Jewish / Russian no do well, a dirty man with strong hypnotic powers and a lust for women.

[Clonus]

Those are from 1920s Germany along with the highly interesting Alraune who would make a good Poison Ivy style villainess but a century too late for BM II and III.  Doctor Mabuse was a true supervillain capable of impossible feats of disguise along with mind control and who repeatedly dies to come back in a new body.