Mark Todd is a pacifist caught in the horrors of war in Europe. Witnessing the evil that the Nazi menace inflicts on innocent people, Mark dons the flaming skull mask of the Blazing Skull to fight all over Europe in defense of freedom-loving people who desire only peace. In one adventure the Blazing Skull even teams up with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to fight the Nazis. With nothing more than determination and his own natural physical abilities, the Blazing Skull strikes fear in the hearts of his enemies. Even though he is antiwar, Mark Todd comes to understand that sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. Interestingly, "tod" means "death" in German.
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The Blazing Skull appeared in Mystic Comics #s 5-9. His skeletal looks could very easily have made him a villain, except that Timely already had a skull-villain (see the Hall of Shame). But despite the appearance, Mark Tod was a hero. The Skull’s origins involved a lost race in this case, Skull-Men (though they may have been a mystic sect). He was in the tradition of Timely’s Gothic heroes like the Black Widow, the Terror, the Invisible Man, and others.
Mark Tod is another Golden Age reporter turned into a superhero-a war correspondent who covered the Sino-Japanese war. This is a new twist, since the comics focussed much more heavily on the Nazis and the European theater. The hero who gains his powers from Eastern mystics was popular in the Golden Age. Very early heroes like the Flame, Wonder Man, and Amazing Man gained their powers in Tibet, which Ron Goulart has called the superhero capital of the world. Despite his features and origins the Skull’s adventures were pretty tame.
The Blazing Skull has made some appearances since the Golden Age, most notably in the climax of the Kree-Skrull war where he was one of several mental constructs created by Rick Jones. He also appeared in a retro-story where he was billed as an early version of the Ghost Rider.
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