Real Name: Cosmo
First Appearance: Detective Comics #1 (1937)
Alias: Phantom of Disguise
Creator: Sven Elven
Lame Abilities: A gentleman adventurer, crime-fighter, master of disguise, and excellent piano player

Cosmo. Not a name that strikes fear into the hearts of evildoers. He’s British, too. Further making it difficult to strike fear into the hearts of evildoers. What Cosmo does do well is disguise himself and solve mysteries. As a master thespian and mimic, Cosmo can make you think he’s your own mother.

In “Detective Comics” #27 (1939), also notable for Batman’s debut, the Anglo-Saxon detective and aristocrat not only disguises himself as a Chinese man, but he does a great impersonation of a devout racist. Cosmo is asked to help the Immigration Department stop the “smuggling of Chinese to our shores.” He takes the assignment, saying, “Those Chinese are pretty slick customers.” But it seems the Phantom of Disguise is really the slick one. Cosmo enrolls at the Frisco School of Languages, where he masters Chinese in 30 days! He then disguises himself as a “Chinese” and soon infiltrates the Asian community, where he uses his newfound skills at the Chinese language. In his first attempt at befriending one of the foreigners, Cosmo approaches a “young Chinese” and says, “Velly nice day, fliend.” The young man answers the Phantom of Disguise, saying, in Chinese, of course: “Yes, velly nice.” Take that Berlitz! The young man is fooled by Cosmo’s mastery over the Chinese language!

It doesn’t take Cosmo long to weasel his way into the Chinese smuggling ring, and after he pledges his loyalty by saying, “Me no talkee, Kwan Joy Lo. You take me to good job, eh?” he is one step away from cracking the case.

Cosmo was created by writer-artist Sven Elven and debuted in “Detective Comics” #1 in 1937, a decade when, apparently, it was okay to be racist. It was also about two years before Batman’s debut and a year before Superman’s. So, technically, Cosmo isn’t a superhero. Though, technically, he isn’t a detective, either. Or even a hero. He was a snob and a racist, but one hell of a piano player. He was described as a gentleman detective, which meant he was British, educated, and pompous. He didn’t last long. His final appearance came in “Detective Comics #37,” only 10 issues after Batman’s first appearance. Think of Cosmo as Batman without the costume or the tolerance for foreigners.