MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 963: THE GENTLEMAN

(Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

The Gentleman, "the most elusive jewel thief in the country," is after the fabulous Orloff Necklace, and District Attorney Tony Colby, aka the Mask, is on the case.

I initially had my money on the goateed gallery manager being the Gentleman in a classic double bluff, but once this comically-affronted old lady showed up it became clear that my instincts were wrong. The Gentleman's modus operandi turns out to involve a combination of disguise and smuggling gems out of places in his dog's hollow collar, a very specialized grift indeed, considering that you need a place that allows dogs and that also has small, high-value items to steal.

Is the masculine name/ feminine disguise an intentional attempt at misdirection or merely a coincidence? Sadly this is not addressed in the text and so we must take it as equally likely that the Gentleman dresses up in a variety of disguises as it is that he always cross-dresses.

Categorized in: Accessories (Dogs), Origin (Cross-Dressing Characters), Royalty (Gentlemen)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 041

Mamas lock up your radium, because the z-tier villains are back in town.

the Fuhrer of Brazil:

Larry North is a US Naval Reserve Lieutenant and airline pilot who turns hand to Nazi spy-hunting when he and his companion Betty Harmon are hijacked by fascists in Rio di Janiero. They spend their first few adventures dismantling a scheme to conquer Brazil, and when in the course of this the traitorous and toothbrush-mustached Doctor Sanchez mentions a figure called the Fuhrer of Brazil, I naturally figured that he would be the final boss of the saga. No dice, it turns out, as he never personally appears and  probably dies when the Brazilians bomb all of the Nazi bases using North's intel. (Exciting Comics 012, 1941)

Billings:

Billings, along with four other men (Hawkins, Griffith, Stanton and Carton) own the zoo of the as-yet-unnamed city that the Black Terror calls home, I think? They own a zoo, at any rate. Perhaps it is in direct competition with the city's.

The thing is that Billings a) holds the mortgage for the zoo and b) is broke while the others are wealthy and c) wants to change that by foreclosing on the zoo and selling the land for a huge profit. He probably could have accomplished this with a bit of underhanded business trickery or possibly by admitting to his three friends that he needs the money, but as is so often the case in comics he instead chooses to put on a mask and murder the other four. Confusingly, he does a pretty good job of framing Carton for killing the other three before attempting to murder him as well. We'll never get a chance to see how he was going to spin this because it is at this point that the Black Terror knocks his block off. (Exciting Comics 013, 1941)

Al Walsh:

This masked blackmailer is actually reporter Al Walsh, who digs up dirt on people in the course of his job and then makes them pay big bucks to keep it under wraps. The Mask settles his hash, but not before getting one of his victims killed in an ill thought-out plan. (Exciting Comics 013, 1941)

Dr Cobra:

Dr Cobra is the recurring enemy of Ted Crane, who is one of those 1940s adventurers who compulsively seeks out action and excitement and today would probably be an extreme freeclimber or something like that. Given that he appears seven or eight times and that I have not read most of those issues, I might be selling him short when I say that his cool name is all that he has going for him, but I'm willing to risk it. (Exciting Comics 014, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 962: THE MASTER

(Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

The Master is a mysterious new crooks who has been going around town kidnapping wealthy men, and the Black Terror and Tim have been running around after him and trying to figure out just what the heck is going on. The Master is also a classic Bad Boss in the "ruthlessly kill your minions" mould.

As it turns out, the Master has broadly the same origin story as early Batman villain the Ugliest Man in the World, only instead of a medical student who was injected with a random cocktail of drugs and turned ugly in a frat hazing gone wrong, he is instead a chemistry student who was exploded by a random mixture of chemicals in some frat bullying gone wrong. Like his counterpart, the Master (aka Alfred Foster, aka Phillip van Allen) dropped out of sight, acquired a rubberoid mask and established a new identity so that he could enact his revenge on those he blamed for his disfigurement.

Unlike the Ugliest Man in the World, the Master's theming is not strong. He himself is vaguely Egyptian themed, while his henchmen are just a bunch of Malaysian guys who he does not treat very well.

The Master's plan also revolves around gathering up his tormentors so that he can kill them all at once, meaning that his revenge goes almost entirely unfulfilled when he is accidentally killed by one of his own men. All in all a very poor foray into super-villainy.

Revenge Killer Score: 0/12

Categorized in: Accessories (Rubberoid Mask), Generica (Masters), Origin (Extensively Scarred Face)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 091

Have a few mid-tier minor super-heroes, for a change.

the Black Terror:

Pharmacist Bob Benton is the kind of guy who will step in when a little kid is being roughed up by thugs, but despite this he is pretty relentlessly bullied by city Comptroller Rodney Clark* and (in a less overt but still insidious way) their mutual love interest Jean Starr.

* Clark is such a bully, in fact, that I assumed that he was going to eventually turn out to be crooked but instead he gets murdered** after a couple of issues.

** In fact I was wrong when I wrote this: he is merely almost  murdered and seemingly never recovers sufficiently to return to the comic. I guess I was just hoping that he would get murdered because he is, again, such a bully.

Perhaps because of this, Benton spends his spare time working on a "tonic for run-down people," or so he says. I assume that he's going for something closer to anabolic steroids, and thanks to his new assistant Tim Roland (the kid who was getting beaten up earlier), he stumbles upon the formula for something even better: formic ether! 

Thanks to those sweet sweet formic ether fumes, Benton becomes a super-human and in a real break for society decides to keep on being a decent guy rather than setting out for revenge on all those people who pushed him around when he was weak (though he does take the opportunity to give Rodney Clark a black eye every issue until he's murdered he retires). He gets his super suit in the most efficient way possible: by sending Tim down to the costume shop to see what they have in stock.

The formic ethers give Benton tremendous strength and a sort of mid-tier invulnerability: he can shrug off a sock on the jaw no problem, and eventually proves to be bulletproof, but he gets knocked around and knocked out an awful lot. (Exciting Comics 009, 1941)

Tim Roland:

Though Bob tells Tim that he can't join him on his quest for vigilante glory, he also just kind of leaves a smoking bottle of super power serum sitting out where anyone can get it - frankly he's lucky not to have to team up with Rodney Clark. Instead, Tim - who has had the foresight to pick up a second costume for himself, but not to pick a super-hero name - huffs a little formic ether and gets straight to busting heads.

Tim is the rare Golden Age sidekick who appears to be legitimately around eight to ten years old, instead of a stocky thirteen to fifteen like so many of his peers. Even more remarkably, he stays roughly in this age bracket for a couple of years, as far as can be ascertained (multiple artists mean that his height fluctuates quite a lot, but he pretty consistently wears short pants in his civilian identity). He's also one of those orphan boys who just kind of falls into a super-guy's orbit and becomes adopted by default. (Exciting Comics 009, 1941)

The Black Terror dabbles in the common practice of leaving a calling card in his first appearance, and makes the baffling decision to go with his domino mask as a design, rather than the cool skull-and-crossbones on his chest.

Categorized in: Accessories (Calling Cards), Body (Emotions - Terror), Origins (Chemical Mutates), Origins (Sidekicks)

the Sphinx **UPDATE**:

The Sphinx adopts the identity of the Domino Kid in order to have a very brief boxing career. (Exciting Comics 012, 1941)

Categorized in: Origins (Secondary Identities)

the Liberator:

Like many super-heroes, the Liberator starts out as a weedy nerd. Specifically, he is Dr Nelson Drew, lecturer in Chemistry at Claflin College. He is, troublingly, in love with Annabel, one of his students, who also serves as one of his major bullies - she is not only bored by chemistry (but you chose to take the course, Annabel!) but also scornful of Drew for caring about it when so much is afoot in the world, but... I don't actually know what her problem is? Like, chemistry was wildly consequential to the US war effort? Perhaps if he taught a social science I could see her point of view, if not agree with it. 

While doing a little light research into Ancient Egyptian poisons (okay, this is arguably inconsequential), Drew discovers the lost formula for a drug called Lamesis which will supposedly make one into their physical ideal. Though skeptical, he brews up a batch and since his lab safety appears to be nonexistent (troubling indeed for a guy who is researching poisons) he immediately gets a snootful of the stuff, and  turns into a big ol' hunk. I really enjoy how viscerally unpleasant the transformation process looks here - sadly this transformation conceit doesn't last more than a couple of issues.

This unexpected transformation isn't a dream come true for Drew, and he spends his first outing in his new body - the Lamesis turns out to be a temporary thing, you see - trying to figure out how to turn back, and engages in his first bout of super-heroism after discovering that the scientist he was trying to consult with had been murdered by fascists. 

I also enjoy the origin of the Liberator's costume: there are plenty of super-heroes going around in their old Halloween costumes, but he might be the only one who gets his outfit by stealing someone else's. Would he have become such an explicitly patriotic hero if he hadn't ended up in a star-spangled shirt? (Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

Categorized in: Accessories (Drugs), Day Jobs (College Professors), Origins (Patriotic Heroes)

VERY MINOR UPDATES:

John Thesson, aka the Son of the Gods, after being a character of no fixed address for his first several appearances, finally settles down: he was in Washington DC in Exciting Comics 006, but it wasn't until 007 that it became clear that that is where he chose to hang his hat and offer his services to the US Government.

The Mask sheds two of his assistants, Silk and Butch, as of Exciting Comics 007, and becomes of interest to the law somewhere between 009 and 010. 

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 040

Once again I am plagued by the absolute dregs of villainy.

A Vampire:

Vampires are one of the types of character that are statistically likely to make it through my classification system and be certified as super, but this particular one who a) lives in a swamp shack, b) has two meals in a row taken away from him by the Green Knight, c) doesn't even get a name and d) ends up dead with his shack burned down around his ears, is too much of a loser to make it to even minor villain status. He does, however, provide the Green Knight with a sidekick in the form of one of his prospective victims, which is something. (Dynamic Comics 002, 1941)

Hank Rutter:

This fellow might have been called the Mask or the Masked Man if it weren't for the fact that his heroic foe is already called the Mask. As such, he's just a gambling focused villain with a bit more interest in concealing his identity than usual.

It's no surprise that the unnamed masked villain is in actuality Hank Rutter, big-time gambler. What is surprising is that he manages to learn the Mask's secret identity as DA Tony Colby. Especially to him, as Colby responds by knocking him off a roof to his death. (Exciting Comics 007, 1941)

Henry Devoe: 

When this masked drug kingpin shows up with a very visible withered left hand and then civic leader Henry Devoe is on the front page of the newspaper, also with a very prominent withered left hand the next day, my assumption as a longtime consumer of comic books and detective fiction was that Devoe was being framed, but no, he's the guy. While I commend him for making his disability visible and thus normalizing it, I do question his decision not to disguise such a distinguishing characteristic while out and about doing drug-related murders. (Exciting Comics 012, 1941)

Black Terror impostor:

When the Black Terror decides to play nice with the police and inform them about Henry Devoe's perfidy, he is surely disappointed to learn that Police Chief Nelson is a crooked cop who guns him down on sight and then steals his uniform in order to extort Devoe. And we wonder why most vigilantes have an adversarial relationship with the police.

Nelson's plan is hindered by the fact that Henry Devoe's response to having the Black Terror show up in his living room is exactly the same as his own had been: to shoot him on sight. And unlike Bob "the Black Terror" Benton, Nelson hasn't been huffing enough formic ether to survive a close-range gunshot. (Exciting Comics 012, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 961: DR ZINN

(Exciting Comics 009, 1941)

Dr Zinn feels like a character who is somehow aware of my classification system and who is desperate not to be relegated to the ranks of the Generic Costumed Villain (yes, the "costumed" part has lost all meaning, I know) and so has shoehorned as many extra details into his appearance as possible to force me to give him Minor Super-Villain status. "what if I wasn't just a super tall hypnotist, but also obsessed with snakes? And what if I ran a cult, the Cult of the Serpent, full of mind controlled thralls and they were also obsessed with snakes?" And I guess it worked.

Dr Zinn's main goal in his one appearance is to get ahold of the contents of a safe deposit box owned by a Mr Britt and his daughter, and while they never lay out what exactly is in there I certainly hope it's securities or deeds to property or something, because if that little bundle of paper is meant to be cash then it's like ten thousand dollars tops (I guess the Britts could have gotten their hands on some vanishingly-rare ten thousand dollar bills but we're still not talking about multiple millions) and even in 1941 that's not enough money to go to so much effort for.

Zinn is captured after Edith Britt hires PI par excellence Dan Williams, who really undercuts the threat of hypnotic mind control by giving him a couple of eyes full of black pepper. 

Addendum: I almost forgot to mention that Dr Zinn (whose first name is Mephiste, by the way) comes to the attention of the law when he orders some poisonous snakes through the mail and some get out and kill two postal workers, and he just grabs the rest and skedaddles out of there.

MEDIA IN COMICS 002

Fictional books, fictional movies, fictional stage shows: it's media in comics time! 

Books:

Dexter, a friend of Ellsworth "the Sphinx" Forrester, has written a book titled Who's Who in Murder which is one of those grand exposes that causes everyone in crimedom to attempt to kill the author before they can publish. That's gotta be great publicity. (Exciting Comics 010, 1941)

While Guns Make Dust is very plot relevant in this Ellery Queen mystery, as a doped-up stamp thief hides his prize in one of three copies in a local bookstore and subsequently murders several people in search of the right one, we never learn much about the book itself. I think it's a Western, personally. (Crackajack Funnies 024, 1940)

We learn even less about Life of Lee, the book that gives DA Tom Kerry the idea that solves a big murder case. Could this be a biography perhaps? Of Robert E. Lee? (Big Shot Comics 007, 1940)

As we have established, there are many faux Hitlers in comics. Much more rare is the Hitler-alike who has written his own Mein Kampf analog, but such a one is Nargoff, aka the Leader, whose book The New Order is ultimately weaponized against him by the Spirit. (The Spirit, "The Leader," 29 December, 1940)

Magazines:

Roving photographer Fran Frazer works for Strife magazine, an obvious play on LIFE but one which neatly justifies the action-packed lifestyle of the comic book photog. (Top-Notch Comics 009, 1940)

Movies:

Real-life animal trainer Clyde Beatty plays some role in the fictional film Jungle Drama, but what it is we cannot say, other than the fact that it involves a lion. (Crackajack Funnies 023, 1940)

"Gabby Scoops" was a short-lived strip that was an awkward hybrid of goofy humour and crime action that ended after the titular hero went Hollywood and starred in the movie It's a Scoop! (Crackajack Funnies 030, 1940)

Shadow Devils, an espionage thriller with an unusual name, is one of those comic book movies that goes on shooting even after female lead Norda Noll is shot dead on-camera. Detective Charlie Chan eventually sorts it all out: it's all about horse racing somehow. (Big Shot Comics 001, 1940)

Dick Cole, aka the Wonder Boy, is roped into doing the stunts for a movie called Shining Star over his summer vacation. Interpersonal conflicts and murder attempts stretch the filming over a couple of issues, but it does eventually get made. It's even well received, despite being an incoherent hodgepodge of action setpieces! (Blue Bolt v1 005, 1940)

Theatre:

Like the movie that finishes production despite death an calamity, the play that continues its run while actor after actor is killed on stage is a real staple of the Golden Age mystery comic. Espionage is such a play, albeit with only one murder and a series of near-misses as the show's conductor fires poisoned darts out of his baton at those who he sees as standing between him and his love of the female lead. (Keen Detective Funnies v2 007, 1939)