MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 983: GREEN MASK AND DOMINO IMPOSTORS

(Green Mask v1 006, 1941)

It's a classic scheme: dress up like a super-hero - or super-heroes in this case: the Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy - to commit crimes, and rely on the public and the police to draw attention away from you and toward them in the subsequent outcry and investigation.

The only real trick to the hero-imposture game is not to push your luck. As long as the super-hero is free to do so, they are highly motivated to find the real criminal, and the more times you pull the trick, the more opportunities they have to catch you.

To this duo's credit, they seem to have set out to pull a one-and-done heist, but their downfall comes when the Green Mask's ally News Blake gives him the benefit of the doubt and they get weirdly hung up on winning him over. To that end, they stage a second robbery to get photographic evidence, then beat up Blake and steal the pictures to really convince them of their veracity. And it works! Blake is set to rat out the Green Mask's real identity to the police!

Before this can happen, the false and real Green Masks and Dominoes the Miracle Boys finally meet up, and though the impostors manage to get away, they do so only after the Green Mask has gotten a good look at them and recognized the signature trick of circus acrobats Laverne and Tiny. The real crooks are quickly rounded up and all is well with the world. News Blake in particular gets off pretty lightly for a fellow who was willing to believe that one of his closest friends was a murderer. Also please note that the false Domino costume has the wrong kind of mask, which is a very nice detail for this kind of story.

Categorized in: Day Jobs (Circus Acrobats), Fraud (Identity Theft (Super-Heroes), Objects (Masks)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 026

If we criminalize mad science then only criminal scientists will be mad.

Mauser:

Mauser is the second of two foes battled by two-fisted chemist Guy Gorham and also the second rogue biologist. Was this comic setting up some sort of biologist/chemist beef that never got a chance to pay off? Mauser's plans are never really spelled out, but he's got a colony of vampire bats that he seems to be training to attack human targets, which isn't great but which spells his undoing when he steals Gorham's food concentrate formula for use as vampire feed - presumably for when human blood is in short supply. 

A couple of other things about Mauser: he has a pretty decent uniform which he shares with his underlings, and despite his name (and the name of his henchman Herr Klotz) he does not appear to be a fascist. (Great Comics 002, 1941)

Dr Berchtoldt:

All Dr Berchtoldt wants to do is peacefully develop his robot army (and then take over the world). They won't let him do it on land, so he moves under the sea, where he still gets hassled by the Man, in the form of Navy Jones. And all he did was kidnap Princess Coral and threaten to marry her against her will: is that any justification for hounding a man from his undersea fortress and then blowing up him and his super submarine alike? (Green Mask v1 006, 1941)

de Moire:

De Moire and his pal the Skipper have come to the part of Africa that Kaänga hangs out in to do unethical human experiments on what they assume are expendable people. After transforming one guy into a huge green killing machine, de Moire becomes obsessed with doing the same to Kaänga to make an even more beefy creature. This obsession leads him to neglect his original creation, and it wanders off and gets a look at itself in a pool of water and realizes that it is now ugly, which in turn leads it to slay de Moire. The Skipper is likewise killed, leaving Kaänga to battle the monster to the death. (Jungle Comics 013, 1941)

Zalov Varno:

Zalov Varno has been sending teams of men out to attack the oil fields of Debra-Tabuk, prompting Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle to pay him a visit and see just what his deal is. Though he captures Tabu with surprising ease given the latter's vast magical power, Varno never actually explains just what he wants the oil for, which is in my opinion one of the greatest of villainous sins. I don't even feel bad for him when he gets killed with his own Devitalizer Beam.

The most interesting thing about Varno is what exactly is going on with his right eye. As far as I can tell, he wears some sort of semi-spherical black monocle, but just why he might care to do so is left as an exercise for the reader. (Jungle Comics 013, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 982: CAPTAIN MARS

(The Funnies 062, 1941)

"Rex, King of the Deep" is an adventure strip that ran in The Funnies 037 through to 063, the final issue. It stars titular King of the Deep Rex Withers, a wealthy young man who decides to put his money toward the betterment of humanity by funding the construction of a Super-Submarine designed by his friend Professor Bidoux. Over the next couple of years worth of comics he and his ever-expanding cast of associates (the Professor, second-in-command Tim and his own, less super submarine, former shipwreck victim Nan Barlow, young stowaway Butch, a large and mostly nameless crew of submariners) work to keep the seas safe for innocent travellers, at first independently and later on behalf of the Allied Powers. If you like comics about submarine combat I'm sure it's perfectly thrilling but I personally find it to be a bit of a slog.

Until, that is, The Funnies 061, in which Rex and his pals fend off a mysterious submarine attack on a convoy that they have been escorting across the Atlantic. They win handily and then follow the survivors with an eye toward discovering their base of operations, and are very surprised to find that it is an enormous, mobile undersea facility. This is the home of Captain Mars, who is not the commander of some Axis superweapon as they must have initially believed, but a highly ambitious and technologically proficient submarine pirate, which is possibly my second favourite kind of pirate after space!

The centrepiece of Mars' operation is his headquarters, which is frankly enormous. Not only can it easily accommodate the already huge Super-Sub in its docking bay, but there are frequent references to buildings and streets, and in The Funnies 063 Rex evades some pursuers by swinging on some vines that are hanging from what appears to be a full-grown oak tree in a courtyard and landing on the other side of a garden wall. They have so much extra space inside of this thing that they're doing landscaping.

Captain Mars has the classic Bad Boss and Bombastic Speechifying genes that are common to many super-villains, and which are almost certainly a necessity for anyone looking to set up shop as a submarine pirate. I would still recommend that he reconsider his policy of shooting his subordinates for "failures" such as disengaging from a combat engagement before their vessel was destroyed. If nothing else it must be terrible for morale.

Despite the might of his base and the fact that he has cool holographic communication technology, Captain Mars is undone by Rex's Underwater Tank, which was merely a useful tool in the first few of his adventures but which seems to also be an unstoppable war machine capable of defeating all barriers and attacks.

Sadly, the cancellation of The Funnies brings with it a premature end to "Rex, King of the Deep," just as Mars managed to bamboozle Rex out of the Underwater Tank and repurpose it as a coastal raider. While the original plan for the comic must have been for Rex to escape and reclaim his property and possibly even take the underwater base for his own, as it stands Captain Mars is forever ascendant. 

Categorized in: Generica (Captains), Famous Figures (Mars), Theft (Submarine Pirates) 

CATALOGUE OF WOUNDS 011

We regret to inform you that more super-heroes have been wounded.

the Blue Beetle: 

The very first thing that happens in the very first Blue Beetle comic: Dan "the Blue Beetle" Garret gets shot in the left arm. (Mystery Men Comics 001, 1939)

Domino the Miracle Boy:

It's a miracle (a boy miracle?) that Domino survives 1941, because he gets hit by a dang car. (Green Mask v1 006, 1941)

Not two issues later, Domino gets shot in the ever-popular left shoulder (Green Mask v1 008, 1941)

the Green Mask:

I've been going through some old Fox Features comics for head traumas at the same time as reading The Green Mask v1 for the first time, which means that I've hit a real rich seam of injuries to the Green Mask in particular. Let's review:

The Green Mask gets shot in an unspecified place while swinging across a gorge and seemingly falls to his doom. Don't worry though: he's okay. (Green Mask v1 004, 1941)

The Green Mask continues this trend of getting shot in an indeterminate location from close range in his next appearance, first at the hands of freelance spy Dr Tsu...

And then by fascist spy chief Kurt Ebler. Despite Ebler's assertion that the Green Mask is not bulletproof, I am beginning to suspect that he is at the very least bullet resistant. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

Stepping back a bit: the Green Mask gets stabbed in the left shoulder. (Mystery Men Comics 013, 1940)

One issue later: shot in the left shoulder. (Mystery Men Comics 014, 1941)

Lest he be accused of neglecting the classics, the Green Mask sustains a textbook skull crease late in 1941. (Mystery Men Comics 022, 1941)

And finally: the Green Mask's left shoulder is "grazed by a bullet" hard enough to knock him off a car. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 981: IVAN SHARK

(The Funnies 057, 1941)

Ivan Shark is the arch-enemy of Captain Midnight, direct from the Captain Midnight radio show. He is the head of a nationwide network of spies and gangsters dedicated to overthrowing the US government.

The threat of Shark and his organization is so great, in fact, that it is the impetus for the formation of Captain Midnight's Secret Squadron, and so efficient that he is aware of the clandestine meeting between Midnight and a heavily-disguised FDR that marks the Squadron's beginning and is able to get there in time to attempt a presidential kidnapping. 

Like Captain Midnight, Ivan Shark has an extensive supporting cast that has been sourced from the radio show and appear as shorthand versions of themselves in the comic, including henchmen Wolf, Fang and Gardo, the latter of whom finally appears in The Funnies 061 after being mentioned in every previous issue.

The greatest of Shark's minions is his daughter, the amazingly-named Fury Shark. In practice she is just a standard femme fatale espionage type, but she and her father make for a very entertaining evil scheming duo.

Like his foe Captain Midnight, this version of Ivan Shark is but a pale shadow of his radio counterpart, doomed to live out an incomplete story due to the brief duration of the Dell adaptation.

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 027

Real people? In comic books? Now I've seen everything.

Abu Khan:

I sincerely cannot tell if this Black Knight foe is supposed to be Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, last ruler of the Mongol Ilkhanate, or if they just pulled a couple of syllables out of the air and added "Khan" to the end and called it a day. On the one hand, the real Abu Khan never tried to invade Egypt, as the Black Knight is trying to prevent him from doing, but on the other he is from about the right time to be a Black Knight character, i.e., within about two hundred years of all the other elements of the comic. (The Funnies 059, 1941)

Adolf Hitler:

Pays for the services of super-villain the Artist to facilitate the invasion of Tomania with his soul-stealing powers. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)

Al Capone:

"Scar Lapone," used as a generic gangster name. (Green Mask v1 005, 1941)

Jean Lafitte:

A false vision of Lafitte is summoned by a fake medium. (Green Mask v1 007, 1941)

Napoleon Bonaparte:

Viewed through a time machine's viewscreen by the Black Hood. (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

Nero:

Kim Hale and the Purple Zombie, blasted back in time, are condemned to death by Emperor Nero for telling him about things that he hadn't heard of before. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 008, 1941)

Though the duo make it out of the gladiatorial arena okay, they almost get caught up in the Great Fire of Rome before being shunted to another time zone by their allies. Unusually, Nero is not shown fiddling at all. (Reg'lar Fellers Heroic Comics 009, 1941)

Nero, or at least his ghost, appears in a very different form after being summoned by the would-be necromancer Ford. Is this barbaric Nero a reflection of how the Emperor saw himself, or did the artist just kind of wing it? (Jackpot Comics 003, 1941)

Paul Revere:

Minor comic book protagonist Paul Revere Jr is awfully smug for someone who just has the name of a famous patriot, and that goes double for his friends Betsy Ross and Patrick Henry.

His father Paul Revere Sr is at least out there writing a column called "America, Awake!" and putting himself in the crosshairs of local fascists. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

Sherlock Holmes:

Yet another comedy Holmes analog with a terrible if intriguing name. Foreclose is just close enough to a play on Sherlock to be particularly maddening. Featuring: a Watson analog named Batsin Belfry. (Great Comics 001, 1941)

Walter Winchell:

He only appears as a corpse, but gossip columnist Walt Willard is a clear play on Walt Winchell. (Jackpot Comics 004, 1941)