MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 965: DR THORNE

(Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

We open on a mysterious figure using backwards-talk magic to raise hundreds of spirits from their graves and shunt them into the Fourth Dimension. To what end? We shall learn that soon!

Flip Falcon, expert in all things fourth dimensional. is contacted by Dr Thorne of the Institute of Science asking for help with this problem. You might have noticed that Dr Thorne is also the name of Minor Super Villain 965, and that is because they are the same guy. This is a trap, and Flip should be able to see that because while the border between the Third Dimension and the Fourth has proven to be quite permeable over the course of his comic adventures the idea that the missing bodies have travelled interdimensionally should not occur to any but the perpetrator. 

Please also note that despite Dr Thorne's minions being consistently described as ghost of spirits, their bodies are also dug up as part of his little necromantic ritual. Perhaps Thorne did so so that there would be evidence to point at in order to draw Flip in?

Flip investigates and finds that the ghosts are indeed hanging around in the Fourth Dimension. He also finds (and is taken prisoner by) Dr Thorne, who knows that anyone hoping to engage in Fourth Dimensional villainy needs to take care of Flip Falcon first.

Flip is transported to Thorne's lab in his Castle of Misery (great name) where his dimensional energy-charged body is used as a battery to fill up the ghosts with extra ghost-energy that kills humans on contact. We can only speculate as to why Thorne is mass-murdering humans in this manner - perhaps its no more complicated than the classic necromancer's desire to create more ghostly minions.

For all that he has been a capable villain so far, Dr Thorne is in no way OSHA compliant, and he is electrocuted seemingly the instant a light tap from Flip causes him to sprawl over his instrument panel. Flip risks his life by touching the machinery long enough to turn it off, causing the ghosts on Earth to fall down "dead," and all that's left is the cleanup. That is, if these spirits were in fact housed in all of those missing bodies and those bodies are now littering the city streets. If they were indeed purely spiritual entities we might have a situation in which there are just incorporeal bodies everywhere and nothing can be done about it. Horrifying claim to fame for this poor city!

MEDIA IN COMICS 004

It's an all-movies episode of Media in Comics!

Movies:

London Strikes Back - Hard! is the film follow-up to London Can Take It, with both featuring an actor playing costumed vigilante London and the narration of Marc Holmes, London's secret identity. As a bonus, please note the wild nasal apparatus that Imperial Studios required to put a toothbrush mustache on the actor playing Hitler. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

We don't too much of the action of Wild Mesa as it is filmed on the ranch of cowboy hero Bull's-Eye Bill, as the issues in question are much more concerned with the interpersonal conflict between Bill and film star Tex O'Conner. Seems to be a regular-ass Western. (Target Comics v1 009, 1940)

And now for some more Fantastic Feature Films content, as discussed in the last Media in Comics round-up: 

Musical genius Gorevski, driven mad by a progressive paralysis in his right arm and the perceived infidelity of his wife, turns his strange musical abilities to crime in The Music Monster. (Target Comics v1 004, 1941)

Big city gangsters steal a rain-making machine and get mixed up in backwoods hijinks in the execrable hillbilly comedy Ezekiel's Ark. (Target Comics v1 005, 1941) 

The Blue Zombie, a film about mad science being turned against warmongers, turned up in a minor super-hero round-up a while back. (Target Comics v1 006, 1941)

The House of Horror is kind of a horror movie and kind of a crime movie, about a young couple who stumble into a gang hideout while visiting a relative and get fake haunted. (Target Comics v1 007, 1941)

In Wedding Present, a gangster tries to go straight for love, only to be dragged back in and ultimately meet his end thanks to his own twisted mind. (Target Comics v1 008, 1941)

Boomerang is the tale of a heroic reporter fighting to clear his lover's father from a political frameup (the boomerang in question being the fact that the source of the smear campaign has his own career ruined). (Target Comics v1 009, 1941)

Sword of Destiny is a very weird horror movie in which an American couple buy a house that once belonged to Mexican war hero General Santa Guerrero, only to find that instead of dying twenty years earlier as everyone had believed he had instead been trapped in the building's basement, eating rats and house painters. The titular sword of destiny is Guerrero's own that had been left hanging over the fireplace and is ultimately used to slay him. (Target Comics v1 010, 1941)

Oddly featured just two issues after the last one, this Boomerang is a story about a man trying to commit the perfect murder and then himself dying when rigor mortis causes his victim to posthumously shoot him back. (Target Comics v1 011, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 964: THE SHARK

(The Face 001, 1941)

"Sparky Watts" was a long-running comic feature in Big Shot Comics and other Columbia publications about the eponymous Sparky Watts, a down-on-his-luck young man whose life turns around when scientist Doc Static gives him super powers using his cosmic ray machine. Having started out as a comic strip, Watts' adventures tend to hew closer to the comic adventurous rather than the super-heroic. Still, every once in a while he encounters a minor super-villain such as the Shark.

The Shark is a crypto-fascist in the truest sense: he clearly started out as a Nazi and his men bear some of the visual tropes of Nazi spies, but between the bizarre formality of his speech (which mimics the mock-Japanese speech patterns of 1940s comics while also being distinct from them) and the names of his underlings (Flitoog, Saber, Egnog, Kabitz) which approach mock-German without really getting there, it all ends up being the mere suggestion of a smear of an Axis pastiche.

The really important thing about the Shark is that he's a shark weirdo. He looks like a shark, he loves sharks, he has shark-themed decor and he bites people's throats out with his "shark-like teeth" or at least threatens to. It's always a joy to see a true oddball find his groove, even if it's as an evil fascist. But preferably not as an evil fascist.

The Shark and his men have heard of Sparky's remarkable strength and have set out to acquire it for themselves, and since Sparky isn't really in this issue (he's off playing baseball tow towns over) they don't have much trouble roughing up his friends to get what they want.

Doc Static, of course, neglects to tell them that absorbing an insufficient charge of cosmic rays means that the power is temporary, and that once the rays leave the human body it shrivels up and shrinks until it is smaller than a grain of sand. The fascists all turn on one another once they achieve any sort of power which occupies them until they shrivel, and then an over-zealous minion (who was not invited along to get super powers) seals the deal by crushing all of the "bugs." The world is safe!

MEDIA IN COMICS 003

We've hit a rich seam of comic book movies this time, by Jove.

Movies:

Eaglets of America is a film about flying cadets, filmed at the same field that aspiring pilot Lucky Byrd trains at. There is some unpleasantness with a lecherous leading man, alas, but it all gets sorted by the end. (Target Comics v1 002, 1940)

The 1933 film the Prizefighter and the Lady, starring boxer Max Baer opposite Myrna Loy, was a real touchstone back during the heyday of boxing comics. Given enough appearances, and boxer would end up in Hollywood in a sports romance with a variably terrible name. Hot Fists and Hot Lips, starring Kayo Ward, might just have the worst title of them all. (Pep Comics 008, 1940)

Much like all those times that two volcano movies or two asteroid movies come out in quick succession, Miracle Movies and Bee Pictures are each working on a "lion picture" at the same time, only while Leo, King of Beasts makes it to theatres o sink or swim on its own merit, Jungle King is never completed due to the fact that its producer resorts to murder to get his movie out first. (Fight Comics 007, 1940)

There's no romance plot (on-panel, at least), but Pardon My Glove starring Kayo Kirby is absolutely another riff on The Prizefighter and the Lady. (Fight Comics 004, 1940)

The Mad Martian may not get anything approaching a plot synopsis, but it has the distinction of being the inspiration for villain Red Dugan to commission the creation of a monstrous minion. (Blue Ribbon Comics 003, 1940)

Though it was announced as being the subject of the next instalment of actress Diana Deane's comic, War Nurse never actually appeared due to the strip being cancelled. A shame as I was really curious about the amount of dripping blood and what that might presage. (Funny Pages v1 004, 1940) 

Like long-running comic strip Minute Movies, the concept of 'Fantastic Feature Films' is that of a series of movies acted by a recurring stable of actors. It's a very fun idea that only lasts a double handful of issues, alas.

The plot of Dance of Death involves a plot to assassinate a Hitler analog using an exotic dancer's prop bubble that has been filled with gas. Interestingly, the plot is less concerned with making sure that the plot succeeds than it is with trying to foil it so that the dancer doesn't get into trouble. (Target Comics v1 003, 1940)

Devil's Dust concerns an outcast Frenchman whose harsh treatment has made him a misanthrope and who only turns his supply of metal-dissolving dust to the cause of world peace after a gregarious American calls him "pal." (Target Comics v1 002, 1940)

The Maskless Axeman is a very strange film about a tuxedo-clad executioner who works for a Hitler analog and who driven mad by a fake haunting in order to save the life of a dancer accused of spying. (Target Comics v1 001, 1940)

Radio:

I like a good DJ name, and I appreciate just how tired "Stay-Up Dan, the All-Night Music Man" looks. (The Face 001, 1941)

NOTES - MAY 2026

Panel Fun:

Don't know how I could've skipped this the first time I read through these comics, but here we are: Amazing-Man suplexing an angry bull. (Amazing-Man Comics 012, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 497 UPDATE: RAMUN THE EVIL ONE

(The Face 001, 1941)

I can't say I'm surprised to see Ramun the Evil One again, given what I said about his supposed death in his last appearance. Ramun trails his old foe Marvelo (Monarch of Magicians, natch) into the desert and replaces his caravan's staff with he and his men in an effort to steal the treasure of Tut-Akum-Aut from them when and if they dig it up. And he does it! He has them at his mercy and the treasure in his sights, and he still manages to screw it up by gassing on about how he's going to use the treasure to make himself a new Pharaoh, which makes his henchmen angry enough to murder him for being too greedy to share with them.

While The Face 001 and Ramun's last appearance in Big Shot Comics 019 were both published in November 1941, this issue feels like the real final appearance for the character, since he is visibly shot to death rather than merely drowning out of sight. Farewell to thee, Ramun.

If I'm honest I was much more excited about the fact that Marvelo's partner in this venture is Professor Scorp, last seen being placed in psychiatric care after stealing the mummy of Tut-Akum-Aut and attempting to resurrect it to learn the location of his treasure. And now he's well enough to seek the treasure in a more conventional way! Perhaps this expedition is even part of his therapy! I'm just so chuffed to see a comic book madman get constructive help and rebuild their life without some narrative about how they can never be fully trusted! Don't get used to it!