GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 046

Here's to all the crooks who just didn't have enough oomph.

the Despot:

The Despot (not really his name, but literally the only thing he is called throughout the story) has the magic power to transform himself and others into living plants and animals, a power which he uses to trap Camilla and Sir Champion in his mountain fastness after luring them there on a magical golden road. Thus stripped of its leaders, the Lost Empire proves no match for the Despot's invading armies (who might be animals that have been turned into humans or might also have the power to turn into animals - it is unclear). 

The Despot's reign over the Lost Empire is short, as Camilla and Sir Champion are able to outwit the single, albeit magical, dog that he had left to guard them. Cornered, he makes a real shapeshifter mistake and turns into a potato, whereupon he is trapped in that form forever by Sir Champion's magic sword. 

This adventure comes at the very end of Camilla's time in the original Lost Empire location, which is very sad because I think that knowing that a magical evil potato was stuck to the floor somewhere just off-panel would have really enhanced those stories. (Jungle Comics 014, 1941)

the Acrobat Bandits:

The Acrobat Bandits are a trio of rope-swinging jewel thieves who terrorize NYC for a few weeks before they tangle with reporter Dopey Day and are undone by his semi-slapstick ways. They are in fact pretty cool villains but really don't get a lot of time to shine while Dopey is tripping over himself and dropping things, alas. (Liberty Scouts Comics 003, 1941)

Jasper Fennel:

Seemingly mild-mannered jewellery store clerk Jasper Fennel turns out to be the brains behind the notorious Panther Gang in this Marvo the Magician story. He might never have been caught if he hadn't robbed his own place of employment - a valuable lesson for all would-be criminals not to shit where you eat. He also has one of the more upsetting masks I have seen in a while. (Lightning Comics v2 004, 1941)

Hook:

Hook is the leader of a gang who are attempting to run a protection racket on New York's dry cleaners. He's just a guy with a hook prosthetic who has decided to go with it and that's what this lowest level of super-villainy is all about. Plus that nail bomb that he attempts to kill Ferret with is truly gnarly. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 009, 1940)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 053

Aliens. 

Molemen:

These green-skinned humanoids live in an underground kingdom somewhere beneath what was then known as the Belgian Congo. They have been sent to the surface to find some white men - and just why they subscribe to the racial categories of surface humanity is left unexplored - and woe betide any non-white guys who they encounter first.

The Molemen expedition eventually captures jungle adventurer Congo Jack and returns to the underground with him. Alas, we never quite learn what Queen Moletta of the Molemen wants a white guy for, because her interest in Jack inspires a real crisis in the ambitious expedition leader Sir Lugi and he draws most of the comic's ongoing focus with a series of attempted coups to seize power for himself. (Lightning Comics v2 001, 1941)

Blue Dwarfs:

One of Sir Lugi's schemes involves him teaming up with the Blue Dwarfs, ancient enemies of the Molemen, to seize the Moleman city by sneak attack.

The Blue Dwarf victory hinges on the fact that Sir Lugi knocks out Congo Jack in the first couple of minutes of battle. Once he comes to, Jack is able to not only retake the city after exactly one inspiring speech to the Moleman troops, but also slay the Blue Dwarf King Bobo to really drive the victory home. He is then granted his freedom by Queen Moletta. (Lightning Comics v2 002, 1941)

Martians:

Meteor Martin, one of the many short-lived Basil Wolverton sc-fi adventurers, is an officer of the Moon Patrol who sallies forth to combat an invading Martian space fleet and finds himself blasted into a strange otherworldly realm. 

The above is the only actual look we get at the Martians. Is their invasion successful? No idea. I do like their weird Wolvertonian tentacle arms, though.

Luckily for Martin, he finds himself in the company of fellow humans Rana and her father Romrak, who are able to fill him in on what has happened to him. The Martian weapon he was struck with sends its victims to a "negative world," implicitly another dimension. Further, the specific region that they are stranded in is a densely-packed cluster of planetoids called Gorikon. (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941) 

Bat Men:

Gorikon is awash with different lifeforms, though just how many of them are native to the place and how many have been sent there from the positive universe (or are the descendants of positive universe exiles) is unknown. When Meteor first encounters Rana, for example, she has been staked out as a sacrifice for Bat Men. (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941)

Desert Dwellers:

These excellent humanoid camel people (referred to as "savages" throughout, but that's a pretty rude thing to refer to an entire people as, so I'll just go with "dwellers") are the ones who are attempting to sacrifice Rana to the Bat Men, and if any species in Gorikon is going to get my vote for having actually evolved there it's them, if only because they have the weak muscles of a people who come from a low-gravity environment. Note how easily Meteor Martin beats them up, after all. (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941)

Assorted Gorikons:

Romrak and Rana have been residing in a village of interdimensional refugees, most of whom seem to be the same kind of near-human alien as series antagonist Groob here.

The inhabitants of Groob's village all seem to be the same kind of four-fingered humanoid as he is, though the presence of one little froggy guy with super-vision in Amazing-Man Comics 026 introduces the possibility of a more diverse cast of alien refugees that we sadly never get to see.

Please also note the fact that the low gravity and close orbits of the planets of Gorikon means that interplanetary travel is achievable by means of a human cannonball-style cannon (though how Groob intends to return is a mystery to me). (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941)

Insects:

Meteor, Rana, Romrak and Groob all end up in this quicksand-like trap set by a species referred to as the Insects by the other inhabitants of Gorikon, and true to alien monster convention the Insect who comes to check the trap makes off with Rana rather than one of the men.

Rana's fate is to be sacrificed in a pit of fire, though it is Meteor who ends up falling to his doom in the issue's cliffhanger. Sadly, there is no third Meteor Martin adventure and so we never learn a) how he gets out of it or b) whether these little green guys turn into the big green guy as part of their life-cycle or if he is some sort of distinct creature. I prefer the former! (Amazing-Man Comics 026, 1942)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 1001: BARON KRAWMAN

(Lightning Comics v1 005, 1941)

Whiz Wilson and his Futuroscope are once again engaging in the Doctor Who style of time travel, in which you just kind of pop into a random time and place and ask a bystander how things are going. In this case he has ended up in Florida in the year 3000, and the vest-wearing Florida Man he speaks to is pretty smug about how great things have been for the past thousand years. Perhaps he is rounding up or thinking extremely locally, because previous Whiz Wilson stories have established a general civilizational collapse in 2040 CE and a more localized one in South America around 2500 CE.

More importantly, as if summoned by the words "these are wonderful times," this is the moment that a squad of giant robots attack the city.

Whiz Wilson is as ever a man of action and takes advantage of a poorly-secured access hatch on the back of one of the robots to get inside and beat up the pilot. This in turn causes the over-cautious leader of the robot pilots, now revealed to be a man named Baron Krawman, to recall his forces.

Joining the queue of robots in his newly-commandeered ride, Whiz follows them to a domed underwater city "about ten miles" off the Florida coast.

A quick and stealthy search of the city leads Wilson to an imprisoned woman who introduces herself as Betty Walters, Krawman's former assistant. She tells him that a) the city is part of the lost continent of Atlantis that Krawman stumbled upon (though how it was missed during a thousand years-plus of intensely ocean-facing Florida life is beyond me) and b) that he is bent on destroying civilization because they laughed at him. Annoyingly, she does not explain why all of Krawman's minions are nigh-identical bearded beefcakes, because that is all that I am asking about. Was he experimenting with cloning? Are these the descendants of lost Atlantis? Does he just have a type? 

Whiz and Betty return to the commandeered robot and engage Krawman in thrilling robot-hand-to-robot-hand combat for the future of Florida, a combat that ends with Krawman dead and his city flooded. Once again Whiz Wilson has saved the people of a time period so far in his own future that his bones are naught but dust. Hooray!

Categorized in: Accessories (Giant Robots), Origins (Villains of the Future), Royalty (Barons)

MONSTER, CRITTER AND CREATURE ROUND-UP 002

It's time for more monsters! And also critters and creatures!

Prehistoric Gorilla:

This carnivorous cave-dwelling ape lives in a hidden valley in Africa and has a pretty sweet deal going with the local pterodactyls, whereby they bring him things to eat and he seemingly doesn't have to do anything. This arrangement does eventually backfire after the pterodactyls grab Kaänga's mate Ann and the justifiably miffed jungle lord follows them and slays the gorilla. (Jungle Comics 017, 1941)

A few bonus dinosaurs from the hidden valley: some generic carnosaurs, the aforementioned pterodactyls, and a mean aquatic sauropod.

Creatures of Argus:

When the wicked Sklar, tyrant of the planet Argus, attempts to invade the Earth of the far-off Year 1982, he sends these fairly cool flame-spewing robots to do his dirty work for him. While I always appreciate a good killer robot, these ones are especially satisfying because they conform to the proportions of the people of Argus and it's always nice to see non-humans adhering to their own aesthetics rather than defaulting to ours. 

Though the robots are smashed up by champion of the people Power Nelson in short order the risk of invasion remains, so he and his love interest/companion Zora head to Argus to settle things once and for all. During their time there, they are forced to take a detour that leads them through the through the Cave of Terror, a monster-haunted locale containing such beasts as...

... the beefy, fire-breathing Dreaded Cave Monster! (smashed against a wall)

The cephalopoid Creatures of the Quicksand! (deprived of their meal but otherwise unharmed)

The extremely compelling giant rodentoid Saber Tooth Crawler! (punched out) (Prize Comics 006, 1940)

Morg:

Adventurer Planet Payson encounters this morg while investigating malfeasance on Mars, and manages to escape its clutches by merely making it sleepy rather than killing it. A true win for xeno-conservation! (Planet Comics 006, 1940)

Pteridons:

Analogous to our own woolly mammoths, these pteridons were once native to Pluto but now lie frozen beneath a layer of ice. Though a gang of crooks attempt to exploit these curiously adorable beasts by thawing them out and deploying them as rampaging engines of destruction, they are stopped by Buzz Crandall before things get too out of hand. (Planet Comics 006, 1940)

Aqua-Scorpio:

Despite the fact that people in the 40s thought that octopuses were inherently gross, menacing and deadly,  sometimes the comic book people felt the need to up the ante a bit and so we get things like the aqua-scorpio her, as encountered by oceanic adventurer Captain Gallant. I really like this guy's head, especially the combination of the compound eyes and chinless beak, but the hooked tentacles might be overkill. (Super-Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

Arena Monsters:

The wicked 'bdula Khan pits these three beasts against the Golden Knight seemingly purely for the love of being evil. Only one of them, the bat wing monster, gets anything approaching a name, but that doesn't prevent it from being slain as easily as its companions generic dragon and land kelpie. (Fantastic Comics 006 1940)

Bat-Serpent:

The Rocket is confronted with and slays this bat-serpent while he is the captive of a group of Ape-Men, and it's a good thing that he does so because it moves him out of the category of "prisoner" and into that of "potential leader." I do feel a little bad for the bat-serpent here, though. Sure, the caption box says that it is a "blood seeking enemy of all animal and human life" but that face says "adorable puppy-cow" and that holds a lot of weight with me.

As part of his ascent to chiefdom, the Rocket must venture into the Cave of Horrors and face the various horrors therein. He only gets to one of them before being interrupted, but it's a good one, the fire-breathing, flashlight-headed rayoceros, which look like the kind of creature you'd find in an early Sixties comic set on Krypton. (Pep Comics 005, 1940)