MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 024: THE FACE

(Adventure 044, 1939)

Another early Sandman villain. A fairly standard master of disguise who was later reworked into an axe-wielding maniac in Sandman Mystery Theatre.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 023: MOBRUNE

(Adventure 041, 1939)

A fanatic radio preacher of no specific religion, Mobrune bolsters his reputation by predicting disasters that he then causes. SPECIFICALLY, Mobrune seeds snow clouds with nerve toxin, completely wiping two small cities off the map. A bad dude!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 022: THE TARANTULA

(Adventure 040, 1939)

Standard masked crook, remarkable only for being the Sandman's first foe. Shows up later in one or two crowd scenes.

This story is also notable for being the only time Golden Age Wesley Dodds tucks in a little doll version of himself before heading out as Sandman, a charming bit that was later adopted as an ongoing thing in Sandman Mystery Theatre.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 021: THE GHOST

(Action v1 002, 1938)

Love a fake undead villain - it's a tossup between sheet ghosts and fake mummies for my absolute Number One, with fake skeletons and Flying Dutchmans and Headless Horsemen crowding onto the Bronze pedestal together - so much, in fact that I might be rounding this guy trying to haunt some folks off of some oil land up to super-villain undeservedly. But WHO'S GOING TO STOP ME IF I AM?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 020: THE GORRAH

 (Action v1 002, 1938)

Early on in Tex Thomson's adventuring career, he and his pal Bob Daly found themselves in a hidden city called, appropriately, the Sealed City. There they met the leader, or Gorrah, of that city and eventually discovered that he was an usurper who they quickly helped overthrow. There it would end for your average hidden-city-usurper but not this Gorrah, no sir. He came back half a dozen times, indulging in schemes such as:

-turning people into weird cyborgs

-turning people into weird rat-men

-attempting to take over Turkey

-fixing boxing matches

and so on. 

By his last appearance, he was dealing with Mr America instead of boring old Tex Thomson and it wasn't a very fair fight. Over the years he had shed his super-science, his one-time hypnotic power and even his flamboyant costume and was merely a one-eyed agent of some unspecified Foreign Power (ie, the Nazis) tasked with bombing libraries, which somewhat ignominiously (if predictably) ended with him being blown up by his own bomb. A sad end to be sure.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 019: THE TIGRESS

(Action Comics v1 001, 1938)

The Tigress was both Zatara's first foe and his only real recurring villain, showing up a dozen times over 3 years. She acted in the role of what was occasionally called a "friendly enemy": a villain of the opposite gender who the hero has a soft spot for, implicitly or explicitly because they're horny for them. A Catwoman situation, in other words.

Like Catwoman and Batman, the Tigress occasionally teamed up with Zatara against a worse foe, and Zatara frequently let her escape at the end of a case out of horny sentimentality. Unlike Catwoman, the Tigress was absolutely a multiple murderer, running armed robbery, assassination and extortion rings at various times as well as acting as lieutenant for several other super-villains such as the Mad Lama.

Ultimately, Zatara caught the Tigress for the last time and seemingly persuaded her to reform. Whether it stuck or not, she never appeared in a comic book again.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 018: THE OWL

(Feature Funnies 007, 1938)

Our first Quality Comics super-villain! Otherwise, not very interesting - he doesn't even wear the mask in the story, just tries to frame the Clock and finds out how far that kind of thing gets you in the comic book game.

MINOR SUPER VILLAIN 017: THE RAVEN

(Detective v1 019, 1938)

Nemesis of Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard with maybe three appearances - but he's the kind of  dreaded evil mastermind who shows up already the most wanted man of all time, so he feels more significant.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 016: THE HOODED HORDES

 (Detective v1 017, 1938)

If there's one thing that Golden Age comics have in great supply, it's US fascist groups seeking to (variously) undermine the country's war production, keep the US out of WWII, draw the US into WWII, or take over the country outright. And while most of these groups are just some guys called the Purple Shirts who rough up a shopkeeper for not loving the Fatherland more than his adopted land of AMERICA, a few, like the Hooded Hordes here, get their act together enough to be minor super-villain organizations.

I mean, they don't really get up to much more than the hypothetical Purple Shirts - mostly disrupting war production in a bid to take over the US - but there's a lot to be said about doing so in a sheet ghost outfit with a skull and crossbones on the chest.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 015: THE BROADWAY BANDIT

(Detective v1 016, 1938)

The Broadway Bandit is just a disgruntled actor who puts on a mask and robs box offices until Slam Bradley shows up to settle his hash but he might be out first illustration of the very basic level of super-villainy: a good name, a basic but distinctive costume and the commission of crimes while in the possession of both.

SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? No, but in a super-hero universe I reckon that there should be way more guys adopting this kind of persona to do basic crimes like armed robbery. In a world with cosmic threats named Molecule Man and such running around you might not even need a weapon to stick up a corner store if you strolled in in a plausible enough costume.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 014: CHESTER GLASS

(Detective v1 015, 1938)

Chester Glass almost accidentally frames Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan for murder, and that's the main thrust of the story. As things develop, you learn that he has wooed and then murdered at least two dozen women for their money, which alone is enough to get him on this list, but then he captures Slam and Shorty in his murder dungeon basement, which is filled with "dozens" of bodies! And he has up to this point gone completely unnoticed by the Cleveland police!

SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? I mean, a century-old serial killer probably doesn't have a place in the DCU, so no. He really should be acknowledged somewhere, though - the real berries would have been if there was a Chester Glass Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cereal Convention in Sandman, but alas and alack that ship has sailed.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 013: MR DEATH

 (Detective v1 015, 1938)

A serial killer who murders diplomats because without them there would be no wars. Brought in by Bart Regan and Sally Norris, protagonists of the early Siegel and Shuster strip Spy.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 012: THE MASTER OF CORPSES

 (More Fun 031, 1938)

A mine owner using zombie labour, which is at best morally questionable, but also he planned to undermine New York and collapse it into a pit, then rule the ruins, which is worse. Dr Occult dropped a mine on him, which is why it's such a surprise when he shows up in my upcoming Dr Occult miniseries - back from the dead by his own dark will, the Master of Corpses teams up with the rest of his Golden Age rogues gallery in a bid to destroy their old foe once and for all.

SPIDERS DRAWN WITHOUT REFERENCE

As discussed elsewhere, the vast wealth of reference material that artists have access to nowadays simply wasn't available back in the day. Sometimes a comic book required a drawing of something that the artist simply had no point of reference for.

And while in light of that fact some of the wild octopus or dinosaur anatomy on display in old comics is entirely forgivable and understandable, the wild depictions of the humble spider are totally baffling - I could round up a spider in about 2 minutes, if needed. Hell, I can see a spider from where I'm sitting writing this.

Hence, an ongoing roundup of spiders, drawn without reference.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 001: CAPTAIN DESMO

 (New Adventure Comics 026-More Fun 072, 1938-1941)

Captain Desmo is a pretty standard Golden Age adventure character: together with his pal Gabby McGuire, the Brooklyn Terror, he jaunts around the world (mostly in Asia), getting into scraps with colonized people on behalf of white folks. 

The only thing that really makes him stand apart (aside from the fact that he's a WWI vet, making him a generation older than most Golden Age protagonists) is illustrated in the moderately homoerotic exchange above: Captain Desmo is kind of always in costume, which kind of makes him part of the "bridge between pulp hero and super-hero" crew, like early Crimson Avenger, early Sandman or the various guys like the Clock or the Mouthpiece who ran around in suits and domino masks in the early days.

The final interesting thing about Captain Desmo is that he never actually got around to explaining just why he wore his goggles an helmet at all times, which I respect.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 011: THE MASKED MAN

 (Adventure 032, 1938)

British Army officer who lined his own pockets supplying rebels in India. Fought Captain Desmo, a masked aviator whose comics were on the whole drawn as if they took place in North Africa even though quite a lot of them were set in India - not so uncommon a type of thing to happen in all the various times before reference materials became as easy to access as they are now.

Anyway: the Masked Man. Fairly unremarkable, although it is interesting to note just how unsettling a domino mask can be when it's made out of what looks like leather.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 010: EL DIABLO

 (New Adventure 028, 1938)

Bog standard South American revolutionary villain who is hunted down by agents of the US Navy. Remarkable only due to the one-panel appearance of Rose del Muerte, the Rose of Death.

What a good one-panel appearance! El Diablo can sit in a garbage can, but Rose del Muerte should show up all over the DCU, never as an actual culprit but just a red herring living her best life.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 009: THE COBRA

(New Adventure 027, 1938)

 Just a kidnapper, but there's something about a man who wears a snake, and he's yet another Siegel and Shuster villain from a pre-Superman series - in this case, Federal Men, about Steve Carson of the FBI.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 008: THE HUMAN FLY

 (Detective Comics 009, 1937)

A very marginal entry on the list, but he really makes the concept of "guy who can climb" work as a masterful crime skill. Plus he's an early Slam Bradley foe, so more charming Siegel and Shuster fun as Slam demonstrates his early tendency to be amazing at all tasks by following him up the side of a building for a trademark fight.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 007: THE BRAIN

 (More Fun 020, 1937)

Another common sub-type of masked criminal, the guy who runs his own pirate fleet. Other than being the first example of this on the list, a real snoozer. Taken out by Sandra of the Secret Service.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 006: THE LORD OF LIFE

 (More Fun 018, 1937)

Used a drug to simulate death in others, then revived them post-funeral and made them do his bidding by claiming that without continual treatments they would die again. Unfortunately for him, he tried the same trick on Dr Occult and was unmasked as a fraud, leading to his swift murder at the hands of his former minions.

SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? My initial thought was that he would only be useful as a legacy name, but if, say, you were telling a Dr Occult yarn and worked in a recap of the original adventure early on then a reveal of the Lord of Life as someone who had really returned from the dead could be a nice cliffhanger/ ongoing mystery. Heck, tie it in with the Methuselah and Vampire Master stories (and maybe even work in something to do with the Master of Corpses, MSV No. 12) and you could have a neat little adventure where Dr Occult must reckon with the legacies of his earliest cases. Fun!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 005: KOTH

 (More Fun 014, 1936)

Another Dr Occult foe (and thus another early Siegel and Shuster creation), Koth is a fairly generic magic guy, for all that his origin involved being a magic alien who swore to destroy humanity when his companions were slain by cavemen.

Unlike the preceding minor villains, Koth has gone on to appear in more modern comics, though whether any of them were set in the modern day as opposed to being period pieces is something I'm not sure of..

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 004: THE PURPLE TIGER

 (More Fun 012, 1936)

A member of the surprisingly robust fraternity of guys who get a head injury and then become criminal masterminds. Distinguished mainly by appearing in Radio Squad, a pre-Superman Siegel and Shuster joint featuring police offers with RADIOS in their CARS, which is honestly more revolutionary than it might sound to us in this far future year.

SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? Honestly just putting this here to note that I won't be adding this to every generic crime idiot's mini-writeup. If it's not there, just assume that my opinion is the same as for the Purple Tiger: There's no reason to bring the specific character back, but it's a perfectly fine name for a minor villain and you know I love legacy characters.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 003: METHUSELAH

 (More Fun 010, 1936)

Another Dr Occult foe, Methuselah was basically a serial killer who believed that he could absorb the time he was stealing by killing people and so targeted folks with long-lived ancestors. Dr Occult set a trap and captured Methuselah, which leads to:

SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? Absolutely! The assumption in the comic is that Methuselah is wrong, but what if he wasn't? Just a dude locked up in Arkham or wherever for 90 years, all records lost in the oldest filing cabinets, and then one day he notices a grey hair and busts out to get more time. Is Dr Occult even still around?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 002: THE VAMPIRE MASTER

 (New Fun 006, 1935)

The *second* DC super-villain, the Vampire Master was upset that a lady rejected him so responded reasonably by holding the city to ransom via hordes of machine-created Universal movie monsters, possibly the first example in comics of someone creating something of unbelievable power and using it for petty nonsense instead of becoming the richest person in creation.

Theoretically, the Vampire Master was beaten by Dr Occult, but *really* he was shanked by one of his own creations after talking about how he was going to shut off his machine and make her disappear.

SHOULD THEY COME BACK? Maybe not the Vampire Master himself, but a story about someone breaking into an abandoned basement and finding his tech, still set to fill NYC with Frankensteins and Draculas would be a real hoot.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 001: FANG GOW

(New Fun 001, 1935)

Unfortunately, the first DC super-villain is Fang Gow, a pulp-style Yellow Peril sort who vexes adventurer Barry O'Neill , his pal Inspector LeGrande and the nation of France.

Fang Gow persists until 1941, and inevitably participates in some entertaining stories, including a half year or so in which he is near death and the story relocates to Tunisia where he kidnaps a famous doctor to treat him, but ultimately he's just a warmed-over version of all the Fu Manchu knockoffs who bedeviled the pulps.

His finest moment might just be his death, in fact: captured in French Guiana and on a ship en route to London and trial, he takes a death-simulating drug and requests burial at sea. Instead of being revived by immersion in seawater (and merely having to escape a weighted coffin and swim to shore), he lands on a rogue sea mine and is blown to high heaven.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAINS

I like taking note of minor and obscure characters from days of yore, and none other is so beloved of my heart as the minor super-villain. Even though lot of them are real duds, as a class of characters they pack such a lot of potential. Just as very little separates an Ultra-Humanite (middlingly significant super-villain) from a Luthor (one of the top super-villains of all time), just as little separates them from Zolar, a bald super-scientist who fought Superman one time in 1940.

But if we're going to talk about minor super-villains then we must determine what exactly defines a villain as super (at least to me). The simplest route to this is to put on a costume, adopt an alias, and commit a crime. Particularly if the costume, crime or both are themed according to the name. Call yourself the Viper and dress in a snakeskin jacket and papier mache snake head while robbing a reptile house and you, my friend, are a super-villain.

Not every super-villain fits those criteria, however - heck, Luthor basically never has and he was my major example earlier - so I had to come up with some criteria. Generally, a villain who fulfils two or more of the following is elevated to the ranks of the minor super-villain:

-costume (even a simple domino mask can make the difference)

-foe (fight a super-hero and the super can rub off on you)

-methods (superpowers or superscience make super-villains)

-name (probably the least important without any of the others - comics are littered with gangsters named the Little Gardenia or the Bone Butcher who amount to exactly nothing)

-scale (rob a convenience store: nothing. Rob every convenience store in the city: that's supercrime!)

-theme (theme your weapons, your crimes, your henchmens' names. Delicious stuff)

-style (absolutely the most important. A character who fails to thrive doesn't make the list: Tex Thomson once fought a guy who lived in an isolated castle and had rebuilt himself as a shapechanging plastic cyborg and he is not represented here because I yawned my way through the issue)

That's it and I'm sure that I'll be very inconsistent as I go along.

TESTO

 

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