Wednesday, June 15, 2022

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044: THE MASK

(Whiz Comics 002-015, 1940-1941)


This fellow right here is the spy that Spy Smasher was trying to smash for the first year and a half or so that he was in action. I tend to think of him as a bigger deal than he actually is because of my tendencies re: thinking too much about comics, but certainly if Spy Smasher himself had managed to remain a going concern after the 40s then the Mask would have eventually been brought back, like the Ultra Humanite.

Due to the fact that he was operating before the US entered the war he was a kind of general all-purpose spy, though I'm sure he'd have been revealed as a Nazi if he'd made it to 1942. He was more successful than most in his endeavors, in that although he was consistently foiled, he always managed to get away with his hide intact. Until his penultimate appearance, that is, when an enraged mind-control victim threw him off of a skyscraper.

But the Mask survived and not only that he thrived! Despite having to get around on crutches, he rebuilt his mind control device, captured Spy Smasher and turned him evil! The evil Spy Smasher then ruined the moment of triumph by killing him.

The evil Spy Smasher would persist, battling Captain Marvel for the next four issues before being cured, so in death the Mask had managed to prompt some of the earliest examples in comics of heroic crossovers and longer-term storytelling!

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