MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 092: THE PAINTER OF DEATH

(Detective Comics 042, 1940)

The Painter of Death (never actually called that in-comic, sadly) engaged in a campaign against the subjects of paintings by up-and-coming portraitist Antal. He first attacked the painting of the person and then killed them in the same manner: via dart, arrow, gunshot etc. Eventually, Bruce "Batman" Wayne commissioned a painting from Antal and used it to set a trap which netted Wylie, an art collector who had invested heavily in Antal's work and saw the murders as a way to raise the value of his investment via morbid publicity.

Though Wylie bumped himself off at the end of the adventure, the bullet-riddled Antal portrait of Bruce Wayne sticks around to become one of the minor stock trophies in the Batcave. The Painter of Death or Prophetic Portraits Case is also mentioned a couple of times as Batman and Robin's "first big case" and the reason for their fame. Does this reflect some attitude of the creators about the story itself or is it just a plot contrivance? I have no idea!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 091: THE MASKED MAN

(Detective Comics 041, 1940)

A common or garden-variety masked counterfeiter, the Masked Man operated out of an all-boys' school, leading to him being the first solo foe of an undercover Dick "Robin" Grayson. Mostly. Batman shows up at the end for a punch or two.

MINOR SUPER-HEROES 007-014: AMAZING-MAN COMICS ROUNDUP 1939

(Amazing-Man Comics 005-026, 1939-1942)

All the ephemeral Golden Age heroes who stalked the pages of Amazing-Man Comics:

The Iron Skull! I love him. His origin and so forth is doled out after a few issues so initially you don't know that he is a cyborg war casualty in the far future world of 1970. The most important things are there from the start, though: his huge anime eyes and the fact that every bullet or attack made against him unerringly hit him in his invulnerable head.

SKULL SCORE: 2/5 Not very skully but he gets a point for the lack of nose.

Minimidget: Just a super-small guy with a problematic name. He and his galpal Ritty were shrunk and employed as henchmen by a pervert scientist before redeeming themselves via acts of public service. 

Chuck Hardy: Chuck and Jerry, a couple of deep sea divers, end up in the subterranean land of Aquatania, beneath the Marquesas Islands. They turn out to be super-strong there for murkily-explained reasons and have adventures with the monstrous flora and fauna and the various near-human races. The best part is absolutely the little lobster antennae that all of the various types of Aquatanians have.

Mighty Man is a huge dude who is the last descendant of folk who settled in a valley where everything is huge. After murdering a bunch of evil cowboys, he emerges from his valley to fight crime. Eventually he gets the power to change size.

The Shark! A water-based hero who can talk to sea life and must hit the water regularly, which is about standard for water guys!

ADDENDUM: Later on he meets his father Neptune and his adventures turn into father/son outings, which rules.

Magician from Mars: Not only is Jane 6em35 an Earthian/Martian hybrid from an unspecified future, and not only was she accidentally irradiated as a baby in a way that activated a lot of vague superpowers (including flight, super-strength and a seemingly complete control over matter) but she is a practical and morally flexible hero who takes advantage of the chaos surrounding a rocket crash to make off with $3 million in gold before saving the day. Very fun. Plus: jodhpurs!

The Cat Man: a very marginal entry on this list. In his first appearance, he develops his signature technique of dressing like an old lady and having his trained cat scratch people with poisoned claws to murder three former criminal confederates, which isn't particularly heroic? His second appearance is in more of a vigilante role as he murders a gang of wanted men. How could I not include this loveable murderous scamp, really?

MINOR SUPER-HERO 006 AMAZING-MAN

(Amazing-Man Comics 005-026, 1939-1942, plus various other Centaur books)

Amazing-Man is not particularly obscure: he was supposedly the inspiration for both Iron Fist and Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt and eventually ended up dropped whole cloth into both one of the Malibu universes and the Marvel Universe (which, yes, means he's technically in the Marvel Universe twice but if Malibu comics ever comes back in any substantial way I will make and consume an edible hat).

The thing I always focused on in descriptions of Amazing-Man's origin were the tests he took to prove that his training was complete. Test 1, put on by underutilized character the Strongest Man in Tibet: hold back an elephant.

Test 2 is set by the Great Question, a member of the Amazing-Man Training Committee who also happens to be a super-villain, surprising few: fight a cobra without the use of your limbs. This is the one that made the cover, and with good reason - he really chomps that snake good!

It's unclear whether Lady Zina is on the selection committee or if they just have a knife-thrower on retainer, but "has a knife thrown through his neck" is definitely the thing about Amazing-Man that stuck with me from my many readings of Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Superheroes back in the day. That it's actually a test of his resistance to pain diminishes the weirdness of it only a little.

Test 4 is just languages and trivia, bit of an anticlimax.

BUT! Amazing-Man is a genuinely fun comic and I found myself actually reading the text story starring him in the first issue, AND GLAD I AM THAT I DID - it details the test of his musical abilities, and how the final part of the test was to sing a powerful song perfectly. How was that perfection measured? A man strapped to some sort of music-powered death chair nearby died. It is possible that more than one super-villain was on Amazing-Man's training committee.

I have not yet read all of Amazing-Man Comics so there may be more tests to be revealed - watch this space!

UPDATE: No further trials from his initial time before the Council of Seven have surfaced but check out this, from a secondary trial about a year later:

Purification by fire: a classic (Amazing-Man 011, 1940)

KNOCKOFF KIRBY WATCH

(All-New Comics 009, 1944)

A series of facts:

-one of the things that Kirby was the King of was kid gang comics.

-Kirby often included in his work characters who were some degree of inspired by him: Brooklyn, Scrapper, the Thing, Terrible Turpin, etc. For the purposes of this bit we shall call them kirbies.

-the Boy Heroes, pictured above, are easily spotted as a knockoff of a Kirby kid gang, down to a attempt to mimic his art style, and Punchy, driving the motorcycle, is unmistakably a knockoff kirby.

Going forward, we shall keep watch for further knockoff kirbies. Stay tuned.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 090: THE SPIDER

(Detective Comics 036, 1940)

The Spider, a notorious jewel thief, is in reality nightclub owner Durand. But Durand is in reality (shocked gasp) suburbanite Roberta Roberts!

While the original thought process behind the character was likely no more complex than "I bet it would be fun to draw a lady in a bra and false mustache," a few different narrative jump to the modern mind, the first being that Durand/ the Spider is the true identity of a trans man, with Roberta Roberts being maintained as a convenient cover story. Or perhaps Roberta simply has to adopt these male identities (including, it is mildly implied, a fictional husband) in order to succeed in the worlds of business and crime. Either version of this story could be pretty great in the hands of the right writer. BRING BACK the Spider, I say.

I also find myself shipping two characters for maybe the first time ever? Speed Saunders is a rare Golden Age lawman character with a presence in (somewhat) modern comics, having been made cousin to the original Hawkgirl and grandfather to the 2000s version of same. There's a non-zero if very low chance of him showing up in flashbacks to the 40s and 50s and I keep picturing him introducing "my associate, Durand" to people and thinking that it's adorable. Is this what all the people on Tumblr see in making fictional characters kiss in their minds?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 089: SCRAG

(Blue Beetle Comics 005, 1940)

Scrag attempts to extort (New) York City using remote controlled bombers - not a terrifically unique plan but he's just so gleeful about his evil that I love him. Blown up while battling the Blue Beetle.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 088: THE BLACK-ROBED MAN

(Blue Beetle Comics 004, 1940)

It's fairly unsupported right now as the only other example of a crossdressing villain so far is the Coin, but trust me when I say that an older woman adopting a younger male identity for crime is a comparative rarity as compared to the opposite. I may find myself compelled to note all of the times that non-super gangster types do it, just to lend weight to my claims.

Anyway, the Black-Robed Man. Runs a gang out of a house that is technically owned by her niece, which is how the Blue Beetle gets involved, helping the damsel who is being run out of her home by dastards.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 087: BLITZ

(Blue Beetle Comics 004, 1940)

Blitz: by far the best thing about this probably-meant-to-be-German spy is his collection of henchmen, who include a maniacal dwarf and Ax, who is somewhat unsurprisingly obsessed with his signature weapon. Love a henchman who goes all-in on their bit.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 086: THE MASTERMIND OF CRIME

(Blue Beetle Comics 003, 1940)

A lot of these early Blue Beetle villains are real basic so I'm not even going to bother with the questions.

Mastermind of Crime: very good hood, attempts to take over NYC York City, turns out to actually be the civic reformer who has been raising a stink over all this organized crime all over the place.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 085: BOSS X

(Blue Beetle Comics 002, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? In thinking about this question I realized just how close comic book-style organized crime comes to supercrime to begin with and that Boss X represents the bare minimum of extra oomph required to make the leap to the super-villain designation: the name and the fact that he works out of a secret underground lair on an island.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 084: BLACKBEARD

(Batman Comics 004, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? I've already stated multiple times that pirates get a free pass. Old-timey cosplay pirates get double marks.

What is interesting about them? Blackbeard is actually a frustrated former actor turned gang boss, and if you don't think that I don't want more of that in comics you don't know me very well. Bring back Blackbeard and make him a method actor.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 083: THE UGLIEST MAN IN THE WORLD

(Batman Comics 003, 1940) 

The Ugliest Man in the World, AKA Larry Larrimore, was originally Carlson, a college student who was accidentally injected with a weird fluid during a frat hazing gone wrong. His face mutated and deformed, he lost his friends, fiancé and frat and vowed revenge. Years later, having developed a version of the uglification drug which also rendered its victims' minds pliant he embarked on a campaign of revenge against both those who had deformed and rejected him and society itself, using his Ugly Mob to destroy beautiful people and works of art alike before being stopped by Batman and gunned down by the cops.

Neadless to say I think this dude should be brought back. Rejected outsider is great villain fodder and as much as I love this guy smashing Greek marbles at the head of his Ugly Mob a more nuanced take on the relative value of attractive and unattractive people in our society would be aces too.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 082: THE PUPPET MASTER

(Batman Comics 003, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? The Puppet Master controls the minds of men via drug-assisted mental compulsion. He even mind-grabs Batman for a while - surely a villainous feat.

What makes them interesting? Aside from the brief end-run on Batman's mind, the most interesting thing about this guy is I think he's supposed to be a Cossack? His goons are certainly Cossacks. Have we lost a whole set of cultural signifiers about Cossacks or is this like the day in high school I went to a dentist appointment and missed learning how to cross-multiply and you all know this stuff?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 081: THE WOLF

(Batman Comics 002, 1940)

Batman's first Jekyll/ Hyde style villain is Adam Lamb, a meek museum curator who gets bonked on the head while reading a murder mystery and thereafter heads out at night to cause mayhem as crimelord the Wolf. Batman eventually figures out that his crimes are following the sequence of those in the book and the Wolf's career ends with a second, fatal head bonking.

SPIDERS DRAWN WITHOUT REFERENCE

 (All-Star 006, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 080: THE EMPEROR OF AMERICA

(All American Comics 021, 1940)

An old man who lives in a cave outside of Calvin City, the Emperor of America takes a bunch of Al "the Atom" Pratt's classmates prisoner as potential mind-controlled minions. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that he already has a cadre of identical huge men in his employ he might be more believable as a delusional hermit than a credible threat - and since he never actually gets to demonstrate his mind control techniques before dying in a cave-in, the jury is and will always be still out. He's the Atom's first super-villainous opponent, though, so we'll allow it.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 005: RED, WHITE AND BLUE AND DORIS WEST

(All American Comics 001-071 plus appearances in All-Star, World's Finest, New York World's Fair Comics and Comics Cavalcade, 1939-1946)

They keep coming up, so I might as well spare a word for Red, White and Blue. The concept is simple: three childhood friends, each of whom went into a different branch of the armed forces (and each of whom has a convenient nickname) work for G-2/ US military intelligence to root out enemy plots, most often in partnership with G-2 operative Doris West. Red Dugan (Marine) is their leader, while Whitefield "Whitey" Smith (Army) provides muscle and Heermance B. "Blooey" Blue (Navy) is mainly comic relief.

Their stories are great looking and generally pretty entertaining but if they have one great flaw it's in the character personalities: Whitey and Blooey are both complete comic relief dum-dums, which leaves Red and Doris to do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of moving the actual plot forward, which theoretically works great because they're both portrayed as quite competent, particularly Doris. What really drags a lot of the stories down, though, is Red's constant macho assertions that Doris shouldn't go into danger and his pooh-poohing of her hunches etc as mere womanly fabulation. So many Red, White and Blue stories have an interminable middle portion in which Doris has basically figured everything out and Red refuses to listen to her.

I'm less familiar with the RWB stories that take place after the US enters the war and the boys are deployed. The few I've read from that era take the form of letters home to Doris or one of their parents telling of their war exploits. I'll check back in if there's anything worth writing about there (especially if we eventually learn Red's real first name - secret knowledge).

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 079: THE WASP

(All American Comics 016, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? He's a master spy called the Wasp who engages in submarine espionage while wearing a tuxedo - basically a checklist of qualifying traits. Unfortunately, that's also the answer to the second question - he's only interesting because of his checklist, just a fleeting antagonist for a throwaway story.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 078: MR GLIB

(All American Comics 011 & 013, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? He's a guy who kind of looks like Satan (named I.M. Glib, natch) who uses such as invisibility fields and food spoiling chemicals to ransom cities and US Senators. A slam dunk, definitional villain.

What about them is interesting? He's a Golden Age scientific villain who made two appearances and used the same technology in both of them. This is almost unprecedented, I assure you - ordinarily someone who made their first foray into crime with invisibility tech would be sporting a time machine or an army of robots in their second.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 077: THE MASTER

(All American Comics 010, 1940)

The Master, in one of those escapades that causes a lot of trouble for folks who feel compelled to work out what's in continuity and what isn't, briefly took over NYC using an electricity projector, killed hundreds if not thousands of people, and mobilized a full fascist organization before being stopped by G-2 operatives Red, White and Blue and Doris West.

Which, to be fair, is the answer. You have to explain whether or not Namor actually sank the Italian fleet or Batman killed Carl Kruger but there are legions of Golden Age characters whose troublesome exploits can be excised willy-nilly and Red, White and Blue are some of the most thoroughly forgotten of the bunch for all that they appeared in four or five different books at various times during the early 40s.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 076: THE BLUE RAIDER

(Action Comics 027, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? It's 100% the name plus the fact that "air pirate" along with "submarine pirate" and for that matter "regular pirate" are styles of crime that just reek of super-villainy for me.

What about them is interesting? Aside from the inherent romantic nature of the air pirate, the only real thing of note about the Blue Raider is that his plane is named Hank.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 075: "UNCLE"

(Adventure Comics 057, 1940)

As I've said before, sometimes a character is very clearly a super-villain but chooses no name for themself, in which case for administrative purposes I pick something that the text boxes or other characters refer to them as and go with that. Scientists are usually easy - they just go by their name. This fellow, on the other hand, is basically only ever referred to as "Uncle," so Uncle I call him.

And Uncle is a credible threat! He tries to ransom the world by threatening to destroy it by knocking it off of its orbit, then actually tries to do it in a fit of pique - it's only the timely intervention of Sandman that saves the day.

In the last entry, when I was talking about mad scientists as perfect characters to bring back as reformed? This is the kind of guy I had in mind. What a gift to a cast!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 074: DR TOGG

(Adventure Comics 057, 1940)

Yet another Hourman science-villain. Dr Togg was really into hybridizing dogs and buzzards in various fun ways. Such a cool guy was he, in fact, that he was brought back as an ancillary character in the 90s Hourman series, himself mutated into a partial dog/buzzard in a retconned final encounter with Hourman before he was sent to prison.

Thinking about him (and fellow Hourman foe Iker in about 50 entries or so), has made me realize just how much I love the concept of the reformed mad scientist with their struggles to comprehend scientific ethics and their weird little mutations and leftover minions. A few recent Marvel series have featured the concept but I would still consider it to be underutilized.

There's our guy.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 073: DR SLIGHT

(Adventure Comics 056, 1940_

Dr Slight is similar to Dr Snegg, in that he is a scientist-villain with a method for bringing inanimate statues to life for crime purposes who is stopped by Hourman. But Dr Slight brings *plaster* statues to life, not wax ones.

NOTES: JULY 2022

Costumes: All-Star 005 features the debut of Hawkgirl, and a stunning revelation about her and (presumably) Hawkman's costumes:

the green part ain't tights it's boots! 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 072: THE GREAT I

(Adventure Comics 052-054, 1940)

A properly fun invisible villain, finally! In order:

-great hat, great mustache

-has to get nude

-filled with hubris vis-à-vis just how much you can get done just by being invisible (world conquest?)

Although to that last point they (they being heroic boxer Socko Strong) had to set a trap to electrocute him in order to stop him.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 071: DR SNEGG

(Adventure Comics 051-052, 1940)

Snegg's your classic villain who can't handle the thought of revising a plan. In his first appearance he animates a trio of crime boss statues from a wax museum to serve him as henchmen and then, having been foiled once by Hourman, he tosses the whole idea of animated wax out the window to indulge in hypnotism-based crime. If he hadn't died in a car accident he might be thinking up new implausible schemes to this day.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 070: THE TIGER-MEN

(Adventure Comics 049, 1940) 

The Tiger-Men are... contextually villains, I guess, in that they do arson and murder and are opposed by hero Steve Conrad. They are ALSO part of a pattern that emerges if you read a lot of old comics that take place in international locales: the hero rocks up and helps solve a problem between colonizers and the native population and the narrative frames what are usually pretty reasonable demands by the latter as rank villainy.

In the case of the Tiger-Men, their whole deal is that they are Indians who would please like their land back, if the English plantation owners could be bothered to leave (great violence is meted out to them for this).

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 069: THE COIN

 (Adventure Comics 046, 1940)

The Coin is a few different super-villain clichés rolled into one. Firstly he's an old college chum of Wesley "Sandman" Dodds, and "old schoolmate of hero turns out to be villain" is as much a recurring thing in comics as an old friend showing up and immediately dying. Which the Coin also does.

Finally, the Coin is a man who dresses up as an old lady to do crime, which is a super-villain bit and also something that regular-style crooks are apt to do in the Golden and Silver Ages. Old women are such unlikely villains that everyone else poses as them - even Catwoman, in her first appearance.

Anyway, he's a counterfeiter.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 068: THE MASTER

(Action Comics 030, 1940)

I've decided to introduce a system for dealing with some of the more minor super-villains who do not incite as much excitement in me to vomit out more than a cursory sentence about them (slightly unfair to the Master, who is kind of interesting, but I am uninspired today) In such cases, we will be answering one or both of the following questions:

What makes them a super-villain? In addition to his super-villain name, the Master has three qualifying super-villain attributes

1) Methods: he kills those who resist his extortion attempts by releasing huge poisonous beetles in their homes.

2) Powers: the Master, unlike many of Zatara's opponents, is a magic user. Specifically, he has the ability to resist and shrug off Zatara's own magic

3} Association: he employs the services of the Tigress

What's interesting about them? Honestly, it's the idea of a crook being able to resist a magical hero's powers. Underused and underappreciated!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 067: ZOLAR

(Action Comics 030, 1940)

In thinking about Zolar I realized that he engages in a surprisingly common plot-expedient activity which I, unwilling to root around on TVTropes for whatever twee thing they might dub it, am hereby going to call "the Reel": the villain sends a minion from their exotically-located HQ to wherever the hero is located to accomplish some sort of McGuffin task - collect an item, kill or kidnap someone, etc - thereby alerting the hero to the threat and drawing them to the exotic location. As soon as I thought about this I realized that many of the minor super-villains on our list employ the Reel: the Gorilla King sends a squad of gorilla-assassins to kill his enemy, thereby alerting Zatara, for instance.

In Zolar's case, he sends some of his men (mind controlled desert tribespeople, natch) to Metropolis to eliminate an impediment to his plans, which involves first Lois Lane and then Superman. Cut to the Sahara Desert, where Zolar is trying to conquer the lost city of Ulonda using a combination of mind control, rocket planes and flesh-destroying death orbs.

The whole thing ends in bloodshed: Zolar and his lieutenant attempt to death orb Superman only to have it bounce back on themselves, while his fleet of mind controlled rocket pilots are caused to crash by a slightly-pre-anti-killing-code Superman. The lost city of Ulonda, though battered, survives.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 066: MR LEOPARD SKIN

(Action Comics 028, 1940)

AKA the Leopard Skin Thief AKA the Strongarm Bandit - this is our first example of a clear super-villainous character who has not bothered to give themself a name and so we must take one from the text boxes or (as in this case) from the names given to them by the other characters.

Mr Leopard Skin is fun because he is obviously dressed as a circus strongman, and that is because his crime career is an attempt to frame a circus strongman. The actual culprit, the circus clown, has to basically be caught before anyone else at the circus thinks to mention that the clown used to be the old strongman before a stronger strongman showed up and he got demoted and maybe might want revenge.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 065: ASMODEUS

(Action Comics 025, 1940)

Former chess master turned crimelord, Asmodeus has three of my favourite features in a villain: 

-he employs the Tigress

-he builds little models of crime scenes to use as teaching aids for instructing his gang

-he lives in a house of traps

Unfortunately for him, he ends up battling Zatara, so all the traps in the world avail him not.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 064: MEDINI

(Action Comics 025, 1940)

The "World's Greatest Hypnotist," Medini embarks on a life of crime using his gifts. He's so good at hypnosis, in fact, that he is able to put Superman himself out of commission with the power of his mind, which might be why his story ends with Superman throwing an entire plane at his head.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 063: CHALO

(Action Comics 024, 1940)

Chalo was a stage magician who murdered his own brother to acquire real magical secrets which in turn he used for crime. He took a page from the Mad Lama's book and hired at least one other magical crook as a henchman, a fire- and snake-summoner named Arko.

By far the best thing about Chalo, however, is that his major use of the powers he murdered his brother to get is summoning a weird toad that freaks everyone out. He does it twice! Solid minor villain, should be BROUGHT BACK in the background of the Oblivion Bar or somewhere like that.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 004: THE THREE ACES

(Action Comics 018-063, 1939-1943)

The Three Aces consist of Gunner Bill (blonde, bland), Fog Fortune (fat, Cockney - the kind of character who starts out 1% comic relief and increases by increments until he is unrecognizable. In this case he gets fatter and more faux-Cockney until his word balloons are up to 1/2 apostrophe) and Whistler Will (dark haired ladies man - more on him in a moment). They're fairly standard aviator type heroes except for a couple of things: they have a greater than average rate of running into stuff like lost civilizations and minor super-villains and they have Whistler Will.

Okay, maybe I'm bigging up Will a bit. For most of their adventures he's just your standard square-jawed lothario, but in Action Comics 022 they did a peek into his backstory and it made a big impression on me:

Whistler Will is some sort of feral desert child or fey spirit of the American Southwest or something, an implacable and free spirit of justice. He has a mystic othersense that tells him in this issue that his adopted sister is in trouble with enough advance notice to fly across the continent to help her. He does stuff like this fairly regularly and his mystic senses express themselves as eerie whistling. All of this is very cool. All of this is never referenced again.

Anyway, the Three Aces all fought in WWI so I guess I'll mark them as dead, with a dead? for Will because maybe he just went back to his home in the halls of Avalon or wherever.