TROPHY ROOM - CAPTAIN MARVEL

(Captain Marvel Adventures 001, 1941)

Captain Marvel has a whole-ass spaceship that he took off a guy (though it does get blown up this ish).

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 139: IVAN BORLOFF

 (Adventure 061, 1941)

Ivan Borloff is a strange combination of things: a scientist with a super airship (the Cylindecraft) and a metal-destroying ray, he rains destruction down on New York City in pursuit of his goal of conquering the US (and by implication, the world), but also, it's implied that he is affiliated with *foreign powers*, ie, fascists - possibly ones who didn't quite know what they were getting into. 

His name ringing more Russian might mean that he is a rare pre-Cold War Commie villain, but a more likely explanation is plain old lazy naming - German, Russian... it's all basically the same, right?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 138: DR DOOG

 (Adventure 061, 1941)

Starman's first foe is also his first super-foe: the diabolical Dr Doog. Doog (and nothing is ever made of his name being Good, backward) has stolen a device called to Ultra-Dynamo from Professor Davis (above right) and is using it to disrupt electrical power across North America in service to his dreams of world domination.

Doog brings in deathtraps, a hollowed-out mountain base and perhaps most importantly, a group of henchmen with the excellent name the Secret Brotherhood of the Electron. It's small wonder that he's already been brought back once or twice, a decision that I wholeheartedly endorse.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 137: THE SHADE

 (Action v1 043, 1941)

Vigilante's first super-foe has the misfortune to share his name with a certain Flash villain beloved of James Robinson, so it's just as well that he's nothing more than a gang boss who uses stage illusions to conceal his real identity because he is never seeing the light of day again.

He did manage to make a second appearance in the Golden Age, so at least there's that.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 136: THE LEGION OF THE MASKED

(Adventure Comics 058, 1941)

The Barry O'Neill serial in Adventure Comics had basically been about Barry battling the dastardly villain Fang Gow (Minor Super-Villain 001) from its inception in 1935 to his death by sea mine six years later and evidently someone thought that it could continue as more of a free form adventure strip despite losing that structure (as well as its setting, having started as a comic set in Paris that had quietly moved to London about the time that the German Army marched in). In fact, it lasted for two issues before Barry and his pal Inspector LeGrande retired to New York City and Starman took over the page real estate.

The Legion of the Masked are the one other super-foe that Barry faced after the death of Fang Gow and... they did okay, getting up to a little arson, a little insurance fraud and a fair bit of theft and murder. Why they chose to dress like they are in the Klan while doing it, we will never know.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 135: THE PURPLE

(Action Comics v1 040, 1941)

Yet another foreign agent looking to weaken America, the Purple does so by forming what is supposedly a patriotic society but in reality is a collection of fervent dupes that can be aimed at whatever target he wishes. Mr America steps in and lays out the truth for the Purple Gang but I fear for the future of a community filled with that many dim bulbs.

As always, massive appreciation for a villain who dresses their henchmen in basically the same costume as them.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 134: THE GHOST

(Action Comics v1 039, 1941)

The Ghost is one of Superman's earliest superpowered foes, being Brett Bryson, a chemist who was accidentally irradiated while conducting an experiment and, having found himself with both a burning radium touch and a short time left to live, set out to steal enough in the time he had left to provide for his family once he was finally gone.

But there is a twist to the Ghost's story! The lab accident? Planned by Bryson's greedy partners! The stolen money? Was never going to be delivered to Bryson's family! I like this because this is the earliest example of the On Purpose Lab Accident Origin that I'm aware of in comics and that's a reasonably common origin! (Brett Bryson does not like it and murders his partner before dying himself)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 133: THE BIG BOSS

(Action Comics v1 037)

Just a society playboy who puts on a mask to run his crooked casino empire. He might just be my new example of the bare minimum that I need to consider someone a super-villain - nobody is even surprised when his identity is revealed, but he has the barest film of anonymity along with a secret boat dock and a moderately cool name.

Also he gets hit by a boat.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 132: THE REED

(Action Comics v1 036, 1941)

Another day, another spy from no specific nation striking at the US military for uncertain reasons. This one is even less successful than usual, as he almost blows up an Army convoy and almost blows up an artillery range. But what can I do: I'm a sucker for a monocle, a guy who throws poisoned darts and a neato name.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 131: THE ADDER

(Action Comics v1 035, 1941)

Yet another spy encountered by Clip Carson, the Adder was interested in blowing up the Panama Canal for unclear reasons. Much more interestingly, he took his name from a snake-shaped ring which both fatally poisoned those he punched with it and left a cool snake mark on the spot he hit, and evidently he used it enough that his men spoke of him in hushed terms as "the Child of Death," which is an amazing name.

As with so many villains who use a cool signature weapon, the Adder ends up falling on his own ring. A sad end.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 130: THE SPIDER

(Action Comics v1 035, 1941)

The Spider is a foreign agent with a lot of guys named Herman and Otto working for him who attempts to disrupt US military preparedness. To that end he blows up a military parade and almost manages to poison an entire army camp being captured by Mr America.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 129: MISTER Z

(Action Comics v1 032-033, 1941)

Mister Z is actually plantation owner Grasso, who is actually X-11, notorious agent of a "hostile government" whose schemes are placed in jeopardy when a mineral deposit is discovered near his hideout in Colombia. His efforts to shut down the incipient mining operations bring in adventurer Clip Carson but he meets his actual end when he's gunned down by a young boy whose father he had killed.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 128: THE ANT QUEEN

(Slam-Bang Comics 006, 1940) 

If there's one thing that leavens my disdain for jungle comics, it's that there are some real fun villain tropes in 'em, and one of the best is "human raised by animals who disdains civilization", and the Ant Queen is one of the most fun

She was raised by giant ants! That's so great! She controls them with her lil antennae! I love her!

I mean I guess you could look at the "traitor to your own kind" stuff that the Jungle King is spouting in that last panel as a version of the white supremacy that old jungle and adventure comics were rife with, wherein the greatest crime was e.g. a white person taking the side of another race over that of other white people, but maybe we'll leave that for another time - the White Renegade is coming up in a few months, anyway. No for now let's just enjoy how much the Ant Queen rules.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 127: THE SKY DEMON

(Slam-Bang Comics 006, 1940) 

The Sky Demon is a heretofore-unseen old enemy of Diamond Jack who starts strong with an overall Satanic look and a little skull on the front of his trunks - just the right amount of accessorizing to make a pretty basic super-outfit pop.

I also love his plot to conquer Earth and/or wipe out humanity: get some gorillas, give them wings and revolvers and let them loose. I can't say whether or not his plan would have succeeded because he was fatally prevented from carrying it out by Diamond Jack.

Gorilla-based schemes aside, I really like the parallel of Diamond Jack the magic ring-powered hero vs the Sky Demon and his little magic cape. A sub-ecosystem of heroes and villains weilding magic items of various kinds sounds like it could be interesting comics fodder!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAINS 126: THE WITCH-MASTER

(Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

An early entry in the grand tradition of comic book characters that indirectly make the assertion that the Salem Witch Trials were entirely justified, since Salem was crawling with actual, factual witches such as this dapper fellow.

See? Witches were real and they summoned fire devils and tried to sacrifice pure-hearted time-travelling children to them!

The foils to this dastardly and historically accurate fiend are teacher Rodney Kent and his pupil/ ward Mark Swift, two prime examples of a comics type: time travelers who have precisely zero concept of not leaping in to express good old 20th Century American values no matter what time period they find themselves in.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 125: THE GORILLA MAN

(Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

A jewel thief who dresses up in a gorilla costume to commit crimes, what really stands out about the Gorilla Man is that he does so for no real reason? He just likes it?

Hell, if anything it makes him more likely to get caught since he has pulled this sort of job before and the gorilla costume is a bit of an attention getter. Is it reasonable to call this fictional character from more than 80 years ago a furry? Perhaps not, but I shall leave the question open to debate.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 124: MARIA, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES

(Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

I quite like Maria. Firstly, she is a vampire with bat wings, which is a feature that hardly ever shows up any more. Also she sleeps in a coffin filled with the bones of her victims, which is not a bit of vampire lore that I am familiar with but which does rule. She hangs out in a castle somewhere in the US and vampirizes random motorists in anticipation of the day that she has enough minions to take over the world. She even manages to turn Diamond Jack briefly but he manages to resist the full transformation due to being good and pure.

She has these weird minions that may or may not be another kind of vampire? They kind of look like bipedal panthers with bat wings. I love them.

Like I said she manages to vamp Diamond Jack, which she achieves by pretending defeat, offering to kiss his ring and then biting out the magic diamond. A clever move, but ultimately undone when the gem refuses to act against Jack and returns to his ring.

Ultimately, Maria ends up turned into a skeleton and her cool looking castle is transformed into a cemetery for the other vampires, who I guess were less redeemable than Diamond Jack.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 123: THE DRAGON

(Slam-Bang Comics 004, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? Why, that snazzy outfit! Comics are full of people who run opium smuggling rings but very few look as good while doing it.

What makes them interesting? It depends on your definition of interesting, but this is the first costumed criminal on our list whose disguise includes pretending to be another race - specifically, the Dragon is a white hardware store owner named Jones who passes himself off as a Chinese master criminal until Jim Dolan, heroic magazine editor gets involved.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 018: DIAMOND JACK

(Slam-Bang Comics 001-007, 1940)

Diamond Jack is pretty simple conceptually: he's a guy in a suit with a magic ring and he fights crime. He doesn't have much in the way of backstory or supporting cast - just your average Golden Age adventurer type.

He is canonically anti-Nazi, even though all of his appearances are from 1940, so that's a point in his favour. Mostly his stories are entertaining due to the number of wacky supernatural villains he battles. And as always I'm an advocate of BRINGING BACK magic item users as legacy heroes. A magic ring with a heroic history (and half a dozen pre-baked villains but virtually no other baggage) is a good starting point for a new hero, and Diamond Jack is even a completely gender-neutral name so they could be literally anyone!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 122: THE GREEN DEVIL

(Slam-Bang Comics 003, 1940)

I really like the Green Devil. He has a lot going on! He has an army of the living dead, an island base, and a hurricane generator. He's conservatively 10 ft tall and looks like the Devil (with green skin, natch)

His main scheme is to disrupt the laws of magic, which not only weakens his enemy Diamond Jack's magic ring but also for some reason causes regular stage magic and stuff like snake charming and sword swallowing to turn deadly in some of the more low-key gruesome panels I've read recently.

Finally, in classic magic villain style he meets a pretty ignoble end as he is transformed into a book and then blown up along with his HQ and zombies. A solid showing! I'd love to see the Green Devil BRUNG BACK to vex magic folk again.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 121: THE WITCH

(Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

On the one hand the Witch uses smoke-dragon magic in an attempt to kill Diamond Jack for some thugs. On the other, she's an old woman who Diamond Jack strips of her power and leaves weeping in her slum hovel. Still... technically a villain?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 120: THE BLUE DEVILS

(Nickel Comics 006, 1940)

A costumed gang that managed to take over a small town under the direction of head devil Lucifer. Not the most distinguished costumed gang ever but you gotta give them credit for trying. And not only do they have devil horns on their hood but there's a skull-and-crossbones on both the hood and the chest! Sartorially speaking, they're years ahead!

Anyway, most of them get drowned by Bulletman.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 017: WARLOCK THE WIZARD

(Nickel Comics 001-007, 1940)

Warlock the Wizard, in addition to having a name built to confuse someone familiar with modern D&D classes, is an interesting member of the Magic Guy type of Golden Age super-heroes, in that while he has some innate skill at magic he is much more of a magic item user than a lot of his contemporaries (and yes I am aware that this makes him closer to an Artificer than either a Warlock or a Wizard). This introduces a bit more uncertainty into a Warlock adventure as it is possible that he will be separated from his source of power, something that is quite a bit harder to do in a Zatara story, say

Warlock's tools of the trade (pictured above) are:

-Hugin the raven. Acts as a familiar, scout, fetcher-of-other-tools, messenger and occasional subject of transformation magic.

-the Hand of Abraxas. Speak the magic word (conveniently, it is Abraxas) and the hand detaches from the stick and grows huge. Acts as transport, muscle etc. Since we're already talking D&D, it's basically a wand of Bigby's Hand spells.

-the Lamp of the Gods. This is the big gun, which is why it only comes out occasionally and at the end of adventures. It seemingly offers consequence-free favours from the gods of assorted pantheons, including stuff like borrowing the Hammer of Thor to smite someone or petitioning Neptune for rain. 

One more thing that I appreciate about Warlock is the repeated insistence that most people fear and hate him - a somewhat unusual thing in 40s comics and so a refreshing one.

As always, my attitude about magic item-using characters is that they should be BROUGHT BACK, preferably as legacy characters. Picture this: some workaday schlub decides to befriend their neighbourhood crows ravens and it just so happens that one of them is Hugin and in return for a generous attitude toward sharing table scraps they get the Lamp of the Gods left on their front steps. Good stuff!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 119: THE TENAMENT FIREBUG

(Nickel Comics 003, 1940)

Spoilers for the end of this writeup: the Tenement Firebug is that most common of comic book villains, the property owner who burns down their own buildings for the insurance money and/or redevelopment. Ordinarily such a foe would be a regular guy with some hirelings and maybe a mask, but since he was set up as a foil to magic guy Warlock the Wizard the Tenament Firebug has been beefed up slightly.

First off is his pet lizard, which is a salamander. But! Not a real-world amphibian salamander, nor a modern fantasy style fire elemental - this one is the Medieval bestiary denizen that is immune to fire! A very exciting appearance of a discarded beast!

Secondly, the Firebug is both able to do comic book super-hypnotism and is adept enough at disguise that he manages to frame Warlock for the arsons. Again but!

He was wearing a rubberoid mask the whole time! Which means that he applied the Warlock disguise over his mask. Which is frankly much more responsible for my interest in and love of him as a villain than any old arson. Commitment to the bit is what I'd call it.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 118: BLACKMASK

(Nickel Comics 001-003, 1940)

A pretty regular "business guy branches out into costumed villainy" villain, Blackmask is distinguished by a) being Bulletman's first foe, b) his very 90s name and c) lasting 3 whole issues while punching well above his weight class.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 117: THE SKULL

(Mystery Men Comics 015, 1940)

Yet another crypto-Nazi spy/saboteur with a skull face operating in the US, but this one has an electron-gun!

SKULL SCORE: 5/5 full skull; full marks.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 116: THE SKULL

(Mystery Men Comics 014, 1940)

Once more we meet a Skull, and this time he's a supposed-to-be-a-Nazi-but-it's-1940-so-we-won't-actually-say-it who spends his time bombing bridges in the Blue Beetle's eventually-just-going-to-be-New-York-City-but-we're-still-pretending-it-isn't-for-some-reason.

SKULL SCORE: 2/5 Pretty skully for an actual human but this is comics we're talking about. You're going to have to shave off that glossy black hair if you want to get ahead in this game.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 115: THE LIGHT

(Mystery Men Comics 011, 1940)

I just really appreciate the low-effort mystique that can be generated by sitting behind a bright light in a dark room. Of course, nothing prevents a foe from shooting into the light at roughly leg-height, as Lt Drake of Naval Intelligence demonstrates in this story, so perhaps the bright light shouldn'be your only line of defense should you choose to use it.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 016: THE MOTH

(Mystery Men Comics 009, 1940)

The Moth might just be the platonic ideal of a certain kind of super-hero. Specifically, the kind that would be equally likely to show up for three issues during the height of the Golden Age hero boom and also in a super-hero parody any time from the 60s to today.

I sincerely think that if I spent an afternoon looking through every issue of normalman and What The-! and so forth that I could find (or if I could ever track down a copy of The Mad Book of Almost Superheroes, for that matter), someone identical to the Moth would be hanging out in the background of a panel somewhere.

As far as the man himself goes: a perfectly decent regular Golden Age super-hero: no origin or secret identity, can fly, drops "egg bombs" despite a troubling lack of pockets... the complete package.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 114: THE WEATHER KINGS

(Mystery Men Comics 010, 1940)

It's the Moth vs. the Weather Kings, the very definition of a great name wasted on some run-of-the-mill weather controlling chumps and really I'm only bringing them up to roundly condemn the wasting of such a good name on such jabronis.

The only good thing about them really, is that they've remained unused for more than 80 years so the name is basically up for grabs.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 113: RAYMOND RALL

(More Fun 062, 1940)

Look at this damn nerd. He's got a lightning cannon and a robot army and he bothered Dr Fate for a whole afternoon. Good riddance to him, I say. Raymond Rall. Ridiculous.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 112: THE CRIME LORD/ THE BRAIN

(More Fun Comics 062, 1940) 

An early iteration of the classic tale of a brain that is freed of its cranium and becomes both powerful and EVIL, originally just a man named Dexter with a skeletal system and all the organs, he then became a mysterious shadowy figure named the Crime Lord as he directed his minions toward an eventual takeover of the US.

Upon being freed from his bell jar, the Crime Lord became the rapidly-expanding Brain, who similarly grew his ambitions: no longer interested in conquest on a national level, he was now going to expand to fill the entire universe. And he might have gotten away with it if the Spectre hadn't shown up to shrivel him away to nothingness.

Bonus: the Spectre eating a bullet to save FDR.