(Doll Man 001, 1941)
The Phantom Duelist is and example of a couple of my favourite comic book story setups: 1. the eerie local legend used as a basis for crime and 2. the murder mystery with a whole passel of suspects. Plus there's a dose of "aren't Hollywood people weird!" for flavour.
So: movie producer Reynolds decides to drum up a bit of publicity by buying a haunted castle and importing it to Hollywood. The only problem: Reynolds is a bit of a shitheel and so is promptly murdered by someone posing as the castle's resident ghost, the Phantom Duelist.
The suspects:
-Rocky Perrone, gangster who Reynolds refuses to pay off a gambling debt to
-Pierce, Reynolds' leading man who he antagonized and threatened to blacklist
-Marrow, who wants to marry Reynolds' leading lady but is unable to because of her contract
The murder happens at a costume party and Pierce is almost a self-frame due to showing up as the Phantom Duelist. In the end though, the murderer is revealed to be... a fourth guy! Steve Morton the publicity agent who Reynolds has apparently been blackmailing for the past 25 years!
So a couple of points off for presenting an unfair mystery (and another couple for so many of the characters not having first names) but over all top notch comic book tomfoolery.
Number of Episodes of the "Super-Villains of Hollywood" podcast: One episode only. SOme prurient attention paid to Reynolds' shitty doings.
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