GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 004

They're back! They're costumed! They're generic!

It's a sad day for me but I fear I have to classify this fake mummy as a generic costumed villain, even though he has a shortsword, one of the top swords. Ultimately, he's just a thief named Shorty Jones who robs the museum every night and even with the power of the fake mummy on his side Shorty just isn't interesting enough to qualify as a minor super-villain. (Detective Comics v1 053, 1941) 

Doc Savage battled this guy (real name the pretty good Gritter; posing as the amazingly-named Captain Blackstone Toy) who had a very complicated plan to blackmail the US Armed Forces. Also his chief henchman was named Fuzzy. (Doc Savage Comics 004, 1941)

This lady bandit is in fact Deputy Cal of the Twin Forks Sheriff's office. His idea to crossdress as a major part of his holdup persona totally pays off, but unfortunately for him he completely fails to disguise himself in any other way - same distinctive horse, same clothes, a very confrontational attitude to anyone looking into the holdups rather than keeping his head down - and he swiftly gets run in by the Fargo Kid. (Feature Comics 048, 1941)

This unnamed stablehand is that most banal of killers, a jilted suitor going after the romantic rival. But he goes to such effort! It takes two tries - with a remote-controlled sailboat and a sniper rfle - to get the guy, at which point the Red Bee impersonates him and is attacked with battleaxe, scythe, pitchfork and trap door.

Plus he dresses up as Death for one attempt! Truly this man was as close to non-generic as it's possible to be while still being completely forgettable. (Hit Comics 014, 1941) 

HONOURS - THE STRANGE TWINS

(Hit Comics 013, 1941)

The Strange Twins get a medal from the San Francisco PD.

(Since they may never come up again: the Strange Twins were a set of English twins (natch) separated as infants when an enemy of their father had one kidnapped as revenge. That one, Rodney, was raised as a criminal and became a feared gang boss, while his brother Douglas grew up to become a Scotland Yard Inspector.

The first year or so of Strange Twins strips involved a lot of mistaken identity intrigue including Doug going to prison for several years and multiple near-fratricides on both sides until Rod's foster father Wing Low revealed the truth, upon which they reconciled (Doug conveniently ignoring Rod's multiple on-panel murders for the sake of family) and became an adventure team - not as fun, but still okay.

The best thing about them is that it's more interesting to have Rod go up against his old crime rivals, so they meet guys named London Joe and Limehouse Lew no matter what part of the globe they find themselves in. The second best is that the only way to tell them apart is that Rod smokes cigarettes and Doug smokes a pipe)

TROPHY ROOM - DON GLORY

(Hit Comics 010, 1941)

Patriotic numbskull Don Glory gets a new set of wheels after foiling a plot to drag the US into WWII, a very mid-1941 thing to be against and presumably a thing that everyone conveniently forgot about from 1942 onward.

HONOURS - HERCULES

(Hit Comics 010, 1941)

 

Hercules cleans up the Giller Mob and gets the key to... a city. Probably New York? Who can say for sure - he moved around more than most 40s super-heroes.

This also leads to a brief and harrowing Hollywood career in which he stars in one - alas! - unnamed jungle action movie.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 259: THE POWER STEALERS

(Hit Comics 008, 1941)

I gotta say: I really like these guys. Now, obviously they're stinkers of the highest order - their plan involves siphoning all electrical power in the US until they are paid an unspecified amount of big bucks or possibly even placed in charge - but when you spend a little (or a lot of) time thinking about supercrime in a super-hero universe you get opinions about these kinds of things. If these guys had developed this technology I'd have something to say about the risk/reward of crime vs commercial application, but they're clearly a bunch of criminal goons and probably stole it, so using it for crime makes sense!

Further, they are genre-savvy enough to recognize Hercules as the only super-hero in their particular pocket of the Quality Comics proto-universe. Setting out to preemptively take care of the super-opposition never actually works, but I always appreciate the effort involved.

(also I love that they call Hercules a hick. So often the little interesting details about a character fall by the wayside - it's great that Hercules is consistently the super-hero from the country)

The guy in purple is a bad liar.

The guy in green is a loveable jerk.

The gang of shirtless goons is everything I could wish in a bunch of cannon-fodder henchmen, down to the guy with a knife clutched in his teeth.

Finally (well, for my purposes. Finally finally, they get beat up), they actually have a plan! They manage to chuck Hercules into quick-drying cement and cheekily make him into a statue to be displayed on their front porch! And he's there for weeks! Very good job, boys.

(though if they hadn't chiseled off all that extra cement then maybe he wouldn't have managed to get free. Food for thought, dead fictional men)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 258: THE FOUR LAMAS

(Hit Comics 007, 1941)

If Tibetan Lams aren't the top religious figures cast as super-villains then they at least have to be in the top three, along with druids and Catholic priests - we won't see any of those for a while but once they get going they go hard.

This bunch of Lamas have decided to turn their formidable mental powers (natch) to the task of world conquest, and have chosen to do so by influencing the mind of one President Karla of an unnamed European state to become a rabid warmonger.

The "Scheming Oriental Mastermind" bit was old before comics existed, and honestly I'd be tempted to skip these guys if this story didn't include two truly incredible bits: 1. Neon the Unknown flies Karla across Europe and Asia as a sort of human dowsing rod to determine exactly where the mental influence is being broadcast from.

2. Neon resolves things via mental combat with all three of the Four Lamas (the artist lost track of one of them midway through the story). He of course wins...

... and their brains explode! Truly a redeeming end for some cliched characters.

CELEBRATION

(Hit Comics 006, 1940)

Just a couple of cool bank robbing bad boy brothers living high on the hog. 

Just a fun panel from the same adventure. Jimmy darling indeed.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 257: THE SWORDS OF DEATH

(Hit Comics 006, 1940)

Once again we find ourselves profiling the interesting henchmen of a run-of-the-mill villain: the Swords of Death, in this case. A trio of assassin/ thieves armed with electrified rapiers and high opinions of themselves, the Swords have the misfortune to run into perennial-punching-bag-but-actually-fun-character the Red Bee on what seems to be their first mission, whereupon he promptly kills two of them.  

I like the Swords of Death - any time a hero has to beat up a bunch of cool henchmen is okay by me, and cool electric swordsmen who sneak around in hats and overcoats like the Ninja Turtles are extra fun. Possibly the most intriguing thing about them, however, is that the surviving member of the three kills himself upon being defeated by the Red Bee, rather than be captured. A shocking degree of loyalty! Especially as...

... he works for this weird little creep (named Kulak, in a weird made-up name coincidence), continuing the long comic book tradition of inexplicable loyalty-unto-death by ruthless killers toward people who probably wouldn't buy them a coffee on their birthday, let alone give a damn that they were dead.

TROPHY ROOM - HERCULES

(Hit Comics 005, 1940)

Hercules clears up some rotten doings at an auto plant and takes home *Rod Roddy voice* A NEW CAR! 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 256: MORGAN CROOKES

(Hit Comics 001, 1940)

Hey, it's Morgan Crookes, a retired man of great wealth! He tries to take over the world and gets stomped by Neon the Unknown in his first adventure! It's probably one of the most racist comics of the Golden Age! Which is saying something!

MINOR SUPER-HERO 032: HERCULES

(Hit Comics 001-021, 1940-1942)

There's nothing too special about Hercules - he's a super-strong guy who shrugs off small-arms fire and is a champion of the people after seeing his mother ruined by unscrupulous businessmen - but I really like the callout text at the start of his first adventure. He's not an alien, you rubes! No mad scientist created our boy Joe Hercules! No, he's just a regular super-powered American with no explanation! Named Joe Hercules, I must repeat. Check and mate, I think, all other other comics.

Sadly for Hercules, he never really hits the big time. He gets a mention in James Robinson's Starman but only to say that he has Alzheimer's, in one of those "all the old heroes who weren't in the JSA are doddering wrecks now" bits of colour he loves so much.

ADDENDUM:

Hercules does have the distinction of being part of the small-but-significant number of super-heroes who got their inspiration by reading about other super-heroes in the comics, specifically Doll Man.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 255: BALDY

(Green Lantern v1 002, 1941)

What can I say about Baldy? To start: he's not really a bald guy, but a guy in a bald cap. That's about as clever as he gets, if I'm honest.

Okay, that might be a bit mean, but Baldy tries my patience. After seeing so many good villain ideas wasted on six-page nothing-stories over and over, it's kind of galling for Baldy here to get a whole book-length tale of his own. 

Baldy is the crooked vice-president of a mortgage company who uses various strongarm tactics to enrich the company and himself. That's it, barring a couple of colourful Italian stereotypes and a subplot about depressed lawyers. There's lots of gunplay and Doiby Dickles bopping guys on the head but ultimately it all comes down to mortgages.

I do appreciate the self-seriousness of a guy with such a goofy nom de crime but it doesn't make up for anything, Baldy.

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 001

Like costumed villains, there are a lot of scientists out there doing crimes involving superscience but just missing the levels of interest, ambition or scale to graduate to true super-villain status. Sometimes this is because of poor planning or lack of vision and others just have the misfortune to run into a protagonist while still in the initial stages of their venture. And don't they deserve a forum just as much as the generic costumed villains we all love?

Our first science fiend is Julius Korn, who takes over a lighthouse with his crew of misfits in order to use his ray machine to sink passing ships. It's unclear just why he does this - is it a weapons test, a piracy scheme, fifth column activity or plain sadism? - but he is thwarted by sea rover Dusty Dane and his pal Big Mike Cardigan and ends his days like so many other comic book scientists: exploding along with his invention. (Feature Comics 048, 1941)

The Professor here operated a scheme whereby he used a magnetic engine killing ray to bring down mail planes in Arizona's Painted Desert. As befits a scientist operating in cowboy territory, he was willing to get his hands a bit dirtier than your typical effete science-man, but even that wasn't enough to save him from the Fargo Kid. (Feature Comics 051, 1941)

This unnamed fellow went to the trouble of developing anti-Flash technology - specifically, glasses with rotating lenses that allow him to see fast-moving objects - to protect his kidnap gang rather than, say, moving to another city (or marketing his glasses somewhere, natch) (Flash Comics v1 001, 1940)

(Trophy Room bonus: the Flash keeps the glasses)

This here's Dr Jennings, who works in a research lab with Jay "the Flash" Garrick and kidnaps a lot of people to live out his dream of establishing a colony on Mars but then is betrayed by his venture capitalist partner Enzil who just wants to establish himself as a Martian tyrant in a story that feels oddly prescient somehow? Anyhow the Flash is more focused on rehabilitation than your average Golden Age hero and so Jennings is allowed to go back to his old life after Enzil is vaporized by spider-aliens. (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 254: THE SMOKE THIEF

(Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

I'll be honest: this is a very charitable entry on this list. The Smoke Thief is Dr Lucius Darrell and his gang of toughs, who use smoke bombs and special goggles to rob people on trains. If this was the main focus of the story, that might just be enough for full Minor Super-Villain status, but it ain't.

The real point of the story is this. Darrell captures Hawkman, then tries to kill him by chucking him out of a plane, which leads to a whole sequence where Hawkman is nursed back to health by the birds, earns their trust and eventually becomes their leader, leading them in righteous vengence against poor unsuspecting Dr Darrell.

So yes, I'm being charitable. Being absolutely destroyed by Hawkman and an army of birds isn't particularly villainous but it must be terrifically unpleasant. Plus the Smoke Thief is an excellent name.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 253: THE WHITE DRAGON

(Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

Not much to say about the White Dragon: he's a guy with a bunch of costumed henchmen who captures Chinese folk in NYC and uses them as slave labour in his motor factory until the Whip settles his hash.

He is of course Walter Morgan, a guy who brags to Rod "the Whip" Gaynor about how well he's doing in the motor business on the first page of the story. About the only interesting thing to be found here is a one-panel whip duel between Our Hero and the White Dragon, They can't all be great, folks!

NOTES - MARCH 2023

New Powers:

An injured Hawkman is tended to by birds and learns to speak their language. (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

Just some of my favourite alien designs ever: the Kriglo AKA Martian Spider-Men (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

Super Hero Costume Party:

Hawkman attends a costume party with Shiera Sanders as Hawkgirl. Though not the first time she wore the costume, this does mark the start of the two as a crime-fighting duo ongoing, no matter what stinky ol' Hawkman says. (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

Rick Raleigh might have intended to attend this party as the Red Bee in that classic cheeky move, but ended up getting mixed up in a murder and attending as a different guy dressed as the Red Bee. (Hit Comics 014, 1941)

Really enjoy the selection of creature that inhabit the inner earth in the year 50029 CE: Mud Men, Rock Men, hot ladies, and down at the very bottom: guys with beards. (Hit Comics 003, 1940)

Quality comics with another entry for the list of increasingly unhinged patriotic heroes: Don Glory, the xenophobic jingoist former boxer (Hit Comics 008, 1941)