(Captain America Comics 005, 1941)
Finally, FINALLY, after 300 of these guys an arbitrary milestone lines up with a reasonably cool character: the Ringmaster of Crime AKA the Ringmaster of Death. Compounding the fun of the circus of crime aesthetic is the fact that some of that good-style retconning has been going on and the Ringmaster in this tale has been made the father (and presumably later grandfather, per Marvel's sliding timeline) of the mid-level super-villain the Ringmaster! Uh, if saying that someone is someone else's grampaw is a retcon, that is.
The practical upshot of this is that this Minor Super-Villain writeup also functions as Super-Villain Yearbook, 1941 for the Circus of Crime, which, as a family-owned business entity, is contiguous with the version that reappeared in the 60s even though no individual members reoccur.
All that said, the Ringmaster himself is a fairly regular Nazi creep super-villain. Sure he's got the Jack Kirby villain snake-man look that we all love to hate but compared to his descendant (or, indeed, a regular circus ringmaster) he's a positively dour dresser - his actual theming is pretty weak, when you get right down to it.
Although we must not neglect the Wheel of Death, a perfectly cromulent random victim generator that the Ringmaster presumably stole from one of the sideshow games and spends hours/day applying all the little faces to.
The real star here is the burgeoning Circus of Crime. Not all of the classic archetypes are present (no tall man, no fat guy) but it's a pretty good criminal circus lineup already. To whit:
Omir the Snake Charmer
the Missing Link putting in an appearance for the sideshow folk
Tommy Thumb the circus dwarf who might be held against his will? He definitely does not want to be there
the Trapeze Trio
Zandow the Strong Man
various unnamed clowns, roustabouts and elephant handlers
It's not quite Princess Python levels but it's a good showing.
The Ringmaster of course gets trounced by Captain America, and then according to lore he gets murdered after the war by Nazi loyalists for his failure. His circus endures to this day, however, so that's something. Speaking of which:
CIRCUS OF CRIME 1941
Body Count: 2
End-of-year Status: Captured/ Defunct
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