(Red Raven Comics 001, 1940)
The Gold Leeches are not terrifically interesting villains, but there are precisely two interesting things about them and that's enough for me. Uninteresting preamble: Zeelmo, the Gold Leech (unofficial name) is a gold-obsessed gang boss with a few super-scientific gadgets (the Gazegrapho Machine for remote viewing and the Trembling Death gas which kills via accelerated aging) and a birds-and-skeletons decorating motif that I wish had come up more often.
Zeelmo attempts to recruit B-tier Golden Age Marvel hero the Red Raven as a minion and ends up chucked into the Trembling Death gas and then blown up for his efforts. That's interesting thing 1, by the way: being the only Golden Age foes of the Red Raven.
Interesting thing 2 is that Ratoga, one of Zeelmo's lieutenants, immediately takes over his organization as Gold Leech II (name still unofficial) and I love it. I know that it can be a bit of a slippery slope from "what happens to the villain's organization when to villain is killed?" or "who builds all those villain hideouts?" to deeply unfun comics about logistics but I love this sort of thing - more second fiddles should step up like this.
Anyway, Ratoga gets smothered by Red Raven in a huge pile of gold.
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