(More Fun Comics 073, 1941)
This is not a new development but having Johnny Quick and Green Arrow's debuts so close together made me realize that a minor sea change had happened some time in 1941: whereas the earliest super-heroes would start out collaring regular crooks we're entering an era in which super-villains are the norm! (that said, Aquaman's debut is in this issue as well and he just blows up a few Nazis).
As for the Masked Man (our fifth! Even if more than half of them are unofficial), he's another themed deathtraps guy, killing members of the extremely tryhard History Club (members must have the same last name as a famous historical or mythological figure, but sometimes it's the figure's first name as their last name and also there's a member named Frank d'Arcy who is a member under the extremely slim pretext of sharing a name with Joan of Arc AKA Jean d'Arc. Maybe it's a club for guys too uninteresting to belong to any of the other weird themed organizations in comics). Needless to say my interest was piqued: themed deathtraps are a classic villain trope! These, however, are extremely perfunctory - shooting a guy named Lincoln but not in a theatre, stabbing a Caesar in his sleep... a little more theatricality would have gone a long way.
More halfassed deathtraps: Ezra Samson is tied up next to a bomb that will collapse a building on him, Frank d'Arcy is tied up in a burning building, Amos Socrates is forced to drink poison at gunpoint and Leonard Achilles (great name!) is warned about his heel being targeted so he wears metal boots and is then killed via electrified mat. It's all moderately thematic but feels perfunctory.
And it is, in fact, perfunctory! The Masked Man is not killing the members of the History Club out of hatred or because of a weird compulsion but as a distraction! He's actually club treasurer Ezra Samson attempting to cover up his long-term embezzlement of club funds by murdering everyone who would care, culminating in a fake attempt on his own life and a staging of Amos Socrates' poisoning so that he would look like a guilty suicide. And he might have gotten away with it if Green Arrow and Speedy hadn't been there to kill him with a car wreck at the end of the story.
BONUS TROPHY ROOM
Green Arrow and Speedy add the Masked Man's fake round bomb to their already overstuffed trophy case.
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