MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 557: DEATH

(Wonderworld Comics 003, 1939)

Like I said in the Devil's entry yesterday: Death and the Devil have teamed up as a sort of Yarko the Great Revenge Squad because Yarko saves so many live and souls, respectively. I also mentioned that Death did all of the legwork toward getting Yarko just where they wanted him, and here that is: Death kills a seemingly random London man then delivers him to the police, leaving only a calling card behind.

The discovery that the calling card's address was that of a cemetery is enough to convince Inspector Drake of Scotland Yard that this is a case for Yarko the Great, and... obviously Drake is right because even the most well-trained officer is going to have a hard time dealing with Death himself, but have some gumption, man. Try to track down where the card was printed or something before abdicating all responsibility.

Yarko makes his way to Death and the Devil's Limehouse lair, where he is promptly captured, put in a deathtrap, escapes and banishes the Devil back to the netherworld. Death takes more of a background role in this latter part of the adventure, but that's okay because he looks great - mostly quite cool but a bit sleazy too, because this ain't your regular Death, this is Bad Boy Death.

In the end, the Devil having been vanquished, Death just leaves. Yarko can't actually affect him, and there's even some hinting that the man in the car was not killed so much as dies naturally and was just used as bait, which implies that Death has no way of affecting someone who isn't about to die anyway. He does kill a reluctant henchman who refuses to go up against Yarko, but maybe he was about to die too - working for the Devil has to be a dangerous profession, right?

Death returns in Wonderworld Comics 008 after a Madame Punjai finds the creatively-named Golden Amulet, which compels his service. Punjai is obsessed with her lost youth and beauty and because of this commands Death to kill the young and beautiful Carla Dennis, a former passing acquaintance. This is done seemingly on a whim? There's no real exploration of Madame Punjai's plans, whether toward regaining her lost youth or revenging herself on the beautiful women of the world.

Yarko the Great of course becomes involved in these shenanigans and the more-hapless-than-evil Madame Punjai is tricked into trading her life for that of Carla's. Death is again cheesed off about this. BUT WHY IS HE? He's going to get basically everyone eventually, even in a comic book world with immortals and so forth. Why care? Is this a Discworld style Death who gets into human roles like hobbies? Maybe.