(Champion Comics 010, 1940)
It's a small consolation but this guy isn't actually a lama! Unlike the Mad Lama or the Four Lamas before him (and more than a few to come), this fellow is merely a bandit chief presumably called the Black Lama because he is Tibetan! It this better than a whole class of holy men being portrayed as evil scheming villains? A little! I also want to say that it's because his headquarters are a former lamasery but I don't know if I just made that up.
The Black Lama is the third antagonist of twelve faced by adventurers Dash Dolan and Nalya Randolph (aka the Golden Goddess) on their quest to reunite the twelve diamonds known as the Dragon's Teeth so that their patron Dr Ying can sell them and use the proceeds to defend China from a dastardly warlord. It's a very video game or 80s cartoon setup: the two are taking the gems to sell when they are waylaid by the warlord's soldiers and must use the Dragon's Teeth as a distraction to save their lives. Twelve soldiers then grab one gem each and immediately scurry off to sell them to seemingly the most evil man they could think of, because each one is in the hands of a grade-A creep - most of them just kill the soldiers rather than pay them!
The Black Lama is remarkable among this group mostly for his name - it's that extra 5% that elevates him from mere villain to minor super-villain. Also he captures Nalya and attempts to marry her against her will, a classic villain move if ever there was one.
The Lama has plans to dispose of Dash Dolan by dunking him into a cauldron of molten gold, This is a good and very gruesome deathtrap! It also should not surprise you to learn that the Black Lama himself meets his end in that very cauldron. You know what they say: you live by the cauldron of molten gold, you die by the cauldron of molten gold.
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