MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 632: THE BOSS

(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940)

The Boss is actually Roulf, editor of the Daily Standard newspaper in NYC. He pulls the classic villain mistake of acting as a concerned citizen recruiting the protagonists - in this case Samson and David - to investigate his own villainous alter ego. It's the kind of error that you can emphasize with to a certain extent: how better to ensure that a super-powered busybody doesn't unexpectedly show up and wreck your plans then by controlling the flow of information and steering him away? The problem is that the Boss, like most villains who try this gambit, fails on the second part of the plan. Rather than guide Samson and David away from, say, his plot to blow up the Panama Canal he has instead alerted them to look out for such plans. Heck, before getting word to visit him at the Daily Standard Building, Our Heroes were spending their day pulling pranks on ice cream vendors. Truly the Boss has executed an epic self-own.

The Boss has a secret city hidden in a secret valley in the Western US and in that secret city he has a a little fort and in that little fort he has a littler pyramid. It's not very effective at keeping Samson out but I think it's neat that he nested up like that.

I think I've mentioned that Samson is one of your more bloodthirsty Golden Age super-heroes before and I've even said to myself "that's a murder," when reading a Samson adventure but... he just kind of admits it here, doesn't he. He captured Roulf and then murdered him while taking him back to civilization. Wild stuff.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 631: DABLO, LAST OF THE RAY MEN AND THE HOOD

(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940)

THIS. IS. GREAT. We open on the trial of Dablo, Last of the Ray Men, and immediately we must ask: who are the Ray Men? And let me tell you that there is no answer beyond "guys who could shoot rays." Dablo here shoots rays out of a big hole in his forehead but did they all do that? No clue! This is the kind of worldbuilding that people like Alan Moore will eventually get up to in the 80s - implying that there are weird and wonderful things all around by reference and allusion. It's really neat!

Whatever the Ray Men were, there are only one of them left and he, Dablo has just been sentenced to death by Judge Ord.

On the eve of Dablo's execution (via guillotine, by the way. Nobody's thought up a cool futuristic execution method by the Year 10 000. Also there is capital punishment in the Year 10 000) a mysterious figure who we will later learn is called the Hood appears and restores the Last Ray Man's ray powers, to the delight of all.

The Hood is pretty generic, but he meets the criteria for a minor super-villain. Obviously he must take a back seat to the Last of the Ray Men.

Come the morning of the execution and we finally get to see this famous ray that everyone's been talking about. It does not disappoint! Dablo blasts fools left and right before making off with Judge Ord!

This is a Sub Saunders story so of course Dablo has an undersea lair. Just who was this red-haired unfortunate? No idea, but I have a hunch that they met their end at the wrong end of a ray.

The back half of the story is unfortunately much more concerned with the Hood (who turns out to be Judge Ord, crooked and looking to take control of the unnamed future city the trial of Dablo took place in. Will future society reexamine their relationship to capital punishment once the corruption present at the very highest echelons of their legal system comes to light? Probably not), who does a header off of a cliff after revealing his plans to Sub Saunders. The far more dynamic and interesting Dablo survives, presumably to be re-sentenced to death by another judge. There ain't no justice.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 630: SKULLFACE KURD

(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940)

Every once in a while a comic book crook will organize a gang along military lines and that's just what Skullface Kurd here has done. He's got super-tommy guns. He's got an air force. He has three hundred thousand men, which is more than a hundred thousand more than were in the US Army as of 1939. Hell, they're in New York City and according to the historical population numbers on Wikipedia about one in 24 people in the city must have been in this gang. It's a very large gang, is what I'm saying.

Usually the turning point of these stories happens when, after an initial success, the criminal army proves too individualistic/undisciplined/cowardly to hold together under the counterattack action of the police and/or super-heroes. But not the Skullface Kurd Mob! They bomb, gas and shoot their way to victory and are about to execute the NYPD en mass when Stardust the Super Wizard shows up and overcomes them with rays and mental might.

Skullface himself gets perhaps the most extreme torso crush of any Stardust villain. He's like a tube of toothpaste.

Kurd and presumably all 300 000 of his men are exiled on a far distant planet covered in gold and jewels where the gravity is so strong that they cannot move but the air is somehow so nourishing that they are going to just stand around and think about what they have done for hundreds of years. Classic Stardust, in other words.

SKULL SCORE: 1/5. Skullface Kurd is a disgrace to the skull community. He has gritted teeth? That's all? He isn't even emaciated? He isn't even bald? For shame, Skullface Kurd, for shame. He still gets one point for the teeth, but it's a grudging point.

NOTES - OCTOBER 2024

Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects:

The NYPD (or the cops in some other town. but probably the NYPD) attempt to murder the Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy because they were wearing masks near a crime and had the audacity to run away. (Green Mask v1 003, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 629: QUEEN SULIA

(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940)

We begin with the old comic book trope of Ignoring Bad Feelings When a Woman Has Them, as Alice senses something in the wind and Sir Richard tells her to shut up just before a giant bird gets them both.

They are flown to Soulless Isle and meet its ruler Queen Sulia, along with her coterie of beastly subjects. She wants a sword fight and Sir Richard of Warwick is who she wants it from. If this weren't the 1940s I would suspect some double entendre was going on here. I kind of suspect it anyway.

If this is an extended sex metaphor then things are heating up, as Alice jumps in to take over for her reluctant boyfriend only to be overwhelmed by Sulia's technique, forcing Richard to join in. Phew!

The prize for defeating Queen Sulia in battle is her hand in marriage and Sir Richard of Warwick seems weirdly okay with doing so. If the beastmen hadn't sent a representative to him to reveal that they were in fact not just weirdos but regular folk transformed by Sulia's dark majicks I reckon that the tale of the Golden Knight would have ended with him shacked up on Soulless Isle.

But no, Sir Richard takes advantage of the beastmen's intel re: Sulia having a magical clotting disorder and  employs a spiked wedding band to fatally wound her finger. Oddly enough, this underhanded trick doesn't trigger his "thou shalt not fight women" chivalry. With Sulia slain and the beastmen restored to regular, Richard is free to return to Alice and I assume apologize to her.