Once again the also-rans.
A bunch of small-time crooks get paid to fake the death of Titano (the largest gorilla in captivity!) for an insurance scam and of course use him to rob a series small-town banks. If only they had thought a bit more ambitiously they might have made the big time. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)
This Yank Wilson adventure features a fairly by-the-book super-spy ring headed by Count Lustig von Blackgard. They plot, they scheme, they are ultimately foiled. This mysterious radio message is the only mention of a higher-up, but their moniker - the extremely evocative Neuromania - was too good to pass over without comment. (there is of course the possibility that Neuromania is the spies' home country. Either way, it's great). (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)
This happy fellow has no name but makes up for it with a laundry list of distinctive features: missing left eye, hunch, catlike upper lip, pointy ears, bizarrely long hair on his forearms, etc. He lives under a fake man-eating tree in... probably the African jungle and spends his days torturing and poisoning people for no stated reason until he is killed by Captain Kid using his own poisoned melon. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)
This is Nipon, ruler of an unnamed Asian country (wink, wink) from that period in late 1940 through 1941 when the Axis powers were very clearly the villains on everyone's minds but the US was remaining neutral so you couldn't in good conscience make the leader of a foreign nation the villain of your story. These guys are usually either extremely obvious stand-ins named, like Arnolf Hilter or Menito Bussolini (in which case they get added to a Real Folk entry) or so generic that I forget them entirely. Nipon is kind of neither - like, he's obviously a stand-in for the Emperor of Japan but extremely generically, but also he has a very fun look! (Fantastic Comics 013, 1940)
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