MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 670: WINGS

(Masked Marvel 001, 1940)

Wings is the otherwise-unnamed leader of a gang with a pretty good gimmick: model planes loaded with explosives and rigged with a device that homes in on magnets. Using these, they cause a series of "mysterious explosions" at banks, etc, and loot to their hearts' content in the ensuing chaos.

The real key thing about a scheme like this is that it works best when there is a sense of fear and confusion. If you don't know how, why or when these explosions are happening then they are effectively impossible to guard against, after all. The problem with this is that neither Wings nor his gang are constitutionally suited to subtlety. Some examples:

-beating up a kid in public in order to secure a lost model plane.

-attempting to assassinate the Masked Marvel several times, including once when he was just mildly suspicious of the guy who beat up the kid, once by blowing up a police station and once in such a way that he was able to completely figure out how the plane-bombs worked.

-demanding that the city turn over the Masked Marvel to the gang or else they would conduct a series of bombings across the city.

-signing the ransom note "Wings".

All this malarky erodes the gang's mystique and allows them to tracked down and captured with relative ease. A model plane is only innocuous if you don't know about model planes with bombs in them after all.

The Masked Marvel continues to rule, by the way.