(Samson 001, 1940)
Mask here has a fairly ordinary set of plans and goals, for Masked Criminal levels of ordinary. His associate Dr Dag has developed a super-germ and his other associate Ko has control of a death cult, and he is going to use the latter to deliver the former to a number of nearby cities as revenge for tossing him out on his ear. Plus he's going to loot once the cities are cleared out by disease, but that's just good business. Like I said, regular stuff.
The really interesting things about Mask are... etymological? in nature. Firstly, as you might have noticed he has no "the" on his name. He's just Mask, and considering the fact that we have already encountered seven separate fellows called the Mask (and four more the [Adjective] Masks), it's a surprisingly simple way to stand out among the maskèd crowd!
The other thing is in regards to Mask's ally Ko, high priest of Lalore - Lalore is as far as I can tell a made-up god, in keeping with the vaguely pan-Asian setting of the story. However, Lalore's cult fanatics are called Thugs, which is a new one on me. Thuggees/ Thugs are a real historical group (albeit one of which basically every aspect is seemingly the subject of hot scholarly debate) and a fairly popular bunch to dust off as stock villains, but a real key part of their charter is that they worship the goddess Kali. This is the first time that I can recall seeing Thug used as a kind of generic term for a cult murderer.
Too bad for Mask (and Dr Dag and Ko and all the nameless cultists) Samson and David just happen to be travelling through the same vaguely Subcontinental area that they are plotting and scheming in and they live in a temple city so there are a lot of pillars around. Sure enough, Samson does the thing that he's best known for doing and kills basically everyone. Tough luck, Mask.
