Sunday, April 27, 2025

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 774: THE TERROR

(Super-Mystery Comics 001, 1940)



The Terror is really Scar (or Scar-Face) Pontois, a gang boss who is expending a lot of effort in order to drive people away from a rich gold claim that he has hijacked but has perhaps gone a bit too far, as Corporal Flint of the RCMP, the hero of our story, is only nosing around Scar's locale because of the strange rumours he and/or his superiors have heard. Please note his giant hat.



In addition to the fearsome Terror identity, Scar's efforts include playing off of local superstitions by sending the daughter of the man he stole the gold claim from out to play the ominous Flame Maiden, but the real star of the show is the Coffin of the Mad. Based on the idea that radium can destroy the human brain (an idea that I can find no real source for, which probably means that it appeared in one Scientific American article that the comic's writer read in 1935 or so), the coffin is made out of radium-bearing pitchblende ore. Various characters in the story claim that men have been made mad after being placed in the coffin, but even taking the "radium destroys brains" thing as gospel as far as I can tell pitchblende is so much less radioactive that radium that it's more likely that they all went nuts because they were shut up in a stone coffin alive. I wouldn't bet against their chances of getting cancer at some point though.

In conclusion, the Terror probably would have been better off just killing people. Or just investing in that guy's mine through a shell company.

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