Monday, September 1, 2025

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 847: THE WIZARD OF ZORO

(Weird Comics 004, 1940) 




The Wizard of Zoro really takes the prize for the Most Charming Atrocity of 1940 when he swoops down on a small town and turns everyone into the kind of semi-anthropomorphic giant frogs that you get in Victorian greeting cards. Do I love that he then enslaves the frogs? No. Do I endorse the fact that he singles out an attractive young woman for special torment by turning her boyfriend into a snake? Of course not. Nevertheless, the frogs are charming and dear.


Perhaps the Wizard of Zoro is riding a little too high on his great ranomancy (a word I just made up to describe frog-based magic) because when the Sorceress of Zoom proposes an alliance between the two of them he gets all high and mighty about how he doesn't need anyone else to be a cool and powerful wizard. (sidebar: I think it shows a lot of maturity for the Sorceress to attempt this partnership with someone who looks nearly identical to her recent tormentor the Wizard. It's a real shame that the Wizard of Zoro was too much of a jerk to join her)



The Sorceress of Zoom is of course more than a match for some lousy frog wizard, which she proves by incinerating his lousy palace. 


The Wizard's only response being to further transform his subjects, from frogs into mice, is inadequate at best. And the frogs were the only thing he had going for him, so he's really shooting himself in the foot here. 




The Sorceress ultimately puts this sad excuse for a duel out of its misery by weaponizing the boyfriend-turned snake. Once the Wizard of Zoro is consumed by his former victim he is forced to restore him to human form lest he be digested, and it seems that the Wizard's magic works like an old string of Xmas lights because undoing one spell turns out to also restore all of the mice as well.


All that's left is to smack the Wizard one before everyone goes home.

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