Thursday, September 11, 2025

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 852: THE SUPER-SCIENTIST

(Weird Comics 008, 1940)



The Sorceress of Zoom is up to her usual tricks: attempting to steal some random guy from his lady friend, getting mad that he won't fall in love with her, attacking the city he lives in and turning their tank patrol (!) into a series of ornamental trees, and finally abducting people willy-nilly in order to turn them into furniture. Regular stuff.




In the city council's hour of need it is approached by an eccentrically dressed character who calls himself the Super-Scientist and who claims that he can save the city from the Sorceress' depredations. This of course turns out to have a pretty big caveat: the Super-Scientist will indeed save the city, but only so that he can rule it himself.



After an initial exchange of fire (1. SoZ attempts to flood the city, 2. S-S transforms water to gas, 3. SoZ launches flaming humans in attempt to ignite gas, 4. flaming humans shot down by city militia (!)) the Sorceress of Zoom and the Super-Scientist agree to have an old-fashioned magic vs science duel for ownership of the city.




As the duel comprises almost four pages of back-and-forth attack, defense and counter-attack, I won't go into the whole thing, save to note that the Super-Scientist trucks in the kind of science that is indistinguishable from magic, that the highlight of the event is when the Super-Scientist's radium ray briefly turns the Sorceress into a skeleton, and that the whole thing ends with the Super-Scientist transformed into a gross rat.

All this has alleviated the boredom that seemingly inspires the Sorceress to start causing trouble in the mortal world, and she packs up Zoom and flies off. Ironically, in providing the Sorceress of Zoom with a diverting afternoon, the Super-Scientist has in fact saved the city, though any degree of ratty satisfaction he might feel about this is probably spoiled by the hungry cat that the Sorceress summons just before taking off.

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