(America's Greatest Comics 001, 1941)
Mr Skeleton is one of the handful of minor super-villains who are foundational to this blog, the true weirdos who my mind turns to whenever the subject of obscure comic book characters comes up, and so it's a real relief to have him finally hsow his face here. This will keep happening at least until we reach 1978 and train-themed super-villain Casey Jones appears here.
There are three really important aspects to Mr Skeleton that keep him in my thoughts:
1. Appearance
He's a chalk-white, twelve to eighteen foot tall man with an emaciated frame, huge hands and feet and a real pumpkin head with the face of a cartoon villain. It's an extraordinary look, made even more so by his choice to dress in green trunks, a yellow halter top and a green cape. And he has eccentric facial hair!
It's a look that works well as both an over-the top campy cartoon villain and as a source of horror - just imagine that face looming out of the shadows at someone.
2. Plans and Methods
Mr Skeleton's goal, as far as it is articulated, is to conquer the United States, but he doesn't really get into the how and why of this because he is busy with step one: recruitment.
Specifically, Mr Skeleton needs generals to lead an army against the US, and he has what he seems to think is a surefire method of recruiting them: he kidnaps them and threatens to skeletonize them. This is a tactic that would probably work on me.
Oddly, Mr Skeleton's first step in his attempted conquest is to assassinate FDR, a task which he assigns to his most shifty aide. Who fails, by the way, and is skeletonized for his trouble. But why attempt to massively destabilize the US government when you're still trying to recruit generals for your army of conquest? Honestly, MR Skeleton could probably benefit from a few kidnapped executive assistants.
3. DEATH
After being foiled by Minute-Man a couple of times, Mr Skeleton decides to get his recruitment program back on track in the most direct manner possible, by marching into the nearest Army camp and grabbing a fresh batch of generals. While he is doing so and simultaneously beating up the entire US Army, he is confronted by Minute-Man once again and ends up being smacked so hard that he turns into a kind of bone explosion. I guess he really was mostly just skeleton, however that works.
Obviously I believe with all my heart that they should bring back Mr Skeleton - his mixture of goofy and horrifying is always welcome in comics, battling Batman or Wild Dog or somone. You don't even have to stretch too far to have him come back since he was already some sort of skeleton-man: just put him back together.
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