(Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941)
This issue continues the trend of Captain Battle foes being fascist spies who are weaponizing fear by dressing up as the undead. In this case Herr Death is, as the name implies, a desiccated corpse version of Death, accompanied by a horde of the walking dead (not, I must stress, zombies. This is more "the dead have come out of their graves" kind of thing which, yes, would be classified as zombie behaviour now but which used to be its own spooky thing).
Herr Death has improved on the formula employed by Herr Skull and the Mummy Master before him in a couple of ways. Firstly, his men are not just spooky looking but fitted with bulletproof vests in order to showcase their supernatural fortitude (lucky for them the "destroy the brain" aspect of fighting the undead doesn't enter the public consciousness for a little while yet). Secondly, Herr Death is far more proactive than his contemporaries and he is very willing to mix it up with his scythe.
Herr Death also has a very thematic cemetery lair featuring a sick-ass corpse whirlpool for disposing of interlopers such as Captain and Hale Battle. I can't imagine that it's too much fun to hang around in between missions but oooh, the atmosphere!
On the negative side, Herr Death and his men are particularly bad at concealing the fact that they are Nazis, from the fact that his name includes the telltale Herr to his minions yelling "himmel!" and so forth the whole time. This really gives the game away to anyone who is paying attention, such as Captain Battle for instance.
Once they're no longer actively drowning in a skeleton whirlpool, Captain Battle and Hale are able to round up Herr Death with little difficulty. Bulletproof vests aren't too effective against four good ol' American fists.
Hale Battle must of course grab his souvenir, and he of course chooses Herr Death's scythe as the coolest possible option. I don't think that it's applicable here since Herr Death did so very many crimes, but this may just be the first time that we've seen someone take a murder weapon as a trophy, which makes me wonder just how many super-villain trials have been ruined because a key piece of evidence is sitting in a cave somewhere?
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