(The Flame 004, 1941)
Doctor Drool* is a medical doctor who was recently executed for an unspecified crime. He has, however, planned for this eventuality, and his assistant Scully is on-hand to collect him from his mausoleum at the earliest opportunity so that he can administer a revivification treatment to him. Thus restored, Doctor Drool swears revenge on the Judge, District Attorney and jury who convicted him, a fourteen-person death list that would eventually grow to include the Flame as number fifteen.
Doctor Drool's real distinction is that his story is serialized over three issues, namely The Flame 004 and 005 and Big 3 003. Sadly, this is not the bold departure from the rapidly-solidifying episodic formula that it could be.
*his actual surname. Heavy contender for the worst name in comics.
Perhaps the best aspect of this extended story is the fact that Drool is able to make many more on-panel attempts at revenge than is typical. This really drives home the terror of the situation for his victims, particularly given his method of murder: sending threatening notes, etc to drive them into a frenzy of fear and then firing a gun loaded with blanks at them to incite a heart attack (a method of murder not without its risks, as two strong-hearted jurists do survive). Please also note the signature on the notes is a stylized representation of Drool's own tombstone.
The repetition doesn't work quite as well in all aspects of the story, alas. For instance: the Flame knows that Drool is operating out of his old home (the unnervingly-named Drool Mansion) though he cannot find his secret lab for most of the story. This leads to him searching the place on five separate occasions, and on three of those he falls for the same trick in which Drool has set up a dummy of himself that sets off a deathtrap when the Flame attacks it.
(that said, there is a charming bit in which the Flame finds two mice in the mansion's cellar on his first visit there and reports on the status of their growing family every time he revisits the place, until Drool Mansion is finally destroyed and the now eight-strong mouse family move house en mass. There's also a recurring bit in which the Flame scares a pair of cemetery workers that is not quite as charming but still fun)
After maybe a month in-comic, Drool is eventually stopped after he falls off of a building and ironically dies of fright despite being caught by the Flame before he could hit the ground. And since the police never really believed that Doctor Drool was behind the killings, the Flame just tosses him back into his coffin as if he had never went on a killing spree at all. I reckon that there is a pretty high chance that he would've been brought back again at least one more time if the next issue didn't mark the start of the New Look Flame under a different creative team. Scully is still at large, after all, and we never learn where those mice end up!
JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 5/15
Categorized in: Accessories (Calling Cards), Doctors and Professors, Origin (Faked Own Death)
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