Saturday, August 22, 2026

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 998: THE CHIEF

(Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941)

The Chief is one of two things, either a not-very-specific Hitler stand-in who is leading his forces from the front in an attempted invasion of the US, or the representative of such a figure in such an invasion. Either way, he is clearly a pseudo-Nazi. When we meet the Chief he is preoccupied with discovering the identities of the mysterious figures (who we know to be the Liberty Scouts) who have been thwarting his attempts to weaken the US war effort.


Though he makes a decent try at it, the Chief just barely fails at an attempt to destroy both the Liberty Scouts and the President of the United States while they are meeting at Liberty House. Their next encounter, by contrast, ends with him capturing the Scouts and gloating about his plans before leaving them tied up next to a bomb. It doesn't work out, of course, but setting up a deathtrap that will kill the hero while you are in a second location is a core super-villain activity. It's enrichment for them.

The Chief is at the forefront of Axis superweapon technology, with such innovations as a secret naval base in a hollowed-out iceberg off Newfoundland, a fleet of remote-controlled ships housed in that base, and heat ray cannons mounted on those ships, with which New York City as the first move in his invasion of the US.


Though New York ends up taking some heat ray fire, the Liberty Scouts (conspicuously not dead, as is the norm when super-heroes are left in deathtraps) show up in time take control of the robot fleet and turn the rays on the Chief's own forces.


Though the Chief makes a valiant attempt to escape to fight another day, he ends up flying his plane directly into the path of a heat ray and exploding.


The Liberty Scouts face a second Chief in Liberty Scouts Comics 003, who is also attempting to conquer the US on behalf of the same faux-Nazi government (they have the same crossed-knives symbol standing in for the swastika). This time the plan hinges on stealing a super knockout gas developed by Liberty Scout member Smokey and deploying it nation-wide, and once again the Chief's deadliest enemy proves to be aviation safety, and he doesn't even have a convenient heat ray cannon to blame for it: he just up and crashed his plane.

Categorized in: Generica (Chiefs), Ideologies (Crypto-Fascists), Supercrime (Attempted Conquest (United States))

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 998: THE CHIEF

(Liberty Scouts Comics 002, 1941) The Chief is one of two things, either a not-very-specific Hitler stand-in who is leading his forces from ...