MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 693: THE TARANTULA

(Pep Comics 010, 1940)

A vile villain known as the Tarantula is extorting the young wealthy women of London and then murdering the ones who don't pay up, and Inspector Bentley is on the case after two significant pieces of evidence fall into his lap: the latest body is left on the steps of Scotland Yard and then the latest extortion attempt is made against Deborah Morgan, whose father went to school with Bentley's boss and you can't beat the old boys' club when it comes to swinging the forces of law into action.

The usual parade of suspects that fills the pages of an Inspector Bentley story is a bit thin on the ground in this one. Don't get me wrong, the numbers are there, but at least two of them are clearly padding - they don't even say anything. The only credible suspects are BJ Morgan, his daughter Deborah (assuming some real 4D chess moves on her part), her fiance Bill Barnes and, in a big reach that the comic is not afraid to make, Bentley's boss. I'll say right now that the boss is a complete red herring set up by a walking stick.

(please take note of the Tarantula's little spider signature, which I love)

Bentley goes to meet a potential witness, at which point w get the most important revelation of the episode: the Tarantula is not just some murderer but a proper super-villain, with a proper costume and everything! Sure, some spider fans might quibble about the inclusion of antennae (not to mention the use of fairly mild tarantula venom as the murder vehicle) but it's been so long since I've seen a villain who wasn't just wearing a mask that I literally cheered when I saw this dude.

The Tarantula turns out to have about the right constitution for a basement dwelling spider breeder and goes down under the attacks of a heavily tied up Bentley. He's smashed into his case of tarantula containment orbs in a way that would usually signal a villain's ironic end via their own murder method, but I've reread the ending of this story a couple of times now and I have no clue whether the Tarantula is dead or alive at the end.

The Tarantula turns out to be Deborah's fiance Bill Barnes, who did it all because he was insecure about marrying a wealthy woman while not having much money himself. Moderately sweet, until you remember that he expressed this insecurity by extorting and murdering other young women. Wotta creep, am I right?

More importantly is the question of exactly why Bentley was suspicious of Deborah's circle: because when he went to interview his acquaintance Charlie about a possible Tarantula sighting he found him murdered and the only ones who knew about the potential witness were Deborah and her intimates. But did Bentley set a trap using the life of an innocent beggar or is he just so bad at infosec that he got a man murdered by accident?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 690: VULCAN

(Pep Comics 006, 1940)

A man working in a London steam plant dies by falling into an industrial furnace. A horrible thing to happen! Why am I showing you this horrible thing?

I am showing it to you because it is not in fact a horrible accident but a horrible murder, and we know that because the murderer left a horrible little bit of doggerel in order to crow about what he did, and he signed it "Vulcan."

Our old pal Inspector Bentley of Scotland Yard is brought in on this case, and it's a lucky day for him because there are only four possible suspects: the four men who were in the immediate area when John Baker was killed, including his father, his brothers Rex and Bob and his romantic rival Barney Reyman. Like I said: lucky for Inspector Bentley because I'm beginning to suspect that he isn't a particularly astute detective when he doesn't have a guy in a rubber mask to hit with his cane.

Am I saying this because Bentley's only idea is to have everyone go back to where they were when the murder took place with the foreman standing in for his son and Pa Baker is basically instantly murdered too? Kind of, but it's more of an observation that his investigations are a bit brute force. For instance, once this second member of the Baker clan is bumped off, Bentley arranges for another one to stand in front of the open furnace.

Did Bentley know what he was doing? Was he calling Bob Baker's bluff in order to force him to confess by dodging the deathtrap he had set up for his family members (a button-activated swinging pipe, fyi)? It's possible, but I personally think that the "Vulcan = hatred for father and brothers" clue is some bullshit. Does Vulcan have more than his share of family drama? Absolutely, but no more than any other Greco-Roman god and frankly I would peg a guy named Vulcan as a potential matricide, if anything.

So was he right or just trying to winnow down the suspect list a bit? Inspector Bentley will never tell.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 689: THE MAN-MONSTER OF LONDON

(Pep Comics 005, 1940) 

The Man-Monster of London, aka Monk, doesn't actually play that big a part in the plot of this Bentley of Scotland Yard story. I mean, he's in a lot of it, but he doesn't have a lot of volition of his own. In brief, the Rajah of Inrak (which is probably meant to be an Indian province or kingdom and not a whole country of its own) is in London to discuss some sort of treaty with the government of the UK and a fellow named Remek has been hired to prevent this meeting from taking place and the Man-Monster works for him. He's very much the most spectacular part of the whole affair but he's not really driving the action.

The Man-Monster and Remek both end up being gunned down in self defense by Inspector Bentley and it's honestly more sad than anything else - we never really get any idea of what Monk is exactly (some sort of mutant? a member of some isolated community of superhumans? just a big strong guy dyed green?), but whatever he is he clearly cares for Remek and doesn't seem like he really chose to be a superhuman goon.

ADDENDUM: If you bothered to read that text panel above you might have noticed that one of the potential suspects was the Prime Minister, as in the Prime Minister of England, who I assume was included purely because they were short on named characters for the suspect list this issue. This is him: not precisely Sir Neville Chamberlain (who would've just resigned as this issue was being put together) but close enough.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 688: THE HUNCHBACK HORROR

(Pep Comics 004, 1940)

We open on Inspector Bentley in the midst of a cocktail party to celebrate the engagement of his friend the Earl of Crackenthorpe. By way of entertainment, the Earl recounts the legend of the Crackenthorpe Curse: a thousand years ago, the progenitor of the Crackenthorpe line made his fortune the old-fashioned way, by summoning a demon and asking it for riches. Ever since, the brides-to-be of the heirs to the Crackenthorpe title must present themselves to the demon in a particular room in Crackenthorpe Manor, leading many of them to die of fright.

All this talk of ancient spooky customs activates fiance Lady Brenda's plucky nature and she marches upstairs to present herself. Suddenly, a scream! Is the demon real? Lord Crackenthorpe charges to the rescue and when the dust clears, the demon is gone and the Earl is dead. Murder most foul! 

Inspector Bentley quickly ascertains the major suspects: fiance Lady Brenda, brother and new earl Lionel Crackenthorpe, butler Wiggins and monocled cousin Osbert Beal.

After a bit of running around, it turns out that Osbert was the culprit all along, despite not being in line for the Earldom. Not in line, that is, unless the only other claimant was executed for the murder of his brother. It wasn't much of a plan but it came close to working - if only Inspector Bentley hadn't been on the case. Lady Brenda gets engaged to the newest Earl in a somewhat mercenary move and everyone by Osbert lives happily ever after.

(burning question: the demon-introduction tradition hadn't been followed for centuries, according to the Earl. So how did Osbert know that he could take advantage of it as part of his scheme? He wasn't shown among the collection of upper-class twits haw-hawing and egging Lady Brenda on... was he just improvising?)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 684: THE TERROR OF ROCKY POOL

(Pep Comics 002, 1940)

Like the Mayfair Monster before him, the Terror of Rocky Pool is interrupted mid-murder by Inspector Bentley of Scotland Yard. Just like last time, his trusty stick has little effect, though instead of breaking over a head of iron it meets no resistance at all. Unlike last time, Bentley is too late to save the victim, who swiftly bleeds to death from a too-small wound. Bentley is informed that the culprit is the Terror of Rocky Pool and that it makes its vampiric lair at the bottom of that same body of water.

A subsequent interview with the victim's family introduces a couple of suspects: his adoptive cousin Joan Edmunds and biological cousin John Blake, who are in love, even though Joan was the victim's fiance. They only marry cousins in Little Rockham it seems. Also the victim's uncle, a kindly man who raises leeches as a hobby and Joan as his daughter. Can't be him, obviously.

After a few vampire chases and a lot of yelling, Bentley gets to the bottom of things and it's even more unsavoury than all of the cousin-marrying and cousin-cuckolding. It turns out that kindly Uncle Blake was the Terror all along, using in order, a local superstition, anticoagulant leech saliva and an underwater tunnel from the pool to his house in order to kill one nephew and attempt to frame the other because he was in love with his own adopted daughter. We truly are dealing with the most depraved depths of supercrime here.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 683: THE MAYFAIR MONSTER

(Pep Comics 001, 1940)

Inspector Bentley of Scotland Yard is an investigator with the same case profile as the Scooby-Doo Gang: he regularly encounters the supernatural in the course of his job and day-to-day life and just as regularly exposes them as guys in masks and so forth.

In this case, Bentley is taking his evening constitutional when he interrupts an honest-to-goodness werewolf attack! He even breaks his signature weapon, his cane on the thing's head!

Taking the victim - Brenda Joyce - home, Bentley meets her godfather/guardian, Sir Rupert Napier, and learns from Brenda's own occult library that the creature he had faced was the fabled Mayfair Monster, a local legend presumably from before Mayfair became an upper class neighbourhood of London.

Bentley's suspicious are raised by some squirrely behaviour on Sir Rupert's part and he engages in a bit of subterfuge whereby the "Brenda Joyce" sent home to convalesce is in fact Bentley in a wig. Sure enough, the Mayfair Monster makes a repeat appearance in Brenda's bedroom that night and is swiftly subdued and unmasked.

It's certainly a convoluted way to murder your own ward for her money - I suppose the idea was to establish the existence of the werewolf with the very public first attack so as to have a ready-made suspect for the eventual murder. But why wear a monocle under an iron wolf mask?