GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 036

Every one of them a disappointment to their parents. 

Mr Axis: 

He may just be a regular Nazi spy* lurking around Washington DC and disrupting trade deals between the US and the rubber-rich nation of Rumbia, but his name is Mr Axis! Such a perfect name for a fascist super-villain and yet one that seemingly was only used once**. Patriotic super-hero Miss Victory really puts the boots to him in her debut adventure. (Captain Fearless Comics 001, 1941)

* Technically by my usual metrics I'd call this guy a crypto-fascist of no clear national origin but c'mon: his name is Mr Axis.

**Except that he does reappear in Captain Aero Comics 011, in which this story is retold unchanged but with different art. Weird stuff.

Categorized Under: Crime as Theme (Fascism), Generica (Misters)

the Arson Ring:

Considering the fact that his feature is called "Blaze Baylor and the Arson Ring" I really expected super arson investigator Blaze Baylor to be contending with the same group of arsonists - a ring, if you will - throughout his adventures. This is not in fact the case, or at least it is not supported in the text. Blaze does battle the Arson Ring in his first outing and they are heavily implied to be the ones who killed his dad Smoky Baylor, so that's something. (Cat-Man Comics 001 1941)

Categorized under: Crime as Theme (Arson), Generica (Rings), Narrative Footballs (Origin Guys)

Igor and his Mother:

This unnamed woman and her son Igor live in poverty on the outskirts of an unnamed city and come into conflict with the Black Widow after turning their inborn talents (Igor being very strong and his mother so ugly that she can stop a man's heart) to crime. Igor ends up being shot by the Black Widow, while his mother dies in an attempt to burn their hovel down and kill the hero. (Cat-Man Comics 001 1941)

Karl von Keilman: 

Though you might think that Karl von Keilman is a mad or criminal scientist from the way he dresses, this is in fact stolen valour as it is Karl's brother Abner who is the scientific mind of the family. Abner is the one responsible for creating the Dolls of Death, self-propelled and self-guided bombs that he had intended to turn over to the War Department before Karl showed up, killed him and started using them to blow up defense factories.

Karl didn't reckon, however, on the fact that his brother was friends with the Deacon and so a super-heroic nose would be poked into his business. He also never learned not to get into an indoor fight when your weapon of choice is exploding dolls. (Cat-Man Comics 002, 1941)

Categorized under: Accessories (Little Robots), Murder (Fratricides)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 074

Some more of those "minor super-heroes" you like so much. 

the Cat-Man **Update**:

Hey, it's the Cat-Man! As you may or may not recall, the Cat Man (sans hyphen) debuted in Crash Comics Adventures in 1940 and was the only survivor of that comics short run. The most obvious change to his character is his costume, which goes from its former jungle chic look through a blue-and-orange phase  before settling on the orange-and-darker orange look that he will stick with for the rest of his career.

In addition to the costumes and the hyphen, Cat-Man got a slight tweak to his origin: rather than being orphaned by a hostile tribe in India, David Merrywether's parents are now said to have been killed by bandits in Burma. David also has a job now: he's a private detective for the first four issues of Cat-Man Comics, after which he enlists and becomes a lieutenant in the US Army.

The Cat-Man also gets a couple of new powers in 1941: he is able to see otherwise-invisible radiation and displays some degree of super strength.

Finally: his nine lives. Though he still has this power, David manages to only die once during the whole of 1941, bringing his total remaining lives down to six.

the Kitten: 

Actually, not quite finally, as this is also the year that the Cat-Man gets a sidekick. While en route to investigate a series of train explosions, Lt David "the Cat-Man" Merrywether picks up a hitchhiking man and his niece. The man turns out to be a real scumbag, but the girl, named Katie Conn, turns on her uncle rather than see him rob and possibly murder Merrywether. Once the uncle is tossed in the hoosegow it's a classic case of a child just entering a super-hero's orbit and getting auto-adopted.

Katie turns out to be the orphaned child of a pair of circus acrobats, which as we know is a perfect background for a potential super-hero's sidekick to have. She also appears to be a few years younger than your typical kid sidekick - if they average in at about 13-15 I'd call her 11 or 12, though as usual the limitations of Golden Age art make estimating the age of kids difficult at best.

Merrywether does his best to conceal his dual identity from his new ward but doesn't quite manage it, and her self-assigned new role as the Cat-Man's sidekick is announced in the final panel of the last Cat-Man story of 1941. More specifics on her in action as a sidekick in 1942. I will say that it's nice to see a kid sidekick with both a costume and a code name. (Cat-Man Comics 005, 1941)

Blaze Baylor: 

Blaze Baylor is the son of the famous fire chief Smoky Baylor, who was killed by arsonists, and who is now a very specific anti-arson crimefighter. Though the name of the strip is "'Blaze' Baylor and the Arson Ring," there is no indication in any of his adventures that the arsonists he battles are connected to one another in any way. (Cat-Man Comics 001 1941)

Dr Diamond: 

Dr Drake Gorden is bound for the South Seas when the freighter he is travelling on is sunk by a waterspout. He passes out after washing up on a beach at the base of an unscaleable cliff and is carried off by an eagle that takes him to the home of a frankly weird guy who has dressed him in a generic super-hero costume.

This never-named man explains that thirty years prior he had come into possession of a legendary black diamond that conferred great physical power to its wielder, and that he had retired to the island to await the arrival of someone worthy enough to receive it. Dr Gorden, a man who he just met and who has spoken all of thirty-three words to him, several of which were to refer to a pair of brown pants as his "American clothes," is his pick.

Whatever the opposite of the Refusal of the Call part of the Hero's Journey is, that's what Dr Gorden has. He immediately renames himself Dr Diamond and launches into a monologue about just how hard he's going to bust up crime that is so over the top that it would make me personally reconsider giving him any sort of power whatsoever. Despite my misgivings, Dr Diamond does an adequate job of using the powers conferred by the gem (super strength, enhanced speed, some degree of invincibility) to battle crime for four issues before fading into the mists of obscurity. (Cat-Man Comics 001, 1941) 

NOTES - DECEMBER 2025

Nova Scotia: 

As I always have to note when Nova Scotia pops up in a comic book: here's Captain Aero taking in the sights on the featureless green plain that is the Halifax Airfield. (Captain Aero Comics 001, 1941)

the Looming Spectre of War: 

Less popular than our old friend the Looming Spectre of Death, the Looming Spectre of War nonetheless deserves recognition as a potent allegorical image. (Cat-Man Comics 002, 1941)

 And speaking of the Looming Spectre of Death, here's a fine example of such. (Cat-Man Comics 003, 1941)

Trophy Room - Blaze Baylor:

Blaze Baylor, costumed arson-fighter, has a whole bookshelf full of incendiary devices. (Cat-Man Comics 002, 1941)