FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 004

More goon/ more fascist

The Band AKA the Anti-American Band AKA the Un-American Band are yet another take on the German-American Bund distinguished by the fact that they were infiltrated by Bruce Blackburn - Counterspy so a) they were one of the few gangs of fascist goons to last more than one adventure and b) they were the villains that Blackburn created his shortlived alter-ego the Destroying Demon to fight (Feature Comics 038-041, 1940-1941)

The Advance Front! Fascist agitators who seem to be actual Nazis, or at least be using actual swastikas. I hesitate to call this refreshing but it's at least simpler to call someone a Nazi than a crypto-fascist Nazi-alike German analog. Beat to tar by USA, the Spirit of Old Glory (Feature Comics 046, 1941)

Hold Tight America is our first example of the fascist group that is calling for peace in order to advance their plans for war before being foiled by Doll Man (Feature Comics 049, 1941)

The Hand is just as halfassed and slapdash as these chumps usually are but I'll say this for them: they capture and almost manage to assassinate not just the Black Condor but FDR too! (Crack Comics 019, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 224: THE BLACK GONDOLIER

(Doll Man 001, 1941)

I truly love the Black Gondolier, as he is to my mind the Platonic ideal of the kind of crook that every super-hero universe should be crawling with: a guy who gets together some gadgets and works out a little scheme and very briefly becomes the scourge of shipping in New York Harbor.

Why's he got a motorized gondola? No idea! Where did he get his climbing gear? Doesn't matter! What does matter is that in a world with a Doll Man, of course there's a guy in a motorized gondola scurrying up the sides of ocean liners to rob them. And it absolutly does not matter that he's gunned down by the cops at the end of this story - I am of the staunch opinion that there should always be a Black Gondolier in the (now) DC universe, showing up in the background at villain get togethers or super-prison scenes or getting whaled on by the Creeper in a big event. Bring back the Black Gondolier!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 223: THE VULTURE

(Doll Man 001, 1941)

The Vulture! Flying thief extraordinaire! Terror of NYC for about a week!

In reality the Vulture if a very weird looking guy named Aylmer who is predictably upset at his treatment by an uncaring world but seemingly mostly about being short. Hey, if Quality Comics New York is an accepting enough place that that's all this guy gets bullied about then I have to give it to them, honestly.

The really interesting thing about Aylmer/ the Vulture is not his technology (impressive as a homemade flying suit is) but the fact that he gets away at the end of the story and never appears again. Now, Doll Man comics aren't quite as obsessively catalogued online as, say, Batman comics but as far as I can tell, this dude never ends up paying for the theft of millions of dollar worth of jewelry, the kidnapping of Martha "will someday be Doll Girl" Roberts or the murder of his own father, and in the Golden Age of Comics, motto Crime Does Not Pay, that is a wild and wooly thing to happen.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 222: THE PHANTOM DUELIST

(Doll Man 001, 1941)

The Phantom Duelist is and example of a couple of my favourite comic book story setups: 1. the eerie local legend used as a basis for crime and 2. the murder mystery with a whole passel of suspects. Plus there's a dose of "aren't Hollywood people weird!" for flavour.

So: movie producer Reynolds decides to drum up a bit of publicity by buying a haunted castle and importing it to Hollywood. The only problem: Reynolds is a bit of a shitheel and so is promptly murdered by someone posing as the castle's resident ghost, the Phantom Duelist.

The suspects: 

-Rocky Perrone, gangster who Reynolds refuses to pay off a gambling debt to

-Pierce, Reynolds' leading man who he antagonized and threatened to blacklist

-Marrow, who wants to marry Reynolds' leading lady but is unable to because of her contract

The murder happens at a costume party and Pierce is almost a self-frame due to showing up as the Phantom Duelist. In the end though, the murderer is revealed to be... a fourth guy! Steve Morton the publicity agent who Reynolds has apparently been blackmailing for the past 25 years!

So a couple of points off for presenting an unfair mystery (and another couple for so many of the characters not having first names) but over all top notch comic book tomfoolery.

Number of Episodes of the "Super-Villains of Hollywood" podcast: One episode only. SOme prurient attention paid to Reynolds' shitty doings.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 096: PYTHON

(Feature Comics 036, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? Simply put, Python lives in a creepy castle somewhere in New York State and spends his time stealing the brains of great thinkers to wire up to his machine so that he can plunder their knowledge. And he decorates with the shrunken heads of his victims, and he has a surgically mind-controlled goon named Kreeper.

What is interesting about them? Aside form the above which is pretty solid villain stuff, the most interesting thing about Python is that he has absolutely no connection to snakes in any way. It just seems to be, like, his name? Wild stuff.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 095: DR RODENT

(Feature Comics 028, 1940)

As far as a guy who attaches bombs to rats in order to sink and subsequently loot ships goes, Dr Rodent has it all: a great name, a rodentlike cast to his features, and, best of all, his heroic foil is Doll Man so we get to see a little guy ride around on a rat:

This is the kind of thing that comics are for!