(Mystic Comics v1 003, 1940)
Just a gang boss running an arson scheme, but a particularly ruthless one with a particularly great name.
Having a cool name doesn't help you when a couple of brothers rock up with their super-powered rubber robot. Still, the Iron Duke! What a name!
(Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)
Flexo can stretch!
Flexo can squeeze through tight spaces and absorb small arms fire without harm! He can also expel his gas to subdue his foes! Truly Flexo is a marvel of the age!
Flexo is also the recipient of a major retcon: recent stories have revised his origin such that the Williams brothers found a Venom-style symbiote and built a robotlike organism out of it. This is cool! Marvel's frequent revisions to their own history are an interesting contrast to the DC Comics reboot style of doing things in which current comics have no retroactive effect. The only real downside to the Marvel approach is in online spaces, as fan-run wikis absorb retcons like Ancient Egyptian dynasties - actual information on the contents of old comics is metaphorically torn down and replaced by the sun-god of the retcon it can frequently be hard to find information on old comics that does not incorporate the retcons in a misleading way.
More mad science than criminal science or vice versa? You be the judge!
This guy, who seems to be neither bald nor ironically hairy enough for his name of Baldy Fluger to make sense, has a hypnotic ray and a plan: to use that hypnotic ray for crime. The Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy have something to say about that. (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)
If there was any more to these three (respectively named Boris, Oscar and Unnamed Man) than what happens in the four panels above then I would be writing hundreds of words about them, but this is about it: three mad scientists, one of whom has one of the top lines in comics history ("They said I was a mad scientist but when I blast their children with my electron gun they won't call me mad anymore!") attack a steel mill for unclear reasons, possibly madness. The rest of the story involves them battling Lieutenant Drake of Naval Intelligence and Miss X. There's a lot of electron gunning but no children are involved. (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)
Renowned transplant surgeon Dr Moru just so happens to also be the mysterious person murdering people and stealing their hands, and all so that he can make beaucoup bucks giving gangsters brand new hands with brand new fingerprints. Until the Green Mask gets involved, of course. (Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)
Dr Murdo here had a death ray, an underground lair and a small army of goons but had the misfortune of crossing paths with Flexo the Rubber Man and being subdued with robot gas. (Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)
Two shorts and two longs. Bajah : Minor Golden Age Marvel magician Dakor has to travel all the way to the fictional Indian kingdom of Nordu ...
