MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 255: BALDY

(Green Lantern v1 002, 1941)

What can I say about Baldy? To start: he's not really a bald guy, but a guy in a bald cap. That's about as clever as he gets, if I'm honest.

Okay, that might be a bit mean, but Baldy tries my patience. After seeing so many good villain ideas wasted on six-page nothing-stories over and over, it's kind of galling for Baldy here to get a whole book-length tale of his own. 

Baldy is the crooked vice-president of a mortgage company who uses various strongarm tactics to enrich the company and himself. That's it, barring a couple of colourful Italian stereotypes and a subplot about depressed lawyers. There's lots of gunplay and Doiby Dickles bopping guys on the head but ultimately it all comes down to mortgages.

I do appreciate the self-seriousness of a guy with such a goofy nom de crime but it doesn't make up for anything, Baldy.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 148: THE SPIDER

(All American 028, 1941)

Just a weird little creep with a drug that can mind control someone and then kill them. The Spider hits on a scheme where he is paid by ne'er-do-wells to have their rich relatives write them back into their wills and then mysteriously keel over - and he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for Green Lantern and his pesky pals.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 147: THE LEADER

(All American Comics 025, 1941)

A masked man running a gang of saboteurs to ruin production of war goods as a US steel plant in the name of a vague Cause - at this time most likely fascism - is pretty run-of-the-mill for 1941, but it turns out that the Leader's real scheme is to drive down the steel mill's stock price so that he can gain a controlling interest and make big bucks! He's just duping the fascists-or-maybe-anarchists-or-communists into doing his bidding! The real villain was capitalism all along!

Sadly for the Leader, his tale of villainy ends like so many that take place in steel mills: with him plummeting into an open vat of molten metal.