DEMONIC ROUND-UP 004

Look out! It's the hordes of Hell!

Storm-Demon: 

Summoned by the evil magic-user Trug to destroy Ibis the Invincible and Taia, the Storm-Demon proves to be no match for the god Osiris, summoned by Ibis in self defense. Really appreciate the route one, "guy made out of storm clouds," aesthetic of this fellow. (Whiz Comics 016, 1941)

She-Devil:

Despite the failure of his first demonic minion, Trug employs this She-Devil to lay in wait for Ibis and Taia along the path to his lair. I sincerely hope that this actually is a demon and not just a magically disguised fist-fightin' lady hired by Trug to beat the tar out of them, because while Ibis is completely fooled by the "lady in distress" act, Taia is not so trusting and uses the Ibistick to light her up. (Whiz Comics 017, 1941)

Unnamed Demon: 

This unnamed demon, summoned by villainous magician the Half-Man as a weapon of mass destruction against his country's enemies, is a bit generic but not every demon needs to be a star. Much more interesting is the Ancient Egyptian-themed being summoned by Taia to counter it. Just what is his deal and where did he get that cool flail? (Whiz Comics 024, 1941)

Lucifer: 

Though this version of Lucifer buys souls, lives in a place alternately called "Hades" and "the Inferno" and is, you know, named Lucifer, the text consistently refers to him as a "genii" rather than a demon. Who knows why but it's a fact. 

Never seen, this Lucifer has already bought the Claw's soul at some point in the past and now lends him further power so that he can make one last attempt at destroying Daredevil. Why do this seemingly for free? Perhaps removing Daredevil from the playing field, rather than helping the Claw, is the goal. Or maybe Lucifer is just nice! 

The Claw does not in fact manage to defeat Daredevil and is thereafter confined to the continent of Asia for his failure. For, like, one issue. (Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941) 

Lucifer's Minions: 

In addition to the draconic Guard of the Gate of the Inferno above, Lucifer supplies the Claw with a variety of demonic beings to help him in his quest. A brief rundown: 

Winged Beasts!

Poison-Fanged Eagle-Men! 

The Three-Headed Dragon! 

Gigantic Snakes! (these ones are my favourites)

And a general demonic rabble that includes a few of the types we saw before but more importantly that cool caveman-demon!

Ultimately, the forces of Hades prove no match for Daredevil and his boomerang. Most of them end up buried under an avalanche, and while my RPG-influenced mind assumes that that means that they are all then banished back to Hell it's entirely possible that they are just dead. (Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 034

Since we're currently reading Whiz Comics for 1941, it's time yet again for another load of unscrupulous people to get their hands on the Ibistick and then kill themselves with it. And here they are:

the Widow Zorn:

Ibis lends the Ibistick to old Professor Grubb  for scientific study after Grubb finds it outside of an exploded building and uses its magic to restore the building and everyone inside - which included both Ibis and Taia, along with their their young ward Tommy - to wholeness and life. This isn't a bad idea per se, as Grubb is an honest man, but he is also in love with the scheming Widow Zorn, who vamps it away from him in about two seconds flat.

Zorn's main interest is in conjuring up hunks to fight for her attention, so the damage potential in her having the Ibistick is a bit lower than some (although she does vaporize poor old Prof Grubb when he kicks off about it). She does of course try to kill Ibis with his own wand and ends up on the Moon for her trouble, but fortunately for her the reconstituted Grubb advocates for not letting her explode or whatever and she ends up falling for him after all. (Whiz Comics 012, 1941)

Trug: 

Trug gets his own super-villain entry, the jerk. 

the Chief: 

The Chief isn't a villainous figure per se, but his role in the comic is close enough that I'll say that he counts. The leader of an Inuit group subjugated by Trug, the Chief recovers the Ibistick after Trug loses it in a magical air raid and turns the tables on the villain by imprisoning him in his own palace.

The Chief lives through the process of confronting Ibis by simply being a fair fighter and not deigning to use magic where fists will suffice. Fair-ish, at least - he is nine or ten feet tall at the time. Still, Ibis manages to win their fight and reclaims his wand. The Chief and his people are returned to their original sizes (as the latter had been shrunk by Trug to ensure obedience) and get to keep Trug's palace to boot. (Whiz Comics 014, 1941)

A Spider: 

When Ibis and Taia leave the Chief and his people they are given a stone as a gift, and after having it appraised and finding out that it is an enormous and valuable ruby Ibis decides to give it back. Rimson, the appraiser, objects to this and attempts to claim the ruby for himself, and to that end he shoots out the couple's car tire, causing them to crash into a gorge.

Ibis and Taia survive thanks to the magic of the Ibistick, but the wand is dropped in the shuffle and chanced upon by a colourful and anatomically dubious spider that manages to envision its desires well enough to become both enormous and intelligent. 

The arch-cad Rimson soon falls to the spider's fangs, and Ibis is forced to battle it lest he and Taia likewise be eaten. He manages to mortally wound it with an improvised spear and then it finishes itself off by wishing for Ibis to fade to nothingness. It's a sad end for what I reckon might be our very first animal villain. (Whiz Comics 015, 1941)

Mudge: 

Mudge was already wanted for murder, minus a soul thanks to a deal with Satan (actually the villain Trug in disguise - not sure if that affects the validity of the soul sale) and afflicted with a donkeys ears thanks to Ibis when he acquires the Ibistick after it has been dropped in a a struggle. If any villain could use a break like this it's him, but he immediately screws up his chance by trying to afflict Ibis with chains. (Whiz Comics 020, 1941)

Unnamed Fascist:

This unnamed officer in the army of the War Lord not only speed-runs the process of reckless Ibistick use leading to disaster but manages to take down an entire invasion force with him thanks to his grandstanding, as he tries to wipe out Ibis and the entire army he's with all in one go.

Please also note Ibis foe Half-Man in the above panels, who is remarkable for being the only villain to date to avoid this kind of thing by not using the Ibistick at all. Presumably he is wise enough to keep tabs on how other villains have met their downfalls. (Whiz Comics 024, 1941) 

DIVINE ROUND-UP 026

I've finally caught up on my god backlog so these are all piping fresh deities for you to peruse.

Itzalotahui:

On an expedition to Guatemala to locate their missing friend John Malcolm, Billy Batson and Whitey Murphy make camp in the lost temple of the monkey god Itzalotahui and are awoken from their slumber by the god himself, flaming and steaming and flailing about.

After an initial panic and an in-retrospect-embarassing fistfight, Captain Marvel discovers the truth: Itzalotahui is not alive but is in fact a cunningly-designed ball and socket arrangement in which the lower torso/socket is connected to a natural gas source and periodically ignites and wiggles around thanks to gas pressure.

This issue is real study in contrasts: though the name of the fictional god is literally It's a Lot of Hooey (in keeping with 1940s contempt for non-Christian or Classical religion), Captain Marvel actually seems to respect the cultural value of the site rather than just smashing it up like so many characters might. Meanwhile, the presence of natural gas means the probability of oil as well, but both Malcolm and Marvel advocate for leaving the area free from the hell of oil extraction, even if they do so in the most patronizing/patriarchal language possible.

God Style: Idol (Whiz Comics 022, 1941) 

the Angry God: 

The Angry God, aka the Dark Spirit, is a near-forgotten entity whose last remaining priest has thrown in with the villain Half-Man and his Hitler stand-in boss the War Lord to lend mystical power to the armies of the Axis forces. The Angry God requires not just human sacrifice but the sacrifice of "great men," which might go some way toward explaining his low levels of worshipper-retention. Please also note the fun imp-swarm that seems to accompany the worship of this particular god - they must be very distracting. 

The Angry God's status as a real entity and current diminished circumstances are both illustrated in the fact that it animates its idol in an attempt Ibis the Invincible from killing its priest and then itself falls dead once it is deprived of that one last worshipper.

God Style: Real (Whiz Comics 023, 1941)

Balka: 

Balka is the guardian tiger spirit of the ruling line of the Asian country of Balkania, and whether the country was named after the tiger or vice versa is left unexplored in-text. What is made clear is that the old legends about the statue of Balka coming to life to avenge the death of murdered Balkanian monarch are absolutely true, as experienced by regicidal dictator and fashion maven Carnov after he kills good King Banok.

Alas, Carnov is not torn asunder by Balka but spared by rightful heir Kelo (aka the Jungle Prince) so that he can face more conventional justice. Balka then returns to statue form to await the next threat to Balkania. (The Arrow 003, 1941) 

Quetzalcoatl: 

Jungleman and his lover Louise Carson stumble upon a hidden Aztec city while searching for Louise's father. Jungleman is briefly worshipped as Quetzalcoatl as per the legend about Hernán Cortés, while Louise is slated for sacrifice by a jealous high priestess. They manage to extract themselves from this situation with minimal fuss, for a 1940s adventure comic, and even find Louise's father just kind of hanging around the temple on their way out. (Champion Comics 012, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 907: HALF-MAN

(Whiz Comics 021, 1941)

Due to Allied concerns about the Nazis generic Axis use of black magic to ensure victory, Ibis the Invincible is recruited and sent to the front as a counter-sorcerer. His foe: the mysterious Half-Man, occultist and rumoured worshipper of an ancient evil god called the Dark Spirit.

The Half-Man served with distinction in WWI, until an artillery shell cost him a leg, an arm and an eye and he was no longer able to lead troops in battle. He then turned to the study of black magic to make himself powerful and potentially whole again, and with the advent of WWII he has offered his services to the War Lord, Fawcett's all-purpose late-1941 Hitler stand-in.

Some further particulars: 

In his first appearance, Half-Man has these pseudo-Gestapo occultist minions who are masterpieces to design. They could not more obviously be weird creep villains. They also receive planchette-writing intel from "the watchful ones," which could be flowery language describing another set of occultist creeps in a lookout post somewhere but which I prefer to think is some sore of class of spirit. 

Perhaps it's the Ancient Egyptian in him coming through, but Ibis is unable to treat Half-Man with anything but pity and contempt, no matter how often he is proven to be a legitimate threat, as above when he completely is completely trounced by the guy.  

Like I said, the first issue that Half-Man appears in contains a lot of talk of the ancient god called the Dark Spirit helping to ensure the Axis victories, and I had initially thought that his magical power was also derived from this being, like a D&D warlock, but Whiz Comics 023 includes a segment in which Ibis is almost sacrificed to the Dark Spirit, here called the Angry God, and manages to turn the tables and kill the god's one remaining priest instead. This seems to kill the Angry God as well without noticeably diminishing Half-Man's power, so I guess it's more of a Hellboy situation in which all of the Evil Magic Guys are lumped together into a unit.

Speaking of the military applications of mystical power, the final act of Half-Man's villainous career takes place on the battlefield between the War Lord's forces and those of an unnamed Allied nation that starts out on a back foot because someone is scrying their troop deployments with a crystal ball. 

Once Ibis joins the fighting on the small nation's side, Half-Man too is obligated to take the field, and while no mortal army is a mach for the power of the Ibistick, he manages to capture Taia and get away. The back-and-forth between them might have gone on indefinitely, but for the fact that the War Lord himself shows up and treats Half-Man with a sneering condescension instead of acknowledging his clear need for validation. This gives Ibis the chance to step up and be nice to the guy by restoring his lost body parts. Having finally achieved a feeling of wholeness again, from being literally whole rather than from magical accomplishment, the former Half-Man reforms. Hopefully he had some sort of plan in place to get to a neutral country, since he renounced his magics and presumably fascism at the end there and I doubt that the War Lord would be too understanding of that.