MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 979: PROFESSOR OCTOPUS

(Four Favorites 001, 1941)

Professor Octopus was honestly due for a trip to the next Problematic Update, but that is a place for characters who I feel should be acknowledged but who I don't want to talk about too much. Who could resist talking about a guy like Professor Octopus, even if he is a weird sinister Asian spy caricature?

Prof Octopus comes to the attention of Magno when his men round up Magno's sidekick Davey for defending a too-inquisitive reporter named Ferren from their tender attentions. He cuts quite a figure, with his seven-foot frame, four arms, claws and fangs (plus a really innovative choice of clothing - seldom do you see the multi-armed go with Big Sleeve rather than a more intensive but presumably less accommodating tailoring choice). Sadly, this is all mere window dressing that serves to make him an example of the evil Asian = inhuman monster trope. The "Octopus" part of his name might as well refer to the fact that he operates out of a submarine as that he has six limbs, for all that he uses them.

Octopus is also quite easily defeated in his two major interactions with Magno and Davey, first by a mere chair to the dome while he is strangling Ferren (and note that he is using all four arms to do it in the only exception to my earlier complaint) and then by the two of them despite his big sword (that he only uses two hands to wield - why not add a couple of shields or some daggers to that loadout?) that is of course magnetic and thus easily countered.

Though Professor Octopus' submarine ends up on the bottom of the ocean, the man himself escapes to fight another day, only not really because as far as I can determine this is his only appearance. Still, better to survive an encounter with a super-hero and then fade into obscurity than die in a sinking submarine, as I always say.

This is the second octopus-themed villain to face Magno - will there be another?

Categorized in: Animals (Octopodes), Ideologies (Pseudo-Japanese Fascists), Powers (Extra Limbs)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 020

We're stretching the definition of the term "generic" this week, folks.

Carr, the self-styled Planetary Potentate, is released from the insane asylum that he is imprisoned in when a resurrected sub-sea dinosaur called the Amphisaur crashes into it. He sets out to claim his rightful place at the head of society, along with his friend/ companion/ army, the wild man Simeo.

While murdering and robbing a gas station attendant, Carr learns of the Amphisaur and its role in their escape and vows to aid his newfound ally against the forces of the enemy as represented by former mummy/current magical super-hero Mystico.

At this point in the story I am fully expecting the pair to have a meaningful interaction with the Amphisaur, something along the lines of them interfering with Mystico's second attempt to kill it and then either riding it around as a war-beast or getting eaten by an uncaring monster. Instead, they are unceremoniously knocked out by the Amphisaur's death-throes. Mystico doesn't even know that they're there! (Startling Comics 004, 1940)

Boris Ivanoff is not a particularly remarkable freelance spy in most respects, but he really does have a flair for the theatrical. I really like the flashlight bit above, but I really really like the fact that he wears that sheet ghost outfit for the entire adventure for no stated reason. The authorities already know his name, where he is and enough about his plans to substitute secret agent Q-13 for his new recruit, for heavens sake. They don't even bother to dramatically unmask Ivanoff at the end, because the sheet is apparently just an affectation! (Super-Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)

This fellow is really Jay Jackson, publisher of newspaper the Morning Star, who extorts money out of people by threatening to print scandalous articles about them and then murders the ones who refuse to pay. He is very frustrating to me because I find his weird Halloween mask disguise very charming, except that I have read this story and know that it is a racist Chinese caricature, which is the opposite of charming. Annoying!

Jackson is also the subject of what is possibly the most extreme version of the bit where a super-hero scares a confession out of someone I have ever read, in which Magno collapses an entire skyscraper on top of him, seemingly with no guarantee that he will survive the process. Plus, there are like half a dozen other crooks in the building when it comes down and none of them are extracted from the wreckage in time to confess their wrongdoings. (Super-Mystery Comics v1, 1940)

Adopting the role of the high priest of the local Tiger-God might have seemed like a good way to take control of a region that contained a rich gold mine, but all too predictably it ended up with this fellow being thrown into his own tiger pit once he is revealed as a fraud by adventurer Scotty of the Skyways. (Super Spy 001, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 779: THE CLOWN

(Super-Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

The Clown! One of the more prolific non-Marvel or DC/Fawcett/Quality super-villains of the Golden Age, and I'm kind of glad that he only made one appearance in 1940 because like his fellow crime clown the Joker, the Clown gets up to a wide variety of different schemes and plots and it's nice to have the breathing room to just introduce his concept without having to detail a bunch of extra antics as well (and speaking of the Joker, I've never been sure if the various early-40s clown villains were all inspired by him or if there was something else in the zeitgeist that was responsible for there being so many of them running around).

The Clown's debut is as spectacular as it is inexplicable: Magno's sidekick Davey is at the library checking out a book on chemistry and it just so happens that the Clown is there to get the same book. Faced with the fact that Davey got it first, how does he respond? By murdering the librarian, attempting to murder Davey and trashing the place. This is how one exemplifies the super-villain lifestyle, friends.

And when Davey runs off and gets Magno, what do they return to find? Why, that the Clown has either burned down what appears to be the New York Public Library or merely set fire to enough of its stock  to make a roaring blaze out front, it's hard to tell. Either way, it's a heck of a debut and a real blow to the library sciences.

Now, if you  know anything at all about the Clown it's likely the fact that he is a Nazi, as is reported in Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Supervillains, but after scrubbing through a bunch of his appearances I don't know if that's entirely accurate. He certainly works for the Nazis once or twice but I also found a few instances of him in conflict with them - we shall have to see. What he certainly is, however, is vocally and aggressively anti-patriotic, to the point that he almost manages to burn an American flag before Magno and Davey butt in.

This initial appearance also serve to show off the Clown's scientific acumen: he performs super-leaps thanks to his "degravitating solvent," deploys knockout gas to escape the two in their initial encounter, and even manages to whip up an "anti-magnetic compound" to prevent Magno and Davey from disarming him after experience that humiliation in their first encounter.

Some more details from this lore-packed episode: the Clown has a secret lair in a mausoleum in a nearby cemetery, staffed by a suspiciously compliant lab assistant named Lydia. The Clown, having captured Magno and Davey, has plans to vivisect them and learn the secret of their powers.

Though the Clown and Lydia have coated the entire lair in anti-magnetic compound they neglected to consider the pipes in the walls, and the whole place is soon awash (this is how Sub-Zero captured Professor X in their first encounter, too. Villains: look into PVC piping). The compound is washed away in the flood, allowing Magno and Davey to recommence the beating.

The Clown is unsurprisingly not up-to-date on the latest lab safety guidelines and so the fight is only a couple of punches in before some shoddily-stored chemicals end up causing a huge explosion. Magno and Davey are fine, of course, as is Lydia, who - surprise, surprise - turns out to have been mind controlled into being the Clown's lab assistant. And of course the Clown is fine. You simply don't kill off a character like that after one appearance, after all. For our purposes, though, it'll be some months until he returns.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 046

Enjoy these ancient delights!

the Black Spider:

Mild-mannered district attorney Ralph Nelson, like many comic book lawmen, sallies forth at night in order to deal with criminals that the law can't touch. Nelson is despised by his colleague Police Inspector Stern for being too soft on crime/ dedicated to the letter of the law to allow the cops to torture confessions out of people, while the Black Spider is hated by Stern for showing up the police by being so good at torturing confessions out of people. It's a real dichotomy!

Nelson's secretary Peggy Dodge has a classic "love one identity and hate the other" relationship with the Black Spider and her boss that gets resolved when she learns his secret during the first Black Spider adventure. It's a nice change of pace from your standard Lois/Clark arrangement, plus Peggy has the distinction of being one of the few noncostumed super-heroic aides to remember to wear a mask while on crime-fighting duty! (Super-Mystery Comics 003, 1940)

Davey: 

One day while fighting crime, Magno rescues Carole Landis and her kid brother Davey from a bombed-out building and learns about the crime that they were investigating and also that Davey is such a big Magno fan that he has his own Magno costume and also would Magno like to see it? Magno of course gives the kid the old brush-off.

Seeing as he first met this kid after he had tagged along with his sister on a dangerous assignment, it should not have surprised Magno to find Davey chasing him down the street in full Magno cosplay. The two get mixed up in various life-or-death situations before Magno can get rid of Davey and by the time things calm down they have formed a battle-bond or something. Magno figures out how to temporarily give Davey a portion of his powers for about an hour (the time limit gets dropped eventually, presumably because bookkeeping isn't very fun) and becomes the latest in a long line of super-heroes to have a sidekick with no code name. (Super-Mystery Comics v1 004, 1940)

the Sparkler: 

Red Morgan's father has invented an invisibility suit, but what he should have been working on was a don't-blab-your-secrets-all-over-town suit, because the local gang boss Baldy Spade has heard that there's some big scientific discovery in the works and has sent a guy to kill Morgan Senior and steal it. A vengeance-minded Red dons the suit and exacts justice on Baldy before going on to have a handful of adventures as the Sparkler, so named because the suit flashes and sparks as it returns to its user to visibility. (Super Spy 001, 1940)

the Night Hawk: 

Horse Rancher John Rogers was murdered some time ago, and his unnamed son has seemingly wandered the West ever since, doing vigilante justice while looking for murderer Baldy Crane. In his one recorded adventure he finally locates and guns him down before riding into the sunset. (Super Spy 002, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 776: THE BLUE SPARK

(Super-Mystery Comics v1 002, 1940)

In terms of crime, the Blue Spark is ambitious but not extraordinary: a little corporate extortion, some bank robbery, a few kidnappings. Nothing we haven't seen a few hundred times by now.  When it comes to the trappings of super-villainy, however, the Blue Spark is on the cutting edge.

Just look at that costume - it's not quite the standardized super-villain getup we will eventually see on so many one-shot Batman villains but it's pretty damn close, and particularly in an era in which most villains are still pairing a mask with a suit and tie or a robe. Even more impressive and ahead of its time is the Blue Spark's choice to dress his henchmen in a simplified version of his own uniform. Just really impressive stuff.

The Blue Spark's main gimmick, a heat ray cannon mounted on a truck, isn't quite as remarkable but it is a pretty sweet bit of gear. Plus he has another one mounted on a cool-ass drilling machine!

(it is somewhat unclear if the Blue Spark has a second ray that allows him to mind control people or if his heat ray doubles as a mind control ray, and determining this is not helped by the fact that he clearly has an aesthetic fondness for that particular style of scientific greebling on the outside of the rays. It's a good clean visual on the mind control ray, I will say that)

The Blue Spark's henchmen (called the Blue Rubber Men at one point, btw) are not just well-dressed:  their costumes have  little nozzles in the chest that lets them be inflated like a balloon to render them immune to fisticuffs  - another idea that sounds like something out of a Silver Age comic, twenty years early.

Technology or no, inflation fetish suits or no, the Blue Spark vs Magno is your classic case of a villain who is so little of an even match for the hero that the plotter's concern must lie in keeping them apart for as long as possible because the instant they meet up, something like the above happens. Magno didn't even give him a chance to blow up his suit, the poor guy.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 775: THE OCTOPUS

(Super-Mystery Comics v1 001, 1940)

The Octopus! Leader of a nation-wide crime wave! Keenly interested in branding! His men slap little octopus stickers on cops and burgled vaults alike! And when the Octopus talks to his men, he is represented by what appears to be an animated octopus! As far as criminal operations go, this one is pretty slick.

Unfortunately for the Octopus, nothing gold can stay and that includes excellent crime setups. While he might be able to outmanoeuvre a nation's worth of police, it is somewhat harder to get by the newly-fledged super-hero Magno, who begins to eat into the profit margins of the Octopus' New York operations. Perhaps this is why he steps out from behind his octopoid avatar and dons a mask in order to participate in a dirigible-based theft of 5 000 000 dollars in gold bullion, only to be forced to abandon airship when Magno shows up yet again. This understandably goes over poorly with the lads.

Never has a villain had a more rapid transition from triumphant moment (you cannot shoot me thanks to my bulletproof suit!) to comeuppance (my bulletproof suit is the means by which I am captured by Magno thanks to the very qualities which previously protected me. Woe unto my poor soul).

The Octopus is finally unmasked! And just who is this criminal mastermind? None other than Professor Beale, the famous criminologist who was consulted on the scourge of his own alter ego earlier in the issue and who somewhat clumsily attempted to throw suspicion onto Magno! Why, I never saw that coming *head vigorously nodding to indicate that I did, in fact, see it coming*.

Beale/the Octopus takes advantage of a moment of distraction on Magno's part and makes another bid for freedom, but critically fails to grab the parachute he needs to really nail the jump and plummets to his death. Magno... pretty conspicuously opts not to save him, something that he has already shown that he can do. Sorry, hard-core Magno fans, but it's true.