MINOR SUPER-HERO 016: THE MOTH

(Mystery Men Comics 009, 1940)

The Moth might just be the platonic ideal of a certain kind of super-hero. Specifically, the kind that would be equally likely to show up for three issues during the height of the Golden Age hero boom and also in a super-hero parody any time from the 60s to today.

I sincerely think that if I spent an afternoon looking through every issue of normalman and What The-! and so forth that I could find (or if I could ever track down a copy of The Mad Book of Almost Superheroes, for that matter), someone identical to the Moth would be hanging out in the background of a panel somewhere.

As far as the man himself goes: a perfectly decent regular Golden Age super-hero: no origin or secret identity, can fly, drops "egg bombs" despite a troubling lack of pockets... the complete package.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 114: THE WEATHER KINGS

(Mystery Men Comics 010, 1940)

It's the Moth vs. the Weather Kings, the very definition of a great name wasted on some run-of-the-mill weather controlling chumps and really I'm only bringing them up to roundly condemn the wasting of such a good name on such jabronis.

The only good thing about them really, is that they've remained unused for more than 80 years so the name is basically up for grabs.