MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 329: THE MAD VIOLINIST

(Human Torch v1 005a, 1941)

The Mad Violinist! Not especially mad, aside from being a fascist fanatic. More of a fiddler than a violinist, too - perhaps Nazi Super-Agent HR got mixed up when assigning codenames and swapped his with the Fiddler and vice versa.

Name mixup or no, the Mad Violinist makes quite a splash when he attacks a military parade in NYC and kills potentially hundreds of soldiers and onlookers - it's always a real pain to estimate such things from context, but at least 40 people bought it based on the images provided.

Such crimes could not stand, of course, and the Violinist is swiftly tracked down by Jeff Mace, aka the Patriot, who learns that much like the Armless Tiger Man, the Nazis weaponized him after an accident that left him unstable and dangerous. 

In conclusion, the best part of this story is the fact that the Mad Violinist has to drink BONE SOFTENING CHEMICALS to keep from killing himself and I might just get that on a coffee cup.

FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 001

There are various groups of fascist goons in comics and doing an individual entry for each bunch would be a slog, so it's time for another grouping of jerks!

The Yellowshirts here put in a better showing than most and almost manage to take over NYC before they get beaten down by the Patriot. (Human Torch v1 004, 1941)

Do the Brown Hoods sound kind of like how the Mafia was described in the 30s? Yes. Is that going to stop me from including them here? No. (More Fun Comics 036, 1938)

The Yellow Battalion are most notable for their fancy hats, as they end up getting the tar beat out of them in roughly three panels by Red, White and Blue... (All American 005, 1939)

... who also obliterate the slightly-more-organized Black Cross a couple of issues later (All American 008, 1939)

THE FATE OF RUDOLF HESS

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 024-025, 1941)

Rudolf Hess, a major figure in the Nazi party, flew to Scotland in May 1941, probably without authorization and probably in an attempt to broker some sort of peace treaty. As you can see from the previous sentence, even today the whole thing is pretty murky, and in 1941 it was a tantalizing enough mystery for Hess to crop up in a fair few comics either as himself or as a thinly-veiled stand-in.

This here is "Herr Huss," who flew from occupied France to New Jersey as part of a scheme to draw the US into WWII and who was foiled by future Captain America #3, the Patriot. He ends up killing himself rather than be captured.