GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 018

The hits flops just keep coming.

This gang doesn't bother to give themself a proper name even though their scheme is extremely big and loud: they have access to a magnetic ray device and have employed it to pull down multiple large buildings in scenic Midtown City, thus killing between one and four thousand people (a printing error obscures the exact number), all so that their demands for protection money from the owners of other buildings will be paid without question. It's just as well that the Comet eye-beams them all.

I really am stuck on the fact that they haven't bothered to give themselves a name, when they have such attention to detail that the hostages they grabbed in order to stymie the Comet were literally Mr & Mrs John Q. Public Priorities differ, I suppose. (Pep Comics 009, 1940)

Buck Brady of the FBI is investigating a gang that is smuggling Malaysians across the Canada/ US border (because nobody would expect them to, that's why) and the ringleader, when he shows up, is dressed fantastically. I cannot believe that more super-villains aren't wearing big fur coats when they look so great when paired with a cowl mask. Anyway, he turns out to be Lieutenant Thomas of the US Border Patrol. (Prize Comics 003, 1940)

Move over pre-2000s Wolverine, because this guy right here is possibly the most mysterious figure in comics. Samson and David track him to the hidden City of Erde after he initiates a series of attacks against the US, presumably with an eye on conquering it. But who is he? How did he become king of Erde and its population of cavemen? Where did he get the weaponry his cavemen are using in their attacks? Just how the heck did a whole city full of cavemen go unnoticed smack in the middle of the US, secret valley or no? (Samson 002, 1940)

This unnamed mustachioed man is remarkable mostly for the number of pivots that he manages to pull off over the course of a 13-page story. He first attracts Samsons's attention with a scheme to pit the presumably South American country of Ecuazil against its neighbour (sadly unnamed but probably something like Perile or Aregentuay) and then conquer both once they were both sufficiently weakened by the fighting. Once Samson and David put an end to that he hypnotically enslaved Samson for a while, then launched into a full-fledged invasion of the US. Pretty good range, I'd say.

The US invasion plan also featured this amazing spindly-legged flamethrower tank. Bask in its pleasing aesthetics and questionable strategic value! Please also note David in these panels as this is a good representation of his role in the comic: all enthusiasm, willing to lasso absolutely anything, very low actual impact on events as they unfold but clearly Samson enjoys having him around.

Finally, I don't quite know why but I feel that I must highlight this sequence in which Samson hurls a man into a pit and then his lifeless body is just there for the next two panels. I want to frame this and hang it on my wall. (Samson 002, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 718: MASK

(Samson 001, 1940)

Mask here has a fairly ordinary set of plans and goals, for Masked Criminal levels of ordinary. His associate Dr Dag has developed a super-germ and his other associate Ko has control of a death cult, and he is going to use the latter to deliver the former to a number of nearby cities as revenge for tossing him out on his ear. Plus he's going to loot once the cities are cleared out by disease, but that's just good business. Like I said, regular stuff.

The really interesting things about Mask are... etymological? in nature. Firstly, as you might have noticed he has no "the" on his name. He's just Mask, and considering the fact that we have already encountered seven separate fellows called the Mask (and four more the [Adjective] Masks), it's a surprisingly simple way to stand out among the maskèd crowd!

The other thing is in regards to Mask's ally Ko, high priest of Lalore - Lalore is as far as I can tell a made-up god, in keeping with the vaguely pan-Asian setting of the story. However, Lalore's cult fanatics are called Thugs, which is a new one on me. Thuggees/ Thugs are a real historical group (albeit one of which basically every aspect is seemingly the subject of hot scholarly debate) and a fairly popular bunch to dust off as stock villains, but a real key part of their charter is that they worship the goddess Kali. This is the first time that I can recall seeing Thug used as a kind of generic term for a cult murderer.

Too bad for Mask (and Dr Dag and Ko and all the nameless cultists) Samson and David just happen to be travelling through the same vaguely Subcontinental area that they are plotting and scheming in and they live in a temple city so there are a lot of pillars around. Sure enough, Samson does the thing that he's best known for doing and kills basically everyone. Tough luck, Mask.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 037

More cream rises from the milky depths of the Golden Age!

Red Roberts, the Electro Man:

It's unclear what Red Roberts' actual job is, but he is a guy who Knows Too Much about the corruption in the unnamed city he lives in and so he is framed for murder and fast-tracked to the electric chair.

Luckily for Roberts, this is a comic book universe and being an innocent person sentenced to be executed via the electric chair means that you get sick-ass electricity powers instead of dying like everyone else. Red Roberts quickly parleys these powers into revenge on the city's crooked mayor and his cronies and then cleans up crime around town for a couple of issues more for good measure. He doesn't bother with a secret identity because at least half a dozen people were there to witness his origin, which must feel quite freeing. (Rocket Comics 001, 1940)

the Phantom Ranger:

There's not much to distinguish the Phantom Ranger from his contemporaries in the ranks of Mysterious Cowboys Who Stick Around Just Long Enough to Help Out, but here goes: his horse is named Demon and he likes to ride around with his sleeves rolled up, which gives him a business casual look that I appreciate. (Rocket Comics 001, 1940)

the Defender:

Is the Defender (Robert Larson, who was scarred facially by criminals as a child and who now fights crime using a malleable rubberoid mask and two dedicated assistants) a take on pulp and comic character the Avenger (Richard Benson, whose face was rendered inhuman by the shock of losing his wife and child to criminals and who now fights crime using his own malleable face and 4-5 dedicated assistants)? I certainly think he is, but I don't know if you could conclusively prove it. (Rocket Comics 002, 1940)

Samson UPDATE:

Samson being descended from the long-haired Biblical figure of the same name is not a new origin for the character, but once he had his own series it was time to explicitly lay it out in the form of his mother telling him in plain English that he is. Frankly, I'd much rather learn how he managed to get away with  having shoulder-length hair as a teenager in the early 1930s, but it's just left as an exercise for the reader to figure out.

No such luck for David, however. He remains an orphaned Boy Scout who Samson just found and adopted one day. David is not his actual name and we do not know his actual name. There is some early effort to play up his Boy Scout knowledge as valuable to the crimefighting enterprise but that soon falls by the wayside. (Samson 001, 1940)

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 006

More real people and their analogs. Lotta Hitlers in this one.

Adolf Hitler:

Hitler analogs c.1940 were often quite visually distinct from the actual man. Samson foe and dictator of Ratonia Dragor honestly looks more like a bald Stalin, and you might be excused for thinking that he was more of a pastiche of all extant dictators. The real clue is in the invasion of Belgium. (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940) 

Meanwhile this as-yet unnamed dictator of the future super-nation of Russmany is a pretty clear Hitler-alike. (Fight Comics 001, 1940)

Misc Minor Appearances:

Hitler-alike dispatches the Tankonaut to sow terror in the US. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)

Hitlerian dictator Rigo funds Samson foe Kilgor's robot army. (Fantastic Comics 006, 1940) 

Benito Mussolini:

He doesn't actually appear in the comic but "Gasolini" is one of the better dumb stand-in names I have seen for Mussolini. Weirdly, the Dictator mentioned above is so generic that he's not really enough of a reference to any one person to include here. (Fantastic Comics 010, 1940)

Depicted with his pal Hitler as a background gag in a room full of faux Mayan statuary. (Fantoman 003, 1940)

Fiorello Laguardia:

At this point it's worth noting any time that a generic Mayor of New York City shows up, just to have a record of them. (Fantastic Comics 011, 1940)

Franklin D Roosevelt:

Misc Minor Appearances:

Meets up with Dr John "Son of the Gods" Thesson to discuss the threat of the Tankonaut. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)

Confers with Thesson and a panel of others about the threat of the Invincible Five (Exciting Comics 006, 1940) 

Briefly kidnapped by super-gangster Rip-the-Blood, rescued by Stardust the Super Wizard (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

Henry Ford:

Motor king "Henry Lord" is kidnapped by the Miracle Men (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

Hollywood Crowd Scenes:

Comic strip "Olly of the Movies", about young actress Olive Lane's travails in Hollywood (seen here as a comic book reprint) is chock full of cameos - and under actual names! Marie Dressler, Mae West, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford and Jimmy Durante are the ones named, but there are a whole swath (that I am not qualified to identify) in that second panel alone. (Famous Funnies 006, 1935)

Saladin:

Every Crusader hero eventually has to meet Saladin and the Golden Knight is no exception. The creators always have to balance the fact that they obviously think that Saladin is very cool with the idea that he is supposed to be the villain and this is a story where it is not quite pulled off: Saladin spares the Golden Knight because he is such a valiant battler and shows him great hospitality, while the Knight wanders around all surly and churlish talking about how he'd like to kill everyone present. Saladin definitely comes off better in the interaction. (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

Saladin and the Golden Knight meet up again a few issues later and the encounter ends with the Golden Knight killing Saladin, a wildly ahistoric event but not a unique one, as you might see if I ever work my way through the hundreds of Real Person in Comics entries I have in spreadsheet form. For the record, Saladin died of a fever, still in control of Jerusalem, a full year after the Third Crusade ended. (Fantastic Comics 008, 1940)

Selection of Old-Time Boxers:

Boxer and heavyweight champ Kayo Kirby has a stress dream in which he meets and is beaten up by successive old-time champs John L. Sullivan...

... Gentleman Jim Corbett...

... and Bob Fitzsimmons (with special appearance by his wife Rose).

He also receives some training from old-time boxer Charley Mitchell, not that it does him much good against the spectres of his own mind. (Fight Comics 009, 1940)

Unknown:

Given that he was kidnapped immediately following "Henry Lord", above, there is a strong possibility that "John Rancab" is also a stand-in name. As "Bacnar" does not appear to be a name and the only John Branca I can find was born in 1950, I am stumped - is it just a bad anagram of "banker"? Maybe. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 025

Just a great bunch of guys.

David:

I read the Samson stories in Big 3 before those in his home comic Fantastic, so while I knew about his sidekick David I didn't really know what his whole deal was. I had read that Samson just found him sitting around somewhere and assumed that that was hyperbole but no, it's not: Samson is investigating some mysterious plane crashes in the Rockies when he just finds a kid, who turns out to be the only survivor of the latest crash, and just... brings him along. There's no real attempt to address the fact that he must be an orphan now (or if not and he was travelling alone for some reason, that his family now thinks he is dead) or to find him a familial guardian - heck, his name isn't even David. It's low-key one of the weirdest sidekick origins in comics and that's before he gets his own pair of fur briefs. (Fantastic Comics 010, 1940)

UPDATES: Even in the updated Samson origin, David is still a hanger-on (Samson 001, 1940)

UPDATE - the Fantom of the Fair:

The Fantom of the Fair gets his own short-lived book that sees him spending more and more time fighting crime outside the New York World's Fair, if you can believe it. To that end he adopts the more generic name of the Fantoman. The costume changes (blue instead of black, uncovered lower face) happened at the end of 1939 and technically I've read more Fantom stories in which he had the new one than the old but it never feels right to me. At least you can still see his hair through the cowl.

Though he has a new name and a not-so-new look, Fantoman retains one of his most iconic properties: every time you start thinking of him as just another masked adventurer he busts out another heretofore-unseen superpower or bit of lore suggesting he is a thousand year old demigod or something. See above as he either teleports or passes through matter for the first and last time. (Fantoman 003, 1940)

the Spy Fighter:

It kind of says something about the mood of America in 1940 that there are multiple comic book series that take place in the 1990s after what we know as World War II has stretched on for fifty years (Marvel's Breeze Barton is the other one that I can recall off the top of my head, while MLJ's Doc Strong is from a future ravaged by a whole century of WWII). In this version of that, the war has resulted in an amalgamation of the world into three rival nations: Russmany (Europe and Africa), Mongo (Asia) and Greater America (the Americas), and in this world of super nations, a super spy is required to ensure the sanctity of the Greater American way of life.

That man is Saber, the Spy Fighter! Who does eventually put on a shirt. Saber starts out as physically gifted telepath who roots out enemy agents by reading their ill intent in their own minds and then beats them up for it. Over time, the challenges he faces get larger and less specifically espionage related, and he develops new abilities to meet them, including that of changing his own size at will, to the point that he is eventually able to travel through space on his own power to fight planet-sized enemies. And what can Mongo do to challenge that? (Fight Comics 001, 1940)

the Skull Squadron:

Chip Collins' Skull Squadron is extremely unremarkable but at this point I have to make note of every skull-adjacent comic book thing. They operate somewhere in between a commando group and the Suicide Squad and barely even have skulls painted on their planes. SKULL SCORE: 1/2 and only for the name. (Fight Comics 001, 1940)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 014

Once again the also-rans.

A bunch of small-time crooks get paid to fake the death of Titano (the largest gorilla in captivity!) for an insurance scam and of course use him to rob a series small-town banks. If only they had thought a bit more ambitiously they might have made the big time. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)

This Yank Wilson adventure features a fairly by-the-book super-spy ring headed by Count Lustig von Blackgard. They plot, they scheme, they are ultimately foiled. This mysterious radio message is the only mention of a higher-up, but their moniker - the extremely evocative Neuromania - was too good to pass over without comment. (there is of course the possibility that Neuromania is the spies' home country. Either way, it's great). (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

This happy fellow has no name but makes up for it with a laundry list of distinctive features: missing left eye, hunch, catlike upper lip, pointy ears, bizarrely long hair on his forearms, etc. He lives under a fake man-eating tree in... probably the African jungle and spends his days torturing and poisoning people for no stated reason until he is killed by Captain Kid using his own poisoned melon. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

This is Nipon, ruler of an unnamed Asian country (wink, wink) from that period in late 1940 through 1941 when the Axis powers were very clearly the villains on everyone's minds but the US was remaining neutral so you couldn't in good conscience make the leader of a foreign nation the villain of your story. These guys are usually either extremely obvious stand-ins named, like Arnolf Hilter or Menito Bussolini (in which case they get added to a Real Folk entry) or so generic that I forget them entirely. Nipon is kind of neither - like, he's obviously a stand-in for the Emperor of Japan but extremely generically, but also he has a very fun look! (Fantastic Comics 013, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 632: THE BOSS

(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940)

The Boss is actually Roulf, editor of the Daily Standard newspaper in NYC. He pulls the classic villain mistake of acting as a concerned citizen recruiting the protagonists - in this case Samson and David - to investigate his own villainous alter ego. It's the kind of error that you can emphasize with to a certain extent: how better to ensure that a super-powered busybody doesn't unexpectedly show up and wreck your plans then by controlling the flow of information and steering him away? The problem is that the Boss, like most villains who try this gambit, fails on the second part of the plan. Rather than guide Samson and David away from, say, his plot to blow up the Panama Canal he has instead alerted them to look out for such plans. Heck, before getting word to visit him at the Daily Standard Building, Our Heroes were spending their day pulling pranks on ice cream vendors. Truly the Boss has executed an epic self-own.

The Boss has a secret city hidden in a secret valley in the Western US and in that secret city he has a a little fort and in that little fort he has a littler pyramid. It's not very effective at keeping Samson out but I think it's neat that he nested up like that.

I think I've mentioned that Samson is one of your more bloodthirsty Golden Age super-heroes before and I've even said to myself "that's a murder," when reading a Samson adventure but... he just kind of admits it here, doesn't he. He captured Roulf and then murdered him while taking him back to civilization. Wild stuff.