GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 022

Just look at them go.

This gang has hit upon the very effective technique of faking an appearance by the Arrow in order to steal other crooks' takings when they intelligently run away from a potential ass-kicking by a seven-foot-tall vigilante. 

The important corollary to any plan to impersonate a super-hero, of course, is that that hero will eventually get wind and show up to see just what they are supposedly doing, which leads to, yes, a collective ass-kicking by a seven-foot-tall vigilante. (The Arrow 002, 1940)

I'd probably make more of this "ring of big shots" and their plan to take over NYC by blowing up the various dams that contain its water reservoirs (for instance: is a flooded New York without a fresh water supply really worth taking over?) but Phantasmo really torpedoes their whole plan by literally torpedoing their leader as he's trying to torpedo the New Croton Dam, so the whole plot fizzles before it can really get off the ground. (The Funnies 047, 1940)

He may be an extremely generic Central American revolutionary leader who bungles things spectacularly enough that his entire force is destroyed before they actually get around to doing any revolution, but I do find the name "El Tiger" to be as charming as it is linguistically nonsensical. (The Funnies 050, 1940)

Is Eldas Thayer, a cranky old terminally ill miser who stages his own murder in order to frame the Spirit, yet another example of me possibly straying a bit too far from the concept of the "generic costumed villain" that this round-up supposedly exists to showcase? Probably, but that doesn't matter because I am in charge here.

Though the reason for this plot is ultimately "this is a more interesting comic if the Spirit is wanted by the police" (which is why the Spirit is never actually exonerated for this crime), I do really appreciate Thayer's forthright statement that he is doing this because he is an evil old man. Not enough villains have the guts to own up to that kind of thing, you know? (The Spirit, "Eldas Thayer", 21 July, 1940) 

ADDENDUM: I have made a proverbial fool of myself. The Spirit was cleared of the murder of Eldas Thayer like three months later. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 805: THE GREAT ONE

(The Funnies 042, 1940)

I had great hopes for the Great One, a pirate captain so mysterious that he wears a full-face hood (with nostril holes! The rarest hood hole!) even while hanging out on his own South Pacific island inhabited solely by his own fanatical crew. The black skull insignia alone inspired me to hope that there might be some fun mystery behind that hood for Bruce McKay, formerly Sky Master but now Sky Ranger, to solve when he and his companions are captured by one of the Great One's lieutenants. 

Alas, such is not the case. Bruce is pressed into service as a scout pilot for the Great One's fleet and quickly betrays him to the first freighter captain he sees. His fleet is blown up thanks to the fact that the freighter in question was hauling a load of hand grenades and the Great One himself dies ignominiously and still masked, in a fall from a cliff. I should have known it was all over when they didn't bother to colour his robe in the second issue.