MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 128: THE ANT QUEEN

(Slam-Bang Comics 006, 1940) 

If there's one thing that leavens my disdain for jungle comics, it's that there are some real fun villain tropes in 'em, and one of the best is "human raised by animals who disdains civilization", and the Ant Queen is one of the most fun

She was raised by giant ants! That's so great! She controls them with her lil antennae! I love her!

I mean I guess you could look at the "traitor to your own kind" stuff that the Jungle King is spouting in that last panel as a version of the white supremacy that old jungle and adventure comics were rife with, wherein the greatest crime was e.g. a white person taking the side of another race over that of other white people, but maybe we'll leave that for another time - the White Renegade is coming up in a few months, anyway. No for now let's just enjoy how much the Ant Queen rules.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 127: THE SKY DEMON

(Slam-Bang Comics 006, 1940) 

The Sky Demon is a heretofore-unseen old enemy of Diamond Jack who starts strong with an overall Satanic look and a little skull on the front of his trunks - just the right amount of accessorizing to make a pretty basic super-outfit pop.

I also love his plot to conquer Earth and/or wipe out humanity: get some gorillas, give them wings and revolvers and let them loose. I can't say whether or not his plan would have succeeded because he was fatally prevented from carrying it out by Diamond Jack.

Gorilla-based schemes aside, I really like the parallel of Diamond Jack the magic ring-powered hero vs the Sky Demon and his little magic cape. A sub-ecosystem of heroes and villains weilding magic items of various kinds sounds like it could be interesting comics fodder!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAINS 126: THE WITCH-MASTER

(Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

An early entry in the grand tradition of comic book characters that indirectly make the assertion that the Salem Witch Trials were entirely justified, since Salem was crawling with actual, factual witches such as this dapper fellow.

See? Witches were real and they summoned fire devils and tried to sacrifice pure-hearted time-travelling children to them!

The foils to this dastardly and historically accurate fiend are teacher Rodney Kent and his pupil/ ward Mark Swift, two prime examples of a comics type: time travelers who have precisely zero concept of not leaping in to express good old 20th Century American values no matter what time period they find themselves in.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 125: THE GORILLA MAN

(Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

A jewel thief who dresses up in a gorilla costume to commit crimes, what really stands out about the Gorilla Man is that he does so for no real reason? He just likes it?

Hell, if anything it makes him more likely to get caught since he has pulled this sort of job before and the gorilla costume is a bit of an attention getter. Is it reasonable to call this fictional character from more than 80 years ago a furry? Perhaps not, but I shall leave the question open to debate.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 124: MARIA, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES

(Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

I quite like Maria. Firstly, she is a vampire with bat wings, which is a feature that hardly ever shows up any more. Also she sleeps in a coffin filled with the bones of her victims, which is not a bit of vampire lore that I am familiar with but which does rule. She hangs out in a castle somewhere in the US and vampirizes random motorists in anticipation of the day that she has enough minions to take over the world. She even manages to turn Diamond Jack briefly but he manages to resist the full transformation due to being good and pure.

She has these weird minions that may or may not be another kind of vampire? They kind of look like bipedal panthers with bat wings. I love them.

Like I said she manages to vamp Diamond Jack, which she achieves by pretending defeat, offering to kiss his ring and then biting out the magic diamond. A clever move, but ultimately undone when the gem refuses to act against Jack and returns to his ring.

Ultimately, Maria ends up turned into a skeleton and her cool looking castle is transformed into a cemetery for the other vampires, who I guess were less redeemable than Diamond Jack.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 123: THE DRAGON

(Slam-Bang Comics 004, 1940)

What makes them a super-villain? Why, that snazzy outfit! Comics are full of people who run opium smuggling rings but very few look as good while doing it.

What makes them interesting? It depends on your definition of interesting, but this is the first costumed criminal on our list whose disguise includes pretending to be another race - specifically, the Dragon is a white hardware store owner named Jones who passes himself off as a Chinese master criminal until Jim Dolan, heroic magazine editor gets involved.

MINOR SUPER-HERO 018: DIAMOND JACK

(Slam-Bang Comics 001-007, 1940)

Diamond Jack is pretty simple conceptually: he's a guy in a suit with a magic ring and he fights crime. He doesn't have much in the way of backstory or supporting cast - just your average Golden Age adventurer type.

He is canonically anti-Nazi, even though all of his appearances are from 1940, so that's a point in his favour. Mostly his stories are entertaining due to the number of wacky supernatural villains he battles. And as always I'm an advocate of BRINGING BACK magic item users as legacy heroes. A magic ring with a heroic history (and half a dozen pre-baked villains but virtually no other baggage) is a good starting point for a new hero, and Diamond Jack is even a completely gender-neutral name so they could be literally anyone!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 122: THE GREEN DEVIL

(Slam-Bang Comics 003, 1940)

I really like the Green Devil. He has a lot going on! He has an army of the living dead, an island base, and a hurricane generator. He's conservatively 10 ft tall and looks like the Devil (with green skin, natch)

His main scheme is to disrupt the laws of magic, which not only weakens his enemy Diamond Jack's magic ring but also for some reason causes regular stage magic and stuff like snake charming and sword swallowing to turn deadly in some of the more low-key gruesome panels I've read recently.

Finally, in classic magic villain style he meets a pretty ignoble end as he is transformed into a book and then blown up along with his HQ and zombies. A solid showing! I'd love to see the Green Devil BRUNG BACK to vex magic folk again.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 121: THE WITCH

(Slam-Bang Comics 001, 1940)

On the one hand the Witch uses smoke-dragon magic in an attempt to kill Diamond Jack for some thugs. On the other, she's an old woman who Diamond Jack strips of her power and leaves weeping in her slum hovel. Still... technically a villain?