MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 798: DR DEATH

(Target Comics v1 008, 1940) 

Dr Death's initial outing, in Target Comics v1 008, is a pretty typical late-1940/early 1941 plot about trying to draw the US into WWII by attacking shipping and throwing blame for it on an enemy of the unnamed fascist nation that Death is working for. Notably, Dr Death does not appear in the issue and works through various minions whom he directs via loudspeaker.

Probably the most interesting thing about this first appearance is the fact that Dr Death has a few White Streak contingency schemes in place, including the addition of a coating of anti-electricity glass to his submarine-cum-torpedo superweapon. Despite this, and despite the fact that the White Streak is trapped inside the thing when it sets out to explode a portion of the US fleet, it is destroyed by the Streak because he simply left some electricity outside the sub before boarding, and not only was he able to direct its actions from inside but it was able to shove the submarine onto some rocks for him, disabling it and freeing him (the White Streak's power level has been ramping up pretty significantly as his series has continued - at this point he's basically magic).

Dr Death returns in Target Comics v1 009, and this time he's not just prepared for the White Streak but actively trying to kill him. He sends one of his minions to lead the Streak into a trap by murdering his captured agent Messer with a cool knife and then returning to Death's base at an easy-to-follow pace. This turns out not to work due to the fact that Messer was at the FBI's New York HQ and there was a considerable amount of competition between the White Streak and various law enforcement officials who were on hand.

(this seems like the place for an aside about Dr Death's choice of costume and all I really have to say is that it's great. Seven foot-tall green man with a radio speaker voice? Terrific stuff, no notes)

The White Streak picks up Dr Death's trail again when he visits his friend Dr Simms' lab for some assistance and finds the villain there murdering Simms' niece Betty. Dr Death comes out on top in this encounter thanks to a very specific ray gun that "dissolves" the Streak's electron vision but merely stuns the android himself.

Even a ray gun-wielding megacrook with steel-lined gloves is ultimately no match for an ancient super-powered Mesoamerican android, and Dr Death is eventually tracked down and unmasked beheaded to reveal that he is really... Dr Simms!? This is completely wild, friends. Simms, if you don't recall, is the archaeologist (later rounded up to all-around super scientist) who discovered the White Streak in his volcanic cocoon, and he has been basically the only member of his supporting cast ever since - contextually, this is like Batman pulling off Clayface's mask to reveal that he is actually Commissioner Gordon.

I can only assume that Carl Burgos had gotten tired of Simms and took the thirdmost direct way of getting rid of him (after having him be murdered and just never using him again), because this is some real off-the-wall behavior on Simms' part. Was he already Dr Death when he met the White Streak? If so, what a terrible decision to keep hanging around with the avowed and deadly enemy of all warmongers, and even moreso if he made the decision to take up the Dr Death mantle as the White Streak's friend, like meeting and befriending and hanging out with and helping a prominent environmentalist and then getting really deeply invested in dumping toxic waste into the ocean.

And on top of everything else, why suit up and challenge your super-human acquaintance to a head-to-head battle rather than just sneaking up behind him and bashing him on the head with something when he was not expecting it? Do you reckon that this was a mid-life crisis thing?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 782: ERIC MACFADDEN

(Superworld Comics 001, 1940*)

Eric MacFadden is a criminal scientist who has some sort of longstanding beef with Hip Knox, the Super Hypnotist, that was presumably covered in Superworld Comics 001, a comics I have yet to encounter for the simple reason that it would cost me at least $ 2000 US.

MacFadden's signature technology is the extremely stylish mesh anti-hypnosis mask that he wears to protect him from Hip Knox's super-hypnotism, and he even has extras made to shield his men from the same (not a guarantee from your typical self-obsessed super-villain), making them the Mask Gang.

As Superworld Comics represents Hugo Gernsback's sole foray into comic book publishing, people more familiar with the politics and personalities of the sci-fi pulps than I am have speculated that Eric MacFadden is in some way based on Bernarr Macfadden, an enemy of Gernsback's, and I gotta say that he's a plausible guy to base a super-villain on. Like, obviously a man's whole life cannot be summed up by his Wikipedia article, but an anti-medicine physical culture weirdo who gave himself the name "Bernarr" because he thought it sounded like a lion's roar is at the very least super-villain adjacent.

If MacFadden is indeed based on Macfadden (he also changed his last name from "McFadden" to "Macfadden" because he thought that it was "a more masculine spelling!) due to a deep Gernsback/Macfadden beef then it would go a long way toward explaining the dynamic between the two, wherein MacFadden attempts to destroy Hip Knox and then Knox turns around and ritually humiliates MacFadden rather than seeking more traditional forms of justice, and for that reason Eric MacFadden joins the ranks of super-villains who are still at large as of their final appearance.

I would also like to make a special note of the fact that despite Hip Knox developing anti-mask technology in Superworld Comics 002, MacFadden does not then abandon the masks entirely, as is so frequently the case with science villains when their tech is countered. MacFadden is savvy - he knows that Knox isn't going to wear that big-ass backpack every time he leaves the house.

*Still haven't read Superworld Comics 001 but I am assured that he was in it.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 779: THE CLOWN

(Super-Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

The Clown! One of the more prolific non-Marvel or DC/Fawcett/Quality super-villains of the Golden Age, and I'm kind of glad that he only made one appearance in 1940 because like his fellow crime clown the Joker, the Clown gets up to a wide variety of different schemes and plots and it's nice to have the breathing room to just introduce his concept without having to detail a bunch of extra antics as well (and speaking of the Joker, I've never been sure if the various early-40s clown villains were all inspired by him or if there was something else in the zeitgeist that was responsible for there being so many of them running around).

The Clown's debut is as spectacular as it is inexplicable: Magno's sidekick Davey is at the library checking out a book on chemistry and it just so happens that the Clown is there to get the same book. Faced with the fact that Davey got it first, how does he respond? By murdering the librarian, attempting to murder Davey and trashing the place. This is how one exemplifies the super-villain lifestyle, friends.

And when Davey runs off and gets Magno, what do they return to find? Why, that the Clown has either burned down what appears to be the New York Public Library or merely set fire to enough of its stock  to make a roaring blaze out front, it's hard to tell. Either way, it's a heck of a debut and a real blow to the library sciences.

Now, if you  know anything at all about the Clown it's likely the fact that he is a Nazi, as is reported in Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Supervillains, but after scrubbing through a bunch of his appearances I don't know if that's entirely accurate. He certainly works for the Nazis once or twice but I also found a few instances of him in conflict with them - we shall have to see. What he certainly is, however, is vocally and aggressively anti-patriotic, to the point that he almost manages to burn an American flag before Magno and Davey butt in.

This initial appearance also serve to show off the Clown's scientific acumen: he performs super-leaps thanks to his "degravitating solvent," deploys knockout gas to escape the two in their initial encounter, and even manages to whip up an "anti-magnetic compound" to prevent Magno and Davey from disarming him after experience that humiliation in their first encounter.

Some more details from this lore-packed episode: the Clown has a secret lair in a mausoleum in a nearby cemetery, staffed by a suspiciously compliant lab assistant named Lydia. The Clown, having captured Magno and Davey, has plans to vivisect them and learn the secret of their powers.

Though the Clown and Lydia have coated the entire lair in anti-magnetic compound they neglected to consider the pipes in the walls, and the whole place is soon awash (this is how Sub-Zero captured Professor X in their first encounter, too. Villains: look into PVC piping). The compound is washed away in the flood, allowing Magno and Davey to recommence the beating.

The Clown is unsurprisingly not up-to-date on the latest lab safety guidelines and so the fight is only a couple of punches in before some shoddily-stored chemicals end up causing a huge explosion. Magno and Davey are fine, of course, as is Lydia, who - surprise, surprise - turns out to have been mind controlled into being the Clown's lab assistant. And of course the Clown is fine. You simply don't kill off a character like that after one appearance, after all. For our purposes, though, it'll be some months until he returns.

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 017

The science is flying fast and loose in here.

Professor Krauss' theories about a method for passing matter through matter were scorned and laughed at, so he turned them to crime, killing three and robbing the New York subtreasury*. Unfortunately for him he also gave an interview about his theories, which really helped research-savvy reporter Chic Carter track down and capture him. (Smash Comics 011, 1940)

*A Note on Subtreasuries: A frequent target for theft in the Golden Age or at least one that I've encountered 3-6 times, the New York Subtreasury was part of a US financial management system that distributed the storage of US gold reserves, but, critically, was phased out in 1920. I don't know what all these guys were after in there but there sure wasn't any gold.

Professor Abbot, disgraced former physics instructor at Stamton College, has developed a machine capable of paralyzing the population of a small city long enough for his men to rob it blind, but since the device also disrupts electrical signals this draws the attention of lineman Tom Dalton, aka Magno, the Magnetic Man. Abbot proves to be unusually well-prepared for the appearance of the local super-hero at his hideout and disables Magno with a prepared dose of knockout gas, which is really, really impressive, I have to say. 

Abbot's downfall comes in the form of every villain's worst enemy, the deathtrap. Sure, slinging Magno down a well to slowly drown is satisfying, in an evil kind of way, but it introduces the possibility of him escaping from the trap, and if he does that then you are screwed. Just stab him with a wooden stake or something if you need to avoid using metal!

Anyway, Magno of course escapes from the trap and ends up blowing Abbot, his machine, his hideout and his gang to high heaven by the medium of some hastily smashed up mad science equipment. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

This unnamed scientist does a bit of old-fashioned grave robbing in order to get only the finest parts for his frankenstein (though the fact that he made sure to include the brain of a scholar doesn't seem to have played out in the mentality of the creature) which he then uses a growth hormone on and makes huge, super strong and bulletproof. Dubbed Brutus and deemed unstoppable, this creation is sent out to loot and plunder.

I always appreciate it when a character has to contend with a foe who is their rough equivalent from time to time - this is part of the appeal of Hellboy, for example - and Brutus offers just that opportunity for Bozo the Iron Man, being essentially a Bozo-shaped and-sized human of equivalent strength. Brutus manages to win the day in their first encounter by hitting Bozo over the head hard enough that Hugh Hazzard is knocked out through the armour of his robo-suit, but their second bout results in the deaths of both Brutus and his unnamed creator. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

Across the US, buildings, trains, planes and ships begin sailing off into the sky, accompanied by a totally radical visual effect of a giant green mummy that I'm not 100% certain is actually visible to regular non-comic-reading witnesses - it's never commented on in any case, and if I saw a giant mummy carry a train off into the void I assure you that you would hear me speak of little else.

The culprit turns out to be one Doctor Robb, an unscrupulous archaeologist who murdered his colleague Professor Hill in order to steal an ancient artifact called the Power of Tutkamen (named after original owner Ra Tutkamen, natch).

Robb presumably refines his control over the power, as he seems to be using it to plunder passing shipping from his island base and that's hard to do if you're just blasting ships and planes into orbit. The party comes to an end once the Invisible Hood gets involved, as Robb discovers to his chagrin that having the power to levitate anything you see doesn't help you very much in a confrontation with an invisible guy. Rather than be captured, Robb does a header out the window of his lighthouse HQ. (Smash Comics 016, 1940)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 019

We may have gotten away from the "costumed" and "generic" is debatable but you can take the "villain" from my cold dead hands. 

This guy is part of a gang who:

-broke into Fort Knox via a secret tunnel

-smashed up up all of the gold and mixed it into stone in a nearby quarry

-transported that gold-bearing stone from the quarry to a mansion

-melted down the gold and concealed it inside a series of bronze statues

And while I suppose that you want to take a lot of care to conceal your movements when you are looting the US gold reserve I just have to be on record as saying that this is an unnecessarily complex scheme. Just book it for the border, fellows!

Also Dynamo, stung by the razzing of government investigators, gilds the entire gang... thus killing them? before turning them in. Brutal stuff. (Science Comics 002, 1940)

This very cool looking but unnamed spy chief has developed anti-Dynamo technology that renders him immune to the various beams and rays that usually assail the hero's foes, which he uses to make off with some explosive wire that Dynamo and the nerds at his day job have made. He pulls off this theft pretty slickly but then completely fails to recognize the difficulty of attempting to pull off a scheme (in this case blowing up US military installations using explosive wire) while a super-hero is after you. It's a real failure to recognize the opportunity to slay Dynamo while he can't get you, unnamed spy chief! (Science Comics 004, 1940)

John J. Hix, millionaire and asylum escapee, needs to get revenge on his old friend for some reason, so he puts on a cloak that makes him look like the ghost of a cat and hires some crooks to kidnap his friend's daughter Doris Dare (a "society deb singer," which is not a type of entertainer I am familiar with. Was it a thing? It's hard to tell!) so that he can kill her. He is opposed by heroic police inspector the Duke and ends up blowing himself up rather than be captured. (Silver Streak Comics 002, 1940)

The Sky Wolf encounters this goofy-but-also-cool magnetically-shielded fire-breathing duck/dragon/plane as it attacks fishing boats one day and traces it back to a similarly magnetically-shielded base where crooks armed with plastic guns inform him that all of this is essentially prep work in advance of setting up a smuggling operation.

Now, issues of whether the expense involved in setting up this operation might cut substantially into any profits realized from it or indeed whether simply selling this magnetic bullet shield to one of the many armies extant in 1940 might be more profitable aside... my admittedly layman's understanding of how smuggling works is that you really want to keep it as quiet as possible. Maybe I'm naive, but establishing a huge messy monster-infested exclusion zone might just... draw more attention to your operation? Like a masked pilot, for example? 

Anyway, they all get blown up. (Silver Streak Comics 006, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 621: THE EMERALD MEN OF ASPERUS

(Fantastic Comics 008, 1940)

The Emerald Men of Asperus live on an asteroid (named Asperus, natch), and I'm pretty sure that their plan is to move the Earth to the Asteroid Belt so that they can easily enslave as many Earthlings as they want, but it's a bit hard to grok because the way the Emerald Men talk makes it plausible that they don't know how the Solar System works. Like, it's possible that they don't know that Earth and Asperus orbit the same star? This is all further complicated by the fact that the Emerald Men kind of look like the Chad of Virgin/Chad meme fame. None of them actually do that super floppy walk of his but you can see it happening in a Fletcher Hanks comic and it's distracting.

Stardust the Super Wizard of course is on this plan immediately. Stealing and enslaving a whole planet? Not on his watch.

Once Stardust stops the Emerald Men's original barrage of planetary-control gas missiles, they make the unusual and very confident decision to attempt to tackle him head-on. And it seems like they might actually be a credible threat: 15-20 muscular dudes with a similar level of outlandish technology to his? AND they're ray-proof, an amazing thing to be when you're taking on Stardust "I have a ray for every occasion" the Super Wizard.

But no, even without his signature rays Stardust is still something like twice the size of the average Emerald Man and he swiftly uppercuts every single on of them into submission.

Even their last-ditch effort, involving anti-star-metal acid bombs designed to destroy the suit that houses most of Stardust's power, fizzles due to the playground logic of Super Wizard stories as he merely emits a cloud of acid-proof dust to explode them before they reach him.

The Emerald Men get off pretty easy for Stardust foes, particularly now that we know that being frozen but conscious forever is an option. They and their asteroid home are merely banished to the far reaches of space. A comparative mercy!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 603: THE MAD GIANT

(Fantastic Comics 004, 1940)

The Mad Giant is another Fletcher Hanks villain with a straightforward motivation: civilization has ruined his domination of a slave group (presumably a tribal society as he refers to them by the formerly much-used and now depricated term "savage") and so he is simply going to end civilization. And given the method that he has chosen - pumping the Earth full of a chemical that will raise its temperature and cause widespread geologic upheaval - he might just be trying to destroy the planet itself!

(the exact circumstances of the Mad Giant losing his slaves are left as unexplored as those of him being such a big beefcake. He just did and he just is)

The Mad Giant might just have the most rational plan to deal with Stardust the Super Wizard of any of his foes. Like most of them he seems to have a pretty good inkling that Stardust will show up, so a barrage of missiles (anti-ray missiles, natch) to delay, incapacitate or destroy him will hopefully buy enough time for the Giant and his lil' pal Kamet to finish destroying the planet. Too bad for the Mad Giant that he is very easily fooled: Stardust fakes his own death and ends up taking them by surprise on his second approach.

Giant or no, it's all over once Stardust gets close enough to put those big mitts on you. The Mad Giant is knocked silly and summarily whisked off to... prison? What an odd place for a Stardust villain to end his days. I assume Kamet gets a pass because there's a high chance he was there against his will.