MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 505: MARTO

(Blue Bolt v1 006, 1940) 

Blue Bolt is a fine comic book character in the classic setting of a vast underground world full of sci-fi/fantasy concepts but 100% the best thing about him is that 10 or so of his first dozen appearances were by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon and boy does Marto here show it. Just look at this classic Kirby creation!

Marto was originally Martin Hall, a scientist who accidentally bombarded himself with the very cosmic rays he had been studying and found himself mutated into your prototypical future human: big brain, tiny shrivelled body and compulsion to change his name to something short that sounds like an Australian gave him a nickname. 

"Martin Hall" doesn't sound like a Voltoran name to me (they trend more to things like Count Gorth, Major Kadronin and Captain Drogar), so Marto presumably made his way to the Green Sorceress' underground kingdom from the surface in his little chair-bot.

Marto's initial offer is to help the Green Sorceress in her quest to conquer the underground world but he pretty swiftly reveals that he is a little incel creep and his real plan is to either stick his head on Blue Bolt's body or to merely transfer his mind into Blue Bolt's head. Either way, his next step is to mate with a mind-controlled Green Sorceress, create a super-race and subjugate the world (and the way that he says this makes it clear that he is racist against everyone). 100% creep, in other words.

Luckily for literally everyone, Marto failed to factor "armed resistance" into his plans and he is crushed by rubble during an attack by Doctor Bertoff's air force.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 453: PROFESSOR MALUSKI

(Mystic Comics v1 001, 1941)

Professor Maluski is the first foe faced by the Blue Blaze after his hibernative period and while he has a lot of cool stuff (huge underground base full of crazy machines, gangster henchmen, a weird gem that flies under its own power and drags its target along in a tractor beam, etc) the real reason that he is getting his own entry rather than being tossed in the next Mad Science Round-Up is the same reason that the Blue Blaze was woken up by a couple of grave robbers: Professor Maluski is making science zombies.

And not just any science zombies! This is the only full-length view we get of any of them but it appears that they are in fact the upper thirds of human corpses, floating around on columns of light. Probably. It's a wild and eerie visual and a real shame that it's not highlighted more.

Professor Maluski of course learns too late that you gotta build in a few more safeguards when constructing an army of the undead, as his control unit is smashed in a fight with the Blue Blaze and he is killed in the subsequent zombie rampage. I could take or leave the professor himself, but his science zombie tech is so neat that I demand that it be BRUNG BACK by some enterprising young villain - we're overdue for a take on urban exploration that involves old super-villain lairs.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 269: THE BRAIN OF PROFESSOR DONAIRE

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 015, 1941) 

I must admit that I was predisposed to give Professor Donaire the benefit of the doubt, given that where I'm from a donair is a delicious late night drunken street food. But he didn't need it! Even with a non-snack-based name, Prof. Donaire would be a terrific villain.

Having said that: Prof. Donaire is a real dummy. He suffers from exactly the same failure of imagination as our old pal Python: that nobody would bother to investigate the nearby vicinity when large numbers of corpses are found in quick succession.

But the similarities to Python don't end there! Like Python, Donaire lives in an old stone structure (a temple rather than a castle, buts still) retrofitted with a modern lab, has a big bald goon with a K name (Karlo to Python's Kreeper) and the corpses he's dumping are sans brain.

Unlike Python, Prof Donaire has no interest in the brains of his victims. No, he's a body thief. He's scooped out his own brain and put it in a jar and now can control five seperate bodies on the 40s equivalent of a Local Area Network. And as always with any kind of body part thief, Donaire is just salivating at the thought of adding a toned super-hero bod to his collection.

Luckily for the Angel, merely having the bodies of a bunch of athletes does not grant Donaire the reflexes or fighting abilities of their original owners. Likewise, being able to mobilize four bodies for a melee doesn't convey the ability to coordinate their attacks. The Angel is perfectly fine.

All good things come to an end, however, and Professor Donaire learns a bit too late the primary rule of having an disembodied brain: don't just, like, put it on a shelf or other easily accessed location in a glass jar. In this particular case, Donaire ends up setting his own lab (and therefore brain) on fire but the Angel would have been completely justified in nailing it with a jump-kick.

In conclusion: the Brain of Professor Donaire should absolutely be BRUNG BACK.