MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 021

None of this science is mad or criminal peer reviewed. 

This fellow attempts to blackmail Dynamo's unnamed home city by various methods, including Causing and then threatening further widespread destruction with his "liquid air" freeze cannon and kidnapping city council members and then subjecting some of them to a frankly horrific bone liquefying ray. 

The main problem with him is honestly the fact that he has no established name. He does go by "Miss Monda" while he is posing as the mayor's secretary in order to get the inside scoop on how his extortion attempts are going, which turns out to be his downfall when he is dewigged by Dynamo. Also, I just realized that in that last panel you can see that he is in fact wearing a full suit under the Miss Monda dress, making this the most improbable disguise in comics by my reckoning. (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

Dr Z here has long been working on a mind-reading device, to no avail. He arranges for psychologist Larry Hunter to arrive at his isolated mansion in the hopes that forcing him to collaborate on the invention will lead to some sort of breakthrough, and it does! Alas for Dr Z, as s is so often the case in such stories the new technology is then turned on its villainous facilitator, as Hunter uses Dr Z'z own thoughts to show him how to eliminate the murderous scientist using his own deathtrap. 

Hunter was probably supposed to go on to use the Thought Receiver to fight more crime in future adventures but as with so many of the denizens of Wham Comics he was never seen again. (Wham Comics 002, 1940)

The mad Dr Chow operates a wax museum at the New York World's Fair that he stocks with living humans who he has frozen with a weird drug. Why is he doing this? It's unclear, but the top three answers that I can think of are : 1. for kicks, 2. for cash and 3. as a way of testing out the formula. He is captured by private detective Dan Dare, and unsettlingly there is no nod to the idea of thawing out the doctor's victims, even though they are implied to still be alive in some way. (Whiz Comics 006, 1940)

I had a lot of rising expectations as the character of Dr Lleh was introduced. Firstly, he was pretty clearly telegraphed to be a former member of a Tibetan archaeological expedition who was consumed by revenge after being dismissed for theft and was now haunting the countryside with his horde of experimental subjects. Secondly, his name is "Hell" backwards.

The good times continue, as Dr Lleh derails the Orient Express (a train that historically did not travel through Tibet) in order to acquire more experimental subjects, only to find that Professor Davis - the very man who wad fired him! - was aboard, along with his daughter, plus indomitable detective Dr Fung and his assistant Dan Barrister. All four are away not just to the Temple of Hades but under it, to "Dr Lleh's Kingdom of Hades" (no I do not know what a temple to Hades is doing in Tibet).

All my hopes are dashed once Dr Lleh's actual style of experimentation is revealed. Bribing two big dudes with llama steak (no I do not know how this guy is getting llama steak in Tibet) to pull a woman's arms off is not research that would be publishied in even mad science journals, Dr Lleh. I hate to say it but I'm glad that Dr Fung blows you up.  (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 825: PROFESSOR FENTON

(Thrilling Comics 004, 1940) 

A wave of kidnappings is sweeping the US! Important men are disappearing left and right! Never fear, however, for the Ghost is on the case, and thanks to his magical acumen he is able to trace the latest kidnappee to the mysterious mansion lair of the culprit: the pompadoured scientist known as Professor Fenton! 

Professor Fenton's plan turns out to be unusually, even impractically complicated. To whit: 

1. kidnap all of America's Important Men

2. stash the Important Men in various historical periods using a time machine

3. take over the US (though unstated, the lack of Important Men is probably part of the prep for this step)

4. bring back the Important Men, who will be forced to serve Fenton in this new regime

The Ghost is of course opposed to this plan, and proceeds to rescue the first batch of Important Men from the past. But there is a problem! The Ghost does not know where or when the other men are stashed, plus he suspects that Fenton would rather destroy his own time machine than see them rescued. This sets up the ongoing Ghost/Fenton dynamic for the next few issues, as the Ghost arranges various ruses and schemes in order to be sent in time to rescue Fenton's victims while keeping Fenton himself in the dark.

Some of Fenton's temporal kidnap setups include:

A prehistoric past rich with both dinosaurs and early man. The Ghost recruits a tribe of Piltdown Men to battle Professor Fenton's Neanderthal followers. (Thrilling Comics 004, 1940)

A castle in Arthurian England, that the Ghost storms with the help of the Knights of the Round Table, armed with magically-created machine guns. (Thrilling Comics 005, 1940)

Just an inn in the middle of Commonwealth-era London. The innkeeper is clearly a local, so of course I am very curious about how the Fenton's recruitment process goes - does he just appear in people's houses until he finds one willing to hold prisoners for cash, no questions asked?  (Thrilling Comics 006, 1940)

This issue is also the first time that Fenton tries to get his chosen nom de guerre, "Dictator F" going, but it never quite manages to get traction. He does keep trying!

Fenton's temporal hiding places have one important criteria: they act as a fixed point in time and space that he can target with his time beam. This is why this next one being in the ship, a notoriously mobile space, is strange. Sure, Professor Fenton has paid off the owners of the vessel not to go anywhere, but if he had bothered to take a look at the ship's name he might have noted that it was in fact the Santa Maria, of Christopher Columbus fame, and concluded that he might be better off storing his victims elsewhere. 

The Ghost and these two Important Men end up making the journey to the New World with Columbus before heading home. Considering the fact that Fenton-style time travel is depicted as if the same amount of time is taking place in the present as the past, this really throws the Ghost timeline out of whack with the real world. (Thrilling Comics 007, 1940)

Fenton finally starts working toward his conquest of the present by stealing an electrical ray weapon that he stashes in Ancient Rome, c.64 CE, which inadvertently leads to the Great Fire of Rome. (Thrilling Comics 008, 1940)

Fenton's final foray into his kidnapping plan (for 1940, at least) involves hotshot bacteriologist Tom Rollins, who is stashed in Colonial America, 1776, while his stockpile of diseases is unleashed on the public in an attempt to blackmail Rollins' home city of Duquesne. The Ghost not only rescues Rollins but helps Washington cross the Delaware and also meets his long-time love interest Betty Morris, a Revolutionary spy who decides to ditch the humdrum 1770s for the exciting 1940s. (Thrilling Comics 009, 1940)

From Thrilling Comics 010 on, the Ghost basically just lets Professor Fenton, a multiple-time mass murderer and mass-kidnapper, remain at large so that he can sneak into Fenton's lab and use his time machine whenever he wants. I'm sure that if someone pointed that out then the Ghost would say something about there still being some Important Men to be saved, but I'm not sure if they're worth the body count.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 732: THE DOC

(Silver Streak Comics 003, 1940)

Like his super-heroic enemy the Silver Streak, the Doc's story is complicated somewhat by the fact that it begins as an effort by Jack Binder and ends as one by Jack Cole. In the former, the Doc is a mysterious figure who is orchestrating the deaths of the drivers of Silver Streak race cars via giant fly attacks. The reason for this? Never made clear. 

Once the Swami and his race crew are seemingly out of business for good, the giant fly turns to more conventional crime in an effort to extort what will eventually turn out to be New York City for 20 million dollars. This is both where we learn that the fly was created by Dr Katan, a mad zoologist and  also presumably the one writing notes signed "the Fly".

Though the New York authorities feel that they have no choice but to capitulate to the Fly's demands, the Silver Streak has other ideas, and uses his hypnotically-enhanced physique to send the beast to a messy end.

The Fly may be defeated and the monies returned, but Dr Katan is still out there, still capable of creating giant insects...

Dropping the "Katan" (and also the "tor") and now known also as "the Doc", the villain's second appearance is comparatively low stakes, with only one little extortion-based kidnapping before he is forced to marshal all of his insects and arachnids against a Silver Streak out for revenge. the real highlight is these cool-ass stinger bugs - if only there were little gremlinoid insects running around on two legs shooting spikes out of there mouths at one another.

Unfortunately for the Doc, by his second appearance he is up against the super speed Silver Streak rather than the car driving one, so his various arthropods are disposed of and he is captured in fairly short order.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 709: RACKO

(Prize Comics 002, 1940)

Though he went unnamed in his first appearance, this tonsured fellow is Racko, alien magic man Jupiter's most enduring foe at a whopping three encounters. Racko's first outing involved a classic pyramid scheme structure as he sent mutated green humans with horn noses out into the New York streets to kidnap more humans to turn into more minions, and so on until he controlled the world. Ironically, this might be a slightly more ethical version of the typical pyramid scheme, as his minions were under no illusions that they might eventually become wealthy if they sold enough tights or what have you.

A bunch of what turns out to be fairly dim-witted minions is just not enough to contend with a magic-using alien super-hero, even when bolstered by a paralysis ray cannon, and Racko is forced to restore his henchmen to human form before seemingly taking his own life via some handily exposed wires.

Racko fans need not despair, as it turns out that he survived! His new plan: drain all of the reservoirs that supply NYC until the Governor of New York is forced to bow to his demands for some ray gun plans and the Governor's daughter Joan.

(just why the Governor has these plans is not explored in the text, so we must assume that they are associated with the office. A gubernatorial death ray, as it were)

Perhaps in an overreaction to the poor showing that his monsterized henchmen put on in his last scheme, Racko uses the death ray on his own men after they secure it for him. They probably wouldn't have offered much assistance when Jupiter and his pal Jim Johnson show up at the volcano base immediately afterward, but even a useless henchman can serve as a distraction. As it stands, Racko ends up falling to his death in the depth of a volcano that is subsequently blown up by Jupiter. Gone for good, I'd say.

I have called it too soon, as Racko is in fact not dead yet again and is taking another pass at world conquest, this time by launching "boulder storms" from his hideout at the South Pole, and here I think that I have some constructive criticism for him: mad science or no, attempt to conquer the world or no... stop attacking New York City first. You're sitting at the South Pole, man - chuck a few boulders at Australia to test out your equipment before you do the thing that you know will attract Jupiter's attention because he live in New York.

Jupiter sails through Racko's defenses as easily as ever, despite the best efforts of some unaligned ice dragons, and the third time proves to be the charm as far as blowing him and his entire operations to smithereens with alien magic goes. Good by Racko;

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 692: THE MASTER

(Pep Comics 008, 1940) 

It's an old story, even this early in the history of comics: someone has developed a method for mass murdering people and is attempting to use it to extort money from a city, or else. In this case that person calls himself the Master and that method is some sort of electrical wave.

The Comet of course is not cool with this kind of blatant super-villainy, particularly as he is still trying to rebuild his reputation after murdering dozens of people while hypnotized that one time. Lucky for him, the Master's electric wave is vulnerable to the Comet's disintegration ray for some reason - maybe it's a Rock Paper Scissors situation and there's a third form of energy that counters the Comet but can be defeated by the Master.

Not content to admit defeat, the Master tries another classic gambit: he captures newswoman Thelma Gordon after correctly surmising that her repeated Comet-related front page scoops might indicate that she has some sort of connection to the man himself. And it works! The Comet is lured to a selected location and trapped in a glass net (because glass is the only material left unharmed by the Comet's deadly eye beam and the Comet has had zero success in keeping that information under wraps). Unfortunately for the Master, catching someone in a glass net is not quite the checkmate move he assumed it was and he ends up on the wrong end of a death ray blast.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 670: WINGS

(Masked Marvel 001, 1940)

Wings is the otherwise-unnamed leader of a gang with a pretty good gimmick: model planes loaded with explosives and rigged with a device that homes in on magnets. Using these, they cause a series of "mysterious explosions" at banks, etc, and loot to their hearts' content in the ensuing chaos.

The real key thing about a scheme like this is that it works best when there is a sense of fear and confusion. If you don't know how, why or when these explosions are happening then they are effectively impossible to guard against, after all. The problem with this is that neither Wings nor his gang are constitutionally suited to subtlety. Some examples:

-beating up a kid in public in order to secure a lost model plane.

-attempting to assassinate the Masked Marvel several times, including once when he was just mildly suspicious of the guy who beat up the kid, once by blowing up a police station and once in such a way that he was able to completely figure out how the plane-bombs worked.

-demanding that the city turn over the Masked Marvel to the gang or else they would conduct a series of bombings across the city.

-signing the ransom note "Wings".

All this malarky erodes the gang's mystique and allows them to tracked down and captured with relative ease. A model plane is only innocuous if you don't know about model planes with bombs in them after all.

The Masked Marvel continues to rule, by the way.