MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 826: THE BIG BOSS

(Thrilling Comics 005, 1940)

Things are bad in New York City: the city is corrupt seemingly from top to bottom, civic leader Henry Adams has had enough of it, and his zeal is infectious: Doc Strange sets out to clean up the municipal landscape and beats up a wide variety of crooked politicians and businessmen, including:

- District Attorney Big Bill Roberts

- Lawyer Ollie Saunders 

- Contractor Alfred Quinn

- Brewer Von Strohm

- a bunch of unnamed gangsters and arsonists 

Almost all of them (save Roberts and the odd gangster) end up dead, which leaves Doc Savage to find the head honcho, the Bog Boss, and put an end to the source of the corruption.

The Big Boss makes a valiant attempt to turn Strange's planned ambush against him, but even a very large knife is never going to be enough for that, and he is swiftly subdued and unmasked as - wouldn't you know it - civic leader Henry Adams, who's tough-on-crime act was a mere facade calculated to throw suspicion off of himself. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 338: THE BANDIT FORCE

(Master Comics 004, 1940)

This is a simple one because it's simply a matter of scale, plus the fact that everyone involved is wearing a stylish purple cloak/ robe combo. A mass of bandits loot arsenals across the Eastern US, stealing tanks, artillery and armoured cars. Panic ensues!

Soon enough, the band makes its goals known with a bold attack on that sweetest of targets: Fort Knox. And they almost get away with it! They actually have the gold loaded up and are speeding away before second-rate Fawcett character Master Man shows up and absolutely ruins everyone's day.

And of course the leader of the pack turns out to be the unnamed altruistic banker who somehow manages to sit in on every meeting about how to deal with the situation. What a surprise!

ADDENDUM: I absolutely forgot to mention the most notable if underplayed thing about these guys: they use golden bullets for some unstated reason. A bizarre choice for a buncha gold thieves!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 260: THE SIX BIG MEN

(Marvel Comics v1 001, 1939)

The Six Big Men ain't much, just a bunch of guys who teamed up to do the maximum amount of Crime possible in an unidentified American city. But I am including them in this list, for two reasons: 1. they're the first even marginal minor super-villains in Marvel Comics (I of course know about Timely Comics, pedants, but I round up) history, and 2. the Six Big Men are actually Seven Big Men and One Big Woman, and I love me some nominative misdirection.

So it's like this: the Six Big Men work for Dr Lang (above, middle, bottom) and his associate Lil, with an agreement to split all earnings evenly at the end of one year. Lang and Lil, preferring to reap the entire profit themselves, hatch a plot that involves Lang forming a citizen's group to combat crime and influencing that group to bring in bigger-deal-in-the--golden-Age super-hero the Angel to kill everyone.

And it almost works! The Angel kills basically everyone! The one flaw, of course, is that Lang does very little to cover his tracks and also drew attention to himself in the first place. Ah well, it's early days in the Timely Marvel Universe.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 194: THE SCREW

(Crack Comics 009, 1941)

I'll be honest: the Screw is about as generic as it gets. He's a hooded gang boss who runs a protection racket and just so happens to turn out to be the very head of the Chamber of Commerce who has been pressuring the police to take care of this awful Screw Gang. Pretty regular costumed villain stuff: his only real point of distinction is his fairly cool name.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 174: THE LIMPING MUMMY

(Bulletman 002, 1941)

I cannot tell a lie: I love a fake mummy. I can't help it - there's something about a crook going to the trouble of wrapping themself up in old linen that is very endearing to me. And as with our friend here, they often have a modifier to distinguish them from the workaday mummies that you see everywhere. They're a Golden Mummy or a Missing Mummy, or, as with our boy here, a Limping Mummy.

The actual reason for mummying up is usually the same: disguise yourself so that you can rob a museum or steal some Egyptian artifacts or steal some Egyptian artifacts from a museum. The reason our guy is a limping mummy is that he decided to add another layer to his disguise and throw suspicion on Benhurst the museum director, who walks with a cane.

And then, he attempts a third layer of obfuscation by using his civilian identity, newspaper editor Jason Hilder, to slam the police for not being able to deal with all these mummy crimes! This is actually a terrible idea, since Hilder wasn't at all involved before and he actually ends up getting caught because he takes it too far and attacks Sergeant Kent of the police for... some reason? The Limping Mummy's plot doesn't really hold together is I guess what I've been trying to lay out here.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 171: THE VOICE

(Bulletman 001, 1940)

There is a pretty broad swath of the super-villain community (and an even larger cohort of generic costumed villains) who have the common origin of being respectable members of society who need a second identity to head a gang or catburgle or do murders under the guise of.

The gang leaders tend to stick to a few different styles of dress: there's the domino mask wearers, the executioners-style hood guys and the more cautious head-to-toe robe wearers. The Voice here is part of a very specific type of these guys who only appear in silhouette - not particularly common, probably because it ends up tying them pretty thoroughly to a specific locale.

The Voice doesn't have too much to distinguish him: he's running for district attorney and making a lot of political hay out of all the crimes being committed by the gang he himself is running. The really unusual thing about him is that he and his gang find out Bulletman's secret identity over the course of the story and then... nothing. They go to jail, with none of the usual mind-wipes, elaborate deceptions or gruesome deaths that usually ensure that those who learn a hero's secrets do not retain them. Just between 4 and 10 hardened crooks nursing that knowledge as they are taken away by the police. Remarkable stuff!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 086: THE MASTERMIND OF CRIME

(Blue Beetle Comics 003, 1940)

A lot of these early Blue Beetle villains are real basic so I'm not even going to bother with the questions.

Mastermind of Crime: very good hood, attempts to take over NYC York City, turns out to actually be the civic reformer who has been raising a stink over all this organized crime all over the place.