MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 786: THE TIGER MAN

(Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

The Tiger Man (also referred to as the much snappier Tiger Mask in one panel but I reckon that was just some sort of lettering error or other style of brain glitch) is a fellow in an extremely cool cowl mask who is trying to corner the pearl market in the South Seas using some very crooked tactics, such as sticking pearl bed owner Rita van Dyke on a raft and abandoning her at sea. Only the intervention of Flash Lightning saves her, and he only knows to do so because the Old Man of the Pyramids tells him to.

This is in many ways a fun little adventure, marred frequently by the threat being stated as "those dastardly South Seas natives trying to steal the pearl trade from the virtuous white people" (barely a paraphrase).

Eventually, the Tiger Man is unmasked and it turns out that he didn't kill Rita's uncle as she had thought but rather that he was her uncle and that in addition to the harrowing near-death experience she just had she is going to have to really reevaluate a lifetime of memories and maybe have some serious talks with any other parents/cousins/etc who might be kicking around. Talk about an awkward next Thanksgiving dinner, am I right?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 741: THE MASKED ONE

(Smash Comics 007, 1940)

Sometimes a villain is as simple as a hooded gun-runner called the Masked One, and that's who we have here. Also, he is captured by Quality Comics adventure character Abdul the Arab, a name that isn't technically problematic but sure does make the corner of your eye twitch when you read it (plus the comics it appears in meet all the problematic specifications, so your eye is right to react).

The Masked One is actually Webb, a character who could not be more clearly signposted as the prime suspect if his name was Eno Deksam but who elicits the same amount of surprise when unmasked as Abdul's own mother might. Perhaps he was just giving the Masked One the benefit of the doubt in not assuming he'd be so obvious.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 040

Lev Gleason's finest!

Lance Hale:

Lance Hale is a soldier of fortune and jungle adventurer who is notable mainly for the fact that in his first appearance he is given super strength by a fellow with the pleasing name of Dr Grantland Grey so that he can help out on an expedition to the stars, and then after returning to Earth he just... stops using the armband that gives him his enhanced strength. He keeps on adventuring, don't get me wrong, but as a regular jungle guy, ie, a colonialist race science fantasy figure. 

Hale is slightly more interesting than his contemporaries in the jungle guy community by virtue of the variety of situations that he gets in: there's the initial space trip that ends up turning into an interdimensional one and then a battle with invading animal men from a parallel world, a delve into a lost underground kingdom in which he incidentally becomes immortal, cursed demon-summoning gemstone action... I assume that the thrills are eventually going to stop coming but 1940 was almost all hits. (Silver Streak Comics 002, 1940)

Mister Midnite **HERO UPDATE**:

As you may or may not recall, Mister Midnite is a hero in the classic formal wear style who has one very specific power, to stop clocks by yelling "time stop!" Well! So we thought! It turns out that in his second appearance, Midnite demonstrates a second power, that of being teleported to a vaguely defined location, and also when he has shouts "time stop!" I really wish that there were more than two Mister Midnite stories so that we would have some more data to use in piecing all this together, but as of now I must assume that he has some sort of vaguely defined wishing power and that "time stop!" is its trigger phrase, like Johnny Thunder and "say you." (Silver Streak Comics 002, 1940)

the Silver Streak:

The Silver Streak! Is notable for two (2) reasons, the first of which is that he is a the-title-of-the-comic-book character who doesn't show up until issue 3, which is the opposite to how it often works, where the title character goes from proudly front and centre to gone in as many issues.

The second and more interesting thing about the Silver Streak is his origin, which I have tried and failed to summarize in paragraph form, so here goes as bullet points:

- the Silver Streak is a race car, or rather a series of race cars because every Silver Streak crashes, killing the driver. Nobody wants to drive for the Silver Streak team. The cars are crashing because they are being attacked by a giant fly.

- the Silver Streak's owner is Hindu mystic known only as the Swami. When an unnamed cab driver volunteers to drive the Silver Streak, the Swami hypnotizes him to be a great race car driver.

- the unnamed driver is immediately killed by a giant fly.

- BUT! The Swami has a hunch that the man is not in fact dead! He and a pal go to the cemetery and dig up the driver's unmarked grave, and they are proved right! And what's more, the prior hypnotic conditioning combined with the near-death experience has made the man (henceforth the Silver Streak) superhuman!

The first adventure of the Silver Streak concludes with him stealing the latest prototype of his namesake car and using it to destroy the giant fly that "killed" him, and as presented he seems to have been on track to be a car-based super-hero. However, between Silver Streak Comics 003 and 004, the character was handed off from Jack Binder to Jack Cole and the Silver Streak became a guy with super speed, no car required. I don't know if his origin is ever revised, but I do know that the Silver Streak has several sidekicks over the years and that they all get their powers via a blood transfusion from the man himself, so something's going on there. Unless his blood was hypnotized too, of course - the Swami never returns, so his deal is never fully explored.

Like a lot of super speed characters, the Silver Streak ends up being more about cool speed tricks than having a distinct personality, but he's a fun read nonetheless. (Silver Streak Comics 003, 1940)

Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor:

We love to see a boy inventor, if only because our brains have been warped enough by the Venture Brothers that we can't help but imagine their dysfunctional adulthood, and by "we" I mean "I". Dickie Dean here is particularly good fodder for that little thought experiment, as he is compelled to sign over his inventions to the US government by his misplaced sense of patriotism, so he's either in for a rude awakening or an increasingly delusional relationship to reality as he gets older. 

Some inventions that Dickie fails to patent in 1940 include: 

- a device that can replay sound waves and visualize shadows up to 2-3 weeks old

- a device designed to stop all war by making air as thick as molasses and thus preventing bullets etc from moving fast enough to do harm (importantly, this air is still breathable)

- an enclosed, submersible speedboat equipped with a device that abates flood waters via rapid electrolysis

He does sell a magnetic antigravity device for use as a mid-air brake for airplanes, but only because his father is in dire financial straits.

Dickie Dean is also interesting for the fact that he is from New Castle, Pennsylvania, a real place with a regular amount of history but not otherwise a big name in city circles. Also I just reread the bit where I roasted Dickie for giving away his patents and I want to make it cleat that the part I think is foolish is giving them to, like, the FBI, not donating them to humanity. (Silver Streak Comics 003, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 595: THE VOICE

(Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

Captain Kidd and his pal Freddy land on the... Southeast Asian? island of Morgia, known to be rich in gold but critically not to ever export that gold. As the heroes of the piece, Kidd and Freddy are of course there to just look around and seeing the sights, not to scoop up a bunch of gold on the cheap. Certainly not.

Instead of free gold tourist hotspots they find dozens of local people dead of that one torture where a bamboo plant grows through you. The one living guy they find takes them to an elaborate temple with a flooded tunnel entrance.

Inside, the duo find a cloaked man referred to only as the Voice, who appears to be running a combination cult and scam where he gets gold in exchange for whiskey. He's also responsible for the bamboo torture outside if his hilarious non-apology is anything to go on, though why he's having people killed is never elaborated on. 

The Voice's entire scheme relies on the flooded entrance to keep firearms from entering the temple, a measure that Captain Kidd has defeated by putting his pistol in Freddy's hat. Suddenly, all bets are off!

The Voice makes his escape while Captain Kidd is dealing with his huge goon Twist but unfortunately for him this is a case of Chekhov's Flooded Tunnel and he drowns during his escape attempt.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 591: THE CULT OF DEATH

(Exciting Comics 006, 1940)

The Cult of Death comes into conflict with adventurer Ted Crane and his pals as they look for their associate, Egyptologist Dr Turner, in Luxor. Despite its very evocative name, the Cult of Death seems to sort of broadly worship the concept of Ancient Egypt and resent those who would pry into its secrets - Dr Turner has in fact been killed by them for seeking the lost tomb of King Mephtet.

Does the cult's leader Phator shares his followers' beliefs? It's up for debate, but whether it is for the glory of the Cult of Death or that of himself he seeks to drive the colonial forces out of Egypt and assume control.

For unclear reasons the keystone of Phator's plane is the destruction of the Aswan Dam (or "Assuan Dam" as it is called here), which, granted, would flood part of Egypt. How exactly that would lead to the Cult of Death's ascension to power is never spelled out.

It's a moot point anyway, as Phator has sent his two most clownish dunces to place the bomb on the dam and they end up not only blowing themselves up but only flooding the region that the Temple of Death is located in. The entire Cult is wiped out save fore Phator himself, who must face colonial justice on his own.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 583: THE SPACE EMPEROR

(Exciting Comics 001, 1940) 

The Space Emperor first makes himself known to the solar authorities of 3964 AC (and no, I do not know what the C stands for) by either sending or allowing to escape an intelligence agent named Sperling who was investigating trouble on Jupiter for the President of Earth. Sperling has been transformed into a beast-man so horrible to behold that the President's assistant kills him on sight but not before he can get the word out. Clearly, this is a job for Major Mars.

Major Mars beards the Space Emperor in his lair via the classic "pretend to be captured" gag but immediately loses him. It seems that this villain has a few tricks up his sleeve! Specifically, he has acquired "the Magic Belt of the Ancients," an artifact of some long-vanished Jovian race which allows him to become invisible and/or intangible and is presumably also what allows him to turn humans into ape men.

Per his name, the Space Emperor has big big plans for these powers. His first step toward universal domination is to take over Jupiter by both turning the Earth colonists into apes and forging a cult/revolutionary force out of the native Jovians (who absolutely should revolt, let's be clear - the Earth colonists use them as mine labour and limit their rights in some very historically familiar ways). 

While he seems on track to take over Jupiter, the Space Emperor absolutely suffers from a classic excess of ambition. With a movement based on personal appearances and frequent demonstrations of power (not to mention the Jovians' preexisting devotion to the Ancients), he is going to have a heck of a time scaling up even to a conquest of the Solar System without some significant changes.

The Space Emperor is ultimately defeated when Major Mars gets him with a surprise attack and manages to wrest the Belt of the Ancients from him (and this is why you don't advertise the source of your power, folks). He of course turns out to be Vice-Governor Kells, the only extraneous named character in the story, and the day is saved!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 561: LAILANI, QUEEN OF THE VALLEY

(Wonderworld Comics 006, 1939)

It's another Yarko the Great adventure! This time we find Yarko and his companion Li Wan journeying to the isolated Valley of the Moon in Tibet, in search of the fabled Hoshai Plant, which bleeds human blood. And they find it, growing in pools of "moulten lava"! They are also immediately captured by bow-wielding women.

Yarko and the weirdly misogynistic Li Wan are marched back to the women's cave/ palace HQ, where they meet Lailani, Queen of the Valley and learn that she and her followers are all vampires, the unstated implication being that they farm the Hoshai Plant for blood, and here I have to admit that I have a lot of sympathy for the vampires in this here story? Obviously they are framed as villains but if you are an isolated matriarchal society and a white dude rocks up looking for your rare goods I think you're perfectly within your rights to dungeon them immediately.

Also they look really cool and I want that on the record.

(I can't tell if that vampire in green is a statue of if it's a trick of perspective or she's supposed to be really big. Like, she's a vampire, maybe that's one of her vampire powers)

They try to sacrifice Yarko in the fire pit and then shoot him with and arrow and of course hes a dick about it all. Probably because they're  women.

Conventional methods of execution having failed, Lailani engages Yarko in an hours-long mental battle that of course ends in a victory for Yarko and being blasted into a withered husk for Lailani. Yarko and his pal escape and in an unusually merciful move for the intrepid explorers in this kind of situation do not commit casual genocide but instead merely seal the mouth of the vampires' cave behind them as they flee. Yes, somewhere in the world of Yarko the Great this cool society of nigh-identical vampire women persists, led by an old shrivelled prune.

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 003

Once more they ride: the REAL PEOPLE OF COMICS

Abraham Lincoln:

Lincoln's shadow is used to symbolize the power of the US exerting a calming effect on the European belligerents. (Smash Comics 005, 1939)

Adolf Hitler:

Chancellor Rudolf of Wurtberg here is a more dynamic than usual Hitler analog (Smash Comics 004, 1939)

Misc minor appearances:

Getting some bad news about Nazi operations in Yugoslavia (Blue Ribbon Comics 015, 1941)

Captain Kidd:

For no particular reason this aviator/ adventurer is named after him. (Fantastic Comics 001, 1939)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

Discusses the threat of the Black Hand With J. Edgar Hoover (Blue Ribbon Comics 016, 1941)

Misc Minor Appearances: appraised of the danger of invasion by Vlamir Koran (Smash Comics 001, 1939) 

Seen ordering Americans in Europe to return home; meets Black Ace/X after he saves the transports that are returning them. (Smash Comics 003, 1939)

Determines to defensively arm the US (Smash Comics 005, 1939)

H.V. Kaltenborn:

Radio commentator, appears as "H.V. Baltenhorn" (Blue Ribbon Comics 017, 1941)

John Dillinger:

Gangster "Jack Dilger" is vexed by Ty-Gor. (Blue Ribbon Comics 015, 1941) 

Joseph Stalin:

The same 3/4 perspective shot always used for FDR, now in Stalin form! (Smash Comics 002, 1939)

Mahatma Gandhi:

Aside from the pun name "Mohlasos Candhi", this version of Gandhi is hitting a lot of the overt and casually racist checkmarks of the 1940s, including a disregard for the difference between India and the Middle East and a complete indifference for the distinction between Hindus and Muslims. Oh and also it's another classic adventure based on propping up colonial rule. (Blue Ribbon Comics 017, 1941)

Shirley Temple:

As "Curley Semple" ("Dixie Dugan" comic strip, 1935)

Sherlock Holmes:

Philpot Veep (along with his sidekick Waldo) was one of many humourous takes on Sherlock Holmes in Golden Age comics. Note also the wanted poster for G. Brenner, almost certainly referring to George Brenner, creator of the Clock. (Smash Comics 001, 1939)

BONUS PHILPOT VEEP, DRUG FIEND

COMIC BOOK DRAMA: in Smash Comics 005, George Brenner strikes back! Here's Philpot Veep scribe Joe Devlin depicted AS A CLOWN! EPIC GOLDEN AGE BEEF SPOTTED

Woodrow Wilson:

Meets and gives sage advice to young Blane Whitney, who would grow up to become MLJ hero the Wizard. I am legitimately flabbergasted to see Wilson show up in this capacity. (Top-Notch Comics 001, 1939)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 383: THE VOODOO KING

(More Fun Comics 066, 1941) 

The Voodoo King is nothing special: a colonial administrator in the the Kangean Islands of Indonesia (meaning that he is probably our first Dutch super-villain), he uses his weird getup and knowledge of chemistry to scare off iron miners so that he can steal the diamonds that are also abundant in the mine. Too bad for him that the mine owner is friends with pilot/ adventurer Captain Desmo and so he gets his clock cleaned.

By far the best thing and also the biggest disappointment about the Voodoo King are the spooky speaker-equipped scarecrows that he uses to scare off the miners - they are very cool looking but I keep thinking that they are weird wicker robots and then getting sad when I remember that they are inanimate.