MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 895: THE GHOST OF THE DEEP

(America's Greatest Comics 001, 1941)

The Ghost of the Deep, a dastardly fellow indeed. As the comic opens, a captive scientist named Hugo has just completed a mysterious formula for him, only to be rewarded with murder.

In the following days, the Ghost attacks US West Coast shipping, each time leaving behind a calling card in the form of a message in a bottle.

The Ghost even tries to silence Billy Batson's fairly routine reporting on the attacks (but why leave a calling card if you don't want everyone to know you're responsible?) by taking Billy and his boss Sterling Morris for a proverbial ride. When this is predictably foiled by Captain Marvel, the Ghost of the Deep shows up long enough to demonstrate that he is also a classic comic book Bad Boss by drowning his hapless Teutonic minions.

There is a bit of radio-based taunting, since Billy is a radio guy. Again, this kind of thing brings into question just why the Ghost of the Deep wants to shut Billy up.

So just what is the Ghost of the Deep's plan? And what is this mysterious formula that poor Hugo died for? Why, it's the recipe for making a transparent, invulnerable alloy called Z-Metal, and using a fleet of tank-submarines composed of the stuff, the Ghost intends on conquering the United States. First stop: blowing up the Panama Canal.

As for the Ghost's real identity, well, it's not revealed until later, but any cagey comics reader will immediately peg this smarmy rival radio man named Spriggins as the top suspect the instant that he walks on-panel. Presumably his cover serves the same purpose as Billy Batson's: as a way of gathering information and justifying a lot of globetrotting as being in pursuit of a story.

Ultimately, Spriggins' plan has one fatal flaw: it fails to account for the presence of a magically super-strong fellow like Captain Marvel, who succeeds where the might of the US Navy cannot and smashes the Z-Metal fleet to smithereens. And then does the same to the Ghost of the Deep's cool Z-Metal chainmail.

The captured Spriggins makes one last attempt at striking out at the US by stealing an MP's gun and taking out a nearby General, only to be intercepted by Captain Marvel and suffer the oft-joked-about but seldom-seen fate of the person who fires a bullet into an invulnerable super-hero's chest only to have it bounce back and kill them instead. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 571: THE YELLOW SPIDER

(Champion Comics 004, 1940)

Champion Comics 003 featured the murder of the Champ's mentor Dr Marlin and at the conclusion of that adventure the blame for Marlin's death seemed to rest squarely on the shoulders of his assistant Dr Katsu. Champion Comics 004, however, introduces a further development: Katsu was in fact working for a greater mastermind, the Yellow Spider!

(and here I'm going to contrast my usual delight at a villainous note signed with a little cartoon with my deep sighs as I say that yes, the Yellow in Yellow Spider is 100% a racist thing. Early Champion Comics issues are even more comfortable with using racist tropes for their villains than the rest of the comics industry, and that's saying something)

The Yellow Spider is big on indirect action. Beyond employing goons to do his dirty work he also uses engine-killing rays and cuts in on radio and telephone signals to orchestrate events at a distance, such as his successful kidnapping of the Champ here, followed by his doing a solid for the unnamed police officer who was supposed to be driving him around.

The Champ is brought to the Yellow Spider's dirigible/ base, where he eventually learns that the Spider is in fact this one little guy who has popped up a couple of times previously as an agent of what turns out to be himself. It's not explicit but quite possible he wants formula because he is puny (spoiler: much later it turns out that Dr Katsu pulled a double cross and had the formula all along. This Yellow Spider/ Champ beef is all a huge waste of everyone's time).

As the Champ was summarily evicted from the Yellow Spider's dirigible at the end of issue 4, Champion Comics 005 is almost entirely concerned with busywork. To whit:

-the Champ learns to fly a plane

-the Champ and his pal Bird Kelly attack the dirigible, too late remember about the engine killing ray and are knocked out of the sky

-the Champ travels back to Midwest University to talk to a ray expert

-the ray expert is stranded on a mountain; the Champ must go rescue him

-in consultation with the expert, the Champ crafts ray shielding for his plane

-the Champ and Bird Kelly go back up in a now-shielded plane

-the Champ STILL has to go on the dirigible and wreck the ray because it also explodes gunpowder and they only brought grenades for some reason

-the Champ hops back over to his plane and explodes the dirigible, killing the Yellow Spider

I will say that the Champ expressing some remorse over having killed an evil man (or at least not being up to watching the carnage) is a real departure for the Golden Age. Lotta righteous killing going on back then.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 352: THE CRYSTAL

(Whiz Comics 015/ Master Comics 014, 1941)

Basics first: the Crystal is nothing particularly special. He's a businessman or something named Mr James who has a wealthy ward named Ronnie Keller and covets the money that he is charged with administering. It's a pretty common turn of events in comics and Mr James is part of the significant minority of greedy guardians who decide to skip the simple embezzlement and advance straight to costumed thuggery. He's got goons and everything!

There are two other things about the Crystal, an annoying one and a tragic one. The annoying one is that due to the way that early anthology comics were shuffled around fairly frequently, the first of the two-part Companions Three story he appears in is in Whiz Comics 015 and the second is in Master Comics 014. Thus, 80-odd years later and reading books in a collated way rather than as they arrive on the shelves of your local newsagent you never ever end up reading them concurrently. It's maddening! For me! About once every ten years!

The tragic one is simply that the Crystal has a pretty great costume! Just look at that dome! But ten years later the Red Hood would really just blow this costume out of the water. It's not even close! The Crystal's good costume was doomed to obscurity in that moment.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 347: TRIPLE THREAT

(Master Comics 012, 1941)

Triple Threat is in actuality a fellow named Theron who believes that due to his own scientific genius he is above such things as "regular jobs" and "not murdering and robbing at whim" and so develops an armoured multi-environment vehicle - also called Triple Threat, as is often the case with super vehicle types - with which to enact his plans.

The obvious thing to lead with here is that great name: Triple Threat. Some cursory research seems to indicate that in the early 20th Century the term was used to refer to a person etc who could fill three different roles in sports, war etc (I even saw it used to refer to a breed of cow that was useful for meat, dairy and as a work animal). The more narrow entertainment-focused definition that is mostly used today seems to have gained prominence in the mid 20th Century, which is a shame, as it would have been a real fun time if Theron wasn't just flying around in a land/air/sea vehicle but also singing, dancing and acting.

That said, there is a real flair for the dramatic in ol' Triple Threat. He's your classic police taunter style of criminal genius, never missing an opportunity to fire up his radio and sling some mud at Sergeant Kent and the rest of the boys over at police HQ.

It's this kind of bravado that ultimately proves to be Triple Threat's downfall, in fact: after escaping an initial encounter with Bulletman, he makes an attempt to eliminate top cop Sergeant Kent and in the subsequent fracas ends up smashing his own vehicle to pieces on Bulletman's pointy head. A true loss to the community of folks like me who like to read comics about real jerks. On the positive side, Bulletman is knocked out in this collision, which leads to Susan Kent finally learning his secret identity, which then leads to her becoming Bulletgirl, by far the best of the half-dozen or so members of the Bullet-family.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 271: PRINCE OMEI

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941)

This guy's a real ding-dong, and I was sorely tempted to just pass him by. I couldn't in good conscience not mention a guy who not only hypnotizes Professor Zog and (by proxy) Electro as his minions and does so while wearing both an eye patch and a monocle. PLUS he's one of my favourite types of villains: a complete failure. Literally all he does after acquiring his new giant robot/ robot operator team is deal with some organizational strife in his gang, then Zog breaks free of his mental influence and Omei ends up blowing himself up in what is becoming a running theme in the world of Electro's villains. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 251: BOMB-BABY SATHAN

(Flash Comics v1 020, 1941)

An absolutely ordinary criminal scientist villain completely overshadowed by his criminal rival Big Frenchy in this adventure. Sathan has at-the-time fantastically futuristic guided missile tech, as well as one of my personal favourite bits of super-villain utility tech: the communications cut-in, via which he extorts money from banks lest they get hit by guided missiles.

The only reason Sathan hasn't been relegated to the Criminal and Mad Scientist Roundup queue is this here henchman's inspired nickname game. Bomb-Baby Sathan is a Grant Morrison Making Up a Sixties Villain in the Nineties-style name and it's genuinely joyful to encounter it in a Golden Age comic.

SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: THE JOKER 1940

What did the Joker get up to in 1940?

1. Batman Comics v1 001, 'Untitled' **first appearance**

The Joker really hits the ground running in his first crime-outing. He establishes his character - prideful, mercurial and on-theme - and methods that are still in his repertoire to this day

He indulges in the old standard of warning the police ahead of time, then killing his target and stealing their named gems (uh, this is a personal term for any gem famous enough to have a name, like the Hope Diamond. they make more frequent appearances in comics than real life, unsurprisingly). Not the most creative of crime sprees by his own eventual standard, but everyone has to start somewhere. He also murders a number of people who challenge him, including a gang boss and a judge who once sent him to jail (a perfect 1/1 judge and jury revenge slaying! Aim low, kids!).

Also established this adventure: the smiling-death style of Joker Venom, as well as:

...the classic hideous Joker calling card design.

But despite racking up an impressive success rate and almost killing both Batman and Robin on several occasions, the Joker ends his first outing in the slammer.

2. Batman Comics v1 001, 'The Joker Returns'

That's right, the Joker makes his second appearance in the same issue as his first! They knew he was a hot property from the very start!

After a very dramatic escape from prison and a relocation to his secret cemetery hideout, the Joker settles into his familiar pattern: a taunting message, then theft or the murder of his enemies. In achieving the latter, he employs two of my very favourite deathtraps in comics:

To bump off the Chief of Police: a sound-activated poison dart launcher concealed in his telephone - and he activates it by shouting his own name real loud! Tremendous style points there.

The second is just sharpened playing cars with poison on the edges, but again there's some tremendous style on display in the commitment to the bit of having an entire pack of jokers. Completely worth going around to every gaming supply store in Gotham to buy packs of the same brand of cards.

A minor point in this adventure is that it highlights that the Joker is primarily a jewel thief, something that I associate with the Golden Age version of the character but that might just be me extrapolating from this issue.

And finally we have the death of the Joker, truly one of the great on-brand death scenes of all time as he gets stabbed while struggling over a knife with Batman. It was a good run but the Joker is dead.

OR IS HE???

3. Batman Comics v1 002, 'Untitled'

Since the Joker actually survived the last issue, both Batman and the members of Crime Syndicate Inc  have the same idea: kidnap him while he's being treated for his injuries, the former for some sort of gruesome lobotomy and the latter as a replacement for their recently deceased leader. More than half of the story is taken up with the dueling Joker kidnappings, after which he predictably betrays the crooks, strikes out on his own and ends up left for dead in a burning castle.

More interesting to me is that this is the end of a sequence of events that, well, here's a timeline:

-Initial Joker crime spree. No time period is specified in the story but it seems a fairly rapid-fire series of crimes. Somewhere between 1 and 2 weeks, we'll say. Joker is captured.

-Two days later, Joker escapes. His crime spree resumes at the same pace, with at least two robberies occurring sequentially. Say another 1 to 2 weeks. Joker is seriously injured and rushed to hospital.

-Crooks spirit Joker away following his treatment. His recovery lasts one week, after which he seemingly dies in a fire.

What this all adds up to is a situation like Friday the Thirteenth 2 through 4, but whereas that was an astonishingly bloody weekend told over the course of three movies, this is the Joker committing at least 6 high-profile robberies and 13 murders over the course of one to two months! A huge debut for the big guy!

4. Detective Comics v1 045, 'The Case of the Laughing Death'

Predictably, the Joker is not, in fact, dead! He remains alive to this day if you can believe it!

He has, though, adopted a brand new modus operandi. Perhaps drawing on his brief time with Crime Syndicate Inc, he slips for the first time into an alter ego with the infuriating surname of Rekoj and forms a little gang of his own. Then, after his gang pulls a heist, he robs them as the Joker so that he doesn't have to split the profits with them. IT'S A DUMB PLAN BUT IT WORKS.

I'm willing to forgive, but only because of the great deathtraps, and this is a fun one: a record that releases Joker Toxin as it plays, thus killing even as its message is delivered. Insidious!

At story's end, the Joker is in the drink, presumed dead. For good? No.

5. Batman Comics v1 004, 'The Case of the Joker's Crime Circus!'

For his final outing of 1940, the Joker assembles another gang. This time, it's one of my favourite styles of gang, the circus of crime! They specialize in casing wealthy patrons' estates and manors and then using their circus skills to rob the various joints.

Batman being Batman, he pieces together the clues and tracks down the Joker, who ends the adventure in the traditional manner by seemingly plummeting to his death.

Body Count: at least 14

End-of-year Status: Presumed Dead