MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 863: KARNO THE CHESS MAN

(Wonderworld Comics 009, 1940)

Detective Dr Fung's pal Dan Barrister racks up one of the swifter "this information is impossible/ the impossible thing is right behind me" turnarounds in comics history when he and Dr Fung are kidnapped by a Moth Man about 1.5 seconds after he expresses disbelief in the existence of Moth Men who kidnap people. It turns out that the Moth Men in question work for a super-villainous type named Karno the Chess Man (sometimes Chessman) who lives in what I would call an excessively stair-filled cave considering the tiny little wheels on his mobility aid.

And just why is Karno sending moth-themed henchmen to kidnap people? Why because he doesn't have a full chess set yet and so he must transform moderately thematically-appropriate people into the pieces he is missing. Yes, Karno is an obsessive criminal of the sort that we usually getting punched out by Batman in the 1960s and he thinks that Dr Fung would make a distinguished king.

Dr Fung is no slouch, however, and while the Moth Men are subduing Dan Barrister he slips off into the shadows and starts blasting henchmen with their own ray rifles. In short order he, Dan and Irene Jonson (previously destined to be turned into a chess queen) are winging their way home courtesy of the Chess Man's own ray-powered person launcher, though Karno takes a page from Dr Fung's playbook and escapes in the commotion.

Karno returns in Wonderworld Comics 010, as Dan and Dr Fung return to capture him once and for all, and he is not only easy to track down but almost shockingly easy to disarm, as Dr Fung demonstrates using a moist handkerchief.

The big confrontation between Fung and the Chess Man, as exciting and action-packed as it is, is interrupted by some unfortunate activity in the depths of Karno's lair, proving once again that the coolness factor of living inside an active volcano always comes at a price.

Dr Fung, Dan and Karno make their escape just ahead of a wave of flowing lava - no word on whether any of the Moth Men made it out - and Karno is so grateful for their efforts in saving him that he resolves to turn over a new leaf and turn himself in. A surprisingly wholesome end to the tale, for once!

PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 003

This edition of the Problematic Round-Up is devoted to minor MLJ character Fu Chang and his foes.

Fu Chang:

Reading Charlie Chan comics has absolutely messed my head up in a specific way: because Charlie Chan is so clearly a project with the set goal of having a Chinese character who is not an overt racist Yellow Peril stereotype (while, yes, being pretty racist in a bunch of other ways) I give it more of the benefit of the doubt than I otherwise would. For instance, I just kind of skim most of what Charlie Chan says because actually parsing it is very painful. 

The problem is, I keep automatically giving various other series featuring Chinese American detectives the benefit of the doubt, and very few of them are also earnest-but-flawed attempts to avoid the overtly racist tropes of the day. This is all to say Fu Chang and his adventures are pretty racist and it caught me off guard and I had to work through it here.

So: Fu Chang is an American educated Chinese man (with a more Caucasian skin tone than the bright yellow Evil Chinese such as the Dragon, below) who is very dedicated to his (personal? family?) god and as a result has been gifted a chess set with "all the magic powers of Aladdin's Lamp" (and this smearing of everything East of the Mediterranean into one big exotic mess is classic Orientalism) which in effect means that he has a bunch of little guys at hand to do his bidding.

If there's one fun thing about Fu Chang, it's trying to figure out exactly what the heck kind of game this chess set could be used for. Here are the known pieces:

- the Warrior - just a little guy, used to spy on folks

- unnamed stage magician - has ESP or other way of locating hidden objects

- the Little Man of Magic - a magician in the Indian mystic vein. More talkative and proactive than many others. Able to paralyze humans via magic 

- the Doctor - healing plus some hand-to hand. Also has wings in one story

- the Mermaid - amphibious

- the Woodsman - tree-chopping action

- a pilot - can fly a plane but the plane is sold separately

- group of men in suits plus military officer and a jodhpured adventurer - engage in combat with the Tiger-Devil

- Seen but never used: the shirtless guy, the blonde lady in the red dress, the policeman, the crook, the fat bald guy

- winged people - obviously they can fly. As the series goes on the winged figures show up more and more until the last few adventures feature nothing but up to a couple of dozen of them.

I suppose it's possible that you could cobble together a complete chess set out of those. Obviously the winged guys would be the pawns, but where would the mermaid come in? Even more concerning than the fact that there might not have been a complete Fu Chang lore bible with detailed breakdowns of all the chess pieces and their powers is the constant slander of Aladdin's lamp. Unless Fu Chang and his god have a chronic lack of imagination, this is a pretty weak showing from a fabled object. (Pep Comics 001, 1940)

the Dragon:

The Dragon is really notable only for his fantastic name as well as to illustrate the weird vibes-based skin-colouring in the Fu Chang comic - the more good and Westernized you are, the pinker your skin. Otherwise he's a creep and a low-level Yellow Peril gangster. (Pep Comics 001, 1940)

the Cult of the Tiger-Devil: 

While I love the Tiger-Devil itself, the Tiger-Devil Cult that serves and has summoned him is some pan-Asian degeneracy nonsense straight out of Lovecraft. Serves them right for summoning a demon to conquer the world with that it gets beaten up by a bunch of little chessmen - though the Tiger-Devil has dominion over all men, the chess pieces are no men. 

If the MLJ Universe hadn't stopped being a continuous continuity in the early 90s it might be more significant that the Tiger-Devil ends up sealed in a jar and dropped into San Francisco Bay. Alas. (Pep Comics 002, 1940)

the Drug-Master:

It's a Fu Chang sweep for this instalment of the Problematic Round-Up with Ghor here, aka the Drug-Master, a very hard-core name that I wish I could celebrate a bit more but no: he's yet another Yellow Peril type with a bit of added spice in that he is also involved in the sinister Asian Drug Trade. Specifically, he's bringing a powerful new drug into San Francisco's Chinatown, one so addictive that it makes anyone his slave rather than do without it, even Fu Chang's fiance Tay Ming. It's so potent, in fact, that withdrawal induces a suicidal/homicidal frenzy and since the Drug-Master does not seem to be a particularly good boss, he's letting his drug slaves go into withdrawal all over town. As is usually the case, the skills that make a criminal successful in human circles are of little use against a bunch of Fu Chang's tiny guys and the Drug-Master ends up blowing himself to kingdom come. (Pep Comics 003, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 293: RATHCONE

(Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

I'll be honest: Rathcone doesn't have too much going on. He's your regular style Nazi spy with enough extra sauce to make him stand out. To whit:

-a maxed-out "Jack Kirby draws a weird creep" stat, complete with fangs and talonlike fingernails

-an oblique gimmick whereby he plays out his strategy on a chessboard while his men listen in over an intercom. The custom chess set is of course one of the great super-villain accessories

-most importantly, his henchmen are all called things like Herr Kamelon and Herr Strangler and Number 15 and at this point Rathcone could be removed from the equation entirely because all the villainous side dishes are there for my delectation.

Rathcone's final claim to fame is simply the fact that he makes it through the adventure alive, which I would not have put money on given the survival rate of the other Marvel super-villains on our list.