MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 748: THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

(Smash Comics 012, 1940)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is just that, a modern version of the fictional character, and seemingly just as damaged by society as his predecessor. He is manipulated into working as an assassin for Madame Doom, who is in Paris (presumably on behalf of the Nazis) to disrupt peace talks helmed by US Ambassador Blank but is being effectively countered by the Black X and so must operate through a deniable dupe asset.

Just what the deal is with the Hunchback is down to three distinct possibilities, all fairly equally outlandish, but all are predicated on the fact that Notre Dame has a hunchbacked bellringer in 1940, like it's a prerequisite for the job. The possibilities:

1. That the people of Paris are correct in their belief that this Hunchback of Notre Dame is a direct descendant of Quasimodo, the original, which would imply not only that Quasimodo had a child at some point but that his physical condition was one which was passed down through a line of bellringers for almost 500 years.

2. Similar to Possibility 1. Quasimodo has a child, but in this case, the Hunchback of Notre Dame Gene is recessive and his descendants are not generationally indentured cathedral slaves. This latest member of the family would thus be reviving an old tradition by being a delusional misfit urban legend.

3. The citizens of Paris are credulous fools and all hunchbacked bellringers are not, in fact, related. In this scenario we must assume that it's the job that is so terrible that it drives these poor men mad.

Regardless of his actual origin, the Hunchback meets his end after attacking Black X in a jealous rage over Madame Doom's affections. Riddled with bullets, he falls to his death. Black X is still horny for Madame Doom at this point, so she is allowed to leave.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 252: EGON

(Flash Comics v1 021, 1941)

This one's got a lot of setup. First, Hawkman sees a spaceship crash, as you do. Venturing inside, he finds a deceased Neptunian couple, their egg son and a Rosetta Stone of a  ship's log. He makes off with the egg and the journal and just leaves the ship and its former crew to rot.

Next night is the Scientist Society Ball, where monocled botanist and creep Noel Ratchford makes a play for Shiera Sanders and is rebuffed. There's an egg-based sequence of events as follows:

-Noel is germinating seeds in eggs

-Carter "Hawkman" Hall thinks this is dumb

-Shiera stumbles across the boy-egg and assumes that Carter is also experimenting with eggs. She steals the egg as a joke and tells Noel about it

-Noel decides to steal the egg and take credit for Carters egg-based research. He ends up hatching out the boy Egon.

Thanks to Neptunian genetics, Egon hatches into a rapidly-growing boy with cool eye-beams and full powers of speech. Noel then hits upon the idea to raise him up to a) hate him and b) believe that his name is Carter Hall, so that he will go out and do evil giant stuff and blame it on Carter, thus presumably sullying his good name enough for Shiera to reject him? it's a flimsy plan at best, but when all you have is a giant you look for rampage-based solutions to your problems.

Everything kind of goes according to plan, except that Carter Hall is of course Hawkman, and that he has the journal and knows all of the Neptunians' weak points and kills Egon and brings Noel to justice. But other than that stuff, A-OK.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 211: THE MAD MADESPOS

(Crackajack Funnies 038-040, 1941)

It's my favourite Golden Age Batman knockoff the Owl again and this time he's up against the Madespos, a whole family of homicidal maniacs with their very own gorilla pal!

The Madespos had already been collared by the Owl (in an unseen adventure of his civilian guise of Nick Terry, PI) some time earlier, so our tale begins with their escape from Lenmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane with the help of their well-dressed gorilla friend. 

In addition to the gorilla the family consists of Ma Madespo and her four unnamed, nearly identical sons (one wears glasses and two are taller than the rest. This is not relevant). They're armed to the teeth and have holed up in a fortified mansion supplied by...

The Masked Ambassador! A surprise second Minor Super-Villain 212 (if just barely) and smarter-than-average fifth columnist from Axis-coded Yugonia who has weaponized the Madespos rather than risk his own hide in sabotaging the American military. If he wasn't caught by the Owl literally one panel after putting on his mask he might just be the most effective villain on this list.

Sadly for the Madespos, the Owl soon takes advantage of a police siege of their mansion to befriend the ill-treated gorilla and bring the whole lot of them in.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 162: THE CLOCK MAKER

(Batman Comics 006, 1941)

A few different longstanding comic book bits make early appearances in the tale of the Clock Maker. First, Bruce Wayne has to go to a boring old board meeting at one of the many companies that he has an stake in, but that meeting sows the seeds of crime. Specifically, they all go to a clock store together afterward and Atkins, the evil board member who wants to gain sole ownership of the clock company for some reason, meets Elias Brock, an unhinged old man who loves clocks so much that he gets violently angry at the thought of wasting or killing time.

Which leads to the second recurring comics motif: the calculating villain convinces an unstable person to do their killing for them. Brock takes out two board members and almost gets Bruce Wayne before Batman works out the plan, then kills Atkins and almost blows up a decent part of Gotham before being pitched out a window by Robin.

A side note is that the comic itself seems to somewhat agree with the clockmaker with regard to the precious nature of time - the man himself is a bit of an anticapitalist...

... while Batman expresses more of a rise and grind mentality, completely unsurprisingly.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 134: THE GHOST

(Action Comics v1 039, 1941)

The Ghost is one of Superman's earliest superpowered foes, being Brett Bryson, a chemist who was accidentally irradiated while conducting an experiment and, having found himself with both a burning radium touch and a short time left to live, set out to steal enough in the time he had left to provide for his family once he was finally gone.

But there is a twist to the Ghost's story! The lab accident? Planned by Bryson's greedy partners! The stolen money? Was never going to be delivered to Bryson's family! I like this because this is the earliest example of the On Purpose Lab Accident Origin that I'm aware of in comics and that's a reasonably common origin! (Brett Bryson does not like it and murders his partner before dying himself)