MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 960: THE MAN IN THE HOOD

(Exciting Comics 008, 1941)

This fellow expends an awful lot of effort setting up and facilitating a city payroll robbery by gang boss Owney Biggers. He is eventually revealed to be City Treasurer Robert V. Shaw, who has set the whole thing up, double-crossed Biggers, faked his own death and murdered several people in order to cover up the fact that he had been embezzling city funds.

The most annoying thing about this annoying man (seriously, just an irritating character. True loser energy) is that he isn't actually called the Man in the Hood, or anything else for that matter. Instead, he is variously referred to as:

-a Menacing Form

-that Bozo on the Roof

-the Masked Attacker

-the Hooded Killer

-the Mysterious Assailant

-that Mug

-that Sneak in the Hood

-a Grim Figure

-that Rat in the Hood

-the Guy in the Hood

-the Killer

-the Mysterious Form

and "the Man in the Hood" is as good of a throughline as I could achieve from that mess.

Categorized in: Objects (Hoods), Origins (Faked Own Death), Theft (Embezzlers) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 885: THE GHOST

(Wow Comics 002, 1941) 

After a particularly fraught meeting of the Orphan Society, at which the charity's president Henry Suffridge accuses everyone present of potentially being responsible for some recent embezzlement, board member Jones is accosted by some spooky scary ghosts and skeletons while muttering to himself on his way home. They warn him in no uncertain terms to leave town - is he the embezzler, being punished for his misdeeds by the spirits of the dead?

No he is not, as it turns out, because Mr Scarlet is on hand to demonstrate that these are in fact fully tangible, fully punchable goons in sheets and skeleton costumes with a layer of phosphorescent paint over top (specifically radium paint, in fact. Woof, as if being a costumed henchman wasn't enough, now there's an increased cancer risk?)

The point of the whole charade is to scare Jones into leaving town because he knows who is responsible for the embezzlement. Are ghosts and skeletons better at doing that than a dozen large men with guns? The Ghost is betting that they are!

And just who is this Ghost? Why, it's Henry Suffridge, literally the only other named character in the story! Well, I guess there were fellow Orphan Society board members Crane and Petrie but considering that they each showed up for about one and a half panels I think that we can safely say that they were outside of the suspect pool. Ultimately, it's a lot of grandiose window-dressing for a grubby little crime, done poorly. For shame, Ghost.