MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 774: THE TERROR

(Super-Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

The Terror is really Scar (or Scar-Face) Pontois, a gang boss who is expending a lot of effort in order to drive people away from a rich gold claim that he has hijacked but has perhaps gone a bit too far, as Corporal Flint of the RCMP, the hero of our story, is only nosing around Scar's locale because of the strange rumours he and/or his superiors have heard. Please note his giant hat.

In addition to the fearsome Terror identity, Scar's efforts include playing off of local superstitions by sending the daughter of the man he stole the gold claim from out to play the ominous Flame Maiden, but the real star of the show is the Coffin of the Mad. Based on the idea that radium can destroy the human brain (an idea that I can find no real source for, which probably means that it appeared in one Scientific American article that the comic's writer read in 1935 or so), the coffin is made out of radium-bearing pitchblende ore. Various characters in the story claim that men have been made mad after being placed in the coffin, but even taking the "radium destroys brains" thing as gospel as far as I can tell pitchblende is so much less radioactive that radium that it's more likely that they all went nuts because they were shut up in a stone coffin alive. I wouldn't bet against their chances of getting cancer at some point though.

In conclusion, the Terror probably would have been better off just killing people. Or just investing in that guy's mine through a shell company.

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 011

Incorrigible scamps the lot of them.

This unnamed scientist uses fake spirits, death traps and so forth to drive adventurer Ted Crane and his companions away from the jungle temple he is looting. BUT! He has made a classic mistake: they weren't planning on entering the temple in the first place and based on their action in earlier issues they certainly don't object to white people hauling off as much ancient African swag as possible. He gets punched out a window to his death for no reason! (Exciting Comics 004, 1940)

This fellow, name of Terro, has a scheme to peddle his noiseless super explosive bombs to the hostile Kordian government, a sound, if evil, plan. His inventive genius is not however matched by his common sense, however, and he makes the key mistake of demonstrating his explosive by bombing the village just outside his front door. Like, if his castle wasn't on top of a mountain I reckon it would be about a ten minute walk from the crater. Needless to say, Yank Wilson explodes him with extreme prejudice. (Fantastic Comics 004, 1940)

Like Terro, Professor Snead here is a scientist of the near future who makes the critical error of testing his new explosive (in this case one of the military holy grails of the 40s, the flying torpedo, or to us savvy moderns, the guided missile) on a small town instead of, for example, a big rock. Wholesale loss of human life again leads Yank Wilson to show up and Snead too is exploded by his own creation. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

These unnamed Mexican scientists have an okay plan - sabotage the US agricultural industry so that they are forced to import food from South of the border - but I question the efficacy of giant crop-eating rat-lizards over, say, a plague of regular-sized mice. I also question the sanity of everyone who sees these things and calls them "giant insects", i.e., everyone in the story.

Samson of course steps in and defeats not only the - ugh - "giant insects" but also some chemically mutated bulls, and given the sensitive depictions of Mexicans above would it surprise you that the comic ends with him building a wall along the US-Mexico border? (Fantastic Comics 006, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 540: THE WILL-O-WISP

(Silver Streak Comics 001, 1939)

As we open, simply everyone's worried about the Will-o-Wisp, a mysterious crook who shows up at crime scenes and steals what other crooks were about to make off with. The police chief looks bad because he can't catch the Will-o-Wisp! The gangs are mad because they keep getting robbed by the Will-o-Wisp!

The Will-o-Wisp's big mistake comes when he butts in on the mugging of Neal Carruthers III, aka Mister Midnite, which of course arouses his interest. I guess you could argue that that wasn't precisely a mistake because the Will-o-Wisp didn't know that he was making it, but what about the fact that his next move was to extort the police chief for $50 000? Even without knowing that the chief and Neal Carruthers were friends that's just plain playing with fire.

Mister Midnite of course crashes the cash handoff and manages to figure out the Will-o-Wisp's secret: that he is not in fact a small ball of light capable of speech but a very gutsy ventriloquist who just saunters up and takes the loot while his victims are distracted by a light on a fishing line or some other apparatus. It's a bold, bold plan, with one huge point of failure: the first time someone looks away from the light and says "who's that guy?" you're screwed.

Speaking of "who's that guy?", one thing that never gets resolved is who exactly that guy is. I assume that he's meant to be an unknown outsider but thanks to the ambiguity of the simple art combined with the spot colouring everyone looks very similar to one another. I honestly can't say if one of the cops or crooks introduced in other scenes are supposed to also be the Will-o-Wisp. 

All we can do is wait for someone to do a gritty reboot of Mister Midnite and give us a satisfying Will-o-Wisp origin (dark sorcerer who gained the ability to gorily eject a glowing orb from his nasal cavity in exchange for the souls of the innocent, I assume).