MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 780: THE MISSING MUMMY

(Funny Picture Stories v3 002, 1939)

Like every other of my long-term projects, writing this blog has been an exercise in taking a simple premise (writing fairly succinctly about minor DC Comics super-villains) and expanding the scope until the seams start to creak (writing somewhat extensively about all super-villains and super-heroes and a bunch of other comics things and also maintaining a set of variably-useful indices about them all). This is all to lead into the fact that a comic I was just reading (Super Spy 001, 1940) contained a reprint of a story from a comic I read back when I started doing this and I was absolutely flummoxed that I had not written about the Missing Mummy.

We open in the palatial home of amateur Egyptologist Professor Stone, just in time to see him get murdered by someone with a creepy hand.

Cops are soon swarming over the Professor's residence, but that doesn't stop the culprit from creeping back in to eliminate a potential witness in the victim's niece and incidentally give us our first look at his mummy outfit. Not the most convincing getup with that huge exposed swath of visible and well-moisturized head, but I appreciate the green.

This particular fake mummy also has mind control abilities thanks to the copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead that he stole after murdering Professor Stone. These allow him to abduct Miss Stone and Police Detective Bull with ease.

The super powers weren't even the motivation for the murder of Professor Stone, it turns out. No, Stone was killed when he figured out that his fellow Egyptologist Dr Carver had been using Stone's regular shipments of mummies from England as a way of smuggling drugs into the US, possibly because Carver's plan doesn't seem to include replacing the fake mummy after he steals and hollows it out each time.

Also, Carver has built an entire acid pit in Stone's basement, which is impressive but must have provided plenty of opportunities for Stone to cotton on to the fact that something was going on.

Ultimately it all comes down to that old adage: no matter how well-prepared and capable of performing Ancient Egyptian mind control you are, you're never ready to be shot in the back by a cop and dumped into your own acid pit.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 751: THE MUMMY

(Smash Comics 015, 1940) 

Strange things are happening at the museum: knives are flying through the air, suits of armour are wandering around in a menacing fashion and things are getting pretty spooky. Head Curator Robbins asks his pal Kent Thurston (aka the Invisible Hood) to check things out, at which point the Mummy enters the picture, knocks out Thurston and kidnaps Robbins' plucky daughter Betty.

After grabbing Robins as well, the Mummy reveals his devious plan: Robbins must resign as curator. And that's it. Unsurprisingly, the Mummy turns out to be Nolan, the Assistant Curator, who has admittedly hacked the whole promotion process with this bold scheme but who also has not done a particularly great job of deflecting suspicion from himself as the only person who is going to benefit from the scheme.

As usual, the Invisible Hood's power of invisibility is a real asset and he cleans up the gang with relative ease. He even does a bit of a challenge run by initially approaching dressed up as a second mummy, with a spooky twist once he removes his wrappings to reveal the nothingness within.

Not the greatest fake mummy in comics history, but I'm happy to get any fake mummies.

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 012

Management not responsible if some of the villains are not technically costumed.

This fellow, known as the Boss, was the masked publisher of a newspaper known as the Weekly Tattler which functioned as a vehicle for his blackmail business: pay up or get your secrets printed in the next edition. He turned out to be the husband of one of the paper's victims, which makes little enough sense that I reckon that they got to the end of the story without adding any good suspects so went with the only possibility. Also he gets shot by his very gullible underling after the Fox barely implies that there's a double cross on. (Blue Ribbon Comics 011, 1941)

Inferno tangles with crook Jake the Fake and his henchmen as they make a break for the Mexican border disguised as a shipment of mummies, a top tier thing to pretend to be. (Blue Ribbon Comics 017, 1941)

If you have to be a very generic pirate so hard up you have to kidnap guys from the US Navy to run your radio equipment in a mid-level (by Golden Age standards) racist adventure well then you'd better have a great name like the Scourge because that's really all you have going for you. (Wonderworld Comics 003, 1939)

Like the Scourge, the Obermaster here is a real waste of a good villain name on a real damp squib of a character. He is Samson Gorth, a criminal mastermind with no real plan. No, that's not accurate. He has a plan to incite war between the US and Japan by attacking their respective shipping using planes with false insignia but beyond that his goals are a mystery. Is he hoping for plunder? A chance for war profiteering? No clue and thanks to special agent Bruce McKay, Sky Master, we'll never find out. Because the Obermaster is dead. In case that wasn't clear. (The Funnies 035, 1939)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 008

 

The Scar was a spymaster encountered and captured by adventurer Biff Bronson and maybe if he dressed like that all of the time he'd have an entry of his own but no, he had just left the opera. (More Fun Comics 067, 1941)

This bunch work for the villainous Count Parla and his pal Eddie in a classic case of "work your way into polite society in order to set up a big score". If there's a non-evil Count in comics I have yet to encounter him. Beaten up by Captain Desmo in a rare unhelmeted appearance. (More Fun Comics 069, 1941) 

This unnamed fellow got up to all kinds of hijinks on a train, including murder, espionage and impersonating a conductor. Seen here inadvertently unmasking a crossdressing thief - it was a very busy adventure for Captain Desmo. (More Fun Comics 070, 1941)

Johnny Quick's first outing features one of my favourite comic book things: a series of vignettes of prior cases to establish Johnny's bona fides vis-a-vis crimefighting. Two of the adventures in question involve what would almost certainly have been Minor Super-Villain entries if they were featured players, so here's to you, the Pharaoh's Mummy and the Murderous Musician (and the Money-Mad Miser, not pictured) (More Fun Comics 071, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 307: RA THE AVENGER

(Captain America Comics 008, 1941) 

Ra the Avenger is actually Henry Sanders, an explorer who discovered and eventually sold the fabulous Egyptian Ruby of the Nile, then dressed up in faux Ancient Egyptian gear to murder all who stood in his way on a quest to steal it back again.

That is, unfortunately, about all we can say about this guy because he's one of those fellas who gets punched out and hauled off to jail without really spelling out the Why of their turn to costumed villainy.  An educated guesser might suppose that he sold the gem unwillingly due to some critical need and was determined to get it back. Or maybe the gem holds some sort of  curse that drives him to recover and return it? That's fun, let's go with that! It even clears up some of the fuzziness about the distinction between Ra  the god and the pharaoh who was buried with the gem: they must be the same, a magician powerful enough to be conflated with a god and to impose his will on a tomb robber thousands of years in the future. What a cool story I've read into this (though a bit of a bleak future for Sanders, possessed and locked up in a US prison)!

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 004

They're back! They're costumed! They're generic!

It's a sad day for me but I fear I have to classify this fake mummy as a generic costumed villain, even though he has a shortsword, one of the top swords. Ultimately, he's just a thief named Shorty Jones who robs the museum every night and even with the power of the fake mummy on his side Shorty just isn't interesting enough to qualify as a minor super-villain. (Detective Comics v1 053, 1941) 

Doc Savage battled this guy (real name the pretty good Gritter; posing as the amazingly-named Captain Blackstone Toy) who had a very complicated plan to blackmail the US Armed Forces. Also his chief henchman was named Fuzzy. (Doc Savage Comics 004, 1941)

This lady bandit is in fact Deputy Cal of the Twin Forks Sheriff's office. His idea to crossdress as a major part of his holdup persona totally pays off, but unfortunately for him he completely fails to disguise himself in any other way - same distinctive horse, same clothes, a very confrontational attitude to anyone looking into the holdups rather than keeping his head down - and he swiftly gets run in by the Fargo Kid. (Feature Comics 048, 1941)

This unnamed stablehand is that most banal of killers, a jilted suitor going after the romantic rival. But he goes to such effort! It takes two tries - with a remote-controlled sailboat and a sniper rfle - to get the guy, at which point the Red Bee impersonates him and is attacked with battleaxe, scythe, pitchfork and trap door.

Plus he dresses up as Death for one attempt! Truly this man was as close to non-generic as it's possible to be while still being completely forgettable. (Hit Comics 014, 1941) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 248: THE GOLDEN MUMMY

(Flash Comics v1 017, 1941)

It's the Golden Mummy! As I have previously stated, I love fake mummies and had read this issue before, so I was anticipating this fellow's appearance with some joy, and it is with great sadness that I must announce that he's a complete disappointment.

My threshold for fake mummy appreciation is quite low - usually they just steal a few antiquities before getting tripped up by Archie and Jughead or the Scooby Gang, after all - but the Golden Mummy's only admirable quality is his dedication to theme. He has the costume, a cave hideout, a bunch of gangsters that he paid well enough to paint themselves gold and pretend to be called the Sect of the Golden Mummy (and of course the only thing better than henchmen in themed costumes is when they also have a cool name). 

. He even dies lamely, by stumbling into a trap set for Hawkman.

So why do I dislike this guy so much? The reason is twofold: firstly, the whole Golden Mummy thing is just some incel shit: he's a guy named Dr Selkirk getting revenge on his ex-fiance for dumping him by murdering her. This is one of those motivations that sucks some of the fun out of super-villain analysis.

Secondly: the Golden Mummy is a completely unnecessary affectation. He kills her as she's onstage singing opera, via a poisoned blowdart. The Mummy and his Sect spend the entire adventure coping with Hawkman, and it kind of seems like Selkirk made up the persona expressly because he was afraid of Hawkman - I don't know if he'd have gotten away with it by not calling attention to himself with cryptic warnings and golden men but it couldn't have hurt.

Boo to the Golden Mummy. Booo!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 174: THE LIMPING MUMMY

(Bulletman 002, 1941)

I cannot tell a lie: I love a fake mummy. I can't help it - there's something about a crook going to the trouble of wrapping themself up in old linen that is very endearing to me. And as with our friend here, they often have a modifier to distinguish them from the workaday mummies that you see everywhere. They're a Golden Mummy or a Missing Mummy, or, as with our boy here, a Limping Mummy.

The actual reason for mummying up is usually the same: disguise yourself so that you can rob a museum or steal some Egyptian artifacts or steal some Egyptian artifacts from a museum. The reason our guy is a limping mummy is that he decided to add another layer to his disguise and throw suspicion on Benhurst the museum director, who walks with a cane.

And then, he attempts a third layer of obfuscation by using his civilian identity, newspaper editor Jason Hilder, to slam the police for not being able to deal with all these mummy crimes! This is actually a terrible idea, since Hilder wasn't at all involved before and he actually ends up getting caught because he takes it too far and attacks Sergeant Kent of the police for... some reason? The Limping Mummy's plot doesn't really hold together is I guess what I've been trying to lay out here.