MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 288: THE KING

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 025, 1941)

The King is your regular old gang boss who decides to pivot from running a numbers racket to selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and if that was it he wouldn't be listed here. The dang guy just wasn't content to be regular, though. Some salient features of his crime time:

-he made the fake drugs in a sprawling underground lab using kidnapped doctors

-recalcitrant doctors ended up in a giant vat of boiling acid

-he has a full suite of gadgets including acid, gas and regular bombs and a remote controlled exploding car for blowing up excess henchmen

-he leaves a king playing card at the scene of his crimes

-he uses a cigar holder, which isn't villainous per se but always stands out so much to me that I must make note of it.

He's also very dumb? Like, the calling cards tie together various crimes in a way that they might not otherwise have been, and he leaves a license plate that's registered in his name on the bomb-car. Plus he does a lot of unnecessary murdering and kidnapping that does a lot less to make people respect him and more to make them want to stop him, or, as in the case of the henchman he fails to fully blow up, kill him.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 160: THE FOUR CARDS

(Batman Comics 005, 1941)

A while ago I decided that groups were going to go into my lists (and charts and graphs) of super-villains. After all, if I was willing to accord one fellow who went around as the Masked Bandit, why should I spurn four guys who do exactly the same, only pluralized? Accordingly, masked gangs get as much credit as masked crooks, if they fulfil enough other criteria. The Four Cards, however, introduce a new wrinkle.

Simply put: if any other four people with card-based nicknames had formed a card-themed gang I'd count them as minor super-villains, but one of them is the Joker. So the group is minor and three quarters of its members are - is that enough? Evidently!

Aside from my categorization panic, the Four Cards are a bit basic: they operate a semi-legal gambling ship in international waters off Gotham and a disguised Joker, seductive Black Queen and socially adroit Jack of Diamonds line up wealthy targets for the King of Clubs to beat up and rob.

Inevitably, Batman and Robin step in. The Black Queen falls in love with Batman and she and the Jack of Diamonds bump one another off over him. Meanwhile, the Joker has pulled his inevitable double cross and left (having set the ship on fire as he went), leaving poor Clubbsy as the only one left to be hauled away to jail.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 133: THE BIG BOSS

(Action Comics v1 037)

Just a society playboy who puts on a mask to run his crooked casino empire. He might just be my new example of the bare minimum that I need to consider someone a super-villain - nobody is even surprised when his identity is revealed, but he has the barest film of anonymity along with a secret boat dock and a moderately cool name.

Also he gets hit by a boat.