MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 975: THE SMILER

(Fight Comics 016, 1941) 

The Smiler! A grody-looking gang boss with a permanent crooked smile thanks to a facial scar! I can't actually figure out where this scar is actually supposed to be - I suppose that it must be there, but the Smiler's face is so covered in seams and divots that it doesn't stand out.

The Smiler is such a ruthless and dastardly crook that he accepts a commission from Nazi agent Blitz to steal the engine-killing ray that local inventor Professor Adams is developing for the US government. Any qualms that he might have about betraying his country in this way are smoothed over by the fact that Blitz is paying him a cool one million dollars to do it.

As is so often the case, the Smiler appearas to have come up with at least three viable plans to steal the ray but rather than committing to any one of them he just does them all at once. The first and second plans are similar in nature: the Smiler disguises himself as a mysterious figure called the Countess and moves into a mansion near Professor Adams' house, while his gang replaces the entire police force of Freeville, Maryland. Having successfully infiltrated Freeville society (twice!), the gang are now in a perfect position to acquire the ray via subterfuge, perhaps by arresting Professor Adams on trumped-up charges or arranging for the Countess to have a tour of the lab.

Instead, the fake police round up the entire adult population of Freeville and kill anyone who resists and then threatens to kill everyone if they don't give up the Professor. In addition to invalidating the effort that was put into the stealth-based aspects of the plan - the Countess part in particular is now just an excuse for a cheap laugh - this gives Adams time to make a fake ray that is in fact a time bomb to hand over and potentially sacrifice himself in the process to save the town.

It never actually comes to that, however, because Freeville is the home of patriotic super-hero Captain Fight, who teams up with Adams' son Yank to beat the absolute tar out of both the Smiler and Blitz (and possibly drown the latter?).

The Smiler returns in 1942's Fight Comics 017, but thanks to a change of artists has lost his signature crooked grin in favour of a more generic one. This time out he's stealing British supply ships to sell on to the Axis and gets beaten up for his trouble once more.

Categorized in: Accessories (Distinctive Scars), Body (Mouth), Misc (Gang Bosses)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 967: THE FANG

(Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

The Fang is a recurring villain in the mould of his Fox Features contemporaries the Rook and the Beast: you can knock him down and seemingly kill him as much as you want but he's just going to keep on coming back to do more crimes.

When he first appears, the Fang's major goal is to acquire the Burma Emerald from its caretaker Princess Kava, in order to decipher the secret of invisibility that has been carved into its surface. His initial attempt to snatch the emerald leads him to murder Police Sergeant Marley of the Princess' protection detail, which directly inspires Marley's son Chuck to become a costumed crimefighter under the tutelage of the Black Fury.

Perhaps because Black Fury scribe realized that a series of comics about a man trying and failing to achieve invisibility would be less interesting than one about an invisible crook, the Fang breaks prison in his second appearance and gets ahold of the emerald almost immediately. So what does he use his newfound powers of invisibility for?

- bank robbery (Fantastic Comics 018)

- framing a man for murder in order to buy his house that has an ideal smuggling setup in the form of a secret tunnel to the coast (Fantastic Comics 019)

- sabotaging arms shipments to Allied Europe on behalf of the Axis (Fantastic Comics 020)

I judge these... okay criminal uses of invisibility. Nothing spectacular.

Though I set up the comparison between the Fang and the Rook/the Beast myself, I must now point out the way in which he differs from them: he doesn't seemingly die at the end of every appearance. Instead, he alternates seeming to die being caught: he's caught in Fantastic 017, crashes into an oil tank in 018, caught again in 019, and does a header into a well full of slime in Fantastic Comics 020. 

If there's one thing that invisibility powers are extremely good at it's in helping to fake one's own death, though how they help to get out of an ooze pit is beyond me.

Sadly and annoyingly, the final page or two of the Fang's last appearance is not currently available. He is in the process of planting a bomb at the end of the portion that we do have, which makes it highly likely that he went on to be blown up, and that death finally claimed him. Alternately, perhaps he was arrested again and just treated with the appropriate amount of care by the authorities. It is my hope that we will someday learn the truth.

Categorized in: Body (Nonhuman Parts - Fangs), Narrative Footballs (Origin Story Guys), Powers (Invisibility)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 954: THE GROOM

(Daring Mystery Comics 008, 1942)

The Groom is but a simple gang boss who dresses up in a bridegroom's outfit complete with top hat while doing crimes. While he absolutely gets his ass handed to him by comedy characters Rudy the Robot and his creator the Li'l Professor I simply must hand it to a crook with such commitment to a theme. 

Categorized in: Accessories (Minions - Gangsters), Family (Grooms), Locations (New York)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 942: THE SERPENT

(Silver Streak Comics 015, 1941)

The Serpent, a well-established and powerful crimelord, has been laying low due to the threat posed by the Daredevil, but all that is at an end now because as far as she can tell the Daredevil isn't around any longer. She puts in a call to her men, and I really like the sequence that follows. Nothing can stop these guys from getting to work, not prison, not pool, not partying with babes.

The Serpent's plan is both simple and audacious: kidnap the children of the wealthy simultaneously in at least thirteen cities across the US, relying on the mass confusion of the event to hinder law enforcement long enough for her to collect the 10 million dollars ransom and skedaddle.

It turns out that the Serpent was right to fear the Daredevil as he had not retired or been killed but had instead been lying low specifically to draw her out. Now that she has revealed herself, he jumps into action and, barring a brief spell in the Serpent's dungeons (from which she has the audacity to try to ransom him back to the police!), he breaks up her operation in no time flat.

The Serpent herself is captured after an attempt to assassinate the Daredevil at his home because he a) didn't check to see if anyone was following him and b) walked back in uniform. Terrible secret identity hygiene, Daredevil!

Though she is jailed (and makes a great face while being captured!), the Serpent joins the ranks of one-off characters who are just kind of out there with full knowledge of their enemy's secrets. Luckily for the Daredevil, he existed in a less continuity-obsessed time than later heroes and so the Serpent never comes back to bite him for his carelessness.

Categorized in: Animals (Snakes), Kidnappers (Ransom), Villains Who Know Their Heroic Foe's Secret Identity

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 928: THE DOMINO

(Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941)

Dominic Leonetti, aka the Domino, is a nightclub owner/gang boss with what I would call a moderate commitment to his chosen theme. Sure, he plays a game of dominoes with his victims before killing them, and sure he leaves a domino in the hand of whoever he kills, but where's the domino tie pin or domino-handled knife or even that old standard the domino mask? Even his nightclub is called the Red Rouse, which is so much not a domino term that it doesn't seem to mean anything. Call it the Red Pip!

The Domino's attempt to murder his underling Chick Biro is foiled when it turns out that Biro has been replaced by Presto Martin and that Martin is wearing a bulletproof vest (and this has officially happened often enough that the crooks in Martin's version of NYC should be headshot-only at this point). The gang manages to escape thanks to Martin's bumbling assistant Sergeant Murphy, but they have to take it on the lam.

Being on the run means that the Domino is unable to run his nightclub, to which he objects. What, I ask you, is the most logical and straightforward way for him to get back to his preferred lifestyle? All answers are wrong because what Leonetti decides to do is start killing cops in alphabetical order (leaving a domino behind so that the police can be sure it's him), with the explicit threat that the killings will continue until the charges against him are dropped and he is left alone. Is this the least thought-out plan in comics history? It's certainly the worst one that I personally can think of.

Presto Martin solves this problem like he solves all problems: by dressing up like the Domino's next most probably victim and tanking a tommy gun clip thanks to his presumably magical bulletproof vest. A few well-placed bullets drives the gang's car off the road, followed by a few well-placed punches to send them to sleep, and the reign of the Domino is over.

Categorized in: Activities (Games), Day Job (Nightclub Owner), Location (NYC)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 037

For the first time in a very long time: the generic costumed villains all have costumes! 

Unnamed Costumed Gang: 

This unnamed gang has gone to a heckuva lot of trouble to steal the Kalaka Emerald from millionaire Byron Nelson: they've dug out a secret lair under his weird mesa-top home, murdered several of his guests in order to create terror and of course dressed up like the background characters in a costume party scene, presumably also in order to create terror.

Sadly for them, they have failed to reckon with two important facts: 1) that Nelson has already stolen his own gem in order to do a little insurance fraud and 2) that he has hired adventurer Lance Rand to protect the emerald and throw a bit of suspicion off of himself. Rand cleans up the costumed crew with ease, and bags Nelson to boot. (Cat-Man Comics 003, 1941)

Puggsy Sloane: 

When famed gorilla Monstro escapes from the Jenks Bros. Circus, the unnamed city is gripped with terror. And the terror is seemingly justified, as citizen after citizen is murdered by an ape and the police are unable to prevent it despite expending all of their manpower in order to do so. Lance Rand is once again on the case, however, and thanks to a tip-off that Monstro is in fact harmless from the circus owner is able to piece together the fact that it is not the gorilla doing the murders but gorilla-suited gang boss Puggsy Sloane. Why is he doing so? Why, to stretch the police force to the limit and distract them from all of the robbing that his gang was getting up to, of course. (Cat-Man Comics 004, 1941)

Categorized in: Accessories (Style (Gorilla Costume)) 

Dr Carl Resdale: 

Dr Resdale, a famous plastic surgeon, has been operating a face-changing service for criminals out of the old disused family manor for the last twenty years and NOW the rest of the family is looking to use the manor and he has to scare them off by sneaking around in a mask and getting up to spookiness. And not only does he have to keep his young relatives from living in his place of work but he must conceal the fact that he killed his own brother in the manor twenty years before (this is why it's disused). 

Fear not for the younger Resdales, because Dr Miracle is on the case, the villain is soon deprived of his low-effort mask.  (Champion Comics 012, 1941)

Brady: 

A masked killer working for a gambling syndicate active in the Florida horse tracks, Brady's signature weapon is a club with a horse shoe nailed to it to simulate a deadly horse kick to his victims' heads. While a neat little murder weapon, this isn't quite enough to help him when he comes up against Johnny Fox. (Champ Comics 015, 1941)

Categorized in: Accessories (Weapons (Clubs)) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 916: THE STINGER

(Cat-Man Comics 003, 1941)

The Stinger is in most respects an extremely generic masked gang boss of the kind that we have seen so frequently before, right down to the fact that he is wearing one of those hanging cloth face masks, an item only worn by generic masked gang bosses of the 1940s. The real difference between all those other guys and the Stinger is that the Stinger's very first move was to send out some goons to ambush and murder local vigilante and only credible threat to his operations the Ragman. 

This important step having been completed, the Stinger launches a massive crimewave, that includes four simultaneous bank robberies and the kidnapping of the police commissioner. Mayor Not La Guardia is not happy about all this, as he expresses to conspicuous named character police Lieutenant Burns.

The only major flaw in the Stinger's plan is that his gang is made up of 1940s comic book gangsters who don't think to check for a pulse when they are sent to murder someone. This is important because it turns out that the Ragman was wearing a bulletproof vest the whole time and was just playing dead when he was dumped in the river. 

Having beaten up the Stinger's entire operation, the Ragman is able to track him down and unmask him as, you might have guessed it, Lt, Burns, the only new named character in the story. It's the old classic "crooked cop becomes masked crimelord" story again, though this is the first crooked police lieutenant we've seen. 

Categorized under: Body (Nonhuman Body Parts), Location (NYC), Profession (Law Enforcement)