MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 937: THE SCARLET SKULL

(Silver Streak Comics 013, 1941) 

The Scarlet Skull was a real surprise to me! Going by cover dates, he debuted about the same time as the second/"real" Red Skull over at Marvel, which means that he was probably created in the window between the death of the original, George Maxon, and the debut of the Red Skull we will eventually know as Johann Shmidt. Obviously the fact that these are now considered to be two separate characters is all retcon nonsense but the idea of Don Rico noticing that the Red Skull was dead and snaffling him for Lev Gleason is a fun one.

That said, here are the similarities between the Scarlet Skull and the Red Skull: they are both a) Nazis who b) wear red skull masks and c) like to dress in green. And that's about all. 

Rather than being a fascist mastermind, the Scarlet Skull is instead the muscle. He works for a spy named Sinhart and does what I would call a poor job of keeping super-heroes out of his house.

So bad a job, in fact, that he facilitates the Daredevil's infiltration mission by providing him with a handy all-concealing costume to wear while he does it.

This allows Daredevil to learn Sinhart's plan: to kidnap the President and replace him with a double in order to destabilize the US to generic fascist ends. The Scarlet Skull is supposed to be the one doing the kidnapping, so I guess he must have skills beyond getting beaten up in the wooded section of Sinhart's back yard.

The Scarlet Skull does manage to recover from a super-heroic beating in time to ambush Daredevil's fiance Tonia Saunders and then parley that into a second ambush of Daredevil himself. Is this redemption? Will my opinion of him raise?

It will not, I'm afraid. The Daredevil is more than a match for the Scarlet Skull, even when the former is shackled to a wall. The Skull, Sinhart and the false FDR (who has the unnecessarily cool name of Condor, by the way) are soon captured.

SKULL SCORE: The one place that the Scarlet Skull comes out ahead of his counterpart! Unlike the Red Skull, the Scarlet Skull's mask has no visible eyes, giving him a total score of 4/5, i.e., the best possible without having an actual skull face!

Categorized in: Body (Skull), Colours (Scarlet), Ideologies (Nazis)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 907: HALF-MAN

(Whiz Comics 021, 1941)

Due to Allied concerns about the Nazis generic Axis use of black magic to ensure victory, Ibis the Invincible is recruited and sent to the front as a counter-sorcerer. His foe: the mysterious Half-Man, occultist and rumoured worshipper of an ancient evil god called the Dark Spirit.

The Half-Man served with distinction in WWI, until an artillery shell cost him a leg, an arm and an eye and he was no longer able to lead troops in battle. He then turned to the study of black magic to make himself powerful and potentially whole again, and with the advent of WWII he has offered his services to the War Lord, Fawcett's all-purpose late-1941 Hitler stand-in.

Some further particulars: 

In his first appearance, Half-Man has these pseudo-Gestapo occultist minions who are masterpieces to design. They could not more obviously be weird creep villains. They also receive planchette-writing intel from "the watchful ones," which could be flowery language describing another set of occultist creeps in a lookout post somewhere but which I prefer to think is some sore of class of spirit. 

Perhaps it's the Ancient Egyptian in him coming through, but Ibis is unable to treat Half-Man with anything but pity and contempt, no matter how often he is proven to be a legitimate threat, as above when he completely is completely trounced by the guy.  

Like I said, the first issue that Half-Man appears in contains a lot of talk of the ancient god called the Dark Spirit helping to ensure the Axis victories, and I had initially thought that his magical power was also derived from this being, like a D&D warlock, but Whiz Comics 023 includes a segment in which Ibis is almost sacrificed to the Dark Spirit, here called the Angry God, and manages to turn the tables and kill the god's one remaining priest instead. This seems to kill the Angry God as well without noticeably diminishing Half-Man's power, so I guess it's more of a Hellboy situation in which all of the Evil Magic Guys are lumped together into a unit.

Speaking of the military applications of mystical power, the final act of Half-Man's villainous career takes place on the battlefield between the War Lord's forces and those of an unnamed Allied nation that starts out on a back foot because someone is scrying their troop deployments with a crystal ball. 

Once Ibis joins the fighting on the small nation's side, Half-Man too is obligated to take the field, and while no mortal army is a mach for the power of the Ibistick, he manages to capture Taia and get away. The back-and-forth between them might have gone on indefinitely, but for the fact that the War Lord himself shows up and treats Half-Man with a sneering condescension instead of acknowledging his clear need for validation. This gives Ibis the chance to step up and be nice to the guy by restoring his lost body parts. Having finally achieved a feeling of wholeness again, from being literally whole rather than from magical accomplishment, the former Half-Man reforms. Hopefully he had some sort of plan in place to get to a neutral country, since he renounced his magics and presumably fascism at the end there and I doubt that the War Lord would be too understanding of that. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 902: MAGNIFICUS SIVANA

(Whiz Comics 015, 1941)

After Captain Marvel foils a scheme to be described further in the next Dr Sivana update, he finds himself battling a beefcake named Magnificus.

Though Magnificus is ultimately not a match for Captain Marvel, he is powerful enough to duke it out with him for several minutes, which is frankly just as impressive. Since they are doing so on the side of a mountain, however, this starts a landslide that seem like it might just spell the end of Dr Sivana for good after he is beaned by a particularly accurate boulder. 

Since at the time it seems likely that Sivana will finally meet his end, his long-suffering aide Beautia now feels able to share the reason why she has stuck by him all this time despite her increasingly clear desire not to, which is incidentally also the origin of not only Dr Sivana but of her and Magnificus as well.

This is of course when we learn that both Magnificus and Beautia are in fact Dr Sivana's children who he brought with him to Venus after being disillusioned by cold-hearted capitalists who saw his attempts to better humanity as nothing but lost profits. Where Sivana became twisted and embittered over the years, his children instead grew up to be fundamentally good-hearted people who only help him out of a sense of filial affection. This is of course a fun bit right up until Dr Sivana's other two children are introduced to bedevil Captain Marvel Jr and Mary Marvel and a real ugly = evil/ beautiful = good morality system is established.

One thing about Magnificus that I had not expected was the fact that this is his only Golden Age appearance and that we will next see him during the integration of the Marvel Family into the DC multiverse. I guess that he is just better at establishing boundaries with his toxic parent than his sister is.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 840: THE CRAWLER

(Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940) 

The antagonist of the Bob Phantom story in Top-Notch Comics 010 is Joe Chizzler, who uses his low-rent marriage agency to set scumbags up with wives then murder the wives for insurance payouts. It's a mean, low-rent, misogynistic little scheme, and the only saving grace of/reason I'm talking about it is the fact that the actual murdering is done by this character, the Crawler.

Is the Crawler a superhuman? Just a very talented human fly? We cannot know! He crawls up walls and he pulls people out of windows and that's it.

Walt "Bob Phantom" Whitney figures it all out, of course, and since the police in his version of NYC are some of the most incompetent in comics it is up to him to solve the problem with his patented combination of gossip column rabble-rousing and teleportation-heavy vigilantism. The former earns him a visit from the Crawler...

 ... and the latter helps him deliver a taste of the Crawler's own methods to him. 

Our subject is dead on page four of a six page story, but for the completionists: Joe Chizzler takes the Crawler's death as a sign that someone is on to him and he should blow town. He bumps off his gang in order to avoid paying them their shares of the loot and then Bob Phantom shows up and throws Chizzler out of a window in the second bit of bit of poetic justice of the story. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 755: STRADIVOUS

(Smash Comics 017, 1940)

There are a lot of comic book characters who derive their powers from or express them through music, but Stradivous here is the only one I know of who does so using a clarinet. This is going to be huge if we ever want to draft an all-star comics orchestra someday. He also has a really terrific look, with an eccentric choice in every single aspect of his head and facial hair - I'll even grudgingly admit that he pulls off a fu manchu, traditionally my least favourite mustache.

Like many other super musicians, Stradivous specializes in mind control: he can make the people dance and caper as he pleases with but a toot.

More importantly to the plot, Stradivous can also enthrall the entire crew of a ship by broadcasting his music over the radio, and he and his employer Dock Commissioner Jennings have been doing just that from a nearby lighthouse. Jennings gets the info on valuable incoming shipments and Stradivous wrecks the ships and then the gather up the loot.

The Ray is of course none too happy about all of this wanton wrecking and looting and steps in to put a stop to it. He approaches as Happy Terrill for some reason, and is thus vulnerable to Stradivous' hypnotic music. This doesn't stop Happy/the Ray for long, of course, but as he proceeds to beat the ass of every goon in the lighthouse a secondary drama plays out: two cops, drawn to the island by the hypnotic broadcast, spot Jennings and Stradivous fleeing the scene and summarily execute them for running. It's like a dog with a ball - if they see someone moving fast enough they just can't help themself.

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 017

The science is flying fast and loose in here.

Professor Krauss' theories about a method for passing matter through matter were scorned and laughed at, so he turned them to crime, killing three and robbing the New York subtreasury*. Unfortunately for him he also gave an interview about his theories, which really helped research-savvy reporter Chic Carter track down and capture him. (Smash Comics 011, 1940)

*A Note on Subtreasuries: A frequent target for theft in the Golden Age or at least one that I've encountered 3-6 times, the New York Subtreasury was part of a US financial management system that distributed the storage of US gold reserves, but, critically, was phased out in 1920. I don't know what all these guys were after in there but there sure wasn't any gold.

Professor Abbot, disgraced former physics instructor at Stamton College, has developed a machine capable of paralyzing the population of a small city long enough for his men to rob it blind, but since the device also disrupts electrical signals this draws the attention of lineman Tom Dalton, aka Magno, the Magnetic Man. Abbot proves to be unusually well-prepared for the appearance of the local super-hero at his hideout and disables Magno with a prepared dose of knockout gas, which is really, really impressive, I have to say. 

Abbot's downfall comes in the form of every villain's worst enemy, the deathtrap. Sure, slinging Magno down a well to slowly drown is satisfying, in an evil kind of way, but it introduces the possibility of him escaping from the trap, and if he does that then you are screwed. Just stab him with a wooden stake or something if you need to avoid using metal!

Anyway, Magno of course escapes from the trap and ends up blowing Abbot, his machine, his hideout and his gang to high heaven by the medium of some hastily smashed up mad science equipment. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

This unnamed scientist does a bit of old-fashioned grave robbing in order to get only the finest parts for his frankenstein (though the fact that he made sure to include the brain of a scholar doesn't seem to have played out in the mentality of the creature) which he then uses a growth hormone on and makes huge, super strong and bulletproof. Dubbed Brutus and deemed unstoppable, this creation is sent out to loot and plunder.

I always appreciate it when a character has to contend with a foe who is their rough equivalent from time to time - this is part of the appeal of Hellboy, for example - and Brutus offers just that opportunity for Bozo the Iron Man, being essentially a Bozo-shaped and-sized human of equivalent strength. Brutus manages to win the day in their first encounter by hitting Bozo over the head hard enough that Hugh Hazzard is knocked out through the armour of his robo-suit, but their second bout results in the deaths of both Brutus and his unnamed creator. (Smash Comics 014, 1940)

Across the US, buildings, trains, planes and ships begin sailing off into the sky, accompanied by a totally radical visual effect of a giant green mummy that I'm not 100% certain is actually visible to regular non-comic-reading witnesses - it's never commented on in any case, and if I saw a giant mummy carry a train off into the void I assure you that you would hear me speak of little else.

The culprit turns out to be one Doctor Robb, an unscrupulous archaeologist who murdered his colleague Professor Hill in order to steal an ancient artifact called the Power of Tutkamen (named after original owner Ra Tutkamen, natch).

Robb presumably refines his control over the power, as he seems to be using it to plunder passing shipping from his island base and that's hard to do if you're just blasting ships and planes into orbit. The party comes to an end once the Invisible Hood gets involved, as Robb discovers to his chagrin that having the power to levitate anything you see doesn't help you very much in a confrontation with an invisible guy. Rather than be captured, Robb does a header out the window of his lighthouse HQ. (Smash Comics 016, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 750: THE PHANTOM

(Smash Comics 015, 1940) 

It's a tale as old as opera: macho newsman Chic Carter is pissing and moaning his way through a theatre review assignment when a dramatic figure suddenly murders the star and disappears into the bowels of the opera house. Chic is quick to connect this killing with two others that took place over the last twenty years and sets out to capture the enigmatic Phantom.

Chic and the police stage a recreation of the fatal performance using the singer's poor understudy and... it works! Too well, actually. The singer doesn't get murdered (phew!) but the Phantom grabs her and runs off with Carter in hot pursuit, along with a suspiciously evil-looking actor. 

It turns out that the opera's male lead has been maintaining his position of prominence for the last twenty years by having the Phantom murder his rivals, and what a commitment to being the king of a moderate hill that is. Sure, opera was a lot more of A Thing circa 1940 than it is now and this is presumably the top NYC opera house, but keeping a whole-ass man in a secret basement apartment for two entire decades in order to remove a rival on average every ten years... it's a heckuva commitment to your art is all I'll say.

In an unsurprising non-twist, the singer turns out to be a bad boss and shoots the Phantom dead for screwing up and kidnapping the understudy, only to be killed himself when the Phantom pops back up with a burst of dying berserker strength just long enough for revenge. Maybe if you hadn't outsourced all of your murdering to underpaid contractors you'd be better at it, idiot.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 748: THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

(Smash Comics 012, 1940)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame is just that, a modern version of the fictional character, and seemingly just as damaged by society as his predecessor. He is manipulated into working as an assassin for Madame Doom, who is in Paris (presumably on behalf of the Nazis) to disrupt peace talks helmed by US Ambassador Blank but is being effectively countered by the Black X and so must operate through a deniable dupe asset.

Just what the deal is with the Hunchback is down to three distinct possibilities, all fairly equally outlandish, but all are predicated on the fact that Notre Dame has a hunchbacked bellringer in 1940, like it's a prerequisite for the job. The possibilities:

1. That the people of Paris are correct in their belief that this Hunchback of Notre Dame is a direct descendant of Quasimodo, the original, which would imply not only that Quasimodo had a child at some point but that his physical condition was one which was passed down through a line of bellringers for almost 500 years.

2. Similar to Possibility 1. Quasimodo has a child, but in this case, the Hunchback of Notre Dame Gene is recessive and his descendants are not generationally indentured cathedral slaves. This latest member of the family would thus be reviving an old tradition by being a delusional misfit urban legend.

3. The citizens of Paris are credulous fools and all hunchbacked bellringers are not, in fact, related. In this scenario we must assume that it's the job that is so terrible that it drives these poor men mad.

Regardless of his actual origin, the Hunchback meets his end after attacking Black X in a jealous rage over Madame Doom's affections. Riddled with bullets, he falls to his death. Black X is still horny for Madame Doom at this point, so she is allowed to leave.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 746: THE LUMINOUS EYES

(Smash Comics 011, 1940)

London is in the grip of terror! An ominous figure with huge glowing eyes is terrifying/attacking people in the streets and in their homes! The city is in an uproar - where could the Luminous Eyes strike next? And to make the whole situation even more confusing, the only purpose of these attacks appears to be the theft of various common items, all green.

When there's trouble in this particular fictional version of London, Captain Cook of Scotland Yard is the one to call, and indeed he almost corners the Luminous Eyes on his first attempt, only to lose his own green hat (and also attempt to shoot a fleeing criminal in the back, I might add). Still, this represents progress.

Through some wild deduction that we are not really privy to, Cook arrives at the conclusion that all of this theft-of-ggreen has been preparation for an attempt to steal the Royal Crown Emeralds (not actually a part of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, I checked) from the Tower of London. Further, he has deduced that the Luminous Eyes is not a man at all! Instead, he has been matching wits with an East Indian Panola (a fictional type of chimpanzee, I checked) with surgically-implanted owl's eyes, and that the prior thefts were all part of an elaborate training regimen by the creature's creator.

And speaking of that creator, this is what I was talking about yesterday in the Bat entry! Is training a surgically-modified chimpanzee to steal green objects as part of an attempt to steal an emerald crown a reasonable thing to do? Of course not, unless you're in a comic book universe. In a comic book universe, such a plan has a reasonable chance of working, and even if it doesn't you're only down a chimp. And an owl, I suppose. Heck, the creator of the Luminous Eyes even gets away with it!

(it turns out that this is the 1000th post that I've made on this blog, and unlike many of the other Milestone Posts, this one falls on a character that I actually have a lot of affection for! Here's to the nxt thousand!)