GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 023

Some real gems here tonite. 

Executed gangster Black Morger's four identical sons reconvene twenty-five years after their father's execution to seek revenge on the four people who they consider to be responsible for his death (and for that of their mother, who had some sort of rage-induced heart attack at the instant of Black Morger's demise). To their credit, they manage to kill two of them before the Spirit butts in and foils their plot. 

REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 2/4 (The Spirit, "The Morger Boys", 18 August, 1940) 

Waxy Morgan is a gang boss with the bright idea to commit crimes while dressed as the Spirit so as to throw suspicion off of himself and his men. This goes poorly for him. (The Spirit, "The Spirit! Who is He?", 13 October, 1940)

 

This unnamed villain deduces Lady Luck's secret identity by the simple trick of being the only one in the city capable of visualizing a lady in a hat. But though he has this unimaginable deductive power his people skills are lacking, and he fails both to convince Lady Luck to help him kill rich guys and to predict that his huge servant Tortu might eventually tire of being beaten with a whip and subsequently totally pulverize him. (The Spirit Section, 3 November, 1940)

When Mr Mystic has a ski accident in the Carpathian Mountains, he ends up being cared for in an idyllic village that has been cut off from the outside world for 700 years, but which has one major problem: a horrible ogre who lives in the mountains above and demands the sacrifice of one maiden per year or else he will wipe the place off the map with a well-placed avalanche. What's worse, this year the Ogre has demanded a red-haired maiden and the village is fresh out. And what's worse, Mr Mystic's red-haired friend Penny Douglas has just wandered into town. 

Anyway, the Ogre turns out to just be some creep hermit who likes making the village kill women for some reason. He manages to yeet himself off the side of a mountain while trying to murder Mr Mystic. (The Spirit Section, 29 December, 1940) 

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 022

Just look at them go.

This gang has hit upon the very effective technique of faking an appearance by the Arrow in order to steal other crooks' takings when they intelligently run away from a potential ass-kicking by a seven-foot-tall vigilante. 

The important corollary to any plan to impersonate a super-hero, of course, is that that hero will eventually get wind and show up to see just what they are supposedly doing, which leads to, yes, a collective ass-kicking by a seven-foot-tall vigilante. (The Arrow 002, 1940)

I'd probably make more of this "ring of big shots" and their plan to take over NYC by blowing up the various dams that contain its water reservoirs (for instance: is a flooded New York without a fresh water supply really worth taking over?) but Phantasmo really torpedoes their whole plan by literally torpedoing their leader as he's trying to torpedo the New Croton Dam, so the whole plot fizzles before it can really get off the ground. (The Funnies 047, 1940)

He may be an extremely generic Central American revolutionary leader who bungles things spectacularly enough that his entire force is destroyed before they actually get around to doing any revolution, but I do find the name "El Tiger" to be as charming as it is linguistically nonsensical. (The Funnies 050, 1940)

Is Eldas Thayer, a cranky old terminally ill miser who stages his own murder in order to frame the Spirit, yet another example of me possibly straying a bit too far from the concept of the "generic costumed villain" that this round-up supposedly exists to showcase? Probably, but that doesn't matter because I am in charge here.

Though the reason for this plot is ultimately "this is a more interesting comic if the Spirit is wanted by the police" (which is why the Spirit is never actually exonerated for this crime), I do really appreciate Thayer's forthright statement that he is doing this because he is an evil old man. Not enough villains have the guts to own up to that kind of thing, you know? (The Spirit, "Eldas Thayer", 21 July, 1940) 

ADDENDUM: I have made a proverbial fool of myself. The Spirit was cleared of the murder of Eldas Thayer like three months later. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 803: THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN GANG

(The Arrow 002, 1940)

It's an occupational hazard for the costumed adventurer: eventually someone is going to dress up like you so that they can do crimes and get away with it while you take all the blame. And when the hero in question is a mysterious and half-legendary figure like your typical masked cowboy tends to be, why, it must be all the more tempting, as Betty aka the Headless Horseman learns to her dismay when she learns that her own alter ego has been tearing up the Mesa County countryside in a crime spree even though she is attending college in Chicago.

Returning on the first available stagecoach, Betty wastes no time in tracking down the real crooks, then she simply substitutes herself for the convenient her-sized dummy that has been playing the part of the Headless Horseman during the gang raids and leads the whole gang into a corral and the waiting arms of the town sheriff.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 588: THE MASK

(Exciting Comics 004, 1940) 

Famed Broadway star Sandra Cummings is dead, either by her own hand or anothers', and she has for some never explained reason left behind a note detailing the extent of political corruption in NYC and more importantly naming the names of those involved. This note is immediately stolen and soon afterward someone pretending to be the Mask starts extorting and murdering those named in the note.

I've said it before: impersonating a super-hero is completely understandable move. It's easy to disguise yourself as someone in a mask and your average comic book cop is so dumb and gullible that they would arrest the Pope if they found a dead body with a note reading  "I did it - the Pope" next to a red shoe. You get to trade on your target's reputation and maybe have them arrested or killed - win/win!

Of course, there are many downsides to this plan, and the Mask impostor fails to think of all of them. For a start, any masked vigilante worth their salt will never be caught by the cops. As has been established, they are very dumb! Also - and I cannot stress this enough - if you are going to frame and ultimately attempt to kill a super-hero it is a very good idea not to choose one who kills people. Because they will probably kill you.

The fake Mask turns out to be Dr Lawrence Reid, a guy who just kind of shows up an makes a lot of noise about things. If he has any deeper motivations (other than to get real paid) he does not bother to reveal them before the real Mask guns him down like a trademark infringing dog.

FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 003

More goons. Fascist goons? Yes.

The Anti-American Party operated in the South American country of Santa Palos, home of the Red Gaucho, and got up to a lot of malarky at a fancy dress ball. Crucially, they disguised one of their agents as the Red Gaucho, leading to a lot of mixups between the agent, the Gaucho and a clueless dope who also came dressed as the hero (Nickel Comics 006, 1940)

The Black Guard, agents of the Germany-analog country of Nordicha operating in neighbouring oil-rich country Ruina and foiled by Secret Agent X-5 (later G-5) (Hit Comics 002, 1940)

Now that I'm revisiting them I reckon that the Green Gloves should have been a regular entry but it's too late now. In contrast to all of the other fascist groups represented here so far, the Green Gloves are devoted to a guy amazingly named Glover Green with no allegiance to any foreign power. Green seems to be your garden variety megalomaniac with a real glove fixation, down to traitors to the group getting a green glove brand on their foreheads (Detective Comics v1 045, 1940)

The Nastonian-American Society is just another German-American Bund analog (Adventure Comics 051, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 274: THE BRAIN

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 018, 1941)

The Brain is your classic nerd gang boss, of the common subvariety that are almost clever enough to succeed but get in their own way. His core plan this ish is solid as far as supercrime goes: rob an Army payroll and frame the Human Torch for it via the use of what is essentially one of those suits that stuntmen wear in order to set themselves on fire (which as an aside kind of makes me reconsider just how upsetting the Human Torch would be to see). He even has a decent plan to get rid of the Torch is he manages to figure out whodunnit.

The Brain's real failing lies in underestimating Toro, the Torch's teen sidekick and avid shirt avoider. While the Human Torch is afforded an entire elaborate deathtrap of his own, the Brain's entire plan to deal with Toro is to assume that he can take him in a fight.

And he can't! It's not even close! Toro is basically exactly as powerful as the Human Torch, plus he's a teen boy, a notoriously wily bunch! This is frankly embarrassing for the Brain.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 111: THE SPECTRE

(More Fun 061,1940)

Impersonating and framing a super-hero is not an uncommon thing to do, but Gustav Gilroy took the added step of adopting his target's identity as his own in his campaign of turning his enemies to gold via chemical-laced free gum samples.

Gilroy also faced the Spectre in the first year of his career and so didn't really comprehend just how bad his choice of scapegoat was - the only surprising thing about his end is that he was ultimately turned to gold by his own hand rather than that of the earth-bound ghost himself.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 060: THE MASK

(Action Comics 022, 1940)

The Mask is your garden-variety master of disguise, con artist subtype: he assumes the identities of others in order to acquire monies from their banks and businesses. He is distinguished from the rest of his ilk in two ways: firstly in that he is our second villain to employ the aid of the Tigress and secondly in that he actually has his face surgically altered to make his impersonations.

His downfall comes when he assumes the identity of Zatara in order to claim some reward money that the magician had turned down, leading to this:

It's sometimes unclear whether Zatara ever reverses this kind of transformation, so I just go by what's said and done on-panel. If he turns a crook to stone and says he's going to come back for them later then he does. Otherwise, there's a petrified wrongdoer in a field somewhere to this day. All this is to say: Zatara never gives any indication that he's going to change the Mask back, so I imagine that he served his sentence for fraud and had to reintegrate to society looking like that.