MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 976: DOCTOR DROOL

(The Flame 004, 1941)

Doctor Drool* is a medical doctor who was recently executed for an unspecified crime. He has, however, planned for this eventuality, and his assistant Scully is on-hand to collect him from his mausoleum at the earliest opportunity so that he can administer a revivification treatment to him. Thus restored, Doctor Drool swears revenge on the Judge, District Attorney and jury who convicted him, a fourteen-person death list that would eventually grow to include the Flame as number fifteen.

Doctor Drool's real distinction is that his story is serialized over three issues, namely The Flame 004 and 005 and Big 3 003. Sadly, this is not the bold departure from the rapidly-solidifying episodic formula that it could be.

*his actual surname. Heavy contender for the worst name in comics. 

Perhaps the best aspect of this extended story is the fact that Drool is able to make many more on-panel attempts at revenge than is typical. This really drives home the terror of the situation for his victims, particularly given his method of murder: sending threatening notes, etc to drive them into a frenzy of fear and then firing a gun loaded with blanks at them to incite a heart attack (a method of murder not without its risks, as two strong-hearted jurists do survive). Please also note the signature on the notes is a stylized representation of Drool's own tombstone.

The repetition doesn't work quite as well in all aspects of the story, alas. For instance: the Flame knows that Drool is operating out of his old home (the unnervingly-named Drool Mansion) though he cannot find his secret lab for most of the story. This leads to him searching the place on five separate occasions, and on three of those he falls for the same trick in which Drool has set up a dummy of himself that sets off a deathtrap when the Flame attacks it.

(that said, there is a charming bit in which the Flame finds two mice in the mansion's cellar on his first visit there and reports on the status of their growing family every time he revisits the place, until Drool Mansion is finally destroyed and the now eight-strong mouse family move house en mass. There's also a recurring bit in which the Flame scares a pair of cemetery workers that is not quite as charming but still fun)

After maybe a month in-comic, Drool is eventually stopped after he falls off of a building and ironically dies of fright despite being caught by the Flame before he could hit the ground. And since the police never really believed that Doctor Drool was behind the killings, the Flame just tosses him back into his coffin as if he had never went on a killing spree at all. I reckon that there is a pretty high chance that he would've been brought back again at least one more time if the next issue didn't mark the start of the New Look Flame under a different creative team. Scully is still at large, after all, and we never learn where those mice end up!

JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 5/15

Categorized in: Accessories (Calling Cards), Doctors and Professors, Origin (Faked Own Death)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 908: THE RATTLER

(Whiz Comics 022, 1941)

As we join the action, a passing stranger informs us and also Golden Arrow that the Rattler has broken jail! And he's handing out calling cards! 

Turns out that the Rattler, notorious outlaw of the West, is out to get the men who served on the jury at his trial (and, we must assume, the judge and prosecutor as well), and he's being impressively proactive about it: the above scene takes place the morning after he breaks jail and he has already killed nine members of the jury.

After the unnamed sheriff's deputy quits in the face of the Rattler's murderous machinations, Golden Arrow signs up for the job and is immediately pinned down by a hail of bullets. Bullets which are then revealed to be yet another calling card-type image! For an Old West character, the Rattler is surprisingly brand-conscious.

The Rattler's industriousness turns out to include planning super-hero contingency plans: by the time Golden Arrow gets ready to pursue and apprehend him, the villain's men have already made off not only with Golden Arrow's horse White Wind but his ladyfriend Carol Braddock. And he arranges for Golden Arrow to be attacked by a (jumping!) rattlesnake - more brand consciousness.

I'm almost sad that the Rattler falls for Golden Arrow's subsequent trap. He was doing so well! There's a lesson here that I can't quite articulate - perhaps something about the path of revenge laying even the most clever among us low. In any case, it's back to jail for the Rattler, which will give him more time to come up with an even more extensive revenge list.

JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 9/15+

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 893: THE HUMMER

(Wow Comics 004, 1941)

The Hummer, "the deadliest killer on Earth" has just gotten out of jail and is out for revenge on those responsible for sending him away in the first place, starting with Taylor, the prosecutor.

Like so many of his peers in the murder community, the Hummer has an affectation: he hums while he kills, and also while preparing to kill and after he kills. He hums all the time. It's a bit of a liability, to be honest, as anyone who knows about him is able to keep an ear out for trouble. He's also a classic super-villain Bad Boss who kills his henchmen when they fail him.

Where many revenge killers are obsessive enough to stick to their predetermined list come hell or high water, the Hummer is of a more adaptive breed and dynamically expands it as he goes along, which is why Mr Scarlet and Pinky are marked for death. While this is evidence of a more flexible view of the world, I can't help but assume that it will lead to a never-ending vengeance quest as everyone who impedes the Hummer in any way is themselves marked for death.

One of the original targets on the list is Brian "Mr Scarlet" Butler's secretary Miss Wade, who was working for previous victim Taylor at the time that the Hummer was put away, This is an astonishingly petty grudge to hold, and also provides Mr Scarlet and Pinky with just that much more motivation to take the Hummer down. 

Revenge Killer Score: 1/10+

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 838: DR DREAD

(Top-Notch Comics 008, 1940)

After Harley Hudson perfects his muscular coordination technique and becomes the Firefly after two years of hard study, his first order of business is to move to New York City to find a job, because it's hard to fight crime on an empty stomach. Plus NYC is the place to be for super-heroics and super-crime. Case in point: the very first job ad that Hudson follows up on turns out to be criminal scientist Dr Dread (unnamed in his first appearance), who is acquiring experimental subjects with a simple notice in the papes.

Dread's experiments involve "mechanical brains" that somehow mutate their recipients into huge goblinoid creatures (called the Green Men even though they trend more grey-brown) once implanted - the details are fuzzy at best. He believes that Hudson (and reporter Joan Burton, also unnamed this ish) have the fortitude necessary to be the Adam and Eve of an improved Green Man species, with which Dr Dread will take over the world.

Luckily for Hudson/ unluckily for Dr Dread, the operation requires a period of complete darkness, allowing Harley to switch to his Firefly persona and begin beating some Green Man ass.

At this point, it's all over for Dr Dread - even the late-game addition of a mutated primate named Mongo does little to slow down the muscularly coordinated hero. Mongo goes out the window and the world is poorer for it.

Indications at the end of that first Dr Dread story are that he escapes, but Thrilling Comics 009 finds him about to be executed for his crimes. After he is electrocuted, his body is collected by a henchman - presumably Selig, his assistant from his first appearance and also a rare example of a mad scientist's assistant who doesn't end up dead by the end of the adventure.

Somewhat coincidentally, not long after Selig has hauled Dr Dread's corpse away than the district attorney who prosecuted him is attacked and killed by a couple of walking corpses, who then spontaneously deanimate, leaving both a mess and a mystery in the middle of what was formerly a nice restaurant. 

The mystery is solved when Joan Burton is kidnapped by some more walking corpses and spirited away to a remote castle, where she finds Dr Dread, alive and well. It turns out that he merely drank a potion that made him immune to being electrocuted - if the comic book justice system wants to keep on using capital punishment, they really are going to have to start treating villains like a superstitious peasant treats a suspected vampire: beheading the corpse is a minimum requirement to keep those suckers in the ground.

Dr Dread is of course using his walking corpses to get revenge on those responsible for his capture and sentencing: the District Attorney (RIP), Joan, the Firefly and Judge Grayson. To that end, he locks Joan and the Firefly in a room with some kill-crazy corpses and then leaves to do something else, in classic super-villain deathtrap fashion.

The Firefly makes use of his track and field experience to pole vault himself and Joan out of this sticky situation, leaving the kill-crazed corpses with nobody to murder. Thus, when Dr Dread comes back to admire his handiwork he instead finds himself as the target of their attack. He doesn't make it.

JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/4

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 754: BELA JAT

(Smash Comics 016, 1940)

It's a classic setup: the embittered villain is released from prison and swears vengeance on those who put them there. In this case, the recently released figure is the mystic Bela Jat, who has just spent seven years behind bars for killing someone in a magical experiment and is mighty unhappy about it. Joining him are his excellently named and very loyal henchmen Shimego and Gar.

Jat sets out to capture and kill the three men who he blames for his incarceration: the police commissioner who captured him back when he was a mere detective, the district attorney who prosecuted him and the judge who handed down the sentence. He does this by the simple expedient of anonymously gifting each with a carved wooden idol containing "ecto-fluid" that Jat is able to animate into a human form via some sort of astral projection, whereupon he simply hauls them back to his underground lair.

This seems like a good place to raise an important consideration: Bela Jat clearly has real, working magical powers, and thus Detective Healy's testimony above about seeing him "transform the victim's body to a grayish fluid" is presumably truthful, but... so what? Like, legally, so what? I can absolutely see a mature super-hero universe like the present-day Marvel or DC ones having legal precedent covering the use of magic, but Bela Jat must have had a terrible lawyer if they didn't raise the question of how exactly he was responsible for this transformation, like, provably. And that's ignoring Jat's assertion that police interference is what caused the victim's death! Given these considerations, we must conclude that Bela Jat acted as his own lawyer.

Legalities aside, Jat manages to get ahold of the commissioner and the DA before the Ray gets involved and prevents his kidnapping of the judge. Showing unusual adaptability, he decides to forego the satisfaction of a triple revenge murder in favour of the more achievable double kill now followed by a single when it's convenient.

But before Jat can actually murder the two to completion the Ray shows up again and spoils everything: Gar and Shimego get their blocks knocked off, the prisoners get released before Jat's deathtrap can take effect and one of them (Police Commissioner Healy) gets to show off his skill at knife throwing by planting one in Bela Jat's back. 

JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 0/3 - that's right friends: Bela Jat is one of the worst to ever do it.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 514: THE GHOST OF ROCK ROOK

(Blue Bolt v2 001, 1941)

"Rock" Rook is a gangster with an incredibly annoying name: hard to parse, seems like it should mean something but doesn't, plus its' always written as "Rock Rook" and that's probably just a quirk of early 20th Century English but it makes me think that his last name isn't even Rook and that makes me think that it means something again but it still doesn't.

Anyway, he is sentenced to and executed in the electric chair, ostensibly for murder but his annoying name must have contributed some judicial bloodthirstiness.

As this is a Sergeant Spook story, Rook's vow to revenge himself on the judge and jury is not carried out by the traditional methods (fake your own death, hire a mad scientist to resurrect your corpse or put your brain in a gorilla, die but have your secret twin pretend to be your ghost, etc) but rather by his coming back as an actual, factual ghost.

Unfortunately for Rock Rook the freedom to be a ghostly murderer comes with a major catch: your victim's ghost can call the ghost cops on you. Sergeant Spook is on the case faster than Rock Rook can line up his next target.

After that it's just a matter of experienced ghost vs inexperienced ghost and Rock Rook finds himself in the ghost-proof jail lickety-split.

Sergeant Spook is still a comic searching for its sweet spot and and for my money this kind of ghost-on-human crime is where it should focus, particularly if it involves stuff like the murder victim calling the ghost cops on the murderer.

JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/19+ (very weak showing from a unstoppable killing machine)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 504: PROFESSOR X

(Blue Bolt v1 005, 1940)

Professor X has two of my favourite qualities in a minor super-villain: a famous name and a prior history. The first is the same kind of fun as when my friend named his cat after me. "What do you mean Professor X keeps getting up on the counter to steal ham?"

I really love his Prohibition-Era villainy as well, particularly as I had it in my head that he specifically was a bootlegger and thus that all of his great inventions were in service of that - dirigibles full of Canadian whiskey? The axe-proof barrel? The mighty Beer-Bot? Fun stuff. The suicide vest, by contrast is a bit much and not particularly fun, but does establish his bona fides as a legitimate threat.

Prof. X is on a classic Judge and Jury Revenge Killer tear, targeting Hogan, the cop who brought him in and Johnson, the lawyer who put him away, who since then has become the District Attorney of Centro and close personal friend of local super-hero Sub-Zero.

Due to this last fact Professor X is forced to turn his genius to the creation of anti-Sub-Zero weaponry, including cold-proof cars, an unfreezable gun that fires superheated bullets and his iconic costume which - you guessed it - is insulated  and renders him immune to Sub-Zero's freezing powers. And he almost manages to beat Sub-Zero! His only mistake is in having uninsulated water pipes in his secret lair and leads to him being sent to jail inside a large block of ice.

Professor X returns in the next issue in an attempt to finish getting revenge on DA Johnson as well as new target Sub-Zero (he also tries to kill Sub-Zero's girlfriend Mary but I don't think he has a specific grudge against her), and this time he's accompanied by a costumed henchman named Rat. Once again he very nearly pulls it off but this time his fatal flaw is a lot more fatal, as he misjudges a jump during his escape and does a header out a fourth story window. An ignominious end to be sure.

JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/3

But death is not the end for Professor X! Blue Bolt v1 007 features a gambler named Rocky Garret who has acquired the Professor's anti-Sub-Zero tech as insurance against interference in his baseball-fixing scheme (and it's a good idea for him to do so, as his scheme is Not Very Good - a lot of it is literally just putting the wrong numbers on the scoreboard which... isn't good.  It's a bad plan.)

Sadly this is it as far as Professor X's legacy goes. I was kind of hoping that Sub-Zero would be confronted with a guy in a mesh bodysuit every now and again going forward, but alas, it was not meant to be.