MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 962: THE MASTER

(Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

The Master is a mysterious new crooks who has been going around town kidnapping wealthy men, and the Black Terror and Tim have been running around after him and trying to figure out just what the heck is going on. The Master is also a classic Bad Boss in the "ruthlessly kill your minions" mould.

As it turns out, the Master has broadly the same origin story as early Batman villain the Ugliest Man in the World, only instead of a medical student who was injected with a random cocktail of drugs and turned ugly in a frat hazing gone wrong, he is instead a chemistry student who was exploded by a random mixture of chemicals in some frat bullying gone wrong. Like his counterpart, the Master (aka Alfred Foster, aka Phillip van Allen) dropped out of sight, acquired a rubberoid mask and established a new identity so that he could enact his revenge on those he blamed for his disfigurement.

Unlike the Ugliest Man in the World, the Master's theming is not strong. He himself is vaguely Egyptian themed, while his henchmen are just a bunch of Malaysian guys who he does not treat very well.

The Master's plan also revolves around gathering up his tormentors so that he can kill them all at once, meaning that his revenge goes almost entirely unfulfilled when he is accidentally killed by one of his own men. All in all a very poor foray into super-villainy.

Revenge Killer Score: 0/12

Categorized in: Accessories (Rubberoid Mask), Generica (Masters), Origin (Extensively Scarred Face)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 539 UPDATE: THE CLAW (post-Daredevil, 1941)

In keeping with my decision to split the Claw updates for 1941 by heroic foe, here are the details of his three-issue dalliance with engineer Bill Hopkins.

When last we saw the Claw... he was in the Pacific, roughing up Adolf Hitler. But before that, at the end of his long back-and-forth with the Daredevil, there was the small matter of his asking Lucifer for aid and getting it, with the caveat that if he still lost in his next encounter with Daredevil he would be "banished into Asia forever!" And since he did lose, that means that he can't return to America, right?

Evidently not, because in  Daredevil Comics 002, the Claw kidnaps a train filled with 2000 soldiers as it passes through Pennsylvania, then sends a note to the president (note the custom signature) to ask for the complete US gold supply in ransom.

Meanwhile, the Claw is showing his prisoners home movies designed to bend them to his will. Note the Hitler impression: in 1941 this is shorthand for being a megalomaniac rather than a genocidal megalomaniac (though in all cases it marks you as being a bit of an uninspired hack). Whether he gets the gold or not, the Claw intends to use these men in yet another attempt to conquer the US.

One of these soldiers, Dick Hopkins, has a brother named Bill Hopkins, who has the radical idea to retrace the path of the original train in a second one and see if anything happens, which it does. This really erodes my confidence in the authorities of this fictional reality, frankly. You'd think "take a couple of lads and check the tracks between here and where the train disappeared" would be the logical first step to take but Bill seems to be the first one to think of it. 

Perhaps the Claw was able to return to America by sacrificing some of his power to Lucifer, because Bill Hopkins' thrown rocks and pistol shots are much more effective than such things as artillery and machine guns have been in the past.

The second part of Bill's plan, after "find out where the Claw has stashed 2000 men" is "come find me if I disappear" and accordingly, in Daredevil Comics 003, the US Army locates the Claw's base by following the extra set of train tracks that split off the main trunk and head directly into a cliff face. Once again, the Claw seems weaker than usual and the Army is pushing his forces back successfully enough that he orders his men to flood the base with poison gas. It is at this point that Bill has his best idea yet, as he steals the Claw's enormous gas mask and chucks it down a convenient bottomless pit.

The Claw is more affected by poison gas than the regular-sized humans in the room thanks to the fact that his big body needs more oxygen and thus are breathing in more gas, and while I love a well-rationalized weakness in a character it does call into question all future Claw foes for not immediately tear gassing him on sight.

What I don't love is that the Claw, already a distillation of Yellow Peril tropes, is one-upping himself by adopting what I just learned is called a wonton font in his speech bubbles. I think that it's supposed to be adding emphasis when he is yelling but at this point he is almost always yelling.

 Daredevil Comics 004: The Claw brought into NYC in chains/in triumph. He almost instantly escapes.

Seeking vengeance on Bill Hopkins, the Claw fords the Hudson River and in so doing becomes the first-ever super-villain to enter Hoboken.

Bill doesn't take this aggression lying down, and meets the Claw on a handy rooftop with a can of kerosene and a match, and this is a pretty good illustration of a though I have had while writing this: the Claw battling super-heroes is all well and good, but what I really enjoy is seeing him get it from regular folks. Bill Hopkins and his Home Alone energy might just be the best that the "Claw" feature ever gets, and it's a real shame that this is the last we will be seeing of him.

The Claw very reasonably exits via the river. So long forever, Bill. Next time: the Ghost!

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 925: THE IRON-JAW

(Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941)

The US is being rocked by a series of explosions targeting munitions factories and other facilities contributing to national defense, and not even the speed of the Silver Streak is enough to combat the organizational skills and coordination of the mysterious mastermind behind them. It is only by sheer coincidence that he happens upon an imperilled security guard from a plant in Georgia and learns from him that the men who blew up his workplace were under command of a mysterious figure called "Iron-Jaw" and that they all work for the "Axes Government".

Even with this information under his belt, the Silver Streak still loses two more factories to the Iron-Jaw before finally running down some of his men in Boston and discovering the secret of their great organizational abilities: a super-miniaturized (for the 40s) radio set used to relay orders to the Axes forces in America. By following the instructions coming from a captured unit, the Streak and Whiz are finally able to get the jump on the Iron-Jaw's men and prevent the destruction of a plant in Pittsburgh, though the mastermind remains on the loose.

The Iron-Jaw returns in Silver Streak Comics 010 with a new set of goals - the focus is now on shutting down media criticism of the Axes. To that end, the Silver Streak is drawn away via a report of a potential bombing in Chicago while Iron-Jaw is grabbing the real target, broadcaster Kitty Doyle, in NYC.

This is Silver Streak we're talking about here, so he returns in time to interrupt the kidnapping in progress. the mysterious Iron-Jaw is revealed to be a moderately cool-looking/ moderately goofy-looking/ fairly spiky humanoid robot. With a gold finish, no less - so much for thematic consistency.

Though Iron-Jaw briefly gets the upper hand, even a super strong, very pointy robot is no match for the world's fastest man and it takes a fatal header onto the streets of Manhattan below.

Here's something about the Iron-Jaw: in its first appearance, all it does is talk, while in its second it is completely mute. This dovetails interestingly with something that Kitty reports after its defeat, that investigation of the robot indicates that it was controlled by trans-oceanic radio waves originating from the Axes government. Which seems to indicate that the Iron-Jaw was merely operating as the mouth and hands of one or more spymasters in some comic book pastiche of Germany, which in turn means that this is one of the few times in Golden Age comics in which the villain gets away at the end!* Neat!

*excluding all of the recurring villains who get away all the time, of course. 

Finally, Silver Streak and Whiz get to meet FDR to get his congratulationss, plus a Congressional Medal of Honor!

Categorized in: Body (Jaws), Elements (Iron), Origins (Robots) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 894: BLUEBEARD

(Wow Comics 004, 1941) 

The piratical Bluebeard and his gang of fake sea dogs crash the costume ball of the wealthy van Hoffs and make off with Mrs van Hoff, demanding a ransom of one hundred thousand dollars for her return.

Since Bluebeard had already tried to do extortion on the van Hoffs by sending them threatening notes, Mr Scarlet and Pinky were already on hand to swiftly track down the kidnappers and beat them senseless. 

The post-beating unmasking reveals that Bluebeard is in fact Tom, possibly van Hoff, cousin to one or the other of the couple (or... both? Are the van Hoffs that kind of rich?), who has fallen on hard times and turned to costumed kidnapping as a means to scare up some quick cash. Some notes for Cousin Tom:

- It is a bold choice to choose a false chinstrap beard when you have a real mustache.

- Running around going "THEY'RE PROBABLY NOT IN THE CASTLE" when they are, in fact, in the castle is a really good way to draw suspicion down on yourself. Better to not mention the castle at all.

- It is very annoying to call yourself Bluebeard and hang out in a castle while sticking to a strict pirate theme when there is in fact a character called Bluebeard, famously castle-based, who is a direct threat to women, and who I personally think would make for a better theme.

In other words: make better choices next time.