MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 968: THE BLACK RIDER

(Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

The Black Rider is a ruthless bandit chief who has not only terrorized the countryside but has had the audacity to kidnap Bill Carrol, Captain Kidd's best friend, an unforgivable sin.

While the Black Rider & Co. might look like they are straight out of a comic set in the American West, Captain Kidd's 1941 adventures have taken place exclusively in Africa, and given the mention of a city called Tanga above, I think that we can pretty confidently place this comic somewhere in present-day Tanzania, in the part that was then Tanganyika (yes, okay, there's also a couple of Tangas in Burkina Faso. I just don't think that they're the right ones, okay?).

Though the Black Rider manages to overpower Captain Kidd and stick him in a booby-trapped airplane during their first encounter this is absolutely not enough to dissuade even novice two-fisted adventurer, let alone a grizzled veteran like Kidd. Kidd's return gambit is to storm the Black Rider's HQ and machine gun the entire gang.

The entire gang bar the Black Rider, that is, because it's time for the dramatic revelation that the Black Rider is... A LADY???!!! Specifically, she is the daughter of the original Black Rider, out for revenge since he was killed by vigilantes but now on her way to a British colonial jail and/or execution. Please note that the Black Rider pulls the old "roughly the same size as an adventure hero until unmasked" trick, going from a burly six foot to a slender 5'6" in about one panel.

Categorized in: Colours (Black), Generica (Riders), Origin (Cross-Dressing Characters, Legacy Characters)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 030

I seal up the cracks but the dang things keep getting in. 

Klang is your classic rejected-and-shunned-by-society-due-to-his-appearance villain, who has channelled his bitterness into inventions such as heat rays and the explosive Super X-X Nitro Glycerine, which he secretes in the bottle of christening champagne in order to destroy the Navy's newest battleship. Just how this is meant to bring him closer to his goal of becoming the dictator of America is left unexplored, as it draws the heroic Navy goofballs Spark Stevens and Chuck Dawson into his orbit and ultimately leads to Klang himself getting blown up. (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

Astonishingly, Klang manages to return for a second kick at the can in Wonderworld Comics 016, but spoils his own chances at destroying the US fleet and conquering a weakened US by attempting to get revenge on Spark and Chuck at the same time. They of course manage to bumble their way free of Klang's trap and blow him up again, this time for good.

Though Klang does in fact die in the second explosion, his daughter Madam Klang survives and continues to vex Spark and Chuck. Madam Klang carries on the family tradition of attempting to take over the US, and in her first solo appearance does a little bit of spying for the Axis as a way of raising funds toward that goal. Though her employers end up being captured by Spark and Chuck, she actually manages to get away with the money, in a rare win for the Klang clan. (Wonderworld Comics 017, 1940)

Madam Klang's final appearance involves a joint attempt to get revenge on Spark and Chuck and also steal the plans for a remote controlled bomber from the US Navy during manoeuvres in the Philippines. Her plans fail mostly because she is a truly terrible boss who kills people for failure. Please note the special font chosen for her suicide panel that indicates that she is doing so for Inscrutable Asian reasons, and also her dying speech about how great the USA is and how the current political norm is the best one, boys and girls. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940) 

This here Snake Cult is extremely generic as far as comic book cults go. They spend all episode running around Madras (aka Chennai if you care about accuracy) killing or attempting to kill people for interfering in their affairs but never actually going into what those affairs are. Probably the most interesting thing about the whole adventure is that the king cobras employed (and presumably worshipped) by the cult are consistently referred to by the archaic name of hamadryads, which is already weird to anyone who knows a little Greek mythology, but is then made weirder by the fact that it is misspelled as hamdryad, which is of course some sort of pork nymph. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

A spy chief so generic that I can't even tell you for certain if he's supposed to be a fascist or not, the Head operates out of a Swiss castle and is primarily concerned with learning the secret of K-51's secret super-power powders. I do appreciate the juxtaposition of the triangular eyeholes with the triangular forehead symbol on his outfit, but other than that this guy is strictly HO-HUM. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

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.