MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 020

If I've learned one thing from comics it's to never turn your back on a scientist. 

Henry Falcon is one of a trio of scientists, along with John Robin and John Sparrow, who have been made the beneficiaries of the whimsical will of millionaire Mortimer Bird. This is of course one of those special murder mystery wills in which the payout increases for any survivors as fellow inheritors are killed off, and Henry Falcon is all about getting that money through murder. He even goes the extra mile to make all of the deaths bird themed in an attempt to throw suspicion on Mortimer Bird, thanks to some special powder he has discovered that makes birds go crazy and peck people to death.

You can't just have something like that bird-madness powder around without some stringent safety protocols, however, and Falcon manages to get some on himself while pretending to be Mortimer Bird's private nurse. So long Henry. (Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940)

Dr Exton, inventor of the super explosive Tekite, almost sells his creation to a fascist dictator but reforms after he is left on an island for a half hour by the Bird Man. (Weird Comics 004, 1940)

Menar, a big-eared scientist of the unspecified future time occupied by Typhon, has invented a device called the Tidal Wave Annihilator which he unsurprisingly uses to create tidal waves. The tidal waves in turn sink ships which Menar and his men then loot. It's a pretty foolproof plan, and Menar even manages to capture Typhon when he comes to investigate, but like many a mad scientist before and after him, Menar has underestimated just how evil he can be before his own daughter turns against him. Typhon escapes with Ina Menar and brings the whole operation crashing down around her father's pointy ears. (Weird Comics 006, 1940)

Karnak is a scientist of the year 5940 CE who has already had some measure of success, having conquered and mind-controlled an entire planet of beefy scaly guys, and I must assume is now at a loss as to what to do with himself. Why else would he send a heavily armed spaceship to Earth to extort them into giving him a lady to be his bride? I mean, there have to be at least a few women who would be into him if he just put himself out there on Space Tinder - everyone likes a bad boy, after all. 

Karnak seems to take it weirdly personally when his kidnapped bride-to-be cooperates with Blast Bennett to take down his whole operation, and tris to feed the two of them to his pet tiger. They'd be doomed if Blast wasn't so good at cat-wrestling, but as it stands they escape handily.

Karnak also commits the cardinal sin of not checking his captive spaceman for any ray guns he might have on his person, and catches an explosion bullet to the gut for it. Alas for the inhabitants of the unnamed planet he was in charge of, Karnak dealt in the kind of mind control that kills its subjects when the controller dies. Alas for the beefy scaly guys. (Weird Comics 007, 1940) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 843: THE RULER OF THE UNDERSEAS

(Weird Comics 001, 1940) 

During the inaugural voyage of his super submarine the A-14, oceanic explorer Typhon encounters a remarkable monster: a mass of eels with a central woman's head and the attractive power of a siren.

Though the creature kills several of his crew, Typhon is able to use his magic ring to kill its heads, which reveals that the girl-head in the centre is actually a human woman who has been mind controlled and used as a monster-part for "many years." This is horrifying to contemplate!

The Ruler of the Underseas, stung by the loss of his composite beast, sends the equally-as-horrifying Serpent-Men to capture them, which of course raises the question of why he was using a human woman in a bubble helmet as his monster core when he could have just used one of his loyal undersea dudes. Is it because none of them are attractive enough?

Typhon foils the Ruler's plans by paralyzing him with his magic ring so that they can all escape back to the A-14, and I am left with one observation and one question:

Observation: Given how important Typhon's magic ring is to the plot of this issue - note that it also protects him from the spell of the eel-siren earlier - one might expect it appear again in a future story. This is not the case.

Question: Is the Ruler of the Underseas just permanently paralyzed? He certainly does not ever return to vex Typhon and his former eel-maiden companion (later named Cecelia). Because if he is, well, condemning even an evil man to an inescapable prison in his own body isn't a great look, Typhon.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 821: KONG

(Thrilling Comics 003, 1940)

I can't really devote a lot of energy to Kong because he just kind of makes me tired, conceptually. He's a Yellow Peril dictator who has devoted a fair amount of time and resources to stealing both military secrets and entire scientists from the US as a part of his bid for world domination, opposed only by Doc Strange and his companion Virginia Thompson. All very exciting stuff in theory, but it all resolves into a kind of mush - it's not even as racist as it could be, which is good but not remarkable.

In the spirit of writing something interesting, here are the good parts of Kong's story: 

1. Location: Kong is the dictator of the Asian kingdom of Kachukuo, which was pretty fun to recognize as a stand-in for Manchukuo, the Chinese puppet-state established by the Japanese in 1932. I'm always chuffed to see Manchukuo come up both because it doesn't really do so very often and because I managed to get pretty far into adulthood before I learned about this entire country, and the joy of learning about it is still fresh in my mind. Not that the history of Manchukuo itself is particularly joy-inspiring, but learning is learning.

2. Rays. I like Kong's big chunky ray technology. He's got a red ray that brings the scientists out of the suspended animation he put them in for transport, a blue mind control ray (blue and red seem to come from the same machine) and a green death ray. What can I say, I like a ray, and I like colours.

3. Wild Hill Warriors. At one point Kong tries to get rid of Doc Strong by subjecting him to gladiatorial combat and I just really like the fact that he managed to scare up some Germanic warriors fresh from the sack of Rome for the task. They don't do very well but they're fun!

That's about it for Kong. Doc Strange inspires a revolution in Kachukuo, chucks the dictator into his own chemical soup and thaws out the scientists with a little Alosun, bish bash bosh, start the countdown to the next Fu Manchu knockoff showing up.

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 018

I'm not sure that these guys all have degrees. 

This fellow is known only as the Professor, and he conducts experiments in long- and short-range mind control on Lost Hope Island until Secret Naval Agent Spike Marlin shows up in search of a missing ship's crew. (Speed Comics 009, 1940) 

This unnamed scientist has developed a drug that puts people into indefinite comas and has used it to kidnap and store ten millionaires, presumably with the intent of ransoming them back to their families. Before he actually gets to the point of sending the ransom notes, however, he makes the mistake of allowing his gangster hirelings go out and use the drug to mug people on the street, thus leaving a trail of mysterious coma victims that the indomitable Detective Crane follows all the way to the scientist's secret penthouse. (Superworld Comics 002, 1940)

Detective Crane is back to investigate the destruction of several West Virginian steel mills. It turns out that remote controlled drone bombers are responsible for the attacks, and he trails them back to a base near Pittsburgh filled with awesome robots, plus one Baranian spy who is merely dressed like a robot, presumably in case someone like Crane were to show up. The whole place gets absolutely annihilated.(Superworld Comics 003, 1940)

Overworked and underappreciated Department Public Sanitation scientist Dr Sheldon might be justified in his workplace dissatisfaction but he expresses his negative emotions in an unproductive manner, by poisoning the city reservoir and killing thousands of people. It must be cathartic though, because the Arrow has to shoot him with one of his trademark arrows in order to prevent him from poisoning the reservoir even more than it was before. (The Arrow 002, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 047

Astonishing super-heroes of the past! And future!

the Invisible Avenger: 

Teen radio enthusiast Buzz Allen discovers the secret of personal invisibility shortly after the death of his father at the hands of criminals and so is perfectly primed to become part of a super-vigilante duo alongside his friend Will Lawrence (if the issue of whether they should be the Invisible Avengers ever comes up then it is in the initial adventure which I alas cannot read). 

Their adventures are structured such that they cause maximum consternation so as to really get the most out of the invisibility gimmick: they become invisible before driving their car to the scene of a robbery, for example, and when they put on their anti-invisibility gloves so that they can flash their guns at the crooks they make sure to do so in a public place so as to freak out the subway-riding squares. If I were to devise some sort of ratings scale to score invisible characters on how well they use their powers (which I will not - I am already tracking far too many arbitrary metrics), then the Invisible Avenger and Will would score low. (Superworld Comics 001, 1940*)

Hip Knox:

Hip Knox! An orphaned child raised by Professor Knox to have the mightiest mind in the world and named by Professor Knox to have a silly name that kind of winks at his powerset!

If Hip Knox is known for anything then it's for being one of the worst-dressed men in comics. Every element of his uniform is just a little bit wrong, except for the parts that are a lot wrong. Breaking things down from top to bottom, we have:

1. The Helmet. If there's one piece of this costume that is 100% bad then it's this scaly golden swim cap. I sincerely wish that Superworld Comics 001 was available for less than 2000 dollars US, because I really want to know if this is some sort of mind amplification helmet or just a bizarre affectation. Hate it. Hate that it covers his ears.

2. The Mustache. I can get behind a super-hero with a fussy little mustache, but you aren't Hercule Poirot, my dude. Grow it out a bit more or have fewer weird and uncanny elements to your outfit so that a little mustache is a fun little affectation and not the punchline to someone's description of you to their friends.

3. The Jumpsuit. This isn't all that far off of what would come to be the standard super-hero outfit, so I should be fine with it, right? Wrong. Between the fact that Hip is drawn with a bit of a barrel chest and the noodle arms of someone who fights crime with their mind, and the suit being buttoned all the way up to a collar at the neck, this suit is bad.

4. The Insignia. A minor nitpick but it contributes to the whole: that eye looks too realistic to just be sitting on the chest by itself. Throw it in a circle or something. Plus you gotta choose: either the eye or ...

5. The Belt Buckle. I have nothing against a good yonic symbol, but why does Hip Knox have one as his belt buckle? And why is it so big? It looks like an attempt to pick up a pencil off the ground would result in him simultaneously stabbing himself in the groin and the upper abdomen.

What is the solution for this fashion debacle? Change one or two key elements: swap the jumpsuit out for a red tuxedo to lean into the (stage) hypnotist angle and things feel a lot more harmonious. The eye would have to become an amulet or maybe an ornament on one of those weird sashes that goes under the jacket, but everything would hold together much better. Or keep the jumpsuit and lose the helmet! Or make it a headband, that would be much less heinous!

As befits a super-hypnotist, Hip Knox has a pretty relaxed approach to the mental autonomy of those around him, but tragically also seems to have a terrible imagination, as in the above panels in which he attempts to signal that he is being kidnapped by turning bystanders into a trail of living statues instead of, say, having them shout "Hip Knox is in that car being kidnapped!" in unison. (Superworld Comics 001, 1940*)

Marvo 1￮2 Go+:

The Boy Genius style of comics/fiction in general has produced a lot of very fun adventure heroes over the years and also a lot of annoying little smug turds, and I'm sure that personal bias plays in to whether a particular boy reads as one or the other to you. As you might be able to tell from all of this preamble, Marvo 1￮2 Go+ is very much a smug little turd in my eyes.

Thanks to the wonders of sleep education, Marvo has all the knowledge of a forty-year-old scientist packed into his fifteen year-old head, but he's even more intelligent than that, so much so that he gets to put a little plus sign on the end of his name (Marvo is from one of those science fiction futures where inefficient surnames have been replaced with government-assigned alphanumerical designations, like Superworld publisher Hugo Gernsback's own novel Ralph 124C 41+ or DC Comics' later Chris KL-99), which he makes sure to have embroidered on the front of all of his clothing in case people forget how special he is.

Knowledge of a forty year-old or not, Marvo still has all the foresight of a fifteen year-old, as seen above for instance in the above panels wherein he takes advantage of a geothermal hotspot beneath Pennsylvania to permanently alter its climate without stopping to consider the potential long term environmental effects of a permanent Summer. (Superworld Comics 001, 1940*)

X, the Phantom Fed: 

There are a whole lot of comic book protagonists with names like Secret Agent Q49 or Agent X-7, etc, code-named operatives two-fistedly saving the world for democracy the US Government, and X, the Phantom Fed exists at the border between that concept and that of the super-hero. Described as the "Man of a Million Faces," X's real face is a mystery even to his friends because he is always in some disguise or another. X is armed with an embryonic version of the James Bond-era spy's arsenal and the best super-spy name of the bunch but sadly that doesn't save him from having a bare handful of appearances. (Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940)

*I have not actually read Superworld Comics 001 because it is not readily available to the average person. My information on the origins of these characters therefore might be slightly inaccurate. 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 780: THE MISSING MUMMY

(Funny Picture Stories v3 002, 1939)

Like every other of my long-term projects, writing this blog has been an exercise in taking a simple premise (writing fairly succinctly about minor DC Comics super-villains) and expanding the scope until the seams start to creak (writing somewhat extensively about all super-villains and super-heroes and a bunch of other comics things and also maintaining a set of variably-useful indices about them all). This is all to lead into the fact that a comic I was just reading (Super Spy 001, 1940) contained a reprint of a story from a comic I read back when I started doing this and I was absolutely flummoxed that I had not written about the Missing Mummy.

We open in the palatial home of amateur Egyptologist Professor Stone, just in time to see him get murdered by someone with a creepy hand.

Cops are soon swarming over the Professor's residence, but that doesn't stop the culprit from creeping back in to eliminate a potential witness in the victim's niece and incidentally give us our first look at his mummy outfit. Not the most convincing getup with that huge exposed swath of visible and well-moisturized head, but I appreciate the green.

This particular fake mummy also has mind control abilities thanks to the copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead that he stole after murdering Professor Stone. These allow him to abduct Miss Stone and Police Detective Bull with ease.

The super powers weren't even the motivation for the murder of Professor Stone, it turns out. No, Stone was killed when he figured out that his fellow Egyptologist Dr Carver had been using Stone's regular shipments of mummies from England as a way of smuggling drugs into the US, possibly because Carver's plan doesn't seem to include replacing the fake mummy after he steals and hollows it out each time.

Also, Carver has built an entire acid pit in Stone's basement, which is impressive but must have provided plenty of opportunities for Stone to cotton on to the fact that something was going on.

Ultimately it all comes down to that old adage: no matter how well-prepared and capable of performing Ancient Egyptian mind control you are, you're never ready to be shot in the back by a cop and dumped into your own acid pit.