MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 980: THE WERE-WOLF

(Four Favorites 001, 1941)

Lash Lightning is one of those characters who is so very powerful that he outclasses all regular human opposition, barring some extraordinary circumstance. That's why a movie-style, immune-to-all-harm werewolf is a perfect foil for him!

The story of the Were-Wolf begins c.1921 (or possibly 1911 - accounts vary!), when Sumter Military Academy student Adolph Krimetz, sick of being bullied and nicknamed "Wolf" because of his unusual appearance, attacks a fellow student and accidentally kills him. Fearing official reprisals, Krimetz flees into the wilderness, where he remains for the next twenty (or thirty!) years. 

Eventually, Krimetz decides to get revenge on the men who bullied him at school, as he blames them for his exile from society. He is emboldened in his quest by the fact that at some point in the intervening years he discovered that his childhood nickname was ironically close to the truth, because he is in fact an actual werewolf!

Krimetz's particular style of lycanthropy is worth noting here: he transforms into something approaching a fully canine form, but only in his upper body, meaning that he technically remains humanoid. It's a wild look, particularly when paired with his homemade fur kilt and footwraps. As the Were-Wolf, Krimetz is super strong, able to travel long distances in a series of super-jumps and is completely immune to all harm - presumably excepting harm caused by silver, but this is never really brought up.

Starting with his old classmates Generals Andrews and Johnson (and Johnson's daughter Joan, filling the role of damsel in distress), Krimetz proceeds to kidnap at least sixteen people. Like fellow revenge-seeker the Master, he seems to be compelled to assemble all of his potential victims before killing any of them, and like the Master this ultimately backfires on him. Krimetz, at least, has a motive beyond revenge for doing so, as he plans on torturing military secrets out of his enemies so that he can sell them to the highest bidder.

Before doing any of that, however, Krimetz sets out to destroy Sumter Military Academy, the scene of his childhood humiliations. Since he has captured Lash Lightning and is thus leaving him alone with all of his prisoners, this is effectively a recipe for their escape. Having freed everyone, Lash rushes off to prevent the bombing.

While Lash might be incapable of harming the Were-Wolf, it turns out that a big old lightning bolt can compel him to turn back into a human, and a human is very vulnerable to, for instance, being punched headlong onto a barrel of TNT and exploding.

REVENGE KILLER SCORE: either 0/16 or 0/216+ if we're including all of the military school kids he also failed to murder.

BUT WAIT:

Even though the Were-Wolf is clearly exploded at the end of his first appearance, he does not in fact die. He returns in Four Favorites 002, still obsessed with revenge but directed against the US military in general, rather than the specific people and institutions who harmed him in his youth. To that end, he derails a troop train that is travelling across the Midwest, and goes on to attempt similar acts against an army convoy and some troop-transporting aircraft

A lot of the dramatic focus of this issue is taken up by the plight of Old Mike Jasper, the railway switchman who Krimetz frames for the derailment and who is almost convicted for the crime a mere one day later despite the fact that a) the case against him is extremely circumstantial and b) much of it is based around a general skepticism of his claim that a werewolf did it, never mind that a werewolf just kidnapped more than a dozen high-level army officers and is currently out there sabotaging military transports. Old Mike has a terrible lawyer, is what I'm implying.

Krimetz is jailed for the mass murdering, but he will return for a further two appearances in 1942! 

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 952: WOLF CARSON

(Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

Wolf Carson, gang boss, is in the hospital after being gunned down by his own traitorous associates. Faced with a choice between 1) dying of his wounds or 2) recovering so that the authorities can scoop him up and take him to jail, Carson takes the ever-popular option 3) take the nearby unethical doctor up on his offer to help cheat death via experimental science, in this case a total brain transplant!

True to his word, the never-named doctor digs up Carson's corpse that night and extracts its brain, then in a feat of pure super science (particularly given the state the brain must been in after sitting in a corpse for 12+ hrs) transplants it into...

... A WOLF BODY! Now, just why the doctor chose to do this is never actually stated but I have a couple of theories that boil down to either him doing so as a way to control Carson with the promise of a human body later etc or doing so because he was a terrible guy with a bad sense of humour. Either way, he pays for his choice of donor body with his life. In retrospect, I reckon that his mistake was in leaving Carson unrestrained and then pissing him off severely.

With nothing else to live for, Carson turns to revenge as his motivation and systematically hunts down the members of the gang that betrayed him. Each murder is accompanied by a trademark "death howl," which I am counting as a calling card.

Major complication: Carson has been found, mistaken for a regular dog and taken in by Bart "Daredevil" Hill's fiance Tonia Saunders, which means that a jealous wolf is now after both Bart and the Daredevil and also Tonia once she realizes just where her dog has been sneaking off to at night. 

Wolf or not, Carson is no match for the Daredevil and is soon captured. In a rare addendum, we get to see the villain's trial (and please note the use of the term "brain wolf" to describe him in that newspaper headline - I dearly wanted to use that as his villain name but it's clearly being used as a description of what he is rather than a moniker). Bart Hill actually manages to put two and two together and determine that the wolf is Carson, upon which the judge sets what I personally would consider a troubling precedent for a super-hero universe by ordering that the brain wolf be summarily sent to the pound and put down. I mean, I'm not a lawyer but that seems bad - some super-intelligent ape c.1976 is going to have to go to the Supreme Court to argue that he shouldn't be summarily destroyed over a parking ticket.

Revenge Killer Score: 4/7 (counting Bart and Daredevil as two separate targets)

Categorized in: Animals (Wolves), Murder (Revenge Killers), Origin (Human Brain in Animal Body) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 946: THE GHOUL

(Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941)

Here's the thing about the Ghoul, aka "the Most Dangerous Madman of All Time": he's a stock character, the basic 1940s idea of the homicidal madman. He does have an obsession with collecting dead bodies as part of his attempts to restore the dead to life - hence the name - but he's otherwise very regular.

There are, however, several interesting things to note in the Ghoul's appearance:

First is the fact that the Daredevil's initial encounter with the Ghoul is said to have occurred "a few years ago," which is of course very interesting considering the fact that the Daredevil had at this point been operating for almost exactly one year. The reason for this discrepancy is twofold: 1. the history of a comics character is by no means tied to the dates that their adventures are published and 2. nobody involved in the production of this comic expected a pencil-necked geek like me to be counting up dates on his fingers eighty-odd years later. Fun stuff!

Secondly we get to see Daredevil just haul off and institutionalize the guy. I don't know if this was as easy in real life as in fiction, but it's always weird and horrifying when it happens in a comic.

Once the Ghoul escapes (because of course he escapes, what kind of story would it be otherwise?) Daredevil heads out to find him, but he in turn has come to Daredevil's house to get the jump on him. Just how does he know where Daredevil lives (and by extension who he is)? This is not explored. In the absence of his enemy, the Ghoul instead grabs Daredevil's fiance Tonia Saunders.

Tonia is taken to the Kingdom of the Ghoul (an overgrown island with a cave on it) in the Haunted Lake (a regular lake) and menaced with an oversized axe, but the Daredevil is hot on their trail.

The Ghoul, for all his reputation, is taken out just a quickly as he was the first time he and Daredevil clashed. Honestly, his entire career as a homicidal maniac has involved the killing of one (1) one man, a cemetery watchman who he beans with a shovel. I just don't know if he deserves to be locked up in an asylum for the "Hopelessly Insane" rather than treated in a more conventional manner. Oh well: it's back to the asylum once more.

Revenge killer score: 0/2

Categorized in: Accessories (Islands), Murder (Homicidal Maniac, Revenge Killer), Supranormal Beings (Ghouls) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 919: THE WEREWOLF

(Cat-Man Comics 005, 1941)

There are three remarkable things about the story of the Werewolf. The first is that it finally establishes that the city that the Pied Piper operates out of has a name and that it is Central City - this both a nice thing to have cleared up and a fun coincidence, given that the other comic book Pied Piper, the Flash villain, also lives in a place with that name. 

The second thing is just how clearly and concisely the Werewolf's motivation is: he was bitten by a werewolf while in Tibet some ten years earlier and he blames his colleagues, Doctors Martin and Smith, for not treating him properly and thus not preventing his eventual transformation. Specifically, Arno becomes filled with murderous vengeance when he realizes that his gnarled werewolf hands are no longer capable of performing brain surgery.

Thirdly is this story's treatment of lycanthropy. Among the points of interest:

- Arno is bitten c. 1931 but does not transform until ten years later. 

- Just what the "werewolf" that bit him in Tibet is is unclear. It's probably meant to be a man-beast of the type that Arno himself has turned into, but 1940s comics also commonly refer to vampire bats as vampires and this has made me gunshy. 

- Speaking of man-beasts: like the other Werewolf we have encountered, Arno is much more man than wolf. I'm sure that over time we will be able to identify trends in the morphology of comic book lycanthropes.

- Arno treats his condition as if it is permanent, but the action of the story takes place over the course of two days, meaning that the full moon (implied to be the trigger for the initial transformation) has not yet passed. Presumably Arno did not turn back during the day or he might have been a bit less murderous about the whole thing.

- On that note, it's a bit unclear how much of Arno's homicidal inclination is revenge and how much is werewolf insanity. 

Though the Pied Piper is unable to prevent the Werewolf from murdering Dr Martin, he is able to track him to the abandoned lighthouse that he has holed up in and learn Arno's motivation. The Piper's magical instrument proves not only able to subdue a crazed wolfman but also to exert enough sheer musical force to bring the building down on his head to end his reign of terror.

In the end, the Pied Piper and Dr Smith decide that the Werewolf was not wholly to blame for his crimes and conceal Arno's involvement in them, meaning that Dr Ralph Arno is just kind of Famously Missing.

REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/2

Categorized in: Accessories (Lighthouse), Day Jobs (Brain Surgeons), Supranormal Beings (Lycanthropes)