MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 848: DR HSIN

(Weird Comics 005, 1940) 

There are exactly two reasons why I gave Dr Hsin his own entry rather than sticking him in the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up, and the first one is his creation/henchman Mako, aka the Perfect Man. I just can't resist a man with a tube coming out of his head, especially when that man is some sort of cyborg frankenstein.

The second reason is that Hsin's plan - to steal the blood from hundreds of great men and women (up to and including Thor, God of Thunder!) and use it to create superhumans - is delightfully wackadoo. Is this how he created Mako? Is that what the tube is for? The mind boggles.

As so often happens when one creates a perfect being, Mako eventually decides that Dr Hsin is surplus to requirements and tries to take over the entire operation. The rest of the issue is a series of punches: Mako punches out Dr Hsin, then Thor uses the Gauntlet of Thor to punch out Mako and then he does the same to Dr Hsin, making him the most punched man of the issue. 

Dr Hsin gets turned over to the authorities, but poor Mako ends up getting blown up with the rest of Hsin's experiments when Thor determines that they are too foul to exist. RIP to the Perfect Man. And also RIP Dr Hsin, because nobody thought to see if he had any poison on him.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 513: DOKTOR KARNO AND SIMBA

(Blue Bolt v2 001, 1941)

Twelve issues into the story of Dick Cole, Wonder-Boy, a wrinkle is introduced: another Wonder-Boy! And rather than the usual thing where an evil lab assistant etc. steals Professor Blair's research for his own use, this story introduces the concept of the double-thought wave. This is a theory that all the times in history that two people have had the same idea at the same time are not as a result of coincidence but rather some sort of psychic connection and thus when Professor Blair had his idea to raise a perfect boy the villainous Doktor Karno in Vienna had it too, and while Blair raises Dick to be a paragon of virtue, Karno is raising his Wonder-Boy Simba to be the perfect criminal.

This would be a parable of nurture over nature if Simba wasn't also specified to be the orphan child of two convicted murderers by the very chatty nun that Karno gets him from. As it stands we have two Wonder-Boys, ignorant of one another, one min/maxed for physical prowess and one with a more morality-heavy build.

Eventually, Karno and Simba hit the Big Apple and are immediately made aware of Dick's exploits. Simba has an immediate hatred for Dick so they hit upon the idea of doing some robberies while dressed as him - frame your rival/ make a few bucks at the same time!

The first hint of a rift in the Doktor Karno/ Simba team come when Simba is so taken with Dick Cole's military school uniform that he insists on joining the school himself.

Meanwhile, Dick is subjected to torture by the local idiot cops until they bother to check his alibi and learn that it is watertight. His initial effort having failed, Simba settles in at Farr Military Academy in what amounts to a bully role with occasional forays into crime with Doktor Karno. In both capacities he regularly gets beaten up by Dick Cole.

Eventually, one of those beatings must have knocked something loose, because Simba realizes that what he really wants is not to destroy Dick Cole but befriend him. 

To that end, Simba tries to reform but Karno blackmails him into one last job, with the clear implication that this will continue ad nauseam. Simba confesses to Dick who helps him go straight - he's put on probation in the school's care and Karno is arrested. A happy ending for all!

BUT HOLD ON KARNO GETS OUT and uses brain surgery to return Simba to his former amoral state!

Simba is almost doomed to be Karno's criminal tool forever but lucky for him Dick gets word, stops him from stealing a mess of radium and forces Karno reverse the operation. Karno is sent packing and the next time he's heard from it's because he's died. Finally a happy ending for everyone! Except Doktor Karno!

Going forward in the Dick Cole strip, Simba is just part of the gang - I just checked and he's in Blue Bolt v10 002, the final issue of the series. Just a second super-powered boy palling around with the first one, though given Novelty Press' commitment to removing all elements of unreality from their comics Simba is eventually just a regular guy with a very weird backstory. Still, it's all very wholesome, although my Been On the Internet Too Much sense tells me that if it were a thing today I'll bet the shippers would have their filthy mitts all over its unintentional homoeroticism.

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 007

All Novelty Press edition!

Dick Cole, Wonder-Boy: 

Dick Cole was left on the front steps of scientist Professor Blair as a baby, and according to him there was an accompanying note requesting that he use his hitherto-untested experimental child-rearing techniques to bring the kid up to be superhuman. And it works! Dick Cole is stronger and faster and smarter than everyone else, and works to help those around him in whatever way he can.

Sadly for me the Dick Cole series is set at a military academy, a surprisingly popular location in early comics. I think that the weird pseudo-military class structure that such places had/have was popular for the easy drama inherent in the noble protagonists being forced to kowtow to undeserving upperclassmen but reading comics about teenagers being assholes to each other for imaginary reasons palls quickly. (ADDENDUM: I wrote this at the beginning of my Dick Cole reading and am pleased to say that the military academy stuff isn't as bad as it is in other comics of the time) (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

BONUS: here's Dick Cole as a very cool baby.

Sub-Zero:

AKA Sub-Zero Man. Part of a Venusian expedition to Earth whose extremely awesome looking spaceship crashed through a frozen gas ball en route, killing everyone but Our Hero, who instead becomes uncontrollably and destructively super-cold.

After a couple of issues of misunderstood wandering and being hunted, Sub-Zero endears himself to the city of Centro... Oregon? by saving it from a volcano. (highway signs place Centro somewhere between Los Angeles and Topeka, so it's probably either Oregon or Northern California, and Oregon is closer to volcano country). There, he settles down to a regular super-hero life, albeit one with no secret identity, Centro slowly becomes NYC like so many other comic book cities and people basically forget the fact that he's an alien. (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

the Phantom Sub: 

A bunch of young men led by Jack Damon and Slim Dugan construct an advanced submarine in secret, as you do, and end up as wanted fugitives dispensing justice on the high seas via an electrified water cannon and some plucky attitudes. (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940)

Near the end of 1941 the Phantom Sub added the power of flight to its many features, and shortly after that the Phantom Sub crew were able to come in from the cold and begin aiding the US war effort. (Blue Bolt v2 006, 1941)

the White Rider and Super Horse:

During a stagecoach holdup, a youngster named Peter (no last name given) is orphaned and flung into a river that eventually flows into the mysterious Lost Valley, where he befriends and is raised by an old hermit named Jeb and a cool horse named Cloud. Eventually, the hermit dies of puma and Peter and Cloud make their way to the outside world where it turns out that due to the valley's depth it somehow had more gravity and thus the two are super strong. Anyhow, Peter immediately hunts down and kills the bandit who orphaned him and resolves to stamp out crime as the White Rider and Super Horse. 

Despite the superpowers the White Rider is a bit of a dud, hero-wise and Super Horse does most of the heavy lifting, both literally and metaphorically. (Blue Bolt v1 001)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 006

It's time for more mad and criminal scientists! Round 'em up!

The fantastically-named Doctor Evecloud has a plan: shrink everyone else on the planet so that he, the only big person, will be in charge. As so often happens, one of his first guinea pigs is a super-hero, in this case the Shark. Things end poorly for Doctor Evecloud. (Amazing-Man Comics 016, 1940)

This fellow is Dr Scowl and so far we're sitting at 2/2 great scientist names. Dr Scowl is attempting to dissect Minimidget and Ritty to figure out how his late colleague got them so dang small and he's not afraid to deploy a highly unsettling chimeric man to do so. (Amazing-Man Comics 025, 1941)

Professor Zarr breaks the good name streak and it's entirely in character, as he's a guy who can't catch a break: Samson and David bust up his radium-stealing gang, bust up his fortress lair and destroy his Z-Ray machine before he has a chance to even fire the thing. And to add insult to injury, he sets himself on fire while he's trying to get his revenge. (Big 3 003, 1941)

Later in the same issue, Samson and David head to Central America and spoil the plans of Dr Kalt, who seems to be Professor Zarr's non-union equivalent, down to not getting to fire his solar disintegrator and blowing himself up with a grenade he was trying to throw at the heroes. (Big 3 003, 1941)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 002

Back again with another collection of science-villains who didn't quite make the grade!

Fritz Cardif here has a gunpowder-exploding ray and a lot of big plans. He probably would have made the main list except that I personally find his antics very dull, with the exception of the lil' stinker moment pictured above. (Hit Comics 006, 1940)

Dr Marko figured on using kidnapped scientists as research slaves in his Grand Canyon hideout, but he too was corralled by Neon the Unknown. (Hit Comics 013, 1941)

Professor Dorn here is your typical Nazi scientist obsessed with replicating the powers of the Sub-Mariner for the glory of the cause. He ends up lasting about fifteen minutes after meeting the real deal. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 023, 1941)

 Dr Sunga has a pretty good scheme going wherein he seeming kills people by sending them a cursed wand that is actually harmless - seemingly the perfect crime! But the Golden Age Falcon figures out the trick: it's actually the box that the wand is sent in that does the killing. Sunga of course ends up dead by his own fiendish device. (Daring Mystery Comics 005, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 239: DR BRINE

(Flash Comics v1 008, 1940)

Dr Brine should be in the soon-to-be-unveiled first roundup of minor mad and criminal scientists who don't quite qualify as super-villains. He's a guy in a purple pin-stripe suit who has a plan to steal a bunch of submarines and then profit from that somehow. There are two very important reasons for his inclusion here:

1. He's either a guy who named himself Dr Brine after getting into the submarine piracy game or (even better) he's a guy who was named Jared Brine or similar and the souped up nominative determinism of the DCU steered him through grad school and right into a job hijacking submarines.

2. His evil science specialty is that he figured outa way to make his henchmen semi-amphibious, and that the method in question, seen above, is that they must go raw vegan. 

10/10 top-tier crime scientist, no notes. 

SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: HUGO STRANGE 1940

What did Hugo Strange Get up to in 1940?

1. Detective Comics v1 036, 'Untitled' **first appearance**

Hugo Strange starts his crime career pre-seasoned with a goodly dose of "I've heard of this guy. This guy is a big deal" from Batman. 

His actual plan is nothing special: using a machine he stole, Strange floods Gotham with fog night after night, leaving the police helpless to stop his gang as they loot and plunder at prearranged locations.

The biggest thing that this story establishes, of course, is the dichotomy of Hugo Strange being a weird little lumpy-headed dork who is also a physical threat to someone like the Batman, something that he manages to retain when he is brought back as an Earth-One villain in the 70s when a lot of the other nerds in Batman's rogues gallery like the Joker have become minimal physical threats.

2. Batman Comics v1 001, 'Untitled'

Strange wastes no time in staging an escape and soon he's embarking on one of his signature capers: creating the Monster Men!

Having kidnapped five men from an insane asylum, Strange treats them with growth hormones which mutate them into brutish giants. They are then used in the same way as the fog machine was in his first caper: while the Monster Men battle the police, Strange's gang get to work looting.

Strange even manages to capture Batman, and almost turns him into a Monster Man while conveniently laying out his entire plot.

But of course Batman manages to get free, brutally murder the Monster Men and (seemingly) Strange, and formulate an antidote for himself.

3. Detective Comics v1 046, 'Untitled'

Strange's final foray into crime in 1940 involves using fear-inducing dust to incapacitate bank guards and such so his men can rob and plunder. And of course it was inevitable that he would eventually figure on using some of his technology to take over the US. In fairness to him, using fear dust to conquer is slightly more plausible than say doing so as a single nude invisible man, but it's probably a bit of a stretch even so.

Strange once again makes the critical error of battling Batman on a cliff or cliff-adjacent structure and that's the last we'll see of him for about 40 years.  

Body Count: 19 (plus 5 Monster Men, arguably)

End-of-year Status: Presumed dead.