MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 947: CAPTAIN SKULL-FACE

(Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941)

Nazi U-Boat commander Captain Skull-Face has two major claims to fame: firstly there is his eponymous skull face. Even without that, however, he is absolutely loaded down with Nazi superweapons, any one of which would have been enough to carry a comic book story. 

Starting off, Skull-Face has a submarine "the size of a big battleship." Big enough to be mistaken for a small island

Secondly, the u-boat is equipped with a vibration machine capable of disabling ships' engines and rendering humans unconscious, which enables Captain Skull-Face and his crew to capture and loot Allied ships with impunity

Way up in the first set of panels, Captain Skull-Face mentions sending captured ships back to shore to be reused so that he can loot them again. What he actually does is essentially fire them at the East coast of the US like so many enormous torpedoes - the reason that he meets Dickie Dean in the first place is that he and Zip Todd are on the hunt for whoever was blasting ships at them. 

Finally, Skull-Face's u-boat is home to a squadron of manned torpedoes piloted by insane men. A pretty rare resource to be expending all at once, might I add.

Despite all of this advanced armament, Captain Skull-Face is outmatched by boy inventor Dickie Dean. Their encounter culminates in the Captain setting off the volcano at the centre of his own island base and almost getting roasted before being rescued by Dean and his pal Zip Todd and subdued using a Home Alone trap.

SKULL SCORE: 2/5 It's a good look but there's still a lot of flesh on that head. 

Categorized in: Body (Face, Skull), Generica (Captains), Murder (U-Boat Commanders) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 627: CHONG

(Fantastic Comics 010, 1940)

Chong is basically just a pirate, but there are three things worth noting about him. The first is that his name is Chong in a comic book published in 1940 and he is not a horrendous Asian stereotype of one sort or another. It's a low bar and he cleared it with aplomb.

The second thing is Chong's weapon of choice, an enormous spiked wheel that rises out of the depths to wreck ships. It's not precisely a War Wheel but so far it's a close as we've seen and since the real thing doesn't actually debut until 1952. Is it the most efficient way to loot ships? No. Is it a huge spiked wheel? Yes.

The third thing is just how bad Chong is at killing Sub Saunders. Sub handily avoids the ersatz War Wheel, two goons and two explosions in quick succession and while, yes, not getting killed by villains is basically a hero's entire job they usually end up getting knocked around a little bit at least. Chong doesn't even manage to ruffle his foe's hair.

Even the appearance of Zobbo, Chong's amazing man-ape bodyguard, barely fazes Saunders. Chong is just that bad at his job.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 586: THE RED BLIGHT

(Exciting Comics 003, 1940)

Technically, the Red Blight is a ray weapon developed by mad scientist Dr Hodl on behalf of ideologically nonspecific aggressor General Pasko in order to facilitate the conquest of Europe, but just like when a guy with a regular name is tooling around in a vehicle with a cool codename I reckon that the good name should take precedence, particularly as 1) Dr Hodl never returns and 2) people make reference to the Red Blight as an entity more than once during the course of the story.

Besides, the Red Blight is a super-weapon worth being named after: a ray that rapidly corrodes inorganic matter with a range of at least 2000 kilometres (Hodl's Transylvanian castle to the North Sea) - why sleep on that, Hodl? Be the Red Blight!

Dr Hodl spends most of his time attempting to eliminate John "Son of the Gods" Thesson, who he correctly views as his only real opposition. Why, before Thesson shows up, none of the authorities concerned with the Red Blight's attacks even thought about discovering his location by triangulation. Clearly this is a case where the villain is right: the hero is the only thing standing between him and complete victory.

Ultimately, Hodl and the Red Blight come up against the real problem with the weapon of mass destruction as an all-purpose tool: it's very hard to select your targets. Despite an army of spies attempting to stymie him at every turn, the Son of the Gods makes his way to Hodl's castle and chucks him off a wall.

NOTES - APRIL 2024

Nazi Superweapon:

There's nothing terribly special about this giant dirigible that the Phantom Sub encounters after it starts to fly as well as submerge, but I do appreciate a dirigible that can not only camouflage itself as a stormcloud but has a proper old-school lightning cannon mounted underneath. And is filled with hydrogen, nuch to its later detriment. (Blue Bolt v2 007, 1941)

Honours:

Corporal Collins, Infantryman earns the French Croix de Guerre. (Blue Ribbon Comics 002, 1939)

Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog is made a full-fledged policeman in the NYPD (Blue Ribbon Comics 001, 1939)

Assuming that this guy knows what he's talking about, Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog probably gets the Congressional Medal (maybe of Honor, maybe another one) (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

Rang-a-Tang the WOnder Dog gets place of honour in a circus parade. (Blue Ribbon Comics 013, 1941)

Place Names:

Hercules travels to Missiansas, only our second fake state after the Whip's "New Texirona" (Blue Ribbon Comics 005, 1940)

Costumes:

Speaking of Hercules, this version of Zeus from his adventures might just be the greatest outlier in general dress and design I have ever seen (Blue Ribbon Comics 005, 1940)

Aliens:

Really enjoy the vibe of these Martian invaders. Screw cold rationalist aliens; bring on the party aliens! (Blue Ribbon Comics 008, 1941)

Cops Shoot:

The police of whatever town Mr Justice lives in attempt to summarily execute him for fleeing a third degree interrogation about him supposedly being bribed by a fake medium. (Blue Ribbon Comics 012, 1941)

And over in whatever town Captain Flag calls home the cops attempt to gun him down as he breaks jail to stop the Black Hand from carrying out the scheme that he is in jail for due to those same cops being credulous morons. (Blue Ribbon Comics 018, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 328: THE NAZOMBIES

(Human Torch v1 005a, 1941)

This is kind of a weird one in a few ways, the first being that the foundation of the plot is that a) Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Angel both own Caribbean islands and b) that they are good enough friends for Namor to pay the Angel a visit. During this visit one of Namor's servants bursts in and promptly drops dead in an effort to deliver a note cryptically warning of a zombie takeover.

Namor takes off on his own and indeed! Zombies have taken over his island! Kind of!

I mean, even by 1940s standards of zombie these are clearly either costumed goons or some sort of monstrous humanoid group. They're not explicitly identified as fancy dress Nazis until the third-to-last panel, but come on. Buncha goose-steppers establishing military bases and concentration camps across the Caribbean? That's Nazis.

The Nazombies mostly employ conventional weaponry but seem to have hit up the "underwater" section of the Comic Book Nazi Superweapon department, as not only are they fielding undersea tabks but these extremely cool personal shark submersibles

This is, by the way, your go-to comic if you have ever wanted to see the Golden Age Angel get crucified by a bunch of Nazi zombies. Not to worry though: Namor rescues him and from then on it's strictly Nazi-punching time.

I don't reckon that the Nazombies have enough potential to be BRUNG BACK but it really seems like the shark-sub tech is ripe for revival in the hands of coastal raiders or something. Once such a revolutionary technology is unleashed it can't be put back in the bottle.

THE ULTIMATE WEAPON

(Captain America Comics 008, 1941)

Comic book Nazis mobilized an awful lot of devious superweapons, but the machine gun tractor might just be the greatest one of all. 

COUSINS OF THE WAR-WHEEL

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 022, 1941)

During the Human Torch and Toro's time foiling the Nazi invasion of clear-stand-in-for-Yugoslavia Aslavia they encounter and sink this submersible fortress:

But FAR more importantly they encounter what may be the best ridiculous Nazi superweapon I have ever seen:

The German Invasion Wall! The superweapon so ridiculous that even in a comic book it has to have bits of wood propping it up so that it doesn't fall over when firing its cannons! I love it.