MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 648: GARR STORM

(Fight Comics 008, 1940)

The geopolitics of the future as represented in Spy Fighter stories sure is complicated! At first, the far future world of 1997 contained only three megacountries: Mongo, Russmany and Greater America, but soon enough Greater America was menaced by aggressor nations such as Grotonia, Prussany and Antarctica. Simultaneously, the timeline advanced from 1998 to a more ambiguous "early in the Twenty-First Century." Is the unspoken background story the fracturing of these enormous countries back into something resembling the world today? If it is, then this adventure certainly ties into that as it is concerned with the succession of the Southwest US from the rest of what looks suspiciously like the United States. Whither Greater America? Has it too become fragmented?

The leader of what is only ever referred to as "the States" is the fantastically-named Garr Storm, who either has a tremendous gift for persuasion or is tapping into a legitimate rift between the States and the federal government. Don't start your succession with a war, you guys! It's a bad idea.

But Garr Storm doesn't stop there! He's not just a traitor but a double traitor, as his interests lie not with the people of (scrolls back up to squint at map) California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and New Mexico but with an unnamed Asian power, possibly Mongo. Was this whole civil war solely for Garr Storm's benefit or was he forced to broker the deal to secure the arms he needed to take on the US Army?

Regardless of his motivations, the revelation that Storm had sold them out is surprisingly effective in cooling the revolutionary spirit of the Southwest and the nation is once again united in harmonious patriotism. What a fantastical future world!

PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 001

The kinds of character that are a part of comics history so it would be wrong to ignore them but are also pretty racist (usually - I'm sure that eventually I'll find something else distasteful enough to put here) and unpleasant to dedicate a whole lot of time to. We're going with a round-up!

Our first culprit is George Harvard AKA Big Sun, a guy with a way too complicated plan to sell oil to the Axis out of the Florida Everglades under the cover of being a geological surveyor or prospector or something. He comes to the attention of adventurer Clip Carson due to not accounting for his partner maybe poking around looking for samples like their job is supposed to be? It's a bad plan.

I'm mad at myself for finding Big Sun's mask so cool looking, but it's mitigated by how dumb his gimmick is: he has a shiny breastplate on under his robe and he reveals it flasher-style to blind his foes. Hence the name, I guess. (More Fun Comics 069, 1941) 

I didn't even know that Zingaro was an Italian slur for people of Romani descent until I looked up this guy - just why it was used as the name of a fellow trying to take over Mexico I will never know. On the one hand he is stopped by weirdo character the Voice so that's good. On the other, he gets away so there's a chance he could appear again, which is bad. It's okay though: the Voice only ever had two adventures and this is the second one.

Thankfully there aren't too many characters whose names are racial slurs. (Amazing-Man Comics 022, 1941)

I don't know if you could call it lucky, per se, but it is kind of fortunate for the purposes of this round-up that I'm hitting a lot of the major categories of racist super-villains all in one go. We'll see if this questionable luck holds for the fourth entry.

So: Banga the Elephant God is predicated on the old trope that indigenous peoples are so credulous and superstitious that they will believe that anything (eg, a big mean elephant with a guy in a skull mask on it) is a god or other supernatural occurrence - in this case the people of the hidden jungle civilization of Yenya are helped along by the fact that the human part of the Banga gestalt is actually their witch doctor (called a "wizard doctor" in this case, which is kind of a neat linguistic variation if nothing else). Banga is eventually unmasked by jungle hero Morak the Mighty and meets his dual ends.

As with so many racist characters it is very unfortunate that Banga the Elephant God looks sick as hell. (Super-Magic Comics 001, 1941)

The very next issue we have more of the same: a bunch of white guys dress up like the very cool looking Lizard-Lion Men of local legend and fleece ivory out of villagers in... Malaysia? If Rex King aka Black Fury stayed put between issues then it's Malaysia.

There's not too much to these guys: one of them hides inside the statue of the Lizard-Lion in the local temple and says for the locals to bring all of their ivory hence and then costumed goons go beat up anyone who refuses. And then Black Fury beats them up. (Super-Magician v1 002, 1941)

We didn't hit all the greats in one go - there's a lot of untapped racism coming up once we hit the comics of 1942 after all - but it's a good - bad? - sample.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 473: THE HEAD

(Amazing-Man Comics 019, 1941)

The Head is a spy chief notable a) because he is also a US Senator but mostly because b) his plan seems to revolve around it being unremarkable for him to be carrying a big ol' watermelon around. In his defense, it seems to be working pretty well until Minimidget rides in on a carrier pigeon and spoils everything.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 456: KING BASCOM

(Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)

King Bascom, the first foe faced by Dynamic Man, is nothing more than a grubby little capitalist pig. I almost forgot to write him and his land-grab scheme up due to disinterest.

Trouble is, while King Bascom is utterly uninteresting he is cocooned in a dense shell of interesting things: his land grab is aided by a drought that he himself is causing using a rain-prevention machine, he has anti-Dymanic Man weaponry and a deathtrap that involves both a descending ceiling and a flood of liquid nitrogen, he's a traitor and a scumbag and a sneering pompous ass and yet I can't bring myself to care about him enough to finish writing this.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 403: THE AVENGER

(More Fun Comics 073, 1941)

Just a Central American general trying to overthrow his government with crypto-fascist backing, foiled by Clip Carson because he and his men were covered with rice from their rice warehouse HQ. Much more interesting is the fact that this is one of the occasional comics set in a real country but with off-the-cuff, made-up information. In this case, it's the fact that Clip is in Honduras at the behest of its president, who is a man named Campano, and not the real-life in-office-for-more-than-eight-years Tiburcio Andino.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 296: THE HUNCHBACK OF HOLLYWOOD

(Captain America Comics 003, 1941)

The Hunchback of Hollywood is a villain in the same classic vein as Clayface: dressing up like a horror character and using murder and fear tactics to shut down a movie production. Also like Clayface, the production is within the hero's range due to the studio taking advantage of the castle-rich landscape of the Eastern US 

(the castle in question is said to be near Camp Lehigh, home base of Steve "Captain America" Rogers and Bucky "Bucky" Barnes so this isn't one of the famed castles of New York State. But it might have been originally - Camp Lehigh's official location is in Virginia, now, but a lot of the stories imply that it's closer to NYC, with officers commuting to homes in Manhattan, soldiers casually visiting Coney island etc. I have no idea when the location was finalized and it's very frustrating!)

Much as Clayface was actually Boris Karloff-adjacent horror star Basil Karlo, the prime Hunchback suspect is the even more on-the-nose Goris Barloff.

Unlike Clayface, the Hunchback is not Barloff at all, nor any other crazed horror actor. Rather, it's Craig Talbot, star of the film and dues-paying American Nazi, who objects to the film's anti-authoritarian allegory, ad that's why unlike Clayface you've never heard of him: because he's a filthy Nazi.

Number of Episodes of the "Super-Villains of Hollywood" podcast: A two-part episode structured like a whodunnit, with the first running down the careers of Barloff and Talbot and a few other weakly defended suspects and the second detailing the actual crimes.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 295: RED SKULL II

(Captain America Comics 001 & 003, 1941)

When I started this here blog I tried to put a little bit of thought into the tagging system, and specifically tried to work out how to deal with the fact that a lot of super-villain types have the same names. The solution I came up with is that everyone named, say, the Skull gets the same tag but legacy characters who are adopting a specific persona that another has used get appended with Roman numerals (skull II, Skull III, etc). And here I am breaking that rule the very first time I have the chance.

Well, kind of. See, this is the original Red Skull so far as appearance in print is concerned. About 4 issues after he dies in his second appearance, the Red Skull returns, but a different Red Skull. This second Skull is the one that continues to appear to this day and the fellow I'm writing about here has been retroactively relegated to the status of Regional Franchise Red Skull. It's all about not having to bother typing that extra 'II' in the tags for the next 80 years worth of appearances, honestly.

So: the Red Skull (II)! Pretty much the perfect Nazi creep villain complete with a red skull calling card, taunting notes and a gimmick wherein he convinces his victims that he is killing them with his stare when in fact he is sneakily injecting them with poison. Why does he do this? For his own Nazi creep pleasure I guess.

And just who is this retroactive knockoff? Why, it's none other than George Maxon, aircraft manufacturer, who sold out the US to Hitler for the promise of high office. Boo this man!

Maxon seemingly kills himself with his own syringe at the end of his first appearance and his body is shown being examined by the FBI afterward, they evidently just... left him to rot in his secret lair? Which works out pretty well for him, to be honest, since like any good poison-user he is immune to his own weapon.

This time around, the Skull goes for a touch of death rather than a gaze, which involves a) an electrified costume and b) getting punched in the face a bunch. He seems to enjoy it, so I guess winning is worth a sock in the jaw to him.

This second adventure sees this Red Skull's greatest triumph as he steals the designs for a drilling vehicle and uses it to smash up part of NYC in one of those huge cataclysms that happened so often in the 40s. Marvel Universe New York must be simply awash in commemorative plaques detailing them all.

Unfortunately for George Maxon and his super-villain legacy, this issue also sees his lowest moment, as he mistakes a couple of con artists for the real Captain America and Bucky despite one million signs that they aren't. Frankly getting blown up with a round bomb a few pages later must have been a bit of a relief from the embarrassment of it all.

(Maxon also shows up in Young Allies 001 the same year but it's a weird appearance that has since been retconned pretty thoroughly for good reasons but in a way that has caused me a lot of annoyance when reading fan wikis. An ignominious end to be sure)

SKULL SCORE: It's just the eyes, which merits a healthy score of 4! Minus one point for being a mask makes the total come to 3.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 294: THE WAX MAN

(Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

The Wax Man is a bit of  an oddball. For one thing, he's not explicitly a Nazi, just "in the pay of a hostile foreign power," which is only strange in that this is Marvel Comics, the only big publisher not hedging their bets about calling bad guys Nazis - the story previous to this featured Captain America and Bucky punching out Hitler and Goering and leaving them in trash cans, for heavens sake. But not the Wax Man, he just has a bunch of nonspecific guys working for him who shout "ach du lieber!" when you surprise them.

He's also a combo of two kinds of foreign agent character types. As seen above he's a ruthless and feared killer who gruesomely slays even his own men via suffocation in wax masks (and collects the heads of his enemies, natch), but also...

He's a guy with a squadron of super tanks and a plan to topple the US Government via their mechanized might backed up with barrages of guided missiles. These aren't incompatible character traits per se (and in fact describe quite a few classic villains including Captain America's very own Red Skull) but they are quite a lot to cram into a 15-page story without losing focus.

The Wax Man manages to stick the landing by reverting to the "feared killer" aspect of his persona after his super tanks take a bath. Somewhat predictably/ extremely delightfully, he lairs in a wax museum, where we get some classic bits including The Real Guy Hiding Among the Statues and That's Not Wax, That's a Dead Person Covered in Wax.

And finally, the Wax Man turns out to be a Chekov's Mayor as his real identity is revealed to be Mayor Dobbs, who only showed up for half a page to demand that somebody do something about that terrible Wax Man.