MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 911: RAMESES

(Whiz Comics 025, 1941)

We open in Egypt, where a group of partisans led by a fellow with the unlikely name of "Girbo, the Mad Mullah"* are brainstorming ways in which they might expel both the Germans and the British from their country, and Girbo has an innovative solution: he has procured the mummy of the Pharaoh Rameses, along with a vial of mummy-resurrection juice, and is going to bring the ancient king back to life to lead them. And it works!

The problem that I am faced with here is that Egyptian history features a full eleven different rulers named Ramesses and just which one this was is not specified here. I was all fired up and ready to dig through the history of each one (on Wikipedia, at least), when I realized that there was a clear and obvious front-runner in the person of Ramesses II, ol' Ozymandias himself, if only because he loomed largest in the public consciousness of the time as the presumed Pharaoh of the story of Exodus. 

*while I'm not going to claim that the depiction of Egyptian Muslims in this story is good or even particularly sympathetic, you must believe me when I say that (aside from Girbo) these guys get about as sympathetic a depiction as you get in comics the 1940s, or indeed into the 80s. It's a low bar but they cleared it.

Rameses begins his campaign on a high note, with a raid on a British fort that establishes both his ruthlessness and complete invulnerability to bullets. One must pity his poor horse, however.

Things take a turn when a Nazi officer shows up with the intention of allying with this new faction against the common British for, only to be slain at Rameses' command. This violation of the flag of truce raises some concern amongst his followers but what really gets the talking is his assertion that he should be enough of a god for them and that they should abandon their faith to serve him.

Having driven away his followers with his evil ways, Rameses drives home his point with magical snakes. 

The loss of his followers means nothing to the undead Pharaoh, who simply raises an army of the dead to assist him in his next assault on the British forces. Meanwhile, Girbo attempts to slay Ibis the Invincible to prevent his further interference in their plans but is himself killed when Ibis proves his better in swordplay.

Rameses' undead forces, though formidable, are vulnerable to sunlight, something that the Ibistick can easily provide even though the mechanics of how it might have done so are troubling. But what to do with an eight foot tall megalomaniacal mummy-man? Things look hopeless until Rameses himself lets slip the fact that the only thing capable of containing him is his own tomb that Ibis is able to defeat him, by simply moving said tomb over top of the villain.

Though Rameses is left to stew in the darkness, he is in fact one of Ibis the Invincible's few recurring villains. We will see his bony face and weird mummy tonsure again.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 669: ARCO

(Jungle Comics 011, 1940)

Arco, aka "the immortal mummy of Ancient Egypt! Old Arco, the super-scientist of long ago!" comes to the attention of Fantomah when he begins blinding the inhabitants of her home jungle using a ray with the fairly awesome name of the Scarlet Shadow. His ultimate goal - like so many Fantomah foes - is to conquer the jungle and establish an empire for himself.

(Arco is also, somewhat surprisingly, our first actual mummy. The current ratio of fake to real mummies stands at 5:1)

While an ancient mummy attempting to take over a quasi-mystic omnijungle using a blindness ray might be relatively normal as far as comic book plots go, Arco's next move is amazing. In order to finalize his conquest he requires a population, and what better subjects for a mummy emperor than more mummies? What seems like most if not all Egyptian mummies in the world are reanimated and flown in on the wings of Arco's ancient magics. Presumably he also protects their dry, dry bodies from the jungle humidity, perhaps using another ray to do so.

Arco of course rejects Fantomah's ritual attempt to warn off her foe. In his defense he is riding a justifiable high based on the fact that he and his followers are all already dead - how could he know that his mummy troops, so effective at attacking blind and confused people, would prove easy prey to the most powerful beasts of the jungle?

(I can't imagine what a blow this must have been to the fields of Anthropology and Archaeology in the world of Fantomah. Museums all over the world must be full of little plaques saying "this sarcophagus formerly held the mummy of Amenhotep III, preserved from 1353 BC until the Great Mummy Reanimation of 1940. Recent expeditions have brought back evidence that the mummy was subsequently dismembered and partially consumed by a lioness (see bone fragments in case to your left)")

Arco attempts to blind Fantomah in revenge for the defeat of his forces but finds himself on the receiving end of sequentially, his own ray, a fall, and a river full of crocodiles. What an end for an immortal mummy man.