MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 785: THE PHOENIX

(Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940)

Flash Lightning's first stop after getting juiced up with brand-new electric powers is New York City, super-hero capital of the world, and it's a good career move for him because he immediately gets mixed up in some super shenanigans. An explorer named Parker has gone missing in Central America and the agents of someone named the Phoenix are doing their damnedest to prevent his daughter Mary from looking for him. Lightning and Mary dodge fiery deathtraps, tommy gun-wielding gangsters and threatening coffin deliveries and set out regardless.

Mary and Lightning travel to what is now the Parque Nacional Sierra De Las Minas in Guatemala (there are coordinates!) and dodge some fellows known variously as the Tzutuhiles, the Jewel Men and the Python Men, a bunch of snake worshippers who help the Phoenix advance his plans for world domination by using slave labour to create artificial gemstones that are then shipped around the world to be sold (and this is not the first nor the last time we will see the creation of artificial jewels, a victimless if not virtuous activity, treated as equivalent to counterfeiting currency).

It is at this point that the Phoenix makes an actual appearance in the story, and just what does a guy named after a mythical firebird who makes and distributes gemstones with the aid of both hard-boiled gangsters and snake worshipping tribesmen look like?

You guessed exactly right: he looks like a character from a 1930s sci-fi movie serial. Unfortunately for the Phoenix he is completely unprepared for a superhuman opponent and he appears in a whopping four panels before being sent to his doom at the bottom of his own volcanic crater by Flash Lightning.

Special shout-out to this fellow, John Roan, aka the Reptile Man, who accompanied Parker Sr on his expedition and managed to escape and return to New York for help only be killed by the Phoenix's men. Just what is his deal? Was he a reptile man when the expedition started or is this something that happened to him at the hands of the Python Men? I'm asking but nobody is telling me anything.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 552: BARON VON KAMPF

(Speed Comics 001, 1939) 

Baron von Kampf! Major recurring Shock Gibson villain and aspiring world conqueror. He's exactly the sort of evil, sneering gloating villain that I love to see vex the heroes of yesteryear, and due to the fact that his appearances are concentrated in the early days of the super-hero medium that's about all the characterization he gets. He wants to rule the world and he's a dick about it.

But who needs characterization when you've 1. got the appearance of a weird little goblin man and 2. employ the services of what are possibly the greatest henchmen of the Golden Age: the Zombies!

"This Better Not Awaken Anything In Me"

According to Baron von Kampf, the Zombies are radio-controlled creatures made out of animal parts. Just why they're called zombies is a mystery - the idea of the zombie as a resurrected corpse or corpselike drugged (or mystically enthralled) person was very much in the cultural ether in 1939, so who the heck knows?

Naming conventions aside the Zombies look terrific, particularly in a huge group - they're like something that Steve Ditko might draw swarming out of a portal to beat up Dr Strange.

Baron von Kampf's second appearance in Speed Comics 002 sadly does not involve the Zombies but does feature that old favourite gizmo, the engine killing ray, which von Kampf is employing to bring down airplanes in order to conquer the South American nation of El Matador. 

The real interesting thing about the Baron in this issue is that he still has on what I previously assumed to be some sort of surgical cap but might just be the top of his head? Like it's a metal plate or something? Like all aspects of the Baron's appearance it goes unmentioned in the text so we can only speculate on why exactly he is Like That.

Baron von Kampf shows up maybe half a dozen times total but the real attraction is the Zombies, who get a bit weirder as time goes on. We''l be seeing them again, I assure you.

UPDATE: Baron von Kampf 1940

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 423: THE HAWK

(Keen Detective Funnies v2 008, 1939)

There's no bones about it: the Hawk looks like a guy who has a pretty extensive model train setup down in the basement. And he may just! But he's also a master thief who stashes his loot inside an active Mexican volcano. But the volcano has a tram running up the side, so perhaps his inner train enthusiast is expressing itself in different ways.

As always: you live by the volcano lair; you die by the volcano lair.

Much more interesting than the Hawk is his foe, the Masked Marvel, a mysterious man with generic mental powers (sense the presence of evil, eg) and enhanced physical traits (walk unshielded into an active volcano; hold a steel cable at sufficient tension that an airplane can land, etc), as well as a surprisingly useful ability to project a red shadow. There's just something about this grim dude with a receding hairline, unremarkable costume and three shlubby assistants that really speaks to me. Lucky for me he's one of Centaur's longer-running features, hey?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 228: THE PURPLE MONSTER

(Feature Comics 049, 1941)

The Purple Monster is a pretty lacklustre super-villain. He ticks all the boxes: volcano lair on an island somewhere off BC, army of costumed henchmen, subjugated population of poor island yokels to exploit complete with fake human sacrifices and an unexplained sinister use for the sacrificial victims... it's a complete checklist of features designed to qualify him for this list. He even draws his name from a local superstition, albeit one he started himself by projecting a monstrous face on the purple clouds that billow from the volcano.

It's all so... low-rent. He's set himself up with all of this super-villain infrastructure to what? Extort resources out of a small community? Maybe organ harvesting or something? If he plans on moving on to greater things he doesn't get around to saying it on-panel - just as well he suffers the fate of most volcano-dwelling crooks: death by exploding volcano.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 155: MAZDA THE GREAT

(All-Star Comics 003, 1940)

Much of the information that we have on Mazda the Great comes from the mouth of one of his dying henchmen at the end of the story, but what reason would he have to lie? According to this man, Mazda was a scientist (I assume a vulcanologist. An enormous one!) who developed both technology to control/ redirect the energies of a volcano and also volcano-proof suits. Thus equipped, he set up shop in the crater of Mount Krakatoa along with his minions, dubbed the Fire Ghosts.

It's a bit unclear whether Mazda actually planned on taking over the world or destroying it - he said destroy while his minion said conquer - but either way, he was chucked into the volcano for his troubles, once Hawkman showed up on the scene.

A lot of reasons to like this fella - I love a huge guy and I love a skull hat, and on a scientist? Beautiful. He also manages to maintain enough gravitas that I always remember him as having a pseudo-noble goal for his conquest/destruction but on further examination it seems that he just has volcano-weaponizing technology and wants to use it.