MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 024: THE FACE

(Adventure 044, 1939)

Another early Sandman villain. A fairly standard master of disguise who was later reworked into an axe-wielding maniac in Sandman Mystery Theatre.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 023: MOBRUNE

(Adventure 041, 1939)

A fanatic radio preacher of no specific religion, Mobrune bolsters his reputation by predicting disasters that he then causes. SPECIFICALLY, Mobrune seeds snow clouds with nerve toxin, completely wiping two small cities off the map. A bad dude!

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 022: THE TARANTULA

(Adventure 040, 1939)

Standard masked crook, remarkable only for being the Sandman's first foe. Shows up later in one or two crowd scenes.

This story is also notable for being the only time Golden Age Wesley Dodds tucks in a little doll version of himself before heading out as Sandman, a charming bit that was later adopted as an ongoing thing in Sandman Mystery Theatre.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 021: THE GHOST

(Action v1 002, 1938)

Love a fake undead villain - it's a tossup between sheet ghosts and fake mummies for my absolute Number One, with fake skeletons and Flying Dutchmans and Headless Horsemen crowding onto the Bronze pedestal together - so much, in fact that I might be rounding this guy trying to haunt some folks off of some oil land up to super-villain undeservedly. But WHO'S GOING TO STOP ME IF I AM?

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 020: THE GORRAH

 (Action v1 002, 1938)

Early on in Tex Thomson's adventuring career, he and his pal Bob Daly found themselves in a hidden city called, appropriately, the Sealed City. There they met the leader, or Gorrah, of that city and eventually discovered that he was an usurper who they quickly helped overthrow. There it would end for your average hidden-city-usurper but not this Gorrah, no sir. He came back half a dozen times, indulging in schemes such as:

-turning people into weird cyborgs

-turning people into weird rat-men

-attempting to take over Turkey

-fixing boxing matches

and so on. 

By his last appearance, he was dealing with Mr America instead of boring old Tex Thomson and it wasn't a very fair fight. Over the years he had shed his super-science, his one-time hypnotic power and even his flamboyant costume and was merely a one-eyed agent of some unspecified Foreign Power (ie, the Nazis) tasked with bombing libraries, which somewhat ignominiously (if predictably) ended with him being blown up by his own bomb. A sad end to be sure.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 019: THE TIGRESS

(Action Comics v1 001, 1938)

The Tigress was both Zatara's first foe and his only real recurring villain, showing up a dozen times over 3 years. She acted in the role of what was occasionally called a "friendly enemy": a villain of the opposite gender who the hero has a soft spot for, implicitly or explicitly because they're horny for them. A Catwoman situation, in other words.

Like Catwoman and Batman, the Tigress occasionally teamed up with Zatara against a worse foe, and Zatara frequently let her escape at the end of a case out of horny sentimentality. Unlike Catwoman, the Tigress was absolutely a multiple murderer, running armed robbery, assassination and extortion rings at various times as well as acting as lieutenant for several other super-villains such as the Mad Lama.

Ultimately, Zatara caught the Tigress for the last time and seemingly persuaded her to reform. Whether it stuck or not, she never appeared in a comic book again.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 018: THE OWL

(Feature Funnies 007, 1938)

Our first Quality Comics super-villain! Otherwise, not very interesting - he doesn't even wear the mask in the story, just tries to frame the Clock and finds out how far that kind of thing gets you in the comic book game.