The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: scientist

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 023

    Perhaps we should make ethics a mandatory subject for the sciences again.

    Kruger: 

    While tooling around in the desert one day, Diamond Jack encounters a young woman named Ruth West, whose physician brother has been captured by the diabolical scientist Kruger and taken to Terror Valley in order to help in Kruger’s work turning men into hybrid creatures called Vulture Men, with the ultimate goal of using them to take over the world. If that plot sounds at all familiar, it’s because it is almost exactly the same as the one in Wonderworld Comics 015, featuring the Flame and Dr Belos, right down to the name of the valley, the colour of the Vulture men and the fact that the scientist has his own private hydroelectric dam.

    Just how did this happen? Three distinct possibilities spring to mind:

    1. The Diamond Jack writer (Gus Ricca? He’s got the generally accepted art credit) just plain old cribbed the story off of the Flame adventure, which came out about six months earlier

    2. Gus Ricca and the Flame writer (unidentified) knew one another and came up with the idea for the story together in the reasonable expectation that nobody would notice. Alternately, the same person might have written both stories for two different artists.

    3. The biggest coincidence in the history of mankind.

    Whatever the reason for it, we are left with two very similar stories to compare:

    Kruger’s Vulture Men are much more appealing to me than Belos’ – particularly their weird pawlike hands. While Belos’ version does look a bit more like something you could do to a person via surgery (except for the part where they have functional dragon wings coming out of their backs of course), the lack of humanity in the bird heads of Kruger’s really drives home the horror of their being transformed against their wills. I also appreciate their seemingly organic feather kilts.

    Kruger also has a better look than Belos – his having a bit of the vulture to his look makes a lot of aesthetic sense! I do miss Belos’ one long tooth, though.

    The one place where Kruger loses out to Belos is in means of destruction. Being drowned by your own bursting dam doesn’t hold a candle to getting fatally beaned with the skull of one of your own failed experiments (though “I’m drowning – AAAGH!” are pretty good last words). (Wow Comics 001, 1940)

    Categorized in: Animals (Birds) 

    Professor Stargaze: 

    Professor Stargaze is a mad astronomer (nominative determinism) who discovers that the wandering and flaming planet Inferno will soon pass near Earth and wipe all life from its surface. Not only does Stargaze decide not to share this information with the world (possibly a morally neutral act) but he is so convinced that it is the right thing to happen that he tags along with Zambini the Miracle Man and tries to prevent him from stopping it (actively evil).

    Stargaze is ultimately fried to a crisp when he attempts to assassinate Zambini with a flaming spear, then reincarnated as a rat by magic, then restored to his human form back on Earth once it is saved. Has he learned a lesson from all this? Unclear. (Zip Comics 002, 1940)

    Categorized in: Day Jobs (Astronomers), Doctors and Professors

    Doctor Igor:

    Doctor Igor is a scientist with a vision: to develop a method of creating giant men via electrical stimulation of the pituitary gland, and to use an army of these men to take over the world. To that end, he has taken over a remote island (probably because it already has a castle on it) and used its inhabitants as guinea pigs.

    Igor probably saw the fact that the island had a copra plantation on it as a plus, since it provided a supply experimental subjects for him, but what he failed to anticipate was that an interruption of commercial product is likely to draw the attention of an adventurer such as Lance Rand to investigate just what the heck was going on. Igor is ultimately undone when his own creation trips over some equipment and blows up the castle. (Cat-Man Comics 002, 1941)

    Categorized in: Accessories (Castles), Doctors and Professors 

    Borcia:

    Borcia (also called “Garcia” one time which is probably an editorial oversight but possibly means that his name is either Garcia Borcia or Borcia Garcia) is a formerly-famous scientist whose mind cracked due to overwork and who now dreams of world conquest. And how better to achieve that dream than by stealing the magic gem owned by small-time super-hero Dr Diamond?

    Once both the gem and Dr Diamond are in his clutches, Borcia reveals his world domination plot: let loose a moderately cool-looking giant robot called Najar to just kind of indiscriminately rampage through the nearby town of Verez, Mexico. Presumably there will be more robots later on. As for the magic diamond: it seems to play no real role in the plan. Borcia just wanted it, I guess.

    As so often happens, Borcia is betrayed by his own step-daughter Elena, who just wants a normal, non-evil life and resents being part of a super-villainous household. Dr Diamond proves more than a match for Najar, and despite some typical super-villain bluster as he is lead off to jail, Borcia is never seen again. (Cat-Man Comics 003, 1941)

    Categorized in: Accessories (Gems (Magic), Giant Robots), Location (Mexico)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 023

    MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 023

    Perhaps we should make ethics a mandatory subject for the sciences again.

    Kruger: 

    While tooling around in the desert one day, Diamond Jack encounters a young woman named Ruth West, whose physician brother has been captured by the diabolical scientist Kruger and taken to Terror Valley in order to help in Kruger’s work turning men into hybrid creatures called Vulture Men, with the ultimate goal of using them to take over the world. If that plot sounds at all familiar, it’s because it is almost exactly the same as the one in Wonderworld Comics 015, featuring the Flame and Dr Belos, right down to the name of the valley, the colour of the Vulture men and the fact that the scientist has his own private hydroelectric dam.

    Just how did this happen? Three distinct possibilities spring to mind:

    1. The Diamond Jack writer (Gus Ricca? He’s got the generally accepted art credit) just plain old cribbed the story off of the Flame adventure, which came out about six months earlier

    2. Gus Ricca and the Flame writer (unidentified) knew one another and came up with the idea for the story together in the reasonable expectation that nobody would notice. Alternately, the same person might have written both stories for two different artists.

    3. The biggest coincidence in the history of mankind.

    Whatever the reason for it, we are left with two very similar stories to compare:

    Kruger’s Vulture Men are much more appealing to me than Belos’ – particularly their weird pawlike hands. While Belos’ version does look a bit more like something you could do to a person via surgery (except for the part where they have functional dragon wings coming out of their backs of course), the lack of humanity in the bird heads of Kruger’s really drives home the horror of their being transformed against their wills. I also appreciate their seemingly organic feather kilts.

    Kruger also has a better look than Belos – his having a bit of the vulture to his look makes a lot of aesthetic sense! I do miss Belos’ one long tooth, though.

    The one place where Kruger loses out to Belos is in means of destruction. Being drowned by your own bursting dam doesn’t hold a candle to getting fatally beaned with the skull of one of your own failed experiments (though “I’m drowning – AAAGH!” are pretty good last words). (Wow Comics 001, 1940)

    Categorized in: Animals (Birds) 

    Professor Stargaze: 

    Professor Stargaze is a mad astronomer (nominative determinism) who discovers that the wandering and flaming planet Inferno will soon pass near Earth and wipe all life from its surface. Not only does Stargaze decide not to share this information with the world (possibly a morally neutral act) but he is so convinced that it is the right thing to happen that he tags along with Zambini the Miracle Man and tries to prevent him from stopping it (actively evil).

    Stargaze is ultimately fried to a crisp when he attempts to assassinate Zambini with a flaming spear, then reincarnated as a rat by magic, then restored to his human form back on Earth once it is saved. Has he learned a lesson from all this? Unclear. (Zip Comics 002, 1940)

    Categorized in: Day Jobs (Astronomers), Doctors and Professors

    Doctor Igor:

    Doctor Igor is a scientist with a vision: to develop a method of creating giant men via electrical stimulation of the pituitary gland, and to use an army of these men to take over the world. To that end, he has taken over a remote island (probably because it already has a castle on it) and used its inhabitants as guinea pigs.

    Igor probably saw the fact that the island had a copra plantation on it as a plus, since it provided a supply experimental subjects for him, but what he failed to anticipate was that an interruption of commercial product is likely to draw the attention of an adventurer such as Lance Rand to investigate just what the heck was going on. Igor is ultimately undone when his own creation trips over some equipment and blows up the castle. (Cat-Man Comics 002, 1941)

    Categorized in: Accessories (Castles), Doctors and Professors 

    Borcia:

    Borcia (also called “Garcia” one time which is probably an editorial oversight but possibly means that his name is either Garcia Borcia or Borcia Garcia) is a formerly-famous scientist whose mind cracked due to overwork and who now dreams of world conquest. And how better to achieve that dream than by stealing the magic gem owned by small-time super-hero Dr Diamond?

    Once both the gem and Dr Diamond are in his clutches, Borcia reveals his world domination plot: let loose a moderately cool-looking giant robot called Najar to just kind of indiscriminately rampage through the nearby town of Verez, Mexico. Presumably there will be more robots later on. As for the magic diamond: it seems to play no real role in the plan. Borcia just wanted it, I guess.

    As so often happens, Borcia is betrayed by his own step-daughter Elena, who just wants a normal, non-evil life and resents being part of a super-villainous household. Dr Diamond proves more than a match for Najar, and despite some typical super-villain bluster as he is lead off to jail, Borcia is never seen again. (Cat-Man Comics 003, 1941)

    Categorized in: Accessories (Gems (Magic), Giant Robots), Location (Mexico)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940) 

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940) 

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 021

    None of this science is mad or criminal peer reviewed. 

    This fellow attempts to blackmail Dynamo’s unnamed home city by various methods, including Causing and then threatening further widespread destruction with his “liquid air” freeze cannon and kidnapping city council members and then subjecting some of them to a frankly horrific bone liquefying ray. 

    The main problem with him is honestly the fact that he has no established name. He does go by “Miss Monda” while he is posing as the mayor’s secretary in order to get the inside scoop on how his extortion attempts are going, which turns out to be his downfall when he is dewigged by Dynamo. Also, I just realized that in that last panel you can see that he is in fact wearing a full suit under the Miss Monda dress, making this the most improbable disguise in comics by my reckoning. (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

    Dr Z here has long been working on a mind-reading device, to no avail. He arranges for psychologist Larry Hunter to arrive at his isolated mansion in the hopes that forcing him to collaborate on the invention will lead to some sort of breakthrough, and it does! Alas for Dr Z, as s is so often the case in such stories the new technology is then turned on its villainous facilitator, as Hunter uses Dr Z’z own thoughts to show him how to eliminate the murderous scientist using his own deathtrap. 

    Hunter was probably supposed to go on to use the Thought Receiver to fight more crime in future adventures but as with so many of the denizens of Wham Comics he was never seen again. (Wham Comics 002, 1940)

    The mad Dr Chow operates a wax museum at the New York World’s Fair that he stocks with living humans who he has frozen with a weird drug. Why is he doing this? It’s unclear, but the top three answers that I can think of are : 1. for kicks, 2. for cash and 3. as a way of testing out the formula. He is captured by private detective Dan Dare, and unsettlingly there is no nod to the idea of thawing out the doctor’s victims, even though they are implied to still be alive in some way. (Whiz Comics 006, 1940)

    I had a lot of rising expectations as the character of Dr Lleh was introduced. Firstly, he was pretty clearly telegraphed to be a former member of a Tibetan archaeological expedition who was consumed by revenge after being dismissed for theft and was now haunting the countryside with his horde of experimental subjects. Secondly, his name is “Hell” backwards.

    The good times continue, as Dr Lleh derails the Orient Express (a train that historically did not travel through Tibet) in order to acquire more experimental subjects, only to find that Professor Davis – the very man who wad fired him! – was aboard, along with his daughter, plus indomitable detective Dr Fung and his assistant Dan Barrister. All four are away not just to the Temple of Hades but under it, to “Dr Lleh’s Kingdom of Hades” (no I do not know what a temple to Hades is doing in Tibet).

    All my hopes are dashed once Dr Lleh’s actual style of experimentation is revealed. Bribing two big dudes with llama steak (no I do not know how this guy is getting llama steak in Tibet) to pull a woman’s arms off is not research that would be publishied in even mad science journals, Dr Lleh. I hate to say it but I’m glad that Dr Fung blows you up.  (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 021

    None of this science is mad or criminal peer reviewed. 

    This fellow attempts to blackmail Dynamo’s unnamed home city by various methods, including Causing and then threatening further widespread destruction with his “liquid air” freeze cannon and kidnapping city council members and then subjecting some of them to a frankly horrific bone liquefying ray. 

    The main problem with him is honestly the fact that he has no established name. He does go by “Miss Monda” while he is posing as the mayor’s secretary in order to get the inside scoop on how his extortion attempts are going, which turns out to be his downfall when he is dewigged by Dynamo. Also, I just realized that in that last panel you can see that he is in fact wearing a full suit under the Miss Monda dress, making this the most improbable disguise in comics by my reckoning. (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

    Dr Z here has long been working on a mind-reading device, to no avail. He arranges for psychologist Larry Hunter to arrive at his isolated mansion in the hopes that forcing him to collaborate on the invention will lead to some sort of breakthrough, and it does! Alas for Dr Z, as s is so often the case in such stories the new technology is then turned on its villainous facilitator, as Hunter uses Dr Z’z own thoughts to show him how to eliminate the murderous scientist using his own deathtrap. 

    Hunter was probably supposed to go on to use the Thought Receiver to fight more crime in future adventures but as with so many of the denizens of Wham Comics he was never seen again. (Wham Comics 002, 1940)

    The mad Dr Chow operates a wax museum at the New York World’s Fair that he stocks with living humans who he has frozen with a weird drug. Why is he doing this? It’s unclear, but the top three answers that I can think of are : 1. for kicks, 2. for cash and 3. as a way of testing out the formula. He is captured by private detective Dan Dare, and unsettlingly there is no nod to the idea of thawing out the doctor’s victims, even though they are implied to still be alive in some way. (Whiz Comics 006, 1940)

    I had a lot of rising expectations as the character of Dr Lleh was introduced. Firstly, he was pretty clearly telegraphed to be a former member of a Tibetan archaeological expedition who was consumed by revenge after being dismissed for theft and was now haunting the countryside with his horde of experimental subjects. Secondly, his name is “Hell” backwards.

    The good times continue, as Dr Lleh derails the Orient Express (a train that historically did not travel through Tibet) in order to acquire more experimental subjects, only to find that Professor Davis – the very man who wad fired him! – was aboard, along with his daughter, plus indomitable detective Dr Fung and his assistant Dan Barrister. All four are away not just to the Temple of Hades but under it, to “Dr Lleh’s Kingdom of Hades” (no I do not know what a temple to Hades is doing in Tibet).

    All my hopes are dashed once Dr Lleh’s actual style of experimentation is revealed. Bribing two big dudes with llama steak (no I do not know how this guy is getting llama steak in Tibet) to pull a woman’s arms off is not research that would be publishied in even mad science journals, Dr Lleh. I hate to say it but I’m glad that Dr Fung blows you up.  (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 857: THE KING

    (Wham Comics 001, 1940)

    In what is sadly the final appearance of Speed Centaur, he and his pal “Reel” McCoy travel to the Arctic ruins of the City of Centaurs to explore Speed’s birthplace. Almost immediately upon setting foot inside, they are ambushed and captured by wild-eyed men who escort them to their leader, a man called the King, who unusually has gone with an eccentric hair choice in every available part of his face but the mustache zone, and is also some sort of insane tyrant.

    The King decrees that Speed Centaur must provide entertainment to the assembled inhabitants of the city via gladiatorial combat with three polar bears, a challenge that the super-powered centaur rises to with ease. The next trial that the King decrees is a kind of extended electrical torture that is designed to go on until it kills Speed, only he chooses to take the other way out: beating the daylights out of everyone within reach. 

    It turns out that the King and his men were the survivors of a lost Arctic expedition who were in the grips of some kind of extended group blizzard madness and that getting their asses kicked by a centaur was just what they needed to break them out of it. The King turns out to be Professor Dillon, the leader of the expedition, and denies all knowledge of what has been happening in Centaur City for the last five years. I suppose you have to take him at his word, though I personally wouldn’t put him in a position of authority again. It’s like learning that someone is a mean drunk, you know? 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 857: THE KING

    (Wham Comics 001, 1940)

    In what is sadly the final appearance of Speed Centaur, he and his pal “Reel” McCoy travel to the Arctic ruins of the City of Centaurs to explore Speed’s birthplace. Almost immediately upon setting foot inside, they are ambushed and captured by wild-eyed men who escort them to their leader, a man called the King, who unusually has gone with an eccentric hair choice in every available part of his face but the mustache zone, and is also some sort of insane tyrant.

    The King decrees that Speed Centaur must provide entertainment to the assembled inhabitants of the city via gladiatorial combat with three polar bears, a challenge that the super-powered centaur rises to with ease. The next trial that the King decrees is a kind of extended electrical torture that is designed to go on until it kills Speed, only he chooses to take the other way out: beating the daylights out of everyone within reach. 

    It turns out that the King and his men were the survivors of a lost Arctic expedition who were in the grips of some kind of extended group blizzard madness and that getting their asses kicked by a centaur was just what they needed to break them out of it. The King turns out to be Professor Dillon, the leader of the expedition, and denies all knowledge of what has been happening in Centaur City for the last five years. I suppose you have to take him at his word, though I personally wouldn’t put him in a position of authority again. It’s like learning that someone is a mean drunk, you know? 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 852: THE SUPER-SCIENTIST

    (Weird Comics 008, 1940)

    The Sorceress of Zoom is up to her usual tricks: attempting to steal some random guy from his lady friend, getting mad that he won’t fall in love with her, attacking the city he lives in and turning their tank patrol (!) into a series of ornamental trees, and finally abducting people willy-nilly in order to turn them into furniture. Regular stuff.

    In the city council’s hour of need it is approached by an eccentrically dressed character who calls himself the Super-Scientist and who claims that he can save the city from the Sorceress’ depredations. This of course turns out to have a pretty big caveat: the Super-Scientist will indeed save the city, but only so that he can rule it himself.

    After an initial exchange of fire (1. SoZ attempts to flood the city, 2. S-S transforms water to gas, 3. SoZ launches flaming humans in attempt to ignite gas, 4. flaming humans shot down by city militia (!)) the Sorceress of Zoom and the Super-Scientist agree to have an old-fashioned magic vs science duel for ownership of the city.

    As the duel comprises almost four pages of back-and-forth attack, defense and counter-attack, I won’t go into the whole thing, save to note that the Super-Scientist trucks in the kind of science that is indistinguishable from magic, that the highlight of the event is when the Super-Scientist’s radium ray briefly turns the Sorceress into a skeleton, and that the whole thing ends with the Super-Scientist transformed into a gross rat.

    All this has alleviated the boredom that seemingly inspires the Sorceress to start causing trouble in the mortal world, and she packs up Zoom and flies off. Ironically, in providing the Sorceress of Zoom with a diverting afternoon, the Super-Scientist has in fact saved the city, though any degree of ratty satisfaction he might feel about this is probably spoiled by the hungry cat that the Sorceress summons just before taking off.

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 020

    If I’ve learned one thing from comics it’s to never turn your back on a scientist. 

    Henry Falcon is one of a trio of scientists, along with John Robin and John Sparrow, who have been made the beneficiaries of the whimsical will of millionaire Mortimer Bird. This is of course one of those special murder mystery wills in which the payout increases for any survivors as fellow inheritors are killed off, and Henry Falcon is all about getting that money through murder. He even goes the extra mile to make all of the deaths bird themed in an attempt to throw suspicion on Mortimer Bird, thanks to some special powder he has discovered that makes birds go crazy and peck people to death.

    You can’t just have something like that bird-madness powder around without some stringent safety protocols, however, and Falcon manages to get some on himself while pretending to be Mortimer Bird’s private nurse. So long Henry. (Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940)

    Dr Exton, inventor of the super explosive Tekite, almost sells his creation to a fascist dictator but reforms after he is left on an island for a half hour by the Bird Man. (Weird Comics 004, 1940)

    Menar, a big-eared scientist of the unspecified future time occupied by Typhon, has invented a device called the Tidal Wave Annihilator which he unsurprisingly uses to create tidal waves. The tidal waves in turn sink ships which Menar and his men then loot. It’s a pretty foolproof plan, and Menar even manages to capture Typhon when he comes to investigate, but like many a mad scientist before and after him, Menar has underestimated just how evil he can be before his own daughter turns against him. Typhon escapes with Ina Menar and brings the whole operation crashing down around her father’s pointy ears. (Weird Comics 006, 1940)

    Karnak is a scientist of the year 5940 CE who has already had some measure of success, having conquered and mind-controlled an entire planet of beefy scaly guys, and I must assume is now at a loss as to what to do with himself. Why else would he send a heavily armed spaceship to Earth to extort them into giving him a lady to be his bride? I mean, there have to be at least a few women who would be into him if he just put himself out there on Space Tinder – everyone likes a bad boy, after all. 

    Karnak seems to take it weirdly personally when his kidnapped bride-to-be cooperates with Blast Bennett to take down his whole operation, and tris to feed the two of them to his pet tiger. They’d be doomed if Blast wasn’t so good at cat-wrestling, but as it stands they escape handily.

    Karnak also commits the cardinal sin of not checking his captive spaceman for any ray guns he might have on his person, and catches an explosion bullet to the gut for it. Alas for the inhabitants of the unnamed planet he was in charge of, Karnak dealt in the kind of mind control that kills its subjects when the controller dies. Alas for the beefy scaly guys. (Weird Comics 007, 1940)