The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: scientist

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 695: ZAN

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 695: ZAN

    (Planet Comics 001, 1940) 

    Zan lives on the far-off planet Volcus and uses the energies of its magnetic core to power his spaceship fleet and capture yet more spaceships. And why does he do this? Why, so that he can turn their crew into science zombies and eventually amass an army large enough to conquer the universe!

    (he also has this one lady with him at all times and I’m not sure what her role is exactly because she does not utter a single word throughout the comic. Is she his lieutenant? His girlfriend? A different story might have revealed that she was the real mastermind all along but no dice. She just hangs out behind him in her slinky dress and touches his shoulders)

    Zan’s piracy is very concerning to the Solar Congress, and so they deploy the Solar Force, under the command of Captain Nelson Cole and his little pal Lieutenant Bud. Too bad for them that their ships are made out of the same stuff as all of the missing ones were: they are immediately swept away to Volcus to be zombified.

    Zan’s whole plan seems to hinge on the unstoppable nature of his science zombie armies, but if I’m honest they aren’t as big a threat as he lets on. For one thing, they seem to operate like units in a strategy game in that if they’re not being explicitly directed then they just keep on doing what they were last ordered, including marching forward into a pit and just standing around. Does Zan believe that he and his ladyfriend have the wherewithal to control entire armies of these guys on the fly or is he going to start recruiting elite Starcraft players to his side soon?

    Zan is ultimately rounded up after Cole and Bud manage to capture the paralysis ray that Zan himself had in reserve specifically to counter his armies if they went haywire. Heckuva way to find out that your contingency plan was viable, fella.

    It’s nice that they let Zan and his gal pal share a cell, but I’m not sure if she’s as into him as she once was.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 676: THE DEATH

    (Miracle Comics 003, 1940)

    A scientist/spy who is sabotaging diplomatic talks between the UK and South America by killing diplomats with fog-activated poisoned wallpaper, the Death, aka Jaeger, meets his end at the hands of Secret Agent K-7 and his assistant Yvonne. He’s just the latest in a long line of villains with extremely metal names and not much else going on, except of course for the poisoned wallpaper.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 676: THE DEATH

    (Miracle Comics 003, 1940)

    A scientist/spy who is sabotaging diplomatic talks between the UK and South America by killing diplomats with fog-activated poisoned wallpaper, the Death, aka Jaeger, meets his end at the hands of Secret Agent K-7 and his assistant Yvonne. He’s just the latest in a long line of villains with extremely metal names and not much else going on, except of course for the poisoned wallpaper.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 030

    Some real obscurities from the Hillman House of Ideas:

    the Sky Wizard:

    The Sky Wizard is an otherwise-unnamed super-scientist who seemingly dresses in his futuristic super suit 24/7. There’s not too much else to him other than that because he’s one of those characters who has so many gadgets and gizmos that all the narrative focus goes to them rather than him. A partial list: wing suits, super planes, super strength serum (the amazingly named “powerstrength formula”), a paralyzing Q-Ray gun…

    … and by far the coolest of the Sky Wizard’s accessories, his laboratory base, the grounds of which are composed of the elastic metal rubberium and which can be filled with helium so that the entire estate becomes a mobile floating island. (Miracle Comics 001, 1940)

    Dash Dixon:

    Dash Dixon works for an unnamed police department in an unnamed city in an undefined role (he is described only as a “top athlete with the police force” in his first appearance), Assigned to protect one Dr Lorenz and succeeding in doing so, Dixon is rewarded with a chance to be the subject of an experiment in which he is injected with “perpetual life rays” which render him super strong, at least partially invulnerable and presumably immortal.

    To counter the fact that the ray would seep out of Dixon’s body within 24 hours, Lorenz equips him with a suit of pliable metal that he will presumably have to wear for the rest of his presumably immortal existence. Two things about this suit:

    1. Dr Lorenz has a fantastic look with his lab getup and green dome helmet. Why Dixon’s suit is charitably Very Bad Looking is beyond me.

    2. It might not be clear from this picture but the suit includes a haircut-shaped black helmet held on by a strap. It can thus be implied that the ray will leak out of Dash Dixon’s scalp but will not do so from his face and hands.

    Frankly the whole suit thing gives me mild anxiety. If I were Dash Dixon I might just opt to receive my immortality treatment daily.

    One last thing about Dash Dixon is that the first issue seems to imply that he exists in a near future world with air taxis and commuter rockets but it doesn’t really come up otherwise. A mystery for the ages. (Miracle Comics 001, 1940)

    the Scorpion:

    A regular-style two-fisted vigilante, hated and feared by the underworld, occasionally wanted by the police, etc. The real thing that makes the Scorpion (aka Hal Ward) stand out is that he doesn’t really bother with a mask or any other way to not be immediately recognized by all of his mortal enemies. (Miracle Comics 001, 1940)

    Blanda the Jungle Queen:

    Blanda the Jungle Queen really lives up to her name by being the most by-the-book version of the White Goddess style of jungle adventurer, right down to the fact that she immediately abandons her adoptive people and their ways in a wave of horniness the second that a mediocre white guy hoves into view. (Miracle Comics 001 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 672: KARDO, THE MONSTER MAKER

    (Masked Marvel 002, 1940)

    Kardo, Maker of Monsters, is not quite a super-villain but that’s about the closest thing to what he is and I’m not making up a new category for every guy who doesn’t quite fit the existing ones. What is Kardo then, you ask? A world-famous scientist with the soul of a clown and a compulsion to make creatures and beasties – when we first meet him he is sharing a drink with his friends Dr Melvyn Hunt and Rosalind Rogers and reminiscing about all the trouble he caused the last time he made a monster.

    The fact that Kardo is continuing with his experiments is revealed when he accepts delivery of a human foot, and even then his friends treat him like someone who needs an intervention for hoarding or medium-grade drugs instead of someone treading in realms man was not meant to.

    Of course the monster wakes up unexpectedly and is hostile to all human life because why wouldn’t it be. Kardo really earns my affection here by being a perfect straight man to the creature’s “he’s right behind me” routine.

    Kardo rounds out his perfect combination of comedy villain traits by being a complete coward and leaving Hunt to battle the monster on his own.

    Thus ends the intervention. We love you Kardo and that is why we have impaled your unholy creation on this fence. Now promise that you won’t immediately relapse. *Kardo* is immediately considering how best source human brains*

    God I love this man. He just can’t stop making monsters!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 672: KARDO, THE MONSTER MAKER

    (Masked Marvel 002, 1940)

    Kardo, Maker of Monsters, is not quite a super-villain but that’s about the closest thing to what he is and I’m not making up a new category for every guy who doesn’t quite fit the existing ones. What is Kardo then, you ask? A world-famous scientist with the soul of a clown and a compulsion to make creatures and beasties – when we first meet him he is sharing a drink with his friends Dr Melvyn Hunt and Rosalind Rogers and reminiscing about all the trouble he caused the last time he made a monster.

    The fact that Kardo is continuing with his experiments is revealed when he accepts delivery of a human foot, and even then his friends treat him like someone who needs an intervention for hoarding or medium-grade drugs instead of someone treading in realms man was not meant to.

    Of course the monster wakes up unexpectedly and is hostile to all human life because why wouldn’t it be. Kardo really earns my affection here by being a perfect straight man to the creature’s “he’s right behind me” routine.

    Kardo rounds out his perfect combination of comedy villain traits by being a complete coward and leaving Hunt to battle the monster on his own.

    Thus ends the intervention. We love you Kardo and that is why we have impaled your unholy creation on this fence. Now promise that you won’t immediately relapse. *Kardo* is immediately considering how best source human brains*

    God I love this man. He just can’t stop making monsters!

  • 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.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 660: MUNDOOR

    (Jungle Comics 005, 1940)

    Mundoor is a scientist who hangs out in the Fantomah part of the Jungle Comics Omnijungle and has seemingly been spending his time looking for a vitamin-rich plant that will induce giant growth in those that eat it, and in an astonishing turn of fortune an asteroid bearing that very plant lands on his doorstep one day! And the asteroid is also stuffed full of viable monster eggs! What a day for Mundoor.

    Mundoor raises his reptiles on a diet of super-vitamins and hypnotism and sets out to conquer the jungle. He also coats them in phosphorescent paint to make them scarier which is frankly overkill.

    Quite a bit of the adventure concerns Fantomah playing keepaway with the treasure vaults from Mundoor’s first target, one of those Indian style palaces that Fantomah’s mostly African style jungle is dotted with.

    Mundoor eventually crosses Fantomah’s mental line, from “prevent this guy from doing crimes” to “get rid of this guy for good’ when he orders his beasts to destroy and loot an entire (kind of Middle Eastern style) city. He and his pets are unceremoniously dumped back on the asteroid and blasted into space, where they presumably get extremely huge on a diet of nothing but growth inducing plants.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 660: MUNDOOR

    (Jungle Comics 005, 1940)

    Mundoor is a scientist who hangs out in the Fantomah part of the Jungle Comics Omnijungle and has seemingly been spending his time looking for a vitamin-rich plant that will induce giant growth in those that eat it, and in an astonishing turn of fortune an asteroid bearing that very plant lands on his doorstep one day! And the asteroid is also stuffed full of viable monster eggs! What a day for Mundoor.

    Mundoor raises his reptiles on a diet of super-vitamins and hypnotism and sets out to conquer the jungle. He also coats them in phosphorescent paint to make them scarier which is frankly overkill.

    Quite a bit of the adventure concerns Fantomah playing keepaway with the treasure vaults from Mundoor’s first target, one of those Indian style palaces that Fantomah’s mostly African style jungle is dotted with.

    Mundoor eventually crosses Fantomah’s mental line, from “prevent this guy from doing crimes” to “get rid of this guy for good’ when he orders his beasts to destroy and loot an entire (kind of Middle Eastern style) city. He and his pets are unceremoniously dumped back on the asteroid and blasted into space, where they presumably get extremely huge on a diet of nothing but growth inducing plants.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 657: THE SCIENTIST

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 657: THE SCIENTIST

    (Jungle Comics 004, 1940)

    The Scientist (no other name given) is a man with a very comic book plan: develop a serum capable of giving gorillas superhuman intelligence, do so to a population of the particularly huge Gorgon Gorillas, and use the resulting army to conquer the world, presumably after a period of rapid gorilla breeding.

    Though the Scientist is a compelling villain in his own right (he is a world-class asshole, for example, like all the best bad guys), the stars of this adventure are absolutely the Gorgon Gorillas, who for example respond to a gorilla call by marching single-file through the jungle beating their chests until they just kind of topple into a pit trap.

    The post-enhancement gorgons are even better, as they exhibit a range of amazing facial expressions from “benignly intelligent” to “absolutely fucking mental” depending on input from the Scientist.

    As is her prerogative, Fantomah waits to step in to the situation until the crisis point, in this case the Scientist ordering his gorilla army to scour human life from the face to the jungle. Alas, he learns too late that the old adage is true: you live by the army of demonized gorillas, you die by the army of demonized gorillas.