The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Flash Comics

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 001

    Like costumed villains, there are a lot of scientists out there doing crimes involving superscience but just missing the levels of interest, ambition or scale to graduate to true super-villain status. Sometimes this is because of poor planning or lack of vision and others just have the misfortune to run into a protagonist while still in the initial stages of their venture. And don’t they deserve a forum just as much as the generic costumed villains we all love?

    Julius Korn: 

    Our first science fiend is Julius Korn, who takes over a lighthouse with his crew of misfits in order to use his ray machine to sink passing ships. It’s unclear just why he does this – is it a weapons test, a piracy scheme, fifth column activity or plain sadism? – but he is thwarted by sea rover Dusty Dane and his pal Big Mike Cardigan and ends his days like so many other comic book scientists: exploding along with his invention. (Feature Comics 048, 1941)

    the Professor: 

    The Professor here operated a scheme whereby he used a magnetic engine killing ray to bring down mail planes in Arizona’s Painted Desert. As befits a scientist operating in cowboy territory, he was willing to get his hands a bit dirtier than your typical effete science-man, but even that wasn’t enough to save him from the Fargo Kid. (Feature Comics 051, 1941)

    Unnamed Scientist: 

    This unnamed fellow went to the trouble of developing anti-Flash technology – specifically, glasses with rotating lenses that allow him to see fast-moving objects – to protect his kidnap gang rather than, say, moving to another city (or marketing his glasses somewhere, natch) (Flash Comics v1 001, 1940)

    (Trophy Room bonus: the Flash keeps the glasses)

    Dr Jennings: 

    This here’s Dr Jennings, who works in a research lab with Jay “the Flash” Garrick and kidnaps a lot of people to live out his dream of establishing a colony on Mars but then is betrayed by his venture capitalist partner Enzil who just wants to establish himself as a Martian tyrant in a story that feels oddly prescient somehow? Anyhow the Flash is more focused on rehabilitation than your average Golden Age hero and so Jennings is allowed to go back to his old life after Enzil is vaporized by spider-aliens. (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 254: THE SMOKE THIEF

    (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    I’ll be honest: this is a very charitable entry on this list. The Smoke Thief is Dr Lucius Darrell and his gang of toughs, who use smoke bombs and special goggles to rob people on trains. If this was the main focus of the story, that might just be enough for full Minor Super-Villain status, but it ain’t.

    The real point of the story is this. Darrell captures Hawkman, then tries to kill him by chucking him out of a plane, which leads to a whole sequence where Hawkman is nursed back to health by the birds, earns their trust and eventually becomes their leader, leading them in righteous vengence against poor unsuspecting Dr Darrell.

    So yes, I’m being charitable. Being absolutely destroyed by Hawkman and an army of birds isn’t particularly villainous but it must be terrifically unpleasant. Plus the Smoke Thief is an excellent name.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 254: THE SMOKE THIEF

    (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    I’ll be honest: this is a very charitable entry on this list. The Smoke Thief is Dr Lucius Darrell and his gang of toughs, who use smoke bombs and special goggles to rob people on trains. If this was the main focus of the story, that might just be enough for full Minor Super-Villain status, but it ain’t.

    The real point of the story is this. Darrell captures Hawkman, then tries to kill him by chucking him out of a plane, which leads to a whole sequence where Hawkman is nursed back to health by the birds, earns their trust and eventually becomes their leader, leading them in righteous vengence against poor unsuspecting Dr Darrell.

    So yes, I’m being charitable. Being absolutely destroyed by Hawkman and an army of birds isn’t particularly villainous but it must be terrifically unpleasant. Plus the Smoke Thief is an excellent name.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 253: THE WHITE DRAGON

    (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Not much to say about the White Dragon: he’s a guy with a bunch of costumed henchmen who captures Chinese folk in NYC and uses them as slave labour in his motor factory until the Whip settles his hash.

    He is of course Walter Morgan, a guy who brags to Rod “the Whip” Gaynor about how well he’s doing in the motor business on the first page of the story. About the only interesting thing to be found here is a one-panel whip duel between Our Hero and the White Dragon, They can’t all be great, folks!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 253: THE WHITE DRAGON

    (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Not much to say about the White Dragon: he’s a guy with a bunch of costumed henchmen who captures Chinese folk in NYC and uses them as slave labour in his motor factory until the Whip settles his hash.

    He is of course Walter Morgan, a guy who brags to Rod “the Whip” Gaynor about how well he’s doing in the motor business on the first page of the story. About the only interesting thing to be found here is a one-panel whip duel between Our Hero and the White Dragon, They can’t all be great, folks!

  • NOTES – MARCH 2023

    New Powers:

    An injured Hawkman is tended to by birds and learns to speak their language. (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Just some of my favourite alien designs ever: the Kriglo AKA Martian Spider-Men (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

    Super Hero Costume Party:

    Hawkman attends a costume party with Shiera Sanders as Hawkgirl. Though not the first time she wore the costume, this does mark the start of the two as a crime-fighting duo ongoing, no matter what stinky ol’ Hawkman says. (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

    Rick Raleigh might have intended to attend this party as the Red Bee in that classic cheeky move, but ended up getting mixed up in a murder and attending as a different guy dressed as the Red Bee. (Hit Comics 014, 1941)

    Really enjoy the selection of creature that inhabit the inner earth in the year 50029 CE: Mud Men, Rock Men, hot ladies, and down at the very bottom: guys with beards. (Hit Comics 003, 1940)

    Quality comics with another entry for the list of increasingly unhinged patriotic heroes: Don Glory, the xenophobic jingoist former boxer (Hit Comics 008, 1941)

  • NOTES – MARCH 2023

    New Powers:

    An injured Hawkman is tended to by birds and learns to speak their language. (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Just some of my favourite alien designs ever: the Kriglo AKA Martian Spider-Men (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

    Super Hero Costume Party:

    Hawkman attends a costume party with Shiera Sanders as Hawkgirl. Though not the first time she wore the costume, this does mark the start of the two as a crime-fighting duo ongoing, no matter what stinky ol’ Hawkman says. (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

    Rick Raleigh might have intended to attend this party as the Red Bee in that classic cheeky move, but ended up getting mixed up in a murder and attending as a different guy dressed as the Red Bee. (Hit Comics 014, 1941)

    Really enjoy the selection of creature that inhabit the inner earth in the year 50029 CE: Mud Men, Rock Men, hot ladies, and down at the very bottom: guys with beards. (Hit Comics 003, 1940)

    Quality comics with another entry for the list of increasingly unhinged patriotic heroes: Don Glory, the xenophobic jingoist former boxer (Hit Comics 008, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 252: EGON

    (Flash Comics v1 021, 1941)

    This one’s got a lot of setup. First, Hawkman sees a spaceship crash, as you do. Venturing inside, he finds a deceased Neptunian couple, their egg son and a Rosetta Stone of a  ship’s log. He makes off with the egg and the journal and just leaves the ship and its former crew to rot.

    Next night is the Scientist Society Ball, where monocled botanist and creep Noel Ratchford makes a play for Shiera Sanders and is rebuffed. There’s an egg-based sequence of events as follows:

    -Noel is germinating seeds in eggs

    -Carter “Hawkman” Hall thinks this is dumb

    -Shiera stumbles across the boy-egg and assumes that Carter is also experimenting with eggs. She steals the egg as a joke and tells Noel about it

    -Noel decides to steal the egg and take credit for Carters egg-based research. He ends up hatching out the boy Egon.

    Thanks to Neptunian genetics, Egon hatches into a rapidly-growing boy with cool eye-beams and full powers of speech. Noel then hits upon the idea to raise him up to a) hate him and b) believe that his name is Carter Hall, so that he will go out and do evil giant stuff and blame it on Carter, thus presumably sullying his good name enough for Shiera to reject him? it’s a flimsy plan at best, but when all you have is a giant you look for rampage-based solutions to your problems.

    Everything kind of goes according to plan, except that Carter Hall is of course Hawkman, and that he has the journal and knows all of the Neptunians’ weak points and kills Egon and brings Noel to justice. But other than that stuff, A-OK.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 251: BOMB-BABY SATHAN

    (Flash Comics v1 020, 1941)

    An absolutely ordinary criminal scientist villain completely overshadowed by his criminal rival Big Frenchy in this adventure. Sathan has at-the-time fantastically futuristic guided missile tech, as well as one of my personal favourite bits of super-villain utility tech: the communications cut-in, via which he extorts money from banks lest they get hit by guided missiles.

    The only reason Sathan hasn’t been relegated to the Criminal and Mad Scientist Roundup queue is this here henchman’s inspired nickname game. Bomb-Baby Sathan is a Grant Morrison Making Up a Sixties Villain in the Nineties-style name and it’s genuinely joyful to encounter it in a Golden Age comic.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 251: BOMB-BABY SATHAN

    (Flash Comics v1 020, 1941)

    An absolutely ordinary criminal scientist villain completely overshadowed by his criminal rival Big Frenchy in this adventure. Sathan has at-the-time fantastically futuristic guided missile tech, as well as one of my personal favourite bits of super-villain utility tech: the communications cut-in, via which he extorts money from banks lest they get hit by guided missiles.

    The only reason Sathan hasn’t been relegated to the Criminal and Mad Scientist Roundup queue is this here henchman’s inspired nickname game. Bomb-Baby Sathan is a Grant Morrison Making Up a Sixties Villain in the Nineties-style name and it’s genuinely joyful to encounter it in a Golden Age comic.