The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Master

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 962: THE MASTER

    (Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

    The
    Master is a mysterious new crooks who has been going around town kidnapping wealthy men,
    and the Black Terror and Tim have been running around after him and
    trying to figure out just what the heck is going on. The Master is also a classic Bad Boss in the “ruthlessly kill your minions” mould.

    As it turns out, the Master has broadly the same origin story as early Batman villain the Ugliest Man in the World,
    only instead of a medical student who was injected with a random
    cocktail of drugs and turned ugly in a frat hazing gone wrong, he is
    instead a chemistry student who was exploded by a random mixture of chemicals in some frat bullying gone
    wrong. Like his counterpart, the Master (aka Alfred Foster, aka Phillip
    van Allen) dropped out of sight, acquired a rubberoid mask and
    established a new identity so that he could enact his revenge on those
    he blamed for his disfigurement.

    Unlike the Ugliest Man in
    the World, the Master’s theming is not strong. He himself is vaguely
    Egyptian themed, while his henchmen are just a bunch of Malaysian guys who he does not treat very well.

    The
    Master’s plan also revolves around gathering up his tormentors so that
    he can kill them all at once, meaning that his revenge goes almost entirely unfulfilled when he is accidentally
    killed by one of his own men. All in all a very poor foray into super-villainy.

    Revenge Killer Score: 0/12

    Categorized in: Accessories (Rubberoid Mask), Generica (Masters), Origin (Extensively Scarred Face)

  • PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 005

    PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 005

    Some day we will hit Peak Problematic and I can’t decide if it will be soon or in a decade or so. 

    the White Leader: 

    Our last Problematic Round-Up featured a lot of white guys dressing up like Yellow Peril villains in order to lead Chinese gangs, something that we will unfortunately be seeing plenty more of. This here fellow follows a different path: not putting on yellowface in order to lead a Chinese gang and in fact leaning hard the other way by having them call him “the Great White Leader” or just “the White Leader” the whole time. Is this technically better? I suppose it is. Is it not by much? Certainly!

    Anyway, the White Leader is really wealthy playboy Anthony Clare, who turns out to be wealthy because he is a drug kingpin. Until he gets pinched by Detective Sergeant Burke, of course. (Startling Comics 001, 1940) 

    the Voa:

    Roger Barrow and his nephew Phillip Acton have just returned from a diamond-buying trip to Africa, and they must have been on their best behaviour because the local inhabitants of wherever they were doing their business sent them home with what is essentially a curse on their heads: the promise that the death-god Voa will follow them back.

    This is of course a classic setup for a Woman in Red whodunnit mystery, with one of the six possible suspects bumping off the rest for those sweet, sweet diamonds. It’s a classic solution to such a problem!

    To give this comic the tiniest amount of benefit of the doubt I think that the false Voa that shows up to start killing people (aka Phillip Acton, the nephew) is dressed up like some sort of mahogany idol, but what that all adds up to is that while he is not technically doing blackface, he certainly appears to be doing blackface. It’s not better, I’ll say that right now.

    Anyway, he was going to murder his whole family in order to get his hands on some stupid diamonds, so it’s not like we were under the impression that he was a good person. About the only fun thing about this one is that Acton’s chosen weapon is a blowgun that shoots poisoned crystal shards. (Thrilling Comics 005, 1940)

    Princess Ah-Ku:

    Princess Ah-Ku is a recurring villain of Bob Phantom’s and she’s just kind of generic: generically villainous, generically Yellow Peril… she even adopts an extremely generic alter ego called the Master in her first appearance. Most of her schemes involve smuggling. (Top-Notch Comics 004, 1940)

    Princess Ah-Ku returns in Top-Notch Comics 005 under yet another identity, as the Doctor, leader of a gang of kidnappers. As always, the surgical outfit-as-costume is a very strong look, though something about the reveal of Ah-Ku as the real identity of the Doctor makes me think that this was a last-minute change to spice up the adventure a bit.

    Top-Notch Comics 006 involves Ah-Ku doing some opium smuggling, with a sideline in trying to figure out who Bob Phantom is so that she can kill him off. This allows for the hilarious old bit where she captures Walt Whitney in order to grill him for information on his own alter ego.

    In her final appearance in Top-Notch Comics 009, Princess Ah-Ku attempts to take over Chinatown by killing off the Council of Seven who apparently have been running it. She manages to get it down to a Council of Four before Bob Phantom catches wise and steps in.

    Princess Ah-Ku is finally brought to justice thanks to Bob Phantom’s unexpected skill with the throwing axe. Perhaps it’s for the best – at the rate her Yellow Peril levels were rising, the next time we saw Ah-Ku she might have sported a fu manchu.

    the Brahmins: 

    Kardak the Mystic and his gal-pal Lorna are just kind of wandering around the Louisiana bayous when they stumble across a Siva-worshipping cult of fanatics in a weird mystical pocket dimension. They foil the Brahmins’ initial attempts to destroy human civilization (and acquire a new companion named Balthar in the process) and then spend the remainder of 1940 on a voyage through various other magical lands on the way to confront the Brahmins’ masters, conveniently named the Master Brahmins. Look out for them in a 1941 edition of this very Round-Up. (Top-Notch Comics 006, 1940)

  • PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 005

    PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 005

    Some day we will hit Peak Problematic and I can’t decide if it will be soon or in a decade or so. 

    the White Leader: 

    Our last Problematic Round-Up featured a lot of white guys dressing up like Yellow Peril villains in order to lead Chinese gangs, something that we will unfortunately be seeing plenty more of. This here fellow follows a different path: not putting on yellowface in order to lead a Chinese gang and in fact leaning hard the other way by having them call him “the Great White Leader” or just “the White Leader” the whole time. Is this technically better? I suppose it is. Is it not by much? Certainly!

    Anyway, the White Leader is really wealthy playboy Anthony Clare, who turns out to be wealthy because he is a drug kingpin. Until he gets pinched by Detective Sergeant Burke, of course. (Startling Comics 001, 1940) 

    the Voa:

    Roger Barrow and his nephew Phillip Acton have just returned from a diamond-buying trip to Africa, and they must have been on their best behaviour because the local inhabitants of wherever they were doing their business sent them home with what is essentially a curse on their heads: the promise that the death-god Voa will follow them back.

    This is of course a classic setup for a Woman in Red whodunnit mystery, with one of the six possible suspects bumping off the rest for those sweet, sweet diamonds. It’s a classic solution to such a problem!

    To give this comic the tiniest amount of benefit of the doubt I think that the false Voa that shows up to start killing people (aka Phillip Acton, the nephew) is dressed up like some sort of mahogany idol, but what that all adds up to is that while he is not technically doing blackface, he certainly appears to be doing blackface. It’s not better, I’ll say that right now.

    Anyway, he was going to murder his whole family in order to get his hands on some stupid diamonds, so it’s not like we were under the impression that he was a good person. About the only fun thing about this one is that Acton’s chosen weapon is a blowgun that shoots poisoned crystal shards. (Thrilling Comics 005, 1940)

    Princess Ah-Ku:

    Princess Ah-Ku is a recurring villain of Bob Phantom’s and she’s just kind of generic: generically villainous, generically Yellow Peril… she even adopts an extremely generic alter ego called the Master in her first appearance. Most of her schemes involve smuggling. (Top-Notch Comics 004, 1940)

    Princess Ah-Ku returns in Top-Notch Comics 005 under yet another identity, as the Doctor, leader of a gang of kidnappers. As always, the surgical outfit-as-costume is a very strong look, though something about the reveal of Ah-Ku as the real identity of the Doctor makes me think that this was a last-minute change to spice up the adventure a bit.

    Top-Notch Comics 006 involves Ah-Ku doing some opium smuggling, with a sideline in trying to figure out who Bob Phantom is so that she can kill him off. This allows for the hilarious old bit where she captures Walt Whitney in order to grill him for information on his own alter ego.

    In her final appearance in Top-Notch Comics 009, Princess Ah-Ku attempts to take over Chinatown by killing off the Council of Seven who apparently have been running it. She manages to get it down to a Council of Four before Bob Phantom catches wise and steps in.

    Princess Ah-Ku is finally brought to justice thanks to Bob Phantom’s unexpected skill with the throwing axe. Perhaps it’s for the best – at the rate her Yellow Peril levels were rising, the next time we saw Ah-Ku she might have sported a fu manchu.

    the Brahmins: 

    Kardak the Mystic and his gal-pal Lorna are just kind of wandering around the Louisiana bayous when they stumble across a Siva-worshipping cult of fanatics in a weird mystical pocket dimension. They foil the Brahmins’ initial attempts to destroy human civilization (and acquire a new companion named Balthar in the process) and then spend the remainder of 1940 on a voyage through various other magical lands on the way to confront the Brahmins’ masters, conveniently named the Master Brahmins. Look out for them in a 1941 edition of this very Round-Up. (Top-Notch Comics 006, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 833: THE MASTER

    (Top-Notch Comics 005, 1940) 

    The Mosconians, stand-ins for Nazi-allied Russia (or possibly just Russian-flavoured stand-ins for Nazi Germany) have a lot more stick-to-itiveness than your typical gang of foreign espionage agents, to the extent that they manage to not only bedevil the Wizard for three whole issues but also the Shield over in Pep Comics, leading to what is touted as the first super-hero crossover in comics (as previously seen here). The Master is the shadowy figure behind the Mosconian schemes and as seen above he even managed to kidnap the Wizard’s brother Grover! A decent showing for a crypto-fascist, considering how ephemeral they usually are.

    The actual crossover-precipitating plan is an attempt to blow up the military academies at Annapolis and West Point, thus shutting off the supply of officers to the US armed forces and incidentally killing off a portion of the country’s political officials as they attend a ceremony at the latter. The actual crossovers between the Wizard and the two students is fairly ships-in-the-night – he basically waves at them as he leaves to beat up Mosconians at a second location.

    The Mosconians and their Master return in Top-Notch Comics 006 with an attempt to blow up Boulder Dam*, which is one of those plots that would be pretty horrifying in real life but is not so exciting or unusual in a comic book. This is also the point at which the Mosconians start to get really German.

    *Hoover Dam, which I just learned was in a state of naming limbo for years and only officially became Hoover in 1947! 

    The Mosconians next plot, in Top-Notch Comics 007, involves an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge. The Wizard manages to track them down to their staging area in British Columbia, where the Master is finally unmasked and revealed to be the Mosconian ambassador to the United States (not much of a surprise). This is also the point at which the Wizard is chemically blinded, leading him to change his costume to a more standard super-heroic one with no noticeably different eye protection. So attired, he rounds up the plotter in San Francisco with the aid of the Shield.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 833: THE MASTER

    (Top-Notch Comics 005, 1940) 

    The Mosconians, stand-ins for Nazi-allied Russia (or possibly just Russian-flavoured stand-ins for Nazi Germany) have a lot more stick-to-itiveness than your typical gang of foreign espionage agents, to the extent that they manage to not only bedevil the Wizard for three whole issues but also the Shield over in Pep Comics, leading to what is touted as the first super-hero crossover in comics (as previously seen here). The Master is the shadowy figure behind the Mosconian schemes and as seen above he even managed to kidnap the Wizard’s brother Grover! A decent showing for a crypto-fascist, considering how ephemeral they usually are.

    The actual crossover-precipitating plan is an attempt to blow up the military academies at Annapolis and West Point, thus shutting off the supply of officers to the US armed forces and incidentally killing off a portion of the country’s political officials as they attend a ceremony at the latter. The actual crossovers between the Wizard and the two students is fairly ships-in-the-night – he basically waves at them as he leaves to beat up Mosconians at a second location.

    The Mosconians and their Master return in Top-Notch Comics 006 with an attempt to blow up Boulder Dam*, which is one of those plots that would be pretty horrifying in real life but is not so exciting or unusual in a comic book. This is also the point at which the Mosconians start to get really German.

    *Hoover Dam, which I just learned was in a state of naming limbo for years and only officially became Hoover in 1947! 

    The Mosconians next plot, in Top-Notch Comics 007, involves an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge. The Wizard manages to track them down to their staging area in British Columbia, where the Master is finally unmasked and revealed to be the Mosconian ambassador to the United States (not much of a surprise). This is also the point at which the Wizard is chemically blinded, leading him to change his costume to a more standard super-heroic one with no noticeably different eye protection. So attired, he rounds up the plotter in San Francisco with the aid of the Shield.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 692: THE MASTER

    (Pep Comics 008, 1940) 

    It’s an old story, even this early in the history of comics: someone has developed a method for mass murdering people and is attempting to use it to extort money from a city, or else. In this case that person calls himself the Master and that method is some sort of electrical wave.

    The Comet of course is not cool with this kind of blatant super-villainy, particularly as he is still trying to rebuild his reputation after murdering dozens of people while hypnotized that one time. Lucky for him, the Master’s electric wave is vulnerable to the Comet’s disintegration ray for some reason – maybe it’s a Rock Paper Scissors situation and there’s a third form of energy that counters the Comet but can be defeated by the Master.

    Not content to admit defeat, the Master tries another classic gambit: he captures newswoman Thelma Gordon after correctly surmising that her repeated Comet-related front page scoops might indicate that she has some sort of connection to the man himself. And it works! The Comet is lured to a selected location and trapped in a glass net (because glass is the only material left unharmed by the Comet’s deadly eye beam and the Comet has had zero success in keeping that information under wraps). Unfortunately for the Master, catching someone in a glass net is not quite the checkmate move he assumed it was and he ends up on the wrong end of a death ray blast.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 643: THE MASTER

    (Fight Comics 003, 1940)

    Kinks Mason is back on the case! And just what sub-oceanic mystery is he attempting to solve by just wandering around underwater? Why, it’s Just Where is All the Salt Going? And somewhat astonishingly, he figures it out almost immediately: it’s going into this building.

    The building turns out to belong to a race of ocean-dwelling humanoids referred to only as the Amphibians, though I can’t imagine that that’s what they call themselves. I kind of appreciate how generic their design is, like a greatest hits of underwater humanoid features with the single eye added on for flair.

    The Amphibians are ruled by the Master, who similarly is a fairly generic comic book undersea ruler villain: he and his people have developed some cool offensive technology and are now out to conquer the surface world. The most intriguing thing about this whole setup is just what all the salt is for – I kept hoping that everything would be powered by a big glowing salt crystal but no such luck. 

    (Also the Amphibians refer to their tech as a “poison ray” but later it seems to be a generic ray gun, and while I of course appreciate an evocative name I would much prefer to see a ray gun – preferably salt-powered –  poison a guy)

    Kinks Mason is of course not going to stand for this sort of nonsense and so for the second time in as many issues he possibly wipes out an intelligent underwater species, this time using stray torpedoes from all of the partially-destroyed submarines littering the seafloor around the Amphibians’ base. Do adventure heroes ever have crises of conscience about this kind of thing?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 643: THE MASTER

    (Fight Comics 003, 1940)

    Kinks Mason is back on the case! And just what sub-oceanic mystery is he attempting to solve by just wandering around underwater? Why, it’s Just Where is All the Salt Going? And somewhat astonishingly, he figures it out almost immediately: it’s going into this building.

    The building turns out to belong to a race of ocean-dwelling humanoids referred to only as the Amphibians, though I can’t imagine that that’s what they call themselves. I kind of appreciate how generic their design is, like a greatest hits of underwater humanoid features with the single eye added on for flair.

    The Amphibians are ruled by the Master, who similarly is a fairly generic comic book undersea ruler villain: he and his people have developed some cool offensive technology and are now out to conquer the surface world. The most intriguing thing about this whole setup is just what all the salt is for – I kept hoping that everything would be powered by a big glowing salt crystal but no such luck. 

    (Also the Amphibians refer to their tech as a “poison ray” but later it seems to be a generic ray gun, and while I of course appreciate an evocative name I would much prefer to see a ray gun – preferably salt-powered –  poison a guy)

    Kinks Mason is of course not going to stand for this sort of nonsense and so for the second time in as many issues he possibly wipes out an intelligent underwater species, this time using stray torpedoes from all of the partially-destroyed submarines littering the seafloor around the Amphibians’ base. Do adventure heroes ever have crises of conscience about this kind of thing?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 422: THE MASTER

    (Keen Detective Funnies v2 002, 1939)

    Another day, another guy named the Master. This Master is escaped lunatic Pierre Lacroix, leader of the Hooded Cult and would-be world conqueror. Lacroix maintains the loyalty of his cult via drug addiction and has a castle HQ. This is all penny-ante stuff.

    The most important thing about the Master is his shirt. It’s like, a sweatshirt with attached cowl? Obviously other villains have been doing similar things with robes for years at this point but I feel like this was something special even if my knowledge of the future of super-villain costume design tells me that it is an evolutionary dead end. 

    Anyway, he dies in an explosion but his contributions to villainous fashion will live on.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 388: THE MASTER

    (More Fun Comics 068, 1941)

    The Master is… probably Russian. It’s the same as all of the “pseudo-German crypto-Nazi” characters that populate comics pre-Pearl Harbor. Reading through the vagueness, he is a scientist whose partner emigrated to the US about the time of the Russian Revolution while the Master stayed behind. Now the Master wants revenge for his partner’s success and also is gearing up to take over the world and he’s using his sonic death ray device to achieve both tasks. Or would do, if Dr Fate wasn’t around to poke his helmeted nose into things.

    By far the coolest thing about the Master is the depiction of said sonic death ray – it resembles nothing so much as an amorphous life-form, which is very cool! More of that, please!

    Oh yes, once the Master is foiled he jumps in a swamp and drowns.