The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: world domination

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 124: MARIA, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES

    (Slam-Bang Comics 005, 1940) 

    I quite like Maria. Firstly, she is a vampire with bat wings, which is a feature that hardly ever shows up any more. Also she sleeps in a coffin filled with the bones of her victims, which is not a bit of vampire lore that I am familiar with but which does rule. She hangs out in a castle somewhere in the US and vampirizes random motorists in anticipation of the day that she has enough minions to take over the world. She even manages to turn Diamond Jack briefly but he manages to resist the full transformation due to being good and pure.

    She has these weird minions that may or may not be another kind of vampire? They kind of look like bipedal panthers with bat wings. I love them.

    Like I said she manages to vamp Diamond Jack, which she achieves by pretending defeat, offering to kiss his ring and then biting out the magic diamond. A clever move, but ultimately undone when the gem refuses to act against Jack and returns to his ring.

    Ultimately, Maria ends up turned into a skeleton and her cool looking castle is transformed into a cemetery for the other vampires, who I guess were less redeemable than Diamond Jack.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 072: THE GREAT I

    (Adventure Comics 052-054, 1940)

    A properly fun invisible villain, finally! In order:

    -great hat, great mustache

    -has to get nude

    -filled with hubris vis-à-vis just how much you can get done just by being invisible (world conquest?)

    Although to that last point they (they being heroic boxer Socko Strong) had to set a trap to electrocute him in order to stop him.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 058: DR VREEKILL

    (New York World’s Fair Comics 002, 1940)

    Dr Vreekill had a steel-melting ray and a dream (engage in the surprisingly common crime activity of extorting the attractions of the New York World’s Fair as a prelude to world domination) until Batman and Robin stuck their big noses into his business.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 050: RODNEY STARK

    (Whiz Comics 007, 1940)

    Rodney Stark is a rich asshole who unfreezes some prehistoric men and uses them as a private military force in a bid to take over the world, until Captain Marvel shows up to murder them all.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 036: SETAP

    (Action v1 017, 1939)

    Setap is fun because she’s one of the few old lady super-villains who actually is an old lady, rather than a gangster in drag. She’s also pretty happy about her plan to steal youth from one of Zatara’s pals, until he reverses the process and blows up her city.

    Setap is also an early example of a reformed villain, as she shows up a few issues later (presumably after stealing youth off someone else, as she is young again) and enlists Zatara’s help in finding her ancestral home, Atlantis

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 036: SETAP

    (Action v1 017, 1939)

    Setap is fun because she’s one of the few old lady super-villains who actually is an old lady, rather than a gangster in drag. She’s also pretty happy about her plan to steal youth from one of Zatara’s pals, until he reverses the process and blows up her city.

    Setap is also an early example of a reformed villain, as she shows up a few issues later (presumably after stealing youth off someone else, as she is young again) and enlists Zatara’s help in finding her ancestral home, Atlantis

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 031: THE MAD LAMA

    (Action v1 009, 1939)

    In a fairly typical display of respect for the Tibetan peoples and their religion, the Mad Lama is a ruthless villain bent on world domination. Presumably he achieved his powers through rigid dedication to the popular “evil” style of Tibetan Buddhism.

    The Lama himself doesn’t get to do much other than bloviate for a while before being incinerated in a magic duel with Zatara, so the most interesting thing about him is the fact that he gathered up a cadre of other villains to help him out, a move that I dearly love as it supplies me with more weird little guys to know about.

    Pictured from left to right (after the Mad Lama, of course) above are:

    -Monsieur Henri, a Frenchman able to conjure illusory mists

    -Lalla Gor, probably meant to be Indian but they just kind of spammed syllables to make foreign names back in the day, able to summon an army of phantom warriors

    –the Tigress, our very own MSV 019 in her first turn as another villain’s henchman (she abandons the Lama to team up with Zatara pretty quickly)

    -Zatara, posing as Major Lee, an Englishman of unknown abilities

    -some bald guy

    The Mad Lama gets mentioned every time someone talks about Zatara’s early career in a comic – he came up a couple of times when Zatanna was on her Dad-quest in the 60s, for example – but I don’t reckon he ever recovered from his incineration to actually come back again.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 031: THE MAD LAMA

    (Action v1 009, 1939)

    In a fairly typical display of respect for the Tibetan peoples and their religion, the Mad Lama is a ruthless villain bent on world domination. Presumably he achieved his powers through rigid dedication to the popular “evil” style of Tibetan Buddhism.

    The Lama himself doesn’t get to do much other than bloviate for a while before being incinerated in a magic duel with Zatara, so the most interesting thing about him is the fact that he gathered up a cadre of other villains to help him out, a move that I dearly love as it supplies me with more weird little guys to know about.

    Pictured from left to right (after the Mad Lama, of course) above are:

    -Monsieur Henri, a Frenchman able to conjure illusory mists

    -Lalla Gor, probably meant to be Indian but they just kind of spammed syllables to make foreign names back in the day, able to summon an army of phantom warriors

    –the Tigress, our very own MSV 019 in her first turn as another villain’s henchman (she abandons the Lama to team up with Zatara pretty quickly)

    -Zatara, posing as Major Lee, an Englishman of unknown abilities

    -some bald guy

    The Mad Lama gets mentioned every time someone talks about Zatara’s early career in a comic – he came up a couple of times when Zatanna was on her Dad-quest in the 60s, for example – but I don’t reckon he ever recovered from his incineration to actually come back again.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 028: CARL KRUGER

    (Detective v1 033, 1939)

    Carl here is a scientist who is obsessed with Napoleon, something that people used to be when there weren’t so many fictional characters to be consumed with – heck, he appears only a few months before the Joker begins his slow crawl to being the one a weird loner would be pictured dressing up as while he makes his Important Plans.

    Since Carl was a scientist he recruited a cabal of other scientists to help him make war machines and since he was a Napoleon Head he recruited an army of dudes and together these formed the backbone of his world domination scheme until he was unexpectedly Batmanned.

    The real notable thing about Carl is that he was basically the last villain that Batman fought before he stopped killing people. In fact, Batman (by my count) kills the most people in this incident: at least 14, including Carl himself!

    ADDENDUM: I was wrong about the “stopped killing people” part because I had a Fan Theory about how Batman stopped killing about the same time he adopted Robin. The major flaw in this Fan Theory was that Batman and Robin kept on killing people.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 028: CARL KRUGER

    (Detective v1 033, 1939)

    Carl here is a scientist who is obsessed with Napoleon, something that people used to be when there weren’t so many fictional characters to be consumed with – heck, he appears only a few months before the Joker begins his slow crawl to being the one a weird loner would be pictured dressing up as while he makes his Important Plans.

    Since Carl was a scientist he recruited a cabal of other scientists to help him make war machines and since he was a Napoleon Head he recruited an army of dudes and together these formed the backbone of his world domination scheme until he was unexpectedly Batmanned.

    The real notable thing about Carl is that he was basically the last villain that Batman fought before he stopped killing people. In fact, Batman (by my count) kills the most people in this incident: at least 14, including Carl himself!

    ADDENDUM: I was wrong about the “stopped killing people” part because I had a Fan Theory about how Batman stopped killing about the same time he adopted Robin. The major flaw in this Fan Theory was that Batman and Robin kept on killing people.