The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: mind control

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 080: THE EMPEROR OF AMERICA

    (All American Comics 021, 1940)

    An old man who lives in a cave outside of Calvin City, the Emperor of America takes a bunch of Al “the Atom” Pratt’s classmates prisoner as potential mind-controlled minions. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that he already has a cadre of identical huge men in his employ he might be more believable as a delusional hermit than a credible threat – and since he never actually gets to demonstrate his mind control techniques before dying in a cave-in, the jury is and will always be still out. He’s the Atom’s first super-villainous opponent, though, so we’ll allow it.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 071: DR SNEGG

    (Adventure Comics 051-052, 1940)

    Snegg’s your classic villain who can’t handle the thought of revising a plan. In his first appearance he animates a trio of crime boss statues from a wax museum to serve him as henchmen and then, having been foiled once by Hourman, he tosses the whole idea of animated wax out the window to indulge in hypnotism-based crime. If he hadn’t died in a car accident he might be thinking up new implausible schemes to this day.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 067: ZOLAR

    (Action Comics 030, 1940)

    In thinking about Zolar I realized that he engages in a surprisingly common plot-expedient activity which I, unwilling to root around on TVTropes for whatever twee thing they might dub it, am hereby going to call “the Reel”: the villain sends a minion from their exotically-located HQ to wherever the hero is located to accomplish some sort of McGuffin task – collect an item, kill or kidnap someone, etc – thereby alerting the hero to the threat and drawing them to the exotic location. As soon as I thought about this I realized that many of the minor super-villains on our list employ the Reel: the Gorilla King sends a squad of gorilla-assassins to kill his enemy, thereby alerting Zatara, for instance.

    In Zolar’s case, he sends some of his men (mind controlled desert tribespeople, natch) to Metropolis to eliminate an impediment to his plans, which involves first Lois Lane and then Superman. Cut to the Sahara Desert, where Zolar is trying to conquer the lost city of Ulonda using a combination of mind control, rocket planes and flesh-destroying death orbs.

    The whole thing ends in bloodshed: Zolar and his lieutenant attempt to death orb Superman only to have it bounce back on themselves, while his fleet of mind controlled rocket pilots are caused to crash by a slightly-pre-anti-killing-code Superman. The lost city of Ulonda, though battered, survives.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 064: MEDINI

    (Action Comics 025, 1940)

    The “World’s Greatest Hypnotist,” Medini embarks on a life of crime using his gifts. He’s so good at hypnosis, in fact, that he is able to put Superman himself out of commission with the power of his mind, which might be why his story ends with Superman throwing an entire plane at his head.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 047: DR ALOYSIUS LAKE

    (Whiz Comics 005, 1940)

    Dr Lake has a hypnotism machine which he uses to found a nation-wide network of child thieves. He doesn’t reckon, though, with the fact that Captain Marvel is secretly a child.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044: THE MASK

    (Whiz Comics 002-015, 1940-1941)

    This fellow right here is the spy that Spy Smasher was trying to smash for the first year and a half or so that he was in action. I tend to think of him as a bigger deal than he actually is because of my tendencies re: thinking too much about comics, but certainly if Spy Smasher himself had managed to remain a going concern after the 40s then the Mask would have eventually been brought back, like the Ultra Humanite.

    Due to the fact that he was operating before the US entered the war he was a kind of general all-purpose spy, though I’m sure he’d have been revealed as a Nazi if he’d made it to 1942. He was more successful than most in his endeavors, in that although he was consistently foiled, he always managed to get away with his hide intact. Until his penultimate appearance, that is, when an enraged mind-control victim threw him off of a skyscraper.

    But the Mask survived and not only that he thrived! Despite having to get around on crutches, he rebuilt his mind control device, captured Spy Smasher and turned him evil! The evil Spy Smasher then ruined the moment of triumph by killing him.

    The evil Spy Smasher would persist, battling Captain Marvel for the next four issues before being cured, so in death the Mask had managed to prompt some of the earliest examples in comics of heroic crossovers and longer-term storytelling!

    UPDATE 1940 

    UPDATE 1941 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044: THE MASK

    (Whiz Comics 002-015, 1940-1941)

    This fellow right here is the spy that Spy Smasher was trying to smash for the first year and a half or so that he was in action. I tend to think of him as a bigger deal than he actually is because of my tendencies re: thinking too much about comics, but certainly if Spy Smasher himself had managed to remain a going concern after the 40s then the Mask would have eventually been brought back, like the Ultra Humanite.

    Due to the fact that he was operating before the US entered the war he was a kind of general all-purpose spy, though I’m sure he’d have been revealed as a Nazi if he’d made it to 1942. He was more successful than most in his endeavors, in that although he was consistently foiled, he always managed to get away with his hide intact. Until his penultimate appearance, that is, when an enraged mind-control victim threw him off of a skyscraper.

    But the Mask survived and not only that he thrived! Despite having to get around on crutches, he rebuilt his mind control device, captured Spy Smasher and turned him evil! The evil Spy Smasher then ruined the moment of triumph by killing him.

    The evil Spy Smasher would persist, battling Captain Marvel for the next four issues before being cured, so in death the Mask had managed to prompt some of the earliest examples in comics of heroic crossovers and longer-term storytelling!

    UPDATE 1940 

    UPDATE 1941 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 025: THE MASTER

    (Detective v1 030, 1939)

    I like the Master because he is simultaneously brilliant enough to invent a mind control device capable of enslaving a significant portion of the US Government and dumb enough to brag about his machine to a federal agent not ten feet away from it. Machine smashing ensues.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 025: THE MASTER

    (Detective v1 030, 1939)

    I like the Master because he is simultaneously brilliant enough to invent a mind control device capable of enslaving a significant portion of the US Government and dumb enough to brag about his machine to a federal agent not ten feet away from it. Machine smashing ensues.