The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: mind control

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 615: SANGLOR

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 615: SANGLOR

    (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)

    Sanglor starts out strong. He immediately charms me with his aesthetic sense: his ‘Automatic Subplane’ spy drones are delightful, his ‘Flying Castle’ is simultaneously one of the most ridiculous and great-looking mobile bases I have ever seen and his costume manages to evoke the dress sense of a 1940s comic book movie villain in a way I have not seen since the Vampire, almost exactly 300 entries ago.

    He manages to mess things up almost immediately, of course. His plan is to take over the world by hypnotizing key politicians and diplomats etc., and then presumably induce them to shift the reins of political power his way. This is the kind of scheme that requires some degree of care to set up – you have to get all of your assets in place without causing undue suspicion, so having them for example act all weird and then disappear is problematic. People are noticing your plan, Sanglor.

    This is the first evidence of what I will call Sanglor Self-Sabotages. This one seems to stem from the fact that Sanglor works completely solo, without even a weird little lab assistant to test his hypnotic ray on to see if it makes people freak out in noticeable ways before using it in a sensitive espionage operation.

    The big upshot of this Sanglor Self-Sabotage is that Samson is on the case basically the instant that the scheme is put in motion

    The second Sanglor Self-Sabotage is an extension of the first: he has no real defenses. Once Samson makes his way to the Flying Castle his only real opposition is a crowd of tuxedo-clad diplomats flailing away with their soft fists.

    Sanglor does think to call out his drone army to deal with the intruder but they don’t seem to even be armed, despite their little gun barrels – they just fly at Samson until he smashes them all.

    The really big final Sanglor Self-Sabotage is revealed once Samson bursts into his inner sanctum: Sanglor is too busy being a weird creep to actively manage the defense of his headquarters. It’s not exactly clear what he’s doing with this young woman or who she is (it’s unlikely to be Miss Royce, a politician’s daughter in England and the only named female character in the story) but it’s real creep shit and it’s an unnecessary distraction from the approaching vigilante.

    Sanglor is probably still distracted as he flees through an industrial section of his base, because he can’t even run correctly – he manages to heave himself off what looks to be a pretty solid catwalk into the first available cauldron of boiling chemicals.

    I think that ultimately Sanglor serves as an object example of the need for villains to do a couple of trial runs before attempting world domination. If he’d attempted to take over a county or a small business first, maybe some of these kinks would’ve been worked out.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 597: NEGUS

    (Fantastic Comics 003, 1940)

    An evil African witch doctor with a magical orb, a cool tree house and a real commitment to being Chaotic Evil, Negus meets a swift end once Captain Kidd comes looking for his imprisoned and mind controlled pal Arndt Barrows Colonel Bennet (as with a surprising number of Golden Age comics, the writer seems to have lost track of the name of this secondary character over the course of a 5 page story).

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 596: THE ROBOT SCIENTISTS OF VENUS

    (Fantastic Comics 003, 1940) 

    The Robot Scientists of Venus are not particularly noteworthy villains on a lot of axes but they are the bosses of perhaps the most visually distinctive groups of the Golden Age, the Leopard Women of Venus.

    What other comic could offer a visual like this: a bevy of bodacious blonde babes in red leopardprint bodysuits, surfing through space on lizard monsters and blazing away with their head-guns? Other Fletcher Hanks comics, I guess, plus early Wonder Woman. But the point stands!

    (here is where I will put a brief aside on the notion of “transmitting” as it exists in Fletcher Hanks comics. Conceptually, transmitting involves just that, the transmission of matter along a light or radio beam of some kind. In practice, it’s more like just being able to fly around in space without any kind of life support like the Leopard Women here)

    Sadly, the Leopard Women are mere vassals of the dominant Venusian race and we don’t really see them again. Happily, the dominant Venusian race are these cool robots! Their leaders appear to be these robot scientists, who seem to be running these Leopard Woman space raids without any clear goals. Sure, they plan on turning Dianna into a Leopard Woman but that seems to be more of a spur-of-the-moment decision.

    Luckily for them, Space Smith escapes before they have to figure out what to do with him. The rest of the adventure is just a series of encounters with colourful robots as they make their way to their spaceship, starting with these (delightfully and conscientiously masked) robot surgeons.

    Everyone in this panel is grumpy.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 572: JULES CARTIER

    (Champion Comics 005, 1940)

    “Revenge of the Zombies” is a feature that ran in Champion Comics from issues 003-005 and reads kind like it was written in a free-jazz fugue state, like once the 10-12 characters were introduced by issue 003, page 2, events just proceeded on their own with no real input from the writer. A huge cast gathers at the home of Dr Karl Hartmann in Haiti for no reason that is ever given. Various people are kidnapped. Various people turn out to be other people: the novelist is a police detective; the voodoo cult leader is a gang boss; two guests are crooks but it never pays off. Several people die.

    The most striking and interesting thing about the serial is the death’s head moth attack in issue 004 that takes out one of the crooks… wait, maybe they were there as disposable victims? After all, who could care if a criminal dies horribly?

    Champion Comics 005 saw the wrapping up of several serialized adventure stories in favour of more hero-driven fare (I have Lyle Kenton tagged as the protagonist of this story but he was simply the most proactive member of the cast – it was an ensemble jazz-fusion voodoo mystery). And since gang boss/ voodoo priest Jaques “Frenchy” Atell was already dead: enter Jules Cartier!

    Cartier, the former owner of Dr Hartmann’s mansion, has not been dead as everyone suspected but just been living in the basement, farming death’s head moths and using hypnotic mind control to turn people into zombies.

    When confronted, Cartier literally brings a knife to a gunfight, attempting to take on two armed men using only a throwing knife. It’s an honourable way to go for a complete dipshit. 

    Cartier’s plan comes out in the aftermath: discovering that he can produce high-quality silk from death’s head moths and that they enjoy drinking human blood, he researches a more sustainable alternative so that he can produce at a profitable level relocates to a cave to employ mind-controlled locals as both a labour force and blood supply. It’s a frankly ludicrous scheme – a cursory bit of searching indicates that Cartier is engaging in an astounding level of risk for something like thousands of dollars, which even in 1940 isn’t worth it. But of course, he was an insane textiles-based super-villain… who are we to dictate his priorities?

    And in the end it certainly was… a revenge of the zombies.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 558: DOXOL

    (Wonderworld Comics 004, 1939)

    We (and the Flame) start in media res, as a young woman unsuccessfully attempts to flee a car full of hooded goons, is captured and brought back to an ominous manor in the woods. The Flame cottons on to this and follows them.

    Inside we find Doxol! Doxol is a wizened green fellow who is using mind control drugs (mystic ones!) to create his own little crime cult. This is where the slice-of-life nature of the story gets a bit frustrating from an analytical perspective: is Doxol still setting up or has this cult been a going concern for a while? Were the new recruits all kidnapped or recruited regular cult-style? Even Doxol’s appearance – magic mutation or dramatic disguise? It’s a mystery!

    The Flame has even less information about Doxol than we do because he was dropped into a pit with crushy walls as soon as he stepped through the door. Lucky for him/ unlucky for Doxol his induction ceremony involves a flaming brazier for the Flame to appear in like he does (also lucky for that lady because she doesn’t get shot full of grody mind control drugs).

    Doxol makes his escape while the hooded riffraff deal with the Flame, or so he thinks. Turns out that the Flame was fortuitously flying his plane when he stumbled into this mess. 

    You’d think that engaging a guy like the Flame in a dogfight would level the playing field for a fellow like Doxol but no, he just leans out the window and lights Doxol’s plane on fire.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 555: SHADDIBA

    (Wonder Comics 002, 1939)

    Shaddiba appears in the first adventure of magic hero Yarko the Great as an old enemy of Yarko who has come to the town of Hexville in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. His exact reasons for doing so are unstated, so I reckon that it’s equally likely that Hexville is an especially ripe spot for crime as that he was attracted by the old haunted mansion on the hill that he moves into. Comic book expectations aside I reckon that sourcing those has to be a real estate nightmare – I’ve certainly never had the opportunity to rent one.

    Shaddiba’s dumb name also introduces the possibility that perhaps Yarko is not alone, that all magic users in this continuity have made-up nonsense monikers. It’s the only rational explanation!

    Shaddiba does a lot of mouthing off to Yarko about what a great magician he is and how much Yarko sucks and to be fair Yarko is unable to break the mental hold that Shaddiba has on several locals in order to compel them to rob and murder (as well as on a local woman because he is a creep), but this is definitely classified as hubris.

    The fact that Shaddiba lambastes Yarko for intruding on the “sacred arts” of the “magic of the East” and then immediately invokes Lucifer as the source of his power is weird.

    The disagreement between the two magicians comes to a head in an all-out astral smackdown. A lot of the astral battling that we’ve seen so far (e.g., the one in this Mr Justice episode) has been quite quick-and-dirty decisive, so it’s neat to see these fellows really get into it.

    Shaddiba surrenders rather than be flung into the Chasm of Oblivion but if there’s one trait almost universally shared by super-villains it’s being a sore loser and so he blows himself to smithereens rather than live with the consequences of his actions.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 551: THE MAD PROFESSOR

    (Smash Comics 004, 1939)

    It’s a classic set-up: squat in some out-of the-way location – an isolated island, a desert, or as in this case the mountains of Alaska – bring down planes or draw in ships using a big magnet or fake monster or as here an engine-killing ray, and bingo bango bongo you have your own fleet. You can supply your own crew or save even more money like the Mad Professor by subjecting the existing crew to a little light mind control.

    Exactly why the Mad Professor (unofficial name used in captions) is doing this is never elaborated on. As far as I can tell he’s got about 11 or so bombers which is hardly enough for the usual “take over the US” goal. Maybe he’s just after Alaska.

    One thing’s for sure: the Mad Professor has not been doing this for long. His organization is riddled with problems, including very lax prisoner handling guidelines that allow escapee Wings Wendall to roam free for a while before he’s even missed. 

    Even more problematic is his mind control process. Uh, beyond it being a mind control process to begin with, that is. But logistically he has more than a hundred captured US Army bomber crew, all of whom are drugged into servitude. Judging by the timeline of the comic, the drug lasts a maximum of about two days and the drugees come back to themselves almost instantly upon it wearing off. And yet the Mad Professor and his men are seemingly administering doses on an ad hoc basis to the entire group, just before it wears off. The capacity for catastrophic failure is enormous, even without a G-2 agent roaming the facility!

    (also note Wings Wendall displaying the weird anti-beard bias that I mention in the Memes of Yore entry)

    Like I said, all of the captured pilots are close to recovering from their drugged state and they easily overpower the salaried staff. The Mad Professor gets away but then Wings Wendall takes him out with his own ray, all without anyone getting a coherent list of goals out of the guy.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 539: THE CLAW

    (Silver Streak Comics 001, 1939)

    The Claw is a character we will be returning to – he’s one of the most prominent Golden Age super-villains, after all – but this entry is concerned only with his first appearance in accordance with my new policy of approaching things as they come. And while the Claw who eventually battles super-heroes like the Ghost and Daredevil and massacres thousands in an attempt at world domination is a size-changing monster-man this first version reads more like an elaborate hoax.

    As the story opens, “chemist-adventurer” Jerry Morris and “America’s only female ambassador” Eloise Pearsall dock at the Pacific island of Ricca on their way to China with a shipload of gold to aid in the war with Japan. One hitch: Ricca is home to the Claw, a giant who holds the whole island in the grip of fear and incidentally also runs the submarine pirate operation that is looting ships in the region.

    The Claw maintains his grip on the island using his own fearsome looming presence, plus a “maddening hum” that also influences Eloise Pearsall to jump overboard and make her way to the castle because the Claw is also a creep who wants a “queen” and doesn’t care if he has to do a little mind control to get it.

    Jerry Morris of course goes after his travel companion and it’s a good thing that he’s a chemist-adventurer because he manages to whip up a useful serum in his stateroom/ laboratory, a radium-based solution that renders one immune to “any mental or physical attack”. Jerry infiltrates the Claw’s organization by feigning interest in signing up and discovers that the Claw ensures loyalty in his henchmen by giving them addictively pleasant dreams (and also punishes them with nightmares, natch). Eloise is in the first stages of the addiction treatment but lucky for her the radium serum covers that too and one shot later she is free.

    Thanks to his complete immunity to harm, Jerry goes on to foil a submarine raid on the gold shipment and returns with a load of sailors all hopped up on serum. They rout the Claw’s men only to find the villain’s throne empty and abandoned.

    (due to a flamethrower attack by the Claw’s defenders there is also an unusual amount of male nudity thanks to the invulnerable men not thinking to wear invulnerable clothing)

    Like I said, if I didn’t know that the next issue would feature the Claw walking around and demonstrating his power to grow to colossal sizes I would assume that he was a fake, engineered to keep the island people under the thumb of some schemer like the Purple Monster – the enthroned Claw actually a robotic shell, the towering Claw some sort of projection or inflatable. The mind control? Sonics and drugs. After all, why would such an enormous man flee from a handful of nudists, even if they are invulnerable?

    UPDATE 1940

    UPDATE 1941 Part 1 

    UPDATE 1941 Part 2 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 539: THE CLAW

    (Silver Streak Comics 001, 1939)

    The Claw is a character we will be returning to – he’s one of the most prominent Golden Age super-villains, after all – but this entry is concerned only with his first appearance in accordance with my new policy of approaching things as they come. And while the Claw who eventually battles super-heroes like the Ghost and Daredevil and massacres thousands in an attempt at world domination is a size-changing monster-man this first version reads more like an elaborate hoax.

    As the story opens, “chemist-adventurer” Jerry Morris and “America’s only female ambassador” Eloise Pearsall dock at the Pacific island of Ricca on their way to China with a shipload of gold to aid in the war with Japan. One hitch: Ricca is home to the Claw, a giant who holds the whole island in the grip of fear and incidentally also runs the submarine pirate operation that is looting ships in the region.

    The Claw maintains his grip on the island using his own fearsome looming presence, plus a “maddening hum” that also influences Eloise Pearsall to jump overboard and make her way to the castle because the Claw is also a creep who wants a “queen” and doesn’t care if he has to do a little mind control to get it.

    Jerry Morris of course goes after his travel companion and it’s a good thing that he’s a chemist-adventurer because he manages to whip up a useful serum in his stateroom/ laboratory, a radium-based solution that renders one immune to “any mental or physical attack”. Jerry infiltrates the Claw’s organization by feigning interest in signing up and discovers that the Claw ensures loyalty in his henchmen by giving them addictively pleasant dreams (and also punishes them with nightmares, natch). Eloise is in the first stages of the addiction treatment but lucky for her the radium serum covers that too and one shot later she is free.

    Thanks to his complete immunity to harm, Jerry goes on to foil a submarine raid on the gold shipment and returns with a load of sailors all hopped up on serum. They rout the Claw’s men only to find the villain’s throne empty and abandoned.

    (due to a flamethrower attack by the Claw’s defenders there is also an unusual amount of male nudity thanks to the invulnerable men not thinking to wear invulnerable clothing)

    Like I said, if I didn’t know that the next issue would feature the Claw walking around and demonstrating his power to grow to colossal sizes I would assume that he was a fake, engineered to keep the island people under the thumb of some schemer like the Purple Monster – the enthroned Claw actually a robotic shell, the towering Claw some sort of projection or inflatable. The mind control? Sonics and drugs. After all, why would such an enormous man flee from a handful of nudists, even if they are invulnerable?

    UPDATE 1940

    UPDATE 1941 Part 1 

    UPDATE 1941 Part 2 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 520: THE HIGH PRIEST OF THOR

    (Blue Bolt v2 006, 1941) 

    We open on an aircraft factory. Suddenly, a strange vibration fills the air. After an initial moment of surprise, the workers all file out the door and into a cave in a nearby hillside. Inside?

    THIS MAN!

    This man is the self-proclaimed High Priest of Thor and before we get into what he’s up to I’d like to commend his commitment to the costume. Your average religious-type villain is not going to these lengths to look ceremonial and in fact are more likely to be in the Robe and Cloth Mask club. I particularly like the helmet, which looks like it must be obstructing his vision and crushing his nose at the same time but which manages to combine wings and horns in a single Platonic Fake Viking Helmet. Also note the mustache, which flies off the first time he is punched and just reaffirms his commitment to the bit.

    Of course the High Priest of Thor ends up being some sort of pseudo-Nazi spy looking to sabotage the US defense program. It’s never explicitly laid out but his vibration machine seems to put its subjects into a mentally receptive hypnotic state and the Thor stuff is all a way of getting them to do what he wants: if Thor is real and they are fanatical Thor cultists like this guy says then why not blow up an airplane factory? Too bad for the High Priest of Thor that the Twister had to show up and ruin things but at least he got to look cool with a tommy gun before it was all over.

    Bonus: this Thor explainer written by someone who did not have the gumption to look up anything about Thor.