The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: mind control

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 471: THE MASTER MIND

    (Amazing-Man Comics 018, 1940)

    Mighty Man here encounters the Master Mind by following a group of clearly mind controlled criminal types to his secret lair and from there to what turns out to be an assassination attempt on an ex-cop and his daughter. It turns out that the Master Mind is a victim of my least favourite fictional trope that is also a thing that happens frequently in real life: cops shooting fleeing suspects in the back. This fellow actually shot his fleeing suspect so hard that both of his legs had to be amputated! Wotta guy!

    The pre-Master Mind took himself to India and developed mind control powers, which are of course what he subsequently used to send waves of men after his old attempted murderer. And here’s the thing: the Master Mind is very bad at planning and project management:

    1. he has all of the hypnotized crooks march straight to and from his lair

    2. he sends the crooks to kill his old enemy with regular firearms while using a powerful ray-gun with a one mile range for personal defense in a medium sized room

    3. he stores his explosives inside his own throne

    What the Master Mind really needs is one of those long-suffering majordomo types to manage all of these details because he is very bad at the logistics of super-villainy. Plus he is dead.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 469: THE GREAT ONE

    (Amazing-Man Comics 013, 1940)

    The Great One is a real testament to the fact that style is far more important than substance when it comes to super-villainy. On a purely objective level the Great One is average at best, with an entry-level costume and a scheme that was old back in the days of the pulps. But it’s the style that makes the villain, and if the Great One has anything , it’s style.

    The Great One’s scheme involves using a submersible aircraft carrier as a base of operations to capture planes using a magnetic tractor ray, then hypnotizing their crews into serving him as an army of loyal minions. If this happened in real life it would obviously be the news of the century but in any comic book universe it’s strictly cliche.

    But the Great One is making it work! He speechifies, he dresses his pilots up in weird brown sack uniforms, he names his submersible aircraft carrier “Eurania, the Floating Continent”. He’s such a grandiose, self-assured ass of a villain that I’m a bit surprised that he bothers to hold the Scarlet Ace at bay with a gun rather than trying to bluff him with sheer personality.

    The Great One’s downfall comes in two parts: first, after the Scarlet Ace discovers that the pilots can be shaken out of their mind control via a good sock to the jaw, he makes the key mistake jaw ordering them to beat him up rather than, say, employing firearms to take him out. As freed pilots join in the jaw-socking, all are freed with an exponential swiftness.

    The second part is unavoidable. There is no way that the Great One that so endeared himself to me would not do something as foolhardy as stand up in his biplane to gloat over his impending victory over the Scarlet Ace. I salute thee, Great One, a bombastic idiot to the end.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 469: THE GREAT ONE

    (Amazing-Man Comics 013, 1940)

    The Great One is a real testament to the fact that style is far more important than substance when it comes to super-villainy. On a purely objective level the Great One is average at best, with an entry-level costume and a scheme that was old back in the days of the pulps. But it’s the style that makes the villain, and if the Great One has anything , it’s style.

    The Great One’s scheme involves using a submersible aircraft carrier as a base of operations to capture planes using a magnetic tractor ray, then hypnotizing their crews into serving him as an army of loyal minions. If this happened in real life it would obviously be the news of the century but in any comic book universe it’s strictly cliche.

    But the Great One is making it work! He speechifies, he dresses his pilots up in weird brown sack uniforms, he names his submersible aircraft carrier “Eurania, the Floating Continent”. He’s such a grandiose, self-assured ass of a villain that I’m a bit surprised that he bothers to hold the Scarlet Ace at bay with a gun rather than trying to bluff him with sheer personality.

    The Great One’s downfall comes in two parts: first, after the Scarlet Ace discovers that the pilots can be shaken out of their mind control via a good sock to the jaw, he makes the key mistake jaw ordering them to beat him up rather than, say, employing firearms to take him out. As freed pilots join in the jaw-socking, all are freed with an exponential swiftness.

    The second part is unavoidable. There is no way that the Great One that so endeared himself to me would not do something as foolhardy as stand up in his biplane to gloat over his impending victory over the Scarlet Ace. I salute thee, Great One, a bombastic idiot to the end.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 466: THE MAD-MAN

    (Amazing-Man Comics 010, 1940)

    I am heartbroken. 

    Here’s a bit of trivia: most of the 465 entries before this were written about characters in comics I had already read and if there was something in them that made me feel particularly strong emotions then I had had time to process it and mull it over. Going forward, however, we’re looking at a lot of comics that are brand new to me.

    In that spirit, I must admit: the first few pages of this Shark adventure had me. I was all in. A non-human villain? An octopus, no less? A well-drawn octopus?! Move over Robin because Cephalopoda the Murder Octopus was all set to be my sensational character find of 1940.

    I should have known that it was too good to be true when Cephalopoda and the Shark squared up on page 2. Rather than engage in Exciting Combat Between Demigod and Octopode, Cephalopoda flees into a crevice and when the Shark follows he is swept deep into the bowels of the Earth. And that’s it! That’s a wrap on Cephalopoda! Sadness reigns!

    The Shark wakes up in a cavern deep under the Earth and is subsequently gathered up by a weird sub-Earth goon (trivia: those weird Bart Simpson head lumps this guy has instead of hair are very unsettling to me) and taken to a cool walking building.

    There he meets the Mad-Man (unofficial name), who I would normally think was pretty neat: a psychic megalomaniac who came to the centre of the Earth (so-called) to capture the lumpy-headed folk who live there and use them to conquer the world, plus the same high pressure environment that makes the lumpy-heads so strong has also crunched down the Mad-Man into a wee little fella.

    As I said, a guy like this is good, to me. A fun antagonist to have in your super-story! Sadly I cannot fully enjoy his villainy as he reveals that my beloved Cephalapoda was in fact being remotely controlled as a lure for the super-durable Shark. All of my dreams of an octopus super-villain have been dashed to pieces. I’m sure I’ll encounter one some day, but for now it’s just dreary old humans and humanoid aliens and extradimensional humanoids and humanoid robots. Plus a few more kinds of humanoids.

    The Mad-Man’s plan is to incapacitate the Shark, then implant the knowledge of how to perform a brain transplant into his lumpy-headed thrall. This all goes roughly to plan until the lumpy-head actually removes the Mad-Man’s brain, at which point his mental domination ends, the thrall runs off and the Shark is free to go. The Mad-Man’s brain moulders on a table under the Earth forevermore.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 466: THE MAD-MAN

    (Amazing-Man Comics 010, 1940)

    I am heartbroken. 

    Here’s a bit of trivia: most of the 465 entries before this were written about characters in comics I had already read and if there was something in them that made me feel particularly strong emotions then I had had time to process it and mull it over. Going forward, however, we’re looking at a lot of comics that are brand new to me.

    In that spirit, I must admit: the first few pages of this Shark adventure had me. I was all in. A non-human villain? An octopus, no less? A well-drawn octopus?! Move over Robin because Cephalopoda the Murder Octopus was all set to be my sensational character find of 1940.

    I should have known that it was too good to be true when Cephalopoda and the Shark squared up on page 2. Rather than engage in Exciting Combat Between Demigod and Octopode, Cephalopoda flees into a crevice and when the Shark follows he is swept deep into the bowels of the Earth. And that’s it! That’s a wrap on Cephalopoda! Sadness reigns!

    The Shark wakes up in a cavern deep under the Earth and is subsequently gathered up by a weird sub-Earth goon (trivia: those weird Bart Simpson head lumps this guy has instead of hair are very unsettling to me) and taken to a cool walking building.

    There he meets the Mad-Man (unofficial name), who I would normally think was pretty neat: a psychic megalomaniac who came to the centre of the Earth (so-called) to capture the lumpy-headed folk who live there and use them to conquer the world, plus the same high pressure environment that makes the lumpy-heads so strong has also crunched down the Mad-Man into a wee little fella.

    As I said, a guy like this is good, to me. A fun antagonist to have in your super-story! Sadly I cannot fully enjoy his villainy as he reveals that my beloved Cephalapoda was in fact being remotely controlled as a lure for the super-durable Shark. All of my dreams of an octopus super-villain have been dashed to pieces. I’m sure I’ll encounter one some day, but for now it’s just dreary old humans and humanoid aliens and extradimensional humanoids and humanoid robots. Plus a few more kinds of humanoids.

    The Mad-Man’s plan is to incapacitate the Shark, then implant the knowledge of how to perform a brain transplant into his lumpy-headed thrall. This all goes roughly to plan until the lumpy-head actually removes the Mad-Man’s brain, at which point his mental domination ends, the thrall runs off and the Shark is free to go. The Mad-Man’s brain moulders on a table under the Earth forevermore.

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 004

    More mad science than criminal science or vice versa? You be the judge! 

    This guy, who seems to be neither bald nor ironically hairy enough for his name of Baldy Fluger to make sense, has a hypnotic ray and a plan: to use that hypnotic ray for crime. The Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy have something to say about that. (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)

    If there was any more to these three (respectively named Boris, Oscar and Unnamed Man) than what happens in the four panels above then I would be writing hundreds of words about them, but this is about it: three mad scientists, one of whom has one of the top lines in comics history (“They said I was a mad scientist but when I blast their children with my electron gun they won’t call me mad anymore!”) attack a steel mill for unclear reasons, possibly madness. The rest of the story involves them battling Lieutenant Drake of Naval Intelligence and Miss X. There’s a lot of electron gunning but no children are involved. (Mystery Men Comics 021, 1941)

    Renowned transplant surgeon Dr Moru just so happens to also be the mysterious person murdering people and stealing their hands, and all so that he can make beaucoup bucks giving gangsters brand new hands with brand new fingerprints. Until the Green Mask gets involved, of course. (Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)

    Dr Murdo here had a death ray, an underground lair and a small army of goons but had the misfortune of crossing paths with Flexo the Rubber Man and being subdued with robot gas. (Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 450: COUNTESS BELLADONNA

    (Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)

    We first see Countess Belladonna at the Westchester Flower Show, where she meets young Brenda Talmadge and murders her for her recently-inherited Riviera Ruby.

    Now here I’m going to jump ahead and spoil the twist of a comic book that was published more than 80 years ago: Countess Belladonna is actually Judge Talmadge, stepfather to Brenda Talmadge. As with any modern reading of a story with gender ambiguity there is a temptation to read more into things than was perhaps intended by the author, but here we go: whereas there are a lot of cases where a crossdressing man in a comic is clearly doing so for convenience, Judge Talmadge appears to have maintained Countess Belladonna as an alternate identity at least long enough for her to become established in New York society, which would presumably take months if not years – it was easier to establish a false identity in the era before electronic records but you had to put in at least some effort.

    Does this dedication to the role indicate that it is an expression of Talmadge’s gender identity? No way to tell, really. Countess Belladonna does go on a murder-and-theft spree immediately thereafter but whether it’s because she was an identity created solely for that purpose or because the murder was spur-of-the-moment and Talmadge/ Belladonna figures he/she might as well get as much cash as possible before abandoning the identity is too close to tell.

    One thing is for sure: Talmadge and Belladonna both have a weird toothless rictus grin and that’s probably how the Blue Beetle cottons onto them.

    Countess Belladonna returns in the next issue, this time adding a third identity: Dr Zinn the carnival barker. Or possibly Dr Zinn has replaced Judge Talmadge as the new second identity, as he is effectively absent from the story bar these few panels. This time the Countess has retired her poisoned knitting needles for a skull-bedecked fan that not only dispenses pepper but can be used to hypnotize people. He also has bunch of Native South American dudes in a cage as circus attractions/ henchmen, so this is one of those “very racist” comics we all love so much.

    Anyway, Dr Zinn is just as reckless as the other two identities, as not only does he return to NYC York City rather than going literally anywhere else in the world. Plus he spends a fair amount of time trying to kill Blue Beetle love interest Joan Mason – not a great way to avoid attracting attention to yourself in a super-hero comic. 

    Countess Belladonna ends up getting away and probably would have returned in another few issues with another identity or two, but this is just before the Blue Beetle’s publishing status gets weird for the first time as he moves from Fox Features to a publisher called Holyoke for a few years. Nobody at Holyoke remembered the Countess, it seemed, and by the time the Blue Beetle was back at Fox, nobody there did either. A pretty slick escape, I must say.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 450: COUNTESS BELLADONNA

    (Mystery Men Comics 029, 1941)

    We first see Countess Belladonna at the Westchester Flower Show, where she meets young Brenda Talmadge and murders her for her recently-inherited Riviera Ruby.

    Now here I’m going to jump ahead and spoil the twist of a comic book that was published more than 80 years ago: Countess Belladonna is actually Judge Talmadge, stepfather to Brenda Talmadge. As with any modern reading of a story with gender ambiguity there is a temptation to read more into things than was perhaps intended by the author, but here we go: whereas there are a lot of cases where a crossdressing man in a comic is clearly doing so for convenience, Judge Talmadge appears to have maintained Countess Belladonna as an alternate identity at least long enough for her to become established in New York society, which would presumably take months if not years – it was easier to establish a false identity in the era before electronic records but you had to put in at least some effort.

    Does this dedication to the role indicate that it is an expression of Talmadge’s gender identity? No way to tell, really. Countess Belladonna does go on a murder-and-theft spree immediately thereafter but whether it’s because she was an identity created solely for that purpose or because the murder was spur-of-the-moment and Talmadge/ Belladonna figures he/she might as well get as much cash as possible before abandoning the identity is too close to tell.

    One thing is for sure: Talmadge and Belladonna both have a weird toothless rictus grin and that’s probably how the Blue Beetle cottons onto them.

    Countess Belladonna returns in the next issue, this time adding a third identity: Dr Zinn the carnival barker. Or possibly Dr Zinn has replaced Judge Talmadge as the new second identity, as he is effectively absent from the story bar these few panels. This time the Countess has retired her poisoned knitting needles for a skull-bedecked fan that not only dispenses pepper but can be used to hypnotize people. He also has bunch of Native South American dudes in a cage as circus attractions/ henchmen, so this is one of those “very racist” comics we all love so much.

    Anyway, Dr Zinn is just as reckless as the other two identities, as not only does he return to NYC York City rather than going literally anywhere else in the world. Plus he spends a fair amount of time trying to kill Blue Beetle love interest Joan Mason – not a great way to avoid attracting attention to yourself in a super-hero comic. 

    Countess Belladonna ends up getting away and probably would have returned in another few issues with another identity or two, but this is just before the Blue Beetle’s publishing status gets weird for the first time as he moves from Fox Features to a publisher called Holyoke for a few years. Nobody at Holyoke remembered the Countess, it seemed, and by the time the Blue Beetle was back at Fox, nobody there did either. A pretty slick escape, I must say.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 449: DR LEECH

    (Mystery Men Comics 028, 1941)

    In addition to being a member in good standing of the Name Sounds Like It’s a Thematic Choice But Isn’t Club, Dr Leech is a charter member of the The Protagonist Just Wandered into My Place of Work Instead of Having to Do Any Detective Work to Find Me Society. When the Green Mask intercepts a clearly mind controlled bank robber he hauls him into the nearest doctor’s office, which turns out to be Dr Leech’s (possibly helped out by the fact that Leech seems to order his thralls to run directly to him with the loot).

    Mind control is insidious enough, but it turns out that Leech is using a drug called Hystodine with an unfortunate side effect – it causes his victims to become suicidal as it wears off. Talk about a jerk, am I right? Don’t worry though: he gets his.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 449: DR LEECH

    (Mystery Men Comics 028, 1941)

    In addition to being a member in good standing of the Name Sounds Like It’s a Thematic Choice But Isn’t Club, Dr Leech is a charter member of the The Protagonist Just Wandered into My Place of Work Instead of Having to Do Any Detective Work to Find Me Society. When the Green Mask intercepts a clearly mind controlled bank robber he hauls him into the nearest doctor’s office, which turns out to be Dr Leech’s (possibly helped out by the fact that Leech seems to order his thralls to run directly to him with the loot).

    Mind control is insidious enough, but it turns out that Leech is using a drug called Hystodine with an unfortunate side effect – it causes his victims to become suicidal as it wears off. Talk about a jerk, am I right? Don’t worry though: he gets his.