The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: city ransomer

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 445: DR DODO

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 445: DR DODO

    (Mystery Men Comics 024, 1941)

    Gotta say: while I was initially quite excited to have a non-gang boss foe for the Blue Beetle after a run of four or five of them and even moreso after seeing that it was a guy named Dr Dodo who looked like a brute mob from a mid-tier FPS with a supernatural theme (you know, he’d be dressed in a bloody butcher’s apron and take like a minute to kill until you figure out the trick to it) but upon realizing that he was just copying the Sky-Ruler and extorting inventors with the threat of fatal deplaning (albeit without bothering with the cars). It’s dispiriting.

    A point in Dr Dodo’s favour for his clearly-stated gals: he has an explosive ray weapon and he is threatening to blow up NYC York City with it unless he’s paid off.

    Unfortunately for Dr Dodo, it’s just not enough. Yes he looks very cool and menacing and like it’s going to eat up your supply of plasma grenades to take him out. Sure he has a workable scheme. Yes he has a great name. But he spends a considerable portion of the story working to keep anyone from finding out who he is – exploding the body of that poor inventor, burning up the records at the local newspaper, kidnapping and attempting to murder Joan Mason and the Blue Beetle – while going around extorting the city under what is evidently his real name, Dr Dodo! And the background information that he is so keen to safeguard, that he was dismissed from somewhere for growing poisonous roses, has no bearing on his schemes and no part in his downfall! Maddening!

    Lets all look at him one last time, though. He really does look cool, doesn’t he? You’re going to have to reload like five times to take this bad boy out with the starting weapon.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 442: GAT ARAT

    (Mystery Men Comics 023, 1941)

    I think that Gat Arat’s name doesn’t mean anything, that it’s just a guy with the unusual surname “Arat” and the nickname “Gat”, but it bothers me. I feel like I should be able to extract meaning from it. Is it a reference to 40s popular culture? Is he supposed to look like a rat? No idea.

    Confusing name or not, it turns out that Gat Arat has taken a lesson from the dearly departed Dr Krug, he of the exploding gorillas, only instead of trying to destroy NYC York City using hard-to-acquire primates he is extorting NYC York City using easily-sourced birds. He also demonstrates his temper via one of the more striking methods I have ever seen: hurled explosive pigeon.

    There’s a lot of running around and birds exploding and deathtraps but what it all comes down to in the end is that Gat Arat never considers that any of his explosive pigeons might return to him, a frankly major oversight. Still, he manages to survive a bird-based train explosion unlike his three cronies so he has a chance to learn from his mistakes.

    BONUS HONOURS: the Blue Beetle is thanked on the radio by the Mayor of New York York City, whoever he is.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 405: THE VOICE

    (More Fun Comics 074, 1941)

    “The Voice” is such a cool and evocative name that I have a real bias in favour of it but I have to say that this guy leaves me cold. Basically, he’s some sort of science man who has invented a “sound destroyer” capable of dampening all noise in an area the size of Manhattan. His crime-gambit involves employing this device and deploying sign language fluent gangsters to cause mayhem during the resultant confusion, then threatening to continue doing so until the city pays him ten million dollars. Not a bad plan but it does nothing for me.

    (He does pull the requisite guy-called-the-Voice trick of only being present vocally by faking out Green Arrow using a radio and a sheet, so there’s that)

    Ultimately though, the Voice pushes his luck one too many times and is foiled by a simple application of visual signals – flare arrows, in this case. Good riddance to bland voices, I say.

    BONUS TROPHY ROOM CONTENT: This is the second recorded adventure of Green Arrow and Speedy and the second time that they add to their trophy case, and this time it’s the sound destroyer itself! Always a more satisfying move than destroying (ha ha) the villain’s tech.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 277: THE MASKED CHIEF

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 020, 1941)

    This here is the Masked Chief, at least according to the caption boxes (welcome to the unofficial name club, fella), a fairly standard masked gang boss enhanced by several factors of variable wildness. First and least: he is yet another in the long line of Human Torch foes who choose to use arson as their  modus operandi. Sure he’s not specifically challenging the Torch, but he must know that he’s employed by the city, right? The Jim Hammond identity is basically unused – even his partner on the police force calls him Torch for heaven’s sake.

    Secondly, New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, though unnamed, is a major secondary character in this story. Fun in and of itself, but La Guardia is convinced (with some encouragement from the Masked Chief) that the attempt to ransom the city via arson is the work of recently eliminated corrupt NY politicians. Which means, unless this was a very specific reference that I couldn’t find, that Tammany Hall is the suspect? Whee!

    Thirdly, and more perplexing than fun, the Human Torch is insanely mean to Toro throughout this story. Just a complete asshole. I’m not the world’s foremost Golden Age Human Torch expert but it seems wildly out of character for him – I guess we’ll see if I’m right about that going forward.

    And finally: the Masked Chief is not, in fact, the 1941-era successor to Boss Tweed but rather the escaped convict that the Human Torch and Toro were hunting when the story began, a man with the fairly excellent name of Hawk Rivers.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 262: DR MANYAC & THE GREEN FLAME

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 004, 1940)

    Dr Manyac here is a perfectly fine criminal scientist with a very good name. It’s just too bad for him that he is in the very common position of being completely overshadowed by his henchmen:

    THE GREEN FLAME! Very very cool looking guys who are also some of our first simple examples of evil opposites, as their green flame burns cold to contend with our pal the red-hot Human Torch. Using the threat of the Green Flame’s cold causing buildings to crumble and collapse, Manyac aims to ransom New York for big bux.

    Unfortunately for his plans, and especially for his henchmen, the Green Flame’s suits aren’t quite robust enough to stand up to the Human Torch’s flame. They all end up roasted, while Manyac is carted off to jail, never to be seen again (until he’s brought back and killed off in 2009, natch)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 230: ALEXANDER THE GREAT

    (Flash Comics v1 002, 1940)

    On the one hand, Alexander the Great is your standard criminal scientist with an ego as big as his great big head who tries to extort the city of New York just as soon as he has developed the technology necessary to do so, in this case a density increasing ray.

    On the other hand, I like him a whole lot more than most criminal scientists. He’s cool! he wears a tux and is kind of suave! He does have that big ol’ dome, which I love on a science villain. He invites Carter Hall and Shiera Sanders over for dinner in an attempt to negotiate Hawkamn’s uninvolvement with his scheme in a sequence that is so cordial and charming that he might have also been angling for a threesome. Hawkman stabs him in the neck with a trident, which is if nothing else, not a common way to die. 

    Top marks to Alexander the Great, in other words. I wish he had showed up again outside of that one All-Star Squadron story that also had Sieur Satan in it.

    BONUS:

    Hawkman takes the density ray as a trophy!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 199: THE CRAB

    (Crack Comics 013, 1941)

    The Crab here is a prime example of the gang boss who goes just over the top enough – and has a good enough moniker – to make the jump to full super-villain.

    His plan – hold the city to ransom for 5 million bucks, then blow up the first ambush the cops set for him to show he means business – is sufficiently out there, and he adds some flourishes like taunting the police via skywriting, but the thing that really does it is his signature: 

    It’s a little crab, oh my god