The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: giant

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 315: THE ZOMBIE MASTER

    (Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

    The Zombie Master has layers. Top level is deeds: he is a scientist who kidnaps people on the fringes of society and uses a combination of hypnosis and radiation to turn them into bright green mind controlled thralls – fairly standard stuff for a mad scientist. Next though, is his origin: he felt rejected by society because of his great height – something like 20 feet tall, according to some sources – and so moved underground in order to work in isolation (and as a side note he mentions that he’s been working for about 50 years, so he’s a rare Golden Age character who we have an approximate age for: somewhere in his late 60s or early 70s seems reasonable). A giant scientist!

    The next layer is only interesting to me: he is not given a name in the story. Luckily, the Zombie Master moniker is later assigned to him because there’s no really good option in the text and I’d’ve ended up calling him something like Unnamed Giant Scientist.

    For our final layer we must note that the Zombie Master is a part of the origin story of the Fiery Mask, and that the Fiery Mask was one of the characters who appeared in J. Michael Straczynski’s The Twelve, wherein it was revealed that he had not received his powers due to an explosion in the Zombie Master’s lab but essentially by murdering the previous Fiery Mask – the Zombie Master was just a story he made up in order to cover for himself/ assuage his guilt. The greatest trick the Zombie Master ever pulled, it seems, was to have never existed at all.

    (which of course makes him a perfect candidate to be BRUNG BACK – what better foe than a nonexistent giant science man?)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 315: THE ZOMBIE MASTER

    (Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940)

    The Zombie Master has layers. Top level is deeds: he is a scientist who kidnaps people on the fringes of society and uses a combination of hypnosis and radiation to turn them into bright green mind controlled thralls – fairly standard stuff for a mad scientist. Next though, is his origin: he felt rejected by society because of his great height – something like 20 feet tall, according to some sources – and so moved underground in order to work in isolation (and as a side note he mentions that he’s been working for about 50 years, so he’s a rare Golden Age character who we have an approximate age for: somewhere in his late 60s or early 70s seems reasonable). A giant scientist!

    The next layer is only interesting to me: he is not given a name in the story. Luckily, the Zombie Master moniker is later assigned to him because there’s no really good option in the text and I’d’ve ended up calling him something like Unnamed Giant Scientist.

    For our final layer we must note that the Zombie Master is a part of the origin story of the Fiery Mask, and that the Fiery Mask was one of the characters who appeared in J. Michael Straczynski’s The Twelve, wherein it was revealed that he had not received his powers due to an explosion in the Zombie Master’s lab but essentially by murdering the previous Fiery Mask – the Zombie Master was just a story he made up in order to cover for himself/ assuage his guilt. The greatest trick the Zombie Master ever pulled, it seems, was to have never existed at all.

    (which of course makes him a perfect candidate to be BRUNG BACK – what better foe than a nonexistent giant science man?)

  • CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE WALKING MOUNTAINS

    (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    The Himalayas of any comic book universe are simply chockablock with hidden communities of mystics, monsters, creeps, enlightened souls and weirdos. One such group are the so-called Walking Mountains (AKA the somewhat less PC Oriental Giants). The Mountains are enormous, invulnerable to all harm, possibly immortal and dumb as bricks, which leads to them becoming the muscle for Benson, an unscrupulous banker with poor long-term planning abilities.

    Luckily for Captain America and Bucky, they also have a vulnerability to loud sounds – though presumably louder than gunshots, as people are constantly shooting them at close range with no ill effects – and all five are killed by the end of the story.

  • CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE WALKING MOUNTAINS

    (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    The Himalayas of any comic book universe are simply chockablock with hidden communities of mystics, monsters, creeps, enlightened souls and weirdos. One such group are the so-called Walking Mountains (AKA the somewhat less PC Oriental Giants). The Mountains are enormous, invulnerable to all harm, possibly immortal and dumb as bricks, which leads to them becoming the muscle for Benson, an unscrupulous banker with poor long-term planning abilities.

    Luckily for Captain America and Bucky, they also have a vulnerability to loud sounds – though presumably louder than gunshots, as people are constantly shooting them at close range with no ill effects – and all five are killed by the end of the story.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 284: KAI-MAK, THE SHARK-GOD

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Kai-Mak here (AKA God of Sharks, Lord of Sharks, Lord of the Deep, Master of the Deep, the Man-Shark) is one of my very favourite things in comics: a weird monster pretending to be a god in order to score power or riches or, as in this case, snacks.

    I’m so fond of this trope, in fact, that I have to make sure to frontload the acknowledgement that it is predicated on the idea that a lot of the varied people in the world are credulous primitive savages with no critical thinking skills or I’ll focus too much on the monster and gloss over the racism. Someday we’ll get to M’nagalah the Cancer God, who at least has the decency to manifest in small mining towns and suburbs.

    That having been said, we must acknowledge how great both Kai-Mak and his high priest look. Jack Kirby’s finest shark-based work, I reckon. Just look at his nose and his greasy hair!

    The Vision shouts a bunch of guesses at what Kai-Mak is that are neither confirmed or denied – he could be right and Kai-Mak could be the last remnant of a race of sharkfolk, sure. He could also be a mutant, an Inhuman, a Deviant, some sort of alien or science experiment or heck, a demi-god spawned by Poseidon in a moment of weakness. Rather than spell out his origin, Kai-Mak opts for a no-holds-barred underwater deathmatch.

    After a cool battle under the waves, Kai-Mak is killed and both his worshippers and a selection of human sacrifices are free to go.

    Now, if there’s one thing that any super-hero universe is simply crawling with, it’s humanoid sharks. On a strict market saturation metric there’s no logical reason to campaign for the return of Kai-Mak. Too bad for Adam Smith that I think the free market sucks eggs: BRING BACK the Shark-God! There’s always room for another giant shark-man! Particularly one who’s been nursing his wounds at the bottom of the ocean for 80 years and is after a new community to subjugate. Have him pop up in New England, Deep One style! The old fish-for-sacrifice trade! It literally can’t go wrong!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 284: KAI-MAK, THE SHARK-GOD

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Kai-Mak here (AKA God of Sharks, Lord of Sharks, Lord of the Deep, Master of the Deep, the Man-Shark) is one of my very favourite things in comics: a weird monster pretending to be a god in order to score power or riches or, as in this case, snacks.

    I’m so fond of this trope, in fact, that I have to make sure to frontload the acknowledgement that it is predicated on the idea that a lot of the varied people in the world are credulous primitive savages with no critical thinking skills or I’ll focus too much on the monster and gloss over the racism. Someday we’ll get to M’nagalah the Cancer God, who at least has the decency to manifest in small mining towns and suburbs.

    That having been said, we must acknowledge how great both Kai-Mak and his high priest look. Jack Kirby’s finest shark-based work, I reckon. Just look at his nose and his greasy hair!

    The Vision shouts a bunch of guesses at what Kai-Mak is that are neither confirmed or denied – he could be right and Kai-Mak could be the last remnant of a race of sharkfolk, sure. He could also be a mutant, an Inhuman, a Deviant, some sort of alien or science experiment or heck, a demi-god spawned by Poseidon in a moment of weakness. Rather than spell out his origin, Kai-Mak opts for a no-holds-barred underwater deathmatch.

    After a cool battle under the waves, Kai-Mak is killed and both his worshippers and a selection of human sacrifices are free to go.

    Now, if there’s one thing that any super-hero universe is simply crawling with, it’s humanoid sharks. On a strict market saturation metric there’s no logical reason to campaign for the return of Kai-Mak. Too bad for Adam Smith that I think the free market sucks eggs: BRING BACK the Shark-God! There’s always room for another giant shark-man! Particularly one who’s been nursing his wounds at the bottom of the ocean for 80 years and is after a new community to subjugate. Have him pop up in New England, Deep One style! The old fish-for-sacrifice trade! It literally can’t go wrong!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 263: BUTCH

    (Marvel Mystery Comics 004, 1940)

    Probably the least of the Superstrong Giant Henchman types we’ve seen so far, Butch is very briefly the scourge of an unnamed city under the command of gang boss Brink, until he gets dropped off a building by the Angel. 

    Nothing specifically bad about this guy – there’s just not much that’s specifically interesting about him. It might be fun to see him get brought back as an example of an early mutant but that’s about it.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 252: EGON

    (Flash Comics v1 021, 1941)

    This one’s got a lot of setup. First, Hawkman sees a spaceship crash, as you do. Venturing inside, he finds a deceased Neptunian couple, their egg son and a Rosetta Stone of a  ship’s log. He makes off with the egg and the journal and just leaves the ship and its former crew to rot.

    Next night is the Scientist Society Ball, where monocled botanist and creep Noel Ratchford makes a play for Shiera Sanders and is rebuffed. There’s an egg-based sequence of events as follows:

    -Noel is germinating seeds in eggs

    -Carter “Hawkman” Hall thinks this is dumb

    -Shiera stumbles across the boy-egg and assumes that Carter is also experimenting with eggs. She steals the egg as a joke and tells Noel about it

    -Noel decides to steal the egg and take credit for Carters egg-based research. He ends up hatching out the boy Egon.

    Thanks to Neptunian genetics, Egon hatches into a rapidly-growing boy with cool eye-beams and full powers of speech. Noel then hits upon the idea to raise him up to a) hate him and b) believe that his name is Carter Hall, so that he will go out and do evil giant stuff and blame it on Carter, thus presumably sullying his good name enough for Shiera to reject him? it’s a flimsy plan at best, but when all you have is a giant you look for rampage-based solutions to your problems.

    Everything kind of goes according to plan, except that Carter Hall is of course Hawkman, and that he has the journal and knows all of the Neptunians’ weak points and kills Egon and brings Noel to justice. But other than that stuff, A-OK.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 172: THE LARGEST MAN IN THE WORLD

    (Bulletman 001, 1941)

    The Largest Man in the World is exactly what it says on the tin: an unfeasibly enormous dude. By himself, not much of a threat so long as he gets a regular supply of molasses to eat. It’s just too bad for society that he is spotted by crooks and used as a living siege weapon to rob and kill.

    The really remarkable thing about the Largest Man in the World is that his gangster pal is Machine Gun Kelly. Like, the real guy – the actual real-world crook. This is completely wild to me for two reasons. Firstly, Machine Gun Kelly was jailed in 1933 and died in prison, so when this comic came out he had not been a real-world crime concern in over 8 years.

    Secondly, I think I’ve mentioned how Golden Age comics frequently went out of their way not to use actual country names, and with people, even criminal people, it’s even more pronounced. Al Capone isn’t going to show up in a comic, but Al Tyrone, Al Maloney or Andy Carpon will. Hell, Adolf Hitler largely appears under light pseudonyms before the US enters WWII. It’s weird and wild to see Machine Gun Kelly just running around talking about his machine gun, and that’s before they kill him – a man who will go on to live for another 13 years in prison, remember – off!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 122: THE GREEN DEVIL

    (Slam-Bang Comics 003, 1940)

    I really like the Green Devil. He has a lot going on! He has an army of the living dead, an island base, and a hurricane generator. He’s conservatively 10 ft tall and looks like the Devil (with green skin, natch)

    His main scheme is to disrupt the laws of magic, which not only weakens his enemy Diamond Jack’s magic ring but also for some reason causes regular stage magic and stuff like snake charming and sword swallowing to turn deadly in some of the more low-key gruesome panels I’ve read recently.

    Finally, in classic magic villain style he meets a pretty ignoble end as he is transformed into a book and then blown up along with his HQ and zombies. A solid showing! I’d love to see the Green Devil BRUNG BACK to vex magic folk again.