The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: More Fun Comics

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 039: THE SLUGGER

    (More Fun 043, 1939)

    A common or garden-variety mugger, the Slugger’s technique (sneak up and bash ’em on the head) and the frequency of his attacks lead to a lot of press coverage, starting a city-wide panic (as in our previous entry). In response, the Slugger leans into it, up to and including sending taunting messages to the police, a favourite villainous move of mine. Crime can’t be seen to pay in a comic book, though, so he is eventually hauled in by the Radio Squad.

    The Slugger represents my absolute lowest level baseline version of the super-villain by dint of scale of crime. While I’m sure that there are other super-muggers out there to be discovered, I will be very surprised if I encounter another uncostumed, non-powered one.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 038: THE MONSTER

    (More Fun 039, 1939)

    A man who trained a pair of great danes to steal, leading to a city-wide panic after glimpses of the dogs caused people to assume that some sort of creature was involved, which then lead to newspaper front pages. The Radio Squad eventually got their man, though sadly the dogs did not survive.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 012: THE MASTER OF CORPSES

     (More Fun 031, 1938)

    A mine owner using zombie labour, which is at best morally questionable, but also he planned to undermine New York and collapse it into a pit, then rule the ruins, which is worse.

    Dr Occult dropped a mine on him, which is why it’s such a surprise when he shows up in my upcoming Dr Occult miniseries – back from the dead by his own dark will, the Master of Corpses teams up with the rest of his Golden Age rogues gallery in a bid to destroy their old foe once and for all.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 012: THE MASTER OF CORPSES

     (More Fun 031, 1938)

    A mine owner using zombie labour, which is at best morally questionable, but also he planned to undermine New York and collapse it into a pit, then rule the ruins, which is worse.

    Dr Occult dropped a mine on him, which is why it’s such a surprise when he shows up in my upcoming Dr Occult miniseries – back from the dead by his own dark will, the Master of Corpses teams up with the rest of his Golden Age rogues gallery in a bid to destroy their old foe once and for all.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 001: CAPTAIN DESMO

     (New Adventure Comics 026-More Fun 072, 1938-1941)

    Captain Desmo is a pretty standard Golden Age adventure character: together with his pal Gabby McGuire, the Brooklyn Terror, he jaunts around the world (mostly in Asia), getting into scraps with colonized people on behalf of white folks. 

    The only thing that really makes him stand apart (aside from the fact that he’s a WWI vet, making him a generation older than most Golden Age protagonists) is illustrated in the moderately homoerotic exchange above: Captain Desmo is kind of always in costume, which kind of makes him part of the “bridge between pulp hero and super-hero” crew, like early Crimson Avenger, early Sandman or the various guys like the Clock or the Mouthpiece who ran around in suits and domino masks in the early days.

    The final interesting thing about Captain Desmo is that he never actually got around to explaining just why he wore his goggles an helmet at all times, which I respect.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 007: THE BRAIN

     (More Fun 020, 1937)


    Another common sub-type of masked criminal, the guy who runs his own pirate fleet. Other than being the first example of this on the list, a real snoozer. Taken out by Sandra of the Secret Service.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 004: THE PURPLE TIGER

     (More Fun 012, 1936)



    A member of the surprisingly robust fraternity of guys who get a head injury and then become criminal masterminds. Distinguished mainly by appearing in Radio Squad, a pre-Superman Siegel and Shuster joint featuring police offers with RADIOS in their CARS, which is honestly more revolutionary than it might sound to us in this far future year.

    SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? Honestly just putting this here to note that I won’t be adding this to every generic crime idiot’s mini-writeup. If it’s not there, just assume that my opinion is the same as for the Purple Tiger: There’s no reason to bring the specific character back, but it’s a perfectly fine name for a minor villain and you know I love legacy characters.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 002: THE VAMPIRE MASTER

     (New Fun 006, 1935)



    The *second* DC super-villain, the Vampire Master was upset that a lady rejected him so responded reasonably by holding the city to ransom via hordes of machine-created Universal movie monsters, possibly the first example in comics of someone creating something of unbelievable power and using it for petty nonsense instead of becoming the richest person in creation.

    Theoretically, the Vampire Master was beaten by Dr Occult, but *really* he was shanked by one of his own creations after talking about how he was going to shut off his machine and make her disappear.

    SHOULD THEY COME BACK? Maybe not the Vampire Master himself, but a story about someone breaking into an abandoned basement and finding his tech, still set to fill NYC with Frankensteins and Draculas would be a real hoot.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 001: FANG GOW

    (New Fun 001, 1935)

    Unfortunately, the first DC super-villain is Fang Gow, a pulp-style Yellow Peril sort who vexes adventurer Barry O’Neill , his pal Inspector LeGrande and the nation of France.

    Fang Gow persists until 1941, and inevitably participates in some entertaining stories, including a half year or so in which he is near death and the story relocates to Tunisia where he kidnaps a famous doctor to treat him, but ultimately he’s just a warmed-over version of all the Fu Manchu knockoffs who bedeviled the pulps.

    His finest moment might just be his death, in fact: captured in French Guiana and on a ship en route to London and trial, he takes a death-simulating drug and requests burial at sea. Instead of being revived by immersion in seawater (and merely having to escape a weighted coffin and swim to shore), he lands on a rogue sea mine and is blown to high heaven.