(Leading Comics 001, 1941)
As promised: the Five Fingers of the Hand! Though the Seven Soldiers would go on the fight more than a few teams of super-henchmen, the Fingers are distinguished by being (mostly) pre-established characters. Fun!
Big Caesar:
Big Caesar is whatever. A regular-style gang boss with a good name, elevated by being included in the gang. He appears just this once, in a scheme that involves cutting the power to Broadway and then doing a crimewave in the dark. The Crimson Avenger and Wing take him down without significant effort.
The Dummy:
Like Big Caesar, the Dummy appears for the first time in this issue. Unlike Big Caesar, the Dummy would go on to bigger things – so much so that I am declaring him a very marginal full super-villain, which makes this a cheeky Yearbook entry for his 1941.
When first seen, the Dummy has two points of interest: 1. he is an “infamous kidnapper” and 2. he may or may not be a real, inanimate ventriloquist’s dummy. Even his gang is convinced that he is a front for one of their number.
Per his talents, the Hand sets the Dummy up with a sweet kidnapping job: he grabs various Hollywood types and leaves behind a lifelike statue in their place. The ransom is thus to “return them to life”. Sadly, the sculptor that they must have had on retainer to produce the statues is not shown.
The Dummy is eventually revealed to be alive, though whether he is a very short human with a penchant for sitting still or some sort of animate wooden doll is not explored. Also unexplored: why the Dummy’s back room is full of duplicates of the statues that he has already left in place of his victims, and why he has statues of the Vigilante and his second-best sidekick Billy Gunn – it’s tough to imagine a scenario in which they might be useful (other than as a heavy object under which to trap the Dummy, of course).
Number of Episodes of the “Super-Villains of Hollywood” podcast: part of a compilation episode about villains who come to Hollywood to do crimes.
Body Count: 0
End-of-Year Status: Captured
The Needle:
The Needle is a recurring foe of the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, a tall thin guy with a needle gun and a wild look in his eyes. Due to the fact that I only pay attention to the cover date on comics and that that never actually lines up with the release date, his first appearance in 1942 won’t hit this blog for some time – he’ll likely be Minor Super-Villain 555 or the like.
Anyway, he steals a ray gun and tries to blow up the Panama Canal for some reason.
Professor Merlin:
As with the Needle, Professor Merlin’s first appearance doesn’t take place until 1942. This is especially embarrassing because he actually dies before his first appearance, like one of those RPGs where you can die during character creation.
Merlin’s scheme involves scamming gold out of a rich old prospector by exploiting his well-known fear of freezing to death, then managing to collapse a mine on himself when he uses dynamite to blow open a lock that looks like you could pick it with a small enough finger. Nobody comes out on top here: Prof Merlin dies a dummy despite ostensibly being a Smart Crook and Green Arrow and Speedy don’t even play that much of a role in his downfall.
Red Dragon:
Our final Finger and the only one to have already shown up previously here, the Red Dragon is his usual terrible self: he takes advantage of an old myth in order to enslave a Native American tribe and force them to mine radium. Lucky for them that the Shining Knight turns up to actually fulfill the prophecy and kick the Dragon’s rear. It’s a real evil comic book crime rendered a fair bit less enjoyable to read because of all the racism.
So: the Five Fingers of the Hand. Top notch themed name for a henchman group hampered somewhat by the ease with which they were all taken out. Any time the Hand shows up he should have a different iteration of the Fingers with him, and that’s that. Bring ’em back, at least in name.
