The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: land grab

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 032

    A more fantastical bunch of genericos than usual! How fun!

    Benjie Frazier: 

    This mysterious cloaked figure hires femme fatale Sonia, aka Princess Cleo, to help him drive all of the inhabitants out of “center of New York society” Formal Park (99% certain that this is a substitution for former real-life society hub Tuxedo Park). To that end, the pair deploy such tools as squads of hooded goons, a mysteriously appearing brand to indicate that their victims have suffered “the Pharaoh’s Curse”, and a drug that drives regular people into a murderous frenzy. 

    Things come to a head when the socially prominent Dudley “Mr Satan” Bradshaw and his scornful love interest Doris O’Day are invited out to a Formal Park event and end up unmasking their host Benjie Frazier as the mastermind behind the scheme. And just why has he been murdering people in such elaborate ways? A damn land grab, the most boring possible motivation for supercrime. He wanted to get rich by selling land to the state for a reservoir, folks. Shaking my damn head over here. (Zip Comics 008, 1940)

    Unnamed Brain-in-Jar Men: 

    Another cover illustration with no bearing on the story inside – very very sad. Are these headless men with their brains in little glass backpacks the creations of a mad scientist? Some sore of weird aliens? A transhumanist mafia? We shall never know. (Zip Comics 009, 1940)

    the Lion-Man: 

    This were-lion is remarkable not only for being in the Amazon (which I can only assume is way out of its natural range if we can apply such concepts to supernatural beings) but also because it only appears in the first half of a six-page story as an unrelated distraction while some crooks to steal diamonds from Doctor Voodoo’s home village. Just tremendous disrespect on the writer’s part for the gravity of a lycanthropic* foe. (Whiz Comics 014, 1941)

    *yes I’m aware that the lycan part of the word is referring specifically to wolves but I’m being lazy about my language, okay? The footnote is still lazy because most of the words in it are short.

    Queen Zoe: 

    Queen Zoe is the ruler of a lost kingdom called El Casa del Oro deep in the Amazon whose culture appears to be a mixture of Inca and Conquistador and who is not overtly evil but who for instance threatens to throw someone into a volcano for interfering in her proposed seduction of Dr Voodoo.

    Queen Zoe’s secret is that she is actually thousands of years old thanks to the fact that she has the Fountain of Youth in her basement. She tries to sweeten her seduction of Dr Voodoo with the promise of eternal life but the Fountain is evidently a big prude because it chooses to stop working the exact second that Zoe makes her pitch and instead of getting some action she instead crumbles to dust. (Whiz Comics 015, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 745: THE BAT

    (Smash Comics 010, 1940)

    I had a little intro to this entry all mapped out in my head, something along the lines of how in a super-hero universe, super crimes are just as obvious a choice as mundane ones, like hiring a scientist to mind control your political opponents instead of merely blackmailing them,  and so we shouldn’t judge super-villains for over-complicating things, but as a part of actually writing it out I had to go over the details of the Bat aka Graystone’s plan in my head and… he over-complicates it.

    I don’t think that I can lay this out properly in paragraph form, so we must once again turn to our old friend the bulleted list for aid. Here is the Bat’s basic plan:

    – systematically rob his neighbours

    – create a fake monster bat to terrify the countryside and draw suspicion away from himself by linking its appearances to the robberies

    – once everyone around him is poor and frightened enough, buy up all the local property for cheap.

    Up to this point, everything is fine. It’s a bit complicated but appropriately so for a comic book world in which there are people running around putting human brains into gorillas and so forth.

    Graystone’s downfall presumably begins when he realizes that being the only person in the area not targeted by the Bat is a bit suspicious. The obvious solution to this problem is simply to rob himself and join his neighbours in bemoaning their monster-haunted fate, but instead he:

    – fakes the kidnapping of his son (in on the scheme, flies the plane that the bat monster hangs off of, is arguably also the Bat)

    – calls in Scotland Yard and makes a bunch of noise

    – attempts to kill Captain Cook of Scotland Yard several times as he investigates the mystery

    – has the Bat demand that Cook deliver the ransom money so that Graystone can try to kill him again

    It’s like a list of things you shouldn’t do if you want to stay under the radar – heck, killing Cook would only raise the profile of the case! Even the operation of the bat monster involves both a secret airfield and a hidden image projector (that doubles as an engine-killing ray for some reason) so that the bat image can be projected onto a sheet that is being pulled by a plane. Have these fools never considered the humble kite?  

    Graystone, his son and various of their servants are of course bundled off to jail to think about wot they done.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 691: THE CLAW

    (Pep Comics 007, 1940) 

    The Press Guardian’s only recurring villain, the Claw has what can only be described as an eclectic career: In his first appearance he’s a sort of freelance spy chief working to aid the I-assume-European country of Shironia in its attempt to conquer neighbouring Lanfia by committing acts of sabotage in the US and framing Lanfia as the perpetrator so that America will withdraw its support of Lanfia. The Press Guardian exposes the scheme and sends the Claw and his henchmen to a presumed watery grave.

    Pep 008 drops a bombshell: the Claw could, in fact, swim. Instead of drowning, he made his way to the Central City docks and set up an insurance scam whereby he and his crew of rowdy sea dogs sunk their own ships for a tidy profit. The only flaw in the plan: the Claw kept on murdering nosy reporters who got too interested in all the shipwrecks going on, and you know that the Press Guardian is going to show up to check something like that out. The Claw ended up in the drink again, presumed dead but with more of a question mark than before.

    And that question mark was justified! Pep 009’s Press Guardian adventure begins with he and his aide Cynthia Blake investigating an extremely suspicious want ad for “young, healthy women with no living relatives” and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the Claw again. He’s been turning people into beast-men using animal hormone injections and he’s decided to finally branch out into making beast-women. The Press Guardian is even less into this scenario than the others and wastes little time in beating everyone up and forcing the Claw to reveal the antidote to beast-manism. When last seen the one-handed villain is being chased down by a mob of former beast-men, with murderous intent. Surely the Claw has finally met his end?

    No dice. The Claw returns one last time, in Pep Comics 010, with a knife-wielding green-skinned weirdo named the Goon in tow. The Goon and the Claw have been kidnapping women from a bit of cottage country called Rocky Point – has he gone back to making beast-women? Is he trying to ruin the Press Guardian’s home paper, the Daily Express, who are involved in the development of the region somehow? No, he’s trying to drive people off so that he can steal a radium deposit that’s located on the land.

    The Claw suffers a fairly ignominious defeat in the face of what can’t have been a very hard kick from Cynthia Blake. For all that he’s been tenacious, he’s also always been very easily defeated and while in a real-world way I know that that is because the Press Guardian was a second-tier character with a smaller pagecount than a headliner like the Shield, in my heart of hearts I prefer to believe that he’s just a scrawny little wiener. Or maybe it’s because he hangs out in radium-filled caves all the time, who can say.

    Though the Goon is captured, the Claw just scampers away, and since he isn’t in what turns out to be the Press Guardian’s final outing in Pep Comics 011, he’s just… at large when all is said and done (though again: radium cave. The Claw might not have been troubling humanity for much longer after this particular escapade).

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 456: KING BASCOM

    (Mystic Comics v1 001, 1940)

    King Bascom, the first foe faced by Dynamic Man, is nothing more than a grubby little capitalist pig. I almost forgot to write him and his land-grab scheme up due to disinterest.

    Trouble is, while King Bascom is utterly uninteresting he is cocooned in a dense shell of interesting things: his land grab is aided by a drought that he himself is causing using a rain-prevention machine, he has anti-Dymanic Man weaponry and a deathtrap that involves both a descending ceiling and a flood of liquid nitrogen, he’s a traitor and a scumbag and a sneering pompous ass and yet I can’t bring myself to care about him enough to finish writing this.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 308: THE BLACK WITCH

    (Captain America Comics 008, 1941)

    So: the Black Witch is a witch’s ghost that supposedly haunts Hagmoor Castle, one of the many castles that dot the landscape around Camp Lehigh (and don’t imagine that it’s the same on from the Hunchback of Hollywood case, because that was called Ebony Castle). Hagmoor Castle, coincidentally, is the subject of an eccentric will that sees one Karin Lee having to spend three nights there alone in order to  inherit her uncle Jonathan’s estate. Perhaps you see where this is going.

    Predictably, the castle is crawling wit spooks, spectres, walking suits of armour and garden-variety thugs. Karin’s chances of getting her inheritance would be slim indeed without the intervention of Cap and Bucky. What’s worse, Uncle Jonathan’s will not only stipulated that she would lose out if she didn’t stay three nights in the castle but also laid out a contingency for what would happen if she died before inheriting. The only thin missing in the trifecta of Plot-Inspiring Will Shenanigans is the one about her having to be married by a certain age. 

    As is often the case in these will-related tales, the lawyer done it. Yes, Mr Feritt, Karin’s lawyer and the only other named character in the story, was the Black Witch all along. Why? Because the land Hagmoor Castle sits on is chock full of oil, of course. More than enough reason for an elaborate charade that ultimately leads to your own death!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 308: THE BLACK WITCH

    (Captain America Comics 008, 1941)

    So: the Black Witch is a witch’s ghost that supposedly haunts Hagmoor Castle, one of the many castles that dot the landscape around Camp Lehigh (and don’t imagine that it’s the same on from the Hunchback of Hollywood case, because that was called Ebony Castle). Hagmoor Castle, coincidentally, is the subject of an eccentric will that sees one Karin Lee having to spend three nights there alone in order to  inherit her uncle Jonathan’s estate. Perhaps you see where this is going.

    Predictably, the castle is crawling wit spooks, spectres, walking suits of armour and garden-variety thugs. Karin’s chances of getting her inheritance would be slim indeed without the intervention of Cap and Bucky. What’s worse, Uncle Jonathan’s will not only stipulated that she would lose out if she didn’t stay three nights in the castle but also laid out a contingency for what would happen if she died before inheriting. The only thin missing in the trifecta of Plot-Inspiring Will Shenanigans is the one about her having to be married by a certain age. 

    As is often the case in these will-related tales, the lawyer done it. Yes, Mr Feritt, Karin’s lawyer and the only other named character in the story, was the Black Witch all along. Why? Because the land Hagmoor Castle sits on is chock full of oil, of course. More than enough reason for an elaborate charade that ultimately leads to your own death!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 226: THE BLACK BAT

    (Feature Comics 043, 1941) 

    Another example of the classic combination of someone posing as a spooky local legend-figure in order to scare folk away from a valuable area. In this case one Jean Dupre and his mother are trying to use the legend of the giant Black Bat (that they might have just made up) to scare their step sister/ daughter Marie away from the family ranch, which is just lousy with radium ore.

    It’s a good attempt, foiled by only a few factors: 1) Marie won’t leave and instead calls in the RCMP; 2) Reynolds of the Mounties and his guide/ skáld the Old Timer show up and basically immediately unravel the plot; 3) they both end up dead, from a rock to the head (Madame Dupre) and glider malfunction (Jean Dupre). As usual, the less profitable option of splitting the proceeds of your find with the rightful owner would have been the way to go.

    Unless I’ve been grossly negligent, this mother/ son duo is our first French Canadian representation on the list, so there’s that at least.

    MINOR EDIT: This is touted as Reynolds’ first case in the previous episode, but also he’s already a sergeant at the beginning of the story so I don’t know when it happened. Some time in the past!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 226: THE BLACK BAT

    (Feature Comics 043, 1941) 

    Another example of the classic combination of someone posing as a spooky local legend-figure in order to scare folk away from a valuable area. In this case one Jean Dupre and his mother are trying to use the legend of the giant Black Bat (that they might have just made up) to scare their step sister/ daughter Marie away from the family ranch, which is just lousy with radium ore.

    It’s a good attempt, foiled by only a few factors: 1) Marie won’t leave and instead calls in the RCMP; 2) Reynolds of the Mounties and his guide/ skáld the Old Timer show up and basically immediately unravel the plot; 3) they both end up dead, from a rock to the head (Madame Dupre) and glider malfunction (Jean Dupre). As usual, the less profitable option of splitting the proceeds of your find with the rightful owner would have been the way to go.

    Unless I’ve been grossly negligent, this mother/ son duo is our first French Canadian representation on the list, so there’s that at least.

    MINOR EDIT: This is touted as Reynolds’ first case in the previous episode, but also he’s already a sergeant at the beginning of the story so I don’t know when it happened. Some time in the past!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 226: THE BLACK BAT

    (Feature Comics 043, 1941) 

    Another example of the classic combination of someone posing as a spooky local legend-figure in order to scare folk away from a valuable area. In this case one Jean Dupre and his mother are trying to use the legend of the giant Black Bat (that they might have just made up) to scare their step sister/ daughter Marie away from the family ranch, which is just lousy with radium ore.

    It’s a good attempt, foiled by only a few factors: 1) Marie won’t leave and instead calls in the RCMP; 2) Reynolds of the Mounties and his guide/ skáld the Old Timer show up and basically immediately unravel the plot; 3) they both end up dead, from a rock to the head (Madame Dupre) and glider malfunction (Jean Dupre). As usual, the less profitable option of splitting the proceeds of your find with the rightful owner would have been the way to go.

    Unless I’ve been grossly negligent, this mother/ son duo is our first French Canadian representation on the list, so there’s that at least.

    MINOR EDIT: This is touted as Reynolds’ first case in the previous episode, but also he’s already a sergeant at the beginning of the story so I don’t know when it happened. Some time in the past!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 217: THE STONE IDOL

    (Detective Comics v1 056, 1941)

    The Stone Idol is a bit of a weird one: a miner living in the ghost town of Ghost Gulch City discovers silver on town land and recruits an unscrupulous group of circus performers to aid him in driving out the town’s remaining inhabitants so as to have all the silver for themselves. The actual Stone Idol is the circus strongman disguised as a local Native American statue in order to play on the local superstitions but really it’s a group effort.

    Sadly for Mad Mack the prospector and his circus of crime, the Stone Idol’s push to take over the town coincides with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson’s stay in a local hotel and the entire group of them die in a mine collapse while fighting Batman and Robin. Perils of living in a comic book world, I guess.