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Category: 1941

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 306: THE FIDDLER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 306: THE FIDDLER

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(Captain America Comics 007, 1941) The Fiddler, being a man who can play his violin at special pitches in order to hypnotize or kill, has the dubious honour of being our first super-powered Nazi villain.  The Fiddler is an overplanner, no bones about it. His mission in the US is to kill anti-Nazi politicians (specifically senators, or maybe he’s working up  to governors etc). Here’s his process for doing so: -become an acclaimed musician with regular radio gigs -establish an…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 305: THE BLACK TOAD

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 305: THE BLACK TOAD

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(Captain America Comics 007, 1941)  Here’s the problem with the Black Toad: he looks great. A really top-notch costume, like something Batman would have worn in a stage production in the 30s. No notes. And that’s the only interesting thing about him. He’s a baseball manager who wants to buy into the team and is killing players in order to drive the price down. HO HUM. (I guess he does use a bomb hidden inside a baseball at one point….

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SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: RED SKULL 1941

SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: RED SKULL 1941

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(Captain America Comics 007, 1941) What was the Red Skull up to in 1941? As mentioned in the Red Skull II entry, this here is the real deal bad guy we all know and love to hate, still running around being a total stinker to this day. In-comic there is of course no indication of this, as the decision to differentiate the two was made years later when someone figured that the top Nazi villain worked better as a German…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 304: THE MENACE

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 304: THE MENACE

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(Captain America Comics 006, 1941) The Menace is a dude who uses secret tunnels and the power of fear to advance his fairly low-stakes plot to steal $50 000 worth of bonds from his elderly sister. Some might argue that that is far too little money to put murder on the table for but those people aren’t super-villain material. Unfortunately for the Menace, he happens to catch the attention of Hurricane (later retconned as Makkari, one of the Eternals), so…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 303: THE HANGMAN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 303: THE HANGMAN

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(Captain America Comics 006, 1941)  There are three big reasons that I like the Hangman: 1. It’s hard to beat a Golden or Silver Age story that revolves around a group of suspects who might be the villain. Just a series of fun character sketches followed by (in this case) the character’s grisly murder. 2. The Hangman isn’t actually supposed to be a luchador but he sure does look like one, and that’s one of the top super-hero/ villain looks….

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 302: THE FANG

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 302: THE FANG

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(Captain America Comics 006, 1941) Comics history seems to have taken the Fang as a Japanese agent but I’m pretty sure that as written he’s a Chinese American gang boss who’s working for the Japanese against the Chinese government. Either way, he’s your basic pulp holdover Asian gang boss with swarms of fanatical hatchet-man and a pronounced lack of humanity down to his namesake fangs. Part of me always wants to skip guys like this but they’re just as much a part…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 301: THE CAMERA FIEND

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 301: THE CAMERA FIEND

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(Captain America Comics 006, 1941)  The  Camera Fiend is your regular gimmicked-up gang boss who parlays the classic comic book camera gun into a modestly successful career in theft that sees him almost getting away with the British Crown Jewels before being beaten down by Cap and Bucky. He is of course playing off the idea of the rabid photography fanatic from the advent of cheap personal cameras. I was going to criticize him for having such a grotesque costume…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 300: THE RINGMASTER OF CRIME

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 300: THE RINGMASTER OF CRIME

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(Captain America Comics 005, 1941) Finally, FINALLY, after 300  of these guys an arbitrary milestone lines up with a reasonably cool character: the Ringmaster of Crime AKA the Ringmaster of Death. Compounding the fun of the circus of crime aesthetic is the fact that some of that good-style retconning has been going on and the Ringmaster in this tale has been made the father (and presumably later grandfather, per Marvel’s sliding timeline) of the mid-level super-villain the Ringmaster! Uh, if…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 299: DOCTOR GRIMM

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 299: DOCTOR GRIMM

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(Captain America Comics 004, 1941) Doctor Grimm is your regular-style mad scientist, subtype Owns a Private Hospital and Conducts Unethical Experiments on the Inmates and Staff. He comes to Captain America’s attention when Bucky gets bashed on the head real good (teen sidekick head trauma is no laughing matter and I hope we never get an earnest comic about it) and has to be admitted for observation. Things get predictably creepy, with disappearing nurses, strange cries in the night and…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 298: THE UNHOLY LEGION

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 298: THE UNHOLY LEGION

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(Captain America Comics 004, 1941) This is one of those moments where the first examples of a thing that shows up here is not a great example of the thing. Blame the tyranny of alphabetical order, I suppose, because I know for a fact that Star-Spangled Comics will feature the Ring of Rags when I work my way down my list to it, and that is a good example. The thing in question is of course Poor People as a Horrifying and…

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