Browsed by
Category: Centaur

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 015

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 015

Comments 0 comment

It’s time for another round with the guys in the masks. A radio announcer who tries to poison all of Inland City with chlorine gas for unclear reasons. Ends up blowing himself up while tangling with heroic pilot Captain Steve Ransom. (Keen Detective Funnies v2 006, 1939) This unnamed fellow takes the cake for audaciousness: his racket is drug smuggling and though traditionally one wants to keep a low profile while attempting to move controlled substances from place to place…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 026

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 026

Comments 0 comment

Just look at all these guys. Power-Man: Power-Man, aka Rip Regan, private detective or possibly just nosy guy, gets his powers in one of the classic ways: his friend Dr Austin gives him a special suit. It’s the simplest of origins and also one that puts a lot of weight on Austin’s assessment of Regan’s character. The Power-Man suit is one of the more hand-wavy bits of comic book super-science I have encountered, when you get down to it. Billed…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 649: THE MONSTER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 649: THE MONSTER

Comments 0 comment

(Funny Pages v4 008, 1940) Betty Thomas is the recipient of the sort of inheritance that seems to be aimed at causing trouble: her uncle Henry has left her a fortune, provided that she is of sound mind thirty days after the will reading. If she isn’t, the money goes to a secondary inheritor. This is of course the cue for someone to employ a huge hook-handed goon and start a nightly campaign of terror designed to drive her out…

Read More Read More

PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 002

PROBLEMATIC ROUND-UP 002

Comments 0 comment

Once again I present the worst that comics has to offer. The Great Green Turtle: The Great Green Turtle is just your standard Yellow Peril Chinatown ganglord, albeit one with a fantastic name. He does try to throw Sub-Zero, a man with ice powers, into a shark tank so we can safely say that he is not a villain with fantastic intelligence. His gem-smuggling ring gets thoroughly kiboshed. (Blue Bolt v1 004, 1940) The Lama: The Lama is a bandit…

Read More Read More

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 006

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 006

Comments 0 comment

More real people and their analogs. Lotta Hitlers in this one. Adolf Hitler: Hitler analogs c.1940 were often quite visually distinct from the actual man. Samson foe and dictator of Ratonia Dragor honestly looks more like a bald Stalin, and you might be excused for thinking that he was more of a pastiche of all extant dictators. The real clue is in the invasion of Belgium. (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)  Meanwhile this as-yet unnamed dictator of the future super-nation of…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 025

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 025

Comments 0 comment

Just a great bunch of guys. David: I read the Samson stories in Big 3 before those in his home comic Fantastic, so while I knew about his sidekick David I didn’t really know what his whole deal was. I had read that Samson just found him sitting around somewhere and assumed that that was hyperbole but no, it’s not: Samson is investigating some mysterious plane crashes in the Rockies when he just finds a kid, who turns out to…

Read More Read More

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 012

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 012

Comments 0 comment

Science class was never like this. Count la Roach is a scientist-spy looking to synthesize enough “noxio gas” to flood the NYC of the I-think-it’s-still-the-near-future world of Yank Wilson, but all he gets is a sock in the jaw for his trouble. (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940) This unnamed fellow is our first proper mad scientist in a while! I really like his style, particularly the fact that he’s introduced while sitting in a tennis judge’s chair for no stated reason….

Read More Read More

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 013

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 013

Comments 0 comment

Here come the also-rans. We’ve got another Leader, and this time he’s not a generically-fascist spy but the head of a gang looking to extort the New York World’s Fair via a series of bombings. Of course the Fantom of the Fair cannot let this stand and quickly tracks them down to a small island base. If the first reason I included the Leader aka Relmar here is because I enjoy a monocled man with a high opinion of himself…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 023

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 023

Comments 0 comment

The most minor bunch so far! Don Rance and the Mysticape:  Don Rance saves an old man from a tiger in the Indian jungle and is given a mystic cape as a reward. In his single documented adventure he runs into spy trouble while ferrying some papers from the American embassy in London to Washington DC and must use the cape’s powers (generic physical enhancement and slow falling or some other way to jump from a plane and land safely…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 582: BARON BLOOD

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 582: BARON BLOOD

Comments 0 comment

(Detective Eye 001, 1940) Not the first knockoff of Count “the Most Dangerous Game” Zaroff we’ve met, and certainly not the last. Baron Blood incorporates quite a lot of elements that you’ll find in various adaptations of the story: the island castle with built-in lighthouse to draw victims in via shipwreck, the monocle and prominent facial scar and the pack of hunting dogs and huge hunting guide/servant. What sets the Baron apart from the rest of the bored island-dwelling human-hunting…

Read More Read More