(Silver Streak Comics 013, 1941) Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor has a new invention: the Photo-Lightning Machine, with which he can cause a bolt of lightning to crash down on anyplace he pleases, like the deserted house across the road from him that nobody was planning on using, hopefully. The only catch is that he hasn’t yet figured out how to get the lightning to strike a target that is in water. Dickie and his pal Zip Todd take the plans…
Criminals! Unnamed Gambler: Not much is revealed about this fellow, but what we do know for sure is that he has access to a super strength drink and that he has been using it to clean up on gambling by slipping it to boxers and race horses with long odds. He also relies on the potion to help him escape from the cops, which backfires on him because Presto Martin, having taken the place of one of the boxers, is…
(Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941) For the third issue in a row, a souped up super-plane takes to the skies of probably-California to menace law-abiding aviators. The Ripper, like the Heater before it, is a vehicle with a singular name being run by a group, which is a mildly interesting taxonomic trend that unfortunately does not continue to occur. Where the Wingers and the Heater were armed with sci-fi ray cannons, the Ripper relies on a comparatively low-tech blade that…
(Silver Streak Comics 010, 1941) Here’s the thing about the Black Dragon: though he looms large in the early adventures of Captain Battle and is a key player in the origin of Hale Battle, he doesn’t personally do that much villainy. So just what is the Black Dragon’s deal? Well, he’s a magic using tyrant who lives in a secret castle in some unspecified Asian mountains, and he’s the secret mastermind behind the Axis Axian Powers, making him the guy behind…
(Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941) The High One is a fascist spy chief cum mad scientist who has been using an advanced poison to wage a surprisingly successful campaign to kill of the upper echelons of the US government. This has brought him into conflict with Bart Benson, aka Secret Agent X-101, who is soon captured by the High One’s agents and bundled off to his HQ in the small town of Newburgh to be gloated at and then executed. Though the…
(Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941) The US is being rocked by a series of explosions targeting munitions factories and other facilities contributing to national defense, and not even the speed of the Silver Streak is enough to combat the organizational skills and coordination of the mysterious mastermind behind them. It is only by sheer coincidence that he happens upon an imperilled security guard from a plant in Georgia and learns from him that the men who blew up his workplace…
(Champ Comics 014, 1941) The Scaly Dragon is what I would consider to be a very by-the-book fascist saboteur with a better-than-average name. He does have a couple of noteworthy things about him though, including 1. the fact that he is a pseudo-Imperial Japanese spy rather than the much more common pseudo-Nazis that we usually see. 2. Though the Scaly Dragon’s first couple of efforts were aimed at sabotaging the water supply of New York City (which is where the Human…
I know we’re all tired of fascist, but these are fake, historical fascists who get beat up, so it’s cathartic at least. the Blitzys: The Blitzys, aka the Yellowshirts, have a never-clearly-articulated plan to divide American society by beating people up for not joining the Army. I assume that there must be more to it than that but the focus of the adventure is not on Spy Smasher beating up these particular fascists (though beat them he does) but in…
Not every villain is super and they must learn to accept that. Miguel Greeze: He may just be a regular style crooked gambler looking to murder Golden Arrow in order to win a bet, but Miguel Greeze here is decked out in too good a costume to just ignore. Plus it’s impressive that he can make his legs go like that. (Whiz Comics 023, 1941) Konrad Schtienker: Fascist assassin Konrad Schtienker is all-in on a tobacco product theme: he uses…
(Cat-Man Comics 001, 1941) Some villains are puzzles, high-concept enigmas whose motivations and goals are a mystery that must be solved to understand them. The Bridge-Destroyers are not that. They are exactly what their name declares them to be: a couple of guys in a tower who destroy bridges using a long-range heat-ray cannon. But why the Bridge-Destroyers destroy bridges, that must be a mystery, yes? Perhaps it is, but the authorities are pretty certain that they are working for “some foreign…