(Smash Comics 003, 1939) It’s a good name but I’m afraid that the Hooded Terror is just a stock crypto-fascist European saboteur attempting to destroy the Panama Canal and trap the US fleet in the Pacific in order to set up an invasion of the East Coast. It’s no great loss to fiction when he gets cold-cocked by G-2 agent Wings Wendall and left behind in a sinking submarine to drown. Other than some degree of admiration for his ability…
(Smash Comics 001, 1939) Vlamir Koran, Argentinean Adolf Hitler pastiche in charge of Nazi pastiche the Black Spot, takes over the entirety of South America in about half a page, because the real action of the story is centred around his attempt to continue his conquering ways into the United States. Koran’s first couple of attempts to invade the US are stymied by technology and tactics, so he hires the “greatest of all spies”, Mata Hari pastiche Mara Hani, to…
(Blue Ribbon Comics 019, 1941) The Mad Botanist is an assassin “in the employment of a foreign power” which in 1941 as good as means that he was working for the Axis. His nom de guerre comes from the fact that his preferred method of murder is via deadly plant life, including the African Tentacle Vine, the Mediterranean Poison Cornflower and of course the insidious Man-Eating Clam-Plant. The Botanist’s somewhat bizarre physical appearance is never commented upon in the comic…
(Blue Ribbon Comics 013, 1941) I had two surprises coming to me when I read the first appearance of this fellow: 1) though there are a fair few Golden and Silver Age comics that posit some sort of supernatural element to the evils of the Axis power – deals with the Devil, influence by one or another god of war, etc – but this is the earliest example I’ve seen of one of their leaders actually being a supernatural evil….
Some say they’re not generic enough but I think they’re trying their best. This fellow is part of a gang looking to hijack a shipment of railway guns from train engineer Runaway Ronson. I really enjoy the look of the padded suit they use to help survive crashing a car into a high-speed train but I really really enjoy the fact that they immediately scramble off into the woods and are never seen again, as if they were completely unrelated…
(Blue Bolt v2 006, 1941) We open on an aircraft factory. Suddenly, a strange vibration fills the air. After an initial moment of surprise, the workers all file out the door and into a cave in a nearby hillside. Inside? THIS MAN! This man is the self-proclaimed High Priest of Thor and before we get into what he’s up to I’d like to commend his commitment to the costume. Your average religious-type villain is not going to these lengths to…
(Blue Bolt v2 004-006, 1941) There are hundreds if not thousands of antagonistic u-boat commanders in comics and very few of them are going to make the jump to super-villain. Commander Sooka, however… I did some cursory searching and it looks like the Axis forces sank around 1100 ships between 1939 and 1941, and the most successful u-boat captain of the entire war sank 47 ships total. What I’m saying is that if Commander Sooka’s count of 735 ships is…
(Blue Bolt v1 012, 1941) There are a lot of dastardly fascist spy chiefs in comics of the 1940s, so it’s nice when one has something to distinguish themself from the monocle-and-dueling-scar heavy pack. Agent 17’s gimmick, as stated by the dying Latonian agent Gonzales, is that he is a “young man with an old face.” How useful is this in the average spy mission? Moderately, I presume. Agent 17’s mission is to prevent the government of the South American…
Who will rid me of these fascist goons? The Nordland Bund is another German-American Bund analog but operates as more of a traditional spy operation on behalf of Nazi Germany stand-in Prussland. Their moderately complicated plan to get explosive coal onto US ships leaving Bermuda is foiled by Secret Agent D-13 and his Canadian counterpart/ love interest Lorraine MacAlinn (Mystery Men Comics 019, 1941) Like the man’s feet say, the Hoops are a bunch of Nazis (proper Nazis – Fox…
(Banner Comics 003, 1941) The Dictator’s Shadow is the “head of the fifth column in America” and the major villain of patriotic hero the Lone Warrior and his kid brother Dicky, in the vein of the Red Skull. A notable thing about him is that he is not explicitly a Nazi, which is both unusual for someone whose name is so evocative of Hitler as the capital-D Dictator of the day but also for a character appearing in Banner Comics,…