The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: super vehicle

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 947: CAPTAIN SKULL-FACE

    (Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941)

    Nazi U-Boat commander Captain Skull-Face has two major claims to fame: firstly there is his eponymous skull face. Even without that, however, he is absolutely loaded down with Nazi superweapons, any one of which would have been enough to carry a comic book story. 

    Starting off, Skull-Face has a submarine “the size of a big battleship.” Big enough to be mistaken for a small island

    Secondly, the u-boat is equipped with a vibration machine capable of disabling ships’ engines and rendering humans unconscious, which enables Captain Skull-Face and his crew to capture and loot Allied ships with impunity

    Way up in the first set of panels, Captain Skull-Face mentions sending captured ships back to shore to be reused so that he can loot them again. What he actually does is essentially fire them at the East coast of the US like so many enormous torpedoes – the reason that he meets Dickie Dean in the first place is that he and Zip Todd are on the hunt for whoever was blasting ships at them. 

    Finally, Skull-Face’s u-boat is home to a squadron of manned torpedoes piloted by insane men. A pretty rare resource to be expending all at once, might I add.

    Despite all of this advanced armament, Captain Skull-Face is outmatched by boy inventor Dickie Dean. Their encounter culminates in the Captain setting off the volcano at the centre of his own island base and almost getting roasted before being rescued by Dean and his pal Zip Todd and subdued using a Home Alone trap.

    SKULL SCORE: 2/5 It’s a good look but there’s still a lot of flesh on that head. 

    Categorized in: Body (Face, Skull), Generica (Captains), Murder (U-Boat Commanders) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 947: CAPTAIN SKULL-FACE

    (Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941)

    Nazi U-Boat commander Captain Skull-Face has two major claims to fame: firstly there is his eponymous skull face. Even without that, however, he is absolutely loaded down with Nazi superweapons, any one of which would have been enough to carry a comic book story. 

    Starting off, Skull-Face has a submarine “the size of a big battleship.” Big enough to be mistaken for a small island

    Secondly, the u-boat is equipped with a vibration machine capable of disabling ships’ engines and rendering humans unconscious, which enables Captain Skull-Face and his crew to capture and loot Allied ships with impunity

    Way up in the first set of panels, Captain Skull-Face mentions sending captured ships back to shore to be reused so that he can loot them again. What he actually does is essentially fire them at the East coast of the US like so many enormous torpedoes – the reason that he meets Dickie Dean in the first place is that he and Zip Todd are on the hunt for whoever was blasting ships at them. 

    Finally, Skull-Face’s u-boat is home to a squadron of manned torpedoes piloted by insane men. A pretty rare resource to be expending all at once, might I add.

    Despite all of this advanced armament, Captain Skull-Face is outmatched by boy inventor Dickie Dean. Their encounter culminates in the Captain setting off the volcano at the centre of his own island base and almost getting roasted before being rescued by Dean and his pal Zip Todd and subdued using a Home Alone trap.

    SKULL SCORE: 2/5 It’s a good look but there’s still a lot of flesh on that head. 

    Categorized in: Body (Face, Skull), Generica (Captains), Murder (U-Boat Commanders) 

  • FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 013

    Another batch of dumb-dumbs for the fire.

    the Green Shirts:

    Though only mentioned by crooked political boss and aspiring fascist bigwig Pete Rosky, these Green Shirts are the same kind of palate-swap allusion to the Nazi Brownshirts and/or the Italian Blackshirts that we’ve seen so many times before. Their Rosky-led attempt to take over the US-government is nipped in the bud by the Human Meteor. (Champ Comics 012, 1941)

    Categorized in: Colours (Green), Ideology (Crypto-Fascists), Objects (Shirts)

    the Black Legion:

    Led by a melted candle named Hans Schmutzdoff, the Black Legion are a group of fifth columnists who are infiltrating US war production with an eye to disrupting it, and who are ultimately undone because Chuck and Skip, aka the Liberty Lads, just kind of stumble upon them doing Nazi cosplay in the woods. (Champ Comics 016, 1941)

    Categorized in: Colours (Black), Espionage (Fascist Groups), Generica (Legions)

    the Ghost Ship:

    It’s one last hurrah for Cloud Curtis as yet another gang of fascists attempts to disrupt the development of the US air forces by deploying a gimmicked-up airplane. This one has projector mounted on it, allowing it to distract US pilots with visions of a phantom plane while the real one sneak attacks them from the rear. Like several other Cloud Curtis foes, this is a group operating under the singular name of the vehicle they pilot. (Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941)

    Categorized in: Fraud (Fake Undead – Ghost Planes), Objects (Planes), Supranormal Beings (Ghosts) 

    the Hooded League: 

    The Hooded League are as far as I can tell a home-grown fascist group dedicated to weakening America in advance of a Nazi invasion, and to that end they launch a coordinated attack on Chicago that includes blowing up both the El Train and every bridge over the Chicago River (this is the inspiration for my modern Captain Battle revival in which the rebuilt bridges have slightly taller guardrails thus preventing the Dave Matthews Band bus incident, which in turn causes aliens to invade or something. It’s a rich seam of potential that I will be strip mining). 

    Before things can get much more out of control, Captain Battle gets ahold of their leader, newspaper editor Thompson, and forces him to order the Hooded League to stand down. (Captain Battle Comics 001, 1941)

    Categorized in: Generica (Leagues), Objects (Hoods), Supercrime (Attempted Conquest)

  • FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 013

    Another batch of dumb-dumbs for the fire.

    the Green Shirts:

    Though only mentioned by crooked political boss and aspiring fascist bigwig Pete Rosky, these Green Shirts are the same kind of palate-swap allusion to the Nazi Brownshirts and/or the Italian Blackshirts that we’ve seen so many times before. Their Rosky-led attempt to take over the US-government is nipped in the bud by the Human Meteor. (Champ Comics 012, 1941)

    Categorized in: Colours (Green), Ideology (Crypto-Fascists), Objects (Shirts)

    the Black Legion:

    Led by a melted candle named Hans Schmutzdoff, the Black Legion are a group of fifth columnists who are infiltrating US war production with an eye to disrupting it, and who are ultimately undone because Chuck and Skip, aka the Liberty Lads, just kind of stumble upon them doing Nazi cosplay in the woods. (Champ Comics 016, 1941)

    Categorized in: Colours (Black), Espionage (Fascist Groups), Generica (Legions)

    the Ghost Ship:

    It’s one last hurrah for Cloud Curtis as yet another gang of fascists attempts to disrupt the development of the US air forces by deploying a gimmicked-up airplane. This one has projector mounted on it, allowing it to distract US pilots with visions of a phantom plane while the real one sneak attacks them from the rear. Like several other Cloud Curtis foes, this is a group operating under the singular name of the vehicle they pilot. (Silver Streak Comics 016, 1941)

    Categorized in: Fraud (Fake Undead – Ghost Planes), Objects (Planes), Supranormal Beings (Ghosts) 

    the Hooded League: 

    The Hooded League are as far as I can tell a home-grown fascist group dedicated to weakening America in advance of a Nazi invasion, and to that end they launch a coordinated attack on Chicago that includes blowing up both the El Train and every bridge over the Chicago River (this is the inspiration for my modern Captain Battle revival in which the rebuilt bridges have slightly taller guardrails thus preventing the Dave Matthews Band bus incident, which in turn causes aliens to invade or something. It’s a rich seam of potential that I will be strip mining). 

    Before things can get much more out of control, Captain Battle gets ahold of their leader, newspaper editor Thompson, and forces him to order the Hooded League to stand down. (Captain Battle Comics 001, 1941)

    Categorized in: Generica (Leagues), Objects (Hoods), Supercrime (Attempted Conquest)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 933: THE RIPPER

    (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 is used to slice up aircraft and parachutes alike. Ironically, this is a far less believable means of attacking a plane on the wing than a thermodynamic ray of some sort. Just what kind of flying does the Ripper’s pilot have to be doing to slice off a wing with a comparatively short, fixed blade, anyway? Just how sharp can that thing be considering that it looks perfectly cylindrical? There are some wavy lines around the blade in precisely one panel – perhaps it’s meant to be a vibro-blade of some kind.

    Like the Heater before them, the crew of the Ripper are prepared for Cloud Curtis and his crew to interfere in their plans. In addition to the standard-issue bulletproofing, their plane is equipped with a magnetic generator to lock the Golden Bullet’s grapplers in place on their hull and knockout gas dispensers on the plane’s exterior act as a counter to Curtis’ favoured tactic of clambering onto an enemy aircraft’s exterior. Cloud and his assistants are taken into custody but not, crucially, immediately murdered.

    In contrast to the Heater, the Ripper has an actual defined goal: shut down US aviation in order to weaken the country for vague foreign agent reasons. And it’s astonishingly effective!

    Having not been murdered, Cloud and pals soon escape and take to the skies, where the Ripper crew learn the same posthumous lesson as the Heater gang before them: if you render yourself impossible to capture then you are much more likely to be killed outright. One shattered propeller later, the skies are safe for trainee pilots once more.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Aircraft), Activities (Ripping), Espionage (Saboteurs)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 931: THE HEATER

    (Silver Streak Comics 010, 1941)

    Having so recently weathered the cold-based threat of the Wingers, the US aviation community is now faced with another elemental enemy in the form of the Heater, a mysterious plane that is attacking aircraft with a heat ray. Cloud Curtis, self-appointed defender of the airways, is of course keenly interested in this development.

    Unlike the Wingers, the Heater’s motivations are never explored. They could be spies, territorial smugglers, extortionists like their predecessors, any number of things. And yes: despite being a group of at least four men they are called the Heater singular, probably because it is the plane that is being referred to rather than the gang inside of it.

    Cloud Curtis’ first attempt to stop the Heater is stymied when they melt the grappling arms right off of his Golden Bullet. This marks the second out of two times that his signature move (grab ahold of a plane and then personally board it and punch everyone out) has been stymied by these uncouth plane gangs.

    Thankfully for Curtis and the other denizens of the skies, while he was trading bullets for heat ray blasts his ally Pop Whistler was back at their home base inventing a new type of plastic that not is only heatproof but reflects heat back at its source. Once the Golden Bullet is coated in this material it is a simple matter of engaging the Heater in another dogfight and they are soon treated to a dose of their own incendiary medicine.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Aircraft & Rays), Elements (Fire), Murder

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 539 UPDATE: THE CLAW (1941 PART 1: THE CLAW VS DAREDEVIL)

    The Claw simply has too many appearances in 1941 and if we covered them all in one post it would be exceptionally long. Thus, we are breaking things up into three chunks. The first and longest of these chunks concerns the Claw battling his most famous opponent, the Daredevil, across five issues of Silver Streak Comics.

    The Claw is now firmly established as being based in Tibet and he has a brand new headquarters: a cool skull-shaped castle. He also has a new goal, to invade and conquer the United States, and to that end he uses a combination of a drilling machine and the labour of his horde of undifferentiated fanatical Asian followers (a hoary old racist trope when this comic was published in 1941 and one that crops up again to this day). I was all set to clown on the Claw for going under the Atlantic rather than the Pacific but then I checked on a map and it seems that it is in fact 5000 km shorter to go that way.

    The Claw’s initial approach to conquering the US is to use simple shock and awe to cow the nation into surrender. He attacks New York City in his giant form and employs an underground generator to fire lightning bolts from his fingers in a way that I don’t quite understand. Is the Claw shooting lightning and the generator merely draws it downward or is the generator solely responsible for the bolts? Either way, New York takes a real beating – so much so that the next issue features a short segment on how it gets put back together again.

    It is at this point that the Daredevil, long established as a New Yorker, steps in. He busts up the lightning generator and beats up the ground troops that the Claw had sent in to pillage the town, then engages the Claw himself. This first battle between them ends when a temporarily-ingested Daredevil drops a stick of dynamite down the Claw’s throat and the villain retreats in a puff of smoke.

    The Claw returns Silver Streak Comics 008 with the maximum degree of subtlety that he appears to be capable of exercising. In an excellent initial plan, he mind control the President (and possibly other government officials) and begins shaping government policy through him. The only major flaw in this plan is the fact that the Claw is constitutionally unable to operate at anything but full throttle, and so he essentially speedruns totalitarianism with a series of reforms designed to impoverish the nation and curtail personal freedom.

    It is only at the point that armed guards are preventing people from going to church that the Daredevil once again takes a hand and exposes the fact that FDR is a mind-controlled thrall. The reins of government are passed off to the Vice-President – presumably Henry A. Wallace, given the publication date – and the Claw is so annoyed by this that he has his men begin to systematically loot US cities including Boston, Philadelphia and Washington.

    Daredevil manages to play on the Claw’s pride and goad him into single combat at a normal human size, which ends in the Claw being beaten up so badly that he is no longer able to access his powers and is easily slung into jail.

    Silver Streak Comics 009: With the Claw in jail, powerless and scheduled for execution in one week’s time, Bart “the Daredevil” Hill decides that, having saved the entire nation on two separate occasions, it’s high time that he take a vacation. So resolved, he hops a yacht for the South Seas and some fishing.

    This proves to be a grave mistake, as the charge of the electric chair is just what the Claw needs to be revitalized. In short order, he breaks jail and sets out with his fellow prisoners, now joined up with him as a criminal army, to make yet another attempt to take over the US. 

    The Claw and his new followers retreat to an extinct volcano in the Rockies and there found a criminal city, which is a concept that I personally have a great deal of affection for and am very pleased whenever I encounter. There, the Claw develops another comic book classic, the engine-killing ray, and uses it to systematically lure and capture US military aircraft until he holds absolute air superiority over the North American continent.

    (about here is when Daredevil II, aka Bart Hill’s unnamed and unmourned brother, makes his run at the Claw and is moderately ceremoniously killed)

    Using his overwhelming air might, the Claw forces the US – possibly still under Vice-Presidential control, which would go far to help FDR’s legacy in light of what happens next – to surrender to his rule. The newly-proclaimed Emperor of America is without effective opposition, having captured the original Daredevil when he deigned to return from his vacation. The modest crime city in the Rockies grows into a bustling new capitol city of the USA over the multiple months that the Claw is in control of the country.

    Having achieved his goal, the Claw enacts a nationwide search for an appropriate consort, finally settling on a luckless young woman to be his unwilling Empress of America. This backfires almost immediately, as the new Empress uses the freedom of her position to sabotage the execution of Daredevil and then escape with him on a handy motorcycle.

    Daredevil returns, of course, and in swift order tricks the Claw into stomping his foot hard enough to set off the dormant volcano under his city, thus destroying it, his criminal army and seemingly himself (and probably a lot of political prisoners and rejected Empress of America candidates, too). The Nation is safe!

    Silver Streak Comics 011: Having repeatedly met defeat at the hands of one man, the Claw grows somewhat discouraged and so turns to the dark arts for aid, and specifically turns to the “genii” Lucifer, to whom he claims to have already sold his soul. A few things about all this:

    Why call him a genii and not a demon? No idea. If this comic were produced in the mid 50s or the mid 80s I might say that it was an attempt to avoid the scrutiny of moral crusaders, but nobody else in 1941 is shy about calling a demon a demon.

    Did this Lucifer stuff ever come up before? It did not and furthermore will not come up again. The Claw has used magic in the past, however, so I guess we must assume that he gained that power through selling his soul.

    If Lucifer already has the Claw’s soul then what’s in this deal for him? Lucifer seems to accept the Claw’s proposal out of mere caprice. Perhaps he looks forward to seeing more chaos being inflicted on the world. The only payment he extracts from the Claw is a stipulation that if he does not defeat Daredevil this time then he will be “banished to Asia,” which I read as some sort of mystic travel restriction.

    Flush with new power, the Claw challenges the Daredevil to a battle to the death and enhances the challenge by attacking the country with various demonic genii entities. How can Daredevil hope to prevail?

    With relative ease, as it turns out. The Claw’s monstrous minions might be dangerous but, like all of us,  are vulnerable to the awesome might of an avalanche, while the Claw, weakened and abandoned by his demonic genii ally, once again falls prey to a Daredevil right hook. The Daredevil and the USA are free of the Claw forever!

    (in actuality the Claw and Daredevil meet up one last time, in Daredevil Comics 001, aka Daredevil Battles Hitler, though the Claw never knows that Daredevil is there. In the story, the Claw has made a pact with Hitler to aid the Japanese in their conquest of China and Daredevil employs subterfuge and sabotage to set the two villains against one another. Also, the Claw absolutely returns to the US – I guess that’s what comes of going with a genii instead of a demon for your fell curses)

    And one last thing that didn’t fit anywhere else: though the Claw is a long-time size changer, this is the year that he demonstrates the ability to selectively grow parts of his body, seen here in Silver Streak Comics 009.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 926: THE WINGERS

    (Silver Streak Comics 009, 1941)

    One day while noodling around in his super plane, Cloud Curtis comes across a crashed plane in Death Valley, with near-dead pilot speaking of snow on the wings. What could this mean?

    Cloud and his entourage check in with Mr Richmond, owner of the plane, and find that it is the latest in a series of crashes and disappearances. This is all highly suspicious, and what’s even more suspicious is the brick with a note wrapped around it that comes smashing through the window as they discuss it, containing an extortion demand from a group calling themselves the Wingers (and signed with a cool little winged skull).

    Cloud determines that the surest way to ferret out the Wingers is with a decoy plane that he even goes to the trouble to stuff full of passenger-dummies for some reason. Sure enough, the gang show up in a high-powered plane equipped with what amounts to a snow cannon, which they use to ice up the decoy’s wings. Not only does this explain the “snow in Death Valley” thing, but also the reason why they call themselves the Wingers – because they attack wings!

    The Wingers are admirably well-prepared to deal with Cloud Curtis: their plane is not only bulletproof but treated with some sort of low friction coating that prevents the Golden Bullet’s robot grappling arms from working on it. This comes back to bite them, as Curtis, out of other ideas, just ends up blowing them up with a hand grenade rather than continuing to try to capture them.

    Categorized in: Body (Nonhuman Parts), Extortion (Corporate), Location (Death Valley)

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 078

    Lev Gleason characters for EVERYONE!

    Daredevil **UPDATE**:

    Daredevil had but one appearance in 1940, so it’s no surprise that the character still had some changes and revisions to go once 1941 rolled around. Firstly, his costume gets an update, with yellow swapped out for red and the complicated “DD” design on the abdomen dropped entirely.

    The most dramatic change, however, is that the Daredevil can now talk. Just how Bart Hill’s traumatic muteness was alleviated is unaddressed – I’m sure that the real answer is that it was inconvenient to write around and so was quietly dropped, but imagining that his successful crimefighting career allowed him to let go of the past is nice.

    Finally, Bart is now a wealthy playboy with a fiance (Tonia Saunders) who isn’t too sure about marrying this manchild after all. Thankfully, Tonia discovers the truth about Bart’s double life in her first appearance, because the Clark/Lois dynamic can get a bit tedious when grafted onto every super-hero’s relationship by default.

    Our final update from Silver Streak Comics 007 is this revelation that the Daredevil’s mastery of the boomerang is so complete that, when thrown by the Claw, he can cause his own body to act like one. This here might just be a new contender for inclusion in lists of obscure and ridiculous super powers, folks.

    In Silver Streak Comics 008 & 009, Daredevil employs a couple of high-tech fighter planes called “the Airdevil,” which a top-notch example of a jokey super-accessory name. Both planes are destroyed during Daredevil’s clashes with the Claw, and he seems to have given up on the idea of the custom plane, at least for the year 1941.

    In Silver Streak Comics 015 Daredevil employs a decoy double named Chester to help in the capture of a villain named the Serpent. Who is Chester? No idea. Will he ever return? Probably not.

    Finally, in Daredevil Comics 002, Daredevil engages in what I would say is some Spider-Man style super-hero quipping as he battles this horde of silent men. Not that super-heroes aren’t constantly mouthing off, mind you, but it doesn’t have this kind of flow. I shall be looking out for more of this kind of patter to see how long it takes to become an established thing.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Airplanes), Day Job (Wealthy Socialite)

    Presto Martin: 

    Presto Martin, though voted “Least Likely to Succeed” in college, is now Captain of Detectives in the NYPD. More importantly for our purposes, he is a master of disguise who is for instance more than willing to take the place of a heavyweight boxer in the ring if it means that he can solve a big case. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

    Per Silver Streak Comics 008, Presto is aided in his work by a super-moldable plastic putty of his own concoction.

    Categorized in: Day Job (Police Captain), Powers (Master of Disguise), Team Membership (NYPD)

    Zongar, the Miracle Man:

    Zongar, the Miracle Man, is a functionally-omnipotent magical adventurer like so many of his peers, but rather than casting spells per se Zongar uses a mystical amulet to command the spirit Abaraxx to do his bidding. This might have lead to some interesting developments over time if, for example, a nogoodnik were to get ahold of the amulet but alas, Zongar had only one recorded adventure. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

    Categorized in: Abstract Concepts (Miracles), Accessories (Amulets)

    Cloud Curtis: 

    Dashing young aviator Cloud Curtis has developed the super plane Golden Bullet, which he flies both as a job and against the enemies of the US and which has one of the goofier features of any comic book super plane in the form of that big propeller located halfway down the fuselage. Curtis is assisted by the apelike Crusher McCoy and the avuncular Pop Whistler as he keeps the airways safe from a series of increasingly unlikely airplane-based threats. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

    Categorized in: Accessories (Airplanes), Day Job (Aviators)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 923: PROFESSOR SKINN

    (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

    The Skinn family is being killed off – at least seven of them have been murdered on their birthdays, leaving only the odius Mortimer Skinn, and he soon follows, despite police protection. 

    Boy Inventor Dickie Dean hasn’t been idle while this campaign of murder has been going on: thanks to a surveillance balloon he raised over the town for the purpose, he and his pal Zip Todd are able to track the culprit to his home. There. they learn that he is a blind beggar whom they had prevented Mortimer Skinn from beating some months prior, and that he is in fact Mortimer’s brother and the sole surviving member of the Skinn clan.

    Professor Skinn (unsettling name. unsettling family name) reveals that Mortimer and his other brothers attempted to kill him for his life insurance some years back but had only succeeded in blinding him and leaving him for dead. He spent at least some of the intervening time creating his frankly amazing looking cybernetic eye/helmet and planning a revenge that with the death of Mortimer is complete. And now he’s ready to put his skills to use in the world of crime!

    Dickie rebuffs Skinn’s attempt to recruit him as a partner, so out comes the scalpel, the bone drill and the brain injection fluid, because Professor Skinn is not one to take no for an answer. Dickie Dean is promptly evilized and turned on to the benefits of a life of crime.

    The new super-science criminal duo proceed to create a precious metal-attracting magnet and go ham on the town’s gold supply.

    Fortunately for Dickie’s long-term viability as the lead character in a comic strip, Zip Todd gets himself free after days (weeks?) of imprisonment and turns the tables on Skinn thanks to some lax lab safety procedures that mean there’s just vials of nitroglycerine lying around to grab. Skinn reverses the evilization procedure with a handy ray and is hauled away… FOR NOW.

    (also Skinn is vulnerable to attacks on his enormous weak point, like a video game boss)

    Professor Skinn returns in Silver Streak Comics 008, where he escapes prison with the help of his assistant Blubber’s berserker strength. Please not that the Castleton PD saw fit to take away Skinn’s helmet when they locked him up, thus rendering him blind – I’d call that cruel and unusual punishment.

    Dickie, rightfully concerned about Skinn being on the loose, works on an invention that he can use to counter anything that the Professor throws at him, while Skinn does the same and then forces a confrontation by kidnapping Dickie’s parents.

    It’s a tehnological showdown: disintegrator ray vs invisibility ray, and Dickie’s invisibility gives him just enough of an edge to free his parents and destroy the disintegrator, though he himself is captured in the process.

    Professor Skinn next sets out to loot Castleton again, this time with an army of remote controlled robots, but between Zip Todd (overlooked in the scuffle) leading the entirety of the Castleton PD back to his base and a still-invisible Dickie getting loose and causing a ruckus he and Blubber are ultimately forced to zipline down the mountain to freedom.

    This is enough for Professor Skinn: he challenges Dickie to settle things with a war of inventions via singing telegram.

    Silver Streak Comics 009: the war of inventions kicks off after both parties have had a couple of months to prepare, in a fairly horrific fashion as Professor Skinn shells the Castleton High School.

    After putting some distance between them and their surviving classmates, Dickie and Zip Todd wait out the initial shelling in an impenetrable fort before sallying forth in a similarly impenetrable tank equipped with a force ray cannon. They are accompanied by a squadron of small but mighty robots to counter Skinn’s own robot forces. Skinn, in addition to his mechanical infantry, has an air force comprised of trained, bomb-dropping birds, and is conducting his artillery barrage from a base concealed behind a waterfall. 

    I must say that I was disappointed by Skinn’s use of fairly conventional artillery, but he won me back with the robot army and sea gull air force.  

    Professor Skinn is extracted from behind the waterfall when Dickie uses his force ray to bounce a few artillery shells back to their source, and then makes a bid for victory by having his birds carry off Dickie and Zip while he and Blubber steal Dickie’s super tank. It all ends badly, however, as Professor Skinn and Blubber blow themselves up while trying to activate the force ray. Professor Skinn has finally joined the rest of his family in Hell.

    OR HAS HE? 

    No, it turns out, because Silver Streak Comics 011 features a final appearance in which he attempts to chase Dickie and his pals away from fixing up an abandoned theme park that he has been hiding out in. This is a definite step down for the Professor, from legitimate threat to Scooby-Doo villain.

    Skinn’s main Teen Removal tool in this issue is a very Silver Age vehicle called the Gadget Octopus that is equipped with various gag tentacles (boxing glove tentacle, kicking foot tentacle, net tentacle, kid spanking tentacle etc) as well as a fire cannon for when things get serious.

    Once Dickie gets in a room with him, Professor Skinn is easily captured, as befits his fallen status. He’s taken off to jail once more (hopefully with a better lawyer who can successfully argue against eye confiscation this time) and is never seen again. Did he wisely retire or did the fact that Pennsylvania – where “Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor” is plausibly set – is a death penalty state and Skinn is a multiple murderer come into play? 

    Categorized in: Accessories (Various), Murder (Familicides), Origin (Blind Characters)