The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: DC Comics

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 075: “UNCLE”

    (Adventure Comics 057, 1940)

    As I’ve said before, sometimes a character is very clearly a super-villain but chooses no name for themself, in which case for administrative purposes I pick something that the text boxes or other characters refer to them as and go with that. Scientists are usually easy – they just go by their name. This fellow, on the other hand, is basically only ever referred to as “Uncle,” so Uncle I call him.

    And Uncle is a credible threat! He tries to ransom the world by threatening to destroy it by knocking it off of its orbit, then actually tries to do it in a fit of pique – it’s only the timely intervention of Sandman that saves the day.

    In the last entry, when I was talking about mad scientists as perfect characters to bring back as reformed? This is the kind of guy I had in mind. What a gift to a cast!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 074: DR TOGG

    (Adventure Comics 057, 1940)

    Yet another Hourman science-villain. Dr Togg was really into hybridizing dogs and buzzards in various fun ways. Such a cool guy was he, in fact, that he was brought back as an ancillary character in the 90s Hourman series, himself mutated into a partial dog/buzzard in a retconned final encounter with Hourman before he was sent to prison.

    Thinking about him (and fellow Hourman foe Iker in about 50 entries or so), has made me realize just how much I love the concept of the reformed mad scientist with their struggles to comprehend scientific ethics and their weird little mutations and leftover minions. A few recent Marvel series have featured the concept but I would still consider it to be underutilized.

    There’s our guy.


  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 074: DR TOGG

    (Adventure Comics 057, 1940)

    Yet another Hourman science-villain. Dr Togg was really into hybridizing dogs and buzzards in various fun ways. Such a cool guy was he, in fact, that he was brought back as an ancillary character in the 90s Hourman series, himself mutated into a partial dog/buzzard in a retconned final encounter with Hourman before he was sent to prison.

    Thinking about him (and fellow Hourman foe Iker in about 50 entries or so), has made me realize just how much I love the concept of the reformed mad scientist with their struggles to comprehend scientific ethics and their weird little mutations and leftover minions. A few recent Marvel series have featured the concept but I would still consider it to be underutilized.

    There’s our guy.


  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 073: DR SLIGHT

    (Adventure Comics 056, 1940_

    Dr Slight is similar to Dr Snegg, in that he is a scientist-villain with a method for bringing inanimate statues to life for crime purposes who is stopped by Hourman. But Dr Slight brings *plaster* statues to life, not wax ones.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 073: DR SLIGHT

    (Adventure Comics 056, 1940_

    Dr Slight is similar to Dr Snegg, in that he is a scientist-villain with a method for bringing inanimate statues to life for crime purposes who is stopped by Hourman. But Dr Slight brings *plaster* statues to life, not wax ones.

  • NOTES: JULY 2022

    Costumes: All-Star 005 features the debut of Hawkgirl, and a stunning revelation about her and (presumably) Hawkman’s costumes:

    the green part ain’t tights it’s boots! 

  • NOTES: JULY 2022

    Costumes: All-Star 005 features the debut of Hawkgirl, and a stunning revelation about her and (presumably) Hawkman’s costumes:

    the green part ain’t tights it’s boots! 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 072: THE GREAT I

    (Adventure Comics 052-054, 1940)

    A properly fun invisible villain, finally! In order:

    -great hat, great mustache

    -has to get nude

    -filled with hubris vis-à-vis just how much you can get done just by being invisible (world conquest?)

    Although to that last point they (they being heroic boxer Socko Strong) had to set a trap to electrocute him in order to stop him.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 071: DR SNEGG

    (Adventure Comics 051-052, 1940)

    Snegg’s your classic villain who can’t handle the thought of revising a plan. In his first appearance he animates a trio of crime boss statues from a wax museum to serve him as henchmen and then, having been foiled once by Hourman, he tosses the whole idea of animated wax out the window to indulge in hypnotism-based crime. If he hadn’t died in a car accident he might be thinking up new implausible schemes to this day.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 070: THE TIGER-MEN

    (Adventure Comics 049, 1940) 

    The Tiger-Men are… contextually villains, I guess, in that they do arson and murder and are opposed by hero Steve Conrad.

    They are ALSO part of a pattern that emerges if you read a lot of old comics that take place in international locales: the hero rocks up and helps solve a problem between colonizers and the native population and the narrative frames what are usually pretty reasonable demands by the latter as rank villainy.

    In the case of the Tiger-Men, their whole deal is that they are Indians who would please like their land back, if the English plantation owners could be bothered to leave (great violence is meted out to them for this).