The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: DC Comics

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 033: THE ACE OF SPADES

    (Action v1 013, 1939)

    An early example of the principle that if you are friends with a comic book hero you have a high chance of either being the victim of a super-crook or being one yourself, the Ace of Spades is just some guy Tex Thomson made friends with on a ship and mooched houseguest status off of.

    He’s also a very local super-villain, being a guy with an English country estate who seems to spend his time shaking down his neighbours. Dig the accessorizing of the standard Mysterious Hooded Villain outfit with the pith helmet, though.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 032: MADAME KELLY

    (Action v1 011, 1939)

    There are basically three levels of Zatara enemy: unpowered crooks such as the Tigress (MSV 019) or the Ghost (MSV 021) or a million gangsters over the years who are wildly outclassed and only have a chance if they manage to get the jump on him; villains of roughly equal or even greater power to him such as the Mad Lama (MSV 031) and finally folks like the Mad Lama’s minions: armed with one really good trick that can give them a situational edge against him. The latter are generally the most entertaining, as rather than toying with them like a mouse or bringing all he resources to bear on a genuine threat, he is often forced to take some time to figure out what’s going on. Which brings us to Madame Kelly.

    Madame Kelly is a magic-using spy who wears cute outfits while trying to steal some defense plans that are being transported by cruise ship. Her only demonstrated power is to summon an illusory ghost, which she uses as a distraction while she hunts for her target below decks. Zatara spends a fair bit of the story stumped because he can’t banish what isn’t actually a ghost. It’s fun stuff! They should BRING HER BACK

    ADDENDUM: Gentle reader, I present to you the sea-ghost of Madame Kelly:

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 031: THE MAD LAMA

    (Action v1 009, 1939)

    In a fairly typical display of respect for the Tibetan peoples and their religion, the Mad Lama is a ruthless villain bent on world domination. Presumably he achieved his powers through rigid dedication to the popular “evil” style of Tibetan Buddhism.

    The Lama himself doesn’t get to do much other than bloviate for a while before being incinerated in a magic duel with Zatara, so the most interesting thing about him is the fact that he gathered up a cadre of other villains to help him out, a move that I dearly love as it supplies me with more weird little guys to know about.

    Pictured from left to right (after the Mad Lama, of course) above are:

    -Monsieur Henri, a Frenchman able to conjure illusory mists

    -Lalla Gor, probably meant to be Indian but they just kind of spammed syllables to make foreign names back in the day, able to summon an army of phantom warriors

    –the Tigress, our very own MSV 019 in her first turn as another villain’s henchman (she abandons the Lama to team up with Zatara pretty quickly)

    -Zatara, posing as Major Lee, an Englishman of unknown abilities

    -some bald guy

    The Mad Lama gets mentioned every time someone talks about Zatara’s early career in a comic – he came up a couple of times when Zatanna was on her Dad-quest in the 60s, for example – but I don’t reckon he ever recovered from his incineration to actually come back again.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 031: THE MAD LAMA

    (Action v1 009, 1939)

    In a fairly typical display of respect for the Tibetan peoples and their religion, the Mad Lama is a ruthless villain bent on world domination. Presumably he achieved his powers through rigid dedication to the popular “evil” style of Tibetan Buddhism.

    The Lama himself doesn’t get to do much other than bloviate for a while before being incinerated in a magic duel with Zatara, so the most interesting thing about him is the fact that he gathered up a cadre of other villains to help him out, a move that I dearly love as it supplies me with more weird little guys to know about.

    Pictured from left to right (after the Mad Lama, of course) above are:

    -Monsieur Henri, a Frenchman able to conjure illusory mists

    -Lalla Gor, probably meant to be Indian but they just kind of spammed syllables to make foreign names back in the day, able to summon an army of phantom warriors

    –the Tigress, our very own MSV 019 in her first turn as another villain’s henchman (she abandons the Lama to team up with Zatara pretty quickly)

    -Zatara, posing as Major Lee, an Englishman of unknown abilities

    -some bald guy

    The Mad Lama gets mentioned every time someone talks about Zatara’s early career in a comic – he came up a couple of times when Zatanna was on her Dad-quest in the 60s, for example – but I don’t reckon he ever recovered from his incineration to actually come back again.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 030: DR KICHUNG

    (Action v1 008-009, 1939)

    Dr Kichung menaced Tex Thomson for a couple of issues in a fairly standard scientist-who-puts-human-brains-into-apes kind of way until the local apes, sick of his malarky, killed him dead. I really liked his apes though. They had gravitas.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 028: CARL KRUGER

    (Detective v1 033, 1939)

    Carl here is a scientist who is obsessed with Napoleon, something that people used to be when there weren’t so many fictional characters to be consumed with – heck, he appears only a few months before the Joker begins his slow crawl to being the one a weird loner would be pictured dressing up as while he makes his Important Plans.

    Since Carl was a scientist he recruited a cabal of other scientists to help him make war machines and since he was a Napoleon Head he recruited an army of dudes and together these formed the backbone of his world domination scheme until he was unexpectedly Batmanned.

    The real notable thing about Carl is that he was basically the last villain that Batman fought before he stopped killing people. In fact, Batman (by my count) kills the most people in this incident: at least 14, including Carl himself!

    ADDENDUM: I was wrong about the “stopped killing people” part because I had a Fan Theory about how Batman stopped killing about the same time he adopted Robin. The major flaw in this Fan Theory was that Batman and Robin kept on killing people.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 028: CARL KRUGER

    (Detective v1 033, 1939)

    Carl here is a scientist who is obsessed with Napoleon, something that people used to be when there weren’t so many fictional characters to be consumed with – heck, he appears only a few months before the Joker begins his slow crawl to being the one a weird loner would be pictured dressing up as while he makes his Important Plans.

    Since Carl was a scientist he recruited a cabal of other scientists to help him make war machines and since he was a Napoleon Head he recruited an army of dudes and together these formed the backbone of his world domination scheme until he was unexpectedly Batmanned.

    The real notable thing about Carl is that he was basically the last villain that Batman fought before he stopped killing people. In fact, Batman (by my count) kills the most people in this incident: at least 14, including Carl himself!

    ADDENDUM: I was wrong about the “stopped killing people” part because I had a Fan Theory about how Batman stopped killing about the same time he adopted Robin. The major flaw in this Fan Theory was that Batman and Robin kept on killing people.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 027: SKULL-FACE

    (Detective v1 032, 1939)

    Skull-Face is a villain I love. He looks, predictably, like a guy with a skull-face, yet he runs a “beauty cult” which might just be a very intense spa? Whatever it is, he steals all of his clients’/ congregants’ money and then kills them with a special drug that makes them drown themselves/ have heart attacks. And he’s very proud of his villainy, which I love. Other salient Skull-Face features:

    -caveman butler named Sam

    -underground, partially-flooded castle in Maine

    -leaves tiny ivory skull as a calling card at the scene of his victims’ deaths, thus undermining his own careful planning of natural-seeming causes

    -hunted by the swimsuit-clad sister of one of his victims

    -despite living in a partially-flooded castle, cannot swim and thus drowns at the end of the story

    Just a really good weirdo villain who they should BRING BACK.

    EDIT TO ADD: Hadn’t really thought about what role Skull-Face would fill in the modern DCU but upon 5 minutes reflection you could absolutely make him the head of a beauty product Multi-Level Marketing scheme and keep everything else the same. 

    SECOND EDIT:

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5 Pretty skully but also unsettlingly fleshy.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 027: SKULL-FACE

    (Detective v1 032, 1939)

    Skull-Face is a villain I love. He looks, predictably, like a guy with a skull-face, yet he runs a “beauty cult” which might just be a very intense spa? Whatever it is, he steals all of his clients’/ congregants’ money and then kills them with a special drug that makes them drown themselves/ have heart attacks. And he’s very proud of his villainy, which I love. Other salient Skull-Face features:

    -caveman butler named Sam

    -underground, partially-flooded castle in Maine

    -leaves tiny ivory skull as a calling card at the scene of his victims’ deaths, thus undermining his own careful planning of natural-seeming causes

    -hunted by the swimsuit-clad sister of one of his victims

    -despite living in a partially-flooded castle, cannot swim and thus drowns at the end of the story

    Just a really good weirdo villain who they should BRING BACK.

    EDIT TO ADD: Hadn’t really thought about what role Skull-Face would fill in the modern DCU but upon 5 minutes reflection you could absolutely make him the head of a beauty product Multi-Level Marketing scheme and keep everything else the same. 

    SECOND EDIT:

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5 Pretty skully but also unsettlingly fleshy.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 026: THE MONK

    (Detective v1 031-032, 1939)

    The only reason this guy’s minor is that Batman shoots him dead in 1939. I know he’s made a few reappearances over the years but mostly they’re retellings of that first story. Also I guess they’re calling him the Mad Monk now? Weird.

    My point is that Batman deserves a vampire nemesis so they should BRING HIM BACK.

    ADDENDUM: it’s very strange to me that in Batman: Red Rain it’s Dracula who vampires Batman and not the Monk, an established vampiric Bat-villain.