The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: submarine captain

  • 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) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 547: THE HOODED TERROR

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 547: THE HOODED TERROR

    (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 to use a periscope while wearing a loose cloth mask over his eyes my one positive note about the Hooded Terror is that he had a real commitment to clear labelling. Never has exposition been handled so seamlessly.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 547: THE HOODED TERROR

    (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 to use a periscope while wearing a loose cloth mask over his eyes my one positive note about the Hooded Terror is that he had a real commitment to clear labelling. Never has exposition been handled so seamlessly.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 518: COMMANDER SOOKA

    (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 accurate, he is some sort of latter-day Greek demigod rather than a man.

    Sooka ends his first encounter with the Phantom Sub with a declaration of vengeance (because they prevented him from blowing up a bunch of civilians, natch), but it is the Phantom Sub who strikes back first: accidentally stumbling upon Sooka’s submarine base, the Sub’s crew teams up with a lifeboat full of survivors of one of his sea raids to destroy the place.

    They manage to blow most of his operation to hell and gone but the issue ends with Sooka and his personal submarine still afloat and making their way through the secret underwater tunnel to the ocean to seek further vengeance. Will Commander Sooka be a persistent thorn in the Phantom Sub’s side going forward?

    The answer is no. Commander Sooka technically has a three issue run but the beginning of the third issue is this here especially-vengeful survivor successfully collapsing his own undersea tunnel on his head. In the end Commander Sooka was merely fodder for an easy but meaningless cliffhanger ending.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 426: THE RED RAIDER

    (Keen Detective Funnies v2 021, 1940)

    A simple but effective origin story: The captain of a German Mergan submarine becomes obsessed with death and destruction and goes rogue, preying on Axis and Allied shipping alike and replacing the flag of Nazi Germany Zani Mergany* with the skull and crossbones. Suddenly, the threat of war is a threat to all seagoing vessels!

    The Red Raider (technically the name of the submarine but I stand firm in my conviction that the name of a super-vehicle can logically be applied to its owner if they have no codename of their own) has a relatively short reign of terror before he is socked in the jaw by the Masked Marvel and hot damn is “So, you think you can machine gun the Masked Marvel?” a cool toughguy line to say just before taking down the villain and his whole operation.

    *okay I made up Zani but the rest is real

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 426: THE RED RAIDER

    (Keen Detective Funnies v2 021, 1940)

    A simple but effective origin story: The captain of a German Mergan submarine becomes obsessed with death and destruction and goes rogue, preying on Axis and Allied shipping alike and replacing the flag of Nazi Germany Zani Mergany* with the skull and crossbones. Suddenly, the threat of war is a threat to all seagoing vessels!

    The Red Raider (technically the name of the submarine but I stand firm in my conviction that the name of a super-vehicle can logically be applied to its owner if they have no codename of their own) has a relatively short reign of terror before he is socked in the jaw by the Masked Marvel and hot damn is “So, you think you can machine gun the Masked Marvel?” a cool toughguy line to say just before taking down the villain and his whole operation.

    *okay I made up Zani but the rest is real

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 322: THE BARRACUDA

    (Daring Mystery Comics 008, 1942)

    A certain number of uboat captains are going to be written villainously enough to meet all of my criteria and Captain Erich von Wolff, AKA the Barracuda, is one such.

    Like seriously a real stinker of the highest order. It’s a good thing that the Fin is on the case to beat the tar out of him and deliver him to the British. I was going to say that hopefully he was tried and executed after the war but some cursory research suggests that u-boat commanders who weren’t killed in battle largely weren’t. I’m sure he had a long career as an investment banker or something.