The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Fawcett Comics

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 881: THE TIGRESS

    (Spy Smasher 002, 1941)

    After the heady times of having an actual Nazi agent in the person of the Red Death last time, we are back in the realms of plausible deniability and no-name fascism in the person of the Tigress.

    Though the Tigress does indulge in some activities relating to her chosen theme, including somewhat gruesomely using her two trained tigers for corpse-disposal duties, her main line is in murdering US officials such as Senator Whitney here and then substituting her own disguised men for them.

    The Tigress’ latest plot involves replacing influential politicians such as  the aforementioned Senator Whitney and his co-Senator Burke here in order to influence the vote on something called the “South American Fortification Bill” and presumably then arrange an invasion of the US from the South. Luckily for Senator Burke, Spy Smasher was on hand for the assassination of Senator Whitney and where he failed to prevent that he is able to keep Burke from dying to an exploding cigar and having “Died due to Prank” engraved on his tombstone.

    Despite being prevented from murdering Senator Burke, the Tigress is still one step ahead of Spy Smasher, having had the foresight to station a couple of fake cops at the hotel where the assassination was to take place. They “take him into custody” right into the Tigress’ clutches, where she reveals that the next stage of her plan is to make up one of her guys into a fake Spy Smasher and use him to kidnap Admiral Corby, who will in turn be impersonated as part of the larger plot.

    Long-time readers may recognize where the Tigress’ plan goes awry: locking the hero in a supposedly inescapable deathtrap – in this case a room containing two tigers – and then failing to confirm that it worked is a sure-fire recipe for an alive hero.

    Having successfully escaped, Spy Smasher shows up in his Gyro-Sub just in time to save Admiral and Eve Corby from being flung to their dooms from a high cliff in what looks like a more public area than I personally would choose to murder someone who I hoped to replace with a double, but then again who am I to argue with the future… Dictatoress of America?

    Everything wraps up fairly quickly after this: the fake Spy Smasher meets the hero imposter’s frequent end as he is shot by mistake in the melee and the Tigress and her remaining men are rounded up (the Tigress’ vest also comes open in the scuffle and I have to assume that someone at Fawcett HQ declared the sight of her bare sternum to be too sexy, because that is clearly a retroactively-applied yellow shirt).

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 880: THE RED DEATH

    (Spy Smasher 002, 1941)

    Spy Smasher occupies a niche in the crimefighting community: he smashes spies, and since he also stars in a comic book, the spies he smashes adopt increasingly baroque themes as time goes on. Take the Red Death, a master spy who also dresses like a skeleton man out of an Edgar Allen Poe story, and who also happens to be the only one of Spy Smasher’s 1941 foes to creep far enough over the line of plausible deniability that I’d call him an outright Nazi. It’s the swastika on the forehead what does it, even if that’s just an affectation for splash page drama.

    The Red Death is in fact such a feared figure in military/ espionage circles that a General Noosan calls a meeting to brief various high-ups about the possibility that he may have made his way to the US, which he certainly has because he crashes the get-together about one minute after it begins. 

    Both General Noosan and the Red Death himself do a little oblique name dropping (“just look what he did to France, Norway, Poland… and others!”) to indicate that the Red Death is responsible for the Nazi successes of World War II, though the Red Death throws in a reference to Russia that Noosan leaves out –  perhaps Noosan has a better idea of how the Siege of Moscow will turn out than the Read Death does.

    Oddly, though Noosan is the one who called the meeting to discuss the Red Death’s presence in the US he is also the one to be so skeptical about the identity of the skeleton-faced man who just burst into the room that he ends up serving as an example of the villain’s signature weapon: a deadly gas that is also called the Red Death and which turns its victims a stylish red as they die.

    It is at this point that Spy Smasher shows up and rescues the remaining officials, though the Red Death and his cronies get away.

    (bonus Looming Spectre of Death image featuring the Red Death as Death and also a reappearance of the telltale swastika)

    Spy Smasher attempts to infiltrate the Red Death’s organization and learn his plans by posing as a low-level henchman named Mousey. He is successful insomuch as he does learn that the Red Death is going to subject the population of NYC to his gas by bombing them with it, but this is leavened by the fact that he has to get himself captured along the way.

    Spy Smasher is left behind to suffer in the knowledge that he was unable to save NYC, only to be set free by an abused Red Death henchman named Hermann, proving once again that it doesn’t pay to be a bad boss, even in the supercrime game.

    Spy Smasher makes his way onto the Red Death’s bomber thanks to his Gyro-Sub’s superior airspeed and engages the entire plane in a fistfight that doesn’t have time to resolve before the rack of Red Death bombs break loose and start stinking up the joint. Spy Smasher escapes but the Red Death and his cronies die to their own gas as the bomber crashes just off the shore of Liberty Island, which is probably symbolic somehow.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 879: THE DARK ANGEL

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 879: THE DARK ANGEL

    (Spy Smasher 001, 1941)

    We’ve entered 1941 and the crypto-fascist spies are getting closer and closer to being just plain old Nazis. Case in point: the Dark Angel, a classic femme fatale spy with just enough plausible deniability to satisfy comics’ compulsion to stay just barely technically politically neutral. 

    The Dark Angel’s name might be straight out of the mid-90s but her plans are 1941 all the way down. As the story opens she is sending two of her men to blow up a bridge and a factory and a bunch of soldiers, never imagining that Spy Smasher already has a comfortable vantage point to watch her give orders and thus is perfectly able to foil her schemes.

    Not one to wallow in defeat, the Dark Angel manages to turn the tables on Spy Smasher by discovering his secret identity* of Allan Armstrong and ambushing him in his own home. It’s honestly an impressive feat for a first-time-on-the-page villain!

    *well, technically one of her minions goes out and discovers it but if “employing competent henchmen” isn’t a key skill that many villains lack then what is it.

    A combination of sadism and unrequited love/lust inspires the Dark Angel to keep Spy Smasher alive with the knowledge that she and her men are off to assassinate the President rather than execute him immediately. Unfortunately for her/ luckily for Spy Smasher, she isn’t completely infallible in her choices of henchmen, as seen in the person of chosen Spy Smasher guard Fritzy, a drunken oaf who passes out almost immediately and whose body furnishes Spy Smasher with the knife he needs in order to escape.

    Though the Dark Angel and her guys get inside the White House with shocking ease, only to find not Franklin Delano Roosevelt but Spy Alan Smasher sitting in the President’s official comfy chair. Dark Angel and her guys are swiftly rounded up and chucked in jail and the fact that she and at least one of the guys knows his secret identity is just kind of ignored.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 879: THE DARK ANGEL

    (Spy Smasher 001, 1941)

    We’ve entered 1941 and the crypto-fascist spies are getting closer and closer to being just plain old Nazis. Case in point: the Dark Angel, a classic femme fatale spy with just enough plausible deniability to satisfy comics’ compulsion to stay just barely technically politically neutral. 

    The Dark Angel’s name might be straight out of the mid-90s but her plans are 1941 all the way down. As the story opens she is sending two of her men to blow up a bridge and a factory and a bunch of soldiers, never imagining that Spy Smasher already has a comfortable vantage point to watch her give orders and thus is perfectly able to foil her schemes.

    Not one to wallow in defeat, the Dark Angel manages to turn the tables on Spy Smasher by discovering his secret identity* of Allan Armstrong and ambushing him in his own home. It’s honestly an impressive feat for a first-time-on-the-page villain!

    *well, technically one of her minions goes out and discovers it but if “employing competent henchmen” isn’t a key skill that many villains lack then what is it.

    A combination of sadism and unrequited love/lust inspires the Dark Angel to keep Spy Smasher alive with the knowledge that she and her men are off to assassinate the President rather than execute him immediately. Unfortunately for her/ luckily for Spy Smasher, she isn’t completely infallible in her choices of henchmen, as seen in the person of chosen Spy Smasher guard Fritzy, a drunken oaf who passes out almost immediately and whose body furnishes Spy Smasher with the knife he needs in order to escape.

    Though the Dark Angel and her guys get inside the White House with shocking ease, only to find not Franklin Delano Roosevelt but Spy Alan Smasher sitting in the President’s official comfy chair. Dark Angel and her guys are swiftly rounded up and chucked in jail and the fact that she and at least one of the guys knows his secret identity is just kind of ignored.

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 021

    DIVINE ROUND-UP 021

    Just scads of gods.

    Yum Chac: 

    These Mayan priests have tied a recent drought to some archaeological excavations in the Yucatan and have decided that the only thing for it is to revive the practice of human sacrifice to Yum Chac, aka just Chac, god of rain. They of course do this just in time for Zambini the Miracle Man to show up and wreck their whole operation.

    The really interesting thing about this whole episode is that it takes place at a site called “Hichen-Citza” and let me tell you that it’s this sort of thing that really shakes my confidence with regard to my knowledge of just when and why Golden Age comic book creators did these cute little place name substitutions. Surely there was no concern that an ancient or present-day Mayan might get upset by this depiction of their city but not, say their god? Or maybe I should just look back on the whole Egyptasia thing and conclude that “Zambini” scribe Joe Blair just really liked making up silly names for real places.

    (also the high priest is named “Macchu Pacchu,” which again seems to just be Blair having fun with names)

    El Castillo, the temple of Kukulcan also features, and evidently drawn from an old reference photo from back when the sides were still covered in vegetation. 

    God Style: Idol (Real Pantheon) (Zip Comics 008, 1940) 

    the Moon Orchid:

    I frequently like to point out when Golden Age explorers are just blithely waltzing into religious sites and stealing their sacred relics even in the face of stiff and reasonable resistance from the faithful, but this one is pretty beyond the pale. While most of the others at least attempt to adopt a pretense of respectability by claiming to be thieving for anthropological or other scientific reasons, Congo Bill and his pal Professor Kent are explicitly heading into the jungle to steal the Mesabi tribe’s sacred Moon Orchid so that they can sell it for big bucks.

    And steal it they do! And what’s worse: they blow up the entire Mesabi village in the process, so it’s not just sacrilege but mass murder. Worth it for that sweet orchid money, I guess.

    God Style: Animist (More Fun Comics 066, 1941) 

    Ozaz: 

    Adventurer Steve Conrad is on vacation in Egypt when he stumbles upon a weird cult looking to do a blood transfusion from a living woman into a mummy queen in order to bring her back to life and usher in a new age of the Pharaohs. Presumably this bunch worship all of your standard Ancient Egyptian gods, but they don’t name-drop any specific ones, until Steve fumbles his rescue attempt and is slated to be sacrificed to… 

    OZAZ THE FIRE GOD! Possessed of a pretty good name and nothing else, Ozaz is a made-up god who seems to have the head of a bird and whose statue is perfectly placed to topple over and kill the cultists when Steve’s assistant Chang opens the trap door underneath it. Too bad for Ozaz (no sacrifice today) and the Pharaoh cult (crushed to death).

    God Style: Idol (Real Pantheon) (Adventure Comics 063, 1941)

    Pyro:

    Worshipped by the Center People of Asteroid Djung, Pyro is a simple god: he hungers for sacrifice and he wants it via his sacred lava pit. 

    God Style: Invoked (Master Comics 019, 1941) 

  • NOTES – NOVEMBER 2025

    Honours – Captain Marvel: 

    Not only does Billy Batson win the award for Outstanding Radio Work of the Year, but he has his ver own fan club! (Whiz Comics 015, 1941) 

    Honours – Smasher Spy:

    Spy Smasher, turned evil and sometimes but mostly not known as Smasher Spy, is doing such a good job of sabotaging America that he is offered a medal and a position from the euphemistically-named War Lord by two Nazi stereotypes. If there’s one thing that Smasher Spy is, however, it’s an equal-opportunity hater, and he rejects a fascist government just as vociferously as a democratic one. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

    Super-Heroes Attending Costume Parties as Themselves: 

    Not only does Captain Marvel attend this party as himself but Billy Batson also came in just his street clothes and a mask. The height of arrogance for a young celebrity, and a radio-based one at that! 

    Please also note the horrible off-brand Mickey Mouse costume worn by Billy’s assistant Whitey Murphy. (Whiz Comics 023, 1941)

  • DIVINE ROUND-UP 020

    Human sacrifice is the order of the day with this bunch of deific bad-boys. 

    Shem: 

    Shem, the Sun God, is worshipped in the Land of Shem by the Shemmites, aka the Men of Shem. It’s a very well-branded religion. 

    The Shemmites capture and attempt to sacrifice Kalthar, king of the jungle, but fail to reckon with his tendency to grow to fifteen feet tall and be invulnerable to harm, and are ultimately driven from their lands. 

    God Style: Invoked (Zip Comics 004, 1940) 

    Marro: 

    When the Three Aces set out into the Amazon jungle to investigate rumours of an ancient flying machine they end up discovering a lost colony of Atlantis for the second time in their careers – an astonishing hit rate (though their memories were wiped after leaving the first one and a language barrier probably prevented them from knowing about the Atlantis connection this time, if we’re going to be scrupulously accurate). Upon arriving, they are immediately captured and prepared for sacrifice to the Atlanteans’ god Marro. 

    Luckily for the three aviators, Marro turns out to be the very ancient aircraft they seek, sealed against the ravages of time in a glass dome. They manage to convince the Atlanteans to not sacrifice them if they can make the god fly again as it did in their legends, and being the expert fliers that they are, the Aces pull it off without a hitch. 

    God Style: Animist (Action Comics v1 043, 1941)

    Moloch: 

    The set up for this is a bit convoluted, but here goes: an anthropologist named Dr Chadwick is showing Zero, the Ghost Detective a weird skull that he dug up in Egypt one day when the ghost of the skull’s former owner shows up to take it back, and makes off with Chadwick’s daughter, to boot. Zero pursues the ghost back to Egypt and through a portal to Ancient Egypt, where he finds himself in a temple to Moloch and learns that the skull had been stuffed full of jewels sacred to the god. Zero manages to escape back to the 20th Century with the girl but wisely leaves the jewels behind.

    There is of course a lot of business involving human sacrifice to Moloch via the white hot hands of his idol, and while Moloch himself only shows up in the form of the idol the question remains: just who is raising all these ghosts and powering this time portal?

    God Style: Idol (Real?) (Feature Comics 041, 1941)

    the “Monster-God”: 

    The Monster-God is not this fellow’s name. We never learn what, in fact, it is, because the adventure he appears in is another boilerplate heroic-white-explorers-versus-evil-native-heathens adventure, handled with all of Fawcett Comics’ trademark cultural sensitivity. I include him only for completions’ sake and to point out that I like how gangly he is.

    God Style: Idol (Whiz Comics 006, 1940)

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 019

    For various definitions of the word real. 

    Adolf Hitler: 

    Just why this nonsense-language-speaking pilot henchman of the Mask is named Reltih is a mystery, but it’s also a fact. BONUS VERY ANNOYING THING: I can decipher the nonsense in that second panel as “I’ll murder the bum” but this makes me think that I should be able to do the same with the rest of his half-dozen or so lines of dialogue but I can’t. Utterly vexing!

    The Mask also employs an English-speaker with the very annoying name of Inilossom in the same issue. (Whiz Comics 010, 1940)

    Here’s straightforward Hitler analog King Rodend of Kalnar about to be beaten up by the Flame. (Wonderworld Comics 011, 1940)

    Wretched humour comic “Don Quixote in Modern Times” features villain “Adolphus Stalini”. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940)  

    Devil’s Island: 

    Newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day covers a prisoner’s revolt on the penal colony in what might just be the least sympathetic portrayal of Devil’s Island in comics. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    J. Edgar Hoover:

    Minor appearances: 

    Whiz Comics 003a, 1940 

    Whiz Comics 005, 1940 

    John Galt: 

    File this one under “amazing coincidences”. A character named John Galt, a full seventeen years before Atlas Shrugged is published. And to top it off:

    Dr John Galt’s radium has been stolen by Dr James Kirk (aka Doctor Death), a full twenty-six years before Star Trek debuts. Would it be a bit more narratively satisfying if John Galt was the selfish shitheel and James Kirk was the selfless hospital administrator? Sure, but that’s just details. (Whiz Comics 002, 1940)

    the Koh-i-Noor Diamond:

    Reporter Scoop Smith is sent on assignment to find the fabled South African Rooirand Emerald, which his editor sees as a direct parallel to the Koh-i-noor. Just how this is the case is what baffles me – I initially thought that it might have been stolen and editor Lane was thinking of the Agatha Christie novel in which that happened, but the more I look at it the more I think that it’s just a big gem that some white guys are trying to steal. 

    (this story also has one of the more stupid desus ex machina endings in all comics, when the sacred snake handler of the isolationist tribe that worship the emerald turns out to be Sam Jones, African American train porter and eternally loyal to Smith because of a five dollar tip) (Whiz Comics 004, 1940) 

    Lázaro Cárdenas del Rio: 

    You know me: I love to dunk on old comics for their portrayals of in-office world leaders, and let’s just say that if you look up a picture of Lázaro Cárdenas, president of Mexico from 1934 to November of 1940, he doesn’t have a long white beard. I didn’t bother to check if the President of Mexico has an enormous ornate throne to sit in, but I can only hope. (Whiz Comics 005, 1940)

    Mata Hari: 

    Hundanian spy Mata Dara, the latest in a long line of women in espionage to have a sound-alike name to Mata Hari. (Zip Comics 001, 1940)

    Senusret III: 

    Mentioned as being a cousin of Taia’s in Whiz Comics 002, “King Senwosri” aka Pharaoh Senusret III then makes an appearance in person as he rises from the dead to punish an American explorer for violating the sanctity of his tomb. He returns to his eternal slumber after an intervention by cousin Taia and cousin-in-law Ibis the Invincible. (Whiz Comics 003b, 1940)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940) 

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 022

    The Ethic Committee is going to have a field day.  

    Dr Belos is a single-issue mad scientist: he wants to turn men into birds, and to that end he has set up camp in a place called the Valley of Terror and gotten to work creating surgical chimeras called Vulture Men. His downfall comes about because he kidnaps surgeon Dr D’arne to act as his unwilling assistant, thus causing D’Arne’s daughter to bring in the Flame to help rescue him. 

    Please also note that Belos has a single long fang in place of one of his lower incisors. 

    Despite looking more like human-reptile than human-bird hybrids, the Vulture Men are some classic examples of monstrous humanoid henchmen. They also get mercilessly slaughtered by the Flame instead of perhaps being captured and restored to human form, like so many of the monstrously transformed in comics are. I guess next time they shouldn’t be transformed into bird guys against their wills.

    Though the Flame really wrecks up his operation, Dr Belos’ true nemesis turns out to be the pitching arm of Dr D’Arne, when he flings what is presumably a Vulture Man skull with sufficient force to kill the mad scientist outright. Then the Flame destroys Belos’ dam and floods the Valley of Terror for good measure. (Wonderworld Comics 015, 1940)

    Dr Grant was kicked out of the Scientist’s Society for his theories, and while I always have some sympathy for the villains who are reacting to hidebound thinkers and their ways, one must consider that his response to this slight is to start collapsing bridges with his friction-neutralizing ray. If this is the way that Grant typically escalates conflict, maybe it wasn’t his theories but his interpersonal skills that got him kicked out of the Society in the first place. 

    Grant’s comes into conflict with newsreel camerawoman Patty O’Day and eventually gets shot by Patty’s assistant Ham. (Wonderworld Comics 018, 1940)

    Zarhov is what I would call a pretty mad scientist, who has transformed a lady into a huge apelike creature called Zozo and is now looking to do the same to the daughter of his enemy Dr Carr. Luckily for Carr, he is friends with Yarko the Great (comics are full of older scientists with no wife and one beautiful adult daughter, and they seem to make up 100% of Yarko’s social circle), who manages to baffle Zozo long enough for her monster rage to turn on Zahrov. Zozo gets off lightly compared to fellow transformees like the Vulture Men, because Yarko the Great has the means and inclination to turn her back into a human being. (Wonderworld Comics 020, 1940) 

    Godfrey Calkins, described as a “retired millionaire business man” has an interesting idea that he seems to want to employ for normal, non-criminal means: he wants to freeze people so that they can better withstand the rigours of space travel. A noble goal! The problem lies in his experimental methodology: instead of starting out with animal testing and then perhaps moving on to volunteers, Calkins has decided to move straight to human trials on some kidnapped teenagers. And what’s worse is that he acquires those teenagers by derailing an entire train full of football boosters into a river with the expectation that there would probably be a survivor or two. Truly a wretched man! 

    Luckily for the teens in question, they are Dusty Davis and Janey Smart, classmates and pals of Atom Blake, Boy Wizard, and he soon shows up to beat the tar out of Calkins and his goons and to retrieve and thaw out Janey from the Venus-bound rocket she was already setting out on. No word on what subsequently happened to Calkins – perhaps he had to pay a small fine. (Wow Comics 001, 1940)