The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Fawcett Comics

  • ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 024

    Today we journey into the far future! 

    Cave-Dwellers: 

    The hunt for Atom Blake’s father takes him from Earth to Mercury, to Mercury but millions of years in the future, where he encounters these little fellows. Driven out of their surface city by invaders, the Cave-Dwellers are understandably hostile to outsiders, but Atom manages to win them over eventually, free his father (the hunt, though long in distance and time, was short in terms of steps) and retake the city.

    What I really appreciate about these guys his how much they resemble a version of the sensory homunculus. (Wow Comics 003, 1941)

    Peoples of the Year 2 000 000 000: 

    Not to be outdone by some kid, in Detective Comics v1 023, Slam Bradley and Shorty Morgan travel two billion years into the future after meeting scientist Professor Kenton, fresh off of completing his time machine and not interested in any sort of half measures like trying to go to next week.

    Please note the “city rises and falls outside the window to mark the passage of time” bit, later used to much effect in Futurama. 

    Slam and Shorty are almost immediately separated from Kenton and captured by a big bird that flies them into a fantastic futuristic metropolis nearby. There. they are confronted and captured by three beings: a human, a bird-man and a plant-man, and this is our first inkling that this isn’t the lame kind of future where everything is just a reskin of the present, not only because Earth is populated by three distinct intelligent species but completely alien technology, such as the weaponized recorders used to paralyze our heroes.. 

    More alien weirdness follows, as it is revealed that these three fellows have been condemned to death for gambling on a holy day (the anniversary of their leader’s tonsillectomy, which is silly, yes, but culturally very interesting. They have a god-emperor of some kind!). They also do not speak English but communicate via a thought transmission device. 

    Despite their seeming reverence for their leader, these three fellows want to take advantage of the time machine to get out of town and avoid their fate. They eventually try to steal the device outright and are killed in a firefight with Slam, Shorty and Kenton but before that the plant-man gets to show off this cool and very thematic flower weapon.

    He’s not really an alien, but as long as I’m talking about this adventure I would like to mention Iron-Fingers, a giant cyborg pitted against Slam Bradley in gladiatorial combat as a form of execution after Slam refuses to grant the petulant god-king access to the time machine. Specifically, Slam is sentenced to be “plucked to pieces” by Iron-Fingers, which is an image that really sticks with you. (Detective Comics v1 023, 1939) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 893: THE HUMMER

    (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

    The Hummer, “the deadliest killer on Earth” has just gotten out of jail and is out for revenge on those responsible for sending him away in the first place, starting with Taylor, the prosecutor.

    Like so many of his peers in the murder community, the Hummer has an affectation: he hums while he kills, and also while preparing to kill and after he kills. He hums all the time. It’s a bit of a liability, to be honest, as anyone who knows about him is able to keep an ear out for trouble. He’s also a classic super-villain Bad Boss who kills his henchmen when they fail him.

    Where many revenge killers are obsessive enough to stick to their predetermined list come hell or high water, the Hummer is of a more adaptive breed and dynamically expands it as he goes along, which is why Mr Scarlet and Pinky are marked for death. While this is evidence of a more flexible view of the world, I can’t help but assume that it will lead to a never-ending vengeance quest as everyone who impedes the Hummer in any way is themselves marked for death.

    One of the original targets on the list is Brian “Mr Scarlet” Butler’s secretary Miss Wade, who was working for previous victim Taylor at the time that the Hummer was put away, This is an astonishingly petty grudge to hold, and also provides Mr Scarlet and Pinky with just that much more motivation to take the Hummer down. 

    Revenge Killer Score: 1/10+

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 893: THE HUMMER

    (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

    The Hummer, “the deadliest killer on Earth” has just gotten out of jail and is out for revenge on those responsible for sending him away in the first place, starting with Taylor, the prosecutor.

    Like so many of his peers in the murder community, the Hummer has an affectation: he hums while he kills, and also while preparing to kill and after he kills. He hums all the time. It’s a bit of a liability, to be honest, as anyone who knows about him is able to keep an ear out for trouble. He’s also a classic super-villain Bad Boss who kills his henchmen when they fail him.

    Where many revenge killers are obsessive enough to stick to their predetermined list come hell or high water, the Hummer is of a more adaptive breed and dynamically expands it as he goes along, which is why Mr Scarlet and Pinky are marked for death. While this is evidence of a more flexible view of the world, I can’t help but assume that it will lead to a never-ending vengeance quest as everyone who impedes the Hummer in any way is themselves marked for death.

    One of the original targets on the list is Brian “Mr Scarlet” Butler’s secretary Miss Wade, who was working for previous victim Taylor at the time that the Hummer was put away, This is an astonishingly petty grudge to hold, and also provides Mr Scarlet and Pinky with just that much more motivation to take the Hummer down. 

    Revenge Killer Score: 1/10+

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 892: MR HYDE

    (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

    Mr Hyde is introduced to the reader as a homicidal maniac who murders future Mr Scarlet sidekick Pinky’s mother one night for unclear reasons. He just bursts in and kills her and there is not even attempt to justify it. In fact… I’m not 100% certain that Pinky actually knows that Mr Hyde is the killer.

    Pinky is relocated to Oaklawn Orphanage, under the care of director Dr Jelke, who we as savvy readers immediately recognize is going to turn out to be Mr Hyde. I must admit that upon first reading this story I thought that Jelke/Hyde might have been out murdering parents in order to keep his orphanage well-stocked with kids but alas, it seems that Pinky ends up crossing his path purely by chance.

    Mr Hyde’s next crime is to make the city safer for crime and criminals by murdering the mayor, and since Mr Scarlet has been pretty firmly established as operating out of NYC we must add the Honorable James T. Flynn to the list of alternate, non-Fiorello La Guardia mayors of New York in comic books. Perhaps La Guardia claims the mayoral role after Flynn’s death – we’ll have to watch the pages of Wow Comics to find out.

    Mr Scarlet intercepts Mr Hyde (a rare battle between a super-hero and -villain with the same prefix!) but loses him just inside the orphanage walls. This of course again points straight at Dr Jelke as the fiend’s alter ego but more importantly leads us to our main line of inquiry about this villain: Just What Kind of Jekyll/Hyde Situation is This?

    We all know the basics of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in which Dr Henry Jekyll attempts to purge all evil from his body using a chemical concoction and instead creates a secondary, wholly evil identity that controls his body with ever-increasing frequency and power. The question is, which elements, and in what form, are being used in this particular story?

    1. Does Dr Jelke know what Mr Hyde is up to? It appears that he does! Hyde turns back into Jelke to avoid Mr Scarlet and though Jelke’s brush-off of Scarlet could be chalked up to his being a stuffed shirt, the fact that he then tries to locate Hyde’s lost monocle indicates that he is wise to the situation.

    2. How is the change effected? Though Mr Hyde has a small laboratory and loves to hurl flasks of acid around, the Jekyll/Hyde transformation in this story is not chemical but seemingly purely mental and brought on by Jelke reading the original novel. But there is something else going on! Namely…

    3. Just how much of a transformation are we talking about? Jelke’s switch to Hyde involves more than a robe, a monocle and a mussing of the hair – Hyde has claws and fangs and lacks a stupid little mustache! Clearly Jelke is onto something and is not just a homicidal maniac with a literary fixation.

    All of these questions lead up to the big one:

    4. Are these two personalities sharing one body or not? I gotta say no to this one. While the Mr Hyde persona appears to be more violent and less inhibited, all indications are that this is something that Jelke did on purpose, though his aims are never elaborated on beyond “personal gain.” In a classic Jekyll/Hyde situation such as the Wolf’s the good personality is oblivious to the actions of the evil one, and Jelke shows no signs of that.

    Jelke does eventually follow in Jekyll’s footsteps in one final way: once his experiments in identity are proven to be a bust he kills himself.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 892: MR HYDE

    (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

    Mr Hyde is introduced to the reader as a homicidal maniac who murders future Mr Scarlet sidekick Pinky’s mother one night for unclear reasons. He just bursts in and kills her and there is not even attempt to justify it. In fact… I’m not 100% certain that Pinky actually knows that Mr Hyde is the killer.

    Pinky is relocated to Oaklawn Orphanage, under the care of director Dr Jelke, who we as savvy readers immediately recognize is going to turn out to be Mr Hyde. I must admit that upon first reading this story I thought that Jelke/Hyde might have been out murdering parents in order to keep his orphanage well-stocked with kids but alas, it seems that Pinky ends up crossing his path purely by chance.

    Mr Hyde’s next crime is to make the city safer for crime and criminals by murdering the mayor, and since Mr Scarlet has been pretty firmly established as operating out of NYC we must add the Honorable James T. Flynn to the list of alternate, non-Fiorello La Guardia mayors of New York in comic books. Perhaps La Guardia claims the mayoral role after Flynn’s death – we’ll have to watch the pages of Wow Comics to find out.

    Mr Scarlet intercepts Mr Hyde (a rare battle between a super-hero and -villain with the same prefix!) but loses him just inside the orphanage walls. This of course again points straight at Dr Jelke as the fiend’s alter ego but more importantly leads us to our main line of inquiry about this villain: Just What Kind of Jekyll/Hyde Situation is This?

    We all know the basics of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in which Dr Henry Jekyll attempts to purge all evil from his body using a chemical concoction and instead creates a secondary, wholly evil identity that controls his body with ever-increasing frequency and power. The question is, which elements, and in what form, are being used in this particular story?

    1. Does Dr Jelke know what Mr Hyde is up to? It appears that he does! Hyde turns back into Jelke to avoid Mr Scarlet and though Jelke’s brush-off of Scarlet could be chalked up to his being a stuffed shirt, the fact that he then tries to locate Hyde’s lost monocle indicates that he is wise to the situation.

    2. How is the change effected? Though Mr Hyde has a small laboratory and loves to hurl flasks of acid around, the Jekyll/Hyde transformation in this story is not chemical but seemingly purely mental and brought on by Jelke reading the original novel. But there is something else going on! Namely…

    3. Just how much of a transformation are we talking about? Jelke’s switch to Hyde involves more than a robe, a monocle and a mussing of the hair – Hyde has claws and fangs and lacks a stupid little mustache! Clearly Jelke is onto something and is not just a homicidal maniac with a literary fixation.

    All of these questions lead up to the big one:

    4. Are these two personalities sharing one body or not? I gotta say no to this one. While the Mr Hyde persona appears to be more violent and less inhibited, all indications are that this is something that Jelke did on purpose, though his aims are never elaborated on beyond “personal gain.” In a classic Jekyll/Hyde situation such as the Wolf’s the good personality is oblivious to the actions of the evil one, and Jelke shows no signs of that.

    Jelke does eventually follow in Jekyll’s footsteps in one final way: once his experiments in identity are proven to be a bust he kills himself.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 891: THE LAUGHING SKULL

    (Wow Comics 003, 1941)

    The Laughing Skull specializes in extortion. They call it blackmail and it is kind of framed as being blackmail but over the course of the story it becomes clear that he has no concrete dirt on any of his victims and is just counting on carrying the day with vague threats and eventually by being able to point to all the people who he killed for not paying him. Straight-up threats-of-violence extortion, in other words. 

    To make sure that word gets out about the consequences of ignoring his demands, the Laughing Skull kills his victims by burying them alive and leaving cheeky tombstones on their graves. Horrible! 

    While very public murders might make for good business in the extortion industry they do come with a pretty specific workplace hazard in the form of super-heroes – in this case Mr Scarlet – knowing where and when to find you on most nights. We must assume that it’s a huge cemetery, however, because somehow Mr Scarlet is too late to save the Laughing Skull’s second victim even though he was already inside when they started digging. Or perhaps those henchmen are the world’s greatest gravediggers.

    Not that the Laughing Skull is a total pushover: his announced third victim is in fact a cover for a trap set for Mr Scarlet, and one that works well enough that Scarlet has to be rescued from his immanent burial by Miss Wade.

    Not to buck the greater super-villain trend by adjusting his methods after clashing with a super-hero, the Skull is finally captured while in the process of burying the actual third victim. Unmasked via a tombstone to the head, he turns out to be banker John Dodd, aka the false third victim, who used his insider knowledge to select the wealthiest targets for his extortion attempts. But there’s more! The Laughing Skull/ John Dodd is also revealed to be…

    … this guy, who has been popping up throughout the issue and confessing to being the Laughing Skull to both DA Brian Butler and Mr Scarlet! This is kind of a smart move? It definitely allows the Laughing Skull to misdirect Mr Scarlet on at least one occasion as that guy was always just lurking around waiting for his chance to confess. The risk is very high, however, particularly as John Dodd is at least theoretically a witness to the attempted murder of Mr Scarlet – did the Laughing Skull have a plan for when DA Brian Butler came to ask him for a statement or was he just going to keep burying lawmen until they stopped trying to arrest him?

    Anyway, the whole gang ends up dumped in a grave with a custom tombstone of their own (that opens up a whole world of questions about whether Mr Scarlet has stonecarving chops or is packing some sort of 1940s Sharpie in his belt). A dose of your own medicine, Laughing Skull!

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5 

    (this ish also feature Mr Scarlet having a smoke while in costume – a real rarity!)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 891: THE LAUGHING SKULL

    (Wow Comics 003, 1941)

    The Laughing Skull specializes in extortion. They call it blackmail and it is kind of framed as being blackmail but over the course of the story it becomes clear that he has no concrete dirt on any of his victims and is just counting on carrying the day with vague threats and eventually by being able to point to all the people who he killed for not paying him. Straight-up threats-of-violence extortion, in other words. 

    To make sure that word gets out about the consequences of ignoring his demands, the Laughing Skull kills his victims by burying them alive and leaving cheeky tombstones on their graves. Horrible! 

    While very public murders might make for good business in the extortion industry they do come with a pretty specific workplace hazard in the form of super-heroes – in this case Mr Scarlet – knowing where and when to find you on most nights. We must assume that it’s a huge cemetery, however, because somehow Mr Scarlet is too late to save the Laughing Skull’s second victim even though he was already inside when they started digging. Or perhaps those henchmen are the world’s greatest gravediggers.

    Not that the Laughing Skull is a total pushover: his announced third victim is in fact a cover for a trap set for Mr Scarlet, and one that works well enough that Scarlet has to be rescued from his immanent burial by Miss Wade.

    Not to buck the greater super-villain trend by adjusting his methods after clashing with a super-hero, the Skull is finally captured while in the process of burying the actual third victim. Unmasked via a tombstone to the head, he turns out to be banker John Dodd, aka the false third victim, who used his insider knowledge to select the wealthiest targets for his extortion attempts. But there’s more! The Laughing Skull/ John Dodd is also revealed to be…

    … this guy, who has been popping up throughout the issue and confessing to being the Laughing Skull to both DA Brian Butler and Mr Scarlet! This is kind of a smart move? It definitely allows the Laughing Skull to misdirect Mr Scarlet on at least one occasion as that guy was always just lurking around waiting for his chance to confess. The risk is very high, however, particularly as John Dodd is at least theoretically a witness to the attempted murder of Mr Scarlet – did the Laughing Skull have a plan for when DA Brian Butler came to ask him for a statement or was he just going to keep burying lawmen until they stopped trying to arrest him?

    Anyway, the whole gang ends up dumped in a grave with a custom tombstone of their own (that opens up a whole world of questions about whether Mr Scarlet has stonecarving chops or is packing some sort of 1940s Sharpie in his belt). A dose of your own medicine, Laughing Skull!

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5 

    (this ish also feature Mr Scarlet having a smoke while in costume – a real rarity!)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 890: THE BLACK CLOWN

    (Wow Comics 003, 1940)

    The circus is in town! And in what must be a complete coincidence, a circus-themed villain murders a prominent banker using a python! And did I mention that the circus has a big box full of pythons as one of its attractions? 

    As someone who sincerely enjoys clown- and circus-themed villains despite having no particular affection for either in real life I have to say: do a bit better, the Black Clown. Like, try a bit harder to conceal just exactly who you are. Especially don’t leave a note on the body of the banker you just murdered that basically says “I did this because you didn’t give me, a clown-man, a business loan.” Plausible deniability, man.

    He does have a great Evil Clown costume, though.

    I’ll give the Black Clown this: at least he tries to rob the bank after revenge-killing the banker rather than merely exult in the downfall of his enemy. This robbery is also where we learn that the Black Clown has a whole circus of crime thing going on to match his theme, as he employs a sideshow thin man to slip through the bank’s bars and let the rest of the crew in.

    Though Mr Scarlet interrupts the robbery he is unable to prevent the Black Clown and his crew from escaping, as he is being crushed to death by a python at the time. Or is he? No, he is too strong.  

    The Black Clown next attempts to murder Petrie, the partner of the first victim, but at this point we are firmly in the part of the comic where the hero has the villain in his sights and none of his schemes shall profit. The Black Clown escapes with the help of some acrobats and Petrie lives on to deny loans another day.

    Probably the most interesting thing about this sequence is that the Black Clown gains entrance to Petrie’s apartment via a fellow named Tiny Tom who slips through the transom and opens the door. Given the name and the theme of the gang (and the initial shot of his legs as they slip out of sight) one would expect Tiny Tom to perhaps be little person of some kind, perhaps a sideshow performer, but he’s on-hand throughout the fight in Petrie’s apartment (that’s him in the blue suit) and he’s just about half a head shorter than everyone else. Is it just a particularly rough nickname or did the initial Tiny Tom concept get lost in the shuffle?

    Hearkening back to my initial critique of the Black Clown: it is in fact so obvious who this guy is that Mr Scarlet has to be interrupted twice in two different conversations over the course of three panels rather than learn it too early. And he doesn’t bother to ask Mr Petrie to shout it at him on the way out the door.

    After a final battle with a sideshow wild man and a chase through the trapezes the Black Clown is finally captured and OF COURSE it turns out to be Henry Parrish, the circus owner, who is OF COURSE mad about a rejected business loan. CHOOSE YOUR SUPER-VILLAIN THEME MORE WISELY is what I’m trying to get at.

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/2 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 889: THE BLACK THORN

    (Wow Comics 003, 1941)

    Inventor Phineas Cox has created a mummy ray, which is a device that fires a beam that instantly mummifies living tissue, a horrible thing that could only be used ethically by the mortuary and possibly the jerky industries. Cox intends for the weapon to be used in the defense of the United States, and to that end takes it not to the military but to something called the Defend America League, where he is somewhat predictably thrown out on his ear. 

    Phineas Cox vows to show America what he’s made of, and that very evening the Black Thorn makes his debut by desiccating an innocent woman. Why call yourself the Black Thorn when your main gimmick is a mummy ray? My guess is that the ray is a late addition to what was an already thought-out alter ego – I mean, just look at that costume! It’s not my favourite outfit of the Golden Age, but it definitely lacks some of the sense of just having been thrown together out of things that were already in the attic that some of them do.

    The Black Thorn’s schemes are, true to Cox’ pronouncement, decidedly anti-American: he steals defense funds from a bank and blows up an arsenal, leaving a trail of mummies in his wake. He’d have kept on going, too, only it is at this point that Mr Scarlet gets involved.

    Mr Scarlet himself almost gets mummified on two occasions but the Black Thorn shoots at the wrong prone figure in the dark the first time and falls for a decoy the second time, and since the both the misidentified target and decoy were the body of the slain bank guard, this means that the poor guy ends up being triple-mummified, which is a small consolation but has to be some kind of record.

    Please also note the Black Thorn using his horned headpiece as a weapon against Mr Scarlet. It’s nice to see something  seemingly purely ornamental like that see practical use. 

    In the end, the Black Thorn turns out not to be Phineas Cox but Henry Hawley, the leader of the Defend America League, which savvy readers might have already spotted as a fascist organization based on the ostentatiously patriotic name alone. Hawley had not, in fact thought Cox to be a nutjob but instead imprisoned him and stolen his invention for used in his campaign against America, and he would’ve gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for that pesky Mr Scarlet.

    Though Mr Scarlet busts up the mummy ray and tells Cox not to even think about building another one, the Black Thorn will return, and he will be mummifying his foes. Somehow.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 888: THE SCORPION

    (Wow Comics 002, 1940)

    The Scorpion is mostly a regular gang boss, but with just enough extra oomph to take him over the edge into super-villainy. First thing: he is a very Bad Boss in that particular “execute under-performing employees as an example to the others” kind of way that all corporate overlords wish that HR would let them be.

    Secondly, he is perhaps the closest thing to a super-villain was faced by Allan Lanier, aka the Hunchback, seen here in his civilian guise rushing to investigate the defenestration of the Scorpion’s poor minion and inadvertently getting his fiance Betty kidnapped in the process.

    The Scorpion also has a true super-villain’s lack of subtlety, seen here as he successfully fools Lanier into believing that Betty has gone to visit her uncle by means of a simple telegram but then is unable to resist sending a more explicit threat (signed with a cute lil’ scorpion!) and undoing his previous work. 

    Finally, the Scorpion has a cool hideout: just like the Ninja Turtles he lives in an abandoned subway station, to which he is tracked by the vengeful Hunchback.

    After that, it’s all over. The Hunchback doesn’t play around, he just breaks the Scorpion’s neck. I would say that this is a case of someone choosing their enemies poorly, but the Scorpion didn’t actually know he was dealing with the Hunchback until it was too late. I guess the lesson is “don’t kidnap women.”