pirate – Page 2 – The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 528: THE BLACK HAND

(Blue Ribbon Comics 016, 1941)

There’s a quality that some comic book characters have and some do not and I never knew about it until I started writing this blog. That quality is called Standing in Clear View So That I Can Get a Screengrab of Them, and buddy, the Black Hand does not have it. This is about as good of a full look as you get of the guy in his first appearance.

Enough complaining! The Black Hand is a spy of the Unaffiliated Freelancer subtype, which since he operates out of the US means that he steals US secrets for sale to the Nazis. Is a character who does business with Nazis better than one who is a Nazi? Marginally. The Black Hand is also the recurring villain of Captain Flag, who he is also responsible for becoming a super-hero due to his murder of Flag’s father and failure to proof his lair against narratively significant eagles.

The Black Hand is called the Black Hand because of his black hand, which he usually conceals beneath a black glove and which is riddled with a deadly disease that the Black hand can transfer to a victim via a simple scratch of his horrible fingernails. It’s definitely a useful power (affliction?) for a villain to have but not one that has a chance of coming up in anyone’s super-power wishlist.

Throughout his five appearances the Black Hand sports three distinct looks: the initial iteration (either afflicted with a deathly pallor or just overenthusiastic when applying foundation), a sort of suave mustachioed cat-burglar getup with no hint of the grave and then back to the deathly complexion with an added skull-like quality to the face. Realistically this can be put down to Captain Flag being a secondary character without a dedicated artist, but if that was the point of this blog then it would swiftly cease to be much fun.

Notably, the suave version of the Black Hand wears his glove on the opposite side – could this indicate that he and the corpselike Black Hand are different characters? Perhaps the disease that gives them their name is also slowly killing them, which could account for the more ghoulish appearance of the original Hand over time?

These questions will never be answered, sadly, as in-universe the Black Hand made a transition from spy the thief to pirate and Captain Flag was quick to invoke the Law of the Sea to hang him from the nearest yardarm. Out of universe, Captain Flag’s feature didn’t survive the cancellation of Blue Ribbon Comics and so the Black Hand had nobody to come back from the dead to torment.

28 May, 2024

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 507: THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN KIDD

(Blue Bolt v1 008, 1941)

The Sergeant Spook writers, having exhausted the storytelling possibilities inherent in an ultra-powerful ghost taking on mere mortals and having established that ghost-on-ghost violence is essentially consequence free are now trying a new angle: ghost crooks preying on mortals and Sergeant Spook bringing them to justice.

This time, it’s the Ghost of Captain Kidd – like Jesse James before him, Kidd is compelled to return to the patterns of his life, and having obtained a ghost ship from somewhere he sets to looting mortal cargoes. Sergeant Spook of course does not stand for this and pursues in a ghost battleship crewed by John Paul Jones, Admiral Dewey and Sir Francis Drake, plus a lot of no-names.

Captain Kid has a moment of triumph when it is revealed that he has somehow obtained and installed a ghost motor on his ghost ship (and it is here that I will note that I have absolutely no idea how any of these large objects become ghosts in the first place – are they all ghost ships in the traditional sense or are there different rules for ghost vehicles?) followed by the more entertaining revelation that none of his crew have any idea how to work an internal combustion engine and thus the ship ends up sailing in a circle. The forces of ghost law thus are able to catch up, Captain Kidd gets socked in the kisser and everyone goes home.

30 April, 2024

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 507: THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN KIDD

(Blue Bolt v1 008, 1941)

The Sergeant Spook writers, having exhausted the storytelling possibilities inherent in an ultra-powerful ghost taking on mere mortals and having established that ghost-on-ghost violence is essentially consequence free are now trying a new angle: ghost crooks preying on mortals and Sergeant Spook bringing them to justice.

This time, it’s the Ghost of Captain Kidd – like Jesse James before him, Kidd is compelled to return to the patterns of his life, and having obtained a ghost ship from somewhere he sets to looting mortal cargoes. Sergeant Spook of course does not stand for this and pursues in a ghost battleship crewed by John Paul Jones, Admiral Dewey and Sir Francis Drake, plus a lot of no-names.

Captain Kid has a moment of triumph when it is revealed that he has somehow obtained and installed a ghost motor on his ghost ship (and it is here that I will note that I have absolutely no idea how any of these large objects become ghosts in the first place – are they all ghost ships in the traditional sense or are there different rules for ghost vehicles?) followed by the more entertaining revelation that none of his crew have any idea how to work an internal combustion engine and thus the ship ends up sailing in a circle. The forces of ghost law thus are able to catch up, Captain Kidd gets socked in the kisser and everyone goes home.

30 April, 2024

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 485: THE CONDOR

(Big 3 005-006, 1941)

As far as super-villains go, the Condor is a simple concept: the modern pirate. But the modern pirate is a classic character type! Murder on the high seas! Sneering braggadocio! Calling people swabs!

And the Condor himself fits the role to a T. It doesn’t hurt that he’s such a well-designed character: who knew that a guy in a black suit would look so good as a pirate with the simple addition of a cape and tricorn hat? I couldn’t find a good picture of his face in profile but it is similarly well-designed, with a combination of intense eyes, beaklike nose and slight overbite really giving the predatory bird vibe.

It’s not quite as on-theme, but the Condor’s plan to loot ~~NYC~~ York City is suitably villainous. Plus:

… he has crooked politicians on his side! Including the mayor! (and here we must indulge in a brief aside: the Blue Beetle, like many super-heroes, operates out of a nonspecific urban landscape strongly influenced by New York City. It gets referred to as York City once or twice early on but for the most part goes nameless. But the thing is, it’s near a lot of places like Westchester and New Jersey that place it in the NYC neighbourhood, so I’ve been saying that it’s New York for a while now. Mayor Dorth here is just one too many anomalous mayors for me to ignore – I’m forced to conclude that the Blue Beetle operates out of a metropolis that may or may not be called York City and like Golden Age Gotham City essentially occupies the same geography as New York without being New York)

And while many criminal mayors in comics are merely corrupt, Mayor Dorth is a proper wrongun – not only does he cover up the murder of Councilman Hals here by framing Joan Mason but he both helps set up the Condor’s raid on the city and attempts to betray him and make off with the loot himself. This of course only gets him killed but you have to appreciate the dynamism.

The Condor is seemingly drowned by the Blue Beetle at the end of his first appearance but pops right back up again in the next issue to attack Dr Lane of the city museum. It’s a bit low-stakes after looting the entire city but the Condor still gives it his all.

It’s all rather tawdry at the end: Dr Lane and the Condor have been smuggling uncut diamonds and Lane is for some reason attempting to double-cross a notably murderous pirate. There’s a lot of running around and attempted murder before the Condor is once again seemingly killed by the Blue Beetle, this time via a sock to the kisser that sends him into a ship’s boiler.

Like Countess Belladonna before him, the Condor has all the hallmarks of a villain who would continue to return to plague the Blue Beetle if only Fox Features hadn’t had that unfortunate financial trouble and lost control of the character for a couple of years. Alas, he was forgotten during the Beetle’s time at Holyoke.

1 April, 2024