The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: generic costumed villain

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 015

    It’s time for another round with the guys in the masks.

    A radio announcer who tries to poison all of Inland City with chlorine gas for unclear reasons. Ends up blowing himself up while tangling with heroic pilot Captain Steve Ransom. (Keen Detective Funnies v2 006, 1939)

    This unnamed fellow takes the cake for audaciousness: his racket is drug smuggling and though traditionally one wants to keep a low profile while attempting to move controlled substances from place to place he:

    -sets up camp in the basement of an occupied house,

    -keeps a gorilla in that same basement,

    -sends that gorilla out to attack randos in hopes of driving away the locals,

    -poses as an FBI agent in an attempt to throw Power-Man off his scent.

    All of these are what I would describe as “activities likely to invite scrutiny”. And they do! (Fight Comics 005, 1940)

    Muipo here is a Japanese agent in all but name working to foment trouble in China by flooding the country with opioids. His major interesting features are a decent looking half-face draped cloth mask (rare and annoying-looking to wear) and a fake fat guy body he sits in while dealing with his underlings. He gets beat up by US Marine Strut Warren precisely one page after making his debut. (Fight Comics 007, 1940)

    The Squadron of Death is a group who blow up US defense infrastructure for… some reason. And there’s the problem: very little is given away about who the Squadron are or what their motivations might be (beyond general anti-US sentiment) in this issue, and though there is some indication that they might return to vex the Arrow in future instalments the next three issues of Funny Pages are not available to anyone without about 10 to 15 grand to spend on physical copies. 

    Pending further information the Squadron of Death are just two guys who steal a plane and then variously get thrown out of it or blown up in it by the Arrow. (Funny Pages v4 004, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 015

    It’s time for another round with the guys in the masks.

    A radio announcer who tries to poison all of Inland City with chlorine gas for unclear reasons. Ends up blowing himself up while tangling with heroic pilot Captain Steve Ransom. (Keen Detective Funnies v2 006, 1939)

    This unnamed fellow takes the cake for audaciousness: his racket is drug smuggling and though traditionally one wants to keep a low profile while attempting to move controlled substances from place to place he:

    -sets up camp in the basement of an occupied house,

    -keeps a gorilla in that same basement,

    -sends that gorilla out to attack randos in hopes of driving away the locals,

    -poses as an FBI agent in an attempt to throw Power-Man off his scent.

    All of these are what I would describe as “activities likely to invite scrutiny”. And they do! (Fight Comics 005, 1940)

    Muipo here is a Japanese agent in all but name working to foment trouble in China by flooding the country with opioids. His major interesting features are a decent looking half-face draped cloth mask (rare and annoying-looking to wear) and a fake fat guy body he sits in while dealing with his underlings. He gets beat up by US Marine Strut Warren precisely one page after making his debut. (Fight Comics 007, 1940)

    The Squadron of Death is a group who blow up US defense infrastructure for… some reason. And there’s the problem: very little is given away about who the Squadron are or what their motivations might be (beyond general anti-US sentiment) in this issue, and though there is some indication that they might return to vex the Arrow in future instalments the next three issues of Funny Pages are not available to anyone without about 10 to 15 grand to spend on physical copies. 

    Pending further information the Squadron of Death are just two guys who steal a plane and then variously get thrown out of it or blown up in it by the Arrow. (Funny Pages v4 004, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 014

    Once again the also-rans.

    A bunch of small-time crooks get paid to fake the death of Titano (the largest gorilla in captivity!) for an insurance scam and of course use him to rob a series small-town banks. If only they had thought a bit more ambitiously they might have made the big time. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)

    This Yank Wilson adventure features a fairly by-the-book super-spy ring headed by Count Lustig von Blackgard. They plot, they scheme, they are ultimately foiled. This mysterious radio message is the only mention of a higher-up, but their moniker – the extremely evocative Neuromania – was too good to pass over without comment. (there is of course the possibility that Neuromania is the spies’ home country. Either way, it’s great). (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

    This happy fellow has no name but makes up for it with a laundry list of distinctive features: missing left eye, hunch, catlike upper lip, pointy ears, bizarrely long hair on his forearms, etc. He lives under a fake man-eating tree in… probably the African jungle and spends his days torturing and poisoning people for no stated reason until he is killed by Captain Kid using his own poisoned melon. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

    This is Nipon, ruler of an unnamed Asian country (wink, wink) from that period in late 1940 through 1941 when the Axis powers were very clearly the villains on everyone’s minds but the US was remaining neutral so you couldn’t in good conscience make the leader of a foreign nation the villain of your story. These guys are usually either extremely obvious stand-ins named, like Arnolf Hilter or Menito Bussolini (in which case they get added to a Real Folk entry) or so generic that I forget them entirely. Nipon is kind of neither – like, he’s obviously a stand-in for the Emperor of Japan but extremely generically, but also he has a very fun look! (Fantastic Comics 013, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 013

    Here come the also-rans.

    We’ve got another Leader, and this time he’s not a generically-fascist spy but the head of a gang looking to extort the New York World’s Fair via a series of bombings. Of course the Fantom of the Fair cannot let this stand and quickly tracks them down to a small island base.

    If the first reason I included the Leader aka Relmar here is because I enjoy a monocled man with a high opinion of himself then the second is the fact that the Fantom, without ever actually saying a word, lays such complete waste to Relmar, his men and his entire island. Don’t mess with the World’s Fair, is the message I’m getting. (Amazing Adventure Funnies 001, 1940)

    A masked saboteur of no clear allegiance, Biff Durgo aka the Masked Man is the poorly-disguised sole foe faced by Pack Morgan, Super Detective. (Detective Eye 002, 1940)

    Lead by the mysterious “One”, gangsters Face Greer and Shiv Scarpino are bleeding the city of Midtown dry. That’s why Mayor Kurt Piersole calls in trigger-happy detective Gunner Thompson, only it’s not, because when it all shakes out it turns out that Mayor Piersole was indulging in the old trick of establishing his innocence by being the one to call in the forces of order. It was a cliche in 1940 and continues to be to this day and then as now it ends one way: the One wasn’t quite as clever as he thought he was and ends up on the wrong side of his own hired gun. (Exciting Comics 001, 1940)

    John Blodgett kills his partner Samuel Forbes in order to make off with his claim on a lucrative gold mine but fails to reckon with the fact that Forbes’ daughter Caroline might just wonder what happened to her father and so has to don a mask and engage in some truly half-assed attempts to bump both her and private eye Dan Williams off before they uncover his dumb secret. (Exciting Comics 001, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 013

    GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 013

    Here come the also-rans.

    We’ve got another Leader, and this time he’s not a generically-fascist spy but the head of a gang looking to extort the New York World’s Fair via a series of bombings. Of course the Fantom of the Fair cannot let this stand and quickly tracks them down to a small island base.

    If the first reason I included the Leader aka Relmar here is because I enjoy a monocled man with a high opinion of himself then the second is the fact that the Fantom, without ever actually saying a word, lays such complete waste to Relmar, his men and his entire island. Don’t mess with the World’s Fair, is the message I’m getting. (Amazing Adventure Funnies 001, 1940)

    A masked saboteur of no clear allegiance, Biff Durgo aka the Masked Man is the poorly-disguised sole foe faced by Pack Morgan, Super Detective. (Detective Eye 002, 1940)

    Lead by the mysterious “One”, gangsters Face Greer and Shiv Scarpino are bleeding the city of Midtown dry. That’s why Mayor Kurt Piersole calls in trigger-happy detective Gunner Thompson, only it’s not, because when it all shakes out it turns out that Mayor Piersole was indulging in the old trick of establishing his innocence by being the one to call in the forces of order. It was a cliche in 1940 and continues to be to this day and then as now it ends one way: the One wasn’t quite as clever as he thought he was and ends up on the wrong side of his own hired gun. (Exciting Comics 001, 1940)

    John Blodgett kills his partner Samuel Forbes in order to make off with his claim on a lucrative gold mine but fails to reckon with the fact that Forbes’ daughter Caroline might just wonder what happened to her father and so has to don a mask and engage in some truly half-assed attempts to bump both her and private eye Dan Williams off before they uncover his dumb secret. (Exciting Comics 001, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 012

    Management not responsible if some of the villains are not technically costumed.

    This fellow, known as the Boss, was the masked publisher of a newspaper known as the Weekly Tattler which functioned as a vehicle for his blackmail business: pay up or get your secrets printed in the next edition. He turned out to be the husband of one of the paper’s victims, which makes little enough sense that I reckon that they got to the end of the story without adding any good suspects so went with the only possibility. Also he gets shot by his very gullible underling after the Fox barely implies that there’s a double cross on. (Blue Ribbon Comics 011, 1941)

    Inferno tangles with crook Jake the Fake and his henchmen as they make a break for the Mexican border disguised as a shipment of mummies, a top tier thing to pretend to be. (Blue Ribbon Comics 017, 1941)

    If you have to be a very generic pirate so hard up you have to kidnap guys from the US Navy to run your radio equipment in a mid-level (by Golden Age standards) racist adventure well then you’d better have a great name like the Scourge because that’s really all you have going for you. (Wonderworld Comics 003, 1939)

    Like the Scourge, the Obermaster here is a real waste of a good villain name on a real damp squib of a character. He is Samson Gorth, a criminal mastermind with no real plan. No, that’s not accurate. He has a plan to incite war between the US and Japan by attacking their respective shipping using planes with false insignia but beyond that his goals are a mystery. Is he hoping for plunder? A chance for war profiteering? No clue and thanks to special agent Bruce McKay, Sky Master, we’ll never find out. Because the Obermaster is dead. In case that wasn’t clear. (The Funnies 035, 1939)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 011

    Some say they’re not generic enough but I think they’re trying their best.

    This fellow is part of a gang looking to hijack a shipment of railway guns from train engineer Runaway Ronson. I really enjoy the look of the padded suit they use to help survive crashing a car into a high-speed train but I really really enjoy the fact that they immediately scramble off into the woods and are never seen again, as if they were completely unrelated to the criminal plot. (Blue Bolt v1 007, 1940)

    This fellow’s a pseudo-Nazi spy named Ketler who goes up against Sub-Zero in an attempt to influence the very specific Torpedo Workers Union into striking and hindering part of the US defense program. I feel like he overestimates the usefulness of the mask as he doesn’t change anything else about his appearance when not murdering people but that’s not what gets him caught so I guess I’m the fool here.(Blue Bolt v2 002, 1941)

    Colourful enemy aces are the best/ only tolerable part of the absurd number of Golden Age comics about pilot-adventurers, so my little ears pricked up when American-flying-for-the-French Loop Logan was challenged to a dogfight by a Nazi called the Blue Duke but… there’s nothing to him. He’s just a guy with a name who’s been sabotaging French planes and shooting them down. Waste of a good name, if you ask me. (several days later note: it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that this guy’s name was a play on the Red Baron) (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

    These guys briefly terrorize New York (possibly – we have another instance of a city that is Clearly New York City But the Mayor is Wrong) with a futuristic tank mounted with a death ray. If they a) had a name and b) weren’t completely demolished by Mr Justice in about three panels they might have made the leap to full Minor Super-Villain status but as it stands they’re an object lesson in why ultra-powerful ghosts need a tougher class of enemy to be really entertaining. (Blue Ribbon Comics 010, 1941)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 010

    The thing is that they have some but not all of the attributes of a super-villain.

    A sea-raider who uses a stolen acid gun to build a psychically-controlled army of skeleton men? If only he had a name or had a bit more swagger! Alas for him the Shark puts him down before he could do enough to elevate himself out of this gathering of also-rans. (Amazing-Man Comics 021, 1941)

    This gang of guys dressed as mailmen don’t give the Blue Beetle much trouble even when wielding compressed air guns that fire explosive pellets. I admire the visual, though. (Big 3 005, 1941)

    The Scooby-Doo style “fake haunting to drive people away from treasure/natural resource/property” is of course super-villain adjacent, but there are so many instances of in comics that I tend to disregard them as generic criminality. This unnamed fellow, however… not only was he attempting to scare off a homeowner so that he could look for pirate treasure in her basement but he went and “I would have gotten away with it…” -ed at that meddling Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians. (Big Shot Comics 009, 1941)

    Just some nameless goons that take part in an usurpation attempt against Blue Bolt villain the Green Sorceress but they’re Jack Kirby goons so they look fantastic. (Blue Bolt v1 004, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 009

    GENERIC! COSTUMED! VILLAINS!

    It’s not much of a costume but this dude named Marmi does manage to use a trained cobra to steal a huge ruby before the Radio Squad gets him, which is a feat. (More Fun Comics 072, 1941)

    It’s possible that this fellow was meant to have a name but he never managed to say it over the Green Mask’s relentless mocking of his costume. He’s munitions magnate August Mincer, who has no obvious ties to Nazism despite his gruesome swastika-themed deathtrap. His plans to take over the US munitions market and possibly the world are stopped by a boomerang to the head from Green Mask sidekick Domino the Miracle Boy (Mystery Men Comics 018, 1941)

    A bunch of fake ghosts set to scare off Zara of the Jungle and her guy-pal Jeff Graves from a slavery operation, these guys not only have a great look but an unshakable faith in their armoured skull headpieces – not only that they will protect them from all incoming attacks but that their foes will only go for headshots. All of these guys must have so many concussions. (Mystic Comics v1 003, 1940)

    This here bunch of handsome lads are the Communist-esque henchmen of spy Kursk. They capture weirdo hero Dr Hypno but don’t manage to get what they want out of him before he projects his mind into a little cat and escapes. (Amazing-Man Comics 018, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 008

     

    The Scar was a spymaster encountered and captured by adventurer Biff Bronson and maybe if he dressed like that all of the time he’d have an entry of his own but no, he had just left the opera. (More Fun Comics 067, 1941)

    This bunch work for the villainous Count Parla and his pal Eddie in a classic case of “work your way into polite society in order to set up a big score”. If there’s a non-evil Count in comics I have yet to encounter him. Beaten up by Captain Desmo in a rare unhelmeted appearance. (More Fun Comics 069, 1941) 

    This unnamed fellow got up to all kinds of hijinks on a train, including murder, espionage and impersonating a conductor. Seen here inadvertently unmasking a crossdressing thief – it was a very busy adventure for Captain Desmo. (More Fun Comics 070, 1941)

    Johnny Quick’s first outing features one of my favourite comic book things: a series of vignettes of prior cases to establish Johnny’s bona fides vis-a-vis crimefighting. Two of the adventures in question involve what would almost certainly have been Minor Super-Villain entries if they were featured players, so here’s to you, the Pharaoh’s Mummy and the Murderous Musician (and the Money-Mad Miser, not pictured) (More Fun Comics 071, 1941)