The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: murderer

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 750: THE PHANTOM

    (Smash Comics 015, 1940) 

    It’s a tale as old as opera: macho newsman Chic Carter is pissing and moaning his way through a theatre review assignment when a dramatic figure suddenly murders the star and disappears into the bowels of the opera house. Chic is quick to connect this killing with two others that took place over the last twenty years and sets out to capture the enigmatic Phantom.

    Chic and the police stage a recreation of the fatal performance using the singer’s poor understudy and… it works! Too well, actually. The singer doesn’t get murdered (phew!) but the Phantom grabs her and runs off with Carter in hot pursuit, along with a suspiciously evil-looking actor. 

    It turns out that the opera’s male lead has been maintaining his position of prominence for the last twenty years by having the Phantom murder his rivals, and what a commitment to being the king of a moderate hill that is. Sure, opera was a lot more of A Thing circa 1940 than it is now and this is presumably the top NYC opera house, but keeping a whole-ass man in a secret basement apartment for two entire decades in order to remove a rival on average every ten years… it’s a heckuva commitment to your art is all I’ll say.

    In an unsurprising non-twist, the singer turns out to be a bad boss and shoots the Phantom dead for screwing up and kidnapping the understudy, only to be killed himself when the Phantom pops back up with a burst of dying berserker strength just long enough for revenge. Maybe if you hadn’t outsourced all of your murdering to underpaid contractors you’d be better at it, idiot.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 548 UPDATE: MADAME DOOM (1940)

    When we last saw Madame Doom, she had been bested at the game of espionage by the Black X and was fleeing the US for friendlier shores at the end of Smash Comics 004.

    Madame Doom returns with a fresh new attitude for 1940 in Smash Comics 008, as now she is not just working for an analog of the Axis powers but explicitly for the Nazis. It’s a lateral move at best but an important one nonetheless. She only actually appears for a page or so and acts as an obstacle to Black X’s escape from Germany rather than a full-fledged villain, and is then left in his dust as he takes off into France.

    In Smash Comics 012, Black X accompanies US Ambassador Blank to Paris as part of an attempt to initiate peace talks in Europe. Madame Doom is there too, attempting to disrupt the process by manipulating the Hunchback of Notre Dame into assassinating Blank. It’s not explicit that she is still working for the Nazis on this, but c’mon. 

    This issue also marks the zenith of Madame Doom’s investment in the will they/won’t they relationship with Black X, but her plea to him to run away with her is an interrupted first by the Hunchback and then by the French authorities and so it is not to be.

    Madame Doom returns in Smash Comics 014 with some snappy new henchmen, the Legion of Living Bombs, who have: a. very cool costumes (that they don’t actually wear while they’re outside of the house), b. a very cool name (as long as you don’t think too hard about it in any context other than aesthetic).

    More importantly, this story features the zenith of Black X’s investment in the relationship between himself and Madame Doom, to the extent that he resigns from the Espionage for her.

    This proves to be what’s known as a Bad Decision, as Black X soon learns that while Madame Doom is not working for the Nazis this time around (that’s good), that is because she has teamed up with a fellow named Count Mirov in a bid to conquer South America (that’s bad), and that to that end she is dosing her fanatical minions with a fluid that eventually causes them to explode and sending them out to disrupt the Pan-American diplomatic talks (that’s even worse). If there’s a positive to this dastardly plot, it’s that it seems to kill the romantic tension between the two once and for all.

    (Madame Doom’s height, hair colour and general appearance are fairly mutable during these appearances, as is not unusual for reoccurring female villains. I mention that here because in order to say that her height had fluctuated I felt compelled to comb through this issue like a foot pervert to see if she was wearing anachronistic 90s stiletto heels, but as you can see above she is not)

    After some hijinks involving Black X’s aide Batu stealing back his letter of resignation so that his boss can get back on the case, Black X returns to Madame Doom’s underground HQ and proceeds to beat ass, and the ease with which he does so to an entire roomful of guys might just be another indictment of selecting your minions for their willingness to die over any other useful quality.

    Defeated, Madame Doom decides to take what I would call “the cool way out” and guzzles some of her own explosive brew rather than be captured. It’s a heck of a way to leave a final impression.

    SPOILER: Madame Doom will return!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 548 UPDATE: MADAME DOOM (1940)

    When we last saw Madame Doom, she had been bested at the game of espionage by the Black X and was fleeing the US for friendlier shores at the end of Smash Comics 004.

    Madame Doom returns with a fresh new attitude for 1940 in Smash Comics 008, as now she is not just working for an analog of the Axis powers but explicitly for the Nazis. It’s a lateral move at best but an important one nonetheless. She only actually appears for a page or so and acts as an obstacle to Black X’s escape from Germany rather than a full-fledged villain, and is then left in his dust as he takes off into France.

    In Smash Comics 012, Black X accompanies US Ambassador Blank to Paris as part of an attempt to initiate peace talks in Europe. Madame Doom is there too, attempting to disrupt the process by manipulating the Hunchback of Notre Dame into assassinating Blank. It’s not explicit that she is still working for the Nazis on this, but c’mon. 

    This issue also marks the zenith of Madame Doom’s investment in the will they/won’t they relationship with Black X, but her plea to him to run away with her is an interrupted first by the Hunchback and then by the French authorities and so it is not to be.

    Madame Doom returns in Smash Comics 014 with some snappy new henchmen, the Legion of Living Bombs, who have: a. very cool costumes (that they don’t actually wear while they’re outside of the house), b. a very cool name (as long as you don’t think too hard about it in any context other than aesthetic).

    More importantly, this story features the zenith of Black X’s investment in the relationship between himself and Madame Doom, to the extent that he resigns from the Espionage for her.

    This proves to be what’s known as a Bad Decision, as Black X soon learns that while Madame Doom is not working for the Nazis this time around (that’s good), that is because she has teamed up with a fellow named Count Mirov in a bid to conquer South America (that’s bad), and that to that end she is dosing her fanatical minions with a fluid that eventually causes them to explode and sending them out to disrupt the Pan-American diplomatic talks (that’s even worse). If there’s a positive to this dastardly plot, it’s that it seems to kill the romantic tension between the two once and for all.

    (Madame Doom’s height, hair colour and general appearance are fairly mutable during these appearances, as is not unusual for reoccurring female villains. I mention that here because in order to say that her height had fluctuated I felt compelled to comb through this issue like a foot pervert to see if she was wearing anachronistic 90s stiletto heels, but as you can see above she is not)

    After some hijinks involving Black X’s aide Batu stealing back his letter of resignation so that his boss can get back on the case, Black X returns to Madame Doom’s underground HQ and proceeds to beat ass, and the ease with which he does so to an entire roomful of guys might just be another indictment of selecting your minions for their willingness to die over any other useful quality.

    Defeated, Madame Doom decides to take what I would call “the cool way out” and guzzles some of her own explosive brew rather than be captured. It’s a heck of a way to leave a final impression.

    SPOILER: Madame Doom will return!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 737: THE SPOOK

    (Silver Streak Comics 006, 1940) 

    Continuing from the story of the Panther, Ace Powers ventures into the hole he had left the villain and his Panther Men in, seeking to discover the location of the former and presumably the reason for the deaths of the latter. Making his way through a concealed door, Powers finds the Panther about to be executed by a third villain called the Spook, who states that he is doing so because the Panther failed him, presumably by being foiled by Ace Powers in the previous issue. And let me tell you: I almost always love the revelation that a super-villain is in fact merely an agent of an even more evil villain but I especially love the fact that this means that the Panther Men were essentially subcontracting villainy.

    The Spook captures Powers with the help of his rad Skeleton Men and of course offers him the chance to join up with an organization where failure will get you gruesomely killed (it’s an understandable no from Our Hero). He also lays out his deal, kind of, and this is where we get into the very frustrating thing about the Spook: he’s clearly a vampire, but this comic won’t just come out and say it. Check it out: sharp canines, lives underground, “my body cannot stand sunlight.” Even that mantled robe he’s wearing is pretty reasonable comic book vampire fashion for the early 1940s.

    Plus, there’s the Skeleton Men, who are again rad as hell and are described as being animated by the Spook’s will alone (yes, he says “hypnotic” there but really that’s about the same as describing your power as “quantum” in a comic from 2010 only for magic). That’s some vampire shit right there.

    Ace Powers manages to knock the Spook out with a solid right to the jaw, which disables the Skeleton Men as well – this raises some questions about how security works while the Spook is enjoying a nap, or it would do if he weren’t clearly a vampire.

    To cap off the frustration, Powers decides to rid the world of the Spook with a simple bundle of dynamite rather than for instance dragging him out into the sun to shrivel up, a clear violation of my right to see vampires shrivel up in the sun from time to time. It’s a good thing that this is your final appearance, Ace Powers, because I now have a grudge against you and I would hate to have that taint my reading experience going forward.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 737: THE SPOOK

    (Silver Streak Comics 006, 1940) 

    Continuing from the story of the Panther, Ace Powers ventures into the hole he had left the villain and his Panther Men in, seeking to discover the location of the former and presumably the reason for the deaths of the latter. Making his way through a concealed door, Powers finds the Panther about to be executed by a third villain called the Spook, who states that he is doing so because the Panther failed him, presumably by being foiled by Ace Powers in the previous issue. And let me tell you: I almost always love the revelation that a super-villain is in fact merely an agent of an even more evil villain but I especially love the fact that this means that the Panther Men were essentially subcontracting villainy.

    The Spook captures Powers with the help of his rad Skeleton Men and of course offers him the chance to join up with an organization where failure will get you gruesomely killed (it’s an understandable no from Our Hero). He also lays out his deal, kind of, and this is where we get into the very frustrating thing about the Spook: he’s clearly a vampire, but this comic won’t just come out and say it. Check it out: sharp canines, lives underground, “my body cannot stand sunlight.” Even that mantled robe he’s wearing is pretty reasonable comic book vampire fashion for the early 1940s.

    Plus, there’s the Skeleton Men, who are again rad as hell and are described as being animated by the Spook’s will alone (yes, he says “hypnotic” there but really that’s about the same as describing your power as “quantum” in a comic from 2010 only for magic). That’s some vampire shit right there.

    Ace Powers manages to knock the Spook out with a solid right to the jaw, which disables the Skeleton Men as well – this raises some questions about how security works while the Spook is enjoying a nap, or it would do if he weren’t clearly a vampire.

    To cap off the frustration, Powers decides to rid the world of the Spook with a simple bundle of dynamite rather than for instance dragging him out into the sun to shrivel up, a clear violation of my right to see vampires shrivel up in the sun from time to time. It’s a good thing that this is your final appearance, Ace Powers, because I now have a grudge against you and I would hate to have that taint my reading experience going forward.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 736: LURIDA

    (Silver Streak Comics 005, 1940)

    I was just about to type that this was “a simple, straightforward super-hero comic story” and then immediately had to grapple with how to summarize the following: in the previous issue of Silver Streak Comics, adventurer Lance Hale set out to recover a treasure left by his uncle in an old mine in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). After helping the immortal Queen of the Underground Empire Aldia and her caveman subjects fight off a lizard man invasion (and incidentally becoming immortal himself, though this is never brought up again), Lance took the treasure with the stated intention of using it to help the needy back in America. Simple!

    This issue, we learn that this treasure includes an artifact known as the Gem of Evil and that a femme fatale named Lurida (very on-the-nose name) not only knows about it but somehow knows that Lance Hale has it. She steals the treasure with the help of some more-competent-than-usual henchmen and voila, summons herself the Shadow Monster.

    We don’t get a real run-down of the Shadow Monster’s abilities but on-panel it is at least physically invulnerable and able to grow to giant size, and so I must admit that I find Lurida’s use of it to commit bank robberies and insurance fraud to be a bit limited, imagination-wise. Not that I have any sort of Grand Scheme for what I would do with such a beast, mind, I just have a knee jerk sense that if you’re using magic or super science or mutant powers or whatever to do something as banal as insurance fraud then you’re Doing It Wrong.

    As a femme fatale, Lurida is obligated to make a stab at seducing Lance over to her side, just as Lance as a stalwart hero is obliged to insultingly turn her down, and after some monkey business with a fire-based deathtrap Lance manages to destroy both the Gem of Evil and the Shadow Monster, and Lurida completes the set by flinging herself into the same flame she had set for Lance. It’s not a great decision considering that no court in the land is equipped to prosecute somebody for shadow demon summoning, but it does tie up the episode in a real neat bow.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 736: LURIDA

    (Silver Streak Comics 005, 1940)

    I was just about to type that this was “a simple, straightforward super-hero comic story” and then immediately had to grapple with how to summarize the following: in the previous issue of Silver Streak Comics, adventurer Lance Hale set out to recover a treasure left by his uncle in an old mine in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). After helping the immortal Queen of the Underground Empire Aldia and her caveman subjects fight off a lizard man invasion (and incidentally becoming immortal himself, though this is never brought up again), Lance took the treasure with the stated intention of using it to help the needy back in America. Simple!

    This issue, we learn that this treasure includes an artifact known as the Gem of Evil and that a femme fatale named Lurida (very on-the-nose name) not only knows about it but somehow knows that Lance Hale has it. She steals the treasure with the help of some more-competent-than-usual henchmen and voila, summons herself the Shadow Monster.

    We don’t get a real run-down of the Shadow Monster’s abilities but on-panel it is at least physically invulnerable and able to grow to giant size, and so I must admit that I find Lurida’s use of it to commit bank robberies and insurance fraud to be a bit limited, imagination-wise. Not that I have any sort of Grand Scheme for what I would do with such a beast, mind, I just have a knee jerk sense that if you’re using magic or super science or mutant powers or whatever to do something as banal as insurance fraud then you’re Doing It Wrong.

    As a femme fatale, Lurida is obligated to make a stab at seducing Lance over to her side, just as Lance as a stalwart hero is obliged to insultingly turn her down, and after some monkey business with a fire-based deathtrap Lance manages to destroy both the Gem of Evil and the Shadow Monster, and Lurida completes the set by flinging herself into the same flame she had set for Lance. It’s not a great decision considering that no court in the land is equipped to prosecute somebody for shadow demon summoning, but it does tie up the episode in a real neat bow.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 732: THE DOC

    (Silver Streak Comics 003, 1940)

    Like his super-heroic enemy the Silver Streak, the Doc’s story is complicated somewhat by the fact that it begins as an effort by Jack Binder and ends as one by Jack Cole. In the former, the Doc is a mysterious figure who is orchestrating the deaths of the drivers of Silver Streak race cars via giant fly attacks. The reason for this? Never made clear. 

    Once the Swami and his race crew are seemingly out of business for good, the giant fly turns to more conventional crime in an effort to extort what will eventually turn out to be New York City for 20 million dollars. This is both where we learn that the fly was created by Dr Katan, a mad zoologist and  also presumably the one writing notes signed “the Fly”.

    Though the New York authorities feel that they have no choice but to capitulate to the Fly’s demands, the Silver Streak has other ideas, and uses his hypnotically-enhanced physique to send the beast to a messy end.

    The Fly may be defeated and the monies returned, but Dr Katan is still out there, still capable of creating giant insects…

    Dropping the “Katan” (and also the “tor”) and now known also as “the Doc”, the villain’s second appearance is comparatively low stakes, with only one little extortion-based kidnapping before he is forced to marshal all of his insects and arachnids against a Silver Streak out for revenge. the real highlight is these cool-ass stinger bugs – if only there were little gremlinoid insects running around on two legs shooting spikes out of there mouths at one another.

    Unfortunately for the Doc, by his second appearance he is up against the super speed Silver Streak rather than the car driving one, so his various arthropods are disposed of and he is captured in fairly short order.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 721: THE GENIUS

    (Science Comics 003, 1940)

    Dynamo has been stirring up trouble in the Unspecified City underworld. He’s captured Rats Rako and a significant portion of his gang and now Rats’ lieutenant Gun Ramey must figure out just how to deal with a superhuman do-gooder. It’s lucky for him that Unspecified City has a resident criminal scientist, the Genius (ignore the fact that they’re calling him Electro, this is from his first adventure before he changes it).

    I’ll be honest, my first instinct was to chuck the Genius into the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up, but between the name and the fact that he looks like someone did one of those awful clickbait art exercises where they do a “realistic” version of a cartoon character, in this case Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, and then ran that picture through a filter to make it look like an illustration. He is very distinct looking is what I am saying. And look at the size of that melon!

    The Genius lives up to his reputation, and one week later he is able to depower Dynamo and drop him in a pit with almost laughable ease. And then Gun Ramey make one of the classic inexplicable blunders and decides to save some money by stiffing the Genius on the bill, and as usually happens when someone in fiction cheats the person who specializes in deathtraps and murder, Gun finds himself in a deathtrap, about to be murdered.

    Luckily for Gun, the Dynamo and basically everyone in Unspecified City other than the Genius, the particular deathtrap that the two find themselves in is not a bespoke one that was made specifically in order to dispose of an electricity-powered superhuman but an old workaday deathtrap that the Genius has been using for years, to the extent that Gun knows all about it (and yet still got lippy with the Genius about his fee – probably the reason Gun is still a gang lieutenant rather than a gang boss). And a key thing about this deathtrap is that it not only features a spiked ceiling that lowers and crushes the occupants but also an exposed wire, so that the Genius’ victims must grapple with the choice of whether to wait for the spikes or end it all with the wire. Dynamo/Electro obviously chooses the latter and, revitalized, zaps the Genius into submission.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 717: THE MASKED TERROR

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 717: THE MASKED TERROR

    (Rocket Comics 003, 1940)

    The Phantom Ranger is just minding his business one day when he receives a sternly-worded letter via throwing knife, warning him to “steer clear of the red-headed girl.” This is of course your classic case of warning the hero off before he has a dang clue what’s going on.

    Everything is okay though, because the young woman who shortly rides up and requests the Ranger’s help has blonde hair. The “red-headed girl” must be seeking aid elsewhere. Or the colourist and the letterer had some sort of miscommunication. One of the two.

    The girl, whatever her hair colour, is named Lindy Davis, and the Masked Terror has kidnapped her father for ransom, a crime you don’t see as much in a lot of Western comics but I am certain is an authentic Old West crime.

    The Phantom Ranger accompanies Lindy to the handoff, where we learn that a) the Masked Terror is one homely cuss and eventually b) that he has already killed Mr Davis. The Phantom Ranger sets off in hot pursuit.

    And of course the Masked Terror turns out to be Ansom, the Davis’ neighbour and, crucially, the only one Lindy told about her plan to contact the Phantom Ranger. Plus I assume that he is the only nearby man ugly enough to be a suspect. The Terror chooses to go for his gun and meets a swift end.