The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: murderer

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 379: THE BLUE FLAME

    (More Fun Comics 065, 1941)

    A fairly simple one, this. The Blue Flame is an eerie cloaked figure sheathed in, yes, blue flame, that embarks on a crime spree in Cliffland, New Jersey. His crimes are not quite but almost exclusively aimed at the attendees of shows by stage magician Dr Mephisto and there is even some indication that the Blue Flame is attempting to frame Mephisto.

    Unfortunately for the Blue Flame, Cliffland is home to the Spectre, and he is fairly swiftly revealed to actually be… Dr Mephisto! That’s right, the whole thing about the frame-up was a moderately clever ruse! That failed to take into account the fairly well-documented super-powered ghost-man constantly capturing costumed crooks, sure, but a plan is a plan and deserves acknowledgement.

    By far the best part of the story, at least for my money, is the Spectre’s encounter with Blue Flame henchman Jimmy “Knife” Groggins. Contrary to his no-nonsense buzzkill modern characterization, the Golden Age Spectre really seemed to have fun with his job and letting Knife throw his namesake only to turn it into a little necklace charm is a fairly good illustration of that. 

    Even better is this “monster of space” that the Spectre lets eat both himself and Knife as an advanced interrogation technique. Just look at that guy! A real top-notch monster! The Blue Flame can go kick rocks but BRING BACK this magnificent beast!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 379: THE BLUE FLAME

    (More Fun Comics 065, 1941)

    A fairly simple one, this. The Blue Flame is an eerie cloaked figure sheathed in, yes, blue flame, that embarks on a crime spree in Cliffland, New Jersey. His crimes are not quite but almost exclusively aimed at the attendees of shows by stage magician Dr Mephisto and there is even some indication that the Blue Flame is attempting to frame Mephisto.

    Unfortunately for the Blue Flame, Cliffland is home to the Spectre, and he is fairly swiftly revealed to actually be… Dr Mephisto! That’s right, the whole thing about the frame-up was a moderately clever ruse! That failed to take into account the fairly well-documented super-powered ghost-man constantly capturing costumed crooks, sure, but a plan is a plan and deserves acknowledgement.

    By far the best part of the story, at least for my money, is the Spectre’s encounter with Blue Flame henchman Jimmy “Knife” Groggins. Contrary to his no-nonsense buzzkill modern characterization, the Golden Age Spectre really seemed to have fun with his job and letting Knife throw his namesake only to turn it into a little necklace charm is a fairly good illustration of that. 

    Even better is this “monster of space” that the Spectre lets eat both himself and Knife as an advanced interrogation technique. Just look at that guy! A real top-notch monster! The Blue Flame can go kick rocks but BRING BACK this magnificent beast!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 378: THE THING

    (More Fun Comics 064, 1941)

    This is not a complicated one: Congo Bill is asked for help by his friend Jack Brent. Brent is trying to sell his plantation, one of the assets of which is his good relationship with the local labour pool. Just as he had found a buyer, a skull-headed goon called the Thing started murdering workers. It’s about par for course re: jungle comics portrayal of nonwhite folks and fairly standard otherwise and of course the Thing turns out to be Mr Tate the prospective buyer attempting to get a better price via wholesale slaughter. The one redeeming feature of the story is this:

    The Thing looks sick as hell. You’ll be hard pressed to find a better look than a skull in a hood and the cool dagger is a real bonus. The bulletproof vest is of course not visible but speaks to a thoughtfulness that is shamefully wasted in this grubby little scheme.

    And yes that is Congo Bill in blackface.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 376: THE SHADOW

    (More Fun Comics 064, 1941)

    The Shadow is in reality the vengeful ghost of Elmer Watson, a bumped-off witness in a big corruption case. Slightly more reasonable reason for revenge than some murderous ghosts, certainly, but Watson’s vengeance eventually becomes so all-consuming that he attempts to derail an entire passenger train to get at one target and he ends up banished to whatever nether realm the Spectre sends bad ghosts to.

    This is two Vengeance Ghosts in a row for the Spectre! Is that all he is going to face now? No, I checked, it’s not. Close call though!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 369: ILLYRIA, QUEEN OF SPIES

    (Master Comics 012-014, 016-017, 019-020; Minute-Man Comics 001-002, 1941)

    Illyria, Queen of Spies! (AKA Queen Spy, Spy Queen, Queen of All Spies, Queen of Foreign Spies, etc) Definitely in the running for my favourite of the “recurring femme fatale spymaster” subgenre of super-villain, particularly as she is a foe to Minute-Man, one of the most bland piles of wallpaper paste ever to wear a patriotic costume.

    Beyond merely distracting me from how bored I am by Minute-Man, Illyria provides interest via a fairly wide range of plots and schemes and thus is kind of hard to boil down into a pithy summary. So: a numbered list:

    1. In her first appearance Illyria wears a snazzy orange robe, the better to whip off when captured so as to take advantage of Minute-Man’s “won’t hit girls” policy and get away. She and her three distinctive henchmen spend the issue shooting down US Army aircraft on behalf of their unspecified nation using a special blindingly-bright plane (Master Comics 012, 1941)

    2.In her second outing, Illyria engages in the already-old gag of using war games as a cover to massacre soldiers with real bullets. The interesting aspect of the story is that she is established as an explicit Axis agent (though of a never-specified power) and recruits spies from the other Axis powers to aid her in her schemes (Master Comics 014, 1941)

    3. This one’s just an attempt to kidnap a scientist who has developed a new explosive. It is the origin of the “Queen of Spies” part of her moniker, though. This adventure also marks the first time that Illyria is actually captured, as she is just as slippery as any recurring femme fatale  (Master Comics 014, 1941)

    4. After precisely one issue in the hoosegow, Illyria breaks out (that poor nurse) and attempts to blow up a Fourth of July celebration. (Master Comics 016, 1941)

    5. In service to a pretty rote kidnapping, Illyria deploys both a remote-controlled bomber and X-33, an extremely cool robot soldier who is sadly (for him) not at all waterproof. (Master Comics 017, 1941)

    6. Master Comics 019 & 020 are concerned with boring old espionage focused on stealing bombers and bomber plans: ho hum. Illyria does step up the villainy to include slavery in the latter appearance, though.

    7. Minute-Man 001 features Illyria and her drum-playing chum in a scheme to cause a native uprising on the US-held island of Barracoon in the Gulf of Mexico. The main draw of the story is Illyria’s keen voodoo dance hat but if you want to read a comic that inadvertently highlights the evils of colonialism then this is the one for you, along with about 90% of all Golden Age comics set outside of Europe or North America. And some of the ones set in North America, too.

    8. Illyria’s final appearance in Minute-Man 002 retroactively establishes that the Queen of Spies has been working for the heretofore unmentioned Green Hood, who is tired of her getting foiled all of the time. It’s a bit of an anticlimax for her, as the story is much more concerned with the Green Hood than her. Still, she manages to get away at the end, joining the ranks of the surprisingly populous “recurring femme fatale spies who don’t end up getting caught by dint of not recurring that extra time.”

    (at least I reckon that was her last appearance. She was captured at the end of Master Comics 020, dated November 1941, while Minute-Man 002 was the Winter Issue, dated September to December 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 363: MR H

    (Master Comics 001 (behind the scenes) or Master Comics 007 (first mentioned) or Master Comics 008 (first appearance on-panel)-Master Comics 020, 1940-1941)

     

    Mr H, the mastermind behind all crime in the city of Carterville and its unnamed state, gets up to all kinds of schemes through his proxies. For example:

    -running an illegal casino in a hard-to-catch gambling blimp

    -robbing a munitions plant in order to outfit a small army of gangsters and enact a criminal takeover of Carterville

    -stealing an experimental bomber from the US Army and attempting to sell it to crypto-Nazis

    -having his gang murder random Carterville citizens in order to drive down confidence in the police

    -stealing an experimental paralysis gas in order to disable and rob the entire population of Carterville 

    -attempting to destroy all public transit in Carterville for unclear reasons

    -attempting to blow up the Carterville Dam for unclear reasons

    -sundry murders and robberies

    At first, Carterville’s major crime figure and the inspiration for regional super-hero the Devil’s Dagger is a guy by the name of Jeff Marlowe, but he falls off of a roof in Master Comics 007, necessitating the introduction of his boss, Mr H. Over the course of his 12-odd appearances Mr H has a variable amount of hair and a selection of different cloth masks. The consistent aspect of his adventures (aside from his orange suit) is his habit of getting away in some sort of motor vehicle at the last second.

    Then, in Master Comics 018, Ken “Devil’s Dagger” Wyman gets a new coworker, police reporter Holfax. I won’t beat around the bush: Holfax is Mr H – introduced, I suspect, because the feature was coming to an end and they needed somebody to be the villain. The great thing about this is that Holfax/ Mr H thus becomes an evil equivalent to Wyman/ the Devil’s Dagger, something that I’m always excited to see.

    And the piece de resistance is of course the capture of Mr H and the subsequent retirement of the Devil’s Dagger in Master Comics 020, a rare ending not just for a Golden Age super-hero but for any super-hero ever.

    Mr H might not be terribly exciting in and of himself but I would still love to see a legacy Devil’s Dagger BRUNG BACK and who better to act as his foil than an ancient Holfax, out of prison and running Carterville once again.

    ADDENDUM: I almost forgot to highlight the fact that Mr H employs one of my favourite costume elements: the mask with attached bald cap.

    ADDENDUM II: I just read the long-unavailable Master Comics 006 and in it Mr H, through his proxy Jeff Marlowe, kidnaps the President of the United States for ransom. This is a very big crime not to have been aware of!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 360: MISTER MASK

    (Master Comics 019, 1941)

    If you’re ever at a party and a guy shows up with a mysterious bequest for the host and then is murdered by an unseen party before he can hand over what turns out to be a huge diamond then take it from me: you are in a comic book. If there’s a guy named “Rajah Kohur” there to declare the diamond to be cursed, well that’s just what we call further evidence.

    Now you’re going to want to watch out for costumed crooks – in this case they’ve gone for a vague Indian/ religious theme to play up the cursed nature of the gem and are using a weird tube that shoots darts made of crystallized poison to kill people because simplicity and costumed villainy don’t mix.

    Anyway, you’re going to want to keep an eye on any guardians, uncles, family lawyers, that sort of folk. Mister Mask turns out to be the heiress’ foppish cousin Dariustrying to get her to sell the “cursed” diamond cheap (Rajah Kohur is of course a con artist). His biggest error was in trying all of this at an event attended by the Companions Three – there’s no reason to handicap your own attempt at an already difficult task.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 357: MUMBO JUMBO

    (Master Comics 016, 1941) 

    I always have an instinct to skip the really racist ones, but I think it’s better to acknowledge them? There’s lots of messed up shit in old (and new) comics, folks. 

    Anyway, Mumbo Jumbo is a guy named Graynor who poses as a voodoo god/ priest in classic (often quite racist) comics style and uses the believers at his command in order to… get revenge on his old boss. It’s a shocking lack of ambition on top of everything else – just as well that he gets murderated by Zoro the Mystery Man’s pet cheetah.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 356: OLBAID THE GREAT

    (Master Comics 016, 1941)

    I almost missed the fact that this guy is an evil equivalent of El Carim! I somehow read that opening blurb and thought that his name was Diablo but it’s not, it’s Olbaid – he has a backward name like El Carim!

    What’s more, Olbaid has roughly equivalent magical powers to El Carim, and uses magical items to supplement them just like him. In Olbaid’s case, this involves the Snake Pool, a magical pool of water that turns humans into constrictor snakes, suitable for use as snakey minions.

    While Olbaid is not a stage magician like El Carim, he does have a show business tie via his stable of ex-circus performer henchmen, including cowboy Rifle Ralph, lariat artist Roper Pete and an unnamed knife thrower.

    Sadly for Olbaid, the similarities between him and El Carim end when it comes to power levels and their magical duel ends with Olbaid in jail and the snakes restored to humans who hopefully can’t remember being used to squash a bunch of people.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 356: OLBAID THE GREAT

    (Master Comics 016, 1941)

    I almost missed the fact that this guy is an evil equivalent of El Carim! I somehow read that opening blurb and thought that his name was Diablo but it’s not, it’s Olbaid – he has a backward name like El Carim!

    What’s more, Olbaid has roughly equivalent magical powers to El Carim, and uses magical items to supplement them just like him. In Olbaid’s case, this involves the Snake Pool, a magical pool of water that turns humans into constrictor snakes, suitable for use as snakey minions.

    While Olbaid is not a stage magician like El Carim, he does have a show business tie via his stable of ex-circus performer henchmen, including cowboy Rifle Ralph, lariat artist Roper Pete and an unnamed knife thrower.

    Sadly for Olbaid, the similarities between him and El Carim end when it comes to power levels and their magical duel ends with Olbaid in jail and the snakes restored to humans who hopefully can’t remember being used to squash a bunch of people.