The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: murderer

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 871: THE MONSTER

    (Zip Comics 002, 1940) 

    Mr Satan is summoned to the charmingly-named Shadow Pond to solve a series of disappearances among a group of scientists who have secluded themselves there. Upon arriving he immediately finds himself in the middle of an attack by a humanoid monster (the Monster, of course. Annoyingly, it is never once referred to as the Monster of Shadow Pond, which would be a pretty great name). He manages to pull a young woman away from the attack and is shortly thereafter introduced to the cast of characters at Shadow Pond:

    Professor Heaslip: Mr Satan’s client and the de facto leader of the scientific group.

    Mrs Heaslip: the Professor’s younger wife, recently rescued from the clutches of the Monster by Mr Satan.

    John Heaslip: the Professor’s brother, a scientist in his own right. Narrowly avoided being killed by the Monster in its first attack.

    Blake: Scientist and acquaintance of Mr Satan. Blake gets mentioned a fair amount throughout the story but only makes one appearance. Probably killed by the Monster.

    Richards: Scientist. Killed in the first attack by the Monster.

    Slade: Scientist. Killed in the attack that Mr Satan witnessed.

    Unnamed Scientist: Killed at some point by the Monster.

    Is someone in this motley crew actually the Monster? Not the dead ones, obviously. 

    Mr Satan does some investigating and is himself almost killed by the Monster. In the process he discovers that the scientists’ missing bodies are caught in a whirlpool beneath the surface of the pond, explaining why they have not surfaced.

    A plan to kill the Monster with a bomb goes awry when the device, built by John Heaslip, goes off without warning and almost kills both his brother and Mr Satan

    This explosion provides Mr Satan with the final key to the puzzle: he tracks down the conveniently-not-at-the-site-of-the-explosion John and Mrs Heaslip and confronts them with the truth: this whole affair has been about the illicit love that they share. The Monster was born out of an attempt to murder Professor Heaslip so that his widow and brother could be together (and also so that they could steal his radium ray, a device that literally had not been mentioned before it was revealed to be a motivation for murder, and which I think was added late in the game to make the story a bit less sordid). A sad and grubby resolution indeed.

    We also get to see the full Monster getup, and while some of the other diving-suit-modified-to-look-like-sea-monster examples we have are a bit more monstery, this might just be the best looking weird diving suit. Lust look at that eye stalk/periscope!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 871: THE MONSTER

    (Zip Comics 002, 1940) 

    Mr Satan is summoned to the charmingly-named Shadow Pond to solve a series of disappearances among a group of scientists who have secluded themselves there. Upon arriving he immediately finds himself in the middle of an attack by a humanoid monster (the Monster, of course. Annoyingly, it is never once referred to as the Monster of Shadow Pond, which would be a pretty great name). He manages to pull a young woman away from the attack and is shortly thereafter introduced to the cast of characters at Shadow Pond:

    Professor Heaslip: Mr Satan’s client and the de facto leader of the scientific group.

    Mrs Heaslip: the Professor’s younger wife, recently rescued from the clutches of the Monster by Mr Satan.

    John Heaslip: the Professor’s brother, a scientist in his own right. Narrowly avoided being killed by the Monster in its first attack.

    Blake: Scientist and acquaintance of Mr Satan. Blake gets mentioned a fair amount throughout the story but only makes one appearance. Probably killed by the Monster.

    Richards: Scientist. Killed in the first attack by the Monster.

    Slade: Scientist. Killed in the attack that Mr Satan witnessed.

    Unnamed Scientist: Killed at some point by the Monster.

    Is someone in this motley crew actually the Monster? Not the dead ones, obviously. 

    Mr Satan does some investigating and is himself almost killed by the Monster. In the process he discovers that the scientists’ missing bodies are caught in a whirlpool beneath the surface of the pond, explaining why they have not surfaced.

    A plan to kill the Monster with a bomb goes awry when the device, built by John Heaslip, goes off without warning and almost kills both his brother and Mr Satan

    This explosion provides Mr Satan with the final key to the puzzle: he tracks down the conveniently-not-at-the-site-of-the-explosion John and Mrs Heaslip and confronts them with the truth: this whole affair has been about the illicit love that they share. The Monster was born out of an attempt to murder Professor Heaslip so that his widow and brother could be together (and also so that they could steal his radium ray, a device that literally had not been mentioned before it was revealed to be a motivation for murder, and which I think was added late in the game to make the story a bit less sordid). A sad and grubby resolution indeed.

    We also get to see the full Monster getup, and while some of the other diving-suit-modified-to-look-like-sea-monster examples we have are a bit more monstery, this might just be the best looking weird diving suit. Lust look at that eye stalk/periscope!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 868: THE HOOD

    (Wonderworld Comics 019, 1940)

    The Hood, a mysterious figure (who leaves a note with an unfortunately cut-off symbol that I can only assume/hope is a hood-and-crossbones) is terrorizing an unnamed city with a series of murders – eight in one week! 

    Going by the old wisdom that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, the Flame waits at the site of the latest murder and is rewarded when the Hood does just that. He is however unsuccessful in capturing the fiend due to the twin facts that a) the Hood thought to bring some guys along with him and b) an unfortunate woman happens by just in time to be taken hostage. 

    The Flame and the never-named woman are taken prisoner and spend some time escaping while the Hood lines up his next victim, a store owner who lives near the Sea Clock mentioned in his taunting note. This is when we finally get some inkling of the Hood’s motivations: far from being an ordinary homicidal maniac, he is instead forcing his victims to sign over their property to him before murdering them.

    (I would just like to take a second here to roast the Unnamed City authorities for the sheer amount of consternation they evince at the notion of a “sea clock” when they live in a town that has such a large clock tower located on its waterfront)

    The Hood is finally unmasked and turns out to be the Unnamed City Mayor’s personal secretary, Jenkins, who the Flame had held in deep suspicion for the entire issue for using the word “extraordinary” to describe the killer. This sort of thing is always highlighted when it pays off, but how many times does a crime go unsolved because of such unwarranted suspicion of a person with a weird vocabulary or a tendency for malapropisms, hmm?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 868: THE HOOD

    (Wonderworld Comics 019, 1940)

    The Hood, a mysterious figure (who leaves a note with an unfortunately cut-off symbol that I can only assume/hope is a hood-and-crossbones) is terrorizing an unnamed city with a series of murders – eight in one week! 

    Going by the old wisdom that the murderer always returns to the scene of the crime, the Flame waits at the site of the latest murder and is rewarded when the Hood does just that. He is however unsuccessful in capturing the fiend due to the twin facts that a) the Hood thought to bring some guys along with him and b) an unfortunate woman happens by just in time to be taken hostage. 

    The Flame and the never-named woman are taken prisoner and spend some time escaping while the Hood lines up his next victim, a store owner who lives near the Sea Clock mentioned in his taunting note. This is when we finally get some inkling of the Hood’s motivations: far from being an ordinary homicidal maniac, he is instead forcing his victims to sign over their property to him before murdering them.

    (I would just like to take a second here to roast the Unnamed City authorities for the sheer amount of consternation they evince at the notion of a “sea clock” when they live in a town that has such a large clock tower located on its waterfront)

    The Hood is finally unmasked and turns out to be the Unnamed City Mayor’s personal secretary, Jenkins, who the Flame had held in deep suspicion for the entire issue for using the word “extraordinary” to describe the killer. This sort of thing is always highlighted when it pays off, but how many times does a crime go unsolved because of such unwarranted suspicion of a person with a weird vocabulary or a tendency for malapropisms, hmm?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 864: THE BLOODY BARON

    (Wonderworld Comics 010, 1940)

    The Bloody Baron was once Karek, Baron of the Duchy of Morziava, somewhere in the spooky part of Eastern Europe. Nine Hundred plus years ago he went off to war and came back a woman-killing creep and so his people burned him at the stake. Ever since, he’s been rising from the dead and carrying off a woman per year – that’s at least eight hundred women as of the story we’re talking about!

    Yarko the Great is passing through Morziava when he runs into the Albert Deach, the son of an old friend, and his Morziavan fiance Sonya Miran. They collectively seek shelter for the night in a nearby castle and have the bad luck to find the Bloody Baron and his cadre of ghostly knights, who grab Sonya and spirit her off to the Valley of Shadows, which is either a euphemism for the underworld or a location in the underworld, take your pick.

    Yarko of course pursues, using the Baron’s own sword as a link to his spirit and then later as a weapon to stab the ghostly knights with.

    The Baron is made of sterner stuff than his subordinate ghosts, and Yarko’s magic is hampered by being in the underworld. but this doesn’t prove to be a problem, because the Baron has spent eight centuries generating an army of vengeful spirits and is completely unprepared to deal with any sort of ghost-on-ghost violence. Yarko only has to summon three dagger-wielding women before he is completely destroyed and descends to some sort of lower underworld yet. The people of Morziava are finally free!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 864: THE BLOODY BARON

    (Wonderworld Comics 010, 1940)

    The Bloody Baron was once Karek, Baron of the Duchy of Morziava, somewhere in the spooky part of Eastern Europe. Nine Hundred plus years ago he went off to war and came back a woman-killing creep and so his people burned him at the stake. Ever since, he’s been rising from the dead and carrying off a woman per year – that’s at least eight hundred women as of the story we’re talking about!

    Yarko the Great is passing through Morziava when he runs into the Albert Deach, the son of an old friend, and his Morziavan fiance Sonya Miran. They collectively seek shelter for the night in a nearby castle and have the bad luck to find the Bloody Baron and his cadre of ghostly knights, who grab Sonya and spirit her off to the Valley of Shadows, which is either a euphemism for the underworld or a location in the underworld, take your pick.

    Yarko of course pursues, using the Baron’s own sword as a link to his spirit and then later as a weapon to stab the ghostly knights with.

    The Baron is made of sterner stuff than his subordinate ghosts, and Yarko’s magic is hampered by being in the underworld. but this doesn’t prove to be a problem, because the Baron has spent eight centuries generating an army of vengeful spirits and is completely unprepared to deal with any sort of ghost-on-ghost violence. Yarko only has to summon three dagger-wielding women before he is completely destroyed and descends to some sort of lower underworld yet. The people of Morziava are finally free!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 855: GORE

    (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

    Gore, a mad scientist, has just escaped from an unspecified facility in an unnamed city in whatever part of Africa that Marga the Panther Woman hangs out, and while I appreciate how he looks like a little scamp while he’s stealing an airplane from Marga’s pal Ted, this young fellow would be heading straight to the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up if not for two fun things that he does and that I want to highlight:

    1. while siccing a gorilla on Marga isn’t the most original thing a villain has ever done I appreciate both that he has trained apes littering the jungle around his compound and that the ever-resourceful Marga just goes ahead and tears out its throat with her teeth.

    2. And speaking of jungle compounds, Gore has one and it’s surrounded by an acid moat, and unlike a lot of other acid moats out there this one actually sees some use, as Gore uses it to gruesomely dispose of his assistant Travers. 

    Gore’s real goal in escaping was to take revenge on that unnamed city for having the gall to lock him up. It’s no acid moat, but his long-range water evaporation ray is pretty fun, and stealing the city reservoir is a both more restrained and effective a way to harm a city than many we’ve seen.

    Acid, gorillas and ray cannons or not, Gore is still a weedy little nerd, and there’s only so long that he can get away with not being beat senseless by Marga the Panther Woman and shipped back to the Unnamed City Insane Asylum. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 855: GORE

    (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

    Gore, a mad scientist, has just escaped from an unspecified facility in an unnamed city in whatever part of Africa that Marga the Panther Woman hangs out, and while I appreciate how he looks like a little scamp while he’s stealing an airplane from Marga’s pal Ted, this young fellow would be heading straight to the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up if not for two fun things that he does and that I want to highlight:

    1. while siccing a gorilla on Marga isn’t the most original thing a villain has ever done I appreciate both that he has trained apes littering the jungle around his compound and that the ever-resourceful Marga just goes ahead and tears out its throat with her teeth.

    2. And speaking of jungle compounds, Gore has one and it’s surrounded by an acid moat, and unlike a lot of other acid moats out there this one actually sees some use, as Gore uses it to gruesomely dispose of his assistant Travers. 

    Gore’s real goal in escaping was to take revenge on that unnamed city for having the gall to lock him up. It’s no acid moat, but his long-range water evaporation ray is pretty fun, and stealing the city reservoir is a both more restrained and effective a way to harm a city than many we’ve seen.

    Acid, gorillas and ray cannons or not, Gore is still a weedy little nerd, and there’s only so long that he can get away with not being beat senseless by Marga the Panther Woman and shipped back to the Unnamed City Insane Asylum. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 854: THE BEAST

    (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

    The Beast is the Eagle’s first and perhaps only recurring foe, and it’s unfortunate that he makes his first appearance at the very end of the 1940 run of Weird Comics because I really want to highlight the similarities between the Beast and his fellow Luis Cazaneuve creation the Rook, but danged if I have enough material for a real compare-and contrast on them yet. For now, we’ll just hit the obvious, such as the fact that they look very similar, right down to their staring eyes. Not the hair, though.

    The Beast’s focus in this story is on stealing a treasure map that just happens to be concealed in an ornamental box owned by Bill “the Eagle” Powers, which is as easy a way to involve the hero in the story as comics has come up with. His criminal tools of choice in this endeavour are a fairly gnarly clawed prosthetic hand from which he presumably derives his name and a poisoned blowgun which I am very interested to see if he keeps on using.

    The second point of comparison between the Rook and the Beast is the fact that they both have a criminal antagonist, in this case a gang boss known as the Gimp, who the Beast hires to retrieve the box initially and then double crosses once it’s time to pay for his services. The Gimp really comes into his own in 1941, when he starts using his signature weapon, an artificial leg with a knife on the end. For now we must simply assume that he’s kicking the Beast with a wooden foot.

    I’m calling this one based on very little evidence, but I reckon that the third commonality between the Rook and the Beast is going to be Seemingly Dying at the End of Each Adventure, based on the fact that the Beast does just that at the end of this one. See you next year, Beast!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 839: THE DOCTOR

    (Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940) 

    The Doctor operates a simple but brutal extortion racket: a network of crooked doctors refer workplace compensation cases to him at his fake hospital and he then charges them as much as they are being paid in compensation, and if anyone dares to complain, they suddenly require urgent surgery and die on the operating table.  

    For the second time in two days I must note: surgical scrubs are such a good super-villain costume.

    This is exactly the sort of thing that the Wizard hates, and you just know that Roy the Super-Boy has to get in on Beating Up an Entire Hospital. Roy almost gets murdered for his trouble, but the Wizard shows up in the nick of time, and the Doctor’s entire network gets handed over to the authorities.