The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Nazi

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 524: THE KING OF THE VAMPIRES

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 524: THE KING OF THE VAMPIRES

    (Blue Ribbon Comics 011, 1941) 

    We open not on the King of the Vampires but on a different vampire, one with a monocle. This is Carlos Hubbello, a diplomatic envoy from South America who has been sent to discuss a trade deal with the US that would leave the Nazis in the cold. The two gentlemen with him are no gentlemen at all but rather Nazi spies who are controlling Hubbello by the simple expedient of having turned him into a vampire, which is certainly harder to get out of than say kidnapping his loved ones but comes with a whole lot of extra risk for his handlers.

    This story is rife with lore. To whit:

    LORE: Vampires are easily cowed with a cross, even when wielded by evil men.

    Hubbello comes very close to vampiring Mr Justice’s love interest Pat Clark while they watch a performance of the very weird and cool “Waltz of the Vampire”. A ghost/ vampire brawl ensues.

    LORE: A vampire can lose control when exposed to great art.

    LORE: vampires can transform into wolves and bats and retain their special vampire haircut in both forms (you can just make out a teeny tiny widow’s peak on the bat if you squint).

    Hubbello, defeated, spills the beans. The Nazis imported the King of the Vampires from Transylvania as part of their scheme to control the trade negotiations. Is the King of the Vampires a Nazi or merely using them to his own ends? This is not explored. Is the King of the Vampires supposed to be Dracula or is Transylvania just a good place for a vampire to come from? We can never know.

    LORE: Kill the head vampire in time and its under-vampires can be saved. What is “in time”? Not sure but it isn’t “before the under-vampire takes a life/ drinks human blood” as in a lot of vampire media, because Hubbello has already done both.

    Enter the King of the Vampires, freshly gorged on the blood of the innocent and battle commences. And I sure hope that Mr Justice knew the LORE that vampire cannot fight vampire because it means that he is on his own.

    LORE: this is the kind of vampire that seemingly isn’t harmed by light so much as by not physically being in his coffin at dawn. And he isn’t, so he dies.

    Hubbello is saved! The trade deal can go forward! And back in the US we are reacquainted with the Nazi vampire-handlers, who come with one last piece of LORE: that knives fashioned of pure gold taken from the tomb of the Egyptian King Ankhaman II are capable – possibly the only things capable – of killing a ghost. A potent weapon against Mr Justice, if only they were any good at knifing. But they aren’t so they get captured immediately and the knives are presumably never seen again.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 524: THE KING OF THE VAMPIRES

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 524: THE KING OF THE VAMPIRES

    (Blue Ribbon Comics 011, 1941) 

    We open not on the King of the Vampires but on a different vampire, one with a monocle. This is Carlos Hubbello, a diplomatic envoy from South America who has been sent to discuss a trade deal with the US that would leave the Nazis in the cold. The two gentlemen with him are no gentlemen at all but rather Nazi spies who are controlling Hubbello by the simple expedient of having turned him into a vampire, which is certainly harder to get out of than say kidnapping his loved ones but comes with a whole lot of extra risk for his handlers.

    This story is rife with lore. To whit:

    LORE: Vampires are easily cowed with a cross, even when wielded by evil men.

    Hubbello comes very close to vampiring Mr Justice’s love interest Pat Clark while they watch a performance of the very weird and cool “Waltz of the Vampire”. A ghost/ vampire brawl ensues.

    LORE: A vampire can lose control when exposed to great art.

    LORE: vampires can transform into wolves and bats and retain their special vampire haircut in both forms (you can just make out a teeny tiny widow’s peak on the bat if you squint).

    Hubbello, defeated, spills the beans. The Nazis imported the King of the Vampires from Transylvania as part of their scheme to control the trade negotiations. Is the King of the Vampires a Nazi or merely using them to his own ends? This is not explored. Is the King of the Vampires supposed to be Dracula or is Transylvania just a good place for a vampire to come from? We can never know.

    LORE: Kill the head vampire in time and its under-vampires can be saved. What is “in time”? Not sure but it isn’t “before the under-vampire takes a life/ drinks human blood” as in a lot of vampire media, because Hubbello has already done both.

    Enter the King of the Vampires, freshly gorged on the blood of the innocent and battle commences. And I sure hope that Mr Justice knew the LORE that vampire cannot fight vampire because it means that he is on his own.

    LORE: this is the kind of vampire that seemingly isn’t harmed by light so much as by not physically being in his coffin at dawn. And he isn’t, so he dies.

    Hubbello is saved! The trade deal can go forward! And back in the US we are reacquainted with the Nazi vampire-handlers, who come with one last piece of LORE: that knives fashioned of pure gold taken from the tomb of the Egyptian King Ankhaman II are capable – possibly the only things capable – of killing a ghost. A potent weapon against Mr Justice, if only they were any good at knifing. But they aren’t so they get captured immediately and the knives are presumably never seen again.

  • 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)

  • NOTES – APRIL 2024

    Nazi Superweapon:

    There’s nothing terribly special about this giant dirigible that the Phantom Sub encounters after it starts to fly as well as submerge, but I do appreciate a dirigible that can not only camouflage itself as a stormcloud but has a proper old-school lightning cannon mounted underneath. And is filled with hydrogen, nuch to its later detriment. (Blue Bolt v2 007, 1941)

    Honours:

    Corporal Collins, Infantryman earns the French Croix de Guerre. (Blue Ribbon Comics 002, 1939)

    Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog is made a full-fledged policeman in the NYPD (Blue Ribbon Comics 001, 1939)

    Assuming that this guy knows what he’s talking about, Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog probably gets the Congressional Medal (maybe of Honor, maybe another one) (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

    Rang-a-Tang the WOnder Dog gets place of honour in a circus parade. (Blue Ribbon Comics 013, 1941)

    Place Names:

    Hercules travels to Missiansas, only our second fake state after the Whip’s “New Texirona” (Blue Ribbon Comics 005, 1940)

    Costumes:

    Speaking of Hercules, this version of Zeus from his adventures might just be the greatest outlier in general dress and design I have ever seen (Blue Ribbon Comics 005, 1940)

    Aliens:

    Really enjoy the vibe of these Martian invaders. Screw cold rationalist aliens; bring on the party aliens! (Blue Ribbon Comics 008, 1941)

    Cops Shoot:

    The police of whatever town Mr Justice lives in attempt to summarily execute him for fleeing a third degree interrogation about him supposedly being bribed by a fake medium. (Blue Ribbon Comics 012, 1941)

    And over in whatever town Captain Flag calls home the cops attempt to gun him down as he breaks jail to stop the Black Hand from carrying out the scheme that he is in jail for due to those same cops being credulous morons. (Blue Ribbon Comics 018, 1941)

  • NOTES – APRIL 2024

    Nazi Superweapon:

    There’s nothing terribly special about this giant dirigible that the Phantom Sub encounters after it starts to fly as well as submerge, but I do appreciate a dirigible that can not only camouflage itself as a stormcloud but has a proper old-school lightning cannon mounted underneath. And is filled with hydrogen, nuch to its later detriment. (Blue Bolt v2 007, 1941)

    Honours:

    Corporal Collins, Infantryman earns the French Croix de Guerre. (Blue Ribbon Comics 002, 1939)

    Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog is made a full-fledged policeman in the NYPD (Blue Ribbon Comics 001, 1939)

    Assuming that this guy knows what he’s talking about, Rang-a-Tang the Wonder Dog probably gets the Congressional Medal (maybe of Honor, maybe another one) (Blue Ribbon Comics 004, 1940)

    Rang-a-Tang the WOnder Dog gets place of honour in a circus parade. (Blue Ribbon Comics 013, 1941)

    Place Names:

    Hercules travels to Missiansas, only our second fake state after the Whip’s “New Texirona” (Blue Ribbon Comics 005, 1940)

    Costumes:

    Speaking of Hercules, this version of Zeus from his adventures might just be the greatest outlier in general dress and design I have ever seen (Blue Ribbon Comics 005, 1940)

    Aliens:

    Really enjoy the vibe of these Martian invaders. Screw cold rationalist aliens; bring on the party aliens! (Blue Ribbon Comics 008, 1941)

    Cops Shoot:

    The police of whatever town Mr Justice lives in attempt to summarily execute him for fleeing a third degree interrogation about him supposedly being bribed by a fake medium. (Blue Ribbon Comics 012, 1941)

    And over in whatever town Captain Flag calls home the cops attempt to gun him down as he breaks jail to stop the Black Hand from carrying out the scheme that he is in jail for due to those same cops being credulous morons. (Blue Ribbon Comics 018, 1941)

  • FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 006

    Who will rid me of these fascist goons?

    The Nordland Bund is another German-American Bund analog but operates as more of a traditional spy operation on behalf of Nazi Germany stand-in Prussland. Their moderately complicated plan to get explosive coal onto US ships leaving Bermuda is foiled by Secret Agent D-13 and his Canadian counterpart/ love interest Lorraine MacAlinn (Mystery Men Comics 019, 1941)

    Like the man’s feet say, the Hoops are a bunch of Nazis (proper Nazis – Fox Features seems to have stopped pussyfooting around with oblique references and backwards words in the last few months of 1941) who had a signature move of leaving a hoop around the neck of their victims. And the word the Blue Beetle is searching for is explode the hoops explode. And fittingly enough the Blue Beetle later uses one of those hoops to explode Baron Gell, leader of the big-h Hoops. (Mystery Men Comics 025, 1941)

    Technically this group is nameless and the Anti-Foreigners Committee is a supposedly patriotic group run by their leader as a cover, but if there’s a name that underlines the simmering fascism that underlies ultra-patriotism better than that one then I can’t recall it. (Amazing-Man Comics 022, 1941)

    These guys are called the Thorns for no particular reason. Just a buncha Nazi goons with a more poetic name than usual. They go up against ultrapatriotic teen Paul Revere, Jr and also his dad. (Banner Comics 003, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 472: THE GREAT QUESTION

    (Amazing-Man Comics 005, 1939)

    The Great Question is a member of the Council of Seven, the mysterious body of scientists and mystics who trained and orphan boy into John Aman aka the Amazing-Man. The inner dynamics of the Council of Seven can be a bit hard to parse but early on it seems like the Great Question is if not in charge at least an unofficial leader. Later, as he has more and more conflict with Amazing-Man that role is filled by Aman’s mentor Nika.

    From issue 5 to 11, the first year of Aman’s adventures, the dynamic is such: Amazing-Man travels around helping people and inadvertently foiling the Great Question’s various schemes while the Question attempts to bend Aman to his will – above is a picture of the one time he managed to actually do it, turning Amazing-Man into some sort of terrifying crime genie.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 012, Aman answers a summons to return to the Council and is rewarded with a harness that both makes his “green mist” power permanent and renders him immune to the Question’s mental control. Suddenly, everything changes – sure, Amazing-Man is still travelling around foiling the Great Question’s various schemes, but without the mind control aspect to their dynamic it becomes a much more satisfying hero/villain pairing.

    (This seems like a good place for an aside: it’s never explicitly stated but implicitly it seems like the Council of Seven must know that their most prominent member is a super-villain. Did they recruit him because he was one or was it incidental to the other things he brought to the role? Impossible to say. The gift of the anti-mind control harness makes it clear that they preferred Aman in a heroic role but that’s about all that can be determined)

    From this point the Great Question really comes into his own as an international super-villain. No matter where Amazing-Man goes, the Question has a group of generic goons working on a scheme of some sort. This all comes to a head in Amazing-Man Comics 021, in which Amazing-Man and the Great Question face off on an island base crawling with uniformed henchmen armed with forcefield projectors to bottle up Aman’s gas form.

    There’s even an extremely radical giant robot!

    Things really come crashing down in the next issue, as the Great Question not only joins up with the Nazis but rebrands himself as Mister Que, a much worse name. Now obviously there are a lot of classic Nazi villains – they’re very easy to cast in the role because they suck – and it’s clear that the Great Question Mister Que is using them to further his own goals, but it really does diminish the fun of a classic megalomaniac to see him working to further the goals of the Nazis rather than his own.

    There are some interesting developments during the Mister Que era: he demonstrates more super-powers, for one, including a sort of whirlwind form used for rapid escape. He also manages to rob Fort Knox (well, Fort Fox), a classic villain cheevo. And even though I don’t particularly like the Nazi uniform look he does have the right smirk to be wearing that mask.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 024, Amazing-Man and Tommy the Amazing Kid face off against the Vulture, a Nazi agent with convoluted plan to destroy NYC using US soldiers under the thrall of psychoactive temporary tattoos. In the antepenultimate panel, the Vulture pulls off a rubberoid mask to reveal that he was in fact Mister Que! His reasoning for doing this (to keep Amazing-Man from attempting to kill him) is a bit suspect, but he does manage to get away in the end. Ignominious!

    And that’s it for the Great Question/ Mister Que/ the Vulture. Odds are that he would have returned to vex Amazing-Man yet again but Centaur stopped publishing comics in early 1942. Both he and Amazing-Man have been brought back a handful of times over the years, of course, but mostly the Great Question languishes, unanswered.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 472: THE GREAT QUESTION

    (Amazing-Man Comics 005, 1939)

    The Great Question is a member of the Council of Seven, the mysterious body of scientists and mystics who trained and orphan boy into John Aman aka the Amazing-Man. The inner dynamics of the Council of Seven can be a bit hard to parse but early on it seems like the Great Question is if not in charge at least an unofficial leader. Later, as he has more and more conflict with Amazing-Man that role is filled by Aman’s mentor Nika.

    From issue 5 to 11, the first year of Aman’s adventures, the dynamic is such: Amazing-Man travels around helping people and inadvertently foiling the Great Question’s various schemes while the Question attempts to bend Aman to his will – above is a picture of the one time he managed to actually do it, turning Amazing-Man into some sort of terrifying crime genie.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 012, Aman answers a summons to return to the Council and is rewarded with a harness that both makes his “green mist” power permanent and renders him immune to the Question’s mental control. Suddenly, everything changes – sure, Amazing-Man is still travelling around foiling the Great Question’s various schemes, but without the mind control aspect to their dynamic it becomes a much more satisfying hero/villain pairing.

    (This seems like a good place for an aside: it’s never explicitly stated but implicitly it seems like the Council of Seven must know that their most prominent member is a super-villain. Did they recruit him because he was one or was it incidental to the other things he brought to the role? Impossible to say. The gift of the anti-mind control harness makes it clear that they preferred Aman in a heroic role but that’s about all that can be determined)

    From this point the Great Question really comes into his own as an international super-villain. No matter where Amazing-Man goes, the Question has a group of generic goons working on a scheme of some sort. This all comes to a head in Amazing-Man Comics 021, in which Amazing-Man and the Great Question face off on an island base crawling with uniformed henchmen armed with forcefield projectors to bottle up Aman’s gas form.

    There’s even an extremely radical giant robot!

    Things really come crashing down in the next issue, as the Great Question not only joins up with the Nazis but rebrands himself as Mister Que, a much worse name. Now obviously there are a lot of classic Nazi villains – they’re very easy to cast in the role because they suck – and it’s clear that the Great Question Mister Que is using them to further his own goals, but it really does diminish the fun of a classic megalomaniac to see him working to further the goals of the Nazis rather than his own.

    There are some interesting developments during the Mister Que era: he demonstrates more super-powers, for one, including a sort of whirlwind form used for rapid escape. He also manages to rob Fort Knox (well, Fort Fox), a classic villain cheevo. And even though I don’t particularly like the Nazi uniform look he does have the right smirk to be wearing that mask.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 024, Amazing-Man and Tommy the Amazing Kid face off against the Vulture, a Nazi agent with convoluted plan to destroy NYC using US soldiers under the thrall of psychoactive temporary tattoos. In the antepenultimate panel, the Vulture pulls off a rubberoid mask to reveal that he was in fact Mister Que! His reasoning for doing this (to keep Amazing-Man from attempting to kill him) is a bit suspect, but he does manage to get away in the end. Ignominious!

    And that’s it for the Great Question/ Mister Que/ the Vulture. Odds are that he would have returned to vex Amazing-Man yet again but Centaur stopped publishing comics in early 1942. Both he and Amazing-Man have been brought back a handful of times over the years, of course, but mostly the Great Question languishes, unanswered.

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 003

    They may not be the top of the class, but they did their time in the evil sciences!

    Dr Eric Karlin has a lot of moxie on paper: a Nazi psychologist with a sideline in Egyptology, he dissolves the enemies of the Reich in acid and keeps their jellied remains in a series of jars in his basement. He also employs mind controlled pseudo-zombies in a scheme to recover frozen Nazi assets from a bank vault. The problem is that while all of this makes for a dynamite summary, the Blue Diamond story that he appears in is… not very good. (Daring Mystery Comics 008, 1942)

    DeVaux here had a plan to grow regular guys into huge guys and use them to take over the world but made the elementary mistake of trying to kill a friend of super-magician El Carim as his literal first step toward that end – it didn’t go well. (Master Comics 011, 1941)

    I’m not sure if this guy is even a scientist, but if you’re “the worst foreign spy living” and your name is Dr Evil and your cover as you plan to blow up a NYC analog is to call yourself “Dr Live” well then I can’t help but love you, even if you do get electrocuted by extremely generic Golden Age hero Lightning. (Jumbo Comics 015, 1940)

    And speaking of Lightning, he also battled Dr Tol, who used remote stone-crumbling technology to open up banks for his gang to loot. He also had very cool goggles. (Jumbo Comics 020, 1940)

  • FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 005

    FASCIST GOON CLEARING HOUSE 005

    Fascist, Smascist

    The Volunteers for Peace are another group that advocates for the US not to get involved in WWII as shorthand for them being full-on fascist fifth columnists setting the country up for an invasion by the evocatively-named Nation X. Don’t worry, not even Golden Age Superman has any trouble beating down a bunch of pseudo-Nazis (Action Comics 036, 1941)

    Another batch of Yellow Shirts, this time with a space! This bunch are some more bundists and they have the misfortune to tangle with ultranationalist adventurer Don Glory (Hit Comics 013, 1941)

    The Grey-Shirts were the personal army of early Justice Society villain the Leader. They were a diverse group – most cells were bundists but some were imported from the non-German Teutonic Fatherland that the Leader himself called home. (All-Star Comics 004, 1941)

    The Peace Clan are willing to kill for their ideals of US non involvement in foreign wars, and Doc Savage is willing to kill them to keep them from doing so. Also they dress and act a lot like the KKK. Also they’re actually literal Nazis. (Doc Savage Comics v1 006, 1940)