The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: undersea

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 645: SNEELY

    (Fight Comics 004, 1940)

    Kinks Mason is deep sea fishing with some friend when one of them lands a swordfish that is covered in gold and jewels! Just where did these riches come from? The answer is unguessable!

    Upon reaching the ocean floor, Kinks discovers that the swordfish was covered in pirate gold, and furthermore, he finds the pirate! Sneely (Pirate Terror of the Seven Seas, the Great, the Magnificent) is an old-time pirate who claims that he drank a magic potion that allowed him to live seemingly indefinitely underwater and who guards his ill-gotten treasure both personally and with a school of trained swordfish. Is attaining near-immortality and then spending it guarding a pile of shiny metal that only has value if you actually spend it on something a huge waste? Indeed it is! It’s absolute dragon behaviour is what it is.

    Sneely is exactly the kind of weird wild completely un-fleshed-out villain that you get for a character like Kinks Mason who a) isn’t one of the real top-tier guys in the book he appears in and b) has a niche role. Every issue, Kinks dives into the ocean for 5 to 8 pages and he has to find a challenge to overcome down there and sometimes it’s a, immortal amphibious pirate with the world’s most Xtreme Hoarding Problem. 

    Probably the best thing about Sneely is the one that never got capitalized on: that he’s seemingly still alive at the end of the story, as Kinks Mason just konks him on the head with a thighbone before making off with the treasure. And while an immortal amphibious pirate squatting on a pile of gold at the bottom of the ocean is a bit of an underwhelming idea for a comic book, an immortal amphibious pirate who Wants His Treasure Back is a cool recurring enemy. I say BRING BACK Sneely, in concept if not as an actual character.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 643: THE MASTER

    (Fight Comics 003, 1940)

    Kinks Mason is back on the case! And just what sub-oceanic mystery is he attempting to solve by just wandering around underwater? Why, it’s Just Where is All the Salt Going? And somewhat astonishingly, he figures it out almost immediately: it’s going into this building.

    The building turns out to belong to a race of ocean-dwelling humanoids referred to only as the Amphibians, though I can’t imagine that that’s what they call themselves. I kind of appreciate how generic their design is, like a greatest hits of underwater humanoid features with the single eye added on for flair.

    The Amphibians are ruled by the Master, who similarly is a fairly generic comic book undersea ruler villain: he and his people have developed some cool offensive technology and are now out to conquer the surface world. The most intriguing thing about this whole setup is just what all the salt is for – I kept hoping that everything would be powered by a big glowing salt crystal but no such luck. 

    (Also the Amphibians refer to their tech as a “poison ray” but later it seems to be a generic ray gun, and while I of course appreciate an evocative name I would much prefer to see a ray gun – preferably salt-powered –  poison a guy)

    Kinks Mason is of course not going to stand for this sort of nonsense and so for the second time in as many issues he possibly wipes out an intelligent underwater species, this time using stray torpedoes from all of the partially-destroyed submarines littering the seafloor around the Amphibians’ base. Do adventure heroes ever have crises of conscience about this kind of thing?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 643: THE MASTER

    (Fight Comics 003, 1940)

    Kinks Mason is back on the case! And just what sub-oceanic mystery is he attempting to solve by just wandering around underwater? Why, it’s Just Where is All the Salt Going? And somewhat astonishingly, he figures it out almost immediately: it’s going into this building.

    The building turns out to belong to a race of ocean-dwelling humanoids referred to only as the Amphibians, though I can’t imagine that that’s what they call themselves. I kind of appreciate how generic their design is, like a greatest hits of underwater humanoid features with the single eye added on for flair.

    The Amphibians are ruled by the Master, who similarly is a fairly generic comic book undersea ruler villain: he and his people have developed some cool offensive technology and are now out to conquer the surface world. The most intriguing thing about this whole setup is just what all the salt is for – I kept hoping that everything would be powered by a big glowing salt crystal but no such luck. 

    (Also the Amphibians refer to their tech as a “poison ray” but later it seems to be a generic ray gun, and while I of course appreciate an evocative name I would much prefer to see a ray gun – preferably salt-powered –  poison a guy)

    Kinks Mason is of course not going to stand for this sort of nonsense and so for the second time in as many issues he possibly wipes out an intelligent underwater species, this time using stray torpedoes from all of the partially-destroyed submarines littering the seafloor around the Amphibians’ base. Do adventure heroes ever have crises of conscience about this kind of thing?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 642: QUEEN OF THE WEED PEOPLE

    (Fight Comics 002, 1940)

    After spending so long with Sub Saunders in the far-off year 10 000 it’s a bit strange to detail an undersea menace that he isn’t battling but here we are and our focus is present-day adventurer Kinks Mason, who sets out with nothing but a helmet that extracts oxygen from seawater to solve the mystery of just where all these missing ships have been getting to and ends up discovering an underwater civilization of seaweed people.

    (I really like the Weed People, as they are referred to in the text a couple of times – their krinkly kelp frond aesthetic is very pleasing to me. It’s quite different from the look of Kozar’s Sea-Weed Men but I enjoy them in a similar fashion. Just something about humanoids made of seaweed, I guess)

    Weed Person society is dependent on a giant whirlpool-powered chlorophyll manufacturing plant. Just where this infrastructure came from and how the Weed People existed without it is not elaborated upon – did their primitive ancestors subsist on naturally occurring chlorophyll or spend their days basking in the sun photosynthesizing and then completely abandon that lifestyle once some unnamed Weed Person genius created the machine? Plausibly!

    Chlorophyll isn’t just the Weed Person staff of life, however. It also turns humans into Weed Creatures, which, though they look and are named similar to the Weed People are in fact distinct and who serve as slaves of the Weed People in their bid to take over the world.

    The Weed People and their Queen have made the crucial mistake of not being genre savvy enough to know that any lone adventurer, particularly one with an action hero-y name like Kinks Mason, should be killed immediately and they end up dead for their trouble. Specifically, Kinks goes ahead and blows up the chlorophyll machine, dooming all Weed People society to extinction. Hopefully there’s some hipster Weed Person subculture on the fringes of society still harvesting chlorophyll in the ancient ways because it tastes better, if only for the sake of Kinks Mason’s conscience.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 641: ONE-EYE

    (Fantastic Comics 013, 1940) 

    One-Eye is a stylish fellow with a real bone to pick with humankind, who have apparently rejected him for the heinous sin of Having Only One Eye, I guess? Unless having a widow’s peak and a long waxed mustache are considered disfigurements? I suppose that cultural mores do change over time and it is 8000 years in the future… in any case, the point is that he’s upset at the world and has decided to kill humanity off.

    To that end, One-Eye has gathered together a collection of generic mutants, all of whom are more interesting looking than him (and one of whom appears to be wearing some shockingly high-cut booty shorts).

    Among these recruits is this “giant devil-octopus” which a) has six arms, b) appears to be made of human skin and c) is the most unsettling thing I’ve seen in a comic in a long time.

    By contrast Kuga the man-eating giant cat is a walk in the park, a beauty to behold! Plus it is stuck in a too-small room so that One-Eye can drop people down a trap door in his office and have them slide directly into its mouth. Barely threatening at all!

    Ultimately Sub Saunders beats up the mutants, blows up One-Eye’s undersea base and hands him over to the authorities.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636: THE SERPENT LADY

    (Fantastic Comics 012, 1940)

    We open on Mephisto, the Dreaded Poison Serpent, attacking a small boat and making off with its inhabitants. For a split second I am excited – maybe this is our long-sought criminal animal! – but then I remember the lessons I learned from Cephalopoda the Octopus and rein myself in.

    And it’s a good thing I did, for Mephisto is a mere tool of the mysterious Serpent Lady, who lives in a golden city in an undersea cave and rules over a population of bald creeps who need blood to live. Maybe? It’s possible that they just like blood. Either way, this is why she has been using her cool snake to kidnap surface dwellers: their delicious blood.

    Sub Saunders will not stand for blood theft in his god-given ocean. He slays Mephisto and a fair few bald-headed creeps but leaves the Serpent Lady alive and at liberty. Will she be returning? I read ahead a bit and yes she will!

    UPDATE 1941

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636: THE SERPENT LADY

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636: THE SERPENT LADY

    (Fantastic Comics 012, 1940)

    We open on Mephisto, the Dreaded Poison Serpent, attacking a small boat and making off with its inhabitants. For a split second I am excited – maybe this is our long-sought criminal animal! – but then I remember the lessons I learned from Cephalopoda the Octopus and rein myself in.

    And it’s a good thing I did, for Mephisto is a mere tool of the mysterious Serpent Lady, who lives in a golden city in an undersea cave and rules over a population of bald creeps who need blood to live. Maybe? It’s possible that they just like blood. Either way, this is why she has been using her cool snake to kidnap surface dwellers: their delicious blood.

    Sub Saunders will not stand for blood theft in his god-given ocean. He slays Mephisto and a fair few bald-headed creeps but leaves the Serpent Lady alive and at liberty. Will she be returning? I read ahead a bit and yes she will!

    UPDATE 1941

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 631: DABLO, LAST OF THE RAY MEN AND THE HOOD

    (Fantastic Comics 011, 1940)

    THIS. IS. GREAT. We open on the trial of Dablo, Last of the Ray Men, and immediately we must ask: who are the Ray Men? And let me tell you that there is no answer beyond “guys who could shoot rays.” Dablo here shoots rays out of a big hole in his forehead but did they all do that? No clue! This is the kind of worldbuilding that people like Alan Moore will eventually get up to in the 80s – implying that there are weird and wonderful things all around by reference and allusion. It’s really neat!

    Whatever the Ray Men were, there are only one of them left and he, Dablo has just been sentenced to death by Judge Ord.

    On the eve of Dablo’s execution (via guillotine, by the way. Nobody’s thought up a cool futuristic execution method by the Year 10 000. Also there is capital punishment in the Year 10 000) a mysterious figure who we will later learn is called the Hood appears and restores the Last Ray Man’s ray powers, to the delight of all.

    The Hood is pretty generic, but he meets the criteria for a minor super-villain. Obviously he must take a back seat to the Last of the Ray Men.

    Come the morning of the execution and we finally get to see this famous ray that everyone’s been talking about. It does not disappoint! Dablo blasts fools left and right before making off with Judge Ord!

    This is a Sub Saunders story so of course Dablo has an undersea lair. Just who was this red-haired unfortunate? No idea, but I have a hunch that they met their end at the wrong end of a ray.

    The back half of the story is unfortunately much more concerned with the Hood (who turns out to be Judge Ord, crooked and looking to take control of the unnamed future city the trial of Dablo took place in. Will future society reexamine their relationship to capital punishment once the corruption present at the very highest echelons of their legal system comes to light? Probably not), who does a header off of a cliff after revealing his plans to Sub Saunders. The far more dynamic and interesting Dablo survives, presumably to be re-sentenced to death by another judge. There ain’t no justice.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 625: BOLOCH

    (Fantastic Comics 009, 1940)

    Sub Saunders is just cruising around in the ocean when his submarine is swept into an underground cave, the home of the fantastic Cave Things! I was very excited when this comic started but sadly this is the most we see of Cave Things slithering and creeping around like this. They still have a lot going for them as far as humanoid creeps go but it’s real sad that we don’t get to see more creeping and crawling.

    Anyway, the Cave Things worship a god called Boloch and of course there’s a guy inside exploiting them via a speaker setup. His plan hits a real snag when Sub Saunders notices the big open door on the front of Boloch’s idol and just hops inside.

    Boloch (the man inside the statue is also named Boloch, which suggests that he named his fake god after himself?) bangs his head on a table after being socked by Saunders and passes away. And since Sub Saunders emerged from the flames of Boloch unscathed, he himself is acclaimed as Boloch in human form and allowed to leave peacefully.

    The trope of an advanced outsider taking advantage of an isolated community by posing as a god and/or repurposing an idol or other religious infrastructure to their own ends is a long-established one, but the real head-scratcher with regard to Boloch is just how in the heck he even knew there was a community of weirdos to take advantage of on the ocean floor, let alone how he set everything up. We shall never know, thanks to the efforts of that brave table.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 608: KING KELPA

    (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

    Sub Saunders needs to investigate a series of sunken ships, so he has his fiance Peg given the same treatment as he got from the great “oceantalogist” Professor Foama so that they are both amphibious and can go on missions together. This is wildly progressive for a Golden (or Silver, or a lot of Bronze) Age comic book hero! They’re usually more likely to toe the “this is too dangerous for a woman” line – it’s probably because Sub Saunders is from the year 10 000.

    Somewhat predictably at this point, the problem stems from an irascible undersea ruler with a vaguely nautical name, in this case one King Kelpa. Unlike the rest of the sub-oceanic peoples from earlier Sub Saunders stories, Kelpa and the inhabitants of his unnamed city are actually amphibious, a huge advantage to people living at the bottom of the ocean! Flush with feelings of superiority, he has decided to invade the surfave world, where his people will have no advantage over regular soldiers. Problem is, he doesn’t actually know anything about the surface world and so has been sinking ships in hopes of getting intel, but up until Sub and Peg showed up all he got was a bunch of drowned sailors. What luck for him to encounter the only two amphibious surface dwellers!

    Only not so much. Sub Saunders defeats Kelpa’s pet swordfish, snaps off its bill and stabs him to death with it, then bombs his city for good measure.