(Whiz Comics 007, 1940)
Rodney Stark is a rich asshole who unfreezes some prehistoric men and uses them as a private military force in a bid to take over the world, until Captain Marvel shows up to murder them all.
Category: minor super-villain
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 049: HOBO-MILLIONAIRE
(Whiz Comics 006, 1940)
Like many Ibis the Invincible villains, the Hobo-Millionaire found the mystic Ibistick when it was lost for a time and who eventually attempted to kill Ibis with it, leading to is own death via magic feedback. Unlike most Ibis the Invincible villains, Hobo-Millionaire is great.
I would love for them to BRING BACK this great man. It wouldn’t be hard, either! Imagine a scenario in which the Ibristick is passed down to a legacy character (this is always the best way to handle bringing back magic item-based characters, BTW) and they try to get advice on how to use their new possession by summoning its previous owners. SURPRISE: most of them were dicks, and Hobo-Millionaire rules them all.
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 048: THE EMPEROR
(Whiz Comics 006, 1940)
A smuggler who founds an island haven for fugitive criminals, the Emperor makes a key mistake: he forgets that the citizens of his island empire are all murderers and acts like a tyrant. Predictably, he gets murdered.
2025 UPDATE: I just reread this story and I think that it’s imperative that I note that the Emperor, aka Scarface Otto Krug, was specifically an ambergris smuggler.
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 047: DR ALOYSIUS LAKE
(Whiz Comics 005, 1940)
Dr Lake has a hypnotism machine which he uses to found a nation-wide network of child thieves. He doesn’t reckon, though, with the fact that Captain Marvel is secretly a child.
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 046: THE BOMB
(Whiz Comics 003a, 1940)
Explosives expert who blowed himself up and lived to tell the tale, only to go back into explosives-based crime, go up against Dan Dare (the Fawcett Comics detective, not the UK comics space guy) and get caught. -
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 045: DOCTOR DEATH
(Whiz Comics 002, 1940)
Kind of a generic evil scientist type – he invents a ray that can restore the dead to life but must kill folk in order to test it – but his name is James Kirk, so that’s fun!
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044: THE MASK
(Whiz Comics 002-015, 1940-1941)
This fellow right here is the spy that Spy Smasher was trying to smash for the first year and a half or so that he was in action. I tend to think of him as a bigger deal than he actually is because of my tendencies re: thinking too much about comics, but certainly if Spy Smasher himself had managed to remain a going concern after the 40s then the Mask would have eventually been brought back, like the Ultra Humanite.
Due to the fact that he was operating before the US entered the war he was a kind of general all-purpose spy, though I’m sure he’d have been revealed as a Nazi if he’d made it to 1942. He was more successful than most in his endeavors, in that although he was consistently foiled, he always managed to get away with his hide intact. Until his penultimate appearance, that is, when an enraged mind-control victim threw him off of a skyscraper.
But the Mask survived and not only that he thrived! Despite having to get around on crutches, he rebuilt his mind control device, captured Spy Smasher and turned him evil! The evil Spy Smasher then ruined the moment of triumph by killing him.
The evil Spy Smasher would persist, battling Captain Marvel for the next four issues before being cured, so in death the Mask had managed to prompt some of the earliest examples in comics of heroic crossovers and longer-term storytelling!
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044: THE MASK
(Whiz Comics 002-015, 1940-1941)
This fellow right here is the spy that Spy Smasher was trying to smash for the first year and a half or so that he was in action. I tend to think of him as a bigger deal than he actually is because of my tendencies re: thinking too much about comics, but certainly if Spy Smasher himself had managed to remain a going concern after the 40s then the Mask would have eventually been brought back, like the Ultra Humanite.
Due to the fact that he was operating before the US entered the war he was a kind of general all-purpose spy, though I’m sure he’d have been revealed as a Nazi if he’d made it to 1942. He was more successful than most in his endeavors, in that although he was consistently foiled, he always managed to get away with his hide intact. Until his penultimate appearance, that is, when an enraged mind-control victim threw him off of a skyscraper.
But the Mask survived and not only that he thrived! Despite having to get around on crutches, he rebuilt his mind control device, captured Spy Smasher and turned him evil! The evil Spy Smasher then ruined the moment of triumph by killing him.
The evil Spy Smasher would persist, battling Captain Marvel for the next four issues before being cured, so in death the Mask had managed to prompt some of the earliest examples in comics of heroic crossovers and longer-term storytelling!
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 043: THE PHANTOM OF THE PYRAMIDS
(More Fun 049, 1939)
An archaeological dabbler who loots digs in the Valley of the Kings until he is put paid by short-lived detective character Bulldog Martin. Really really enjoy his gold mask/ pharaonic headpiece/ dark red robe combo.
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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 042: THE GORILLA
(More Fun 048, 1939)
A man has a mental health crisis and starts living in a swamp, emerging only to mug strangers. That’s a sad story!
Put a gorilla costume on him though… a compelling villain!