The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: minor super-villain

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 870: THE CHIEF

    (Zip Comics 002, 1940)

    While walking down the street one day in what is almost certainly supposed to be New York City, Jim “the Scarlet Avenger” Kendal witnesses the protection racket-related bombing of a tailor shop. What’s worse, the police response to the blast makes it pretty clear that they are on the take!

    Using his network of operatives, the Scarlet Avenger discovers when and where the next bombing is set to take place and intervenes by way of a heat ray that blows up the bomb as well as the crooks delivering it to kingdom come.

    After this and other interference in the gang’s activities, the Scarlet Avenger has well and truly drawn the ire of the leader, the aptly-named Chief, who arranges for the Avenger to be captured and delivered to him for disposal. But! Not without the Scarlet Avenger hearing about it first. 

    Before the Chef can execute his plan to execute the Scarlet Avenger in his homemade gas chamber, the hero reveals that he has “electrically wired myself, a million volts,” and that whatever that means, it allows him to easily escape both his shackles and the glass chamber.

    It also gives the Avenger a lethal touch, as both the Chief and his gang learn when they are killed by it. And just who is this mastermind of crime? Why, it’s the district attorney! There are a lot of questions to be asked about the large numbers of both super-heroes and super-villains who are district attorneys in their day-to-day lives, but at this point the one I’m asking is: just where do they find the time?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 870: THE CHIEF

    (Zip Comics 002, 1940)

    While walking down the street one day in what is almost certainly supposed to be New York City, Jim “the Scarlet Avenger” Kendal witnesses the protection racket-related bombing of a tailor shop. What’s worse, the police response to the blast makes it pretty clear that they are on the take!

    Using his network of operatives, the Scarlet Avenger discovers when and where the next bombing is set to take place and intervenes by way of a heat ray that blows up the bomb as well as the crooks delivering it to kingdom come.

    After this and other interference in the gang’s activities, the Scarlet Avenger has well and truly drawn the ire of the leader, the aptly-named Chief, who arranges for the Avenger to be captured and delivered to him for disposal. But! Not without the Scarlet Avenger hearing about it first. 

    Before the Chef can execute his plan to execute the Scarlet Avenger in his homemade gas chamber, the hero reveals that he has “electrically wired myself, a million volts,” and that whatever that means, it allows him to easily escape both his shackles and the glass chamber.

    It also gives the Avenger a lethal touch, as both the Chief and his gang learn when they are killed by it. And just who is this mastermind of crime? Why, it’s the district attorney! There are a lot of questions to be asked about the large numbers of both super-heroes and super-villains who are district attorneys in their day-to-day lives, but at this point the one I’m asking is: just where do they find the time?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 869: THE BLACK KNIGHT

    (Zip Comics 001, 1940)

    Shortly after giving himself super powers, Steel Sterling gets word of a brutal bank robbery in the town of Beeville and sets out to bring the culprits to justice. Determining that the crooks must have been guided by a mastermind of some sort, he trails their plane to a mountaintop fortress.

    The bow-wielding guards outside the Black Knight’s fortress (spoiler: it’s the Black Knight’s fortress, but what were you expecting) are notable for being the one time that he has anything related to his chosen theme around, and even they are supposedly only there to prevent… mountain cops?… from hearing the sound of gunfire. Inside, it’s plain old gangsters.

    Gangsters armed with ordinary machine guns are of course no match for a man with all the properties of steel, and Steel Sterling quickly makes his way to the Black Knight’s throne room, where he is immediately dropped into a deep pit full of rats.

    I’d just like to take a second here to appreciate the fact that the Black Knight’s costume is a) 100% brown and yellow with no black at all and b) a pretty conventional super-person getup aside from what appears to be a leather jerkin or similar. Historical, yes, but not particularly knightly. 

    A pit full of rats is also not enough to stop Steel Sterling, and he makes his way out, causes the Black Knight himself to fall in, and sets out after the fleeing gangsters just in time to avoid a secondary deathtrap as the fortress explodes behind him. The Black Knight is finished, it seems.

    The Black Knight is not, in fact, finished, and is soon (Zip Comics 002) hard at work robbing gold and fur shipments coming out of Alaska. Though he manages to capture Steel Sterling when he infiltrates the villain’s fake iceberg base he does a bad job of coming up with a suitable deathtrap for the hero and ends up in the hands of the US Navy.

    Steel Sterling’s next case brings him to the South American nation of Brazonia, where a man called Dr Yar has taken the famous scientist Walter Cummings in order to force him to develop weapons of war and help conquer the gold-rich country. 

    Dr Yar is of course eventually revealed to be an alias (or possibly the real identity?) of the Black Knight. Just why he has abandoned his old moniker is unstated but perhaps it is as simple as a desire not to attract the attention of Steel Sterling again. His new look is at least still visually interesting – particularly the periscopiscopes, which are of course goggles which allow 360 degree vision.

    Dr Yar really leans into the scientist aspect of his new identity, and deploys gadgets such as: flying tanks, oil bombs, electric rays and various viewscreens and visualizers.

    Plus: he not only has Alligator Men at his disposal but also a swarm of giant mosquitoes straight out of an ad for a pest control company (being big does not help them bate through steel skin, alas). 

    Once again the Black Knight/Dr Yar apparently meets his end, and this time it’s explicitly at the hands of Steel Sterling, who stuffs him into the barrel of his own super-howitzer before it fires. A truly brutal end, even for a dedicated super-villain. (Zip Comics 003, 1940)

    Steel doesn’t have to live with any guilt he might feel for long, however, as the Black Knight returns in the next issue, this time climbing the rungs of the aristocracy from mere knighthood to become the Radium King. His new plan is simple: steal the entire US radium supply and then ransom it back for 30 million dollars.

    The Radium King has appropriately impressive digs: an underwater base in Lake Superior that would probably be pretty hard to find if one of his minions hadn’t blabbed under threat of a beating from Steel Sterling.

    The Radium King costume turns out to borrow heavily from the original Black Knight getup, although without a lot of the yellow elements. I’d say that it’s better than the Dr Yar outfit but not as composed as the original, and that the half-mask/mustache combo is particularly unpleasant. Speaking of Dr Yar, the Radium King reveals that he survived Steel’s attempted cannon execution by simply crawling back out of the cannon.

    Not to be robbed of a kill, Steel Sterling uses the Radium King’s own submarine to blow him and his base to high heaven. Surely he’s dead this time! (Zip Comics 004, 1940)

    Not quite! The Black Knight’s fifth and final appearance (under the original name, this time) is probably his most ignominious, though it does feature his cool underground city headquarters, seen above. In it, he engages in a campaign of sabotage, kidnapping and extortion against his former kidnap victim/current minor member of Steel Sterling’s supporting cast Walter Cummings, who has gone into the munitions manufacturing game and has gotten the contract to produce the mysterious Zeta Ray for the US government. Somehow, if the Black Knight can delay production of the US Zeta Ray for long enough then his own scientists can produce one for him and that will be good, and if that description seems vague to you then I must assure you that it is 100% accurate to the comic. I don’t even know what the Zeta Ray does, for heaven’s sake.

    Though Cummings’ first factory is destroyed and his second collapses due to some sabotaged cement, Steel Sterling steps in and has almost completed a third when the Black Knight decides to take a personal hand and ram a tanker truck full of TNT into it. Now here’s the embarrassing part: not only does Steel Sterling handily prevent the truck from destroying the factory, but the first time that he is even aware that the Black Knight is involved in the plot against Dr Cummings is when he spots him just one fraction of a second before he is atomized in the explosion. It’s not even as dignified an end as being shot out of your own cannon would have been. (Zip Comics 005, 1940) 

  • 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 867: THE MASKED MAN

    (Wonderworld Comics 017, 1940) 

    Our story opens as a man named John Daniels approaches Yarko the Great after a show and requests his aid in preventing whatever fate befell his mysteriously missing brother James from also happening to him, as threatened by an ominous note. Yarko of course accepts.

    I wouldn’t call this the most clearly-plotted comic story of all time, so instead of laying everything out in sequence I’ll just introduce the cast of characters:

    John Daniels: Receiver of threats and client to Yarko. Is almost immediately murdered by the Masked Man.

    Philip Daniels: Hostile to Yarko’s presence from the start. High-strung. Murdered about halfway through the story.

    Miss West: Almost completely inconsequential. Seemingly there to pad out crowd scenes.

    Countess Maureen: Mysterious femme fatale house guest.

    James Daniels: The missing brother. His watch is found on a skeleton in a hidden room (please ignore that Yarko is calling him John – it’s James), which must mean that it’s his skeleton.

    Cousin Daniels: Shows up at the very end after most of the suspects have been murdered, just to pad things out for a panel or two.

    The Masked Man: Your basic murderous man in a suit and cowl. As always I appreciate the fact that he has a nose hole in his surprisingly rigid-looking mask. Yarko ends up going a couple rounds with him but does not actually manage to capture him. Considering that Yarko is functionally omnipotent and coupled with the fact that the Masked Man murders two guys right under his nose might just make him the most competent villain that we’ve seen in a while.

    All good things must come to an end, however, and Yarko eventually figures out that a) the skeleton with the watch was actually a clever ruse and b) the Countess is in fact James Daniels in disguise! He makes a go of attempting to kill Yarko even after being exposed (and please note how much more masculine his face looks after the wig comes off – I would say that perhaps James had some magic of his own but that happens basically every time a situation like this is the crux of a comic book plot in the 40s) but it’s a lost cause at that point. And just why did he do all those murders anyway? Why, for the inheritance, of course!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 867: THE MASKED MAN

    (Wonderworld Comics 017, 1940) 

    Our story opens as a man named John Daniels approaches Yarko the Great after a show and requests his aid in preventing whatever fate befell his mysteriously missing brother James from also happening to him, as threatened by an ominous note. Yarko of course accepts.

    I wouldn’t call this the most clearly-plotted comic story of all time, so instead of laying everything out in sequence I’ll just introduce the cast of characters:

    John Daniels: Receiver of threats and client to Yarko. Is almost immediately murdered by the Masked Man.

    Philip Daniels: Hostile to Yarko’s presence from the start. High-strung. Murdered about halfway through the story.

    Miss West: Almost completely inconsequential. Seemingly there to pad out crowd scenes.

    Countess Maureen: Mysterious femme fatale house guest.

    James Daniels: The missing brother. His watch is found on a skeleton in a hidden room (please ignore that Yarko is calling him John – it’s James), which must mean that it’s his skeleton.

    Cousin Daniels: Shows up at the very end after most of the suspects have been murdered, just to pad things out for a panel or two.

    The Masked Man: Your basic murderous man in a suit and cowl. As always I appreciate the fact that he has a nose hole in his surprisingly rigid-looking mask. Yarko ends up going a couple rounds with him but does not actually manage to capture him. Considering that Yarko is functionally omnipotent and coupled with the fact that the Masked Man murders two guys right under his nose might just make him the most competent villain that we’ve seen in a while.

    All good things must come to an end, however, and Yarko eventually figures out that a) the skeleton with the watch was actually a clever ruse and b) the Countess is in fact James Daniels in disguise! He makes a go of attempting to kill Yarko even after being exposed (and please note how much more masculine his face looks after the wig comes off – I would say that perhaps James had some magic of his own but that happens basically every time a situation like this is the crux of a comic book plot in the 40s) but it’s a lost cause at that point. And just why did he do all those murders anyway? Why, for the inheritance, of course!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 866: THE SCAR

    (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

    The Scar is a fairly ordinary crypto-fascist spy chief – in his first appearance he is leading a gang of incompetents in a plot to blow up a Europe-bound supply ship, for example – but I’ll be danged if he isn’t well suited to his nickname. Most guys named Scar in 1940s comics are maybe rocking one big facial scar, while our friend here not only has three, but is missing at least one ear! Whatever happened to this guy, he earned that nickname.

    The Scar’s other remarkable property is that he manages to return to vex super-spy K-51 on three separate occasions. In his second appearance, in Wonderworld Comics 015, he spearheads a plan to disrupt the burgeoning US air forces by sabotaging the training program and thus discouraging future applicants. K-51 of course foils this plan as well, but not before the Scar scampers off into the undergrowth and escapes.

    During the Scar’s final appearance, in Wonderworld Comics 016, he is attempting to secure some super-power-inducing powders invented by a Dr Barrow but is unable to do so before Barrow gives them to K-51. When K-51 then decides to use the powders to hunt down the Scar, the spy is so alarmed by the sight of a tiny man wielding a machine gun that he loses all control of his body and topples through a window to his doom. Truly an ignominious end for a slightly better-than-average spy.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 866: THE SCAR

    (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

    The Scar is a fairly ordinary crypto-fascist spy chief – in his first appearance he is leading a gang of incompetents in a plot to blow up a Europe-bound supply ship, for example – but I’ll be danged if he isn’t well suited to his nickname. Most guys named Scar in 1940s comics are maybe rocking one big facial scar, while our friend here not only has three, but is missing at least one ear! Whatever happened to this guy, he earned that nickname.

    The Scar’s other remarkable property is that he manages to return to vex super-spy K-51 on three separate occasions. In his second appearance, in Wonderworld Comics 015, he spearheads a plan to disrupt the burgeoning US air forces by sabotaging the training program and thus discouraging future applicants. K-51 of course foils this plan as well, but not before the Scar scampers off into the undergrowth and escapes.

    During the Scar’s final appearance, in Wonderworld Comics 016, he is attempting to secure some super-power-inducing powders invented by a Dr Barrow but is unable to do so before Barrow gives them to K-51. When K-51 then decides to use the powders to hunt down the Scar, the spy is so alarmed by the sight of a tiny man wielding a machine gun that he loses all control of his body and topples through a window to his doom. Truly an ignominious end for a slightly better-than-average spy.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 865: HANS VON LUNDBERG

    (Wonderworld Comics 014, 1940)

    Our story begins in a very economical way, as Yarko the Great hears about a great plague ravaging Tanganyika (part of modern-day Tanzania, if you must know) and determines that it merits his attention enough to teleport directly to the scene. 

    Yarko uses his mental powers to trace the source of the disease to a very Transylvanian-looking spooky castle that is not explicitly said to either be or to not be in Tanganyika so I guess we must assume that it is there because that is the more interesting version. Venturing inside, he encounters the spirit of Pestilence, a very sassy character who reveals the following amazing facts:

    a. the plague has been caused by the efforts of Hans von Lundberg, aka the Mad Archaeologist, who presumably dug up a sample of it in a tomb or something. This is a real win for the mad social sciences!

    b. the plague is called the Curse of Hecate, which is bad ass.

    c. Pestilence is there because he is von Lundberg’s slave, but whether this is literal and the Mad Archaeologist is doing some mystical disease shit or more of a metaphorical thing because he is responsible for so many plague-deaths is not clarified. 

    Yarko finally meets von Lundberg after he is captured by some very culturally-insensitive goons (who add weight to the idea of the castle being in Africa in the most unfortunate manner) and contrary to Pestilence’s assertions that he is more powerful than the magician ends up dealing with him pretty handily. Perhaps when you are the personification of infectious disease your value system is weighted more toward how much plague someone has spread than any other measure of worth.

    Though Yarko could presumably just vaporize von Lundberg with his majicks, he chooses to employ the services of his old enemy Death (not looking quite as dapper as he used to, if I may say so) to do the deed, possibly because this symbolically frees Pestilence from service and thus abates the plague via sympathetic magic. Or something like that. As this is the Yarko the Great version of Death who just loves to harvest the souls of the living he has to be reverse psycologied into it a bit, but he eventually takes the bait/ the archaeologist.