The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: minor super-villain

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 846: THE SORCERESS OF ZOOM

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

    The Sorceress of Zoom is just what it says on the tin: a sorceress from Zoom, which is a magical flying city that she lives in and controls. She’s another of the Golden Age’s surprisingly large number of headlining super-villains, only instead of being a mad scientist or a more conventional crook she is a mercurial magic woman who just kind of flies around harassing people. Sometimes she’s almost okay and other times she’s one of history’s worst monsters – it’s over all fun!

    As has become the norm with these recurring villains, here is a litany of her crimes for 1940:

    In her first outing, the Sorceress takes over a small American city for unclear reasons (a page is missing from the only available scan of the issue and I reckon that the answer lies there), but the main conflict involves the Sorceress’ attempt to vamp a dude named Tom away from a lady named Janice. 

    Sorceress’ Motivation: caprice, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: This is the first appearance of the Sorceress of Zoom’s most frequent henchmen, a group of unnamed gobliny humanoids 

    In Weird Comics 002, the Sorceress really ups the stakes. This might be her most villainous appearance, as she first attempts to get the king of Bango, a… European city-state? to surrender 300 people so that she can kill them and turn their corpses into her goblin-men, and when he refuses to do so, she razes the entire city and turns the slaughtered population of Bango en masse.

    The only surviving Bangonian, Prince Paul, escapes to the nearby city-state of Zoda and when the Sorceress appears there, conceives of a plan to evaporate the cloud that Zoom sits upon – this marks the first of many times that Zoom is destroyed, but the Sorceress seems to be able to recreate it at will, so that’s not as consequential as it seems.

    I really enjoy the flying throne that the SoZ escapes on, so here it is.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The same gobliny humanoids, now revealed to be necromantically created out of human corpses.

    Weird Comics 003 really highlights the mercurial nature of the Sorceress’ character, as she is fully the blameless protagonist here. She and her friend Allan are just hanging out in Zoom when a nefarious character called the Wizard attacks them and makes off with the entire dang city, forcing the Sorceress and the tuxedo-clad Allan to quest in search of it. The Wizard is number 1 of 5 upcoming Minor Super-Villain entries dealing with foes of the Sorceress, so more on him later.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: vengeance, good times

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Seemingly just regular people, who are all slaughtered by the Wizard. The hazards of living in a magical city owned by a super-villain, I suppose. 

    In Weird Comics 004, the Sorceress attempts to ally with a fellow called the Wizard of Zoro to take over the US (? Possibly – a sense of place is not the strong suit of the Sorceress of Zoom comics), but he is too full of himself to work with someone else, making him the second of our future entries and giving the Sorceress a real opportunity to show off her flying, lion-driven carriage as she makes a brief tactical retreat.

    The Sorceress once again threatens to return and steal someone’s fairly generic man at the end of this one, and as far as is shown she never really follows up on these impulses.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: vengeance, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The coachmen above are the only ones shown, so presumably more regular people have decided to live on the edge by inhabiting a magical villain’s lair. 

     

    Weird Comics 005 sees the Sorceress kidnapping the magical men who live in Nagpur, India, both to beef up her forces and to prove that she is better than them.

    What the Sorceress doesn’t count on is the fact that one of the magical men might have a magical son, and that magical son might effect a magical rescue. The magical men, once released, are able to prevent the Sorceress from making any more attempts to deprive them of their freedom.

    This issue also attempts to inject some continuity and foreshadowing into the ongoing Sorceress of Zoom narrative with a bit of a cliffhanger about just what the general and the king in her cryo-chamber could be doing there. This is to my knowledge never revisited.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: pride, power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The gobliny humanoids are back!

    In Weird Comics 006, a somewhat off-model Sorceress of Zoom attempts to take over the Middle East with the help of some dragons. This attempt is foiled by young Prince Ja’afar, who is gifted a protective amulet and a flying carpet by a friendly desert mage and invades Zoom to rescue his love, the Princess Shahzarad.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: power, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Slaves and dragons.

    Weird Comics 007 sees the Sorceress transporting Zoom back in time to escape the chaos of the growing World War II. She ends up in Arthurian England, mixed up in a conflict between Sir Gareth of the Round Table (who she of course wants, carnally) and Morgana le Fay (upcoming minor super-villain 3/5), before being run out of town by Merlin.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Big beefy shirtless men, mostly. 

    The Weird Comics 008 story is the first of what I think will be a pattern of adventures going forward: the Sorceress rolls into some area and starts causing trouble, then gets into a scrap, then undoes some or all of the mischief that she caused and leaves. My theory is that this is what she does when she gets bored.

    In this case, the Sorceress annoys a young couple and attempts to seduce the man away from the woman (who has been turned into flowers, natch), then attempts to conquer a nearby city before having a real tussle with upcoming villain 4/5, the Super-Scientist, and leaving (after turning the flowers back into a lady).

    This issue also features the second time that Zoom is destroyed and recreated.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: lust, boredom, power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: the very cool-looking Vapor Men. 

    Weird Comics 009 is another of these boredom issues, in which the Sorceress is ostensibly transporting some treasure out of the North African desert but really seems to just be having fun torturing the poor people who she has enslaved to do so. Eventually, she gets into a conflict with out final upcoming super-villain, Gobi, the Super-Wizard of the Desert, who wants to use the Sorceress’ slaves as food for his vultures. Zoom is destroyed yet again this issue.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: wealth, boredom

    Inhabitants of Zoom: None shown. 

    That’s it for the Sorceress of Zoom in 1940: stay tuned for her 1941 adventures! 

     

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 844: ZOM

    (Weird Comics 002, 1940) 

    Space adventurers Blast Bennett and his pal Red are tooling around the Solar System one day when they are hailed by and then hauled aboard an enormous space vessel.

    This vessel is Plane-City, the mobile headquarters of the space pirate Zom. Actually, I don’t know if “space pirate” is quite the right label for Zom, as his main passion seems to be taking and keeping prisoners rather than the more traditional piratical pursuit of taking prisoners and then ransoming them back to their home government or loved ones. I mean, just look at that dank stone dungeon that he has installed on his spaceship, presumably at great expense!

    Zom’s downfall comes thanks to the terrible state of his security – firstly, they allow Blast to get their boss in a headlock and chain him up in his own dungeon, and then it turns out that they didn’t even bother to check their new prisoners – one of whom, may I remind you, is named Blast – for ray guns. Just professionally shameful.

    Zom’s prisoners are all freed via space parachute, while Zom and his men meet their end at the barrel of that same ray gun. Plane-City, alas, does not survive the altercation.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 843: THE RULER OF THE UNDERSEAS

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940) 

    During the inaugural voyage of his super submarine the A-14, oceanic explorer Typhon encounters a remarkable monster: a mass of eels with a central woman’s head and the attractive power of a siren.

    Though the creature kills several of his crew, Typhon is able to use his magic ring to kill its heads, which reveals that the girl-head in the centre is actually a human woman who has been mind controlled and used as a monster-part for “many years.” This is horrifying to contemplate!

    The Ruler of the Underseas, stung by the loss of his composite beast, sends the equally-as-horrifying Serpent-Men to capture them, which of course raises the question of why he was using a human woman in a bubble helmet as his monster core when he could have just used one of his loyal undersea dudes. Is it because none of them are attractive enough?

    Typhon foils the Ruler’s plans by paralyzing him with his magic ring so that they can all escape back to the A-14, and I am left with one observation and one question:

    Observation: Given how important Typhon’s magic ring is to the plot of this issue – note that it also protects him from the spell of the eel-siren earlier – one might expect it appear again in a future story. This is not the case.

    Question: Is the Ruler of the Underseas just permanently paralyzed? He certainly does not ever return to vex Typhon and his former eel-maiden companion (later named Cecelia). Because if he is, well, condemning even an evil man to an inescapable prison in his own body isn’t a great look, Typhon.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 843: THE RULER OF THE UNDERSEAS

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940) 

    During the inaugural voyage of his super submarine the A-14, oceanic explorer Typhon encounters a remarkable monster: a mass of eels with a central woman’s head and the attractive power of a siren.

    Though the creature kills several of his crew, Typhon is able to use his magic ring to kill its heads, which reveals that the girl-head in the centre is actually a human woman who has been mind controlled and used as a monster-part for “many years.” This is horrifying to contemplate!

    The Ruler of the Underseas, stung by the loss of his composite beast, sends the equally-as-horrifying Serpent-Men to capture them, which of course raises the question of why he was using a human woman in a bubble helmet as his monster core when he could have just used one of his loyal undersea dudes. Is it because none of them are attractive enough?

    Typhon foils the Ruler’s plans by paralyzing him with his magic ring so that they can all escape back to the A-14, and I am left with one observation and one question:

    Observation: Given how important Typhon’s magic ring is to the plot of this issue – note that it also protects him from the spell of the eel-siren earlier – one might expect it appear again in a future story. This is not the case.

    Question: Is the Ruler of the Underseas just permanently paralyzed? He certainly does not ever return to vex Typhon and his former eel-maiden companion (later named Cecelia). Because if he is, well, condemning even an evil man to an inescapable prison in his own body isn’t a great look, Typhon.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 842: THE STONE MAN

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

    Here’s the thing about the Stone Man: I have no idea what his deal is, aside from the fact that he’s a creep. See, the Bird Man is just flying around the desert one day, as is his wont, when he runs into some guys searching for one of the guys’ daughter. After flying around for a bit, he discovers her in an isolated canyon, being sexually menaced by a weirdo and his animal companions. Why is he called the Stone Man? Not a clue. He’s much more of an animal guy than a stone guy, in that he doesn’t appear to have any stone-like qualities.

    After the Bird Man defeats the Stone Man’s coyotes, a vulture flies off with the girl and the Bird Man sets off in pursuit. He gets her away from it and returns her to her father and then… that’s it. We see no more of the Stone Man. It’s very anticlimactic!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 842: THE STONE MAN

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

    Here’s the thing about the Stone Man: I have no idea what his deal is, aside from the fact that he’s a creep. See, the Bird Man is just flying around the desert one day, as is his wont, when he runs into some guys searching for one of the guys’ daughter. After flying around for a bit, he discovers her in an isolated canyon, being sexually menaced by a weirdo and his animal companions. Why is he called the Stone Man? Not a clue. He’s much more of an animal guy than a stone guy, in that he doesn’t appear to have any stone-like qualities.

    After the Bird Man defeats the Stone Man’s coyotes, a vulture flies off with the girl and the Bird Man sets off in pursuit. He gets her away from it and returns her to her father and then… that’s it. We see no more of the Stone Man. It’s very anticlimactic!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 841: SIKANDUR, THE ROBOT MASTER

    (War Comics 001, 1940) 

    Sikandur, the Robot Master, is a villain-in-a-starring-role who sadly only appeared once. Any evil roboticist who, for example, makes his robots red-hot as a way of discouraging those who might grapple them is an evil roboticist I want to read about, and I only got the one opportunity to do so.

    Sikandur need gold in order to build more robots, though whether he needs it as a necessary component or as a handy source of cash is unspecified. To that end, he sends his boy Robot X5328B to the United States to rob Fort Knox.

    If Sikandur’s feature had continued to appear then presumably these three dingbats would have been the ones who would be foiling him going forward. As it is, they’re just three… college students? who figure out that Robot X5328B is something more than a simple traveller with jet-black eyes and kind of bumble around trying to figure out what he’s up to.

    Also please not that Sikandur has apparently “conquered half of Europe” at this point.

    Robot X5328B is an advanced robot indeed, because he (?) does some excellent and very menacing threats before being undermined by Sikandur’s caution re: the small-town police missing three local oafs. And that’s a wrap on Sikandur the Robot Master. Presumably the next few issues would have concerned our unlikely trio’s efforts to prevent the robbery of Fort Knox and then ultimately the end of Sikandur and his dreams of world conquest.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 841: SIKANDUR, THE ROBOT MASTER

    (War Comics 001, 1940) 

    Sikandur, the Robot Master, is a villain-in-a-starring-role who sadly only appeared once. Any evil roboticist who, for example, makes his robots red-hot as a way of discouraging those who might grapple them is an evil roboticist I want to read about, and I only got the one opportunity to do so.

    Sikandur need gold in order to build more robots, though whether he needs it as a necessary component or as a handy source of cash is unspecified. To that end, he sends his boy Robot X5328B to the United States to rob Fort Knox.

    If Sikandur’s feature had continued to appear then presumably these three dingbats would have been the ones who would be foiling him going forward. As it is, they’re just three… college students? who figure out that Robot X5328B is something more than a simple traveller with jet-black eyes and kind of bumble around trying to figure out what he’s up to.

    Also please not that Sikandur has apparently “conquered half of Europe” at this point.

    Robot X5328B is an advanced robot indeed, because he (?) does some excellent and very menacing threats before being undermined by Sikandur’s caution re: the small-town police missing three local oafs. And that’s a wrap on Sikandur the Robot Master. Presumably the next few issues would have concerned our unlikely trio’s efforts to prevent the robbery of Fort Knox and then ultimately the end of Sikandur and his dreams of world conquest.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 840: THE CRAWLER

    (Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940) 

    The antagonist of the Bob Phantom story in Top-Notch Comics 010 is Joe Chizzler, who uses his low-rent marriage agency to set scumbags up with wives then murder the wives for insurance payouts. It’s a mean, low-rent, misogynistic little scheme, and the only saving grace of/reason I’m talking about it is the fact that the actual murdering is done by this character, the Crawler.

    Is the Crawler a superhuman? Just a very talented human fly? We cannot know! He crawls up walls and he pulls people out of windows and that’s it.

    Walt “Bob Phantom” Whitney figures it all out, of course, and since the police in his version of NYC are some of the most incompetent in comics it is up to him to solve the problem with his patented combination of gossip column rabble-rousing and teleportation-heavy vigilantism. The former earns him a visit from the Crawler…

     … and the latter helps him deliver a taste of the Crawler’s own methods to him. 

    Our subject is dead on page four of a six page story, but for the completionists: Joe Chizzler takes the Crawler’s death as a sign that someone is on to him and he should blow town. He bumps off his gang in order to avoid paying them their shares of the loot and then Bob Phantom shows up and throws Chizzler out of a window in the second bit of bit of poetic justice of the story. 

  • 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.