THE ULTIMATE WEAPON
(Captain America Comics 008, 1941) Comic book Nazis mobilized an awful lot of devious superweapons, but the machine gun tractor might just be the greatest one of all.
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 307: RA THE AVENGER
(Captain America Comics 008, 1941) Ra the Avenger is actually Henry Sanders, an explorer who discovered and eventually sold the fabulous Egyptian Ruby of the Nile, then dressed up in faux Ancient Egyptian gear to murder all who stood in his way on a quest to steal it back again. That is, unfortunately, about all we can say about this guy because he’s one of those fellas who gets punched out and hauled off to jail without really spelling out…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 306: THE FIDDLER
(Captain America Comics 007, 1941) The Fiddler, being a man who can play his violin at special pitches in order to hypnotize or kill, has the dubious honour of being our first super-powered Nazi villain. The Fiddler is an overplanner, no bones about it. His mission in the US is to kill anti-Nazi politicians (specifically senators, or maybe he’s working up to governors etc). Here’s his process for doing so: -become an acclaimed musician with regular radio gigs -establish an…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 305: THE BLACK TOAD
(Captain America Comics 007, 1941) Here’s the problem with the Black Toad: he looks great. A really top-notch costume, like something Batman would have worn in a stage production in the 30s. No notes. And that’s the only interesting thing about him. He’s a baseball manager who wants to buy into the team and is killing players in order to drive the price down. HO HUM. (I guess he does use a bomb hidden inside a baseball at one point….
SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: RED SKULL 1941
(Captain America Comics 007, 1941) What was the Red Skull up to in 1941? As mentioned in the Red Skull II entry, this here is the real deal bad guy we all know and love to hate, still running around being a total stinker to this day. In-comic there is of course no indication of this, as the decision to differentiate the two was made years later when someone figured that the top Nazi villain worked better as a German…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 304: THE MENACE
(Captain America Comics 006, 1941) The Menace is a dude who uses secret tunnels and the power of fear to advance his fairly low-stakes plot to steal $50 000 worth of bonds from his elderly sister. Some might argue that that is far too little money to put murder on the table for but those people aren’t super-villain material. Unfortunately for the Menace, he happens to catch the attention of Hurricane (later retconned as Makkari, one of the Eternals), so…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 303: THE HANGMAN
(Captain America Comics 006, 1941) There are three big reasons that I like the Hangman: 1. It’s hard to beat a Golden or Silver Age story that revolves around a group of suspects who might be the villain. Just a series of fun character sketches followed by (in this case) the character’s grisly murder. 2. The Hangman isn’t actually supposed to be a luchador but he sure does look like one, and that’s one of the top super-hero/ villain looks….
NOTES: JUNE 2023
Where is Camp Lehigh? As noted previously, Camp Lehigh has been assigned a retroactive location of Virginia, but when that happened is hard to pin down– the earliest citation on the Marvel Comics Wiki is Captain America: White in 2008, which is recent enough that I’m surprised that the MCU location of New Jersey didn’t take precedence when the 2011 movie came out. Was it in fact established earlier? More notes follow: -nothing in the various Handbooks of the Marvel Universe -nor any…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 302: THE FANG
(Captain America Comics 006, 1941) Comics history seems to have taken the Fang as a Japanese agent but I’m pretty sure that as written he’s a Chinese American gang boss who’s working for the Japanese against the Chinese government. Either way, he’s your basic pulp holdover Asian gang boss with swarms of fanatical hatchet-man and a pronounced lack of humanity down to his namesake fangs. Part of me always wants to skip guys like this but they’re just as much a part…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 301: THE CAMERA FIEND
(Captain America Comics 006, 1941) The Camera Fiend is your regular gimmicked-up gang boss who parlays the classic comic book camera gun into a modestly successful career in theft that sees him almost getting away with the British Crown Jewels before being beaten down by Cap and Bucky. He is of course playing off the idea of the rabid photography fanatic from the advent of cheap personal cameras. I was going to criticize him for having such a grotesque costume…