(Master Comics 012-014, 016-017, 019-020; Minute-Man Comics 001-002, 1941)
Illyria, Queen of Spies! (AKA Queen Spy, Spy Queen, Queen of All Spies, Queen of Foreign Spies, etc) Definitely in the running for my favourite of the “recurring femme fatale spymaster” subgenre of super-villain, particularly as she is a foe to Minute-Man, one of the most bland piles of wallpaper paste ever to wear a patriotic costume.
Beyond merely distracting me from how bored I am by Minute-Man, Illyria provides interest via a fairly wide range of plots and schemes and thus is kind of hard to boil down into a pithy summary. So: a numbered list:
1. In her first appearance Illyria wears a snazzy orange robe, the better to whip off when captured so as to take advantage of Minute-Man’s “won’t hit girls” policy and get away. She and her three distinctive henchmen spend the issue shooting down US Army aircraft on behalf of their unspecified nation using a special blindingly-bright plane (Master Comics 012, 1941)
2.In her second outing, Illyria engages in the already-old gag of using war games as a cover to massacre soldiers with real bullets. The interesting aspect of the story is that she is established as an explicit Axis agent (though of a never-specified power) and recruits spies from the other Axis powers to aid her in her schemes (Master Comics 014, 1941)
3. This one’s just an attempt to kidnap a scientist who has developed a new explosive. It is the origin of the “Queen of Spies” part of her moniker, though. This adventure also marks the first time that Illyria is actually captured, as she is just as slippery as any recurring femme fatale (Master Comics 014, 1941)
4. After precisely one issue in the hoosegow, Illyria breaks out (that poor nurse) and attempts to blow up a Fourth of July celebration. (Master Comics 016, 1941)
5. In service to a pretty rote kidnapping, Illyria deploys both a remote-controlled bomber and X-33, an extremely cool robot soldier who is sadly (for him) not at all waterproof. (Master Comics 017, 1941)
6. Master Comics 019 & 020 are concerned with boring old espionage focused on stealing bombers and bomber plans: ho hum. Illyria does step up the villainy to include slavery in the latter appearance, though.
7. Minute-Man 001 features Illyria and her drum-playing chum in a scheme to cause a native uprising on the US-held island of Barracoon in the Gulf of Mexico. The main draw of the story is Illyria’s keen voodoo dance hat but if you want to read a comic that inadvertently highlights the evils of colonialism then this is the one for you, along with about 90% of all Golden Age comics set outside of Europe or North America. And some of the ones set in North America, too.
8. Illyria’s final appearance in Minute-Man 002 retroactively establishes that the Queen of Spies has been working for the heretofore unmentioned Green Hood, who is tired of her getting foiled all of the time. It’s a bit of an anticlimax for her, as the story is much more concerned with the Green Hood than her. Still, she manages to get away at the end, joining the ranks of the surprisingly populous “recurring femme fatale spies who don’t end up getting caught by dint of not recurring that extra time.”
(at least I reckon that was her last appearance. She was captured at the end of Master Comics 020, dated November 1941, while Minute-Man 002 was the Winter Issue, dated September to December 1941)
