The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: colonialism

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 105: THE SKULL

    (More Fun Comics 056, 1940)

    It’s somewhat weird, but this is the second guy named the Skull to operate out of the Belgian Congo in 1940. I say somewhat because it’s one of a handful of places that name-checked in comics set in Africa at the time. Once you get past Belgian Congo, Egypt, Libya, Algeria or South Africa it’s pretty much Jungle or Desert as locations, and half of those countries made the list because there were a bunch of comics about the French Foreign Legion early on.

    Anyway, the Skull. He’s the first foe of Congo Bill and he wears a little skullcap-cum-helmet, which I like. I also like the weird yellow pee-stain they keep putting around his mouth. I don’t know why it’s there but it makes him very distinctive.

    SKULL SCORE: 2/5 The lipless mouth and barely-there nose evoke a skull, sure, but if I was in charge of giving him a nickname would I call him Skull? Or would it be Chompers?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 105: THE SKULL

    (More Fun Comics 056, 1940)

    It’s somewhat weird, but this is the second guy named the Skull to operate out of the Belgian Congo in 1940. I say somewhat because it’s one of a handful of places that name-checked in comics set in Africa at the time. Once you get past Belgian Congo, Egypt, Libya, Algeria or South Africa it’s pretty much Jungle or Desert as locations, and half of those countries made the list because there were a bunch of comics about the French Foreign Legion early on.

    Anyway, the Skull. He’s the first foe of Congo Bill and he wears a little skullcap-cum-helmet, which I like. I also like the weird yellow pee-stain they keep putting around his mouth. I don’t know why it’s there but it makes him very distinctive.

    SKULL SCORE: 2/5 The lipless mouth and barely-there nose evoke a skull, sure, but if I was in charge of giving him a nickname would I call him Skull? Or would it be Chompers?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 070: THE TIGER-MEN

    (Adventure Comics 049, 1940) 

    The Tiger-Men are… contextually villains, I guess, in that they do arson and murder and are opposed by hero Steve Conrad.

    They are ALSO part of a pattern that emerges if you read a lot of old comics that take place in international locales: the hero rocks up and helps solve a problem between colonizers and the native population and the narrative frames what are usually pretty reasonable demands by the latter as rank villainy.

    In the case of the Tiger-Men, their whole deal is that they are Indians who would please like their land back, if the English plantation owners could be bothered to leave (great violence is meted out to them for this).