The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: multiple appearances

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 074: DR TOGG

    (Adventure Comics 057, 1940)

    Yet another Hourman science-villain. Dr Togg was really into hybridizing dogs and buzzards in various fun ways. Such a cool guy was he, in fact, that he was brought back as an ancillary character in the 90s Hourman series, himself mutated into a partial dog/buzzard in a retconned final encounter with Hourman before he was sent to prison.

    Thinking about him (and fellow Hourman foe Iker in about 50 entries or so), has made me realize just how much I love the concept of the reformed mad scientist with their struggles to comprehend scientific ethics and their weird little mutations and leftover minions. A few recent Marvel series have featured the concept but I would still consider it to be underutilized.

    There’s our guy.


  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 071: DR SNEGG

    (Adventure Comics 051-052, 1940)

    Snegg’s your classic villain who can’t handle the thought of revising a plan. In his first appearance he animates a trio of crime boss statues from a wax museum to serve him as henchmen and then, having been foiled once by Hourman, he tosses the whole idea of animated wax out the window to indulge in hypnotism-based crime. If he hadn’t died in a car accident he might be thinking up new implausible schemes to this day.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 057: THE MASTERMIND

    (More Fun Comics 049-050, 1939)

    Masked spy chief. After his first appearance is foiled by adventurer Biff Bronson he pulls one of the more major pivots in supercrime by opening one of those wax museums that doubles as a murder palace, where he himself is killed in a second encounter with Biff.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 057: THE MASTERMIND

    (More Fun Comics 049-050, 1939)

    Masked spy chief. After his first appearance is foiled by adventurer Biff Bronson he pulls one of the more major pivots in supercrime by opening one of those wax museums that doubles as a murder palace, where he himself is killed in a second encounter with Biff.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 056: MR A-X

    (More Fun Comics 046, 1939)

    Air pirate who bedeviled minor aviation hero the Flying Fox on multiple occasions.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 053: PIANG THE TERRIBLE

    (Whiz Comics 009, 1940)

    A rival magician seeking to steal Ibis the Invincible’s mystic Ibistick, Piang dies at the end of their first encounter, is resurrected via careless use of magic by Ibis and then dies again in their second encounter.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 051: CAPTAIN DEATH

    (Whiz Comics 008, 1940)

    Fairly generic pirate captain distinguished by the fact that he manages at least two appearances. Maybe three, actually:

    It’s equally possible that this guy – a henchman of Dr Sivana in Whiz 021 – is intended to be the same person with a whole different aesthetic or an unrelated guy with a similar taste in names. What is certain is that he was seemingly kilt stone daid by Captain Marvel and the Lieutenant Marvels

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 051: CAPTAIN DEATH

    (Whiz Comics 008, 1940)

    Fairly generic pirate captain distinguished by the fact that he manages at least two appearances. Maybe three, actually:

    It’s equally possible that this guy – a henchman of Dr Sivana in Whiz 021 – is intended to be the same person with a whole different aesthetic or an unrelated guy with a similar taste in names. What is certain is that he was seemingly kilt stone daid by Captain Marvel and the Lieutenant Marvels

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044: THE MASK

    (Whiz Comics 002-015, 1940-1941)

    This fellow right here is the spy that Spy Smasher was trying to smash for the first year and a half or so that he was in action. I tend to think of him as a bigger deal than he actually is because of my tendencies re: thinking too much about comics, but certainly if Spy Smasher himself had managed to remain a going concern after the 40s then the Mask would have eventually been brought back, like the Ultra Humanite.

    Due to the fact that he was operating before the US entered the war he was a kind of general all-purpose spy, though I’m sure he’d have been revealed as a Nazi if he’d made it to 1942. He was more successful than most in his endeavors, in that although he was consistently foiled, he always managed to get away with his hide intact. Until his penultimate appearance, that is, when an enraged mind-control victim threw him off of a skyscraper.

    But the Mask survived and not only that he thrived! Despite having to get around on crutches, he rebuilt his mind control device, captured Spy Smasher and turned him evil! The evil Spy Smasher then ruined the moment of triumph by killing him.

    The evil Spy Smasher would persist, battling Captain Marvel for the next four issues before being cured, so in death the Mask had managed to prompt some of the earliest examples in comics of heroic crossovers and longer-term storytelling!

    UPDATE 1940 

    UPDATE 1941 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044: THE MASK

    (Whiz Comics 002-015, 1940-1941)

    This fellow right here is the spy that Spy Smasher was trying to smash for the first year and a half or so that he was in action. I tend to think of him as a bigger deal than he actually is because of my tendencies re: thinking too much about comics, but certainly if Spy Smasher himself had managed to remain a going concern after the 40s then the Mask would have eventually been brought back, like the Ultra Humanite.

    Due to the fact that he was operating before the US entered the war he was a kind of general all-purpose spy, though I’m sure he’d have been revealed as a Nazi if he’d made it to 1942. He was more successful than most in his endeavors, in that although he was consistently foiled, he always managed to get away with his hide intact. Until his penultimate appearance, that is, when an enraged mind-control victim threw him off of a skyscraper.

    But the Mask survived and not only that he thrived! Despite having to get around on crutches, he rebuilt his mind control device, captured Spy Smasher and turned him evil! The evil Spy Smasher then ruined the moment of triumph by killing him.

    The evil Spy Smasher would persist, battling Captain Marvel for the next four issues before being cured, so in death the Mask had managed to prompt some of the earliest examples in comics of heroic crossovers and longer-term storytelling!

    UPDATE 1940 

    UPDATE 1941