The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: multiple appearances

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 146: THE RED DRAGON

    (Adventure 069, 1941)


    An early example of quite a few villain tropes, the Red Dragon is a guy who turns to evil because he was rejected by society due to his deformed face (1). He then decides to set himself up in opposition to the heroic Shining Knight, choosing to become the Red Dragon – less dramatic than a Bizarro-style evil opposite situation but still an evil opposite situation (2).

    After his first (unsuccessful) foray into crime, he is recruited by the Hand to battle the Seven Soldiers of Victory as part of one of the earliest examples of a super-villain team-up (3), some years before the Injustice Society and such became commonplace.

    Pretty good for a fairly ordinary hooded villain.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 140: IKER

     (Adventure 064, 1941)

    Yet another Hourman mad scientist foe, Iker (properly Dr T.Z. Iker, but the only time that shows up is on a mailbox) is a classic Victim of Orthodoxy, having been kicked out of the Science Club by the hidebound Dr Orr for espousing “fake theories”.

    Said fake theories enable Iker to build a machine capable either of creating lifeforms out of energy drawn from the 5th Dimension or of drawing lifeforms from the 5th Dimension and giving them form – it’s explained in a bit of a rush in the second-last panel – and he uses them for a bit of crime and revenge before being driven mad by his technology’s destruction in the climactic battle of the adventure. The important part is that some of them are knife-wielding dwarves and one of them is a giant version of himself named Normo.

    SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? is a moot question as I discovered when I did my customary check: he already has, in JSA v1 005, 1999, as a rehabilitated employee of Tylerco! 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 140: IKER

     (Adventure 064, 1941)

    Yet another Hourman mad scientist foe, Iker (properly Dr T.Z. Iker, but the only time that shows up is on a mailbox) is a classic Victim of Orthodoxy, having been kicked out of the Science Club by the hidebound Dr Orr for espousing “fake theories”.

    Said fake theories enable Iker to build a machine capable either of creating lifeforms out of energy drawn from the 5th Dimension or of drawing lifeforms from the 5th Dimension and giving them form – it’s explained in a bit of a rush in the second-last panel – and he uses them for a bit of crime and revenge before being driven mad by his technology’s destruction in the climactic battle of the adventure. The important part is that some of them are knife-wielding dwarves and one of them is a giant version of himself named Normo.

    SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? is a moot question as I discovered when I did my customary check: he already has, in JSA v1 005, 1999, as a rehabilitated employee of Tylerco! 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 138: DR DOOG

     (Adventure 061, 1941)


    Starman’s first foe is also his first super-foe: the diabolical Dr Doog. Doog (and nothing is ever made of his name being Good, backward) has stolen a device called to Ultra-Dynamo from Professor Davis (above right) and is using it to disrupt electrical power across North America in service to his dreams of world domination.

    Doog brings in deathtraps, a hollowed-out mountain base and perhaps most importantly, a group of henchmen with the excellent name the Secret Brotherhood of the Electron. It’s small wonder that he’s already been brought back once or twice, a decision that I wholeheartedly endorse.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 138: DR DOOG

     (Adventure 061, 1941)


    Starman’s first foe is also his first super-foe: the diabolical Dr Doog. Doog (and nothing is ever made of his name being Good, backward) has stolen a device called to Ultra-Dynamo from Professor Davis (above right) and is using it to disrupt electrical power across North America in service to his dreams of world domination.

    Doog brings in deathtraps, a hollowed-out mountain base and perhaps most importantly, a group of henchmen with the excellent name the Secret Brotherhood of the Electron. It’s small wonder that he’s already been brought back once or twice, a decision that I wholeheartedly endorse.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 137: THE SHADE

     (Action v1 043, 1941)


    Vigilante’s first super-foe has the misfortune to share his name with a certain Flash villain beloved of James Robinson, so it’s just as well that he’s nothing more than a gang boss who uses stage illusions to conceal his real identity because he is never seeing the light of day again.

    He did manage to make a second appearance in the Golden Age, so at least there’s that.

  • 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 102: ZOR

    (More Fun Comics 055, 1940)

    Zor is from pretty early in the Spectre’s run, back when his concept was “resurrected dead guy” rather than “literal embodiment of the Wrath of God”. More specifically but also vaguely, he was an “earth-bound ghost” which was never really defined but was a pretty powerful thing to be.

    Zor was also an earth-bound ghost, only he was older and thus more powerful than the Spectre, and also evil:

    Zor makes a couple of Golden Age appearances to vex the Spectre before being set adrift in inter-cosmic space. Many years later, he was brought back in Seven Soldiers by Grant Morrison, now serving as an evil equivalent of Zatara (and given the first name Zachary) and foe to Zatanna. Given the cosmic nature of the story, this works for me: Zor is whatever he needs to be to oppose his foe of the moment. Honestly, I can think of no better person to bring back a character like Zor. Not many creators would read a story in which a villain shoots bullets out of his eyes:


    And make it canon:

    10/10, top marks. I know Zor is technically Solomon Grundy now but bring him back again anyway.


  • 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.