The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: reformed

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 994: AKINA

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 994: AKINA

    (Jungle Comics 015, 1941)

    Akina is the hereditary ruler of the African kingdom of Lomar, and as such she has just inherited the mystical Stone of Hanniban. As a newly invested magical being, she falls into the very common trap of deciding that she must be the very best and most powerful of all magic users right away, and immediately sets out to prove herself by challenging Tabu, Wizard of the Jungle to a death duel.

    This goes poorly. Tabu defeats the inexperienced Akina without even breaking a sweat and depowers the stone to boot – hopefully it wasn’t the linchpin of some sort of defence strategy that Lomar depended on. A few highlights form their magic battle:

    Tabu gets turned into a drum, then explodes and reforms as three Tabus.

    Akina summons these giant flaming lizards, which Tabu then levitates straight into her palace. Do the lizards eat a lot of people who are arguably blameless in Akina’s crimes? Indeed they do.

    Tabu ultimately concludes the duel by shrinking both Akina and the entire Black Ivory Palace of Lomar; The Stone of Hanniban is the only thing that he leaves at its original size, and though it’s never spelled out, one can reasonably assume that this is as part of a trick to get Akina to fork over the thing willingly rather than have her neck be broken by its relatively enormous weight.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Gems), Generica (Ends in A), Powers (Various Magics)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 033

    GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 033

    Just another buncha jerks.

    John Elton: 

    This fellow brings us right back to the roots of the Generic Costumed Villain Round-Up, being a businessman who puts on a mask to run a gang and kill off the other officers of his company so that he can buy up all their shares and make a fortune. Plus, his name is John Elton, which doesn’t mean anything but is still a fun coincidence. Dan Dare gets ‘im. (Whiz Comics 016, 1941)

    the War Lord:

    Like the War Maniac before him, the War Lord is a generic and unseen stand-in for Adolf Hitler with a good enough villain name that I had to highlight it. A whole passel of his agents feature in the story in which Smasher Spy goes back to being Spy Smasher and get beaten up by Spy Smasher, Smasher Spy and Captain Marvel. 

    It’s not particularly germane to anything but this panel of Spy Smasher flying out a window into the arms of the War Lord’s agents after almost being blown up looks very nice and I had nowhere else to use it. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

    The War Lord returns to vex Spy Smasher in Whiz Comics 019, in a rare return appearance for a generic Axis dictator. In fact, he is also the power behind the fascist group the Blitzys and Ibis the Invincible foe Half-Man as well – he’s one of the most prolific Hitler stand-ins of the Golden Age!

    The War Lord finally shows up in person in Whiz Comics 024 and while he is clearly just a straight-up stand-in for Hitler his main character trait seems to be in expressing himself like a disappointed father. He sticks around just long enough to instill a deep sense of despair in the Half-Man, leaving him vulnerable to being turned to the side of good by a bit of kindness from Ibis the Invincible. Once again being a bad boss fails to pay off!

    Puni, God of Fire: 

    The above text box precedes the Lance O’Casey story in Whiz Comics 018 and let me tell you: none of that stuff happened in the prior issue. We are very much dropped in media res on the tropical Antarctic island populated by cannibals and also lost explorer Hiram T. Wallis – I don’t know if this is some remnant of a never-published story or just an attempt to shake things up again (EDIT: it happens, in fact, in Whiz Comics 019. The two-part story was just published in the wrong order).

    Lance and his ever-expanding supporting cast (including Hiram T. Wells, old-timey pirate Dan’l Doom and not one but two monkey sidekicks) are venturing into a volcano to get some gold that Wells had found there when they are confronted and menaced by the self-proclaimed Puni, God of Fire, who is in actuality Marino, a sailor shipwrecked at the same time as Wells and presumably driven insane by ten years of living in a volcanic cave. Puni/Marino never manages to get very close to killing the party but he does try in his way, and by gar can he belt out a villainous pronouncement.

    Everything ends up okay, as Marino has the kind of insanity that can be cured via a solid smack to the jaw and a dunk in the ocean. 

    This adventure also features a giant treasure-guarding parrot, just one of the many cool creatures that do their best to convince me to add the truly life-ending task of chronicling all comic book monsters to my already overloaded to-do pile. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

    Herculo Svenson: 

    This is Herculo Svenson, pirate, Doctor Voodoo antagonist for several issues and man in the running for best name in comics certainly for 1941 and possibly for all time. He kills a whole valley full of giants, kidnaps their regular-sized queen and makes off with magical McGuffin the Golden Flask before eventually getting killed by bigger villain Black Marco. (Whiz Comics 022, 1941)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 033

    GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 033

    Just another buncha jerks.

    John Elton: 

    This fellow brings us right back to the roots of the Generic Costumed Villain Round-Up, being a businessman who puts on a mask to run a gang and kill off the other officers of his company so that he can buy up all their shares and make a fortune. Plus, his name is John Elton, which doesn’t mean anything but is still a fun coincidence. Dan Dare gets ‘im. (Whiz Comics 016, 1941)

    the War Lord:

    Like the War Maniac before him, the War Lord is a generic and unseen stand-in for Adolf Hitler with a good enough villain name that I had to highlight it. A whole passel of his agents feature in the story in which Smasher Spy goes back to being Spy Smasher and get beaten up by Spy Smasher, Smasher Spy and Captain Marvel. 

    It’s not particularly germane to anything but this panel of Spy Smasher flying out a window into the arms of the War Lord’s agents after almost being blown up looks very nice and I had nowhere else to use it. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

    The War Lord returns to vex Spy Smasher in Whiz Comics 019, in a rare return appearance for a generic Axis dictator. In fact, he is also the power behind the fascist group the Blitzys and Ibis the Invincible foe Half-Man as well – he’s one of the most prolific Hitler stand-ins of the Golden Age!

    The War Lord finally shows up in person in Whiz Comics 024 and while he is clearly just a straight-up stand-in for Hitler his main character trait seems to be in expressing himself like a disappointed father. He sticks around just long enough to instill a deep sense of despair in the Half-Man, leaving him vulnerable to being turned to the side of good by a bit of kindness from Ibis the Invincible. Once again being a bad boss fails to pay off!

    Puni, God of Fire: 

    The above text box precedes the Lance O’Casey story in Whiz Comics 018 and let me tell you: none of that stuff happened in the prior issue. We are very much dropped in media res on the tropical Antarctic island populated by cannibals and also lost explorer Hiram T. Wallis – I don’t know if this is some remnant of a never-published story or just an attempt to shake things up again (EDIT: it happens, in fact, in Whiz Comics 019. The two-part story was just published in the wrong order).

    Lance and his ever-expanding supporting cast (including Hiram T. Wells, old-timey pirate Dan’l Doom and not one but two monkey sidekicks) are venturing into a volcano to get some gold that Wells had found there when they are confronted and menaced by the self-proclaimed Puni, God of Fire, who is in actuality Marino, a sailor shipwrecked at the same time as Wells and presumably driven insane by ten years of living in a volcanic cave. Puni/Marino never manages to get very close to killing the party but he does try in his way, and by gar can he belt out a villainous pronouncement.

    Everything ends up okay, as Marino has the kind of insanity that can be cured via a solid smack to the jaw and a dunk in the ocean. 

    This adventure also features a giant treasure-guarding parrot, just one of the many cool creatures that do their best to convince me to add the truly life-ending task of chronicling all comic book monsters to my already overloaded to-do pile. (Whiz Comics 018, 1941)

    Herculo Svenson: 

    This is Herculo Svenson, pirate, Doctor Voodoo antagonist for several issues and man in the running for best name in comics certainly for 1941 and possibly for all time. He kills a whole valley full of giants, kidnaps their regular-sized queen and makes off with magical McGuffin the Golden Flask before eventually getting killed by bigger villain Black Marco. (Whiz Comics 022, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 907: HALF-MAN

    (Whiz Comics 021, 1941)

    Due to Allied concerns about the Nazis generic Axis use of black magic to ensure victory, Ibis the Invincible is recruited and sent to the front as a counter-sorcerer. His foe: the mysterious Half-Man, occultist and rumoured worshipper of an ancient evil god called the Dark Spirit.

    The Half-Man served with distinction in WWI, until an artillery shell cost him a leg, an arm and an eye and he was no longer able to lead troops in battle. He then turned to the study of black magic to make himself powerful and potentially whole again, and with the advent of WWII he has offered his services to the War Lord, Fawcett’s all-purpose late-1941 Hitler stand-in.

    Some further particulars: 

    In his first appearance, Half-Man has these pseudo-Gestapo occultist minions who are masterpieces to design. They could not more obviously be weird creep villains. They also receive planchette-writing intel from “the watchful ones,” which could be flowery language describing another set of occultist creeps in a lookout post somewhere but which I prefer to think is some sore of class of spirit. 

    Perhaps it’s the Ancient Egyptian in him coming through, but Ibis is unable to treat Half-Man with anything but pity and contempt, no matter how often he is proven to be a legitimate threat, as above when he completely is completely trounced by the guy.  

    Like I said, the first issue that Half-Man appears in contains a lot of talk of the ancient god called the Dark Spirit helping to ensure the Axis victories, and I had initially thought that his magical power was also derived from this being, like a D&D warlock, but Whiz Comics 023 includes a segment in which Ibis is almost sacrificed to the Dark Spirit, here called the Angry God, and manages to turn the tables and kill the god’s one remaining priest instead. This seems to kill the Angry God as well without noticeably diminishing Half-Man’s power, so I guess it’s more of a Hellboy situation in which all of the Evil Magic Guys are lumped together into a unit.

    Speaking of the military applications of mystical power, the final act of Half-Man’s villainous career takes place on the battlefield between the War Lord’s forces and those of an unnamed Allied nation that starts out on a back foot because someone is scrying their troop deployments with a crystal ball. 

    Once Ibis joins the fighting on the small nation’s side, Half-Man too is obligated to take the field, and while no mortal army is a mach for the power of the Ibistick, he manages to capture Taia and get away. The back-and-forth between them might have gone on indefinitely, but for the fact that the War Lord himself shows up and treats Half-Man with a sneering condescension instead of acknowledging his clear need for validation. This gives Ibis the chance to step up and be nice to the guy by restoring his lost body parts. Having finally achieved a feeling of wholeness again, from being literally whole rather than from magical accomplishment, the former Half-Man reforms. Hopefully he had some sort of plan in place to get to a neutral country, since he renounced his magics and presumably fascism at the end there and I doubt that the War Lord would be too understanding of that. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 863: KARNO THE CHESS MAN

    (Wonderworld Comics 009, 1940)

    Detective Dr Fung’s pal Dan Barrister racks up one of the swifter “this information is impossible/ the impossible thing is right behind me” turnarounds in comics history when he and Dr Fung are kidnapped by a Moth Man about 1.5 seconds after he expresses disbelief in the existence of Moth Men who kidnap people. It turns out that the Moth Men in question work for a super-villainous type named Karno the Chess Man (sometimes Chessman) who lives in what I would call an excessively stair-filled cave considering the tiny little wheels on his mobility aid.

    And just why is Karno sending moth-themed henchmen to kidnap people? Why because he doesn’t have a full chess set yet and so he must transform moderately thematically-appropriate people into the pieces he is missing. Yes, Karno is an obsessive criminal of the sort that we usually getting punched out by Batman in the 1960s and he thinks that Dr Fung would make a distinguished king.

    Dr Fung is no slouch, however, and while the Moth Men are subduing Dan Barrister he slips off into the shadows and starts blasting henchmen with their own ray rifles. In short order he, Dan and Irene Jonson (previously destined to be turned into a chess queen) are winging their way home courtesy of the Chess Man’s own ray-powered person launcher, though Karno takes a page from Dr Fung’s playbook and escapes in the commotion.

    Karno returns in Wonderworld Comics 010, as Dan and Dr Fung return to capture him once and for all, and he is not only easy to track down but almost shockingly easy to disarm, as Dr Fung demonstrates using a moist handkerchief.

    The big confrontation between Fung and the Chess Man, as exciting and action-packed as it is, is interrupted by some unfortunate activity in the depths of Karno’s lair, proving once again that the coolness factor of living inside an active volcano always comes at a price.

    Dr Fung, Dan and Karno make their escape just ahead of a wave of flowing lava – no word on whether any of the Moth Men made it out – and Karno is so grateful for their efforts in saving him that he resolves to turn over a new leaf and turn himself in. A surprisingly wholesome end to the tale, for once!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 863: KARNO THE CHESS MAN

    (Wonderworld Comics 009, 1940)

    Detective Dr Fung’s pal Dan Barrister racks up one of the swifter “this information is impossible/ the impossible thing is right behind me” turnarounds in comics history when he and Dr Fung are kidnapped by a Moth Man about 1.5 seconds after he expresses disbelief in the existence of Moth Men who kidnap people. It turns out that the Moth Men in question work for a super-villainous type named Karno the Chess Man (sometimes Chessman) who lives in what I would call an excessively stair-filled cave considering the tiny little wheels on his mobility aid.

    And just why is Karno sending moth-themed henchmen to kidnap people? Why because he doesn’t have a full chess set yet and so he must transform moderately thematically-appropriate people into the pieces he is missing. Yes, Karno is an obsessive criminal of the sort that we usually getting punched out by Batman in the 1960s and he thinks that Dr Fung would make a distinguished king.

    Dr Fung is no slouch, however, and while the Moth Men are subduing Dan Barrister he slips off into the shadows and starts blasting henchmen with their own ray rifles. In short order he, Dan and Irene Jonson (previously destined to be turned into a chess queen) are winging their way home courtesy of the Chess Man’s own ray-powered person launcher, though Karno takes a page from Dr Fung’s playbook and escapes in the commotion.

    Karno returns in Wonderworld Comics 010, as Dan and Dr Fung return to capture him once and for all, and he is not only easy to track down but almost shockingly easy to disarm, as Dr Fung demonstrates using a moist handkerchief.

    The big confrontation between Fung and the Chess Man, as exciting and action-packed as it is, is interrupted by some unfortunate activity in the depths of Karno’s lair, proving once again that the coolness factor of living inside an active volcano always comes at a price.

    Dr Fung, Dan and Karno make their escape just ahead of a wave of flowing lava – no word on whether any of the Moth Men made it out – and Karno is so grateful for their efforts in saving him that he resolves to turn over a new leaf and turn himself in. A surprisingly wholesome end to the tale, for once!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 857: THE KING

    (Wham Comics 001, 1940)

    In what is sadly the final appearance of Speed Centaur, he and his pal “Reel” McCoy travel to the Arctic ruins of the City of Centaurs to explore Speed’s birthplace. Almost immediately upon setting foot inside, they are ambushed and captured by wild-eyed men who escort them to their leader, a man called the King, who unusually has gone with an eccentric hair choice in every available part of his face but the mustache zone, and is also some sort of insane tyrant.

    The King decrees that Speed Centaur must provide entertainment to the assembled inhabitants of the city via gladiatorial combat with three polar bears, a challenge that the super-powered centaur rises to with ease. The next trial that the King decrees is a kind of extended electrical torture that is designed to go on until it kills Speed, only he chooses to take the other way out: beating the daylights out of everyone within reach. 

    It turns out that the King and his men were the survivors of a lost Arctic expedition who were in the grips of some kind of extended group blizzard madness and that getting their asses kicked by a centaur was just what they needed to break them out of it. The King turns out to be Professor Dillon, the leader of the expedition, and denies all knowledge of what has been happening in Centaur City for the last five years. I suppose you have to take him at his word, though I personally wouldn’t put him in a position of authority again. It’s like learning that someone is a mean drunk, you know? 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 857: THE KING

    (Wham Comics 001, 1940)

    In what is sadly the final appearance of Speed Centaur, he and his pal “Reel” McCoy travel to the Arctic ruins of the City of Centaurs to explore Speed’s birthplace. Almost immediately upon setting foot inside, they are ambushed and captured by wild-eyed men who escort them to their leader, a man called the King, who unusually has gone with an eccentric hair choice in every available part of his face but the mustache zone, and is also some sort of insane tyrant.

    The King decrees that Speed Centaur must provide entertainment to the assembled inhabitants of the city via gladiatorial combat with three polar bears, a challenge that the super-powered centaur rises to with ease. The next trial that the King decrees is a kind of extended electrical torture that is designed to go on until it kills Speed, only he chooses to take the other way out: beating the daylights out of everyone within reach. 

    It turns out that the King and his men were the survivors of a lost Arctic expedition who were in the grips of some kind of extended group blizzard madness and that getting their asses kicked by a centaur was just what they needed to break them out of it. The King turns out to be Professor Dillon, the leader of the expedition, and denies all knowledge of what has been happening in Centaur City for the last five years. I suppose you have to take him at his word, though I personally wouldn’t put him in a position of authority again. It’s like learning that someone is a mean drunk, you know? 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 817: ELENA

    (The Spirit Section, 9 June, 1940)

    Elena is Mr Mystic’s recurring female foe, the Tigress to his Zatara. Unlike the Tigress, however, Elena isn’t in it for the money but rather as an agent of chaos out to maximize the amount of war and bloodshed in the world, as in her first appearance, in which she is acting as the power behind the throne of fascist dictator Karoly Gore.

    The final confrontation between Elena and Mr Mystic is also the introduction of the concept that two magic users are unable to affect one another via magic, which is foundational to the Mr Mystic mythos and also a pretty good way to make your wizard duels more likely to be fist fights if that’s what you like to draw. Don’t worry about Elena in that last panel – it’s a deceptively short cliff, and Mr Mystic collars her soon after this jump.

    Though she is set to be executed for her role in Karoly Gore’s administration, Elena escapes by means of some death-feigning pills provided by her old friend Dr Gung, and hopefully it’s the kind of fake death that put you in a coma of some sort because she has to be shipped from Central Europe to Hong Kong before Gung can wake her up and that would be a heckuva long time to stare at the inside of a coffin lid. Though Mr Mystic shows up soon after Elena to harsh the vibe, he focuses a bit more on Dr Gung’s unholy experiments than making sure that she doesn’t get away. Dr Gung WILL RETURN in the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up.

    Elena returns a few weeks later to interfere in the politics of the… Asian? country of Cadiwa, which is styled as India-ajacent, yes, but whose premier meets up with Elena in Nigeria and so, given the lack of any other geographic hints, I keep wanting to say is in Africa. This appearance marks the beginning of a potential romance between Elena and Mr Mystic, expressed by both when Elena is wounded while trying to escape.

    Budding romance or not, the next time that Mr Mystic pops in to check up on her he finds that she has been up to her old chaotic tricks and has been influencing King Bahroud of Cadiwa to declare war on his neighbours, thus ending centuries of peace. Clearly, this cannot stand. 

    Mr Mystic and Elena bicker their way into a magical duel, and while I said earlier that magic-users not being able to affect one another with their spells led to a lot of fist fights, that was only a partial truth, because it also leads to this kind of magical battle in which each party summons proxies, such as Mr Mystic’s giant kitty cat, to fight on their behalf. 

    Elena is defeated and reveals that her magic was granted to her by a “Cardin the Terrible” on the condition that she never lose a magical duel. Which she has just done, so bye-bye magical powers. Further, losing her magic causes Elena to turn into a small child.

    Now… there is an important question about this whole situation that is never actually answered: does Elena turn into a child as a part of the “lose a duel; lose your powers” curse as a cheeky little joke by Cardin the Terrible or because she was a child given the form of an adult as part of getting those powers? This is important mainly because Mr Mystic returns her to her adult form at the end of the episode and then they basically immediately become engaged, and it’s a very different situation, depending. 

    Cardin the Terrible himself shows up in the next installment, looking to torture Elena to death for failure, but we don’t learn too much more about him than this classic Bad Boss behaviour. Just why did he send an agent out into the world to spread chaos and war? Not a clue. What is certain however is that Mr Mystic totally murderizes him, which weirdly would indicate that he was less magical than his own protege.

    Elena spends the remainder of 1940 keeping her head down as Mr Mystic’s companion/fiance, though she does spend some time in the future as a captive of the Moon King and almost getting murdered in place of the Goddess of Fire.

    Elena’s run in the Spirit Section and as Mr Mystic’s fiance comes to an end in the second-to-last episode of the year, on 22 December, 1940. Mr Mystic had butted heads with his occasional ally/personification of death/future Divine Round-Up subject the Shadowman a few times in the weeks leading up to this, and the Shadowman’s response was to take away the thing that Mr Mystic loved best, i.e., Elena. There’s some pretty heavy allegory work going on that makes it unclear if Elena has fallen in actual love with the Shadowman and gone to live with him in the afterlife, or if the whole thing is just standing in for her dying and the love that Elena is expressing is just an expression of the natural cycle of life and death. Either way, Mr Mystic is sad, but worry not: he’s standing next to his new love interest Penny Douglas in that second last panel. The man move fast!

    So here’s to Elena, a fun villain and adequate supporting cast member who I hope is somewhere in a loving relationship with Death. Eat your heart out, Thanos.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 793: BIG SHOT

    (Target Comics v1 002, 1940)

    Big Shot, a New York gang boss with a European spy named Drusella as his companion (a slight speculation as some imprecise speech balloon tails make it hard to be entirely sure just who is talking about what, but the details seem to fit), is after the technological advances that the Skipper has made in Boystate, with an eye toward using them to take over the world. His initial plan – drive up to the front gates and wing it from there – doesn’t bear fruit, so he is forced to improvise a real plan on the spot. Also please note that the Skipper is on to Big Shot from the very start thanks to mind-reading technology that one of the Boystate Rangers tells Big Shot about. This whole three-part story functions mostly as a demonstration of Boystate’s power for the reader.

    Since the Skipper’s stated mission is to take lost and abandoned boys and turn them into upstanding American men, Big Shot’s new plan involves recruiting a suitably wayward youth to infiltrate Boystate and do a little espionage. His chosen agent is the unnervingly-named Pretty Boy, a would-be gangster with a world-weary attitude.

    Pretty Boy is delivered from the harsh streets of NYC, where a boy might get beaten up by a grown man and forced into a life of crime, to the nice streets of Boyville, where boys are beaten up by their fellow boys in order to impart solid moral lessons. The nuance is unfortunately lost on him, and Pretty Boy sets out to fulfill his mission in the most direct manner possible.

    There’s some shenanigans involving a brief accidental foray into space as Pretty Boy steals an aircraft that he has no idea how to fly, but the end result is his delivering to Big Shot a bug-o-plane, a cosmic ray gun and the Skipper’s chief aide the Captain, at which point Big Shot tosses both the Captain and Pretty Boy into the skeleton-filled dungeon pit that he has had installed in his NYC penthouse apartment.

    At this point, Pretty Boy begins to see the error of his ways, and after some weeks of imprisonment and privation manages to make his escape and head back to Boystate for help.

    Once the Skipper and his personal child army are on the case, it’s all over for Big Shot. He doesn’t even get the satisfaction of executing his prisoner thanks to the repentant Pretty Boy.

    And speaking of Pretty Boy, he reforms and sheds his former, weird-to-type-this-many-times-in-short-succession name for the impersonal M-4 as he joins the Boystate Rangers and trades in his former rough and tumble lifestyle for one of blissful militarized conformity.