The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: reformed

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 777: EMBER, THE EMPRESS OF FIRE

    (Super-Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)

    This is a bit of a weird one. Vulcan, the Volcanic Man, has just saved both a field of gasoline tanks and a government arson inspector named Grace Horner from being incinerated by “notorious arsonist-spy” Torchy Fargo, who then retires to a nearby castle* to report his failure to Ember, the Empress of Fire. Just what is the deal with these two, you ask? We shall explore that momentarily.

    *Vulcan is plausibly based out of New York City, so this is another location in the Castle District of the Northeastern United States.

    Ember decides to deal with both Vulcan and Horner by the simple expedient of inviting them to her castle. It’s a simple trick, but an effective one.

    Ember first tries to kill Vulcan by dumping a bunch of gunpowder on him and then setting him on fire and then, once he proves to be as fireproof as his name might imply, she decides to recruit him to the cause. Why together they could dump gunpowder on entire nations and set them alight!

    Sadly for Ember, Vulcan does not want to become her Emperor of Fire and so declines her offer. Stung, she dumps him and Grace into a standard-issue super-villain’s death pit to rot or possibly be subjected to further deathtraps. And this is where things take a turn – everything up until now has been within the normal bounds of what on might expect in a super-hero comic: a spy who specializes in arson reports to some sort of fire-themed… cult leader? living in a castle staffed by ersatz Pacific Islanders. Regular stuff, like I said.

    But then, Torchy Fargo tosses Ember down into the hole as well, because he is the real head of the (fake?) fire cult and he heard her say that she would replace him with Vulcan. Ember was just a figurehead who let the power go to her head, as she says.

    But… what the hell was this arrangement? Ember isn’t going on television to claim responsibility for Torchy’s crimes or acting as a go-between with people looking to contract his services. Heck, the government already knew about Torchy because that’s why Grace Horner was on his tail! So just why was Torchy going back to a castle filled with (fake?) fire cultists and reporting to a fake superior in a bikini top every night?

    I’m going to deploy this carefully, because there are certain comic book theories and observations that are usually only trotted out by the intellectually tedious, but I think that this might have been a sex thing. We don’t need to explore it further, it’s just the conclusion that most fits the evidence at hand.

    But speaking of sex things, as in gender, a thing happens at the end of this comic that I have noticed a fair few times in the first three issues of Super-Mystery Comics, as having brought Torchy Fargo to justice via a massive gas explosion, Vulcan just lets Ember go so that she can “devote the rest of [her] life to serving humanity.” Did Ace Magazines hold the official position that women can not truly be evil? The evidence is mounting that they might have!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 663: THE JUNGLE DEMON

    (Jungle Comics 006, 1940) 

    The Jungle Demon starts out as an unnamed boy lost in the jungle and true to the old trope he is found and nurtured by a beast – we’ve seen it many times before. The beast in this case is a mind-bogglingly large constrictor snake, which is fun. Boy grows to man and he and the snake (charmingly named “Powerhouse”) are at peace with the people and animals of the jungle until one day the still-unnamed young man chows down on what turns out to be some AD&D Alignment-flipping berries and Nice Boy becomes the Jungle Demon.

    My memory had filled in some details and I was thinking of this fellow as one of the big Fantomah villains but in fact although he talks a big game about conquering the Jungle, mostly he just steals jewels and defrauds his workers.

    Fantomah steps in a couple of times throughout the story to warn the Jungle Demon away from pursuing his darker impulses (pulling down a city to build a palace, enslaving people with dark majicks, etc) but he just can’t help but be evil and eventually she is forced to feed him an antidote salad to reverse the effects of the berries (and she exiles him and his snake to an isolated plateau, which seems a bit mean). I hadn’t really thought about it before but this tendency of Fantomah’s to watch the unfolding action but not really step in until she does so decisively at the moment of crisis is the equivalent to Stardust the Super Wizard’s very long commute: a way for there to be a story with an effectively omnipotent protagonist in which anything actually happens.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 569: NEPTINA

    (Champion Comics 002, 1939) 

    I can’t say for sure that whoever created Neptina sat down and said “I will make a lady version of Namor the Sub-Mariner” but it’s at least plausible. Neptina is the ruler of the undersea kingdom of Amloza, and has designs on a total conquest of the surface world as well as the depths.

    Neptina is, like Namor, a horny character. She captures US Navy Lieutenant Brad Fletcher early in her series and spends a considerable amount of mental, martial and political energy in subsequent installments in service of keeping him near her and away from other women.

    (note the little tuning fork thing that Neptina is holding – it works in concert with a telepathic receiver as a form of communication for the Fish-Men of Amloza. There are lots and lots of panels featuring characters who look like they’re playing with a toy from the 1920s when in fact they are talking to one another. It’s fun!)

    Neptina is shown to be a ruthless slaver with ranks of surface men pillaged from ships and equipped with gills in place of their human lungs. The reverse operation can be performed on Fish-Men to allow them to become fully amphibious, though the lungs involved must be harvested from a human. Neptina’s vanity is showcased when she demands that the lungs for her operation be harvested from a beautiful woman only. This also proves to be Neptina’s first major stumbling block, as Brad Fletcher immediately falls in love with movie star Norma Kane when she is brought to Amloza, and rescuing her is one of his major motivations for disrupting Neptina’s plans in early installments.

    More interesting than Neptina’s schemes is the biology of Amloza’s population. There appear to be at least two biological castes, with more humanoid Fish-Men Nobles like Brad Fletcher’s friend Gakk holding higher station than the fish-headed commoners (Neptina’s chief scientist Mogg is a regular Fish-Man and probably the most competent character in the comic, in a welcome nod to the foolishness of biological determinism).

    Complicating things further is the fact that the female population of Amloza appears to consist entirely of bodacious blonde babes in shell bras. If it were just Neptina I’d figure that she was a surface woman somehow elevated to the throne (the racial politics of the time would almost demand that a non-white/nonhuman group would instinctively subjugate themselves to a blonde bombshell), but this suggests the kind of sexual dimorphism we see in fantasy and sci-fi character design (mildly NSFW comic, but Oglaf as a whole is wildly NSFW).

    The other option, and the one I favour, is that the group represented by Neptina and the Fish-Men are two morphologically distinct but related species operating as a unified society – perhaps the Neptinans are naturally parthogenic (sp) which explains their seeming single gender, while the Fish-Men could lack any sexual dimorphism. The Fish-Men Nobles would thus represent hybrids of the two populations and thus their role as nobles could be seen as a bridge between the two.

    Speculative biology aside, here’s a timeline of Neptina’s deal:

    -after Brad Fletcher and Norma Kane escape, she acquires lungs from a second, less fortunate surface woman and makes her way to NYC.

    -while attempting to raise capital by selling some huge pearls, Neptina runs afoul of both the NYPD and a gang of crooks, who foolishly attempt to get rid of her via drowning and end up on the bottom of the harbour themselves.

    -the pearls in question are the sacred Tear Drops of Neptune and scientist Mogg, already a mite anti-monarchist in his leanings, embarks on a) a mission to recover them and b) an attempt to undermine Neptina’s plans of conquest.

    -also set against Neptina: Gakk the Fish-Man Noble and her own half-sister Mhersa, leader of a rebel group called the Maella.

    -Brad returns with a diplomatic envoy. Things are tense but civil until the surface folk help drive off an invasion by Dhakka Snail-Men. At this point, Neptina effectively reforms – Mogg has even seemingly forgiven her for making off with the sacred pearls. More dark: the US Government in the form of Brad Fletcher has forgiven her for the many crimes against its citizens in pursuit of a powerful alliance. 

    As 1940 closes, Brad, Norma, Neptina and Mogg are stranded mid-ocean and Mhersa has taken over Amloza. Will she be villainous enough to appear here? Find out when I make my way to the 1941 issues of Champ Comics!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 569: NEPTINA

    (Champion Comics 002, 1939) 

    I can’t say for sure that whoever created Neptina sat down and said “I will make a lady version of Namor the Sub-Mariner” but it’s at least plausible. Neptina is the ruler of the undersea kingdom of Amloza, and has designs on a total conquest of the surface world as well as the depths.

    Neptina is, like Namor, a horny character. She captures US Navy Lieutenant Brad Fletcher early in her series and spends a considerable amount of mental, martial and political energy in subsequent installments in service of keeping him near her and away from other women.

    (note the little tuning fork thing that Neptina is holding – it works in concert with a telepathic receiver as a form of communication for the Fish-Men of Amloza. There are lots and lots of panels featuring characters who look like they’re playing with a toy from the 1920s when in fact they are talking to one another. It’s fun!)

    Neptina is shown to be a ruthless slaver with ranks of surface men pillaged from ships and equipped with gills in place of their human lungs. The reverse operation can be performed on Fish-Men to allow them to become fully amphibious, though the lungs involved must be harvested from a human. Neptina’s vanity is showcased when she demands that the lungs for her operation be harvested from a beautiful woman only. This also proves to be Neptina’s first major stumbling block, as Brad Fletcher immediately falls in love with movie star Norma Kane when she is brought to Amloza, and rescuing her is one of his major motivations for disrupting Neptina’s plans in early installments.

    More interesting than Neptina’s schemes is the biology of Amloza’s population. There appear to be at least two biological castes, with more humanoid Fish-Men Nobles like Brad Fletcher’s friend Gakk holding higher station than the fish-headed commoners (Neptina’s chief scientist Mogg is a regular Fish-Man and probably the most competent character in the comic, in a welcome nod to the foolishness of biological determinism).

    Complicating things further is the fact that the female population of Amloza appears to consist entirely of bodacious blonde babes in shell bras. If it were just Neptina I’d figure that she was a surface woman somehow elevated to the throne (the racial politics of the time would almost demand that a non-white/nonhuman group would instinctively subjugate themselves to a blonde bombshell), but this suggests the kind of sexual dimorphism we see in fantasy and sci-fi character design (mildly NSFW comic, but Oglaf as a whole is wildly NSFW).

    The other option, and the one I favour, is that the group represented by Neptina and the Fish-Men are two morphologically distinct but related species operating as a unified society – perhaps the Neptinans are naturally parthogenic (sp) which explains their seeming single gender, while the Fish-Men could lack any sexual dimorphism. The Fish-Men Nobles would thus represent hybrids of the two populations and thus their role as nobles could be seen as a bridge between the two.

    Speculative biology aside, here’s a timeline of Neptina’s deal:

    -after Brad Fletcher and Norma Kane escape, she acquires lungs from a second, less fortunate surface woman and makes her way to NYC.

    -while attempting to raise capital by selling some huge pearls, Neptina runs afoul of both the NYPD and a gang of crooks, who foolishly attempt to get rid of her via drowning and end up on the bottom of the harbour themselves.

    -the pearls in question are the sacred Tear Drops of Neptune and scientist Mogg, already a mite anti-monarchist in his leanings, embarks on a) a mission to recover them and b) an attempt to undermine Neptina’s plans of conquest.

    -also set against Neptina: Gakk the Fish-Man Noble and her own half-sister Mhersa, leader of a rebel group called the Maella.

    -Brad returns with a diplomatic envoy. Things are tense but civil until the surface folk help drive off an invasion by Dhakka Snail-Men. At this point, Neptina effectively reforms – Mogg has even seemingly forgiven her for making off with the sacred pearls. More dark: the US Government in the form of Brad Fletcher has forgiven her for the many crimes against its citizens in pursuit of a powerful alliance. 

    As 1940 closes, Brad, Norma, Neptina and Mogg are stranded mid-ocean and Mhersa has taken over Amloza. Will she be villainous enough to appear here? Find out when I make my way to the 1941 issues of Champ Comics!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 513: DOKTOR KARNO AND SIMBA

    (Blue Bolt v2 001, 1941)

    Twelve issues into the story of Dick Cole, Wonder-Boy, a wrinkle is introduced: another Wonder-Boy! And rather than the usual thing where an evil lab assistant etc. steals Professor Blair’s research for his own use, this story introduces the concept of the double-thought wave. This is a theory that all the times in history that two people have had the same idea at the same time are not as a result of coincidence but rather some sort of psychic connection and thus when Professor Blair had his idea to raise a perfect boy the villainous Doktor Karno in Vienna had it too, and while Blair raises Dick to be a paragon of virtue, Karno is raising his Wonder-Boy Simba to be the perfect criminal.

    This would be a parable of nurture over nature if Simba wasn’t also specified to be the orphan child of two convicted murderers by the very chatty nun that Karno gets him from. As it stands we have two Wonder-Boys, ignorant of one another, one min/maxed for physical prowess and one with a more morality-heavy build.

    Eventually, Karno and Simba hit the Big Apple and are immediately made aware of Dick’s exploits. Simba has an immediate hatred for Dick so they hit upon the idea of doing some robberies while dressed as him – frame your rival/ make a few bucks at the same time!

    The first hint of a rift in the Doktor Karno/ Simba team come when Simba is so taken with Dick Cole’s military school uniform that he insists on joining the school himself.

    Meanwhile, Dick is subjected to torture by the local idiot cops until they bother to check his alibi and learn that it is watertight. His initial effort having failed, Simba settles in at Farr Military Academy in what amounts to a bully role with occasional forays into crime with Doktor Karno. In both capacities he regularly gets beaten up by Dick Cole.

    Eventually, one of those beatings must have knocked something loose, because Simba realizes that what he really wants is not to destroy Dick Cole but befriend him. 

    To that end, Simba tries to reform but Karno blackmails him into one last job, with the clear implication that this will continue ad nauseam. Simba confesses to Dick who helps him go straight – he’s put on probation in the school’s care and Karno is arrested. A happy ending for all!

    BUT HOLD ON KARNO GETS OUT and uses brain surgery to return Simba to his former amoral state!

    Simba is almost doomed to be Karno’s criminal tool forever but lucky for him Dick gets word, stops him from stealing a mess of radium and forces Karno reverse the operation. Karno is sent packing and the next time he’s heard from it’s because he’s died. Finally a happy ending for everyone! Except Doktor Karno!

    Going forward in the Dick Cole strip, Simba is just part of the gang – I just checked and he’s in Blue Bolt v10 002, the final issue of the series. Just a second super-powered boy palling around with the first one, though given Novelty Press’ commitment to removing all elements of unreality from their comics Simba is eventually just a regular guy with a very weird backstory. Still, it’s all very wholesome, although my Been On the Internet Too Much sense tells me that if it were a thing today I’ll bet the shippers would have their filthy mitts all over its unintentional homoeroticism.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 513: DOKTOR KARNO AND SIMBA

    (Blue Bolt v2 001, 1941)

    Twelve issues into the story of Dick Cole, Wonder-Boy, a wrinkle is introduced: another Wonder-Boy! And rather than the usual thing where an evil lab assistant etc. steals Professor Blair’s research for his own use, this story introduces the concept of the double-thought wave. This is a theory that all the times in history that two people have had the same idea at the same time are not as a result of coincidence but rather some sort of psychic connection and thus when Professor Blair had his idea to raise a perfect boy the villainous Doktor Karno in Vienna had it too, and while Blair raises Dick to be a paragon of virtue, Karno is raising his Wonder-Boy Simba to be the perfect criminal.

    This would be a parable of nurture over nature if Simba wasn’t also specified to be the orphan child of two convicted murderers by the very chatty nun that Karno gets him from. As it stands we have two Wonder-Boys, ignorant of one another, one min/maxed for physical prowess and one with a more morality-heavy build.

    Eventually, Karno and Simba hit the Big Apple and are immediately made aware of Dick’s exploits. Simba has an immediate hatred for Dick so they hit upon the idea of doing some robberies while dressed as him – frame your rival/ make a few bucks at the same time!

    The first hint of a rift in the Doktor Karno/ Simba team come when Simba is so taken with Dick Cole’s military school uniform that he insists on joining the school himself.

    Meanwhile, Dick is subjected to torture by the local idiot cops until they bother to check his alibi and learn that it is watertight. His initial effort having failed, Simba settles in at Farr Military Academy in what amounts to a bully role with occasional forays into crime with Doktor Karno. In both capacities he regularly gets beaten up by Dick Cole.

    Eventually, one of those beatings must have knocked something loose, because Simba realizes that what he really wants is not to destroy Dick Cole but befriend him. 

    To that end, Simba tries to reform but Karno blackmails him into one last job, with the clear implication that this will continue ad nauseam. Simba confesses to Dick who helps him go straight – he’s put on probation in the school’s care and Karno is arrested. A happy ending for all!

    BUT HOLD ON KARNO GETS OUT and uses brain surgery to return Simba to his former amoral state!

    Simba is almost doomed to be Karno’s criminal tool forever but lucky for him Dick gets word, stops him from stealing a mess of radium and forces Karno reverse the operation. Karno is sent packing and the next time he’s heard from it’s because he’s died. Finally a happy ending for everyone! Except Doktor Karno!

    Going forward in the Dick Cole strip, Simba is just part of the gang – I just checked and he’s in Blue Bolt v10 002, the final issue of the series. Just a second super-powered boy palling around with the first one, though given Novelty Press’ commitment to removing all elements of unreality from their comics Simba is eventually just a regular guy with a very weird backstory. Still, it’s all very wholesome, although my Been On the Internet Too Much sense tells me that if it were a thing today I’ll bet the shippers would have their filthy mitts all over its unintentional homoeroticism.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 506: THE GHOST OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

    (Blue Bolt v1 007, 1940)

    We have entered the era of Sergeant Spook battling villainous ghosts! It’s not quite as low stakes as Sergeant Spook just manhandling mortal crooks while they have no ability to affect him but since the worst that ghosts can do to each other in this fictional milieu is to knock one another out it’s still missing a bit of something.

    Still, the setting of Ghost Town is a fun one and we’re still getting lots of details about how it works and who exactly lives there. Firstly it seems that there is a suburb called Spirit Town and secondly Napoleon Bonaparte lives there and is attempting to conquer the entire ghostly realm for his own.

    Any time something happens in Ghost Town, famous dead people crawl out of the woodwork to lend a hand. In this case, Sergeant Spook’s army is first bolstered by the addition of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and then the Duke of Wellington himself decides to offer his expertise in beating up Napoleons.

    Like I said, it’s a bit low stakes since everyone’s already dead and Sergeant Spook for example was only mildly inconveniencing his enemies rather than slaying them while he was laying about with a mace from ghost horseback (as always the rules of the Sergeant Spook afterlife elude me. Are these horses with unfinished business? Do all horses have restless spirits? Are they just accessories to human ghosts like clothing?). Napoleon himself is very chill about the whole thing and everyone is good friends by the end.

    Still, for all that this battle had all the consequence of a Civil War reenactment at its heart this comic was about the ghost of Napoleon Bonaparte raising up an army of the dead in an attempt to conquer the afterlife and that’s in fact a very sinister elevator pitch.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 502: THE GREEN SORCERESS

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 502: THE GREEN SORCERESS

    (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940) 

    The Green Sorceress! Possibly named Norzimo, absolutely the ruler of the underground kingdom of Voltor aka the Hidden Empire aka the Green Empire. Locked in a cold war with Dr Bertoff, leader of Deltos aka the Scientific City, as she wants the Deltosan radium fields in order to power her war machines and invade the surface while he wants to destroy her kingdom and everyone in it.

    According to Bertoff, the Green Sorceress is descended from a long line of black magic practicioners. Appropriately, she demonstrates some magical skill herself, mostly related to teleportation via a green mist, though she does summon at least one demon.

    There’s a Batman/ Catwoman aspect to the relationship between Blue Bolt and the Green Sorceress, in that they are absolutely horny for one another and keep infuriating their allies by letting the other get away rather than taking victory at the cost of the other’s life. The Green Sorceress even reforms a couple of times (well, sh’e brainwashed by Bertoff once and reforms another) but just can’t quit her evil ways.

    (Professor Bertoff would absolutely be a super-villain if a) his main opponent weren’t a bigger one and b) his main ally weren’t a super-hero)

    The greatest change to the status quo of the underground kingdoms comes in Blue Bolt v1 007 when the Green Sorceress manages to force a surrender of Scientific City by capturing Blue Bolt (note the incredible power play of calling from bed). Her hamfisted scientists set off an series of enormous explosions in the radium fields and open a passage to the surface. This is the point at which a captured surface man calls the inhabitants of the Green Kingdom “scientific barbarians” and it’s a really terrific characterization that has to have been a Kirby contribution if only because of how prominent a theme it would be in his later work.

    In Blue Bolt v1 009 the Green Sorceress hits the surface in a new identity: the Masked Princess! Supposedly European royalty travelling incognito, the Masked Princess was actually a highly efficient one woman espionage unit who vamped intelligence agents and other important men and then hypnotized them into revealing their secrets. Unfortunately for her, the very instant she left her minions managed to let Blue Bolt get away and he ends up following her to the surface to bust up the Masked Princess’ operation.

    Simon and Kirby leave Blue Bolt after issue 10, at which point the Green Sorceress has reformed again, this time after being saved by Blue Bolt from a terrible end that will be detailed soonish. We will eventually see her again but it’s not the triumphant return that she deserves – I reckon that in the right hands and with a slightly more interesting foe the Green Sorceress could be a real classic super-villain – the hot-headed wizard-queen of a nation of Kirbyesque scientific barbarians striking from a land beneath those we know, plus there’s a different, slightly less evil guy trying to kill her at the same time? this is fertile storytelling ground! BRING her BACK, someone!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 502: THE GREEN SORCERESS

    (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940) 

    The Green Sorceress! Possibly named Norzimo, absolutely the ruler of the underground kingdom of Voltor aka the Hidden Empire aka the Green Empire. Locked in a cold war with Dr Bertoff, leader of Deltos aka the Scientific City, as she wants the Deltosan radium fields in order to power her war machines and invade the surface while he wants to destroy her kingdom and everyone in it.

    According to Bertoff, the Green Sorceress is descended from a long line of black magic practicioners. Appropriately, she demonstrates some magical skill herself, mostly related to teleportation via a green mist, though she does summon at least one demon.

    There’s a Batman/ Catwoman aspect to the relationship between Blue Bolt and the Green Sorceress, in that they are absolutely horny for one another and keep infuriating their allies by letting the other get away rather than taking victory at the cost of the other’s life. The Green Sorceress even reforms a couple of times (well, sh’e brainwashed by Bertoff once and reforms another) but just can’t quit her evil ways.

    (Professor Bertoff would absolutely be a super-villain if a) his main opponent weren’t a bigger one and b) his main ally weren’t a super-hero)

    The greatest change to the status quo of the underground kingdoms comes in Blue Bolt v1 007 when the Green Sorceress manages to force a surrender of Scientific City by capturing Blue Bolt (note the incredible power play of calling from bed). Her hamfisted scientists set off an series of enormous explosions in the radium fields and open a passage to the surface. This is the point at which a captured surface man calls the inhabitants of the Green Kingdom “scientific barbarians” and it’s a really terrific characterization that has to have been a Kirby contribution if only because of how prominent a theme it would be in his later work.

    In Blue Bolt v1 009 the Green Sorceress hits the surface in a new identity: the Masked Princess! Supposedly European royalty travelling incognito, the Masked Princess was actually a highly efficient one woman espionage unit who vamped intelligence agents and other important men and then hypnotized them into revealing their secrets. Unfortunately for her, the very instant she left her minions managed to let Blue Bolt get away and he ends up following her to the surface to bust up the Masked Princess’ operation.

    Simon and Kirby leave Blue Bolt after issue 10, at which point the Green Sorceress has reformed again, this time after being saved by Blue Bolt from a terrible end that will be detailed soonish. We will eventually see her again but it’s not the triumphant return that she deserves – I reckon that in the right hands and with a slightly more interesting foe the Green Sorceress could be a real classic super-villain – the hot-headed wizard-queen of a nation of Kirbyesque scientific barbarians striking from a land beneath those we know, plus there’s a different, slightly less evil guy trying to kill her at the same time? this is fertile storytelling ground! BRING her BACK, someone!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 444: FRAU IZAN

    (Mystery Men Comics 023, 1941)

    Our story begins in media res as Lieutenant Drake of Naval Intelligence cleans up the goons of Nazi crypto-fascist (they get real close to calling her a Nazi in this one but she works for the Opatseg instead of the Gestapo, so I guess she’s just another Izan) femme fatale spy named Frau Izan.

    Izan gets away and is subsequently given an injection by sinister Nazi Izan scientist Doktere von Shnyder that turns her into my favourite kind of shrunken person: one with the proportional strength of a regular person. BONUS: they go to the trouble to establish that she made a little teeny dress for herself ahead of time. 

    The shrinking treatment, by the way, is supposed to last for two hours but in a surprise power play von Shnyder reveals that it’s permanent and that he’s taking over as head of the regional Opatseg. Just goes to show: you can’t truust a Nazi, even when they have a thin film of plausible deniability.

    (von Shnyder does get his, never fear)

    In a surprising turn, Frau Izan is forgiven her espionage activities due to being too small. I suppose it’s a hard-to-replicate defence but there’s going to be hell to pay if this establishes precedent and a lot of people start taking advantage of it using bootleg shrink rays and so forth.

    They tease Frau Izan becoming a regular part of the team (called Miss America for some reason) but she in fact never reappears again – probably they made Miss X take care of her and that’s where she is now.