Browsed by
Category: Fox Features

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 635: KAOS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 635: KAOS

Comments 0 comment

(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) Kaos, a Venusian scientist, has a plan that in true comics book fashion is both simple (invade the Earth with overwhelming force, thus taking over almost immediately) and overly complicated (hypnotize the local population of giant vultures and then feed them super vitamins extracted from a specially-bred vine, thus making them even more giant and so fast that they are unbeatable, then teleport them to Earth as your main invasion force). Also: those are some crazy…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 634: KING RATON

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 634: KING RATON

Comments 0 comment

(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) King Raton is a fellow met by the Golden Knight and his companion/ lover Alice after the earth near a pool of water gives way and they are dropped into a cavern. He demands that they fetch a potion for him from Kataka, Witch of the Volcano, under threat of death – this is a source of conflict not only because of the threats but because he wants the potion in order to conquer Blackamoor Forest,…

Read More Read More

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 014

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 014

Comments 0 comment

Once again the also-rans. A bunch of small-time crooks get paid to fake the death of Titano (the largest gorilla in captivity!) for an insurance scam and of course use him to rob a series small-town banks. If only they had thought a bit more ambitiously they might have made the big time. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940) This Yank Wilson adventure features a fairly by-the-book super-spy ring headed by Count Lustig von Blackgard. They plot, they scheme, they are ultimately…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 633: CHONGO

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 633: CHONGO

Comments 0 comment

(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) Flip Falcon’s Fourth Dimension Machine has served various roles as a sort of all-purpose portal to adventure over the course of his tenure in Fantastic Comics, starting out as an interplanetary teleporter allowing access to the various planets of the Solar System and later acting as a time machine. Now it is entering what I believe to be its final form as a gateway to the Fourth Dimension itself, a weird hellscape of the imagination briefly…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 632: THE BOSS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 632: THE BOSS

Comments 0 comment

(Fantastic Comics 012, 1940) The Boss is actually Roulf, editor of the Daily Standard newspaper in NYC. He pulls the classic villain mistake of acting as a concerned citizen recruiting the protagonists – in this case Samson and David – to investigate his own villainous alter ego. It’s the kind of error that you can emphasize with to a certain extent: how better to ensure that a super-powered busybody doesn’t unexpectedly show up and wreck your plans then by controlling…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 631: DABLO, LAST OF THE RAY MEN AND THE HOOD

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 631: DABLO, LAST OF THE RAY MEN AND THE HOOD

Comments 0 comment

(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) THIS. IS. GREAT. We open on the trial of Dablo, Last of the Ray Men, and immediately we must ask: who are the Ray Men? And let me tell you that there is no answer beyond “guys who could shoot rays.” Dablo here shoots rays out of a big hole in his forehead but did they all do that? No clue! This is the kind of worldbuilding that people like Alan Moore will eventually get up…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 630: SKULLFACE KURD

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 630: SKULLFACE KURD

Comments 0 comment

(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) Every once in a while a comic book crook will organize a gang along military lines and that’s just what Skullface Kurd here has done. He’s got super-tommy guns. He’s got an air force. He has three hundred thousand men, which is more than a hundred thousand more than were in the US Army as of 1939. Hell, they’re in New York City and according to the historical population numbers on Wikipedia about one in 24…

Read More Read More

NOTES – OCTOBER 2024

NOTES – OCTOBER 2024

Comments 0 comment

Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects: The NYPD (or the cops in some other town. but probably the NYPD) attempt to murder the Green Mask and Domino the Miracle Boy because they were wearing masks near a crime and had the audacity to run away. (Green Mask v1 003, 1940) Vexing Conundrum: These panels are from a strip called Flyin’ Jenny, the details of which are not important, save for the fact that a character has cheated in an air race…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 629: QUEEN SULIA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 629: QUEEN SULIA

Comments 0 comment

(Fantastic Comics 011, 1940) We begin with the old comic book trope of Ignoring Bad Feelings When a Woman Has Them, as Alice senses something in the wind and Sir Richard tells her to shut up just before a giant bird gets them both. They are flown to Soulless Isle and meet its ruler Queen Sulia, along with her coterie of beastly subjects. She wants a sword fight and Sir Richard of Warwick is who she wants it from. If…

Read More Read More