The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Captain America

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 296: THE HUNCHBACK OF HOLLYWOOD

    (Captain America Comics 003, 1941)

    The Hunchback of Hollywood is a villain in the same classic vein as Clayface: dressing up like a horror character and using murder and fear tactics to shut down a movie production. Also like Clayface, the production is within the hero’s range due to the studio taking advantage of the castle-rich landscape of the Eastern US 

    (the castle in question is said to be near Camp Lehigh, home base of Steve “Captain America” Rogers and Bucky “Bucky” Barnes so this isn’t one of the famed castles of New York State. But it might have been originally – Camp Lehigh’s official location is in Virginia, now, but a lot of the stories imply that it’s closer to NYC, with officers commuting to homes in Manhattan, soldiers casually visiting Coney island etc. I have no idea when the location was finalized and it’s very frustrating!)

    Much as Clayface was actually Boris Karloff-adjacent horror star Basil Karlo, the prime Hunchback suspect is the even more on-the-nose Goris Barloff.

    Unlike Clayface, the Hunchback is not Barloff at all, nor any other crazed horror actor. Rather, it’s Craig Talbot, star of the film and dues-paying American Nazi, who objects to the film’s anti-authoritarian allegory, ad that’s why unlike Clayface you’ve never heard of him: because he’s a filthy Nazi.

    Number of Episodes of the “Super-Villains of Hollywood” podcast: A two-part episode structured like a whodunnit, with the first running down the careers of Barloff and Talbot and a few other weakly defended suspects and the second detailing the actual crimes.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 295: RED SKULL II

    (Captain America Comics 001 & 003, 1941)

    When I started this here blog I tried to put a little bit of thought into the tagging system, and specifically tried to work out how to deal with the fact that a lot of super-villain types have the same names. The solution I came up with is that everyone named, say, the Skull gets the same tag but legacy characters who are adopting a specific persona that another has used get appended with Roman numerals (skull II, Skull III, etc). And here I am breaking that rule the very first time I have the chance.

    Well, kind of. See, this is the original Red Skull so far as appearance in print is concerned. About 4 issues after he dies in his second appearance, the Red Skull returns, but a different Red Skull. This second Skull is the one that continues to appear to this day and the fellow I’m writing about here has been retroactively relegated to the status of Regional Franchise Red Skull. It’s all about not having to bother typing that extra ‘II’ in the tags for the next 80 years worth of appearances, honestly.

    So: the Red Skull (II)! Pretty much the perfect Nazi creep villain complete with a red skull calling card, taunting notes and a gimmick wherein he convinces his victims that he is killing them with his stare when in fact he is sneakily injecting them with poison. Why does he do this? For his own Nazi creep pleasure I guess.

    And just who is this retroactive knockoff? Why, it’s none other than George Maxon, aircraft manufacturer, who sold out the US to Hitler for the promise of high office. Boo this man!

    Maxon seemingly kills himself with his own syringe at the end of his first appearance and his body is shown being examined by the FBI afterward, they evidently just… left him to rot in his secret lair? Which works out pretty well for him, to be honest, since like any good poison-user he is immune to his own weapon.

    This time around, the Skull goes for a touch of death rather than a gaze, which involves a) an electrified costume and b) getting punched in the face a bunch. He seems to enjoy it, so I guess winning is worth a sock in the jaw to him.

    This second adventure sees this Red Skull’s greatest triumph as he steals the designs for a drilling vehicle and uses it to smash up part of NYC in one of those huge cataclysms that happened so often in the 40s. Marvel Universe New York must be simply awash in commemorative plaques detailing them all.

    Unfortunately for George Maxon and his super-villain legacy, this issue also sees his lowest moment, as he mistakes a couple of con artists for the real Captain America and Bucky despite one million signs that they aren’t. Frankly getting blown up with a round bomb a few pages later must have been a bit of a relief from the embarrassment of it all.

    (Maxon also shows up in Young Allies 001 the same year but it’s a weird appearance that has since been retconned pretty thoroughly for good reasons but in a way that has caused me a lot of annoyance when reading fan wikis. An ignominious end to be sure)

    SKULL SCORE: It’s just the eyes, which merits a healthy score of 4! Minus one point for being a mask makes the total come to 3.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 294: THE WAX MAN

    (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    The Wax Man is a bit of  an oddball. For one thing, he’s not explicitly a Nazi, just “in the pay of a hostile foreign power,” which is only strange in that this is Marvel Comics, the only big publisher not hedging their bets about calling bad guys Nazis – the story previous to this featured Captain America and Bucky punching out Hitler and Goering and leaving them in trash cans, for heavens sake. But not the Wax Man, he just has a bunch of nonspecific guys working for him who shout “ach du lieber!” when you surprise them.

    He’s also a combo of two kinds of foreign agent character types. As seen above he’s a ruthless and feared killer who gruesomely slays even his own men via suffocation in wax masks (and collects the heads of his enemies, natch), but also…

    He’s a guy with a squadron of super tanks and a plan to topple the US Government via their mechanized might backed up with barrages of guided missiles. These aren’t incompatible character traits per se (and in fact describe quite a few classic villains including Captain America’s very own Red Skull) but they are quite a lot to cram into a 15-page story without losing focus.

    The Wax Man manages to stick the landing by reverting to the “feared killer” aspect of his persona after his super tanks take a bath. Somewhat predictably/ extremely delightfully, he lairs in a wax museum, where we get some classic bits including The Real Guy Hiding Among the Statues and That’s Not Wax, That’s a Dead Person Covered in Wax.

    And finally, the Wax Man turns out to be a Chekov’s Mayor as his real identity is revealed to be Mayor Dobbs, who only showed up for half a page to demand that somebody do something about that terrible Wax Man.

  • CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE WALKING MOUNTAINS

    (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    The Himalayas of any comic book universe are simply chockablock with hidden communities of mystics, monsters, creeps, enlightened souls and weirdos. One such group are the so-called Walking Mountains (AKA the somewhat less PC Oriental Giants). The Mountains are enormous, invulnerable to all harm, possibly immortal and dumb as bricks, which leads to them becoming the muscle for Benson, an unscrupulous banker with poor long-term planning abilities.

    Luckily for Captain America and Bucky, they also have a vulnerability to loud sounds – though presumably louder than gunshots, as people are constantly shooting them at close range with no ill effects – and all five are killed by the end of the story.

  • CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE WALKING MOUNTAINS

    (Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

    The Himalayas of any comic book universe are simply chockablock with hidden communities of mystics, monsters, creeps, enlightened souls and weirdos. One such group are the so-called Walking Mountains (AKA the somewhat less PC Oriental Giants). The Mountains are enormous, invulnerable to all harm, possibly immortal and dumb as bricks, which leads to them becoming the muscle for Benson, an unscrupulous banker with poor long-term planning abilities.

    Luckily for Captain America and Bucky, they also have a vulnerability to loud sounds – though presumably louder than gunshots, as people are constantly shooting them at close range with no ill effects – and all five are killed by the end of the story.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 293: RATHCONE

    (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    I’ll be honest: Rathcone doesn’t have too much going on. He’s your regular style Nazi spy with enough extra sauce to make him stand out. To whit:

    -a maxed-out “Jack Kirby draws a weird creep” stat, complete with fangs and talonlike fingernails

    -an oblique gimmick whereby he plays out his strategy on a chessboard while his men listen in over an intercom. The custom chess set is of course one of the great super-villain accessories

    -most importantly, his henchmen are all called things like Herr Kamelon and Herr Strangler and Number 15 and at this point Rathcone could be removed from the equation entirely because all the villainous side dishes are there for my delectation.

    Rathcone’s final claim to fame is simply the fact that he makes it through the adventure alive, which I would not have put money on given the survival rate of the other Marvel super-villains on our list.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 293: RATHCONE

    (Captain America Comics 001, 1941)

    I’ll be honest: Rathcone doesn’t have too much going on. He’s your regular style Nazi spy with enough extra sauce to make him stand out. To whit:

    -a maxed-out “Jack Kirby draws a weird creep” stat, complete with fangs and talonlike fingernails

    -an oblique gimmick whereby he plays out his strategy on a chessboard while his men listen in over an intercom. The custom chess set is of course one of the great super-villain accessories

    -most importantly, his henchmen are all called things like Herr Kamelon and Herr Strangler and Number 15 and at this point Rathcone could be removed from the equation entirely because all the villainous side dishes are there for my delectation.

    Rathcone’s final claim to fame is simply the fact that he makes it through the adventure alive, which I would not have put money on given the survival rate of the other Marvel super-villains on our list.