The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: bandit

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 656: CAMILLA, QUEEN OF THE LOST CITY

    (Jungle Comics 002, 1940)

    What’s this? Another Camilla? Yes, for some reason, the story of the lost Norse city in the African jungle was retold one issue later as one of a lost Mongol city in the African jungle. The two Camillas look the same but where the original was 600 years old Camilla II seems to not be superannuated at all.

    Camilla II is also far less classically villainous than her predecessor: sure she claims that her city has the power to wipe out Western civilization but there’s no indication that she intends to do anything about it. Likewise, her people raid ivory caravans for trade capital but let’s face it: robbing an ivory trader is at worst a morally neutral act. Hell, I’m surprised that this high-tech Mongol-descended people bother to pay for anything at all!

    Captain John Stanley, technical protagonist of the story, doesn’t see things like I do, probably because he is an ivory trader. He blows up Camilla II’s entire city rather than be her consort, then has the gall to come on to her in the glow of her burning civilization. What a jerk.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 587: THE MASKED MEN

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 587: THE MASKED MEN

    (Exciting Comics 003, 1940)

    They may be an ordinary gang of Western Bandits but I can’t help but be impressed by just how many of them there are. Every time Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield meets up with the Masked Men he blows at least a couple of them away yet there are always more available to help top man Bull Jeffrey loot the boom town of Concho. They must’ve been planning a 72-man split of the loot originally!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 587: THE MASKED MEN

    (Exciting Comics 003, 1940)

    They may be an ordinary gang of Western Bandits but I can’t help but be impressed by just how many of them there are. Every time Texas Ranger Jim Hatfield meets up with the Masked Men he blows at least a couple of them away yet there are always more available to help top man Bull Jeffrey loot the boom town of Concho. They must’ve been planning a 72-man split of the loot originally!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 577: THE BLACK LAMA

    (Champion Comics 010, 1940)

    It’s a small consolation but this guy isn’t actually a lama! Unlike the Mad Lama or the Four Lamas before him (and more than a few to come), this fellow is merely a bandit chief presumably called the Black Lama because he is Tibetan! It this better than a whole class of holy men being portrayed as evil scheming villains? A little! I also want to say that it’s because his headquarters are a former lamasery but I don’t know if I just made that up.

    The Black Lama is the third antagonist of twelve faced by adventurers Dash Dolan and Nalya Randolph (aka the Golden Goddess) on their quest to reunite the twelve diamonds known as the Dragon’s Teeth so that their patron Dr Ying can sell them and use the proceeds to defend China from a dastardly warlord. It’s a very video game or 80s cartoon setup: the two are taking the gems to sell when they are waylaid by the warlord’s soldiers and must use the Dragon’s Teeth as a distraction to save their lives. Twelve soldiers then grab one gem each and immediately scurry off to sell them to seemingly the most evil man they could think of, because each one is in the hands of a grade-A creep – most of them just kill the soldiers rather than pay them!

    The Black Lama is remarkable among this group mostly for his name – it’s that extra 5% that elevates him from mere villain to minor super-villain. Also he captures Nalya and attempts to marry her against her will, a classic villain move if ever there was one.

    The Lama has plans to dispose of Dash Dolan by dunking him into a cauldron of molten gold, This is a good and very gruesome deathtrap! It also should not surprise you to learn that the Black Lama himself meets his end in that very cauldron. You know what they say: you live by the cauldron of molten gold, you die by the cauldron of molten gold.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 577: THE BLACK LAMA

    (Champion Comics 010, 1940)

    It’s a small consolation but this guy isn’t actually a lama! Unlike the Mad Lama or the Four Lamas before him (and more than a few to come), this fellow is merely a bandit chief presumably called the Black Lama because he is Tibetan! It this better than a whole class of holy men being portrayed as evil scheming villains? A little! I also want to say that it’s because his headquarters are a former lamasery but I don’t know if I just made that up.

    The Black Lama is the third antagonist of twelve faced by adventurers Dash Dolan and Nalya Randolph (aka the Golden Goddess) on their quest to reunite the twelve diamonds known as the Dragon’s Teeth so that their patron Dr Ying can sell them and use the proceeds to defend China from a dastardly warlord. It’s a very video game or 80s cartoon setup: the two are taking the gems to sell when they are waylaid by the warlord’s soldiers and must use the Dragon’s Teeth as a distraction to save their lives. Twelve soldiers then grab one gem each and immediately scurry off to sell them to seemingly the most evil man they could think of, because each one is in the hands of a grade-A creep – most of them just kill the soldiers rather than pay them!

    The Black Lama is remarkable among this group mostly for his name – it’s that extra 5% that elevates him from mere villain to minor super-villain. Also he captures Nalya and attempts to marry her against her will, a classic villain move if ever there was one.

    The Lama has plans to dispose of Dash Dolan by dunking him into a cauldron of molten gold, This is a good and very gruesome deathtrap! It also should not surprise you to learn that the Black Lama himself meets his end in that very cauldron. You know what they say: you live by the cauldron of molten gold, you die by the cauldron of molten gold.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 570: OO-LHAT

    (Champion Comics 003, 1940)

    There’s a lot to like about ol’ Oo-Lhat. He appears in a gross-sounding mist after explorer Walt Worthington and his aide Snowball (did you know that there was a whole category of racist nicknames for African American characters that has largely been forgotten and that involves naming them after something very black or very white? Well now you do) discover a lost Egyptian tomb containing a blazing scarab (the gem cut, not the insect) that drew them into a pocket dimension when touched.

    Oo-Lhat captures the duo and forces them to listen to his life story, employing a magical teevee called the Curtain of Ammon to do so.

    A priest of Osiris at Karnak, Oo-Lhat gives it all up and switches allegiances to Set in order to obtain gold, power and the love of a beautiful woman.

    This is where Oo-Lhat starts to make the transition from small-b to big-b Bad Guy. He makes his way to the Oasis of Memthet, where a cult had gathered to worship the same scarab encountered by Walt and pal. Oo-Lhat takes over by the simple expedient of murdering all of the other contenders.

    Discovering the pocket dimension accessible through the scarab, Oo-Lhat moved his cult into it and had them build a city, from which they raided caravans under the somewhat grandiose name of the League of Assassins – pretty sure just jumping out of a portal and stabbing someone is just regular murder, bro.

    The real appeal of the scarab dimension, though, was the fact that time essentially did not pass there and so the population was essentially immortal – even those killed by gross bodily trauma came back as weird ghosts. Possibly the best aspect of this is the fact that animals could not properly comprehend this state of being and so immediately died and came back, and as they presumably had an imperfect vision of themselves they came back wrong, leading to the city being full of weird lumpy camels.

    The timelessness of the scarab world eventually backfires on Oo-Lhat and his followers when the temple is buried in a sandstorm, trapping them for thousands of years with nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs.

    Oo-Lhat is all set to resume his ways as an “assassin” but his followers have other ideas. Presented with the choice of whether to leave or stay, every single one of them leaves. Including Oo-Lhat, after a little five-fingered persuasion from his lieutenant Kardak.

    The explorers eventually follow (along with some babes they found and fell in love with) and discover the final fate of Oo-Lhat and the League of so-called Assassins: time spent in the pocket dimension, it turns out, was not avoided so much as deferred: Oo-Lhat, the League and even the babes were reduced to skeletons the instant they exited.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 537: THE SILVER FOX

    (Funny Pages v1 007, 1936)

    Dastardly desert bandit who bedevils scientist Fred Murray and his children Jimmie and Norrie as they search Egypt for the Sapphire Eye of Sehkmet. He’s a pretty basic type villain but I have some affection for these pulp-style fellows as we start to get away from them. Note also the all-purpose accent he’s sporting, which was definitely the go-to for Golden Age creators who didn’t know what, say, an Egyptian sounded like.

    As far as I know (taking into account Centaur Comics’ tendency to shuffle features in and out of their various anthology titles in a fashion that I would describe as willy-nilly) the “Sapphire Eye of Sehkmet” feature never actually wrapped up, so the Silver Fox joins our collection of villains who have escaped justice via publishing and business decisions.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 503: THE GHOST OF JESSE JAMES

    (Blue Bolt v1 005, 1940) 

    Sergeant Spook, while a fun concept, had a problem as a super-hero: as an intangible, invisible ghost able to interact with the physical world he was possibly the most overpowered foe that a regular-style gangster or even your average super-villain could encounter. He was running the risk of becoming a bit boring just a few issues in, when the obvious solution presented itself: ghost crooks!

    Yes, Jesse James and his gang are back at it again, in ghost form! To be fair, Sergeant Spook doesn’t have much trouble rounding them up but at least it’s more of a fair fight – of note is the fact that James’ ghostly gun is able to stun but not kill other ghosts.

    Also of note is this interaction between Sergeant Spook and Robert Ford – Spook seems to hold to the popular notion that though James was a multiple murderer Ford was somehow worse because he had betrayed his pal. Even more interesting is the undercurrent of an idea that ghosts are condemned to act out the behaviours that they established in life, which is presumably why Jesse James is robbing trains of money he has no way to spend.

    And to answer any questions about how you punish a ghost: you haul him in front of Judge the Ghost of King Solomon,who mandates that he be placed in stocks presumably lined with the ghost-proof steel invented by the Ghost of Benjamin Franklin. Simplicity itself!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 503: THE GHOST OF JESSE JAMES

    (Blue Bolt v1 005, 1940) 

    Sergeant Spook, while a fun concept, had a problem as a super-hero: as an intangible, invisible ghost able to interact with the physical world he was possibly the most overpowered foe that a regular-style gangster or even your average super-villain could encounter. He was running the risk of becoming a bit boring just a few issues in, when the obvious solution presented itself: ghost crooks!

    Yes, Jesse James and his gang are back at it again, in ghost form! To be fair, Sergeant Spook doesn’t have much trouble rounding them up but at least it’s more of a fair fight – of note is the fact that James’ ghostly gun is able to stun but not kill other ghosts.

    Also of note is this interaction between Sergeant Spook and Robert Ford – Spook seems to hold to the popular notion that though James was a multiple murderer Ford was somehow worse because he had betrayed his pal. Even more interesting is the undercurrent of an idea that ghosts are condemned to act out the behaviours that they established in life, which is presumably why Jesse James is robbing trains of money he has no way to spend.

    And to answer any questions about how you punish a ghost: you haul him in front of Judge the Ghost of King Solomon,who mandates that he be placed in stocks presumably lined with the ghost-proof steel invented by the Ghost of Benjamin Franklin. Simplicity itself!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 437: THE GHOST RIDERS

    (Star Ranger 001, 1937)

    The Ghost Riders are just another gang of bank robbers but I just can’t resist a good outfit, and a trio of hooded cowboys with tommy guns is a great visual if I ever saw one.