The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: saboteur

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 749: THE SABOTEURS

    (Smash Comics 015, 1940)

    Sometimes all you need is a group of mercenary saboteurs dressed in matching cloaks and gas masks to zazz up a story – Black X and his comic book contemporaries have faced and defeated hundred of sabotage plots in front of my now-jaded eyes over the course of my comics-reading career, and so it takes a bit more than your basic pseudo-Nazi in a suit and tie to get my attention. That there is a suit-and-tie pseudo-Nazi behind the scheme to blow up a city that is technically never called New York is irrelevant, as it’s the cloak-and-gas mask guys who matter.

    Black X and Batu do not of course let this campaign of destruction stand, and despite some unusually acrobatic fighting moves on behalf of the Saboteurs the whole bunch of them are brought to justice after only a moderate amount of infrastructure is exploded.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 739: THE AVENGER

    (Smash Comics 003, 1939 – Smash Comics 012, 1940) 

    The Avenger is a cottage-industry villain, which is a term I just made up for particular kind of villain that you saw a fair amount in the Golden Age and then again in 1980s cartoons, wherein battling and thwarting them is the sole focus of a hero’s career – see also Mr H and the Conqueror.

    The Avenger is also a revenge-focused villain: he is really Jim Rowan, a man who was swindled out of an unspecified invention decades earlier and now seeks to ruin and murder the thirteen men who did the swindling and have since grown wealthy off of it. This is a pretty reasonable motivation for revenge, and the Avenger might even have managed to come across as a somewhat sympathetic figure if he gave even one single damn about who else he might harm or kill in pursuit of his quest. His various schemes:

    – bankrupt airline owner Carter by blowing up his passenger planes mid-flight

    – murder electric company owner Amos Reid and frame his son George for the crime

    – ruin railroad owner Edgar Karr by wrecking his trains

    – incite mob violence against drug manufacturer Roger Carlin by tainting his products and distributing them to the poor

    – just some low-effort murder attempts against group member Albert Mills

    – ruin Rolls the bus company owner by stealing his buses, passengers and all 

    – attempt to murder industrialist Roger O. Gates directly (but mistakenly kill a man who looks like him)

    – blow up the munitions factory of Mr Arms

    There’s also a threat by the Avenger against nonspecific industrialist Albert Lewis that turns out to be bogus because Lewis has been imprisoned and impersonated by Rowan/the Avenger in order to aid his plan to destroy the others. The “death threat” is in actuality a ruse to get detective John Law alone and kill him. This leads to the discovery of another revenge scheme:

    – lock Albert Lewis up in an insane asylum and take his place while acting as the Avenger, thus not only framing him but leaving him somewhere where he can’t even tell anyone about it or be counted as even more insane

    None of these schemes actually succeed, however, because the 13 men have hired scientist/lawyer/detective John Law (aka the Scientective) to discover just who is targeting them and why. Like fellow Henry Campbell creations Wizard Wells and Dean Denton, Law is a scientific genius who uses his knowledge and inventions to further his crusade against crime. He never quite gets ahead of the Avenger, but he’s cagey enough to thwart his schemes before they can reach murderous fruition. Except for Amos Reid’s murder, of course, because that was the first step in a plan to ruin Reid’s legacy. And that one innocent man who died, that was a shame. The dozens of people who died on Carter’s planes don’t count, of course, because that happened before Law was hired. Look, the important thing is that twelve wealthy men were saved from facing the consequences of their actions.

    The Avenger/John Law stories are entertaining stuff but nothing to write home about, mostly because both characters tend to employ what was cutting-edge or unusual science c.1940 that today is either unremarkable (remote controlled aircraft, thermite, dry ice) or is still a bit sci-fi seeming (magnetic levitation, increasing the skin’s permeability via ultrasound) but all of it is applied in this very dry, matter-of-fact, everyone-is-wearing-a-suit way that drains some of the wonder and majesty from the proceedings.

    A couple of interesting things about the Avenger:

     

    The Avenger isn’t a habitual costume wearer but he does throw on a hood a couple of times and I thought I’d showcase that. I prefer the red one!

    This deathtrap, which involves a rapidly-spinning propeller and a strobe light synched to its movements to create the illusion of a stationary bar, is very fun and unique! Strobe lights! Very futuristic!

    Also fun: Law’s method for discovering the identity of the Avenger. He has thirteen phone lines installed, each with its own unique number, and gives one to each of his thirteen suspects. He then issues a provocative statement to the press and simply waits to see which phone rings when the Avenger calls to yell at him. This is, frankly, an amazing hack for any situation involving multiple suspects.

    I can only assume that the Avenger’s death came as a direct result of the series being discontinued – John Law, up to this point a fairly nonviolent man, abruptly shifts gears and blows the villain out of the skies with his own drone bomb. It’s an ignominious end to be sure.

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/13 – a pretty poor showing, due mostly to the Avenger’s desire to draw out his targets’ suffering. If he had gone for the kill straight away he might have done a bit better.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 739: THE AVENGER

    (Smash Comics 003, 1939 – Smash Comics 012, 1940) 

    The Avenger is a cottage-industry villain, which is a term I just made up for particular kind of villain that you saw a fair amount in the Golden Age and then again in 1980s cartoons, wherein battling and thwarting them is the sole focus of a hero’s career – see also Mr H and the Conqueror.

    The Avenger is also a revenge-focused villain: he is really Jim Rowan, a man who was swindled out of an unspecified invention decades earlier and now seeks to ruin and murder the thirteen men who did the swindling and have since grown wealthy off of it. This is a pretty reasonable motivation for revenge, and the Avenger might even have managed to come across as a somewhat sympathetic figure if he gave even one single damn about who else he might harm or kill in pursuit of his quest. His various schemes:

    – bankrupt airline owner Carter by blowing up his passenger planes mid-flight

    – murder electric company owner Amos Reid and frame his son George for the crime

    – ruin railroad owner Edgar Karr by wrecking his trains

    – incite mob violence against drug manufacturer Roger Carlin by tainting his products and distributing them to the poor

    – just some low-effort murder attempts against group member Albert Mills

    – ruin Rolls the bus company owner by stealing his buses, passengers and all 

    – attempt to murder industrialist Roger O. Gates directly (but mistakenly kill a man who looks like him)

    – blow up the munitions factory of Mr Arms

    There’s also a threat by the Avenger against nonspecific industrialist Albert Lewis that turns out to be bogus because Lewis has been imprisoned and impersonated by Rowan/the Avenger in order to aid his plan to destroy the others. The “death threat” is in actuality a ruse to get detective John Law alone and kill him. This leads to the discovery of another revenge scheme:

    – lock Albert Lewis up in an insane asylum and take his place while acting as the Avenger, thus not only framing him but leaving him somewhere where he can’t even tell anyone about it or be counted as even more insane

    None of these schemes actually succeed, however, because the 13 men have hired scientist/lawyer/detective John Law (aka the Scientective) to discover just who is targeting them and why. Like fellow Henry Campbell creations Wizard Wells and Dean Denton, Law is a scientific genius who uses his knowledge and inventions to further his crusade against crime. He never quite gets ahead of the Avenger, but he’s cagey enough to thwart his schemes before they can reach murderous fruition. Except for Amos Reid’s murder, of course, because that was the first step in a plan to ruin Reid’s legacy. And that one innocent man who died, that was a shame. The dozens of people who died on Carter’s planes don’t count, of course, because that happened before Law was hired. Look, the important thing is that twelve wealthy men were saved from facing the consequences of their actions.

    The Avenger/John Law stories are entertaining stuff but nothing to write home about, mostly because both characters tend to employ what was cutting-edge or unusual science c.1940 that today is either unremarkable (remote controlled aircraft, thermite, dry ice) or is still a bit sci-fi seeming (magnetic levitation, increasing the skin’s permeability via ultrasound) but all of it is applied in this very dry, matter-of-fact, everyone-is-wearing-a-suit way that drains some of the wonder and majesty from the proceedings.

    A couple of interesting things about the Avenger:

     

    The Avenger isn’t a habitual costume wearer but he does throw on a hood a couple of times and I thought I’d showcase that. I prefer the red one!

    This deathtrap, which involves a rapidly-spinning propeller and a strobe light synched to its movements to create the illusion of a stationary bar, is very fun and unique! Strobe lights! Very futuristic!

    Also fun: Law’s method for discovering the identity of the Avenger. He has thirteen phone lines installed, each with its own unique number, and gives one to each of his thirteen suspects. He then issues a provocative statement to the press and simply waits to see which phone rings when the Avenger calls to yell at him. This is, frankly, an amazing hack for any situation involving multiple suspects.

    I can only assume that the Avenger’s death came as a direct result of the series being discontinued – John Law, up to this point a fairly nonviolent man, abruptly shifts gears and blows the villain out of the skies with his own drone bomb. It’s an ignominious end to be sure.

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/13 – a pretty poor showing, due mostly to the Avenger’s desire to draw out his targets’ suffering. If he had gone for the kill straight away he might have done a bit better.

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 019

    We may have gotten away from the “costumed” and “generic” is debatable but you can take the “villain” from my cold dead hands. 

    This guy is part of a gang who:

    -broke into Fort Knox via a secret tunnel

    -smashed up up all of the gold and mixed it into stone in a nearby quarry

    -transported that gold-bearing stone from the quarry to a mansion

    -melted down the gold and concealed it inside a series of bronze statues

    And while I suppose that you want to take a lot of care to conceal your movements when you are looting the US gold reserve I just have to be on record as saying that this is an unnecessarily complex scheme. Just book it for the border, fellows!

    Also Dynamo, stung by the razzing of government investigators, gilds the entire gang… thus killing them? before turning them in. Brutal stuff. (Science Comics 002, 1940)

    This very cool looking but unnamed spy chief has developed anti-Dynamo technology that renders him immune to the various beams and rays that usually assail the hero’s foes, which he uses to make off with some explosive wire that Dynamo and the nerds at his day job have made. He pulls off this theft pretty slickly but then completely fails to recognize the difficulty of attempting to pull off a scheme (in this case blowing up US military installations using explosive wire) while a super-hero is after you. It’s a real failure to recognize the opportunity to slay Dynamo while he can’t get you, unnamed spy chief! (Science Comics 004, 1940)

    John J. Hix, millionaire and asylum escapee, needs to get revenge on his old friend for some reason, so he puts on a cloak that makes him look like the ghost of a cat and hires some crooks to kidnap his friend’s daughter Doris Dare (a “society deb singer,” which is not a type of entertainer I am familiar with. Was it a thing? It’s hard to tell!) so that he can kill her. He is opposed by heroic police inspector the Duke and ends up blowing himself up rather than be captured. (Silver Streak Comics 002, 1940)

    The Sky Wolf encounters this goofy-but-also-cool magnetically-shielded fire-breathing duck/dragon/plane as it attacks fishing boats one day and traces it back to a similarly magnetically-shielded base where crooks armed with plastic guns inform him that all of this is essentially prep work in advance of setting up a smuggling operation.

    Now, issues of whether the expense involved in setting up this operation might cut substantially into any profits realized from it or indeed whether simply selling this magnetic bullet shield to one of the many armies extant in 1940 might be more profitable aside… my admittedly layman’s understanding of how smuggling works is that you really want to keep it as quiet as possible. Maybe I’m naive, but establishing a huge messy monster-infested exclusion zone might just… draw more attention to your operation? Like a masked pilot, for example? 

    Anyway, they all get blown up. (Silver Streak Comics 006, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 019

    We may have gotten away from the “costumed” and “generic” is debatable but you can take the “villain” from my cold dead hands. 

    This guy is part of a gang who:

    -broke into Fort Knox via a secret tunnel

    -smashed up up all of the gold and mixed it into stone in a nearby quarry

    -transported that gold-bearing stone from the quarry to a mansion

    -melted down the gold and concealed it inside a series of bronze statues

    And while I suppose that you want to take a lot of care to conceal your movements when you are looting the US gold reserve I just have to be on record as saying that this is an unnecessarily complex scheme. Just book it for the border, fellows!

    Also Dynamo, stung by the razzing of government investigators, gilds the entire gang… thus killing them? before turning them in. Brutal stuff. (Science Comics 002, 1940)

    This very cool looking but unnamed spy chief has developed anti-Dynamo technology that renders him immune to the various beams and rays that usually assail the hero’s foes, which he uses to make off with some explosive wire that Dynamo and the nerds at his day job have made. He pulls off this theft pretty slickly but then completely fails to recognize the difficulty of attempting to pull off a scheme (in this case blowing up US military installations using explosive wire) while a super-hero is after you. It’s a real failure to recognize the opportunity to slay Dynamo while he can’t get you, unnamed spy chief! (Science Comics 004, 1940)

    John J. Hix, millionaire and asylum escapee, needs to get revenge on his old friend for some reason, so he puts on a cloak that makes him look like the ghost of a cat and hires some crooks to kidnap his friend’s daughter Doris Dare (a “society deb singer,” which is not a type of entertainer I am familiar with. Was it a thing? It’s hard to tell!) so that he can kill her. He is opposed by heroic police inspector the Duke and ends up blowing himself up rather than be captured. (Silver Streak Comics 002, 1940)

    The Sky Wolf encounters this goofy-but-also-cool magnetically-shielded fire-breathing duck/dragon/plane as it attacks fishing boats one day and traces it back to a similarly magnetically-shielded base where crooks armed with plastic guns inform him that all of this is essentially prep work in advance of setting up a smuggling operation.

    Now, issues of whether the expense involved in setting up this operation might cut substantially into any profits realized from it or indeed whether simply selling this magnetic bullet shield to one of the many armies extant in 1940 might be more profitable aside… my admittedly layman’s understanding of how smuggling works is that you really want to keep it as quiet as possible. Maybe I’m naive, but establishing a huge messy monster-infested exclusion zone might just… draw more attention to your operation? Like a masked pilot, for example? 

    Anyway, they all get blown up. (Silver Streak Comics 006, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 729: THE WRECKER

    (Science Comics 008, 1940) 

    The Wrecker is a very good example of how a good name can elevate a project out from the ordinary. Comics books are full of corporate extortion schemes – it’s one of the classic scheme types for a reason. You can ramp the threat to life up or down with ease depending on just what is being sabotaged and likewise there are opportunities for big action setpieces as buildings or other corporate infrastructure are targeted. But while I would be hard pressed to find something to write about every time some gang of miscreants shakes down a construction company, once one of them starts calling themself “the Wrecker” well then my interest is piqued.

    The Wrecker himself is nothing special, even if he has a very good thick gangster accent. Somewhat charmingly, though, the Wrecker’s gang are also occasionally referred to as the Wreckers. Wrecker and the Wreckers! Gang name, band name, bowling team name, pub quiz name.

    Dynamo runs out of juice and gets captured during his initial battle with the gang (evidently trading pot-shots with some low-level goons is as energy-intensive as travelling to Betelgeuse) but as with most of his foes, the Wrecker is… a great believer in ironic deaths or something, I don’t know. They all try to electrocute him for some reason is all I can say, and maybe it’s just down to it being 1940 and all of the villains just aren’t genre-savvy enough to know the basics of comic book pseudo-elementalism. Regardless, the Wreacker electrocutes Dynamo and then Dynamo returns the favour – so long Wrecker.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 729: THE WRECKER

    (Science Comics 008, 1940) 

    The Wrecker is a very good example of how a good name can elevate a project out from the ordinary. Comics books are full of corporate extortion schemes – it’s one of the classic scheme types for a reason. You can ramp the threat to life up or down with ease depending on just what is being sabotaged and likewise there are opportunities for big action setpieces as buildings or other corporate infrastructure are targeted. But while I would be hard pressed to find something to write about every time some gang of miscreants shakes down a construction company, once one of them starts calling themself “the Wrecker” well then my interest is piqued.

    The Wrecker himself is nothing special, even if he has a very good thick gangster accent. Somewhat charmingly, though, the Wrecker’s gang are also occasionally referred to as the Wreckers. Wrecker and the Wreckers! Gang name, band name, bowling team name, pub quiz name.

    Dynamo runs out of juice and gets captured during his initial battle with the gang (evidently trading pot-shots with some low-level goons is as energy-intensive as travelling to Betelgeuse) but as with most of his foes, the Wrecker is… a great believer in ironic deaths or something, I don’t know. They all try to electrocute him for some reason is all I can say, and maybe it’s just down to it being 1940 and all of the villains just aren’t genre-savvy enough to know the basics of comic book pseudo-elementalism. Regardless, the Wreacker electrocutes Dynamo and then Dynamo returns the favour – so long Wrecker.

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 015

    It’s time for another round with the guys in the masks.

    A radio announcer who tries to poison all of Inland City with chlorine gas for unclear reasons. Ends up blowing himself up while tangling with heroic pilot Captain Steve Ransom. (Keen Detective Funnies v2 006, 1939)

    This unnamed fellow takes the cake for audaciousness: his racket is drug smuggling and though traditionally one wants to keep a low profile while attempting to move controlled substances from place to place he:

    -sets up camp in the basement of an occupied house,

    -keeps a gorilla in that same basement,

    -sends that gorilla out to attack randos in hopes of driving away the locals,

    -poses as an FBI agent in an attempt to throw Power-Man off his scent.

    All of these are what I would describe as “activities likely to invite scrutiny”. And they do! (Fight Comics 005, 1940)

    Muipo here is a Japanese agent in all but name working to foment trouble in China by flooding the country with opioids. His major interesting features are a decent looking half-face draped cloth mask (rare and annoying-looking to wear) and a fake fat guy body he sits in while dealing with his underlings. He gets beat up by US Marine Strut Warren precisely one page after making his debut. (Fight Comics 007, 1940)

    The Squadron of Death is a group who blow up US defense infrastructure for… some reason. And there’s the problem: very little is given away about who the Squadron are or what their motivations might be (beyond general anti-US sentiment) in this issue, and though there is some indication that they might return to vex the Arrow in future instalments the next three issues of Funny Pages are not available to anyone without about 10 to 15 grand to spend on physical copies. 

    Pending further information the Squadron of Death are just two guys who steal a plane and then variously get thrown out of it or blown up in it by the Arrow. (Funny Pages v4 004, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 015

    It’s time for another round with the guys in the masks.

    A radio announcer who tries to poison all of Inland City with chlorine gas for unclear reasons. Ends up blowing himself up while tangling with heroic pilot Captain Steve Ransom. (Keen Detective Funnies v2 006, 1939)

    This unnamed fellow takes the cake for audaciousness: his racket is drug smuggling and though traditionally one wants to keep a low profile while attempting to move controlled substances from place to place he:

    -sets up camp in the basement of an occupied house,

    -keeps a gorilla in that same basement,

    -sends that gorilla out to attack randos in hopes of driving away the locals,

    -poses as an FBI agent in an attempt to throw Power-Man off his scent.

    All of these are what I would describe as “activities likely to invite scrutiny”. And they do! (Fight Comics 005, 1940)

    Muipo here is a Japanese agent in all but name working to foment trouble in China by flooding the country with opioids. His major interesting features are a decent looking half-face draped cloth mask (rare and annoying-looking to wear) and a fake fat guy body he sits in while dealing with his underlings. He gets beat up by US Marine Strut Warren precisely one page after making his debut. (Fight Comics 007, 1940)

    The Squadron of Death is a group who blow up US defense infrastructure for… some reason. And there’s the problem: very little is given away about who the Squadron are or what their motivations might be (beyond general anti-US sentiment) in this issue, and though there is some indication that they might return to vex the Arrow in future instalments the next three issues of Funny Pages are not available to anyone without about 10 to 15 grand to spend on physical copies. 

    Pending further information the Squadron of Death are just two guys who steal a plane and then variously get thrown out of it or blown up in it by the Arrow. (Funny Pages v4 004, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 646: THE LIZARD

    (Fight Comics 006, 1940)

    The Lizard was (will be?) the leader of a group of Grotonian spies working to sabotage the military of Greater America in the far-off future year of 1998 AD. He had (will have?) the pretty clever idea of being arrested as a petty thief and running his operation from inside a jail cell but unfortunately for his reputation as a smart guy he then fell for the most obvious trick in the world when Saber the Spy Fighter, head of Greater American Super Intelligence, was put in his cell for an unstated crime and in full super-power granting uniform and casually “allowed himself to be recruited to the Grotonian cause.”.