The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: good henchmen

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 504: PROFESSOR X

    (Blue Bolt v1 005, 1940)

    Professor X has two of my favourite qualities in a minor super-villain: a famous name and a prior history. The first is the same kind of fun as when my friend named his cat after me. “What do you mean Professor X keeps getting up on the counter to steal ham?”

    I really love his Prohibition-Era villainy as well, particularly as I had it in my head that he specifically was a bootlegger and thus that all of his great inventions were in service of that – dirigibles full of Canadian whiskey? The axe-proof barrel? The mighty Beer-Bot? Fun stuff. The suicide vest, by contrast is a bit much and not particularly fun, but does establish his bona fides as a legitimate threat.

    Prof. X is on a classic Judge and Jury Revenge Killer tear, targeting Hogan, the cop who brought him in and Johnson, the lawyer who put him away, who since then has become the District Attorney of Centro and close personal friend of local super-hero Sub-Zero.

    Due to this last fact Professor X is forced to turn his genius to the creation of anti-Sub-Zero weaponry, including cold-proof cars, an unfreezable gun that fires superheated bullets and his iconic costume which – you guessed it – is insulated  and renders him immune to Sub-Zero’s freezing powers. And he almost manages to beat Sub-Zero! His only mistake is in having uninsulated water pipes in his secret lair and leads to him being sent to jail inside a large block of ice.

    Professor X returns in the next issue in an attempt to finish getting revenge on DA Johnson as well as new target Sub-Zero (he also tries to kill Sub-Zero’s girlfriend Mary but I don’t think he has a specific grudge against her), and this time he’s accompanied by a costumed henchman named Rat. Once again he very nearly pulls it off but this time his fatal flaw is a lot more fatal, as he misjudges a jump during his escape and does a header out a fourth story window. An ignominious end to be sure.

    JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/3

    But death is not the end for Professor X! Blue Bolt v1 007 features a gambler named Rocky Garret who has acquired the Professor’s anti-Sub-Zero tech as insurance against interference in his baseball-fixing scheme (and it’s a good idea for him to do so, as his scheme is Not Very Good – a lot of it is literally just putting the wrong numbers on the scoreboard which… isn’t good.  It’s a bad plan.)

    Sadly this is it as far as Professor X’s legacy goes. I was kind of hoping that Sub-Zero would be confronted with a guy in a mesh bodysuit every now and again going forward, but alas, it was not meant to be.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 504: PROFESSOR X

    (Blue Bolt v1 005, 1940)

    Professor X has two of my favourite qualities in a minor super-villain: a famous name and a prior history. The first is the same kind of fun as when my friend named his cat after me. “What do you mean Professor X keeps getting up on the counter to steal ham?”

    I really love his Prohibition-Era villainy as well, particularly as I had it in my head that he specifically was a bootlegger and thus that all of his great inventions were in service of that – dirigibles full of Canadian whiskey? The axe-proof barrel? The mighty Beer-Bot? Fun stuff. The suicide vest, by contrast is a bit much and not particularly fun, but does establish his bona fides as a legitimate threat.

    Prof. X is on a classic Judge and Jury Revenge Killer tear, targeting Hogan, the cop who brought him in and Johnson, the lawyer who put him away, who since then has become the District Attorney of Centro and close personal friend of local super-hero Sub-Zero.

    Due to this last fact Professor X is forced to turn his genius to the creation of anti-Sub-Zero weaponry, including cold-proof cars, an unfreezable gun that fires superheated bullets and his iconic costume which – you guessed it – is insulated  and renders him immune to Sub-Zero’s freezing powers. And he almost manages to beat Sub-Zero! His only mistake is in having uninsulated water pipes in his secret lair and leads to him being sent to jail inside a large block of ice.

    Professor X returns in the next issue in an attempt to finish getting revenge on DA Johnson as well as new target Sub-Zero (he also tries to kill Sub-Zero’s girlfriend Mary but I don’t think he has a specific grudge against her), and this time he’s accompanied by a costumed henchman named Rat. Once again he very nearly pulls it off but this time his fatal flaw is a lot more fatal, as he misjudges a jump during his escape and does a header out a fourth story window. An ignominious end to be sure.

    JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/3

    But death is not the end for Professor X! Blue Bolt v1 007 features a gambler named Rocky Garret who has acquired the Professor’s anti-Sub-Zero tech as insurance against interference in his baseball-fixing scheme (and it’s a good idea for him to do so, as his scheme is Not Very Good – a lot of it is literally just putting the wrong numbers on the scoreboard which… isn’t good.  It’s a bad plan.)

    Sadly this is it as far as Professor X’s legacy goes. I was kind of hoping that Sub-Zero would be confronted with a guy in a mesh bodysuit every now and again going forward, but alas, it was not meant to be.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 500: DR VYLE AND THE VULTURE MEN

    (Big Shot Comics 020, 1941)

    Dr Howard Vyle is a pretty disappointing villain to land on for the big Number 500, if I’m honest. He’s just some guy from some country (Big Shot Comics 1940-1941 is rife with spies but the folks at Columbia Comic Corporation were even more cagey than the rest of the industry about indicating where those spies might actually be from – it’s faintly possible he might be supposed to be a commie, even as late as December ’41) who kidnaps a US Senator with colossal eyebrows in order to hypnotize him and use his influence over the government for the glory of his home country. 

    This is all pretty regular comics stuff and depending on my mood on the day I encountered him Dr Vyle would normally find himself in the Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up or maybe not even there. Lucky for him as well as for my sense that there should be something interesting in these big round number entries, Dr Vyle did not limit himself to using his hypnotic gifts for dull old political plots:

    He also used them to recruit hapless goons to be his costumed Vulture Men! So cool they appear on the cover!

    I can’t say there’s too much to the Vulture Men beyond being a bunch of mind controlled goons in cool wingsuits, but after reading two years’ worth of Big Shot Comics‘ array of spies and gang bosses a flock of guys in proper gaudy villain garb are a breath of fresh air.

    Unfortunately for Dr Vyle while mind controlled goons are certainly cheaper and less concerned with their personal safety than your more conventional salaried minions they also seem to lack some of the verve and personal initiative that you need to give a super-hero a run for their money. Skyman beats them up and then beats up their boss, in other words. The senator is saved!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 500: DR VYLE AND THE VULTURE MEN

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 500: DR VYLE AND THE VULTURE MEN

    (Big Shot Comics 020, 1941)

    Dr Howard Vyle is a pretty disappointing villain to land on for the big Number 500, if I’m honest. He’s just some guy from some country (Big Shot Comics 1940-1941 is rife with spies but the folks at Columbia Comic Corporation were even more cagey than the rest of the industry about indicating where those spies might actually be from – it’s faintly possible he might be supposed to be a commie, even as late as December ’41) who kidnaps a US Senator with colossal eyebrows in order to hypnotize him and use his influence over the government for the glory of his home country. 

    This is all pretty regular comics stuff and depending on my mood on the day I encountered him Dr Vyle would normally find himself in the Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up or maybe not even there. Lucky for him as well as for my sense that there should be something interesting in these big round number entries, Dr Vyle did not limit himself to using his hypnotic gifts for dull old political plots:

    He also used them to recruit hapless goons to be his costumed Vulture Men! So cool they appear on the cover!

    I can’t say there’s too much to the Vulture Men beyond being a bunch of mind controlled goons in cool wingsuits, but after reading two years’ worth of Big Shot Comics‘ array of spies and gang bosses a flock of guys in proper gaudy villain garb are a breath of fresh air.

    Unfortunately for Dr Vyle while mind controlled goons are certainly cheaper and less concerned with their personal safety than your more conventional salaried minions they also seem to lack some of the verve and personal initiative that you need to give a super-hero a run for their money. Skyman beats them up and then beats up their boss, in other words. The senator is saved!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 487: THE EEL

    (Big 3 006, 1941) 

    Our story opens with Samson investigating a series of mysterious deaths and ship disappearances in naval yards across the country. Cut to beloved Samson supporting character J. Rembrandt Speedball hilariously painting camouflage on a Navy cruiser. He is briefly distracted by horniness, and when he manages to get ahold of himself *pow*, the ship has vanished.

    Speedball is arrested as a spy and spends the rest of the issue failing to commit suicide in his cell (a hilarious joke in the 40s, I guess), while Samson very convincingly disguises himself as a sailor. This smokes out the real criminal, the Eel, a saboteur of no stated or even implied affiliation who has been substituting the Navy’s ship paint with a variety that becomes acidic when opposed to an electric charge. It turns out that the Navy just wasn’t thinking to check if their ships had sunk! And also that J. Rembrandt Speedball was so horny for that lady that he completely missed any sight or sound of an entire cruiser sinking about three feet away from him. That’s some paint!

    Anyway, Samson goes ahead and drowns everyone at the end. Message to all aquatic-themed villains: be more amphibious.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 479: DR BLOOD

    (Big 3 001, 1940)

    There are a couple of interesting things about Dr Blood but I’ll be honest: it’s mostly the name. Great, over the top villain moniker, Dr Blood. Furthermore, Dr Blood runs a costumed gang called the Inner Crime Ring, which is not nearly as good a name as Dr Blood but still better than an unnamed collection of gangsters.

    What Dr Blood is a doctor of is hard to say. The Inner Crime Ring has access to paralysis ray technology so I suppose we must assume that he invented that rather than stealing it from a lesser scientist with an unimpressive name. Or he could be a Doctor of Larceny.

    The other thing about Dr Blood and the Inner Crime Ring is that they make the mistake of tangling with the super-hero Samson and his pal David and Samson absolutely destroys them. Like, straight-up murders them. This is my first Samson story so I’m unsure if this is his usual MO or if it’s because Dr Blood almost killed David earlier in the episode but what I can say for certain is that those cops should not be as okay with this level of vigilante justice/ mass destruction as they are.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 479: DR BLOOD

    (Big 3 001, 1940)

    There are a couple of interesting things about Dr Blood but I’ll be honest: it’s mostly the name. Great, over the top villain moniker, Dr Blood. Furthermore, Dr Blood runs a costumed gang called the Inner Crime Ring, which is not nearly as good a name as Dr Blood but still better than an unnamed collection of gangsters.

    What Dr Blood is a doctor of is hard to say. The Inner Crime Ring has access to paralysis ray technology so I suppose we must assume that he invented that rather than stealing it from a lesser scientist with an unimpressive name. Or he could be a Doctor of Larceny.

    The other thing about Dr Blood and the Inner Crime Ring is that they make the mistake of tangling with the super-hero Samson and his pal David and Samson absolutely destroys them. Like, straight-up murders them. This is my first Samson story so I’m unsure if this is his usual MO or if it’s because Dr Blood almost killed David earlier in the episode but what I can say for certain is that those cops should not be as okay with this level of vigilante justice/ mass destruction as they are.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 472: THE GREAT QUESTION

    (Amazing-Man Comics 005, 1939)

    The Great Question is a member of the Council of Seven, the mysterious body of scientists and mystics who trained and orphan boy into John Aman aka the Amazing-Man. The inner dynamics of the Council of Seven can be a bit hard to parse but early on it seems like the Great Question is if not in charge at least an unofficial leader. Later, as he has more and more conflict with Amazing-Man that role is filled by Aman’s mentor Nika.

    From issue 5 to 11, the first year of Aman’s adventures, the dynamic is such: Amazing-Man travels around helping people and inadvertently foiling the Great Question’s various schemes while the Question attempts to bend Aman to his will – above is a picture of the one time he managed to actually do it, turning Amazing-Man into some sort of terrifying crime genie.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 012, Aman answers a summons to return to the Council and is rewarded with a harness that both makes his “green mist” power permanent and renders him immune to the Question’s mental control. Suddenly, everything changes – sure, Amazing-Man is still travelling around foiling the Great Question’s various schemes, but without the mind control aspect to their dynamic it becomes a much more satisfying hero/villain pairing.

    (This seems like a good place for an aside: it’s never explicitly stated but implicitly it seems like the Council of Seven must know that their most prominent member is a super-villain. Did they recruit him because he was one or was it incidental to the other things he brought to the role? Impossible to say. The gift of the anti-mind control harness makes it clear that they preferred Aman in a heroic role but that’s about all that can be determined)

    From this point the Great Question really comes into his own as an international super-villain. No matter where Amazing-Man goes, the Question has a group of generic goons working on a scheme of some sort. This all comes to a head in Amazing-Man Comics 021, in which Amazing-Man and the Great Question face off on an island base crawling with uniformed henchmen armed with forcefield projectors to bottle up Aman’s gas form.

    There’s even an extremely radical giant robot!

    Things really come crashing down in the next issue, as the Great Question not only joins up with the Nazis but rebrands himself as Mister Que, a much worse name. Now obviously there are a lot of classic Nazi villains – they’re very easy to cast in the role because they suck – and it’s clear that the Great Question Mister Que is using them to further his own goals, but it really does diminish the fun of a classic megalomaniac to see him working to further the goals of the Nazis rather than his own.

    There are some interesting developments during the Mister Que era: he demonstrates more super-powers, for one, including a sort of whirlwind form used for rapid escape. He also manages to rob Fort Knox (well, Fort Fox), a classic villain cheevo. And even though I don’t particularly like the Nazi uniform look he does have the right smirk to be wearing that mask.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 024, Amazing-Man and Tommy the Amazing Kid face off against the Vulture, a Nazi agent with convoluted plan to destroy NYC using US soldiers under the thrall of psychoactive temporary tattoos. In the antepenultimate panel, the Vulture pulls off a rubberoid mask to reveal that he was in fact Mister Que! His reasoning for doing this (to keep Amazing-Man from attempting to kill him) is a bit suspect, but he does manage to get away in the end. Ignominious!

    And that’s it for the Great Question/ Mister Que/ the Vulture. Odds are that he would have returned to vex Amazing-Man yet again but Centaur stopped publishing comics in early 1942. Both he and Amazing-Man have been brought back a handful of times over the years, of course, but mostly the Great Question languishes, unanswered.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 472: THE GREAT QUESTION

    (Amazing-Man Comics 005, 1939)

    The Great Question is a member of the Council of Seven, the mysterious body of scientists and mystics who trained and orphan boy into John Aman aka the Amazing-Man. The inner dynamics of the Council of Seven can be a bit hard to parse but early on it seems like the Great Question is if not in charge at least an unofficial leader. Later, as he has more and more conflict with Amazing-Man that role is filled by Aman’s mentor Nika.

    From issue 5 to 11, the first year of Aman’s adventures, the dynamic is such: Amazing-Man travels around helping people and inadvertently foiling the Great Question’s various schemes while the Question attempts to bend Aman to his will – above is a picture of the one time he managed to actually do it, turning Amazing-Man into some sort of terrifying crime genie.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 012, Aman answers a summons to return to the Council and is rewarded with a harness that both makes his “green mist” power permanent and renders him immune to the Question’s mental control. Suddenly, everything changes – sure, Amazing-Man is still travelling around foiling the Great Question’s various schemes, but without the mind control aspect to their dynamic it becomes a much more satisfying hero/villain pairing.

    (This seems like a good place for an aside: it’s never explicitly stated but implicitly it seems like the Council of Seven must know that their most prominent member is a super-villain. Did they recruit him because he was one or was it incidental to the other things he brought to the role? Impossible to say. The gift of the anti-mind control harness makes it clear that they preferred Aman in a heroic role but that’s about all that can be determined)

    From this point the Great Question really comes into his own as an international super-villain. No matter where Amazing-Man goes, the Question has a group of generic goons working on a scheme of some sort. This all comes to a head in Amazing-Man Comics 021, in which Amazing-Man and the Great Question face off on an island base crawling with uniformed henchmen armed with forcefield projectors to bottle up Aman’s gas form.

    There’s even an extremely radical giant robot!

    Things really come crashing down in the next issue, as the Great Question not only joins up with the Nazis but rebrands himself as Mister Que, a much worse name. Now obviously there are a lot of classic Nazi villains – they’re very easy to cast in the role because they suck – and it’s clear that the Great Question Mister Que is using them to further his own goals, but it really does diminish the fun of a classic megalomaniac to see him working to further the goals of the Nazis rather than his own.

    There are some interesting developments during the Mister Que era: he demonstrates more super-powers, for one, including a sort of whirlwind form used for rapid escape. He also manages to rob Fort Knox (well, Fort Fox), a classic villain cheevo. And even though I don’t particularly like the Nazi uniform look he does have the right smirk to be wearing that mask.

    Then, in Amazing-Man Comics 024, Amazing-Man and Tommy the Amazing Kid face off against the Vulture, a Nazi agent with convoluted plan to destroy NYC using US soldiers under the thrall of psychoactive temporary tattoos. In the antepenultimate panel, the Vulture pulls off a rubberoid mask to reveal that he was in fact Mister Que! His reasoning for doing this (to keep Amazing-Man from attempting to kill him) is a bit suspect, but he does manage to get away in the end. Ignominious!

    And that’s it for the Great Question/ Mister Que/ the Vulture. Odds are that he would have returned to vex Amazing-Man yet again but Centaur stopped publishing comics in early 1942. Both he and Amazing-Man have been brought back a handful of times over the years, of course, but mostly the Great Question languishes, unanswered.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 468: THE GHOST

    (Amazing-Man Comics 013, 1940)

    In Amazing-Man Comics 010 Minimidget and Ritty accidentally get shot to the Belgian Congo on a guy’s homemade rocket (as you do) and the subsequent issues have been a series of trials and tribulations as they make their way back home. The Ghost is another one of those, but a fun one – not racist at all, for one thing!

    I may not have much regard for pilot-heroes but air pirates are another matter, and that’s just what the Ghost is, complete with all the good good accessories: custom planes with little ghosts painted on them, a hidden airfield, costumed henchmen dressed in a less-cool version of his own costume, a bombastic attitude… he’s the complete package for a one-off villain. The only sour note is his name – the Ghost is a perfectly fine name on its own but several people refer to him as a “sky way robber” and the Skyway Robber is a much better name for an air pirate.

    (it’s hard to tell with the state of search engines nowadays but it seems like “the Skyway Robber” has only been used as a name for a card in Magic: the Gathering. A shame!)

    The Ghost dies somewhat ignominiously when his plane is tripped. That’s life as a comic book villain, I guess.