The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: good henchmen

  • 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 280: PRINCE ITOR

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 021, 1941)

    I like Prince Itor because he’s a weenie. Not enough of those in the Golden Age. He’s not even really the focus of this story, which ain’t called “The Idol of Death” for nothing.

    So: Morrison here owns the titular Idol and is loaning it to the Egyptian Museum, but the transfer process and time was leaked in the papers, which leads to at least half of he story being taken up with a heist that Prince Itor has absolutely no involvement in.

    Itor himself doesn’t get a lot of backstory: his family are presumably like those deposed European royals who are always mooching around high society, but for thousands instead of hundreds of years. Unless of course there is an ancient prophecy about the power of the pharaohs awakening in a completely unrelated family. Either would be good!

    Itor does eventually get ahold of the idol, by the simple method of having his men take it off of the crooks who went to the hard work of actually stealing it. That pharaonic power turns out to have a kick to it, in the form of a bad case of monster-face. 

    Whatever powers the ancient monster-Pharaohs wielded do not get a full exploration, as Itor discovers pretty quickly that he can control the people around him. What follows is a pretty brief and unsuccessful attempt to destroy the Human Torch using a subwayful of commuters that ends when  the Torch melts the idol and a fleeing Prince conveniently flings himself onto the third rail – no fuss, no muss.

    But why did I call Prince Itor a weenie? Very simply it’s because he’s the kind of villain who hangs back and lets his employees do all of the work, whether it’s stealing the idol or marching in mind-controlled lockstep against a man of living flame. He’s the kind of bumbling aristocratic oaf who can’t even escape without accidentally electrocuting himself – I love to loathe him. And as with every other good aristocratic oaf, he has a highly-competent aide to take care of all of the nitty-gritty for him

    Nalda! The Jeeves to Itor’s Wooster, if Jeeves was a pistol-wielding femme fatale in a cape and a pair of buccaneer gloves. Nalda! The kind of second-in-command that is clearly the power behind the throne. Nalda!

    I was going to say that it’s sad that Nalda only appears on a single page but no, I’m glad. That means that she survived the adventure and likely got away to empty Itor’s bank accounts and set herself up in Madripoor or the like. She’s probably still there, something like 105 years old, running her underground casino/ assassination service/ chain of cat cafes like a ruthless raisin. Godspeed, Nalda.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 273: MOR THE MIGHTY

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 017, 1941)

    Mor the Mighty is part of one of my favourite types of super-villain: the magic user who has mastered a couple of spells and intends to see just how far they can get with them. In this case, our friend here seems to be limited to enlarging animals and conjuring stacks of explosives – though he might be juicing the stats of the animals a bit, too.

    That’s not bad for a guy with a villainous bent – you could engage in a little extortion or theft, maybe set yourself up as a regional gang boss.

    Just kidding, of course. Mor’s big plan is to send out his henchmen (including the excellent ape-man Zabu) and giant kitty to spread terror, confident that this will enable him to conquer… I assume the US. He says universe, but you gotta allow for hyperbole.

    To Mor’s credit, the Marvel Universe is not yet very well-supplied with magical protectors, which is what usually spells their undoing – if you rock up to a generalist like Dr Fate with nothing but a couple of 2nd level spells and an ape-man under your belt then you’re not going to be long for this world.

    Mor, on the other hand, is paired off against Electro, and beats him! His hopes for universal domination are ultimately dashed due to the fact that he doesn’t confirm the kill on Professor Zog as well, and one rapidly repaired robot later Mor is toast.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 273: MOR THE MIGHTY

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 017, 1941)

    Mor the Mighty is part of one of my favourite types of super-villain: the magic user who has mastered a couple of spells and intends to see just how far they can get with them. In this case, our friend here seems to be limited to enlarging animals and conjuring stacks of explosives – though he might be juicing the stats of the animals a bit, too.

    That’s not bad for a guy with a villainous bent – you could engage in a little extortion or theft, maybe set yourself up as a regional gang boss.

    Just kidding, of course. Mor’s big plan is to send out his henchmen (including the excellent ape-man Zabu) and giant kitty to spread terror, confident that this will enable him to conquer… I assume the US. He says universe, but you gotta allow for hyperbole.

    To Mor’s credit, the Marvel Universe is not yet very well-supplied with magical protectors, which is what usually spells their undoing – if you rock up to a generalist like Dr Fate with nothing but a couple of 2nd level spells and an ape-man under your belt then you’re not going to be long for this world.

    Mor, on the other hand, is paired off against Electro, and beats him! His hopes for universal domination are ultimately dashed due to the fact that he doesn’t confirm the kill on Professor Zog as well, and one rapidly repaired robot later Mor is toast.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 268: GNORR

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 013, 1940)

     

    The history of spaceflight is of course very different in a super-hero universe. For example, Empress Nara of Ligra, featured in a previous post about Professor Zog being knighted, was actually an Earth-woman who arrived on Ligra as an infant because her father invented an interstellar spacecraft sometime around 1920 or so. This it is practically unremarkable that Professor Zog was invited on a trip to the Moon in 1940 by Dr Simon Crane and his daughter Betty. Also Electro came along.

    And having reached the Moon almost 30 years earlier than we in this dimension did, Zog and the Cranes encountered the other side of the super-hero universe coin (if the first side read EASY SPACE TRAVEL, that is): there’s always going to be one or more evil space-creeps when you get where you’re going.

    In this case, the space-creep is Gnorr, self-styled Emperor of the Moon! Last of his kind, thousands of years old and cute as hell! Just a big roly poly head with four wee little tentacles and a wall-eye: I love him. Too bad for him and me that he set his sights on the conquest of Earth, because that’s always the cue for Professor Zog to take a hand – Gnorr ends up blown to high heaven and the Marvel Universe was poorer for it.

    Gnorr also has some pretty great moon-robots in his employ, for the record.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 268: GNORR

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 013, 1940)

     

    The history of spaceflight is of course very different in a super-hero universe. For example, Empress Nara of Ligra, featured in a previous post about Professor Zog being knighted, was actually an Earth-woman who arrived on Ligra as an infant because her father invented an interstellar spacecraft sometime around 1920 or so. This it is practically unremarkable that Professor Zog was invited on a trip to the Moon in 1940 by Dr Simon Crane and his daughter Betty. Also Electro came along.

    And having reached the Moon almost 30 years earlier than we in this dimension did, Zog and the Cranes encountered the other side of the super-hero universe coin (if the first side read EASY SPACE TRAVEL, that is): there’s always going to be one or more evil space-creeps when you get where you’re going.

    In this case, the space-creep is Gnorr, self-styled Emperor of the Moon! Last of his kind, thousands of years old and cute as hell! Just a big roly poly head with four wee little tentacles and a wall-eye: I love him. Too bad for him and me that he set his sights on the conquest of Earth, because that’s always the cue for Professor Zog to take a hand – Gnorr ends up blown to high heaven and the Marvel Universe was poorer for it.

    Gnorr also has some pretty great moon-robots in his employ, for the record.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 266: DR BRUNO VAROZ

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 010, 1940) 

    I like this guy. This guy is the fun kind of mad scientist with a lot of fun details. First of all he lives in a castle roughly the same size as the island it sits on, off the coast of Cuba. Secondly, he follows the rules of Mad Scientist Grooming, which state that they must either be impeccably groomed or, as with Dr Varoz here, look like they woke up in a compost heap.

    Varoz’ great discovery is a formula for artificial blood, which he uses to bring the dead back to life. Like aerial torpedoes (missiles) and airplane detectors (RADAR), artificial blood as something that both real-world and comic book people were trying to perfect in the 40s, but unlike the former we still haven’t quite gotten the handle on artificial blood, probably because it always seems to turn people into draculas or monsters or, as here, a bunch of skull-faced science revenants.

    And there’s a lot to like about these guys! They look great for one, they’re seemingly unstoppable for two, even though there’s nothing stopping them from being killed again – I guess they’re just too scary to stop.

    They’re also intelligent, which rules, and which is why they’re science revenants and not science zombies. They talk, fly planes, fire guns… Dr Varoz can stay forgotten as far as I’m concerned, but I would love to see his Corpse-Beings BRUNG BACK in some capacity.

    (I really like that the animated corpse is afraid of Electro)

    Dr Bruno Varoz’ other two claims to fame are this excellent two-headed monster and a pretty cold-blooded death via being thrown by Electro into the same acid pit pictured above; The monster, unaccounted for at the end of the story, would also be a welcome sight in a modern comic, if only in one of those crowd shots on Monster Island or in the Mole Man’s tunnels.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 266: DR BRUNO VAROZ

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 010, 1940) 

    I like this guy. This guy is the fun kind of mad scientist with a lot of fun details. First of all he lives in a castle roughly the same size as the island it sits on, off the coast of Cuba. Secondly, he follows the rules of Mad Scientist Grooming, which state that they must either be impeccably groomed or, as with Dr Varoz here, look like they woke up in a compost heap.

    Varoz’ great discovery is a formula for artificial blood, which he uses to bring the dead back to life. Like aerial torpedoes (missiles) and airplane detectors (RADAR), artificial blood as something that both real-world and comic book people were trying to perfect in the 40s, but unlike the former we still haven’t quite gotten the handle on artificial blood, probably because it always seems to turn people into draculas or monsters or, as here, a bunch of skull-faced science revenants.

    And there’s a lot to like about these guys! They look great for one, they’re seemingly unstoppable for two, even though there’s nothing stopping them from being killed again – I guess they’re just too scary to stop.

    They’re also intelligent, which rules, and which is why they’re science revenants and not science zombies. They talk, fly planes, fire guns… Dr Varoz can stay forgotten as far as I’m concerned, but I would love to see his Corpse-Beings BRUNG BACK in some capacity.

    (I really like that the animated corpse is afraid of Electro)

    Dr Bruno Varoz’ other two claims to fame are this excellent two-headed monster and a pretty cold-blooded death via being thrown by Electro into the same acid pit pictured above; The monster, unaccounted for at the end of the story, would also be a welcome sight in a modern comic, if only in one of those crowd shots on Monster Island or in the Mole Man’s tunnels.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 262: DR MANYAC & THE GREEN FLAME

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 004, 1940)

    Dr Manyac here is a perfectly fine criminal scientist with a very good name. It’s just too bad for him that he is in the very common position of being completely overshadowed by his henchmen:

    THE GREEN FLAME! Very very cool looking guys who are also some of our first simple examples of evil opposites, as their green flame burns cold to contend with our pal the red-hot Human Torch. Using the threat of the Green Flame’s cold causing buildings to crumble and collapse, Manyac aims to ransom New York for big bux.

    Unfortunately for his plans, and especially for his henchmen, the Green Flame’s suits aren’t quite robust enough to stand up to the Human Torch’s flame. They all end up roasted, while Manyac is carted off to jail, never to be seen again (until he’s brought back and killed off in 2009, natch)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 259: THE POWER STEALERS

    (Hit Comics 008, 1941)

    I gotta say: I really like these guys. Now, obviously they’re stinkers of the highest order – their plan involves siphoning all electrical power in the US until they are paid an unspecified amount of big bucks or possibly even placed in charge – but when you spend a little (or a lot of) time thinking about supercrime in a super-hero universe you get opinions about these kinds of things. If these guys had developed this technology I’d have something to say about the risk/reward of crime vs commercial application, but they’re clearly a bunch of criminal goons and probably stole it, so using it for crime makes sense!

    Further, they are genre-savvy enough to recognize Hercules as the only super-hero in their particular pocket of the Quality Comics proto-universe. Setting out to preemptively take care of the super-opposition never actually works, but I always appreciate the effort involved.

    (also I love that they call Hercules a hick. So often the little interesting details about a character fall by the wayside – it’s great that Hercules is consistently the super-hero from the country)

    The guy in purple is a bad liar.

    The guy in green is a loveable jerk.

    The gang of shirtless goons is everything I could wish in a bunch of cannon-fodder henchmen, down to the guy with a knife clutched in his teeth.

    Finally (well, for my purposes. Finally finally, they get beat up), they actually have a plan! They manage to chuck Hercules into quick-drying cement and cheekily make him into a statue to be displayed on their front porch! And he’s there for weeks! Very good job, boys.

    (though if they hadn’t chiseled off all that extra cement then maybe he wouldn’t have managed to get free. Food for thought, dead fictional men)