The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: good henchmen

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 848: DR HSIN

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 848: DR HSIN

    (Weird Comics 005, 1940) 

    There are exactly two reasons why I gave Dr Hsin his own entry rather than sticking him in the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up, and the first one is his creation/henchman Mako, aka the Perfect Man. I just can’t resist a man with a tube coming out of his head, especially when that man is some sort of cyborg frankenstein.

    The second reason is that Hsin’s plan – to steal the blood from hundreds of great men and women (up to and including Thor, God of Thunder!) and use it to create superhumans – is delightfully wackadoo. Is this how he created Mako? Is that what the tube is for? The mind boggles.

    As so often happens when one creates a perfect being, Mako eventually decides that Dr Hsin is surplus to requirements and tries to take over the entire operation. The rest of the issue is a series of punches: Mako punches out Dr Hsin, then Thor uses the Gauntlet of Thor to punch out Mako and then he does the same to Dr Hsin, making him the most punched man of the issue. 

    Dr Hsin gets turned over to the authorities, but poor Mako ends up getting blown up with the rest of Hsin’s experiments when Thor determines that they are too foul to exist. RIP to the Perfect Man. And also RIP Dr Hsin, because nobody thought to see if he had any poison on him.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 848: DR HSIN

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 848: DR HSIN

    (Weird Comics 005, 1940) 

    There are exactly two reasons why I gave Dr Hsin his own entry rather than sticking him in the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up, and the first one is his creation/henchman Mako, aka the Perfect Man. I just can’t resist a man with a tube coming out of his head, especially when that man is some sort of cyborg frankenstein.

    The second reason is that Hsin’s plan – to steal the blood from hundreds of great men and women (up to and including Thor, God of Thunder!) and use it to create superhumans – is delightfully wackadoo. Is this how he created Mako? Is that what the tube is for? The mind boggles.

    As so often happens when one creates a perfect being, Mako eventually decides that Dr Hsin is surplus to requirements and tries to take over the entire operation. The rest of the issue is a series of punches: Mako punches out Dr Hsin, then Thor uses the Gauntlet of Thor to punch out Mako and then he does the same to Dr Hsin, making him the most punched man of the issue. 

    Dr Hsin gets turned over to the authorities, but poor Mako ends up getting blown up with the rest of Hsin’s experiments when Thor determines that they are too foul to exist. RIP to the Perfect Man. And also RIP Dr Hsin, because nobody thought to see if he had any poison on him.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 846: THE WIZARD

    (Weird Comics 003, 1940)

    The Wizard is the first of five villains to challenge the Sorceress of Zoom for the role of top villain in her own dang feature. He is unique among that group for being the only villain in the story he appears in, as while the rest of his peers come at the Sorceress while she is engaged in some nefarious activity, the Wizard shows up while she is peacefully hanging out with her friend Allan. 

    Once the Wizard’s weird humanoids have slaughtered all of the citizens of Zoom, he smashes the Sorceress’ never-before-seen magic mirror, which in this story only is the source of her magical power. He then absconds with the entire damn city.

    The Sorceress and Allan set out to restore the mirror by re-forging it in the heart of a volcano, only to find the Wizard and his goons waiting on the rim of the caldera to beat them up.

    This turns out to be a bad decision on the Wizard’s part, as the Sorceress is able to perform an extremely sick move that is let down somewhat by the art, wherein she leaps into the volcano holding the mirror and is thus able to use her magic to fly back out/become immune to flame/heal her horrific wounds once it re-forms. And the volcano does double duty, since she is able to dispose of the Wizard in there!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 846: THE SORCERESS OF ZOOM

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 846: THE SORCERESS OF ZOOM

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

    The Sorceress of Zoom is just what it says on the tin: a sorceress from Zoom, which is a magical flying city that she lives in and controls. She’s another of the Golden Age’s surprisingly large number of headlining super-villains, only instead of being a mad scientist or a more conventional crook she is a mercurial magic woman who just kind of flies around harassing people. Sometimes she’s almost okay and other times she’s one of history’s worst monsters – it’s over all fun!

    As has become the norm with these recurring villains, here is a litany of her crimes for 1940:

    In her first outing, the Sorceress takes over a small American city for unclear reasons (a page is missing from the only available scan of the issue and I reckon that the answer lies there), but the main conflict involves the Sorceress’ attempt to vamp a dude named Tom away from a lady named Janice. 

    Sorceress’ Motivation: caprice, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: This is the first appearance of the Sorceress of Zoom’s most frequent henchmen, a group of unnamed gobliny humanoids 

    In Weird Comics 002, the Sorceress really ups the stakes. This might be her most villainous appearance, as she first attempts to get the king of Bango, a… European city-state? to surrender 300 people so that she can kill them and turn their corpses into her goblin-men, and when he refuses to do so, she razes the entire city and turns the slaughtered population of Bango en masse.

    The only surviving Bangonian, Prince Paul, escapes to the nearby city-state of Zoda and when the Sorceress appears there, conceives of a plan to evaporate the cloud that Zoom sits upon – this marks the first of many times that Zoom is destroyed, but the Sorceress seems to be able to recreate it at will, so that’s not as consequential as it seems.

    I really enjoy the flying throne that the SoZ escapes on, so here it is.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The same gobliny humanoids, now revealed to be necromantically created out of human corpses.

    Weird Comics 003 really highlights the mercurial nature of the Sorceress’ character, as she is fully the blameless protagonist here. She and her friend Allan are just hanging out in Zoom when a nefarious character called the Wizard attacks them and makes off with the entire dang city, forcing the Sorceress and the tuxedo-clad Allan to quest in search of it. The Wizard is number 1 of 5 upcoming Minor Super-Villain entries dealing with foes of the Sorceress, so more on him later.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: vengeance, good times

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Seemingly just regular people, who are all slaughtered by the Wizard. The hazards of living in a magical city owned by a super-villain, I suppose. 

    In Weird Comics 004, the Sorceress attempts to ally with a fellow called the Wizard of Zoro to take over the US (? Possibly – a sense of place is not the strong suit of the Sorceress of Zoom comics), but he is too full of himself to work with someone else, making him the second of our future entries and giving the Sorceress a real opportunity to show off her flying, lion-driven carriage as she makes a brief tactical retreat.

    The Sorceress once again threatens to return and steal someone’s fairly generic man at the end of this one, and as far as is shown she never really follows up on these impulses.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: vengeance, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The coachmen above are the only ones shown, so presumably more regular people have decided to live on the edge by inhabiting a magical villain’s lair. 

     

    Weird Comics 005 sees the Sorceress kidnapping the magical men who live in Nagpur, India, both to beef up her forces and to prove that she is better than them.

    What the Sorceress doesn’t count on is the fact that one of the magical men might have a magical son, and that magical son might effect a magical rescue. The magical men, once released, are able to prevent the Sorceress from making any more attempts to deprive them of their freedom.

    This issue also attempts to inject some continuity and foreshadowing into the ongoing Sorceress of Zoom narrative with a bit of a cliffhanger about just what the general and the king in her cryo-chamber could be doing there. This is to my knowledge never revisited.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: pride, power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The gobliny humanoids are back!

    In Weird Comics 006, a somewhat off-model Sorceress of Zoom attempts to take over the Middle East with the help of some dragons. This attempt is foiled by young Prince Ja’afar, who is gifted a protective amulet and a flying carpet by a friendly desert mage and invades Zoom to rescue his love, the Princess Shahzarad.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: power, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Slaves and dragons.

    Weird Comics 007 sees the Sorceress transporting Zoom back in time to escape the chaos of the growing World War II. She ends up in Arthurian England, mixed up in a conflict between Sir Gareth of the Round Table (who she of course wants, carnally) and Morgana le Fay (upcoming minor super-villain 3/5), before being run out of town by Merlin.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Big beefy shirtless men, mostly. 

    The Weird Comics 008 story is the first of what I think will be a pattern of adventures going forward: the Sorceress rolls into some area and starts causing trouble, then gets into a scrap, then undoes some or all of the mischief that she caused and leaves. My theory is that this is what she does when she gets bored.

    In this case, the Sorceress annoys a young couple and attempts to seduce the man away from the woman (who has been turned into flowers, natch), then attempts to conquer a nearby city before having a real tussle with upcoming villain 4/5, the Super-Scientist, and leaving (after turning the flowers back into a lady).

    This issue also features the second time that Zoom is destroyed and recreated.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: lust, boredom, power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: the very cool-looking Vapor Men. 

    Weird Comics 009 is another of these boredom issues, in which the Sorceress is ostensibly transporting some treasure out of the North African desert but really seems to just be having fun torturing the poor people who she has enslaved to do so. Eventually, she gets into a conflict with out final upcoming super-villain, Gobi, the Super-Wizard of the Desert, who wants to use the Sorceress’ slaves as food for his vultures. Zoom is destroyed yet again this issue.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: wealth, boredom

    Inhabitants of Zoom: None shown. 

    That’s it for the Sorceress of Zoom in 1940: stay tuned for her 1941 adventures! 

     

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 846: THE SORCERESS OF ZOOM

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

    The Sorceress of Zoom is just what it says on the tin: a sorceress from Zoom, which is a magical flying city that she lives in and controls. She’s another of the Golden Age’s surprisingly large number of headlining super-villains, only instead of being a mad scientist or a more conventional crook she is a mercurial magic woman who just kind of flies around harassing people. Sometimes she’s almost okay and other times she’s one of history’s worst monsters – it’s over all fun!

    As has become the norm with these recurring villains, here is a litany of her crimes for 1940:

    In her first outing, the Sorceress takes over a small American city for unclear reasons (a page is missing from the only available scan of the issue and I reckon that the answer lies there), but the main conflict involves the Sorceress’ attempt to vamp a dude named Tom away from a lady named Janice. 

    Sorceress’ Motivation: caprice, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: This is the first appearance of the Sorceress of Zoom’s most frequent henchmen, a group of unnamed gobliny humanoids 

    In Weird Comics 002, the Sorceress really ups the stakes. This might be her most villainous appearance, as she first attempts to get the king of Bango, a… European city-state? to surrender 300 people so that she can kill them and turn their corpses into her goblin-men, and when he refuses to do so, she razes the entire city and turns the slaughtered population of Bango en masse.

    The only surviving Bangonian, Prince Paul, escapes to the nearby city-state of Zoda and when the Sorceress appears there, conceives of a plan to evaporate the cloud that Zoom sits upon – this marks the first of many times that Zoom is destroyed, but the Sorceress seems to be able to recreate it at will, so that’s not as consequential as it seems.

    I really enjoy the flying throne that the SoZ escapes on, so here it is.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The same gobliny humanoids, now revealed to be necromantically created out of human corpses.

    Weird Comics 003 really highlights the mercurial nature of the Sorceress’ character, as she is fully the blameless protagonist here. She and her friend Allan are just hanging out in Zoom when a nefarious character called the Wizard attacks them and makes off with the entire dang city, forcing the Sorceress and the tuxedo-clad Allan to quest in search of it. The Wizard is number 1 of 5 upcoming Minor Super-Villain entries dealing with foes of the Sorceress, so more on him later.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: vengeance, good times

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Seemingly just regular people, who are all slaughtered by the Wizard. The hazards of living in a magical city owned by a super-villain, I suppose. 

    In Weird Comics 004, the Sorceress attempts to ally with a fellow called the Wizard of Zoro to take over the US (? Possibly – a sense of place is not the strong suit of the Sorceress of Zoom comics), but he is too full of himself to work with someone else, making him the second of our future entries and giving the Sorceress a real opportunity to show off her flying, lion-driven carriage as she makes a brief tactical retreat.

    The Sorceress once again threatens to return and steal someone’s fairly generic man at the end of this one, and as far as is shown she never really follows up on these impulses.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: vengeance, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The coachmen above are the only ones shown, so presumably more regular people have decided to live on the edge by inhabiting a magical villain’s lair. 

     

    Weird Comics 005 sees the Sorceress kidnapping the magical men who live in Nagpur, India, both to beef up her forces and to prove that she is better than them.

    What the Sorceress doesn’t count on is the fact that one of the magical men might have a magical son, and that magical son might effect a magical rescue. The magical men, once released, are able to prevent the Sorceress from making any more attempts to deprive them of their freedom.

    This issue also attempts to inject some continuity and foreshadowing into the ongoing Sorceress of Zoom narrative with a bit of a cliffhanger about just what the general and the king in her cryo-chamber could be doing there. This is to my knowledge never revisited.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: pride, power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: The gobliny humanoids are back!

    In Weird Comics 006, a somewhat off-model Sorceress of Zoom attempts to take over the Middle East with the help of some dragons. This attempt is foiled by young Prince Ja’afar, who is gifted a protective amulet and a flying carpet by a friendly desert mage and invades Zoom to rescue his love, the Princess Shahzarad.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: power, lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Slaves and dragons.

    Weird Comics 007 sees the Sorceress transporting Zoom back in time to escape the chaos of the growing World War II. She ends up in Arthurian England, mixed up in a conflict between Sir Gareth of the Round Table (who she of course wants, carnally) and Morgana le Fay (upcoming minor super-villain 3/5), before being run out of town by Merlin.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: lust

    Inhabitants of Zoom: Big beefy shirtless men, mostly. 

    The Weird Comics 008 story is the first of what I think will be a pattern of adventures going forward: the Sorceress rolls into some area and starts causing trouble, then gets into a scrap, then undoes some or all of the mischief that she caused and leaves. My theory is that this is what she does when she gets bored.

    In this case, the Sorceress annoys a young couple and attempts to seduce the man away from the woman (who has been turned into flowers, natch), then attempts to conquer a nearby city before having a real tussle with upcoming villain 4/5, the Super-Scientist, and leaving (after turning the flowers back into a lady).

    This issue also features the second time that Zoom is destroyed and recreated.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: lust, boredom, power

    Inhabitants of Zoom: the very cool-looking Vapor Men. 

    Weird Comics 009 is another of these boredom issues, in which the Sorceress is ostensibly transporting some treasure out of the North African desert but really seems to just be having fun torturing the poor people who she has enslaved to do so. Eventually, she gets into a conflict with out final upcoming super-villain, Gobi, the Super-Wizard of the Desert, who wants to use the Sorceress’ slaves as food for his vultures. Zoom is destroyed yet again this issue.

    Sorceress’ Motivation: wealth, boredom

    Inhabitants of Zoom: None shown. 

    That’s it for the Sorceress of Zoom in 1940: stay tuned for her 1941 adventures! 

     

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 843: THE RULER OF THE UNDERSEAS

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940) 

    During the inaugural voyage of his super submarine the A-14, oceanic explorer Typhon encounters a remarkable monster: a mass of eels with a central woman’s head and the attractive power of a siren.

    Though the creature kills several of his crew, Typhon is able to use his magic ring to kill its heads, which reveals that the girl-head in the centre is actually a human woman who has been mind controlled and used as a monster-part for “many years.” This is horrifying to contemplate!

    The Ruler of the Underseas, stung by the loss of his composite beast, sends the equally-as-horrifying Serpent-Men to capture them, which of course raises the question of why he was using a human woman in a bubble helmet as his monster core when he could have just used one of his loyal undersea dudes. Is it because none of them are attractive enough?

    Typhon foils the Ruler’s plans by paralyzing him with his magic ring so that they can all escape back to the A-14, and I am left with one observation and one question:

    Observation: Given how important Typhon’s magic ring is to the plot of this issue – note that it also protects him from the spell of the eel-siren earlier – one might expect it appear again in a future story. This is not the case.

    Question: Is the Ruler of the Underseas just permanently paralyzed? He certainly does not ever return to vex Typhon and his former eel-maiden companion (later named Cecelia). Because if he is, well, condemning even an evil man to an inescapable prison in his own body isn’t a great look, Typhon.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 843: THE RULER OF THE UNDERSEAS

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940) 

    During the inaugural voyage of his super submarine the A-14, oceanic explorer Typhon encounters a remarkable monster: a mass of eels with a central woman’s head and the attractive power of a siren.

    Though the creature kills several of his crew, Typhon is able to use his magic ring to kill its heads, which reveals that the girl-head in the centre is actually a human woman who has been mind controlled and used as a monster-part for “many years.” This is horrifying to contemplate!

    The Ruler of the Underseas, stung by the loss of his composite beast, sends the equally-as-horrifying Serpent-Men to capture them, which of course raises the question of why he was using a human woman in a bubble helmet as his monster core when he could have just used one of his loyal undersea dudes. Is it because none of them are attractive enough?

    Typhon foils the Ruler’s plans by paralyzing him with his magic ring so that they can all escape back to the A-14, and I am left with one observation and one question:

    Observation: Given how important Typhon’s magic ring is to the plot of this issue – note that it also protects him from the spell of the eel-siren earlier – one might expect it appear again in a future story. This is not the case.

    Question: Is the Ruler of the Underseas just permanently paralyzed? He certainly does not ever return to vex Typhon and his former eel-maiden companion (later named Cecelia). Because if he is, well, condemning even an evil man to an inescapable prison in his own body isn’t a great look, Typhon.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 841: SIKANDUR, THE ROBOT MASTER

    (War Comics 001, 1940) 

    Sikandur, the Robot Master, is a villain-in-a-starring-role who sadly only appeared once. Any evil roboticist who, for example, makes his robots red-hot as a way of discouraging those who might grapple them is an evil roboticist I want to read about, and I only got the one opportunity to do so.

    Sikandur need gold in order to build more robots, though whether he needs it as a necessary component or as a handy source of cash is unspecified. To that end, he sends his boy Robot X5328B to the United States to rob Fort Knox.

    If Sikandur’s feature had continued to appear then presumably these three dingbats would have been the ones who would be foiling him going forward. As it is, they’re just three… college students? who figure out that Robot X5328B is something more than a simple traveller with jet-black eyes and kind of bumble around trying to figure out what he’s up to.

    Also please not that Sikandur has apparently “conquered half of Europe” at this point.

    Robot X5328B is an advanced robot indeed, because he (?) does some excellent and very menacing threats before being undermined by Sikandur’s caution re: the small-town police missing three local oafs. And that’s a wrap on Sikandur the Robot Master. Presumably the next few issues would have concerned our unlikely trio’s efforts to prevent the robbery of Fort Knox and then ultimately the end of Sikandur and his dreams of world conquest.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 841: SIKANDUR, THE ROBOT MASTER

    (War Comics 001, 1940) 

    Sikandur, the Robot Master, is a villain-in-a-starring-role who sadly only appeared once. Any evil roboticist who, for example, makes his robots red-hot as a way of discouraging those who might grapple them is an evil roboticist I want to read about, and I only got the one opportunity to do so.

    Sikandur need gold in order to build more robots, though whether he needs it as a necessary component or as a handy source of cash is unspecified. To that end, he sends his boy Robot X5328B to the United States to rob Fort Knox.

    If Sikandur’s feature had continued to appear then presumably these three dingbats would have been the ones who would be foiling him going forward. As it is, they’re just three… college students? who figure out that Robot X5328B is something more than a simple traveller with jet-black eyes and kind of bumble around trying to figure out what he’s up to.

    Also please not that Sikandur has apparently “conquered half of Europe” at this point.

    Robot X5328B is an advanced robot indeed, because he (?) does some excellent and very menacing threats before being undermined by Sikandur’s caution re: the small-town police missing three local oafs. And that’s a wrap on Sikandur the Robot Master. Presumably the next few issues would have concerned our unlikely trio’s efforts to prevent the robbery of Fort Knox and then ultimately the end of Sikandur and his dreams of world conquest.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 813: YAGOR

    (The Spirit, “The Death Dolls”, 4 August, 1940)

    In terms of villainy, Yagor ain’t much. Formerly chief engineer at the Battle Arms Co, Yagor murdered the inventor Kalin and stole his inventions and is trying to sell them on when the Spirit tracks him down in a small New England town. Though he gets the drop on the Spirit and captures him when he shows up to take him in, Yagor is undone by his own poor salesmanship and the crucial lack of imagination possessed by munitions buyer Emil Kampf, who dismisses a working robot soldier as a useless toy without, for instance, considering the possibility inherent in a bit of armour plating.

    Among Yagor’s many shortcomings is dismal salesmanship and specifically his failure to present Kampf with the other invention that he stole from Kalin, a smaller automaton capable of tracking a person across tens if not hundreds of kilometres, navigating such obstacles as sheer walls and subway systems, in order to kill them via explosion. Instead, he sends one, charmingly named Jepetto, to kill Kampf.

    (perhaps the oddest thing about this assassination is that as Jepetto is tracking down and killing Kampf Yagor and the Spirit are in New England listening for news of the explosion on the radio, and while this is in the days when the Spirit’s adventures were still set in New York City, the whole process must have taken hours if not days to complete, even if the “dark. mysterious fishing village” of Cape Haven were somehow both at the Southern border of Connecticut and “out of the tourist route.” Just standing around at gunpoint for three days while a small robot walks down the East Coast)

    But perhaps I am giving Yagor too much grief. After all, he was the chief engineer at that munitions company, not the chief salesman. Surely after bungling two whole opportunities to sell his robots (I’m counting the assassination because I think that loading that little robot up with a couple of water balloons or the like would have been a very good proof of concept indeed) he will rally and hike up his pants and really put in a good effort in his next black market arms presentation. What’s that? He just loaded all of his remaining Death Dolls (which is what the little assassin-bots are called) into a big robot soldier and sent them to attack New York for no good reason? Yagor, no. You’re going to get caught by the Spirit!

    Yagor got caught by the Spirit, you guys.