The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Yank Wilson

  • NOTES – APRIL 2026

    Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects:

    Here’s an intrepid officer trying to shoot the Black Terror and his (very young) sidekick Tim in the backs as they run away from the scene of a late-night disturbance. (Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

    Samson Does the Thing: 

    Several new additions to the premiere Samson supercut:

    Marthas:

    A new addition to the League of Marthas: the Golden Knight’s mother, Queen Martha of the Tree People! (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

    Places and History:

    In a rare callback to some of the fake countries from previous Yank Wilson stories, Imperial Japan analog Hondo (Fantastic Comics 009) and Nazi Germany analog Prussland (Fantastic Comics 011) ally with Fascist Italy analog Napoli to form an Axis Powers analog referred to as the Triparty Aggression Pact. I have to say that it was a true thrill to see not one but two whole countries be re-used, rather than being new ones just made up on the spot.

    I was soon dashed from these giddy heights, however, as Yank Wilson almost immediately invented Japanese Hondoese Internment Camps. (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

  • NOTES – APRIL 2026

    Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects:

    Here’s an intrepid officer trying to shoot the Black Terror and his (very young) sidekick Tim in the backs as they run away from the scene of a late-night disturbance. (Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

    Samson Does the Thing: 

    Several new additions to the premiere Samson supercut:

    Marthas:

    A new addition to the League of Marthas: the Golden Knight’s mother, Queen Martha of the Tree People! (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

    Places and History:

    In a rare callback to some of the fake countries from previous Yank Wilson stories, Imperial Japan analog Hondo (Fantastic Comics 009) and Nazi Germany analog Prussland (Fantastic Comics 011) ally with Fascist Italy analog Napoli to form an Axis Powers analog referred to as the Triparty Aggression Pact. I have to say that it was a true thrill to see not one but two whole countries be re-used, rather than being new ones just made up on the spot.

    I was soon dashed from these giddy heights, however, as Yank Wilson almost immediately invented Japanese Hondoese Internment Camps. (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 012

    Science class was never like this.

    Count la Roach is a scientist-spy looking to synthesize enough “noxio gas” to flood the NYC of the I-think-it’s-still-the-near-future world of Yank Wilson, but all he gets is a sock in the jaw for his trouble. (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)

    This unnamed fellow is our first proper mad scientist in a while! I really like his style, particularly the fact that he’s introduced while sitting in a tennis judge’s chair for no stated reason. He lives in an inactive volcano, probably in Africa, and is developing a horrible poison dust that he has used to destroy the neighbouring village – it’s probably a good thing that Captain Kidd melts him. (Fantastic Comics 008, 1940)

    Dr Loy here has created an army of chemical androids that he controls and aims to take over the world with. Two problems: the Fantom of the Fair is on the case and Dr Loy’s androids dissolve in water. Loy is quickly arrested. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 002, 1940)

    Chung Hang has a simple dream: wait until the world is exhausted by WWII and then take over using his mind control ray. And he might just get there some day, because Chip Collins of the Skull Squadron just punches him out and leaves once he and his pals have escaped Chung Hang’s science dungeons. (Fight Comics 002, 1940)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 012

    Science class was never like this.

    Count la Roach is a scientist-spy looking to synthesize enough “noxio gas” to flood the NYC of the I-think-it’s-still-the-near-future world of Yank Wilson, but all he gets is a sock in the jaw for his trouble. (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)

    This unnamed fellow is our first proper mad scientist in a while! I really like his style, particularly the fact that he’s introduced while sitting in a tennis judge’s chair for no stated reason. He lives in an inactive volcano, probably in Africa, and is developing a horrible poison dust that he has used to destroy the neighbouring village – it’s probably a good thing that Captain Kidd melts him. (Fantastic Comics 008, 1940)

    Dr Loy here has created an army of chemical androids that he controls and aims to take over the world with. Two problems: the Fantom of the Fair is on the case and Dr Loy’s androids dissolve in water. Loy is quickly arrested. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 002, 1940)

    Chung Hang has a simple dream: wait until the world is exhausted by WWII and then take over using his mind control ray. And he might just get there some day, because Chip Collins of the Skull Squadron just punches him out and leaves once he and his pals have escaped Chung Hang’s science dungeons. (Fight Comics 002, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 638: THE BLACK HOOD

    (Fantastic Comics 013, 1940)

    Yank Wilson, Super Spy Q-4 (who started out as a near-future character and maybe isn’t any more but until I see a clear sign otherwise still is to me) is after Prusslandic spies Karl Wolff and the Black Hood down in Florida and is going about his search with all the subtlety of a character in a point-and-click adventure game. It’s his bad luck that the first person he asked was an agent of Prussland Intelligence but it was only a matter of time given his tactic of asking everyone he saw if they had seen any espionage going on.

    Lucky for Wilson, the Black Hood is incredibly gullible and accepts him as a fifth columnist named Bruno Schmidt without question (don’t worry: Yank crossed his fingers while swearing allegiance to the Fatherland – no need for a court marshal). I was going to make a crack about how even though it was nice to see the Black Hood dressed in what would become the conventional super-villain ensemble unlike so many of our recent entrants it was in fact completely unnecessary because he is obviously Karl Wolff, but I say was because Yank Wilson does not in fact put two and two together until he is told directly that it is four.

    Yank is pretty swiftly uncovered as a US intelligence agent by Count von Heindorff, the one spy in the entire story who bothered to pay attention in espionage school, leading to a whole lot of malarkey and gunplay and a final airplane chase that spells the end of both von Heindorff and the Black Hood.

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 014

    Once again the also-rans.

    A bunch of small-time crooks get paid to fake the death of Titano (the largest gorilla in captivity!) for an insurance scam and of course use him to rob a series small-town banks. If only they had thought a bit more ambitiously they might have made the big time. (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)

    This Yank Wilson adventure features a fairly by-the-book super-spy ring headed by Count Lustig von Blackgard. They plot, they scheme, they are ultimately foiled. This mysterious radio message is the only mention of a higher-up, but their moniker – the extremely evocative Neuromania – was too good to pass over without comment. (there is of course the possibility that Neuromania is the spies’ home country. Either way, it’s great). (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

    This happy fellow has no name but makes up for it with a laundry list of distinctive features: missing left eye, hunch, catlike upper lip, pointy ears, bizarrely long hair on his forearms, etc. He lives under a fake man-eating tree in… probably the African jungle and spends his days torturing and poisoning people for no stated reason until he is killed by Captain Kid using his own poisoned melon. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

    This is Nipon, ruler of an unnamed Asian country (wink, wink) from that period in late 1940 through 1941 when the Axis powers were very clearly the villains on everyone’s minds but the US was remaining neutral so you couldn’t in good conscience make the leader of a foreign nation the villain of your story. These guys are usually either extremely obvious stand-ins named, like Arnolf Hilter or Menito Bussolini (in which case they get added to a Real Folk entry) or so generic that I forget them entirely. Nipon is kind of neither – like, he’s obviously a stand-in for the Emperor of Japan but extremely generically, but also he has a very fun look! (Fantastic Comics 013, 1940)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 011

    Incorrigible scamps the lot of them.

    This unnamed scientist uses fake spirits, death traps and so forth to drive adventurer Ted Crane and his companions away from the jungle temple he is looting. BUT! He has made a classic mistake: they weren’t planning on entering the temple in the first place and based on their action in earlier issues they certainly don’t object to white people hauling off as much ancient African swag as possible. He gets punched out a window to his death for no reason! (Exciting Comics 004, 1940)

    This fellow, name of Terro, has a scheme to peddle his noiseless super explosive bombs to the hostile Kordian government, a sound, if evil, plan. His inventive genius is not however matched by his common sense, however, and he makes the key mistake of demonstrating his explosive by bombing the village just outside his front door. Like, if his castle wasn’t on top of a mountain I reckon it would be about a ten minute walk from the crater. Needless to say, Yank Wilson explodes him with extreme prejudice. (Fantastic Comics 004, 1940)

    Like Terro, Professor Snead here is a scientist of the near future who makes the critical error of testing his new explosive (in this case one of the military holy grails of the 40s, the flying torpedo, or to us savvy moderns, the guided missile) on a small town instead of, for example, a big rock. Wholesale loss of human life again leads Yank Wilson to show up and Snead too is exploded by his own creation. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

    These unnamed Mexican scientists have an okay plan – sabotage the US agricultural industry so that they are forced to import food from South of the border – but I question the efficacy of giant crop-eating rat-lizards over, say, a plague of regular-sized mice. I also question the sanity of everyone who sees these things and calls them “giant insects”, i.e., everyone in the story.

    Samson of course steps in and defeats not only the – ugh – “giant insects” but also some chemically mutated bulls, and given the sensitive depictions of Mexicans above would it surprise you that the comic ends with him building a wall along the US-Mexico border? (Fantastic Comics 006, 1940)

  • NOTES – SEPTEMBER 2024

    Honours: 

    Yank Wilson gets the Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts in preventing the the nation of Hondu (a Japan analog) from pulling a sneak attack on the US naval bases in Hawaii. I reckon that this is where Yank Wilson stops plausibly being in the near future and becomes a contemporary series – note the 3/4s perspective FDR. (Fantastic Comics 009, 1940)

    Samson’s sidekick David: lariat champion of his Boy Scout troop three years running. There’s a reason he gets to run around with a super guy! (Fantastic Comics 010, 1940)

    Undersea adventurer Kinks Mason gets an unspecified medal for bravery for rescuing a bunch of folks from the Weed People. (Fight Comics 002, 1940)

    Fate of the Missing Link:

    Despite the Missing Link conceptually being an intermediate evolutionary stage between apes and humans and thus being something that is by definition no longer extant, the darn things keep showing up. This bunch, a kind of amphibious ape-lizard-caveman, were found by Kinks Mason living at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. (Fight Comics 005, 1940)

  • NOTES – AUGUST 2024

    Cops Shooting Fleeing Suspects: 

    The cops try to gun down the fleeing Sphinx. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940)

    Aliens:

    Can’t get over how much these alien bat-folk look like they’re Simpsons characters (Exciting Comics 005, 1940)

    It’s a shame that these Mercurians are weird misogynists, because I really dig their look. (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940) 

    A few issues later, Flip is back on Mercury and meets these giant insect-men and their queen, whose father (never seen) somehow made his way to Mercury and mated with a giant insect-man. Mated with a giant insect-woman, I suppose. It’s a heckuva thing to contemplate. (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)

    Honours:

    Yank Wilson declared Public Hero No. 1 at an official banquet. (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)