The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Raven

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 1004: THE GREEN HOOD GANG

    (Lightning Comics v2 002, 1941)

    The Green Hood Gang, who are unsurprisingly a gang who wear green hoods (and please note the rare and stylish nose cutouts on those numbers), make their debut by barging in and robbing the Raven after he himself had just gone to the trouble of holding up the guests of a party at the home of retired gangster Joe Russo.

    From there, the Green Hoods embark on a crime spree so ambitious in scope that Police Chief Lash is compelled to set aside his personal crusade against the Raven and team up with him to hunt them down.

    For most of this story I had assumed that the leader of the Green Hood Gang would turn out to be Joe Russo, coming out of retirement and starting out by robbing his own party guests, and I suspect that the writer of this comic was also of this opinion right up until they got to page eight out of ten, at which point the men under the hoods – previously very clearly regular American gangsters – are revealed to be Native South Americans. Further investigation by Lash and the Raven reveals that these men are dupes who have been promised that the funds they are stealing are to be put toward the construction of a temple in their homeland, but who are really working for a former bootlegger named Larue.

    While I wouldn’t call the Joe Russo version of this story very original or exciting, the Larue reveal is so out of left field that I am left baffled and bamboozled. If I can’t trust a comic book writer 85 years ago, just who can I?

    Categorized in: Colours (Green), Generica (Gangs), Objects (Hoods)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 1003: THE CHIEF

    (Lightning Comics v2 001, 1941)

    The Chief is that most low-tier of costumed criminals: the masked manager of an underground casino. And not a particularly well-hidden casino either, seeing as Detective Danny “the Raven” Dartin just kind of stumbles upon its existence one night while eating in the beanery that is its front business, and Dartin’s boss Chief Lash leads a raid on the place almost simultaneously. I guess that’s why he wears the mask.

    Here we must explore the limits of the comic book disguise paradigm: yes, a simple black mask does to more than one might expect to hide one’s identity, but crucially that is in the absence of other distinguishing features. If, for example, you are a big-headed fellow with a combover and a missing pinky finger on your right hand that you advertise by wearing gloves all the time and just letting the empty finger flap around loose, you might want to think about a more comprehensive disguise solution.

    Speaking of which, here’s Mr Calhoun, big-headed President of the Chamber of Commerce with a missing pinky, and he has bullied the Police Commissioner into forcing Chief Lash’s resignation over not having caught the Raven yet. What a crazy, unrelated side plot to this whole underground casino business.

    Clearly the Chief/Calhoun is pretty secure in both his disguise and his ability to manipulate the police, because he immediately sets up a new casino inside of a drydocked yacht. This gives the Raven the perfect opportunity to grab him and use the threat of professional ruination to force the Police Commissioner to reinstate Chief Lash. Should the Commissioner himself probably be replaced due to his low resistance to extortion? Yes he should.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Casinos), Generica (Chiefs), Misc (Gang Bosses)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 999: FANG RYAN

    (Lightning Comics v1 005, 1941)

    We meet Fang Ryan after he grabs a payroll from the recently-deceased messenger who was in the process of delivering it. He then escapes despite the fact that Police Detective Danny “the Raven” Dartin is on the scene to engage him in thrilling gunplay, but drops his signature weapon, a stick with a couple of snake fangs on one end. It’s a neat gimmick: the stick has a reservoir full of poison inside of it, so when Fang whacks someone with it they die of what looks like a snakebite. It is therefore a shame that he does not actually use this item in the story (aside from in killing the courier, implicitly).

    Since Ryan has lost his weapon, the Raven knows that he will need a new supply of snake venom to make another, and waits in ambush for him at the zoo from which he had previously sourced the stuff. Sure enough, Ryan shows up in time for a fist fight, which ends in… perhaps not the only time that a super-hero is knocked out by a zebra but surely one of a very limited number of times that it happens.

    When a supercrook has rendered a super-hero unconscious and captured them, there are a few ways that they can proceed. The standard approach is of course to place the hero in a deathtrap in full costume and then leave the room, followed closely by “go to unmask them but take so long that they wake up and start fighting you again.” Fang Ryan instead opts for one of the rarer options and just immediately unmasks the Raven, and thanks to the gunfight from earlier he even recognizes him!

    Ryan’s next thoughts are both good: frame the Raven for his next job and expose the Raven’s identity, thus taking all the focus off of him and his piddly little crime spree. Where it all falls apart that he tries to do both at the same time instead of sequentially, as he calls up Dartin’s boss and rats him out before heading out to do the next robbery.

    The one-two punch of this means that when an insomniac sees the Raven and reports him to the cops, the entire police force shows up to get him rather than a car or two worth of guys.

    Meanwhile Dartin has escaped from where Ryan left him hogtied in the woods and shows up to avenge his honour. He ends up killing Ryan in a shootout, which somehow completely overwrites the part of Police Chief Lash’s brain that heard the information about Dartin being the Raven. It’s just the luck of the costumed vigilante, I guess.

    Categorized in: Animals (Snakes), Body (Nonhuman Parts), Fraud (Identity Theft (Hero Impostors))

  • NOTES: AUGUST 2026

    the Looming Spectre of Death:

    An impressive Grim Reaper complete with bloody scythe and optional army helmet looms over an Alaskan town in this Liberty Scouts Guards tale. (Man of War Comics 001, 1941)

    Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects:

    It’s a good thing that these cops don’t quite manage to murder the Raven for aggressively running away from them like this, because they all know his alter ego Danny Dartin and it’s the one time they would actually feel bad about summarily executing someone. (Lightning Comics v2 003, 1941)

    Great Folk:

    We never actually meet the Masked Marvel, but we can glean two things about him from context: 1) he is a mysterious masked bowler who travels the land doing exhibitions of skill at local bowling alleys and 2) he looks enough like Doctor Nemesis that the latter is mistaken for him without even trying. (Lightning Comics v2 003, 1941)

    Honours – Marvo the Magician:

    Both Marvo the Magician and his monkey Tito are knighted by the unnamed king of this unnamed South or Central American country for saving their crown jewels from pirates. (Lightning Comics v2 003, 1941)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 021

    Another truckload of half-baked mooks for your viewing pleasure.

    The otherwise-normal gangsters who have gotten ahold of a piece of superscience and are using it for crime are an important part of the super-hero comic ecosystem. Here is a wonderful example of such in the form of a gang who have access to disintegrator ray pistols and are using them like regular guns during a bank robbery. Fantastic stuff. The Invisible Avenger hits them with a train. (Superworld Comics 002, 1940)

    He may be a mere hold-up man in a bandit mask (surely the lowest tier of costumed villainy until the invention of putting a nylon stocking on your head) but I am very pleased to tell you that this fellow’s real name is Solo Mogart. Also that he eventually gets beaten up by the Raven. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

    This fairly nondescript gang of generically foreign spies have access to an invisible fighter plane and the best thing they could think to use it for was smuggling people into the US. Baffling! They make the mistake of tangling with flying cadet Lucky Byrd and end up in the slammer. (Target Comics v1 003, 1940)

    This fellow is pretending to be Rip van Winkle or an analogous long-term sleeper for some reason related to moonshining. Maybe the full plot is interesting enough to be an entry on its own but sadly the extant copy of this comic is missing the first few pages of this story and so I have very little idea what is going on. He gets beat up and tossed in the clink thanks to crusading reporter Phil Manners. (Target Comics v1 003, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 788: THE CRIMSON CIRCLE

    (Sure-Fire Comics 003b, 1940)

    The Crimson Circle are a masked gang with a more grandiose than normal name (and led by the Crimson Mask, as can just barely be made out under that rip in the third panel above, a rare instance of the named villain being less prominent than his named henchmen in a story), who have the fortune to rob the same loan company as the Raven, leading to them capturing, unmasking and forcing him to work for them under the threat of revealing that he is in reality Police Detective Sergeant Danny Dartin, the man in charge of catching the Raven.

    Did I say “fortune” above? That should in fact have read “to their misfortune,” since as characters in a continuity-light comic, being something as threatening to the status quo as a villain who knows the hero’s secret identity is tantamount to a death sentence, and indeed the entire Crimson Circle is gunned down by the Raven and the police as they try to shoot their way out of a bank robbery.

    Not that I would imply that Golden Age comics never have long-term plot developments. Case in point: this is the issue in which Danny Dartin’s fiance Lola Lash learns of his double life and goes from an enemy to an ally of the Raven. True love overcomes a mindless hatred of crime and so forth.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 048

    The triumphant return of Ace Magazines to the round-up!

    Flash Lightning:

    Educated and possibly also raised by Ancient Egyptian mystic the Old Man of the Pyramids, young Robert Morgan is eventually deemed worthy of the Amulet of Annihilation, a mystic artifact that grants him the powers of flight, super strength, bulletproof skin, the ability to hurl lightning bolts and sundry others (the amulet is also immediately forgotten about, as far as I can tell – the armband design remains a part of Lightning’s costume design for the rest of his appearances but his powers are treated as integral).

    Flash Lightning is eventually renamed Lash Lightning, and the word on the street is that this was done so as to avoid confusion with prominent lightning-themed DC Comics character the Flash. (Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940)

    UPDATE 1 

    the Raven:

    The Raven, like his fellow Ace Magazines hero the Black Spider, is your classic pulp style vigilante wanted by both the police and the underworld, with the added twist that he is primarily focused on Robin Hood-style monetary redistribution/ stealing from the crooked rich to return their ill-gotten gains to the bilked poor. At first, at least – over time the Raven starts dealing with more conventional super-threats and gangsters.

    In addition to his loyal assistant Mike, the Raven’s supporting cast includes Police Captain Lash – his boss, because the Raven is really Detective Sergeant Danny Dartin – and Lash’s daughter/Danny’s fiance Lola. Like the Black Spider before him, the Raven’s love interest Lola eventually discovers the secret of his dual identity, which must have been a particular relief for the Raven because she, like her father and (supposedly) her fiance had up to that point been dedicated to the task of capturing the Raven and had come close to doing so once or twice.

    Though the Raven’s costume starts out as a huge hooded cloak of the type more commonly worn by villains, he eventually switches to a more conventional cape and cowl number, which is a shame, as the original look was much more distinctive. (Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940)

    Whiz Wilson:

    Whiz Wilson is a time-travelling man, but one who very specifically only travels into the future. It’s like my voice, complaining about how comic book time travellers just can’t stop interfering in historical events, itself echoed back in time and helped to create a character mostly immune to temporal paradox, as long as he doesn’t run into any older Whiz Wilsons in his travels.

    Wilson’s time harness also incorporates a space-travel functionality (as any time machine necessarily must lest one be rocketed off into the void instead of ancient Mesopotamia) and he very satisfyingly employs this as a teleportation device whenever he is in the future, though the mechanics of whether he is instantaneously transporting from one place to another or zooming very quickly between them vary according to the needs of the plot. (Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940)

    Marvo the Magician:

    Marvo is another tuxedo-wearing magician from the same tradition that previously brought us such luminaries as Zatara. Like many of his peers he fills the time between stage performances by driving around aimlessly and meting out justice to the random criminals he encounters, with the two distinctions that a. he has a little monkey companion  named Tito and b. unlike many of his peers his powers do mainly seem to be illusions and not reality-warping chaos majicks. (Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940)

  • NOTES – MAY 2025

    Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects: 

    The Raven, a nonviolent thief who crucial only steals ill-gotten gains from the wealthy and powerful, draws a lot of police fire over the course of his activities. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

    Treasury agent blazes away at a fleeing diamond smuggler in the middle of NYC. (Target Comics v1 004, 1940)

    A Good Line to Exit A Burning Building With:

    Especially if you have no intention of being a waffle. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

    Insufficiently Advanced: 

    This “aging machine” has to be the most low-rent bit of alien tech ever featured in any bit of fiction. Just locking someone up for fifty years isn’t a particularly impressive feat of extraterrestrial engineering, so-called King of the Brainmen. (Sure-Fire Comics 003b, 1940)

    The March of Progress:

    A fun exercise in just how recent the Satanic Panic and its preoccupations were: this puzzle, in which a goat-man demonstrates how to draw an inverted pentagram, is presented as a fun activity for kids, something that would have caused an American parent from c.1987 to spontaneously combust with the speed at which they would have been travelling to contact the authorities/the news media/the evangelical church. (Famous Funnies 054, 1939)

  • NOTES – MAY 2025

    Cops Shooting at Fleeing Suspects: 

    The Raven, a nonviolent thief who crucial only steals ill-gotten gains from the wealthy and powerful, draws a lot of police fire over the course of his activities. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

    Treasury agent blazes away at a fleeing diamond smuggler in the middle of NYC. (Target Comics v1 004, 1940)

    A Good Line to Exit A Burning Building With:

    Especially if you have no intention of being a waffle. (Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940)

    Insufficiently Advanced: 

    This “aging machine” has to be the most low-rent bit of alien tech ever featured in any bit of fiction. Just locking someone up for fifty years isn’t a particularly impressive feat of extraterrestrial engineering, so-called King of the Brainmen. (Sure-Fire Comics 003b, 1940)

    The March of Progress:

    A fun exercise in just how recent the Satanic Panic and its preoccupations were: this puzzle, in which a goat-man demonstrates how to draw an inverted pentagram, is presented as a fun activity for kids, something that would have caused an American parent from c.1987 to spontaneously combust with the speed at which they would have been travelling to contact the authorities/the news media/the evangelical church. (Famous Funnies 054, 1939)

  • MINOR SUPER VILLAIN 017: THE RAVEN

    (Detective v1 019, 1938)

    Nemesis of Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard with maybe three appearances – but he’s the kind of  dreaded evil mastermind who shows up already the most wanted man of all time, so he feels more significant.