The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: bring ’em back

  • 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 249: THE SCARLET MERMAID

    (Flash Comics v1 019, 1941)

    The Scarlet Mermaid is elegant in her simplicity: she’s a good swimmer who lives near a river where a lot of rich people hang out on boats, so she swims out and robs them. That plus a great name (and an okay costume – could use a contrasting colour) make for a winning combo.

    Even a cool villain must eventually reckon with a super-hero, however, and the Scarlet Mermaid ends up being one of the King’s few non-Witch opponents and is captured without much complication, never to appear again. This is a shame, because, like the Black Gondolier before her, I reckon that the Scarlet Mermaid is exactly the sort of low-level supercrook that should be lurking around every city in every super-hero universe. Some great grandniece of hers should be robbing megayachts to this day, dang it. BRING BACK the Scarlet Mermaid!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 247: THE HAND

    (Flash Comics v1 015, 1941)

    It’s old hat by now: like former Hawkman foe Czar the Unkillable Man and his ilk, the Hand is a henchbeing who is far more interesting to read and talk about than their creator. This is the risk you run when you set out to create an autonomous crime-servant via… I’m guessing magical means? It’s unclear in the text but magic seems more likely than science.

    In this case, the creator is a guy named Edward Thayer, the black sheep of a wealthy family who has decided to turn his amazing talking and flying disembodied hand to the sordid task of killing off his brother Elwin and niece Teddy so that he can inherit enough money to convince some lady to sleep with him. Cue my usual complaints about crooks in super-hero universes not aiming high enough.

    Edward never gets to see his ill-gotten money, though, because Sandra (the lady in question) decides to bump him off for a quick buck. Which leads to the above panel: not only a rare hero/ villain teamup but an as-far-as-I-know unique hero/ disembodied hand teamup! Sadly, the revenge rampage ends with not only Sandra but the Hand itself seemingly plummeting to their deaths in a crashing car. Boo, says I! The Hand should be BRUNG BACK post-haste! Give it a bartending job somewhere.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 246: KARVAC

    (Flash Comics v1 014, 1941)

    Karvac himself is strictly ho hum territory: a would-be world conqueror who leads his army of heat ray-toting goons on a path of destruction before being beaten up by Hawkman. Snoresville, man.

    BUT: the method by which Karvac managed to acquire his army of heat ray-toting goons, now that’s the kind of comic book nonsense that we love around here.

    Karvac, you see, unearthed rites and rituals connected to Scorio, Alligator God of the Phoenicians, and established both a temple and cult of worshippers to Scorio in the Eastern US, in order to cast ancient ritual magics and bring Scorio to him.

    AND IT WORKS! Korvac summons a god! And that god promptly tells him how to make heat rays for his army of goons to tote! (it’s not exactly clear in the text whether the army of goons are also the Scorio cultists that Hawkman sees performing rituals at the temple earlier in the story, but it’s narratively satisfying to think so)

    Scorio eventually gets banished back to the otherworldly swamp that he usually hangs out in, and as far as I know has never made a return appearance. But he should! Korvac might’ve been a dud, but an ancient and vengeful alligator god who can hand out secret knowledge to evil men is a really neat foe for a guy like Hawkman, particularly once his reincarnation bullshit really gets going – Katar Hol might not know Scorio from a hole in the ground but Scorio knows a soul no matter how many times it’s been reborn. BRING BACK Scorio!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 246: KARVAC

    (Flash Comics v1 014, 1941)

    Karvac himself is strictly ho hum territory: a would-be world conqueror who leads his army of heat ray-toting goons on a path of destruction before being beaten up by Hawkman. Snoresville, man.

    BUT: the method by which Karvac managed to acquire his army of heat ray-toting goons, now that’s the kind of comic book nonsense that we love around here.

    Karvac, you see, unearthed rites and rituals connected to Scorio, Alligator God of the Phoenicians, and established both a temple and cult of worshippers to Scorio in the Eastern US, in order to cast ancient ritual magics and bring Scorio to him.

    AND IT WORKS! Korvac summons a god! And that god promptly tells him how to make heat rays for his army of goons to tote! (it’s not exactly clear in the text whether the army of goons are also the Scorio cultists that Hawkman sees performing rituals at the temple earlier in the story, but it’s narratively satisfying to think so)

    Scorio eventually gets banished back to the otherworldly swamp that he usually hangs out in, and as far as I know has never made a return appearance. But he should! Korvac might’ve been a dud, but an ancient and vengeful alligator god who can hand out secret knowledge to evil men is a really neat foe for a guy like Hawkman, particularly once his reincarnation bullshit really gets going – Katar Hol might not know Scorio from a hole in the ground but Scorio knows a soul no matter how many times it’s been reborn. BRING BACK Scorio!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 241: KING JUPO

    (Flash Comics v1 009, 1940)

    King Jupo is the leader of the Kogats, a race of water-breathing caveman types who live beneath New York Harbor and have a fun mix of technologies, being armed with either stone axes or laser pistols. They’ve decided to invade the surface world, for no substantial reason other than that it seems like a good idea, and immediately run afoul of Hawkman. Needless to say, this does not end well, and the entire Kogats race, Jupo included, are destroyed when Hawkman collapses their city into an undersea trench, because genociding nonhuman races is okay in comics.

    I really like the Kogats – the contrast between the regular caveman guys and enormous Jupo is fun, plus Jupo himself – 10 feet tall, flaming red hair, ram’s horns – is visually striking. So what if their actual plan is ho hum regular comic stuff? I’m surprised that Roy Thomas never brought this guy back to fight the All-Star Squadron, but since he didn’t, they’re ripe to be BRUNG BACK, if only as part of the weirdly extensive network of subsea communities that Atlantis is part of. I wanna see Aquaman try to do diplomacy with this dude!

    This issue also features Hawkman meeting Poseidon who gives him the power to breathe underwater. I can’t actually figure out if he ever used this power again – it certainly doesn’t come up again in any Golden Age stories I’ve read, but it seems like the sort of thing your Roy Thomas or Geoff Johns would just love to incorporate into a story. Problem is, the fact that Hawkman has this power seems to be a mid-tier popular bit of trivia and finding out whether everyone is just talking about this story or not is a bit more effort than I care to expend.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 241: KING JUPO

    (Flash Comics v1 009, 1940)

    King Jupo is the leader of the Kogats, a race of water-breathing caveman types who live beneath New York Harbor and have a fun mix of technologies, being armed with either stone axes or laser pistols. They’ve decided to invade the surface world, for no substantial reason other than that it seems like a good idea, and immediately run afoul of Hawkman. Needless to say, this does not end well, and the entire Kogats race, Jupo included, are destroyed when Hawkman collapses their city into an undersea trench, because genociding nonhuman races is okay in comics.

    I really like the Kogats – the contrast between the regular caveman guys and enormous Jupo is fun, plus Jupo himself – 10 feet tall, flaming red hair, ram’s horns – is visually striking. So what if their actual plan is ho hum regular comic stuff? I’m surprised that Roy Thomas never brought this guy back to fight the All-Star Squadron, but since he didn’t, they’re ripe to be BRUNG BACK, if only as part of the weirdly extensive network of subsea communities that Atlantis is part of. I wanna see Aquaman try to do diplomacy with this dude!

    This issue also features Hawkman meeting Poseidon who gives him the power to breathe underwater. I can’t actually figure out if he ever used this power again – it certainly doesn’t come up again in any Golden Age stories I’ve read, but it seems like the sort of thing your Roy Thomas or Geoff Johns would just love to incorporate into a story. Problem is, the fact that Hawkman has this power seems to be a mid-tier popular bit of trivia and finding out whether everyone is just talking about this story or not is a bit more effort than I care to expend.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 236: THE SNOW-KING

    (Flash Comics v1 005, 1940)

    A simple concept, but an endearing one: the Snow-King is a famous spy who only works during the winter, hence the name. He’s possibly French (at least, he says “au revoir” a lot) and definitely cocky – he is so sure of success pulls the classic move of calling up the authorities to warn them of his next escapade.

    Eventually, crack government agent Cliff Cornwall is brought in on the case and works out just why the Snow-King is a cold-weather spy: he relies on the central heating units of the buildings he burgles to disperse sleeping gas throughout them. That solved, he is quickly caught.

    Love an arrogantly confident villain; love a suit accessorized with a cape; love the Snow-King. Should be BRUNG BACK as a legacy spy some day.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 026: ZERO, GHOST DETECTIVE

    (Feature Comics 032-074, 1940-1943)

    Eyyy, it’s Zero the Ghost Detective!

    I have a blanket love of the psychic detective genre and unusually for the Golden Age Zero’s cases almost always end up being actually supernatural as opposed to being a crook in a sheet – the above panels are from a case wherein a bitter old man dies and comes back as a three-fingered ogre to drag the rest of his family into death with him. It’s usually something gruesome and lots of people get killed by ghosts. What fun!

    Zero himself is a bit of a cypher as his adventures never really dip into his private life but does that really matter? He should absolutely be brought back as a foil to Dr Thirteen. Oh how they would annoy one another!

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 026: ZERO, GHOST DETECTIVE

    (Feature Comics 032-074, 1940-1943)

    Eyyy, it’s Zero the Ghost Detective!

    I have a blanket love of the psychic detective genre and unusually for the Golden Age Zero’s cases almost always end up being actually supernatural as opposed to being a crook in a sheet – the above panels are from a case wherein a bitter old man dies and comes back as a three-fingered ogre to drag the rest of his family into death with him. It’s usually something gruesome and lots of people get killed by ghosts. What fun!

    Zero himself is a bit of a cypher as his adventures never really dip into his private life but does that really matter? He should absolutely be brought back as a foil to Dr Thirteen. Oh how they would annoy one another!