The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: rubberoid mask

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 336: ADAM ADDAMS

    (All-Flash 003, 1941)

    Like the Threat before him, Adam Addams is a revenge guy. Unlike the Threat, Addams is… I won’t say more petty, but perhaps less focused – they include the woman who didn’t marry him, the man she married instead, the man who refused to give him a medical license because he talked about glands too much, and anyone who contributed to one of his prior revenge schemes going wrong. If he has a particular focus, it’s Dr French, the man what married the woman. About half of the issue involves attempts by Addams to ruin French’s life and the other half is all about killing as many of his enemies as possible.

    Contrary to Addams’ big talk about changing your face with glandular treatments, he actually uses bog-standard rubberoid masks. Maybe they’re just easier than mutating your head every time you want to put on a disguise, because he does turn out to have the goods, gland-manipulation-wise…

    To whit, he posts up on a tropical island and mutates a herd of horses into beefcake centaurs! Centaurs who he then flies back to NYC and parachutes into Dr French’s hospital for a good old fashioned rampage, because nothing ruins a medical reputation like a centaur attack.

    Special shout out to Oats, the doofus centaur who ruins the whole operation by being too horny.

    Extra special shoutout to the unnamed and very professional centaur pilot in his little hat.

    Aside from Addams’ revenge schemes his other major interest is in recreating the hard water formula that gave the Flash his powers (because the Flash has very poor infosec and it’s trivially easy to find out where and how he did so). To that end, he kidnaps Jay Garrick’s old chemistry professor and forces him to work on finding the formula. And he finds it! Adam Addams acquires Flash-style super-speed! He gets beat up by the actual Flash because he has no fine control yet, but surely this marks a dark new day in the annals of crime!

    Not a chance. In a move that smacks of “we have to wrap up the issue now”, Addams takes his own life after the Flash foils what is frankly a medium-sized plot. It’s fairly unsatisfying, to say the least. Thankfully, I have a solution: Addams didn’t blow up, he entered the Speed Force. He can come back at any time!And I want that! I want him to be brung back! Because as uninteresting as the Speed Force and its related heroes and villains have become through proliferation it can only be improved through the application of a guy who can whip up a pack of centaurs on a month’s notice.

    ADDENDUM: I was wrong! He does change some of his henchmen’s faces via glandular treatments!

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: RED SKULL 1941

    (Captain America Comics 007, 1941)

    What was the Red Skull up to in 1941?

    As mentioned in the Red Skull II entry, this here is the real deal bad guy we all know and love to hate, still running around being a total stinker to this day. In-comic there is of course no indication of this, as the decision to differentiate the two was made years later when someone figured that the top Nazi villain worked better as a German guy than an American fascist. Consequently this is a pretty scant Yearbook entry, as most of the Red Skulling for the year was done by another guy.

    Intended or not, this Red Skull has it a bit more together than his semi-predecessor: for one, he has a much creepier mask and has supplemented the red skull calling card with an audible element: Chopin’s Funeral March. AND! He engages with that finest of comic book traditions by wearing a rubberoid mask over his regular mask! Batman eat your heart out.

    As far as actual crimes go… he kills a couple of guys and briefly frames Captain America for kidnapping a General. Mediocre.

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5, just like the other guy. It ain’t gonna change until he melts his face off in… I want to say the early 80s?

    RED SKULL 1941

    BODY COUNT: 2

    END-OF-YEAR STATUS: Presumed dead

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: RED SKULL 1941

    (Captain America Comics 007, 1941)

    What was the Red Skull up to in 1941?

    As mentioned in the Red Skull II entry, this here is the real deal bad guy we all know and love to hate, still running around being a total stinker to this day. In-comic there is of course no indication of this, as the decision to differentiate the two was made years later when someone figured that the top Nazi villain worked better as a German guy than an American fascist. Consequently this is a pretty scant Yearbook entry, as most of the Red Skulling for the year was done by another guy.

    Intended or not, this Red Skull has it a bit more together than his semi-predecessor: for one, he has a much creepier mask and has supplemented the red skull calling card with an audible element: Chopin’s Funeral March. AND! He engages with that finest of comic book traditions by wearing a rubberoid mask over his regular mask! Batman eat your heart out.

    As far as actual crimes go… he kills a couple of guys and briefly frames Captain America for kidnapping a General. Mediocre.

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5, just like the other guy. It ain’t gonna change until he melts his face off in… I want to say the early 80s?

    RED SKULL 1941

    BODY COUNT: 2

    END-OF-YEAR STATUS: Presumed dead

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 281: THE WEIRD GHOST OF AMBER SWAMPS

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 021, 1941)

    I got lazy here and clipped the setup, sorry. In brief, the story takes place at Chellcroft, the swampland mansion of wealthy Georgian C.J. Miller (just one letter off from being quite funny), formerly a centre of art and society but now fallen into disrepair.

    To make things worse, the Weird Ghost of Amber Swamps has started haunting the property and killing people, including Norton, the poor butler pictured fleeing the house in the above image.

    You can’t have a murderous ghost, even a weird one, in a super-hero universe without someone showing up to check it out, and in this case it’s the Angel who turns up to pretty quickly discover that the Weird Ghost of Amber Swamps is in fact a Weird Living Man of Amber Swamps, albeit a huge one.

    More specifically, it’s the owner of the house, C.J. Miller, armed with a rubberoid mask and a wild razor blade/ fishing rod weapon that allowed him to kill at a distance. The fact that C.J. Miller was a celebrated angler (and built like a brick shithouse, let’s not forget) makes for a quicker unmasking than usual – a bit of a flaw in the old ghost routine.

    Turns out that Miller is broke and that committing a series of gruesome murders and then killing himself and pinning it all on the ghost is preferable to anybody finding out that he’s broke. Real rich guy shit that us poors wouldn’t understand. Sadly, he does not get his wish, as not only does he trip and kill himself with his own gimmicked fishing rod like a clown but he does so in front of a reporter. Haw haw haw, says I.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 281: THE WEIRD GHOST OF AMBER SWAMPS

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 021, 1941)

    I got lazy here and clipped the setup, sorry. In brief, the story takes place at Chellcroft, the swampland mansion of wealthy Georgian C.J. Miller (just one letter off from being quite funny), formerly a centre of art and society but now fallen into disrepair.

    To make things worse, the Weird Ghost of Amber Swamps has started haunting the property and killing people, including Norton, the poor butler pictured fleeing the house in the above image.

    You can’t have a murderous ghost, even a weird one, in a super-hero universe without someone showing up to check it out, and in this case it’s the Angel who turns up to pretty quickly discover that the Weird Ghost of Amber Swamps is in fact a Weird Living Man of Amber Swamps, albeit a huge one.

    More specifically, it’s the owner of the house, C.J. Miller, armed with a rubberoid mask and a wild razor blade/ fishing rod weapon that allowed him to kill at a distance. The fact that C.J. Miller was a celebrated angler (and built like a brick shithouse, let’s not forget) makes for a quicker unmasking than usual – a bit of a flaw in the old ghost routine.

    Turns out that Miller is broke and that committing a series of gruesome murders and then killing himself and pinning it all on the ghost is preferable to anybody finding out that he’s broke. Real rich guy shit that us poors wouldn’t understand. Sadly, he does not get his wish, as not only does he trip and kill himself with his own gimmicked fishing rod like a clown but he does so in front of a reporter. Haw haw haw, says I.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 175: THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE

    (Bulletman 002, 1941) 

    Gangster Scar Malone was convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. He swore revenge against the judge and jury, as you do. And once you’ve done that kind of thing, you only have a few options: fake your own death so you can come back as a fake ghost to kill your enemies; arrange for your body to be taken to a scientist or magic man for post execution revival so you can slay your enemies; have your secret twin pose as your vengeful spirit to kill your enemies, or do what Malone opts for: simply escape while on the way from trial to prison, (optionally searing your face off with hot steam while doing so) and come back months later to kill your enemies.

    If I’m to judge (haha) a judge and jury revenge killer’s relative quality, it’s going to be a numbers game – just how many of their self-assigned targets did they manage to take out. Even though he was a master of escape and disguise, the Man Without a Face managed a mere 2/13 or 15% before being thrown off a roof by Bulletman. A poor showing indeed.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 131: THE ADDER

    (Action Comics v1 035, 1941)

    Yet another spy encountered by Clip Carson, the Adder was interested in blowing up the Panama Canal for unclear reasons. Much more interestingly, he took his name from a snake-shaped ring which both fatally poisoned those he punched with it and left a cool snake mark on the spot he hit, and evidently he used it enough that his men spoke of him in hushed terms as “the Child of Death,” which is an amazing name.

    As with so many villains who use a cool signature weapon, the Adder ends up falling on his own ring. A sad end.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 131: THE ADDER

    (Action Comics v1 035, 1941)

    Yet another spy encountered by Clip Carson, the Adder was interested in blowing up the Panama Canal for unclear reasons. Much more interestingly, he took his name from a snake-shaped ring which both fatally poisoned those he punched with it and left a cool snake mark on the spot he hit, and evidently he used it enough that his men spoke of him in hushed terms as “the Child of Death,” which is an amazing name.

    As with so many villains who use a cool signature weapon, the Adder ends up falling on his own ring. A sad end.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 129: MISTER Z

    (Action Comics v1 032-033, 1941)

    Mister Z is actually plantation owner Grasso, who is actually X-11, notorious agent of a “hostile government” whose schemes are placed in jeopardy when a mineral deposit is discovered near his hideout in Colombia. His efforts to shut down the incipient mining operations bring in adventurer Clip Carson but he meets his actual end when he’s gunned down by a young boy whose father he had killed.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 119: THE TENAMENT FIREBUG

    (Nickel Comics 003, 1940)

    Spoilers for the end of this writeup: the Tenement Firebug is that most common of comic book villains, the property owner who burns down their own buildings for the insurance money and/or redevelopment. Ordinarily such a foe would be a regular guy with some hirelings and maybe a mask, but since he was set up as a foil to magic guy Warlock the Wizard the Tenament Firebug has been beefed up slightly.

    First off is his pet lizard, which is a salamander. But! Not a real-world amphibian salamander, nor a modern fantasy style fire elemental – this one is the Medieval bestiary denizen that is immune to fire! A very exciting appearance of a discarded beast!

    Secondly, the Firebug is both able to do comic book super-hypnotism and is adept enough at disguise that he manages to frame Warlock for the arsons. Again but!

    He was wearing a rubberoid mask the whole time! Which means that he applied the Warlock disguise over his mask. Which is frankly much more responsible for my interest in and love of him as a villain than any old arson. Commitment to the bit is what I’d call it.