Browsed by
Category: dead

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 023

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 023

Some real gems here tonite.  Executed gangster Black Morger’s four identical sons reconvene twenty-five years after their father’s execution to seek revenge on the four people who they consider to be responsible for his death (and for that of their mother, who had some sort of rage-induced heart attack at the instant of Black Morger’s demise). To their credit, they manage to kill two of them before the Spirit butts in and foils their plot.  REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 2/4 (The…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 817: ELENA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 817: ELENA

(The Spirit Section, 9 June, 1940) Elena is Mr Mystic’s recurring female foe, the Tigress to his Zatara. Unlike the Tigress, however, Elena isn’t in it for the money but rather as an agent of chaos out to maximize the amount of war and bloodshed in the world, as in her first appearance, in which she is acting as the power behind the throne of fascist dictator Karoly Gore. The final confrontation between Elena and Mr Mystic is also the…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 816: THE MASTERMIND

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 816: THE MASTERMIND

(The Spirit, “the Mastermind Strikes”, 6 October, 1940) The Mastermind is really Joel Kenner, a mayoral candidate who tries to get his Tough on Crime campaign a boost by murdering both of his campaign managers and blaming the deaths on the Spirit. This ends poorly for Kenner, who ends up stabbing himself with his own knife like a complete dolt.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 815: ORANG, THE APE MAN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 815: ORANG, THE APE MAN

(The Spirit, “Orang, the Ape Man”, 1 September 1940) After an indeterminate time away (ten to fifteen years, I reckon), Dr Hoyd returns to the United States from Europe and reconnects with his colleague Dr Egel. Upon retiring to Egel’s home, Hoyd is astonished to meet Orang, an orangutan who Egel has imbued with human-level intelligence via training and brain surgery. Dr Hoyd is astonished and delighted by this. Hoyd is far less impressed when he tries to reconnect with…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 814: SARKU

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 814: SARKU

(The Spirit Section, 25 August, 1940) I’ve mentioned before that the foes faced by magical Golden Age super-heroes break down into roughly three types: 1) regular crooks who are there to be clowned upon, 2) legitimate threats with equivalent magical power of their own and 3) crooks with a little magical power, who provide a Iof a challenge but are ultimately also clowned upon. Sarku is the third type, and has set out, fresh out of prison, to get revenge on those…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 811: QUEEN RANA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 811: QUEEN RANA

(The Spirit Section, 14 July, 1940) Queen Rana is the bearer of the Amulet of Ra, a mystic artifact that grants immortality and invulnerability to the one who wears it. Rana’s one ambition in her immortal life is to have a “huge rock of gold” and to that end she has established herself as the ruler of a jungle tribe and turned them to banditry. Is this a good use of eternal life? No it is not. Is it likely…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 810: MR MIDNIGHT

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 810: MR MIDNIGHT

(The Spirit, “Mr Midnight”, 14 July, 1940) Mr Midnight is your classic police taunter, a crook who not only thinks that they have the wherewithal to pull off the perfect crime but is so confident that they decide to tip off the cops to their plans. In this specific instance, the villain is a dapper blue-skinned fellow who has not only informed the police but the Spirit as well, and further has declared that he will commit his murder in the very…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 809: GANGA LIN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 809: GANGA LIN

(The Spirit Section, 7 July, 1940) Our first Mr Mystic foe! Mystic’s old pal Mr Cooper brings him in because he’s worried about his daughter Erica’s involvement with a religious group (cult) called the Temple of Lin. It’s always a real toss-up whenever this kind of thing crops up as a comic book plot, between the cult being a total con job and it having some legitimate but sinister basis, and in this case it’s the latter. Mr Mystic goes…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 808: THE BLACK QUEEN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 808: THE BLACK QUEEN

(The Spirit, “The Black Queen”, June 16, 1940) We first meet the Black Queen as the otherwise-unnamed defense lawyer in the murder trial of gangster Slot Gorgan. She already has a reputation for being brilliant, and that reputation proves to be accurate, as Gorgan is acquitted despite the evidence against him. Upon returning to the Black Queen’s penthouse, we learn that she is in fact the very first in the Spirit’s long line of female villains, as it turns out…

Read More Read More

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 022

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 022

Just look at them go. This gang has hit upon the very effective technique of faking an appearance by the Arrow in order to steal other crooks’ takings when they intelligently run away from a potential ass-kicking by a seven-foot-tall vigilante.  The important corollary to any plan to impersonate a super-hero, of course, is that that hero will eventually get wind and show up to see just what they are supposedly doing, which leads to, yes, a collective ass-kicking by…

Read More Read More