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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 533: THORGA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 533: THORGA

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(Fantastic Comics 001, 1939)  Thorga! Exiled from Western society because of his “mad plans”, he emerges from the mountains of Tibet with a high-tech army, intent on conquering Europe! Thorga! He fields a mighty airforce of advanced planes, a mechanized infantry of advanced tanks! Thorga! He is the first foe faced by Fox Features’ Samson and so his main role is as a demonstration of Samson’s power as he destroys not only the planes and tanks but the regular infantry…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 530: THE MAD BOTANIST

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 530: THE MAD BOTANIST

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(Blue Ribbon Comics 019, 1941) The Mad Botanist is an assassin “in the employment of a foreign power” which in 1941 as good as means that he was working for the Axis. His nom de guerre comes from the fact that his preferred method of murder is via deadly plant life, including the African Tentacle Vine, the Mediterranean Poison Cornflower and of course the insidious Man-Eating Clam-Plant. The Botanist’s somewhat bizarre physical appearance is never commented upon in the comic…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 528: THE BLACK HAND

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 528: THE BLACK HAND

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(Blue Ribbon Comics 016, 1941)  There’s a quality that some comic book characters have and some do not and I never knew about it until I started writing this blog. That quality is called Standing in Clear View So That I Can Get a Screengrab of Them, and buddy, the Black Hand does not have it. This is about as good of a full look as you get of the guy in his first appearance. Enough complaining! The Black Hand…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 527: THE GREEN GHOUL

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 527: THE GREEN GHOUL

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(Blue Ribbon Comics 016, 1941) The Green Ghoul is a demonic creature either summoned or created by the demon known as the Dictator as a very successful method of getting Mr Justice to leave him alone. He appears on a US beach and lays waste to an unfortunate couple before heading to the unnamed New York City-alike that Mr Justice calls home. Like I said, the Green Ghoul is a distraction, so it’s understandable that its plans lack nuance. To…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 524: THE KING OF THE VAMPIRES

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 524: THE KING OF THE VAMPIRES

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(Blue Ribbon Comics 011, 1941)  We open not on the King of the Vampires but on a different vampire, one with a monocle. This is Carlos Hubbello, a diplomatic envoy from South America who has been sent to discuss a trade deal with the US that would leave the Nazis in the cold. The two gentlemen with him are no gentlemen at all but rather Nazi spies who are controlling Hubbello by the simple expedient of having turned him into…

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GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 011

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 011

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Some say they’re not generic enough but I think they’re trying their best. This fellow is part of a gang looking to hijack a shipment of railway guns from train engineer Runaway Ronson. I really enjoy the look of the padded suit they use to help survive crashing a car into a high-speed train but I really really enjoy the fact that they immediately scramble off into the woods and are never seen again, as if they were completely unrelated…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 518: COMMANDER SOOKA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 518: COMMANDER SOOKA

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(Blue Bolt v2 004-006, 1941) There are hundreds if not thousands of antagonistic u-boat commanders in comics and very few of them are going to make the jump to super-villain. Commander Sooka, however… I did some cursory searching and it looks like the Axis forces sank around 1100 ships between 1939 and 1941, and the most successful u-boat captain of the entire war sank 47 ships total. What I’m saying is that if Commander Sooka’s count of 735 ships is…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 513: DOKTOR KARNO AND SIMBA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 513: DOKTOR KARNO AND SIMBA

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(Blue Bolt v2 001, 1941) Twelve issues into the story of Dick Cole, Wonder-Boy, a wrinkle is introduced: another Wonder-Boy! And rather than the usual thing where an evil lab assistant etc. steals Professor Blair’s research for his own use, this story introduces the concept of the double-thought wave. This is a theory that all the times in history that two people have had the same idea at the same time are not as a result of coincidence but rather…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 511: DR TRASK

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 511: DR TRASK

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(Blue Bolt v1 011, 1941) Dr Trask is himself not much to speak of: a scientist who has taken over a village in the South American jungle, forced its inhabitants to pan gold and fight for him and killed anyone from the outside world who got too close, including Dr Martin, a scientist whose colleague Dr Howard has hired Sub-Zero to investigate just what is going on. Like I said, pretty standard comic book villain stuff, but his methods, oh…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 509: KING ROCKY THE FIRST

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 509: KING ROCKY THE FIRST

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(Blue Bolt v1 010, 1941) Some preamble: in Blue Bolt v1 007 the Green Sorceress managed to capture the Blue Bolt and thus in Blue Bolt v1 008 she was able to force Dr Bertoff to surrender to her forces. Her incompetent scientists subsequently triggered a series of devastating explosions while attempting to extract radium from Bertoff’s mineral fields, with the one positive effect of opening a passage to the surface world. The Green Sorceress then travelled to the surface…

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