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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 282: KHOR, THE BLACK SORCERER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 282: KHOR, THE BLACK SORCERER

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 022, 1941) Khor, the Black Sorcerer is one of those magical generalists I was talking about back when I wrote about the Mor the Mighty, with a diverse range of magic abilities including stun bolts, paralysis spells, teleportation spells and shrinking spells. He’s a Jack Kirby troll-man special who comes to the attention of the Vision when he kidnaps a whole-ass Antarctic science expedition because he’s a lonely immortal who doesn’t know how to make friends normally….

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

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…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 280: PRINCE ITOR

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 280: PRINCE ITOR

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 021, 1941) I like Prince Itor because he’s a weenie. Not enough of those in the Golden Age. He’s not even really the focus of this story, which ain’t called “The Idol of Death” for nothing. So: Morrison here owns the titular Idol and is loaning it to the Egyptian Museum, but the transfer process and time was leaked in the papers, which leads to at least half of he story being taken up with a…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 279: THE CAT’S PAW

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 279: THE CAT’S PAW

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 018-020, 1941) The Cat’s Paw gets a pretty classic intro: Dr Lin, the Angel’s old mentor and friend who was introduced in the previous issue, is ruthlessly murdered via high-speed application of poisoned dart. The Angel give chase, but fails to make the bust. The next day we see some of the Cat’s Paw’s scheme begin to emerge. She’s killing industrialists for some reason. But why? Here’s our first look at the villain in question, because…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 278: THE VAMPIRE KILLER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 278: THE VAMPIRE KILLER

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 020, 1941) We open on a fear-gripped Star City (not the one you’re thinking of), in which ten people have been killed and drained of their blood. VAMPIRE! KILLER! An eleventh soon joins their ranks, and we get a look at the Vampire Killer in his cool as hell Shadow cosplay. VAMPIRE! KILLER! INTO! FASHION! But it seems all is not as we thought! Extradimensional smoke-man the Vision, exercising the oft-overlooked super-hero skill of Research, discovers…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 276: THE INVISIBLE SLAYER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 276: THE INVISIBLE SLAYER

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 019, 1941) There’s a bit in the introductions to the Top 10 anthologies in which Neopolis mayor John Q. Public lays out the exponential propagation of super-heroes, -villains, -pets, -monsters and so forth that takes place in a comic universe that I think of often as I read through these old adventures. Heroes inspire sidekicks and imitators; their enemies build robots and create doppelgangers to counter them, etc, until you have superhumans everywhere.  There’s one thing that isn’t…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 275: THE HAG

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 275: THE HAG

(Marvel  Mystery Comics v1 019, 1941) I don’t have to go into how wild it is that this woman is called a Hag, right? The wild misogyny of it all? Great, thanks. Aside from her name, the Hag is a gang boss, and one who dreams big. Her plan involves causing a citywide power outage in NYC so that her men could  tamper with the Stock Exchange and then clean up the next day while everyone panics about a nonexistent…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 273: MOR THE MIGHTY

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 273: MOR THE MIGHTY

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 017, 1941) Mor the Mighty is part of one of my favourite types of super-villain: the magic user who has mastered a couple of spells and intends to see just how far they can get with them. In this case, our friend here seems to be limited to enlarging animals and conjuring stacks of explosives – though he might be juicing the stats of the animals a bit, too. That’s not bad for a guy with…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 272: KARL SCHWAB

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 272: KARL SCHWAB

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941) Karl Schwab is part of a long tradition of villains who spend years and years meticulously preparing for their big moment, only for it to come crashing down the second that a super-hero, adventurer or plucky kid with a pet monkey gets involved. Usually this involves lurking in an old castle or cemetery lair while tinkering or planning or brewing or growing homunculi but Karl actually managed to get caught already, somewhere around 1931,…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 271: PRINCE OMEI

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 271: PRINCE OMEI

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941) This guy’s a real ding-dong, and I was sorely tempted to just pass him by. I couldn’t in good conscience not mention a guy who not only hypnotizes Professor Zog and (by proxy) Electro as his minions and does so while wearing both an eye patch and a monocle. PLUS he’s one of my favourite types of villains: a complete failure. Literally all he does after acquiring his new giant robot/ robot operator team is…

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