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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 228: THE PURPLE MONSTER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 228: THE PURPLE MONSTER

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(Feature Comics 049, 1941) The Purple Monster is a pretty lacklustre super-villain. He ticks all the boxes: volcano lair on an island somewhere off BC, army of costumed henchmen, subjugated population of poor island yokels to exploit complete with fake human sacrifices and an unexplained sinister use for the sacrificial victims… it’s a complete checklist of features designed to qualify him for this list. He even draws his name from a local superstition, albeit one he started himself by projecting…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 226: THE BLACK BAT

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 226: THE BLACK BAT

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(Feature Comics 043, 1941)  Another example of the classic combination of someone posing as a spooky local legend-figure in order to scare folk away from a valuable area. In this case one Jean Dupre and his mother are trying to use the legend of the giant Black Bat (that they might have just made up) to scare their step sister/ daughter Marie away from the family ranch, which is just lousy with radium ore. It’s a good attempt, foiled by…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 226: THE BLACK BAT

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 226: THE BLACK BAT

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(Feature Comics 043, 1941)  Another example of the classic combination of someone posing as a spooky local legend-figure in order to scare folk away from a valuable area. In this case one Jean Dupre and his mother are trying to use the legend of the giant Black Bat (that they might have just made up) to scare their step sister/ daughter Marie away from the family ranch, which is just lousy with radium ore. It’s a good attempt, foiled by…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 222: THE PHANTOM DUELIST

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 222: THE PHANTOM DUELIST

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(Doll Man 001, 1941) The Phantom Duelist is and example of a couple of my favourite comic book story setups: 1. the eerie local legend used as a basis for crime and 2. the murder mystery with a whole passel of suspects. Plus there’s a dose of “aren’t Hollywood people weird!” for flavour. So: movie producer Reynolds decides to drum up a bit of publicity by buying a haunted castle and importing it to Hollywood. The only problem: Reynolds is…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 221: PROFESSOR KYLL/ MINOR SUPER-HERO 023: TRIX

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 221: PROFESSOR KYLL/ MINOR SUPER-HERO 023: TRIX

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(Doc Savage Comics v1 004, 1941) Professor Kyll is your regular-style scientist who develops a working humanoid robot and immediately starts thinking in terms of world conquest. My eyes might have glazed over and completely missed him if not for the fact that in the very same town was another scientist, a benevolent one, working on a humanoid robot made of rubber! Now, Flexo the Rubber Man has not come up on this here blog yet because I’ve fallen behind on my…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 220: THE IMP

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 220: THE IMP

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(Doc Savage Comics v1 004, 1941) An unnamed dwarf performer at the Famous Three Ring Circus, billed as the Smallest Man in the World, the Imp is even more remarkably able to secretly build himself a robotic gorilla-shaped exoskeleton in secret while travelling with said circus. As is so often the case when a comic character becomes a villain in response to societal scorn and rejection, the Imp ends up taking things too far by using his gorilla suit to…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 217: THE STONE IDOL

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 217: THE STONE IDOL

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(Detective Comics v1 056, 1941) The Stone Idol is a bit of a weird one: a miner living in the ghost town of Ghost Gulch City discovers silver on town land and recruits an unscrupulous group of circus performers to aid him in driving out the town’s remaining inhabitants so as to have all the silver for themselves. The actual Stone Idol is the circus strongman disguised as a local Native American statue in order to play on the local…

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GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 003

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 003

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Yet another collection of also-rans and never-weres. Philip White:  Philip White here got exactly one panel into his career as a masked spy chief before Madam Fatal unmasked him. (Crack Comics 014, 1941) Basil:  An auctioneer named Basil ran an overly complicated scheme to steal the fabled Five Bloodstones of Mu. His plans were also undone by Madam Fatal and ended in his grisly demise. (Crack Comics 016, 1941) Unnamed Crook:  This unnamed thief almost got away with the Dare Diamond…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 215: THE THREE DEVILS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 215: THE THREE DEVILS

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(Detective Comics v1 050, 1941)  The Three Devils are an early example of a fairly common minor super-villain archetype: the acrobat who turns their skill to criminal ends (and of course this is a subset of “circus folk who use their talents for crime” which itself is a subset of “talented professional turns their talent to crime” and then I guess above that is “criminals”).  I don’t think I’m going to bother calling it out every time it happens but…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 212: ECHO

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 212: ECHO

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(Detective Comics v1 049, 1941) The story elements of this aren’t anything special: a mad scientist builds a giant robot (or something) and sends it to get revenge on the world what shunned him for his wild ideas about building giant robots (or something). Eventually he gets sloppy and the Crimson Avenger tracks him back to his lair and in a twist of mild irony the order that was meant to cause the ultra-literal Echo to kill the Crimson instead…

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