(All American Comics 021, 1940) An old man who lives in a cave outside of Calvin City, the Emperor of America takes a bunch of Al “the Atom” Pratt’s classmates prisoner as potential mind-controlled minions. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that he already has a cadre of identical huge men in his employ he might be more believable as a delusional hermit than a credible threat – and since he never actually gets to demonstrate his mind control…
(Adventure Comics 056, 1940_ Dr Slight is similar to Dr Snegg, in that he is a scientist-villain with a method for bringing inanimate statues to life for crime purposes who is stopped by Hourman. But Dr Slight brings *plaster* statues to life, not wax ones.
(Adventure Comics 052-054, 1940) A properly fun invisible villain, finally! In order: -great hat, great mustache -has to get nude -filled with hubris vis-à-vis just how much you can get done just by being invisible (world conquest?) Although to that last point they (they being heroic boxer Socko Strong) had to set a trap to electrocute him in order to stop him.
(Adventure Comics 051-052, 1940) Snegg’s your classic villain who can’t handle the thought of revising a plan. In his first appearance he animates a trio of crime boss statues from a wax museum to serve him as henchmen and then, having been foiled once by Hourman, he tosses the whole idea of animated wax out the window to indulge in hypnotism-based crime. If he hadn’t died in a car accident he might be thinking up new implausible schemes to this…
(Action Comics 030, 1940) In thinking about Zolar I realized that he engages in a surprisingly common plot-expedient activity which I, unwilling to root around on TVTropes for whatever twee thing they might dub it, am hereby going to call “the Reel”: the villain sends a minion from their exotically-located HQ to wherever the hero is located to accomplish some sort of McGuffin task – collect an item, kill or kidnap someone, etc – thereby alerting the hero to the…
(Action Comics 025, 1940) The “World’s Greatest Hypnotist,” Medini embarks on a life of crime using his gifts. He’s so good at hypnosis, in fact, that he is able to put Superman himself out of commission with the power of his mind, which might be why his story ends with Superman throwing an entire plane at his head.
(Action Comics 018-063, 1939-1943) The Three Aces consist of Gunner Bill (blonde, bland), Fog Fortune (fat, Cockney – the kind of character who starts out 1% comic relief and increases by increments until he is unrecognizable. In this case he gets fatter and more faux-Cockney until his word balloons are up to 1/2 apostrophe) and Whistler Will (dark haired ladies man – more on him in a moment). They’re fairly standard aviator type heroes except for a couple of things:…
(Action Comics 023, 1940) Quetzal’s actual motivations are unexplored in his encounter with the Three Aces, but his methods – living in a lost Aztec city and using a fleet of remote controlled planes piloted by zombies to destroy anyone who approaches – are fairly indicative of a villainous turn of mind.
(Action Comics 022, 1940) Whether the capital-D Demon is actually a lowercase-d demon is never actually resolved, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. He shows up when a friend of Tex Thomson’s named Cary James ignores local superstitions to visit an island in the Indian Ocean, where he is quickly captured and murdered by the Demon, who then assumes his appearance and identity via fell majicks. The Demon’s only goal seems to be to murder everyone who knew…
(Whiz Comics 009, 1940) A rival magician seeking to steal Ibis the Invincible’s mystic Ibistick, Piang dies at the end of their first encounter, is resurrected via careless use of magic by Ibis and then dies again in their second encounter.