The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: evil equivalent

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 475: THE WITCH

    (Amazing-Man Comics 019, 1941)

    Mighty Man was always a lot for crooks to deal with even when he was just a 12 foot tall guy with super strength but after he gained complete control over his physical form he really gave them a run for their money. I assume that’s why he was assigned an actual, factual magic-using witch as a recurring enemy. At least, at first.

    In her first appearance, the Witch had a magic broom that allowed her to fly, changer her shape, pass through walls and paralyze others (plus more, presumably). She came into conflict with Mighty Man over a munitions company executive who had the formula for a mind control gas and was understandably reluctant to reveal it to a gang of crooks. The Witch made her getaway, swearing revenge.

    The Witch returns in Amazing-Man Comics 020 without her broom (no reason is given). She is now equipped with a potion that allows her to changer her appearance, which she uses first in an attempt to kill Mighty Man by claiming to herself be the targeted for assassination. This of course does not work, so in issue 21 she captures Mighty Man and declares that she will keep him prisoner until she discovers the secret of his powers.

    This is where things get weird, dynamic-wise. The Witch’s sedatives turn out not to work on Mighty Man, but he realizes that as her prisoner he is in a prime position to learn of and foil her various schemes. So for the next couple of issues (plus an issue of Stars and Stripes Comics), Mighty Man is theoretically paralyzed in a cell back at the Witch’s hideout while actually sneaking around and shapechanging his way through the massed ranks of her criminal army.

    The best thing to come out of all of this is this little kid super-hero identity that Mighty Man adopts and who I, like the Witch, like to call “Little Squirt”, even though he technically never has a name. Mighty Man’s writers eventually solved the problem of him being too powerful by having him assign himself the task of following Super-Ann around and helping her out without being seen by her, which is pretty fun but I kind of wish he’d leaned into this idea of fighting under different identities.

    The Witch, meanwhile, eventually drowned in a flood during one of her many schemes. I’m sure she wished she still had that broom.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 475: THE WITCH

    (Amazing-Man Comics 019, 1941)

    Mighty Man was always a lot for crooks to deal with even when he was just a 12 foot tall guy with super strength but after he gained complete control over his physical form he really gave them a run for their money. I assume that’s why he was assigned an actual, factual magic-using witch as a recurring enemy. At least, at first.

    In her first appearance, the Witch had a magic broom that allowed her to fly, changer her shape, pass through walls and paralyze others (plus more, presumably). She came into conflict with Mighty Man over a munitions company executive who had the formula for a mind control gas and was understandably reluctant to reveal it to a gang of crooks. The Witch made her getaway, swearing revenge.

    The Witch returns in Amazing-Man Comics 020 without her broom (no reason is given). She is now equipped with a potion that allows her to changer her appearance, which she uses first in an attempt to kill Mighty Man by claiming to herself be the targeted for assassination. This of course does not work, so in issue 21 she captures Mighty Man and declares that she will keep him prisoner until she discovers the secret of his powers.

    This is where things get weird, dynamic-wise. The Witch’s sedatives turn out not to work on Mighty Man, but he realizes that as her prisoner he is in a prime position to learn of and foil her various schemes. So for the next couple of issues (plus an issue of Stars and Stripes Comics), Mighty Man is theoretically paralyzed in a cell back at the Witch’s hideout while actually sneaking around and shapechanging his way through the massed ranks of her criminal army.

    The best thing to come out of all of this is this little kid super-hero identity that Mighty Man adopts and who I, like the Witch, like to call “Little Squirt”, even though he technically never has a name. Mighty Man’s writers eventually solved the problem of him being too powerful by having him assign himself the task of following Super-Ann around and helping her out without being seen by her, which is pretty fun but I kind of wish he’d leaned into this idea of fighting under different identities.

    The Witch, meanwhile, eventually drowned in a flood during one of her many schemes. I’m sure she wished she still had that broom.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 413: DR MAGNO

    (Amazing Man Comics 008, 1939)

    Dr Magno is your classic elemental evil opposite: a man with magnetic hands pitted against a man with an iron skeleton. He’s a wild-card ex-foe of the Iron Skull freshly broken out of the asylum to loot Chicago of its jewels and get revenge on his traitorous ex-cronies.

    He’s also, weirdly, an evil equivalent, as both he and the Iron Skull owe their powers to debilitating injuries suffered in the Great War of 1950, but whereas the Iron Skull was rebuilt as a nigh-indestructible cyborg, Dr Magno got some magnetic hands. 

    What’s that you say? The Great War of when? That’s right! The Iron Skull stories are set in the far future of ~1970 CE! Carl Burgos invented retro-future neo-noir while regular noir was still going strong (mostly by not changing the clothing and car styles of the future, but still)!

    Anyway, Dr Magno gets the jump on the Iron Skull using magnetism, but spoils his chances for revenge by making the classic mistake of spending so long gloating and drawing out the hero’s end that he is able to escape.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 413: DR MAGNO

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 413: DR MAGNO

    (Amazing Man Comics 008, 1939)

    Dr Magno is your classic elemental evil opposite: a man with magnetic hands pitted against a man with an iron skeleton. He’s a wild-card ex-foe of the Iron Skull freshly broken out of the asylum to loot Chicago of its jewels and get revenge on his traitorous ex-cronies.

    He’s also, weirdly, an evil equivalent, as both he and the Iron Skull owe their powers to debilitating injuries suffered in the Great War of 1950, but whereas the Iron Skull was rebuilt as a nigh-indestructible cyborg, Dr Magno got some magnetic hands. 

    What’s that you say? The Great War of when? That’s right! The Iron Skull stories are set in the far future of ~1970 CE! Carl Burgos invented retro-future neo-noir while regular noir was still going strong (mostly by not changing the clothing and car styles of the future, but still)!

    Anyway, Dr Magno gets the jump on the Iron Skull using magnetism, but spoils his chances for revenge by making the classic mistake of spending so long gloating and drawing out the hero’s end that he is able to escape.

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: WOTAN 1940

    What was Wotan up to in 1940?

    A trip back in time! A year or so ago when I was reading the 1940 issues of More Fun was before I started doing Super-Villain Yearbook posts and so I skipped poor Wotan, an injustice compounded by the fact that he is what I would call a Median Villain: one who has either enough appearances or importance to a hero’s history to be more than a minor villain but without the name recognition of a Capital S Super-Villain. Wotan has a bit of both: as Dr Fate’s first enemy he gets dredged up every once in a while when a magic guy (or gal, occasionally) is required.

    1. More Fun Comics 055, ‘Untitled’:  Wotan’s Golden Age appearances are pretty standard fare: he is introduced as an evil equivalent to Dr Fate, operating as some sort of magic crime boss – the ins and outs of his operation are less than clear as his main focus is eliminating Fate and his pal Inza Cramer. 

    As time goes on Dr Fate gets more ethereal and mystical and I just want to highlight how rock ’em sock’em, throw ’em out the window he was at the beginning. Just a brutal way to deal with a foe (and perhaps a few passing New Yorkers on the sidewalk below).

    2. More Fun Comics 056, ‘Untitled’: But of course throwing Wotan out of a window wasn’t going to stop him. Would it stop Dr Fate? Of Course it wouldn’t. He returns with a vengeance, quite literally: as revenge for Fate trying to kill him Wotan is going to blow up the whole damn world! Just try to stop that with a sock on the jaw, Fate!

    One sock to the jaw later, Dr Fate seals Wotan in a little rocky cyst for all time.

    Body Count: 0

    End-of-Year Status: Entombed

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: WOTAN 1940

    What was Wotan up to in 1940?

    A trip back in time! A year or so ago when I was reading the 1940 issues of More Fun was before I started doing Super-Villain Yearbook posts and so I skipped poor Wotan, an injustice compounded by the fact that he is what I would call a Median Villain: one who has either enough appearances or importance to a hero’s history to be more than a minor villain but without the name recognition of a Capital S Super-Villain. Wotan has a bit of both: as Dr Fate’s first enemy he gets dredged up every once in a while when a magic guy (or gal, occasionally) is required.

    1. More Fun Comics 055, ‘Untitled’:  Wotan’s Golden Age appearances are pretty standard fare: he is introduced as an evil equivalent to Dr Fate, operating as some sort of magic crime boss – the ins and outs of his operation are less than clear as his main focus is eliminating Fate and his pal Inza Cramer. 

    As time goes on Dr Fate gets more ethereal and mystical and I just want to highlight how rock ’em sock’em, throw ’em out the window he was at the beginning. Just a brutal way to deal with a foe (and perhaps a few passing New Yorkers on the sidewalk below).

    2. More Fun Comics 056, ‘Untitled’: But of course throwing Wotan out of a window wasn’t going to stop him. Would it stop Dr Fate? Of Course it wouldn’t. He returns with a vengeance, quite literally: as revenge for Fate trying to kill him Wotan is going to blow up the whole damn world! Just try to stop that with a sock on the jaw, Fate!

    One sock to the jaw later, Dr Fate seals Wotan in a little rocky cyst for all time.

    Body Count: 0

    End-of-Year Status: Entombed

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 372: THE GHOST OF TRIGGER DANIELS

    (More Fun Comics 063, 1941)

    Trigger Daniels is a hitman in the employ of gang boss Bugs O’Leary who gets sent up for the murder of a local philanthropist and swears revenge on all who had a part in his fate just before being executed. This is a pretty standard setup to a comic book story and usually involves  lot of faked deaths and/or secret twins and/or scientists with cashflow problems and innovative ideas about brain transplants/ reviving the dead. Trigger Daniels stands out because he represents the first time I have encountered such a person just… coming back as a ghost. I’m sure it’s happened in other comics but I do not recall any examples.

    And he doesn’t just come back as a regular-style ghost either! No, he’s a Spectre- style “earth-bound spirit” with ghost powers sufficient to take out the average human. Golden Age Spectre comics never really flesh out the hows and whys of ghosts so it’s unclear if they all have powers or if Daniels is special somehow. He does have the ability to cloak himself in the “powers of darkness” in order to escape from the Spectre, which might point to some sort of grander evil backing him up, but if it does exist there are no further indications.

    In any case, the “powers of darkness” trick works only once as the second time Daniels tries it the Spectre remembers that he has the Ring of Life, mystical multitool that no ghost should leave home without. Daniels is swiftly banished or destroyed utterly.

    JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 3/5 –  Trigger Daniels set himself a fairly reasonable target and even managed to get his old gang boss, the prosecutor and the jury foreman but ultimately ran up against the fact that one of his intended victims was Jim “the Spectre” Corrigan and ghost or no ghost that’s a hard task to accomplish.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 372: THE GHOST OF TRIGGER DANIELS

    (More Fun Comics 063, 1941)

    Trigger Daniels is a hitman in the employ of gang boss Bugs O’Leary who gets sent up for the murder of a local philanthropist and swears revenge on all who had a part in his fate just before being executed. This is a pretty standard setup to a comic book story and usually involves  lot of faked deaths and/or secret twins and/or scientists with cashflow problems and innovative ideas about brain transplants/ reviving the dead. Trigger Daniels stands out because he represents the first time I have encountered such a person just… coming back as a ghost. I’m sure it’s happened in other comics but I do not recall any examples.

    And he doesn’t just come back as a regular-style ghost either! No, he’s a Spectre- style “earth-bound spirit” with ghost powers sufficient to take out the average human. Golden Age Spectre comics never really flesh out the hows and whys of ghosts so it’s unclear if they all have powers or if Daniels is special somehow. He does have the ability to cloak himself in the “powers of darkness” in order to escape from the Spectre, which might point to some sort of grander evil backing him up, but if it does exist there are no further indications.

    In any case, the “powers of darkness” trick works only once as the second time Daniels tries it the Spectre remembers that he has the Ring of Life, mystical multitool that no ghost should leave home without. Daniels is swiftly banished or destroyed utterly.

    JUDGE AND JURY REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 3/5 –  Trigger Daniels set himself a fairly reasonable target and even managed to get his old gang boss, the prosecutor and the jury foreman but ultimately ran up against the fact that one of his intended victims was Jim “the Spectre” Corrigan and ghost or no ghost that’s a hard task to accomplish.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 363: MR H

    (Master Comics 001 (behind the scenes) or Master Comics 007 (first mentioned) or Master Comics 008 (first appearance on-panel)-Master Comics 020, 1940-1941)

     

    Mr H, the mastermind behind all crime in the city of Carterville and its unnamed state, gets up to all kinds of schemes through his proxies. For example:

    -running an illegal casino in a hard-to-catch gambling blimp

    -robbing a munitions plant in order to outfit a small army of gangsters and enact a criminal takeover of Carterville

    -stealing an experimental bomber from the US Army and attempting to sell it to crypto-Nazis

    -having his gang murder random Carterville citizens in order to drive down confidence in the police

    -stealing an experimental paralysis gas in order to disable and rob the entire population of Carterville 

    -attempting to destroy all public transit in Carterville for unclear reasons

    -attempting to blow up the Carterville Dam for unclear reasons

    -sundry murders and robberies

    At first, Carterville’s major crime figure and the inspiration for regional super-hero the Devil’s Dagger is a guy by the name of Jeff Marlowe, but he falls off of a roof in Master Comics 007, necessitating the introduction of his boss, Mr H. Over the course of his 12-odd appearances Mr H has a variable amount of hair and a selection of different cloth masks. The consistent aspect of his adventures (aside from his orange suit) is his habit of getting away in some sort of motor vehicle at the last second.

    Then, in Master Comics 018, Ken “Devil’s Dagger” Wyman gets a new coworker, police reporter Holfax. I won’t beat around the bush: Holfax is Mr H – introduced, I suspect, because the feature was coming to an end and they needed somebody to be the villain. The great thing about this is that Holfax/ Mr H thus becomes an evil equivalent to Wyman/ the Devil’s Dagger, something that I’m always excited to see.

    And the piece de resistance is of course the capture of Mr H and the subsequent retirement of the Devil’s Dagger in Master Comics 020, a rare ending not just for a Golden Age super-hero but for any super-hero ever.

    Mr H might not be terribly exciting in and of himself but I would still love to see a legacy Devil’s Dagger BRUNG BACK and who better to act as his foil than an ancient Holfax, out of prison and running Carterville once again.

    ADDENDUM: I almost forgot to highlight the fact that Mr H employs one of my favourite costume elements: the mask with attached bald cap.

    ADDENDUM II: I just read the long-unavailable Master Comics 006 and in it Mr H, through his proxy Jeff Marlowe, kidnaps the President of the United States for ransom. This is a very big crime not to have been aware of!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 356: OLBAID THE GREAT

    (Master Comics 016, 1941)

    I almost missed the fact that this guy is an evil equivalent of El Carim! I somehow read that opening blurb and thought that his name was Diablo but it’s not, it’s Olbaid – he has a backward name like El Carim!

    What’s more, Olbaid has roughly equivalent magical powers to El Carim, and uses magical items to supplement them just like him. In Olbaid’s case, this involves the Snake Pool, a magical pool of water that turns humans into constrictor snakes, suitable for use as snakey minions.

    While Olbaid is not a stage magician like El Carim, he does have a show business tie via his stable of ex-circus performer henchmen, including cowboy Rifle Ralph, lariat artist Roper Pete and an unnamed knife thrower.

    Sadly for Olbaid, the similarities between him and El Carim end when it comes to power levels and their magical duel ends with Olbaid in jail and the snakes restored to humans who hopefully can’t remember being used to squash a bunch of people.