(Blue Beetle Comics 003, 1940)
A lot of these early Blue Beetle villains are real basic so I’m not even going to bother with the questions.
Mastermind of Crime: very good hood, attempts to take over NYC York City, turns out to actually be the civic reformer who has been raising a stink over all this organized crime all over the place.
(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 techniques before dying in a cave-in, the jury is and will always be still out. He’s the Atom’s first super-villainous opponent, though, so we’ll allow it.
(All American Comics 010, 1940)
The Master, in one of those escapades that causes a lot of trouble for folks who feel compelled to work out what’s in continuity and what isn’t, briefly took over NYC using an electricity projector, killed hundreds if not thousands of people, and mobilized a full fascist organization before being stopped by G-2 operatives Red, White and Blue and Doris West.
Which, to be fair, is the answer. You have to explain whether or not Namor actually sank the Italian fleet or Batman killed Carl Kruger but there are legions of Golden Age characters whose troublesome exploits can be excised willy-nilly and Red, White and Blue are some of the most thoroughly forgotten of the bunch for all that they appeared in four or five different books at various times during the early 40s.
(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 threat and drawing them to the exotic location. As soon as I thought about this I realized that many of the minor super-villains on our list employ the Reel: the Gorilla King sends a squad of gorilla-assassins to kill his enemy, thereby alerting Zatara, for instance.
In Zolar’s case, he sends some of his men (mind controlled desert tribespeople, natch) to Metropolis to eliminate an impediment to his plans, which involves first Lois Lane and then Superman. Cut to the Sahara Desert, where Zolar is trying to conquer the lost city of Ulonda using a combination of mind control, rocket planes and flesh-destroying death orbs.
The whole thing ends in bloodshed: Zolar and his lieutenant attempt to death orb Superman only to have it bounce back on themselves, while his fleet of mind controlled rocket pilots are caused to crash by a slightly-pre-anti-killing-code Superman. The lost city of Ulonda, though battered, survives.
(Special Edition Comics, 1940)
Here is a list of pertinent details about Slaughter Slade:
-He talks like Swamp Thing for no discernable reason
-He is stronger and more intelligent than the human norm. Together with the prior point and some general odd behavior throughout the story this kind of leads one to think he might be revealed as a robot or alien or something. He is not.
-He has three henchmen: a regular gangster named Butch, a weird little freak named Spider and an intelligent gorilla named Doctor Allirog. Oh, and a giant spider:
-Doctor Allirog is not an intelligent gorilla at the beginning of the story, but his name is Doctor Allirog at the beginning of the story.
-Slaughter Slade’s plan is to destroy the entire US government and install himself and Doctor Allirog as President and Vice-President, respectively.
-Part of Slaughter Slade’s plan involves buying a book of knowledge from this man:
Professor Universe is possibly the single-appearance character whose failure to make a return has hurt me personally the most. Just the idea of this mercenary genius living somewhere near Fawcett City is so delightful to me. Obviously I want them to BRING BACK everyone involved in this story, down to Butch and the two Spiders.
(Special Edition Comics, 1940)
Here is a list of pertinent details about Slaughter Slade:
-He talks like Swamp Thing for no discernable reason
-He is stronger and more intelligent than the human norm. Together with the prior point and some general odd behavior throughout the story this kind of leads one to think he might be revealed as a robot or alien or something. He is not.
-He has three henchmen: a regular gangster named Butch, a weird little freak named Spider and an intelligent gorilla named Doctor Allirog. Oh, and a giant spider:
-Doctor Allirog is not an intelligent gorilla at the beginning of the story, but his name is Doctor Allirog at the beginning of the story.
-Slaughter Slade’s plan is to destroy the entire US government and install himself and Doctor Allirog as President and Vice-President, respectively.
-Part of Slaughter Slade’s plan involves buying a book of knowledge from this man:
Professor Universe is possibly the single-appearance character whose failure to make a return has hurt me personally the most. Just the idea of this mercenary genius living somewhere near Fawcett City is so delightful to me. Obviously I want them to BRING BACK everyone involved in this story, down to Butch and the two Spiders.
(Whiz Comics 006, 1940)
Like many Ibis the Invincible villains, the Hobo-Millionaire found the mystic Ibistick when it was lost for a time and who eventually attempted to kill Ibis with it, leading to is own death via magic feedback. Unlike most Ibis the Invincible villains, Hobo-Millionaire is great.
I would love for them to BRING BACK this great man. It wouldn’t be hard, either! Imagine a scenario in which the Ibristick is passed down to a legacy character (this is always the best way to handle bringing back magic item-based characters, BTW) and they try to get advice on how to use their new possession by summoning its previous owners. SURPRISE: most of them were dicks, and Hobo-Millionaire rules them all.
(Action v1 002, 1938)
Early on in Tex Thomson’s adventuring career, he and his pal Bob Daly found themselves in a hidden city called, appropriately, the Sealed City. There they met the leader, or Gorrah, of that city and eventually discovered that he was an usurper who they quickly helped overthrow. There it would end for your average hidden-city-usurper but not this Gorrah, no sir. He came back half a dozen times, indulging in schemes such as:
-turning people into weird cyborgs
-turning people into weird rat-men
-attempting to take over Turkey
-fixing boxing matches
and so on.
By his last appearance, he was dealing with Mr America instead of boring old Tex Thomson and it wasn’t a very fair fight. Over the years he had shed his super-science, his one-time hypnotic power and even his flamboyant costume and was merely a one-eyed agent of some unspecified Foreign Power (ie, the Nazis) tasked with bombing libraries, which somewhat ignominiously (if predictably) ended with him being blown up by his own bomb. A sad end to be sure.
(Detective v1 017, 1938)
If there’s one thing that Golden Age comics have in great supply, it’s US fascist groups seeking to (variously) undermine the country’s war production, keep the US out of WWII, draw the US into WWII, or take over the country outright. And while most of these groups are just some guys called the Purple Shirts who rough up a shopkeeper for not loving the Fatherland more than his adopted land of AMERICA, a few, like the Hooded Hordes here, get their act together enough to be minor super-villain organizations.
I mean, they don’t really get up to much more than the hypothetical Purple Shirts – mostly disrupting war production in a bid to take over the US – but there’s a lot to be said about doing so in a sheet ghost outfit with a skull and crossbones on the chest.
(More Fun 031, 1938)
A mine owner using zombie labour, which is at best morally questionable, but also he planned to undermine New York and collapse it into a pit, then rule the ruins, which is worse.
Dr Occult dropped a mine on him, which is why it’s such a surprise when he shows up in my upcoming Dr Occult miniseries – back from the dead by his own dark will, the Master of Corpses teams up with the rest of his Golden Age rogues gallery in a bid to destroy their old foe once and for all.