The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: conquest

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 696: QUORAK

    (Planet Comics 001, 1940)

    Quorak, like Moloka before him, seems to have developed his planet-wrecking technology without a clear indication of how he was going to use it. The caption box mentions destroying “all traces of civilization” and Quorak himself speaks of becoming “the greatest power in the whole universe!” but there have to be a lot of steps in the flow chart with “????” and “work this out later” on them. He does look very menacing while sitting at his desk, though.

    Like, yes, Quorak’s device can and does pull Pluto toward his base on planetoid Spectremus (excellent name), but why. What is he going to do with a planetload of wrecked cities and dead Plutonians? Is the destruction the point? Then why not push Pluto into the Sun or something? Why pull it?

    I think I’m getting so worked up about this because I like Quorak so much. Look at him in his little layered skirt – he could be such a good villain if he had any sort of decent plan. Why, he deals with two Inter-Planetary Police officers without even breaking a sweat!

    Ultimately Quorak succcumbs to one of the classic villain’s follies, of toying with his victims too much. He hangs Inter-Planetary Police officer Gary upside-down for a larf and ends up zapping himself with Gary’s heat ray. And then to add insult to injury he gets captured with his own paralysis ray. Shoulda worked on that flow chart a bit more, Quorak, old pal.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 695: ZAN

    (Planet Comics 001, 1940) 

    Zan lives on the far-off planet Volcus and uses the energies of its magnetic core to power his spaceship fleet and capture yet more spaceships. And why does he do this? Why, so that he can turn their crew into science zombies and eventually amass an army large enough to conquer the universe!

    (he also has this one lady with him at all times and I’m not sure what her role is exactly because she does not utter a single word throughout the comic. Is she his lieutenant? His girlfriend? A different story might have revealed that she was the real mastermind all along but no dice. She just hangs out behind him in her slinky dress and touches his shoulders)

    Zan’s piracy is very concerning to the Solar Congress, and so they deploy the Solar Force, under the command of Captain Nelson Cole and his little pal Lieutenant Bud. Too bad for them that their ships are made out of the same stuff as all of the missing ones were: they are immediately swept away to Volcus to be zombified.

    Zan’s whole plan seems to hinge on the unstoppable nature of his science zombie armies, but if I’m honest they aren’t as big a threat as he lets on. For one thing, they seem to operate like units in a strategy game in that if they’re not being explicitly directed then they just keep on doing what they were last ordered, including marching forward into a pit and just standing around. Does Zan believe that he and his ladyfriend have the wherewithal to control entire armies of these guys on the fly or is he going to start recruiting elite Starcraft players to his side soon?

    Zan is ultimately rounded up after Cole and Bud manage to capture the paralysis ray that Zan himself had in reserve specifically to counter his armies if they went haywire. Heckuva way to find out that your contingency plan was viable, fella.

    It’s nice that they let Zan and his gal pal share a cell, but I’m not sure if she’s as into him as she once was.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 695: ZAN

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 695: ZAN

    (Planet Comics 001, 1940) 

    Zan lives on the far-off planet Volcus and uses the energies of its magnetic core to power his spaceship fleet and capture yet more spaceships. And why does he do this? Why, so that he can turn their crew into science zombies and eventually amass an army large enough to conquer the universe!

    (he also has this one lady with him at all times and I’m not sure what her role is exactly because she does not utter a single word throughout the comic. Is she his lieutenant? His girlfriend? A different story might have revealed that she was the real mastermind all along but no dice. She just hangs out behind him in her slinky dress and touches his shoulders)

    Zan’s piracy is very concerning to the Solar Congress, and so they deploy the Solar Force, under the command of Captain Nelson Cole and his little pal Lieutenant Bud. Too bad for them that their ships are made out of the same stuff as all of the missing ones were: they are immediately swept away to Volcus to be zombified.

    Zan’s whole plan seems to hinge on the unstoppable nature of his science zombie armies, but if I’m honest they aren’t as big a threat as he lets on. For one thing, they seem to operate like units in a strategy game in that if they’re not being explicitly directed then they just keep on doing what they were last ordered, including marching forward into a pit and just standing around. Does Zan believe that he and his ladyfriend have the wherewithal to control entire armies of these guys on the fly or is he going to start recruiting elite Starcraft players to his side soon?

    Zan is ultimately rounded up after Cole and Bud manage to capture the paralysis ray that Zan himself had in reserve specifically to counter his armies if they went haywire. Heckuva way to find out that your contingency plan was viable, fella.

    It’s nice that they let Zan and his gal pal share a cell, but I’m not sure if she’s as into him as she once was.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 694: SARKO

    (Planet Comics 001, 1940)

    We’re in the 1940 run of Planet Comics now, so look out for a fair few of space tyrants with one-word nonsense names. Like Sarko here! Sarko is an Earth man who came to Mars in 1933 and set about conquering the dark side of the planet. Now it’s the near future and Sarko has his sights set on taking over the remainder of Mars and the light-side city of Ru in particular. 

    The… Ruvians? No demonym is provided. The Ruvians aren’t really up to the task of defending their domed city from Sarko and his army of One-Eyed Monster Men, but lucky for them intrepid space explorer Flint Baker and his crew of condemned murderers (plus New York Globe reporter and stowaway Mimi Wilson) have arrived just in time to help out.

    In an even greater coincidence, crewman Cliff Grant recognizes Sarko! It turns out that he was in jail for a series of murders committed while under the mental control of a man named Sappo and that Sappo is in fact the same guy! It’s a heckuva thing folks, but that’s comics for you.

    Grant almost gets his revenge, too, but doesn’t quite stick the landing. Sarko manages to kill Grant but is then taken down by another member of Baker’s crew. Mars and Ru are saved!

    BONUS: finding a crashed spaceship from decades earlier is an objectively very funny thing to happen to someone who was just crowing about being the first human on Mars.

    Heck! I almost forgot to show the One-Eyed Monster Men of Mars! Well, here one is.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 687: PRINCESS LING FOY

    (Pep Comics 004, 1940)

    Princess Ling Foy probably belongs in the Problematic Round-Up with all of Fu Chang’s other enemies (and Fu Chang himself, of course) – she’s just as steeped in racist tropes as any of them, right down to her dumb name. But… I have to say that I like her hat.

    I also like her minions, the Warriors of Brass, which strongly resemble robots but which are by all accounts magical creations. Let’s spit the difference and call them automata, and honestly it doesn’t really matter because Fu Chang destroys them all with what must be some wildly powerful acid.

    Fu Chang spares Ling Foy’s life but also rejects her proposal that they rule Chinatown together (and “ruling Chinatown” is just as nebulous a concept as when all those Fantomah villains were attempting to conquer “the Jungle” – are you going to be sending a representative to the San Francisco City Council or is this just a glorified protection racket?) which of course returns her to the path of crime precisely one second after Fu Chang gives her a second chance. Ling Foy heads right home to make a fairly low-effort sympathetic magic effigy out of wax, but regardless of quality it works. The only way Fu Chang is able to keep going is with the help of an infusion of healing juice from his magic chessmen, and even then he’s walking around with his arm in a sling.

    Having failed to gain revenge on Fu Chang by killing him, Ling Foy now summons an imp in an attempt to murder his fiance Tay Ming and once again the chessmen save the day, as tiny man battles tiny demon in a scene much more action-packed than a Fu Chang comic usually gets.

    The imp spills the beans on Ling Foy’s location and since Fu Chang can’t bring himself to harm a lady, Tay Ming takes out the trash.

    (If you read the Fu Chang entry and were wondering about what exactly the mermaid figure was used for, then this is your lucky day! As Ling Foy dies, the wax effigy of Fu Chang falls out the window into San Francisco Bay with a couple of knives still in it. The mermaid swims down and removes them, thus saving Fu Chang from a lifetime of feeling like he had two knives stuck in him)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 674: THE SCALENE ANGLES

    (Miracle Comics 001, 1940)

    “Police athlete” Dash Dixon’s first super-heroic adventure involves him travelling to the small European Republic of Scalene in search of the murderers of several US exporters. Turns out that they were killed to prevent arms and other supplies from being brought into the country, because the Scalene Angles, a group of wealthy jerks, were looking to conquer it.

    The most important thing about the Scalene Angles is of course their name. It’s fun, but it also depends on their country being named Scalene and once you consider that you have to imagine the whole nation being lousy with places like Triangle Square and Three Sides of Different Lengths Locksmithing and the Pythagoras Doesn’t Know Us Bakery (and maybe a few places talking about the neck in some way). It’s still a great name but it’s also probably the name of a triangleball team that one of their kids plays on so no points for originality here.

    (they do leave a note with a little triangle signature and I always like that, so one point to them there. But Dash Dixon does find and destroy them because of that note so the point is a treacherous one)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 669: ARCO

    (Jungle Comics 011, 1940)

    Arco, aka “the immortal mummy of Ancient Egypt! Old Arco, the super-scientist of long ago!” comes to the attention of Fantomah when he begins blinding the inhabitants of her home jungle using a ray with the fairly awesome name of the Scarlet Shadow. His ultimate goal – like so many Fantomah foes – is to conquer the jungle and establish an empire for himself.

    (Arco is also, somewhat surprisingly, our first actual mummy. The current ratio of fake to real mummies stands at 5:1)

    While an ancient mummy attempting to take over a quasi-mystic omnijungle using a blindness ray might be relatively normal as far as comic book plots go, Arco’s next move is amazing. In order to finalize his conquest he requires a population, and what better subjects for a mummy emperor than more mummies? What seems like most if not all Egyptian mummies in the world are reanimated and flown in on the wings of Arco’s ancient magics. Presumably he also protects their dry, dry bodies from the jungle humidity, perhaps using another ray to do so.

    Arco of course rejects Fantomah’s ritual attempt to warn off her foe. In his defense he is riding a justifiable high based on the fact that he and his followers are all already dead – how could he know that his mummy troops, so effective at attacking blind and confused people, would prove easy prey to the most powerful beasts of the jungle?

    (I can’t imagine what a blow this must have been to the fields of Anthropology and Archaeology in the world of Fantomah. Museums all over the world must be full of little plaques saying “this sarcophagus formerly held the mummy of Amenhotep III, preserved from 1353 BC until the Great Mummy Reanimation of 1940. Recent expeditions have brought back evidence that the mummy was subsequently dismembered and partially consumed by a lioness (see bone fragments in case to your left)”)

    Arco attempts to blind Fantomah in revenge for the defeat of his forces but finds himself on the receiving end of sequentially, his own ray, a fall, and a river full of crocodiles. What an end for an immortal mummy man.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 663: THE JUNGLE DEMON

    (Jungle Comics 006, 1940) 

    The Jungle Demon starts out as an unnamed boy lost in the jungle and true to the old trope he is found and nurtured by a beast – we’ve seen it many times before. The beast in this case is a mind-bogglingly large constrictor snake, which is fun. Boy grows to man and he and the snake (charmingly named “Powerhouse”) are at peace with the people and animals of the jungle until one day the still-unnamed young man chows down on what turns out to be some AD&D Alignment-flipping berries and Nice Boy becomes the Jungle Demon.

    My memory had filled in some details and I was thinking of this fellow as one of the big Fantomah villains but in fact although he talks a big game about conquering the Jungle, mostly he just steals jewels and defrauds his workers.

    Fantomah steps in a couple of times throughout the story to warn the Jungle Demon away from pursuing his darker impulses (pulling down a city to build a palace, enslaving people with dark majicks, etc) but he just can’t help but be evil and eventually she is forced to feed him an antidote salad to reverse the effects of the berries (and she exiles him and his snake to an isolated plateau, which seems a bit mean). I hadn’t really thought about it before but this tendency of Fantomah’s to watch the unfolding action but not really step in until she does so decisively at the moment of crisis is the equivalent to Stardust the Super Wizard’s very long commute: a way for there to be a story with an effectively omnipotent protagonist in which anything actually happens.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 660: MUNDOOR

    (Jungle Comics 005, 1940)

    Mundoor is a scientist who hangs out in the Fantomah part of the Jungle Comics Omnijungle and has seemingly been spending his time looking for a vitamin-rich plant that will induce giant growth in those that eat it, and in an astonishing turn of fortune an asteroid bearing that very plant lands on his doorstep one day! And the asteroid is also stuffed full of viable monster eggs! What a day for Mundoor.

    Mundoor raises his reptiles on a diet of super-vitamins and hypnotism and sets out to conquer the jungle. He also coats them in phosphorescent paint to make them scarier which is frankly overkill.

    Quite a bit of the adventure concerns Fantomah playing keepaway with the treasure vaults from Mundoor’s first target, one of those Indian style palaces that Fantomah’s mostly African style jungle is dotted with.

    Mundoor eventually crosses Fantomah’s mental line, from “prevent this guy from doing crimes” to “get rid of this guy for good’ when he orders his beasts to destroy and loot an entire (kind of Middle Eastern style) city. He and his pets are unceremoniously dumped back on the asteroid and blasted into space, where they presumably get extremely huge on a diet of nothing but growth inducing plants.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 660: MUNDOOR

    (Jungle Comics 005, 1940)

    Mundoor is a scientist who hangs out in the Fantomah part of the Jungle Comics Omnijungle and has seemingly been spending his time looking for a vitamin-rich plant that will induce giant growth in those that eat it, and in an astonishing turn of fortune an asteroid bearing that very plant lands on his doorstep one day! And the asteroid is also stuffed full of viable monster eggs! What a day for Mundoor.

    Mundoor raises his reptiles on a diet of super-vitamins and hypnotism and sets out to conquer the jungle. He also coats them in phosphorescent paint to make them scarier which is frankly overkill.

    Quite a bit of the adventure concerns Fantomah playing keepaway with the treasure vaults from Mundoor’s first target, one of those Indian style palaces that Fantomah’s mostly African style jungle is dotted with.

    Mundoor eventually crosses Fantomah’s mental line, from “prevent this guy from doing crimes” to “get rid of this guy for good’ when he orders his beasts to destroy and loot an entire (kind of Middle Eastern style) city. He and his pets are unceremoniously dumped back on the asteroid and blasted into space, where they presumably get extremely huge on a diet of nothing but growth inducing plants.