The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: conquest

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 506: THE GHOST OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

    (Blue Bolt v1 007, 1940)

    We have entered the era of Sergeant Spook battling villainous ghosts! It’s not quite as low stakes as Sergeant Spook just manhandling mortal crooks while they have no ability to affect him but since the worst that ghosts can do to each other in this fictional milieu is to knock one another out it’s still missing a bit of something.

    Still, the setting of Ghost Town is a fun one and we’re still getting lots of details about how it works and who exactly lives there. Firstly it seems that there is a suburb called Spirit Town and secondly Napoleon Bonaparte lives there and is attempting to conquer the entire ghostly realm for his own.

    Any time something happens in Ghost Town, famous dead people crawl out of the woodwork to lend a hand. In this case, Sergeant Spook’s army is first bolstered by the addition of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and then the Duke of Wellington himself decides to offer his expertise in beating up Napoleons.

    Like I said, it’s a bit low stakes since everyone’s already dead and Sergeant Spook for example was only mildly inconveniencing his enemies rather than slaying them while he was laying about with a mace from ghost horseback (as always the rules of the Sergeant Spook afterlife elude me. Are these horses with unfinished business? Do all horses have restless spirits? Are they just accessories to human ghosts like clothing?). Napoleon himself is very chill about the whole thing and everyone is good friends by the end.

    Still, for all that this battle had all the consequence of a Civil War reenactment at its heart this comic was about the ghost of Napoleon Bonaparte raising up an army of the dead in an attempt to conquer the afterlife and that’s in fact a very sinister elevator pitch.

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 008

    Mad or criminal, it’s the science that matters.

    This fellow is known only as “the hypnotist” and has an unspecified plan to do… something that involves taking control of flights of Army bombers and having them blow up targets of his choosing. If the details seem thin on the ground it’s because this fellow speaks precisely three words (see above) before being captured by Jeff Cardiff, Spy-Chief and so the only knowledge we have about his plans is that which can be extrapolated from his actions.

    Bonus details: 1. he hypnotizes people with his large purple eyes 2. his plan requires a video hookup to the planes he is controlling, which I personally did not know was standard or even possible in 1940. (Big Shot Comics 008, 1940)

    De Carva here developed an earthquake causing ray and almost managed to conquer the US with it but made the classic mistake of trusting in his deathtraps to finish off Skyman without bothering to confirm if he was, in fact, dead. This is known as hubris, kids. (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

    Professor Scorp here is a mad Egyptologist! That’s right, folks, we’ve got a mad social science case on our hands! Scorp suffered some sort of breakdown and his family made the unfortunate and retrograde decision to confine him on their island estate rather than, say, seek treatment for him. Eventually, two unscrupulous servants helped him escape as part of a plan to steal and resurrect the mummy of evil pharaoh Tut-Akum-Aut so as to learn the location of his legendary lost treasure. The reanimated mummy above is sadly merely an illusion conjured by Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians. But on a happy note, Professtor Scorp is taken somewhere for proper treatment at the end of the story! (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

    UPDATE: Astonishingly, Professor Scorp returns in The Face 001!

    This is Humpy Hudson, who has a moderately foolproof scheme (develop a substance that explodes the air around it but is itself unharmed and make it an innocuous shape, thus giving yourself a hard-to-spot, untraceable bomb, then bomb utilities until you can extort money out of them) hampered by some poor planning (he only has one reusable bomb and he made it in the shape of an onyx statuette). Humpy spends most of the issue trying to get his bomb back after it gets picked up by a youngster and sold at a pawnshop, then gets captured by Skyman. (Big Shot Comics 019, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 495: STENTOR

    (Big Shot Comics 011, 1941)

    Stentor is named after a character from the Iliad who was known to have an amazingly loud voice and from whom we derive the word “Stentorian”. This is a real slap in the face to me, a mythology-obsessed kid who got a minor in Classics at university essentially by accident because I kept signing up for classes I found interesting. I have opinions on Greek heroes! I know who Philoctetes is! And yet Stentor, a guy who died in a shouting contest with Hermes, was unknown to me until today.

    This Stentor has figured out some way of broadcasting his voice without use of obvious receiving equipment and is using it to harass FDR in hopes that he can get ahold of the entire USA.

    By amazing coincidence, Skyman has been messing around with Rochelle salts in his lab, leading to the discovery that they are the secret to Stentor’s technology (tl;dr on the Wikipedia article: they’re crystals used in WWII-era A/V gear).

    Skyman fully figures out Stentor’s tech and starts razzing him, leading to our first view of the man. I must say I appreciate a super-villain who arranges to spend his entire scheme sitting down.

     

    Don’t worry about Stentor being a one-trick pony: he is in fact a two-trick pony, as he also has the capacity to cause Rochelle salts to explode, a capacity he employs in an attempt on the life of the President using a cunningly-placed Rochelle salt fish castle, surely one of the most ignoble ways for a world leader to be assassinated.

    Stentor is at heart the kind of little weenie nerd who would pull an obscure mythological character to name himself after rather than calling himself the Voice like all of his peers, so once Skyman tracks him down he’s swiftly wedgied into custody. Note also that Skyman has the same “ick no, girl cooties” reaction to being smooched as Golden Age Superman.

    In conclusion: I like him! His technology is weird and niche and he manages to use it anyway. Plus I got to learn about a mythological guy I didn’t know about! (EDIT: Looks like he was in an Assassin’s Creed game a couple-three years ago. I am late to the Knowing About Stentor party)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 495: STENTOR

    (Big Shot Comics 011, 1941)

    Stentor is named after a character from the Iliad who was known to have an amazingly loud voice and from whom we derive the word “Stentorian”. This is a real slap in the face to me, a mythology-obsessed kid who got a minor in Classics at university essentially by accident because I kept signing up for classes I found interesting. I have opinions on Greek heroes! I know who Philoctetes is! And yet Stentor, a guy who died in a shouting contest with Hermes, was unknown to me until today.

    This Stentor has figured out some way of broadcasting his voice without use of obvious receiving equipment and is using it to harass FDR in hopes that he can get ahold of the entire USA.

    By amazing coincidence, Skyman has been messing around with Rochelle salts in his lab, leading to the discovery that they are the secret to Stentor’s technology (tl;dr on the Wikipedia article: they’re crystals used in WWII-era A/V gear).

    Skyman fully figures out Stentor’s tech and starts razzing him, leading to our first view of the man. I must say I appreciate a super-villain who arranges to spend his entire scheme sitting down.

     

    Don’t worry about Stentor being a one-trick pony: he is in fact a two-trick pony, as he also has the capacity to cause Rochelle salts to explode, a capacity he employs in an attempt on the life of the President using a cunningly-placed Rochelle salt fish castle, surely one of the most ignoble ways for a world leader to be assassinated.

    Stentor is at heart the kind of little weenie nerd who would pull an obscure mythological character to name himself after rather than calling himself the Voice like all of his peers, so once Skyman tracks him down he’s swiftly wedgied into custody. Note also that Skyman has the same “ick no, girl cooties” reaction to being smooched as Golden Age Superman.

    In conclusion: I like him! His technology is weird and niche and he manages to use it anyway. Plus I got to learn about a mythological guy I didn’t know about! (EDIT: Looks like he was in an Assassin’s Creed game a couple-three years ago. I am late to the Knowing About Stentor party)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 007

    The mad scientists are usually up to something criminal, but the criminal scientists are often completely rational.

    Like a fair few of the scientists I speak of here, Dr Hayles here talks a big game but gets caught in the planning stages before he has the chance to prove to the world that he was right all along. In Hayles’ case it was kidnapping a bunch of boys that got him in trouble and operating on young boys’ brains in order to make them geniuses that he never got to prove before he was corralled by Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians. (Big Shot Comics 002, 1940)

    This here Count Alexis fellow is an agent of an unspecified foreign power who employs his extremely cool fleet of giant flying magnifying glasses in an attempt to destroy Boston. This, in turn, will cow the States into serving said unnamed country. It’s a bit of a flimsy plan, especially once you see Skyman beat the tar out of the mere two men operating one of the lenses and using that lens to melt the other four three (almost forgot that he captures two of them, as well as Count Alexis himself) 

    Count Alexis also lives in Vermont and is 100% the only villain on this blog as it currently stands to do so. Congratulations, Vermont! You made it! (Big Shot Comics 007, 1940)

    This unnamed scientist developed a steerable electrically-charged tornado called a “Force-Top” and attempted to extort the US into buying it but got pinched by Jeff Cardiff, Spy-Chief basically as soon as he put his plan into motion. (Big Shot Comics 007, 1940)

    As far as ways to extort the US (in this case into acclaiming Our Villain here as dictator), freezing entire cities solid isn’t a bad way to go, and Norgo goes for some big targets after his initial test freeze of a Florida beach: Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, St Louis and Washington DC. He might have gotten in with a chance if it hadn’t been for Skyman completely owning his plan and unfreezing all the cities in about half an hour – though the fact that he does so by exploding balls of “atomic power” over each city is at least a bit concerning. (Big Shot Comics 008, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 489: THE GOLDMASTER

    (Big Shot Comics 002, 1940) 

    The Goldmaster is one of my very favourite subtypes of super-villain: the guy who really leans into the bit. Specifically, he is a fellow who has discovered the secret of making gold and subsequently adopted all of the trappings of a Medieval alchemist. Or possibly he was a guy who was really into the alchemy lifestyle who made the luckiest find ever. Either way, he doesn’t have to live like this! It’s a choice!

    No matter what the Goldmaster’s route to infinite gold production was, he certainly has all the fighting skills of a quicksilver-raddled mystic. He and his gang of would-be economic titans are gathered up with very little effort by the Face, with the Goldmaster himself ultimately choosing the coward’s way out.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 484: BARON SIVA

    (Big 3 004, 1941)

    Baron Siva is a regular-style science-type villain who attempts to conquer the US via a campaign of fear and espionage before being captured by Samson and David. Perhaps the most interesting thing about him are the things about him that go completely unaddressed:

    -the fact that his head is enormous

    -the fact that he has no ears

    -his weird transparent blouse

    -the fact that he possesses advanced technology like paralysis rays

    -is his surname just Siva or is this a reference to the Hindu god?

    -are those walnuts in his hand in the second panel above or is he crushing some model testicles?

    The fact that he has weird tech is admittedly not that weird in a super-hero comic but given the first three factors I spent the entire comic expecting him to be revealed as an alien, time traveller or mutant. It seems like he might just be an earless bighead with avant garde fashion tastes.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 482: DR KRAKO

    (Big 3 Comics 003, 1941)

    Dr Krako is a 1940s Blue Beetle villain, so he’s a (gang boss/ criminal scientist) attempting to (kill Blue Beetle and then take over the city/ take over the city if he has to kill Blue Beetle to do it). He also has the optional Dr Dodo Memorial Sidequest of trying to kill Joan Mason because she is somehow the only person to know what he looks like even though he is going by his own name and, in fact, skywriting it above the city as part of some nebulous ransom notes.

    But though the broad strokes of Dr Krako’s scheme may be a bit formulaic the specifics are anything but. Skeletons! He has a way to control skeletons with electricity! Skeletons driving cars and shooting bullets out of their heads!

    Skeletons walking around and kidnapping people!

    This skeleton is about to explode! In fact, that’s implicitly the foundation of Dr Krako’s entire scheme – he’s going to march a bunch of skeletons into NYC York City and explode them, then profit somehow. Sadly we never actually see it as he commits the cardinal super-villain sin of having the hero at his mercy and then messing around with deathtraps and such rather than just bumping him off. Obviously I care nothing for Dr Krako himself but his skeleton tech should be BRUNG BACK at the earliest convenience.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 482: DR KRAKO

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 482: DR KRAKO

    (Big 3 Comics 003, 1941)

    Dr Krako is a 1940s Blue Beetle villain, so he’s a (gang boss/ criminal scientist) attempting to (kill Blue Beetle and then take over the city/ take over the city if he has to kill Blue Beetle to do it). He also has the optional Dr Dodo Memorial Sidequest of trying to kill Joan Mason because she is somehow the only person to know what he looks like even though he is going by his own name and, in fact, skywriting it above the city as part of some nebulous ransom notes.

    But though the broad strokes of Dr Krako’s scheme may be a bit formulaic the specifics are anything but. Skeletons! He has a way to control skeletons with electricity! Skeletons driving cars and shooting bullets out of their heads!

    Skeletons walking around and kidnapping people!

    This skeleton is about to explode! In fact, that’s implicitly the foundation of Dr Krako’s entire scheme – he’s going to march a bunch of skeletons into NYC York City and explode them, then profit somehow. Sadly we never actually see it as he commits the cardinal super-villain sin of having the hero at his mercy and then messing around with deathtraps and such rather than just bumping him off. Obviously I care nothing for Dr Krako himself but his skeleton tech should be BRUNG BACK at the earliest convenience.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 481: DE STRUCTO

    (Big 3 002, 1940)

    De Structo (properly “Master-Mind” de Structo, but he’s only referred to in that way the once in-story) is a man with a dream, and that dream is to kill everyone in the US in a position of authority so that he can step in and take over society. To that end, he has his gang (grandiosely referred to as “Troopers”) distribute an “oxygen destroying ray” in vials (and here we’re going to have to assume that this is a “ray” in the sense of a radiation rather than a beam or that these are some amazing vials) near his targets in order to release them all simultaneously for maximum impact.

    And this is a thorough coup d’etat: not only is de Structo attempting to wipe out the government, state and local police, the intelligence services and the military but also publishers, bankers, industrialists, and doctors. I’ve heard of power vacuums but this is ridiculous. Fortunately for society, Stardust the Super Wizard shows up in time to save… most people.

    We’ve seen the cartoonish evil that is the hallmark of any good Fletcher Hanks comic and now it’s time for the over-the-top ironic punishment! First, de Structo is mutated until he is just an enormous head.

    As the giant spaceman says: this is because he attempted to destroy the heads of society.

    De Structo is then flung into the Space Pocket of Living Death, where the Headless Headhunter, the “hugest giant in the Universe” – who appears to be maybe 25 feet tall at most – eagerly absorbs him. It’s not quite an ironic punishment but it is gruesome – just what we expect from a Fletcher Hanks comic.

    As a bonus, all of de Structo’s henchmen are rounded up and compressed into a single being (presumably to save time) who is subsequently fired into space. Do Not Sin When Stardust Is Near, Mortals.