The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: gang boss

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: THE PENGUIN 1941

    What was the Penguin up to in 1941?

    (Detective Comics v1 058) ‘Untitled’ **First Appearance**

    Heeeey, it’s the Penguin, the perennial second-tier Batman villain!

    The Penguin really hits the ground running: he’s already got his look and his suite of trick umbrellas, so all he really needs is his weird bird-obsession, which kicks in in 1942. 

    As is frequently the case with a recurring villain, the Penguin’s first outing is one of his most successful: he takes over a gang using his gift for planning crimes and then when Batman starts to butt in he frames him but good.

    To really stick the landing, Penguin’s men kidnap Batman while he’s being transported to jail – Gotham’s finest are convinced that he is a crook! The Penguin is getting ready to bump him off! 

    Too bad for the Penguin that Robin shows up and the whole plan comes crashing down. Too bad for Batman and Robin that the Penguin actually manages to get away. The next story picks up where this one left off but that’s in 1942 so I’ll be telling you about it in like six months.

    BODY COUNT: 2

    END-OF-YEAR STATUS: At large.

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: HUGO STRANGE 1940

    What did Hugo Strange Get up to in 1940?

    1. Detective Comics v1 036, ‘Untitled’ **first appearance**

    Hugo Strange starts his crime career pre-seasoned with a goodly dose of “I’ve heard of this guy. This guy is a big deal” from Batman. 

    His actual plan is nothing special: using a machine he stole, Strange floods Gotham with fog night after night, leaving the police helpless to stop his gang as they loot and plunder at prearranged locations.

    The biggest thing that this story establishes, of course, is the dichotomy of Hugo Strange being a weird little lumpy-headed dork who is also a physical threat to someone like the Batman, something that he manages to retain when he is brought back as an Earth-One villain in the 70s when a lot of the other nerds in Batman’s rogues gallery like the Joker have become minimal physical threats.

    2. Batman Comics v1 001, ‘Untitled’

    Strange wastes no time in staging an escape and soon he’s embarking on one of his signature capers: creating the Monster Men!

    Having kidnapped five men from an insane asylum, Strange treats them with growth hormones which mutate them into brutish giants. They are then used in the same way as the fog machine was in his first caper: while the Monster Men battle the police, Strange’s gang get to work looting.

    Strange even manages to capture Batman, and almost turns him into a Monster Man while conveniently laying out his entire plot.

    But of course Batman manages to get free, brutally murder the Monster Men and (seemingly) Strange, and formulate an antidote for himself.

    3. Detective Comics v1 046, ‘Untitled’

    Strange’s final foray into crime in 1940 involves using fear-inducing dust to incapacitate bank guards and such so his men can rob and plunder. And of course it was inevitable that he would eventually figure on using some of his technology to take over the US. In fairness to him, using fear dust to conquer is slightly more plausible than say doing so as a single nude invisible man, but it’s probably a bit of a stretch even so.

    Strange once again makes the critical error of battling Batman on a cliff or cliff-adjacent structure and that’s the last we’ll see of him for about 40 years.  

    Body Count: 19 (plus 5 Monster Men, arguably)

    End-of-year Status: Presumed dead.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 199: THE CRAB

    (Crack Comics 013, 1941)

    The Crab here is a prime example of the gang boss who goes just over the top enough – and has a good enough moniker – to make the jump to full super-villain.

    His plan – hold the city to ransom for 5 million bucks, then blow up the first ambush the cops set for him to show he means business – is sufficiently out there, and he adds some flourishes like taunting the police via skywriting, but the thing that really does it is his signature: 

    It’s a little crab, oh my god

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 198: THE CRICKET

    (Crack Comics 001, 011 & 012, 1940-1941)

    The Cricket, leader of the Crickets, is a fairly undistinguished gang boss notable only for his brutality, the fact that he was the first foe of hard done-by hero the Spider and that he made two subsequent appearances!

    His first two appearances are nothing to write home about, though I do note a repeated armchair theme. The man loves to be comfortable. Sadly for him, he was shot down by the Spider before he could enjoy another good sit. RIP.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 194: THE SCREW

    (Crack Comics 009, 1941)

    I’ll be honest: the Screw is about as generic as it gets. He’s a hooded gang boss who runs a protection racket and just so happens to turn out to be the very head of the Chamber of Commerce who has been pressuring the police to take care of this awful Screw Gang. Pretty regular costumed villain stuff: his only real point of distinction is his fairly cool name.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 194: THE SCREW

    (Crack Comics 009, 1941)

    I’ll be honest: the Screw is about as generic as it gets. He’s a hooded gang boss who runs a protection racket and just so happens to turn out to be the very head of the Chamber of Commerce who has been pressuring the police to take care of this awful Screw Gang. Pretty regular costumed villain stuff: his only real point of distinction is his fairly cool name.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 191: THE DEVIL

    (Crack Comics 007, 1940) 

    There is no textual evidence for this, but since this guy is dressed exactly like the unnamed boss of the Skull Gang (plus some rad horns) and uses the very similar tactic of dosing his minions (the Robbers from Hades – good name) with toxins that make them all shriveled and weird (and in this case more pliable and obedient), I like to think that it’s the same guy back for another shot at making his fortune in the crime boss game, albeit without taking the very sensible precaution of, say, switching cities or otherwise trying to avoid the Clock. This time, alas, he meets his end, so we won’t be treated to a green-hooded man with a tail leading squads of Demonic Monkey Marauders, or a green-hooded man with a tinfoil halo commanding his Larceny Angels. Sad days.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 191: THE DEVIL

    (Crack Comics 007, 1940) 

    There is no textual evidence for this, but since this guy is dressed exactly like the unnamed boss of the Skull Gang (plus some rad horns) and uses the very similar tactic of dosing his minions (the Robbers from Hades – good name) with toxins that make them all shriveled and weird (and in this case more pliable and obedient), I like to think that it’s the same guy back for another shot at making his fortune in the crime boss game, albeit without taking the very sensible precaution of, say, switching cities or otherwise trying to avoid the Clock. This time, alas, he meets his end, so we won’t be treated to a green-hooded man with a tail leading squads of Demonic Monkey Marauders, or a green-hooded man with a tinfoil halo commanding his Larceny Angels. Sad days.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 182: THE BIG SHOT

    (Crack Comics 001, 1940)

    A series of facts about Golden Age super-hero comics:

    -most of them take place in cities

    -they are either set in a specific location (e.g. Wonder Woman being in Washington DC or the Red Bee in Superior City) or an unidentified large city

    -in the latter case, over time the city acquires characteristics that either lead to it becoming its own thing (e.g. Batman’s unidentified large city becomes Gotham) or being identified as New York City

    Now there are plenty of exceptions to this (Superman starts out in Cleveland which quickly becomes Metropolis; plenty of Golden Age heroes didn’t stick around for their location to gel, etc etc) but it does happen a fair amount and it leads to situations like the above, wherein the Clock, who lives in an unidentified large city clearly based on NYC, arrests crimelord the Big Shot and learns that he is in fact Mayor Kozer! And then over the years it becomes more and more clear that Clock stories are set in New York and you end up with an alternate history of the office of Mayor of New York City in which Fiorello la Guardia is presumably repeatedly ousted from office only to be reelected following the various Evil Mayor Arrested by Vigilante scandals. This is the sort of thing that really gets my heartrate up!

    Anyway: the Big Shot, folks.

    EDIT TO ADD:

    This isn’t even the first Mayor of NYC that the Clock is responsible for the arrest of: one year earlier he helped send Mayor Tull up the river! (Feature Comics 022, 1939)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 171: THE VOICE

    (Bulletman 001, 1940)

    There is a pretty broad swath of the super-villain community (and an even larger cohort of generic costumed villains) who have the common origin of being respectable members of society who need a second identity to head a gang or catburgle or do murders under the guise of.

    The gang leaders tend to stick to a few different styles of dress: there’s the domino mask wearers, the executioners-style hood guys and the more cautious head-to-toe robe wearers. The Voice here is part of a very specific type of these guys who only appear in silhouette – not particularly common, probably because it ends up tying them pretty thoroughly to a specific locale.

    The Voice doesn’t have too much to distinguish him: he’s running for district attorney and making a lot of political hay out of all the crimes being committed by the gang he himself is running. The really unusual thing about him is that he and his gang find out Bulletman’s secret identity over the course of the story and then… nothing. They go to jail, with none of the usual mind-wipes, elaborate deceptions or gruesome deaths that usually ensure that those who learn a hero’s secrets do not retain them. Just between 4 and 10 hardened crooks nursing that knowledge as they are taken away by the police. Remarkable stuff!