The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Toro

  • REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 029

    Time for a heaping dose of real folk from Golden Age Marvel comics.

    Adolf Hitler:

    Kalph Belgri, dictator of Torpis, takes his own life when his invasion of neighbouring Molivia is thwarted by Electro. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

    The Human Torch encounters Adolphe Hiccup, dictator of Slaveland, while foiling a plot to fool his sidekick Toro into aiding their war effort. He is seen colluding with his ally Benny Musclein, who is such a clear Mussolini stand-in that I feel a bit foolish even mentioning it.

    Hiccup’s aide Herr Medals, on the other hand, is quite vexing to me, as despite his physical appearance and love of regalia being clearly based on Hermann Goering, his name makes me think of Goebbels, which caused me to poison my search history a little more by looking up the Nazi high command yet again to make sure I had the right guy. (Human Torch v1 003, 1940)

    Al Capone:

    Mob boss Vince Garrone is the latest in a long line of crooks with Capone-like names. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 017, 1941)

    Fiorello La Guardia:

    Marvel Comics was a very NYC-heavy operation even back when it was Timely Comics, and as a consequence of that we get far more Mayoral Action from them than other publishers. Here we see Mayor La Guardia showing a lot of moxie while dealing with a hostile Sub-Mariner, for example. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 007, 1940)

    Not even a year later, here’s the Human Torch helping out a mysterious and unnamed non-La Guardia Mayor of NYC. Just who the heck is this guy? (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941)

    La Guardia is back by Marvel Mystery Comics v1 020, just in time to deal with an epidemic of arson and extortion aimed at the city.

    Finally, a chunky little La Guardia thanks the Patriot for fending off the attempted takeover of the city by the fascist Yellowshirts. (Human Torch v1 004, 1941)

    Orson Welles:

    The Human Torch must deal with a Martian invasion, and that means referencing Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, here attributed to a “Lawson Bell.” (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 331: THE LEGION OF DESPAIR

    (Human Torch v1 006, 1941)

    A fairly simple one today: am man named Haskell advertises for people with no hope in life, then selects the most desperate of them into a gang. Since they were all prepared to die already, the members of the Legion of Despair are prone to, say, blowing themselves up with grenades in order to see that their compatriots get away with whatever loot they’re scampering off with.

    Aside from this radical investment in the goals of the group, Haskell’s other thematic concept for the Legion is the Dice of Death, which are used to determine who goes on these potential suicide missions by who wins a game of craps (I think? It’s not exactly spelled out).

    It all comes tumbling down once the Human Torch and Toro get involved, because even with five guys willing to blow themselves up to ensure success there’s only so much you can do against a couple of fire men. Haskell turns out to have been cheating in order to avoid risking his life on missions but only after everyone has been captured, offering no real comeuppance other than, presumably, a bad reputation once they’re all in prison. Unsatisfying!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 331: THE LEGION OF DESPAIR

    (Human Torch v1 006, 1941)

    A fairly simple one today: am man named Haskell advertises for people with no hope in life, then selects the most desperate of them into a gang. Since they were all prepared to die already, the members of the Legion of Despair are prone to, say, blowing themselves up with grenades in order to see that their compatriots get away with whatever loot they’re scampering off with.

    Aside from this radical investment in the goals of the group, Haskell’s other thematic concept for the Legion is the Dice of Death, which are used to determine who goes on these potential suicide missions by who wins a game of craps (I think? It’s not exactly spelled out).

    It all comes tumbling down once the Human Torch and Toro get involved, because even with five guys willing to blow themselves up to ensure success there’s only so much you can do against a couple of fire men. Haskell turns out to have been cheating in order to avoid risking his life on missions but only after everyone has been captured, offering no real comeuppance other than, presumably, a bad reputation once they’re all in prison. Unsatisfying!

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 330: RATHIA

    (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

    Bit of an unfair one here: Rathia is a princess of a Baltic kingdom of Atlanteans who persuades the Sub-Mariner to attempt world conquest. She is unquestionably a bad egg but by far the worst crimes of the issue are perpetuated by Namor himself and include: imprisoning and nearly killing Toro, mind controlling the Human Torch, flooding Africa and NYC, sinking the Italian Navy, nearly destroying Moscow and various war crimes. Crucially, Rathia does not exert any influence other than puffing up Namor’s ego – no mind control, nothing. Maybe a roll in the hay. Despite this, she is the one who stands trial as “World Enemy No. 2 – second only to Hitler!” while Namor just has to look contrite.

    In conclusion, this should probably be part of a Yearbook post about Namor but I am aggressively disinterested in him so Rathia takes the hit once again.  

    Seriously, look at this guy. Contemptible.

  • MINOR SUPER-HERO 330: RATHIA

    (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

    Bit of an unfair one here: Rathia is a princess of a Baltic kingdom of Atlanteans who persuades the Sub-Mariner to attempt world conquest. She is unquestionably a bad egg but by far the worst crimes of the issue are perpetuated by Namor himself and include: imprisoning and nearly killing Toro, mind controlling the Human Torch, flooding Africa and NYC, sinking the Italian Navy, nearly destroying Moscow and various war crimes. Crucially, Rathia does not exert any influence other than puffing up Namor’s ego – no mind control, nothing. Maybe a roll in the hay. Despite this, she is the one who stands trial as “World Enemy No. 2 – second only to Hitler!” while Namor just has to look contrite.

    In conclusion, this should probably be part of a Yearbook post about Namor but I am aggressively disinterested in him so Rathia takes the hit once again.  

    Seriously, look at this guy. Contemptible.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 327: DR SMART

    (Human Torch v1 005a, 1941)

    I think I’ve mentioned the old three-act super-villain story structure of yore a couple of times, but there are a whole host of old comic book story styles that have fallen by the wayside and Dr Smart here stars in one of them: the book-length heist story. 

    Three pages into our tale, Smart and his crew, posing as a funeral procession, rob an armoured car. The remaining 38 or so pages concern the efforts of the Human Torch and Toro to capture the slippery little devil because to his credit Dr Smart is a guy who reads the paper and knows that the Torch is a cop and will be guarding the money he is after.

    Dr Smart’s entire scheme hinges on anti-Torch technology: asbestos suits; grenades that explode into asbestos bindings; super-cold liquid air bombs and smokescreens; thermite ammunition that won’t melt. The capper is a duo of tricked-out hearses equipped with asbestos linings and heatproof glass – a considerable portion of the issue is spent with Toro and the Torch either locked up in the back of one or fruitlessly trying to get Dr Smart and his henchmen out of the front. Smart might have gotten away with it if he hadn’t tried to be clever and bury the heroes with the loot – it was one too many things to juggle and he got pinched.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 326: BLACKJACK

    (Human Torch v1 004, 1941)

    Blackjack is your regular style gang boss who is operating at a scale sufficient to be considered super-villainous: he has an ocean liner and a private island equipped with various anti-Human Torch measures, including a fleet of nitrogen bomb-dropping bombers, all in service to one of my personal favourite supercrime setups: the escape ring (which of course involves paying a portion of your take to a third party in order to be spirited away from the reach of the authorities).

    Sadly for Blackjack the Human Torch has been a cop for a while now and he is gunned (well, fire-handed) dpwn while trying to escape.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 290: THE PARROT

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 024, 1941)

    There are two different comic book tropes that come together in the Parrot. The first is simple: the weird-looking guy adopts a criminal persona based on their appearance -. So: the Penguin, the Vulture, the Chicken, the Platypus, the Skull etc. This is basic stuff, but generally fun.

    The second thing has to do with the nature of super-powers, that by their very nature they require countering Just as every penny-ante gangster who faced Superman in the 50s seemed to have gotten their hands on a chunk of kryptonite, the well-informed criminal in a Human Torch story will at the very least have asbestos clothing and some form of fire-suppressing chemical liquid or spray. In extreme cases like the Kryptonite Man or the Torch’s own Asbestos Lady the counter-weapon becomes the entire theme, but the Parrot here represents an intermediate step that I find quite compelling.

    See, a while back the Human Torch encountered a Tibetan cult called the Fire-Men who had fire-powers that they used to fight fire-monsters. One of those Fire-Men, named Culflam, was a crook who got sent to jail at the end of the story, where he shared a cell with the Parrot and taught him all the secrets of the Fire-Men Cult (unfortunately for Culflam, as the last part of the Learn Mystical Secrets in Jail trick is to murder your teacher on the way out). 

    So the Parrot is fireproof. He’s also something like seven and a half feet tall and completely ruthless. All of this makes for a very fun villain, even if all he really does is try to rob an opera crowd. I was pretty jazzed to read his second appearance, two issues later!

    Very sad times had by all: all he does is escape from jail again and then accept a contract from a man with  a German accent to blow up a strategic sulphur supply – his flame immunity doesn’t even come up! And then he dies in a car crash! Truly this is an example of squandered potential.

    Clearly the Parrot should be BRUNG BACK in some form – unfortunately the only hook I can think of are his stolen Fire-Man powers perhaps coming with some sort of curse for shirking the duties of the cult and he comes back to haunt the California desert as a fiery ghost? Or a modern incarnation of the cult needs access to lost teachings and mistakenly resurrects him instead of Culflam?  Or maybe the US government just keeps the bodies of deceased super-villains in cold storage somewhere and he just gets mad scienced back from the dead, I don’t know.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 288: THE KING

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 025, 1941)

    The King is your regular old gang boss who decides to pivot from running a numbers racket to selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and if that was it he wouldn’t be listed here. The dang guy just wasn’t content to be regular, though. Some salient features of his crime time:

    -he made the fake drugs in a sprawling underground lab using kidnapped doctors

    -recalcitrant doctors ended up in a giant vat of boiling acid

    -he has a full suite of gadgets including acid, gas and regular bombs and a remote controlled exploding car for blowing up excess henchmen

    -he leaves a king playing card at the scene of his crimes

    -he uses a cigar holder, which isn’t villainous per se but always stands out so much to me that I must make note of it.

    He’s also very dumb? Like, the calling cards tie together various crimes in a way that they might not otherwise have been, and he leaves a license plate that’s registered in his name on the bomb-car. Plus he does a lot of unnecessary murdering and kidnapping that does a lot less to make people respect him and more to make them want to stop him, or, as in the case of the henchman he fails to fully blow up, kill him.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 283: N-4

    (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 023, 1941)

    N-4 is the kind of Nazi spy that really reminds one that the swastika was a costume design go-to for a while there. Gonna be swastikas cropping up basically forever, aren’t there. Like Captain Nazi still shows up from time to time, doesn’t he.

    More interesting than N-4 being one of our earlier costumed Nazis is that they’re a trend-based crime villain! The trend: highways! Their whole scheme revolves around the recently-completed Pennsylvania Turnpike and involves a trick switcheroo tunnel that they use to steal tanks in a complicated scheme that foolishly includes framing the Human Torch and Toro for some reason and of course leads to them being caught.

    And of course I was using neutral pronouns in that last paragraph because I wanted to obfuscate the fact that N-4 was your old classic female agent posing as a male agent for unclear reasons. Also she got caught because of a deus ex bear trap.

    Not a lot to say about N-4, it seems! I’d say sorry N-4 but you are a Nazi, so go rot somewhere.