The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Stardust the Super Wizard

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 621: THE EMERALD MEN OF ASPERUS

    (Fantastic Comics 008, 1940)

    The Emerald Men of Asperus live on an asteroid (named Asperus, natch), and I’m pretty sure that their plan is to move the Earth to the Asteroid Belt so that they can easily enslave as many Earthlings as they want, but it’s a bit hard to grok because the way the Emerald Men talk makes it plausible that they don’t know how the Solar System works. Like, it’s possible that they don’t know that Earth and Asperus orbit the same star? This is all further complicated by the fact that the Emerald Men kind of look like the Chad of Virgin/Chad meme fame. None of them actually do that super floppy walk of his but you can see it happening in a Fletcher Hanks comic and it’s distracting.

    Stardust the Super Wizard of course is on this plan immediately. Stealing and enslaving a whole planet? Not on his watch.

    Once Stardust stops the Emerald Men’s original barrage of planetary-control gas missiles, they make the unusual and very confident decision to attempt to tackle him head-on. And it seems like they might actually be a credible threat: 15-20 muscular dudes with a similar level of outlandish technology to his? AND they’re ray-proof, an amazing thing to be when you’re taking on Stardust “I have a ray for every occasion” the Super Wizard.

    But no, even without his signature rays Stardust is still something like twice the size of the average Emerald Man and he swiftly uppercuts every single on of them into submission.

    Even their last-ditch effort, involving anti-star-metal acid bombs designed to destroy the suit that houses most of Stardust’s power, fizzles due to the playground logic of Super Wizard stories as he merely emits a cloud of acid-proof dust to explode them before they reach him.

    The Emerald Men get off pretty easy for Stardust foes, particularly now that we know that being frozen but conscious forever is an option. They and their asteroid home are merely banished to the far reaches of space. A comparative mercy!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 619: GYP CLIPP

    (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940) 

    Mr Clipp here is our first villain with “Gyp” or “Gypsy” as a part of their name, and there are going to be a lot of them. On the one hand you have to cut the old-time creators a bit of slack, as the World Romani Congress didn’t officially vote to reject the term and all of its derivatives until 1971, but on the other hand they knew. “Gyp” is in the Top 50 in my spreadsheet of all the nicknames I come across (yes of course I have one of those) and unlike Red, Doc, Slim or Happy it is only ever given to crooks.

    It therefore both makes sense and is very annoying that a Fletcher Hanks villain would be named such, because this is possibly the Platonic ideal of a Hanks story. Clipp and his pals here have an over-the-top plan to amass wealth: stop the rotation of the Earth, thus flinging all other humans off into space so that they can have all of the good stuff for themselves. And don’t worry about the good stuff also flying off into the endless void because they’ve used rays to stick everything that isn’t humans down.

    Then we have one of those iconic Fletcher Hanks panels of all humans flying off into the lemon void. This is the kind of thing that Roy Lichtenstein would have been stealing if he wasn’t a coward.

    After successfully ejecting all other humans from the planet, Clipp makes the amazing choiceto kill his two accomplices so as not to have to split the take, and while I was initially going to make a big deal about what a wild decision this is, it is in fact extremely consistent with his other actions in the story. You don’t get to the point that Clipp is at without something very wrong with the way you look at the world, but does he not realize that having unlimited wealth on an empty planet is a meaningless thing or does he simply not care and is content to sit on a pile of gold by himself until the canned goods run out, like a horrible little dragon?

    We will never know the answer, because, deus ex machina, Stardust the Super Wizard shows up before anyone even has time to asphyxiate and uses one of his highly specific rays to restore everyone to their starting location!

    Stardust of course does not waste time: Clipp is crumpled up in a big fist and tossed into space. This is the kind of Direct Action Irony we have come to expect and love from the big man.

    The last few Stardust stories have featured crooks being taken to prison instead of messily killed and I kept thinking that that was unusually merciful for a character I had thought of as very harsh in his punishments, but if they’re all being shipped off to the Floating Prison of Eternal Space to be frozen yet aware for all eternity… that’s in character.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 613: DR MARTINIOUS

    (Fantastic Comics 006, 1940)

    Dr Martinious holds a few distinctions. First, he is an Earth scientist who travelled to Mars on a rocket ship of his own design, an impressive feat and one that seems to have endeared him to the Brain Men of Mars sufficiently to make him their leader.

    Secondly, he is an early cosplayer. Note his pseudo-Roman outfit (better view below). This is the outfit of a person who showed up on Mars after reading a lot of pulp fiction and early comic books that populated planets with societies themed after their mythological namesakes – see early Wonder Woman, e.g. How disappointing for Martinious when he showed up and the place was chockablock with cute little big-headed cyborgs! It’s just lucky for him that they’re up for a good war.

    Thirdly, Dr Martinious has the dubious distinction of being the antagonist of a non-Fletcher Hanks-produced Stardust the Super Wizard story. It’s not a particularly bad effort but something is subtly off in a way that makes one feel uneasy while reading it. It’s actually not unlike the sensation of reading Hanks’ work for the first time, so good job unnamed artist!

    The Martinious/Brain Men plan involves flooding the planet with either huge insects or giant bacteria or some hybrid of the two? Big bugs, we’ll say. It’s never expressly spelled out but an attack like this is usually deployed to weaken a planet prior to invasion. Martinious never actually gets that far, however, because Stardust shows up to render aid to the Earthlings.

    (of course Stardust’s solution – to soak the entire planet in ultra-powerful germicide – would probably be just as disastrous in the long term as presumably huge swaths of essential microbial life would be wiped out, but this is a comic with a shaky understanding of the difference between insects and bacteria so don’t hold your breath for that reveal to happen in-story)

    Where a lot of villains would use this as an opportunity to spit defiance at their foe, Dr Martinious instead sinks into despair. He and the Brain Men lock themselves up in a ray-proof fortress to sulk. He also finally gives us a good look at his cosplay, which is nice.

    Martinious never emerges from his funk, so the final act of the story is in the hands of these cute Brain Men assassins, who at least try to kill Stardust. Do they get hurled off a mountain for their efforts? Yes. But it was worth a try.

    Like I said, Martinious never emerges from his ray-proof fortress, and that’s because it’s specifically a death ray-proof fortress. Concentrated solar heat rays are very effective against it. RIP Dr Martinious, you didn’t do a very good job.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 607: THE MIRACLE MEN

    (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

    Like a fair few Fletcher Hanks villains, the Miracle Men take a regular crime and amp it up to the nth degree. In this case, thanks to the technological marvel that is the Invisible Vacuum Tube, they have industrialized kidnapping. And if the ransom is not paid an appropriately oversized response can be delivered via their tornado making machines! This is modern, industrialized crime!

    Under the direction of leader Wolf-Eye, the Miracle Men perform hundreds of simultaneous kidnappings. Should Wolf-Eye be the one in the title of this entry? Maybe.

    Unfortunately for the hundreds of rich guys and the US at large, the FBI does not want to pay up, so it’s tornado time.

    Stardust is of course all over this, so the chances of a major city being destroyed via super-tornado are only about 50% (this is, remember, a Fletcher Hanks comic – he does not shy away from mass casualties). This time there is no slaughter, but remember folks: Stardust will not necessarily save you. He will avenge you.

    The greatest and most unexpected thing in this comic is when the hitherto-normal seeming gang boss Wolf-Eye unveils his gland-control magic. Is it real magic or more super-science? Impossible to say but I choose to believe that it’s magic, a perhaps one-time spell that Wolf-Eye has kept in his back pocket for years in case his authority is sufficiently challenged. It’s really great.

    Merely being a big guy is not enough to take on an enraged Super Wizard, however, so all Wolf-Eye gets for his trouble is a sock in the mouth and a trip to Prison City by way of Getting Shrunk Avenue. It is perhaps lucky for the Miracle Men that they only kidnapped people, as the most ironic punishment for a kidnapping is of course to be taken away and confined yourself – it’s just lucky for them that Stardust didn’t decide to seal them up in a big boulder or something.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 607: THE MIRACLE MEN

    (Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)

    Like a fair few Fletcher Hanks villains, the Miracle Men take a regular crime and amp it up to the nth degree. In this case, thanks to the technological marvel that is the Invisible Vacuum Tube, they have industrialized kidnapping. And if the ransom is not paid an appropriately oversized response can be delivered via their tornado making machines! This is modern, industrialized crime!

    Under the direction of leader Wolf-Eye, the Miracle Men perform hundreds of simultaneous kidnappings. Should Wolf-Eye be the one in the title of this entry? Maybe.

    Unfortunately for the hundreds of rich guys and the US at large, the FBI does not want to pay up, so it’s tornado time.

    Stardust is of course all over this, so the chances of a major city being destroyed via super-tornado are only about 50% (this is, remember, a Fletcher Hanks comic – he does not shy away from mass casualties). This time there is no slaughter, but remember folks: Stardust will not necessarily save you. He will avenge you.

    The greatest and most unexpected thing in this comic is when the hitherto-normal seeming gang boss Wolf-Eye unveils his gland-control magic. Is it real magic or more super-science? Impossible to say but I choose to believe that it’s magic, a perhaps one-time spell that Wolf-Eye has kept in his back pocket for years in case his authority is sufficiently challenged. It’s really great.

    Merely being a big guy is not enough to take on an enraged Super Wizard, however, so all Wolf-Eye gets for his trouble is a sock in the mouth and a trip to Prison City by way of Getting Shrunk Avenue. It is perhaps lucky for the Miracle Men that they only kidnapped people, as the most ironic punishment for a kidnapping is of course to be taken away and confined yourself – it’s just lucky for them that Stardust didn’t decide to seal them up in a big boulder or something.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 603: THE MAD GIANT

    (Fantastic Comics 004, 1940)

    The Mad Giant is another Fletcher Hanks villain with a straightforward motivation: civilization has ruined his domination of a slave group (presumably a tribal society as he refers to them by the formerly much-used and now depricated term “savage”) and so he is simply going to end civilization. And given the method that he has chosen – pumping the Earth full of a chemical that will raise its temperature and cause widespread geologic upheaval – he might just be trying to destroy the planet itself!

    (the exact circumstances of the Mad Giant losing his slaves are left as unexplored as those of him being such a big beefcake. He just did and he just is)

    The Mad Giant might just have the most rational plan to deal with Stardust the Super Wizard of any of his foes. Like most of them he seems to have a pretty good inkling that Stardust will show up, so a barrage of missiles (anti-ray missiles, natch) to delay, incapacitate or destroy him will hopefully buy enough time for the Giant and his lil’ pal Kamet to finish destroying the planet. Too bad for the Mad Giant that he is very easily fooled: Stardust fakes his own death and ends up taking them by surprise on his second approach.

    Giant or no, it’s all over once Stardust gets close enough to put those big mitts on you. The Mad Giant is knocked silly and summarily whisked off to… prison? What an odd place for a Stardust villain to end his days. I assume Kamet gets a pass because there’s a high chance he was there against his will.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 598: THE DEMON

    (Fantastic Comics 003, 1940)

    The Demon is a pretty straightforward Stardust enemy: he thinks that there are too many people on Earth and so is going to destroy cities until he gets that number under control. Exactly why he thinks that there are too many people (fear of overcrowding? an ahead-of-his-time radical environmentalist? simple misanthropy?) is not explored.

    This is of course exactly the sort of thing to draw Stardust the Super Wizard like a magnet. Importantly, this happens before the Demon manages to destroy NYC but after he has wrecked an ocean liner, so that he might be punished in an appropriately Stardustian manner. The apprehension of the Demon is also notable for being the first time that Stardust performs his signature move of picking up a villain in one hand and having them crumple up like they’re made of sponge rubber, though this is presumably a stylistic choice rather than an actual effect that Stardust’s big mitts have on the criminal fraternity.

    Stardust… I was going to say “of course does not allow NYC to be obliterated” but in a different Fletcher Hanks comic it might have happened. But no. He throws the Demon into the wave to be killed by roiling water, then disintegrates both Demon and wave. He also says a famous line, from the title of that one Paul Karasik book about Fletcher Hanks!

    The Demon’s assistant Max, oddly, seems to get away scot-free. Stay out of trouble, Max!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 598: THE DEMON

    (Fantastic Comics 003, 1940)

    The Demon is a pretty straightforward Stardust enemy: he thinks that there are too many people on Earth and so is going to destroy cities until he gets that number under control. Exactly why he thinks that there are too many people (fear of overcrowding? an ahead-of-his-time radical environmentalist? simple misanthropy?) is not explored.

    This is of course exactly the sort of thing to draw Stardust the Super Wizard like a magnet. Importantly, this happens before the Demon manages to destroy NYC but after he has wrecked an ocean liner, so that he might be punished in an appropriately Stardustian manner. The apprehension of the Demon is also notable for being the first time that Stardust performs his signature move of picking up a villain in one hand and having them crumple up like they’re made of sponge rubber, though this is presumably a stylistic choice rather than an actual effect that Stardust’s big mitts have on the criminal fraternity.

    Stardust… I was going to say “of course does not allow NYC to be obliterated” but in a different Fletcher Hanks comic it might have happened. But no. He throws the Demon into the wave to be killed by roiling water, then disintegrates both Demon and wave. He also says a famous line, from the title of that one Paul Karasik book about Fletcher Hanks!

    The Demon’s assistant Max, oddly, seems to get away scot-free. Stay out of trouble, Max!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 594: RIP-THE-BLOOD

    (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

    As weird as Fletcher Hanks stories are, sometimes the hardest thing to parse are the seem-like-they-should-mean-something names. Take Rip-the-Blood here: is this just a weird way to present a fellow named Rip with the nickname of “the Blood” or does his name mean something more? Is he so tough he’ll “rip the blood” out of you? I never know with this guy.

    Whatever his name means, Rip-the-Blood is a bad dude: through his influence over US politics and control of the munitions industry he plans to push the world into total war and become the most powerful man alive. 

    EDIT Jan 2026: I just learned about New York underworld figure Harry Horowitz, aka “Gyp the Blood” and can only assume that Rip here is named in reference to him.

    The inciting incident that will start the big war is the kidnapping of FDR by a foreign-looking plane. This is not a bad plan! I have no notes on the big “plunge the world into war” scheme! 

    EXCEPT. Rip-the-Blood knows about Stardust the Super Wizard. He knows what Stardust did to the Spy Army (not covered here but they got messed up) and that he will probably be targeted as well – it should be no surprise to him when FDR is rescued from his kidnappers almost immediately. It shouldn’t, but it really seems to mess up Rip’s whole day/world domination scheme.

    Rip’s big anti-Stardust plan is to use a wind generator to blow him into something called a “glue pit” which I put in quotes only because I don’t know what it actually is – it gets name-checked several times during the course of the story but never actually comes into play. Given Golden Age naming conventions I’m not willing to just assume that it’s a literal pit full of literal glue – it could be anything from that to a cave with a giant slug in it.

    Rip-the-Blood’s associates get off surprisingly lightly for Stardust foes, being sent to some sort of private prison near Polaris, but the man himself is tossed from a cliff to his death. I personally would have involved the much-discussed Glue Pit, but who am I to judge a weird enormous spaceman?

  • 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.