It’s time for more mad and criminal scientists! Round ’em up! The fantastically-named Doctor Evecloud has a plan: shrink everyone else on the planet so that he, the only big person, will be in charge. As so often happens, one of his first guinea pigs is a super-hero, in this case the Shark. Things end poorly for Doctor Evecloud. (Amazing-Man Comics 016, 1940) This fellow is Dr Scowl and so far we’re sitting at 2/2 great scientist names. Dr Scowl…
(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…
(Big 3 002, 1940) Obviously the most remarkable thing about Porky Hogg is that he looks like a pig-man but more than that he is a pig-man who has a real gift for motivation and teambuilding. These gangsters are worked into a dang frenzy over the prospect of killing the Blue Beetle – I’m pretty sure they killed that guy in the third panel! – if Porky Hogg had the real Beetle on hand during this little rally they might…
(Big 3 001, 1940) There are a couple of interesting things about Dr Blood but I’ll be honest: it’s mostly the name. Great, over the top villain moniker, Dr Blood. Furthermore, Dr Blood runs a costumed gang called the Inner Crime Ring, which is not nearly as good a name as Dr Blood but still better than an unnamed collection of gangsters. What Dr Blood is a doctor of is hard to say. The Inner Crime Ring has access to…
(Big 3 001, 1940) Here’s the thing about Borgo: they call him the Mirror Murderer in the opening blurb and then never do so again, even though he kills several people using mirrors. It’s a good name and I’m sad that I can’t justify using it so I’ll keep this short. Borgo’s got one goal in life and that’s to kill the five scientific James Brothers, seemingly because one of them fired him for stealing radium. Is it rational to…
I used up all the tags on the first one. Honours: Dick Cole gets the Carnegie Hero Fund Medal for saving a baby and a shirtless lunatic (Blue Bolt v1 001, 1940) Dick Cole also saves the Princess of the fictional European nation of Dania from pseudo-Nazis and is awarded the Danian Order of the Exalted Knight for his efforts. (Blue Bolt v1 012, 1941) Sub-Zero saves the city of Centro from a volcano and gets a banquet in his…
(Amazing-Man Comics 011, 1940) Zardi, Prince of Zandipore, the Eternal Man. The immortal guy is a fun character type that is usually assigned to villains, presumably because someone with endless knowledge and resources will prove a challenge to even the most seasoned of heroes. Plus they can have inscrutable long-range goals! In Zardi’s case, he just wants to have a good rest (reasonable as he is upwards of 15 000 years old) but will rouse himself to combat evil using…
(Amazing-Man Comics 005, 1939) The Great Question is a member of the Council of Seven, the mysterious body of scientists and mystics who trained and orphan boy into John Aman aka the Amazing-Man. The inner dynamics of the Council of Seven can be a bit hard to parse but early on it seems like the Great Question is if not in charge at least an unofficial leader. Later, as he has more and more conflict with Amazing-Man that role is…
GENERIC! COSTUMED! VILLAINS! It’s not much of a costume but this dude named Marmi does manage to use a trained cobra to steal a huge ruby before the Radio Squad gets him, which is a feat. (More Fun Comics 072, 1941) It’s possible that this fellow was meant to have a name but he never managed to say it over the Green Mask’s relentless mocking of his costume. He’s munitions magnate August Mincer, who has no obvious ties to Nazism…
(Amazing-Man Comics 018, 1940) Mighty Man here encounters the Master Mind by following a group of clearly mind controlled criminal types to his secret lair and from there to what turns out to be an assassination attempt on an ex-cop and his daughter. It turns out that the Master Mind is a victim of my least favourite fictional trope that is also a thing that happens frequently in real life: cops shooting fleeing suspects in the back. This fellow actually…