MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 117: THE SKULL
(Mystery Men Comics 015, 1940) Yet another crypto-Nazi spy/saboteur with a skull face operating in the US, but this one has an electron-gun! SKULL SCORE: 5/5 full skull; full marks.
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 116: THE SKULL
(Mystery Men Comics 014, 1940) Once more we meet a Skull, and this time he’s a supposed-to-be-a-Nazi-but-it’s-1940-so-we-won’t-actually-say-it who spends his time bombing bridges in the Blue Beetle’s eventually-just-going-to-be-New-York-City-but-we’re-still-pretending-it-isn’t-for-some-reason. SKULL SCORE: 2/5 Pretty skully for an actual human but this is comics we’re talking about. You’re going to have to shave off that glossy black hair if you want to get ahead in this game.
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 115: THE LIGHT
(Mystery Men Comics 011, 1940) I just really appreciate the low-effort mystique that can be generated by sitting behind a bright light in a dark room. Of course, nothing prevents a foe from shooting into the light at roughly leg-height, as Lt Drake of Naval Intelligence demonstrates in this story, so perhaps the bright light shouldn’be your only line of defense should you choose to use it.
MINOR SUPER-HERO 016: THE MOTH
(Mystery Men Comics 009, 1940) The Moth might just be the platonic ideal of a certain kind of super-hero. Specifically, the kind that would be equally likely to show up for three issues during the height of the Golden Age hero boom and also in a super-hero parody any time from the 60s to today. I sincerely think that if I spent an afternoon looking through every issue of normalman and What The-! and so forth that I could find (or if…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 114: THE WEATHER KINGS
(Mystery Men Comics 010, 1940) It’s the Moth vs. the Weather Kings, the very definition of a great name wasted on some run-of-the-mill weather controlling chumps and really I’m only bringing them up to roundly condemn the wasting of such a good name on such jabronis. The only good thing about them really, is that they’ve remained unused for more than 80 years so the name is basically up for grabs.
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 113: RAYMOND RALL
(More Fun 062, 1940) Look at this damn nerd. He’s got a lightning cannon and a robot army and he bothered Dr Fate for a whole afternoon. Good riddance to him, I say. Raymond Rall. Ridiculous.
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 112: THE CRIME LORD/ THE BRAIN
(More Fun Comics 062, 1940) An early iteration of the classic tale of a brain that is freed of its cranium and becomes both powerful and EVIL, originally just a man named Dexter with a skeletal system and all the organs, he then became a mysterious shadowy figure named the Crime Lord as he directed his minions toward an eventual takeover of the US. Upon being freed from his bell jar, the Crime Lord became the rapidly-expanding Brain, who similarly…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 111: THE SPECTRE
(More Fun 061,1940) Impersonating and framing a super-hero is not an uncommon thing to do, but Gustav Gilroy took the added step of adopting his target’s identity as his own in his campaign of turning his enemies to gold via chemical-laced free gum samples. Gilroy also faced the Spectre in the first year of his career and so didn’t really comprehend just how bad his choice of scapegoat was – the only surprising thing about his end is that he…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 110: THE NORNS
(More Fun Comics 060, 1940) Here’s the thing about these guys: they probably aren’t the Norns and they probably don’t call themselves the Norns. They’re three giant purple guys who hang out in a cave in the Catskills and send a flying saucer full of little green guys to attack NYC, ostensibly to conquer it. But! Earlier in the story: … Dr Fate is reading a book about the Fates when Inza comes to tell him about the saucer attack,…
MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 109: XNON
(More Fun Comics 060, 1940) Xnon is a guy I like. He lives an an extradimensional orb/city and seems to spend his time traveling from world to world looting and conquering, if his behavior on Earth is taken as an example. Then again, he seems to have recruited all of his henchmen from the Cliffland, New Jersey underworld so maybe this was his first outing as a transdimensional overlord. What can be said for certain is that Xnon (no idea…