(Blue Beetle Comics 005, 1940) Scrag attempts to extort (New) York City using remote controlled bombers – not a terrifically unique plan but he’s just so gleeful about his evil that I love him. Blown up while battling the Blue Beetle.
(Blue Beetle Comics 004, 1940) It’s fairly unsupported right now as the only other example of a crossdressing villain so far is the Coin, but trust me when I say that an older woman adopting a younger male identity for crime is a comparative rarity as compared to the opposite. I may find myself compelled to note all of the times that non-super gangster types do it, just to lend weight to my claims. Anyway, the Black-Robed Man. Runs a…
(Blue Beetle Comics 004, 1940) Blitz: by far the best thing about this probably-meant-to-be-German spy is his collection of henchmen, who include a maniacal dwarf and Ax, who is somewhat unsurprisingly obsessed with his signature weapon. Love a henchman who goes all-in on their bit.
(Blue Beetle Comics 003, 1940) A lot of these early Blue Beetle villains are real basic so I’m not even going to bother with the questions. Mastermind of Crime: very good hood, attempts to take over NYC York City, turns out to actually be the civic reformer who has been raising a stink over all this organized crime all over the place.
(Blue Beetle Comics 002, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? In thinking about this question I realized just how close comic book-style organized crime comes to supercrime to begin with and that Boss X represents the bare minimum of extra oomph required to make the leap to the super-villain designation: the name and the fact that he works out of a secret underground lair on an island.
(Batman Comics 004, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? I’ve already stated multiple times that pirates get a free pass. Old-timey cosplay pirates get double marks. What is interesting about them? Blackbeard is actually a frustrated former actor turned gang boss, and if you don’t think that I don’t want more of that in comics you don’t know me very well. Bring back Blackbeard and make him a method actor.
(Batman Comics 003, 1940) The Ugliest Man in the World, AKA Larry Larrimore, was originally Carlson, a college student who was accidentally injected with a weird fluid during a frat hazing gone wrong. His face mutated and deformed, he lost his friends, fiancĂ© and frat and vowed revenge. Years later, having developed a version of the uglification drug which also rendered its victims’ minds pliant he embarked on a campaign of revenge against both those who had deformed and rejected…
(Batman Comics 003, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? The Puppet Master controls the minds of men via drug-assisted mental compulsion. He even mind-grabs Batman for a while – surely a villainous feat. What makes them interesting? Aside from the brief end-run on Batman’s mind, the most interesting thing about this guy is I think he’s supposed to be a Cossack? His goons are certainly Cossacks. Have we lost a whole set of cultural signifiers about Cossacks or is this…
(Batman Comics 002, 1940) Batman’s first Jekyll/ Hyde style villain is Adam Lamb, a meek museum curator who gets bonked on the head while reading a murder mystery and thereafter heads out at night to cause mayhem as crimelord the Wolf. Batman eventually figures out that his crimes are following the sequence of those in the book and the Wolf’s career ends with a second, fatal head bonking.
(All American Comics 021, 1940) An old man who lives in a cave outside of Calvin City, the Emperor of America takes a bunch of Al “the Atom” Pratt’s classmates prisoner as potential mind-controlled minions. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that he already has a cadre of identical huge men in his employ he might be more believable as a delusional hermit than a credible threat – and since he never actually gets to demonstrate his mind control…