The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: mad science

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 855: GORE

    (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

    Gore, a mad scientist, has just escaped from an unspecified facility in an unnamed city in whatever part of Africa that Marga the Panther Woman hangs out, and while I appreciate how he looks like a little scamp while he’s stealing an airplane from Marga’s pal Ted, this young fellow would be heading straight to the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up if not for two fun things that he does and that I want to highlight:

    1. while siccing a gorilla on Marga isn’t the most original thing a villain has ever done I appreciate both that he has trained apes littering the jungle around his compound and that the ever-resourceful Marga just goes ahead and tears out its throat with her teeth.

    2. And speaking of jungle compounds, Gore has one and it’s surrounded by an acid moat, and unlike a lot of other acid moats out there this one actually sees some use, as Gore uses it to gruesomely dispose of his assistant Travers. 

    Gore’s real goal in escaping was to take revenge on that unnamed city for having the gall to lock him up. It’s no acid moat, but his long-range water evaporation ray is pretty fun, and stealing the city reservoir is a both more restrained and effective a way to harm a city than many we’ve seen.

    Acid, gorillas and ray cannons or not, Gore is still a weedy little nerd, and there’s only so long that he can get away with not being beat senseless by Marga the Panther Woman and shipped back to the Unnamed City Insane Asylum. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 855: GORE

    (Weird Comics 009, 1940)

    Gore, a mad scientist, has just escaped from an unspecified facility in an unnamed city in whatever part of Africa that Marga the Panther Woman hangs out, and while I appreciate how he looks like a little scamp while he’s stealing an airplane from Marga’s pal Ted, this young fellow would be heading straight to the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up if not for two fun things that he does and that I want to highlight:

    1. while siccing a gorilla on Marga isn’t the most original thing a villain has ever done I appreciate both that he has trained apes littering the jungle around his compound and that the ever-resourceful Marga just goes ahead and tears out its throat with her teeth.

    2. And speaking of jungle compounds, Gore has one and it’s surrounded by an acid moat, and unlike a lot of other acid moats out there this one actually sees some use, as Gore uses it to gruesomely dispose of his assistant Travers. 

    Gore’s real goal in escaping was to take revenge on that unnamed city for having the gall to lock him up. It’s no acid moat, but his long-range water evaporation ray is pretty fun, and stealing the city reservoir is a both more restrained and effective a way to harm a city than many we’ve seen.

    Acid, gorillas and ray cannons or not, Gore is still a weedy little nerd, and there’s only so long that he can get away with not being beat senseless by Marga the Panther Woman and shipped back to the Unnamed City Insane Asylum. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 850: DR MORTAL

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 850: DR MORTAL

    (Weird Comics 001, 1940)

    Dr Mortal, in contrast to his fellow Weird Comics character the Sorceress of Zoom, is your typical comic-headlining super-villain, in that he is a mad scientist with an obsession with making monsters. Like most of his ilk, Mortal is opposed by a heterosexual couple of upstanding moral character, and in his specific case they are his niece Marlene Mortal and her lover Gary Brent (as Marlene’s surname is never actually given in print, I’m just making an assumption that it is also a Mortal, because I want it to be). Dr Mortal’s main distinguishing characteristic is that thanks to his eyebrow/mustache/skin droopiness he kind of looks like he’s melting.

    Some 1940 Dr Mortal highlights:

    In his first appearance, Dr Mortal is up to some basic mad scientist stuff: he is kidnapping and mutating people into big gobliny guys called the Monster Men. He is of course mind controlling these Monster Men to serve him, but it’s not very good mind control, as can be seen above as it is broken by Gary Brent. Dr Mortal seemingly dies in a fire but actually just scuttles out the back door.

    Weird Comics 002 sees Dr Mortal rebuilding, with the aid of his faithful assistant Salvo, and includes the immortal line “Now, Salvo – get me the lion entrails!!”

    Just what are the lion entrails for? Why, to create Lion-Men, of course! And what are the Lion-Men for? Why, to terrorize the countryside to no stated end, of course! They just kind of rampage around, smashing up local farms.

    Whatever the reasoning behind this, it ends up backfiring on Dr Mortal, as when Gary Brent shows up to rescue Marlene (and here I must say that any time that Marlene Mortal is not explicitly mentioned one can safely assume that she has been captured by Dr Mortal and is about to have something terrible happen to her) he is able to round up an armed group of farmers with relative ease, and it turns out that the Lion-Men are less effective against pitchforks and shotguns than they are against isolated farmsteads. Dr Mortal supposedly dies in a fire for a second time, and for a second time he’s just fine.

     

    Weird Comics 003 is one of those off-model appearances that you get in longer Golden Age series and especially in Fox Features comics, that could either be a different artist taking over for one issue or a comic intended for another character with a few minor edits. My money’s on the latter, but only because Marlene keeps calling Dr Mortal “father” instead of “uncle” throughout.

    Whatever its provenance, this story features Dr Mortal in a pretty straightforward “I’ll show ’em all!” revenge scheme in which he is creating a robot with a human brain and the terrific name “Jaque the Super Automaton.” After an interruption by Gary and Marlene, Jaque goes rogue and beats up Dr Mortal before setting his sights on the world at large.

    Poor Jaque meets his end at the barrel of a ray gun, while for the first time Dr Mortal is carted off to jail instead of seeming to perish.

    Dr Mortal shows some flexibility in Weird Comics 004, as he plays on the tremendous 1940s obsession with class to lure Gary and Marlene into a trap. He convinces the two of them that he has turned over a new leaf by surrounding himself with beautiful, high-class people who he has made in his lab. Called “Pseudo-Socialites” at least once, these are in my opinion Dr Mortal’s greatest creations.

    Mortal invites Gary, Marlene and a few other people who he presumably has beef with to a dinner party liberally stocked with Pseudo-Socialites, then excuses himself and uses a beam to revert his creations to their true, monstrous forms. It’s a great little plan, spoiled only by the fact that Gary Brent manages to electrocute all the monsters and capture Dr Mortal.

    Weird Comics 005 sees Dr Mortal experimenting with mind transferral and is mostly concerned with a poor ape who has been injected with the memories of a dead man. Oh, that poor ape.

    Any mad scientist worth their salt eventually gets into shrinking people and Weird Comics 006 is Dr Mortal’s shrinking phase. He of course uses this technology in an attempt to get revenge on Gary and Marlene and is immediately betrayed and shrunk by his own butler Kalak, forcing the three tiny enemies to team up against him.

    All of this revenge-based science must have drained Dr Mortal’s cash reserves, because Weird Comics 007 features him charging rich middle-aged people big bucks in order to transfer their minds into young, attractive bodies. As per usual, Mortal shoots himself in the foot by attempting to get revenge on Gary and Marlene and the whole scheme falls apart, leading to the deaths of all the old rich body snatchers. 

    Of particular note is the lady above, who just wants to have her mind placed in the body of Marlene Mortal and ends up in the body of a gorilla instead. And then Marlene shoots her dead. 

    (important note – Gary and Marlene only know about this scheme beacuse he calls them and tells them to stay away. They didn’t even know he was alive!)

    Weird Comics 008 features another mad scientist classic: giant insects, which Dr Mortal releases after the police take their first-ever on-panel interest in him and attempt to raid his laboratory. Hearkening back to the old days, this one ends with Mortal seemingly dying as his lab explodes.

    This is of course not the end, and Weird Comics 009 sees Dr Mortal in the South Pacific. He abducts men from nearby islands to test his devolution ray on, but is foiled when Gary and Marlene (who just happen to have been vacationing in Waikiki) rally the local police to raid his yacht.

    That’s it for Dr Mortal in 1940, but don’t worry, he wasn’t really eaten by sharks. We’ll see this rascal again in 1941.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 804: THE MAD SCIENTIST OF HELL’S KITCHEN

    (The Flame 003, 1940)

    The Mad Scientist of Hell’s Kitchen is a, you guessed it, mad scientist who has developed one of the classic serums, giving him the option to turn into a huge and super strong ape-man with a simple injection. Of note is the fact that this is not a Jekyll and Hyde situation, as the Mad Scientist and his alter ego the Beast appear to be merely physically and not mentally distinct. Also of note: though the Beast is described as “shaggy” at least once, he appears to in fact be completely hairless.

    After the Beast murders the eminent surgeon Doctor Brown, the Flame takes the time to check in on Brown’s only known enemy, the Mad Scientist of Hell’s Kitchen, and spots the Beast emerging from his warehouse/laboratory.

    Though the Beast hands the Flame’s ass to him and then goes out and kidnaps a young woman while Our Hero lies senseless in the gutter, he picks himself up, dusts himself off and continues the investigation. The Mad Scientist of Hell’s Kitchen does a really phenomenal job of deflecting the Flame’s immediate suspicion with his “I’m the only one here and I’m certainly no beast” routine, but then goes and spoils it all by injecting Beast Serum and transforming into the creature directly in front of a window.

    (just a little demonstration of both the Beast’s level of super strength and the Reverse C panel structure, popular in the early Golden age and always infuriating)

    Ultimately, though the Beast proves tough enough to shrug off the Flame’s fists, and walks away from a collapsing building, he isn’t quite invulnerable enough to resist the force of an extremely tall bit of public art. Once caged, the Beast quickly reverts to the form of the Mad Scientist of Hell’s Kitchen and the city is once again safe for its doctors.

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 015

    They can’t help themselves and/or they’re choosing to be horrible.

    Dr Zynnon has been asked along to help Dr Curan, his daughter Sandra and protagonist Buzz Crandall in their mission to prevent the Moon from exploding, presumably dooming us all. This turns out to be a Bad Choice, because unbeknownst to all, Dr Zynnon harbours a deep misanthropy and would love nothing more than for the world to be doomed.

    Despite the fact that I love not being scoured from the face of the planet by hurtling lunar debris I must give Zynnon credit for one of the most adorable doomsday devices ever conceived of: tiny moon lizard carrying vials of acid powerful enough to bring down the roof of the lunar cavern the bulk of the adventure takes place in. Powerful enough, that is, if they were delivered to the correct location. Which they weren’t, presumably because Zynnon didn’t bother to train or condition them in any way and just let loose as many lizards as he could smuggle onto the moon bathysphere under his coat. In the end, the only casualty of Zynnon’s plot was Zynnon himself. (Planet Comics 004, 1940)

    Tobor the Evil is a Plutonian scientist who has been using an army of child-sized robots to steal Martian gold, with the end goal of conquering Mars and making it a Plutonian territory. With the help of Captain Nelson Cole of the Solar Force, he learns two important lessons about fielding robot armies: 1) don’t leave robot shells that can be repurposed into armour by your foes just lying around, and 2) if your robots have an “indiscriminate murder” setting, make sure to build in a failsafe that excludes yourself from the list of viable targets. (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

    Von Dorf, a mad physiologist and asylum escapee, was so singularly obsessed with the hybridization of humans and panthers that he kidnapped a nurse and turned her into Marga the Panther Woman. It’s likely that he would have his own numbered entry on the Minor Super-Villain list if literally the only other things he ever did weren’t a) get his ass kicked and b) blow himself up. Truly being part of an origin story is the most hazardous job in comics. (Science Comics 001, 1940)

    Dr Passendorf here managed to perfect the quite respectable criminal science inventions of a mind control device and a paralysis ray and then had to lower himself to using both in the employ of a shifty Wall Street jerk named Augustus Elba who needed to cover up some light embezzlement. Just as well that he ends up riddled with shrapnel after the Eagle blows up his machine – the roasting at the next Criminal Science Convention would have been severe. (Science Comics 005, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 720: DR DOOM

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 720: DR DOOM

    (Science Comics 001, 1940)

    Dr Doom, another super-villain with his own series (I swear that they’re rare over all but 1940 sure is a fertile year for them), lives in an unspecified future and is your classic mad science polymath, as demonstrated by his various schemes:

    In his very first outing, Dr Doom decides to do some extreme testing of his latest formula and uses it to shrink Jan and Wanda, two otherwise-nondescript youths who just happen to also be his recurring nemeses going forward. They escape of course and, after defeating a crab and regaining their former size, haul him back home to Jupiter with them to face justice.

    Of course Dr Doom also escapes and makes his way back to his laboratory. His next two schemes are also shrinking-based: in Science Comics 002 he kidnaps people (including Jan and Wanda) and forces them to battle insects to the death, while Science Comics 004 sees him shrinking Jan and Wanda’s home city of Daru on Jupiter to use as his personal playground. This adventure ends with Doom himself shrunk and on display in a museum of oddities, an event which seems to put him off the field of shrinking entirely going forward.

    In Science Comics 005, Dr Doom unleashes cosmic ray mutations from the depths of the Grand Canyon in a bid to conquer the US. Also the Grand Canyon is expanding for some reason? This is perhaps the most incoherent Dr Doom story and ends with his equipment just exploding out of nowhere.

    The shock of his last scheme failing so thoroughly seems to have had a profound effect on Dr Doom, because at this stage he enters his “revenge on humanity” period. To that end, in Science Comics 006, he develops and unleashes the Grey Mold Disease and sets it loose on the world until he is forced to reveal the antidote by Jan and Wanda when they threaten to inject him with the even more deadly Green Mold Disease.

    Next, in Science Comics 007, Doom uses a magnetic ray in an attempt to throw the entire Earth off its orbit and into the Sun, but misjudges the gravity on his planetoid base and goes flying off into space himself while fleeing from Jan. As always there is no word on how he gets out of this seemingly inescapable doom, but this is the one I’m most curious about.

    Science Comics 008 is a bit of a break for Dr Doom, as he settles down in Long Island with his amazing screaming robot Lodi. Attempting to wipe out humanity is pretty hard work, so Doom and Lodi are taking it easy by merely blasting various humans into a hostile alternate dimension filled with cannibalistic ogres. 

    (this and the previous story also appear to be set in or around 1940, which likely means that they were either a) repurposed from some already-finished art or b) produced by someone who didn’t particularly care about continuity. See also: Jan and Wanda going from space adventurers to reporters for the New York Daily Star)

    Dr Doom’s appearance in Big 3 001 is another stab at destroying humanity, as he facilitates a Venusian invasion by producing deadly mists. Two notes about this one: 1) the Venusians are amazing looking little weirdos and 2) his attempted revenge on Jan and Wanda by making them but not their potential offspring immune to the mists so they must wander alone through a dead world is harsh as hell.

    Dr Doom’s final appearance (and only appearance in 1941) in Green Mask 004 involves him attacking passing space shipping from a base on Uranus. It’s a bit of a ho-hum scheme to go out on, but at least it features some weird little homunculus creatures that Doom makes out of cats. More villains need more little critters around just kind of being moderately useful.

    In a lot of previous adventures Jan and Wanda haul Dr Doom off to prison or just kind of leave him to rot in whatever bombed-out laboratory they just escaped from but this is the one where they genuinely attempt to kill him by bombing his lab from orbit. It’s pretty understandable after all of the trouble he’s caused them, but they don’t bother to confirm the kill and so we leave Dr Doom alive and stranded on Uranus. Did he ever get out of there to vex them again? We can never know.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 709: RACKO

    (Prize Comics 002, 1940)

    Though he went unnamed in his first appearance, this tonsured fellow is Racko, alien magic man Jupiter’s most enduring foe at a whopping three encounters. Racko’s first outing involved a classic pyramid scheme structure as he sent mutated green humans with horn noses out into the New York streets to kidnap more humans to turn into more minions, and so on until he controlled the world. Ironically, this might be a slightly more ethical version of the typical pyramid scheme, as his minions were under no illusions that they might eventually become wealthy if they sold enough tights or what have you.

    A bunch of what turns out to be fairly dim-witted minions is just not enough to contend with a magic-using alien super-hero, even when bolstered by a paralysis ray cannon, and Racko is forced to restore his henchmen to human form before seemingly taking his own life via some handily exposed wires.

    Racko fans need not despair, as it turns out that he survived! His new plan: drain all of the reservoirs that supply NYC until the Governor of New York is forced to bow to his demands for some ray gun plans and the Governor’s daughter Joan.

    (just why the Governor has these plans is not explored in the text, so we must assume that they are associated with the office. A gubernatorial death ray, as it were)

    Perhaps in an overreaction to the poor showing that his monsterized henchmen put on in his last scheme, Racko uses the death ray on his own men after they secure it for him. They probably wouldn’t have offered much assistance when Jupiter and his pal Jim Johnson show up at the volcano base immediately afterward, but even a useless henchman can serve as a distraction. As it stands, Racko ends up falling to his death in the depth of a volcano that is subsequently blown up by Jupiter. Gone for good, I’d say.

    racko

    I have called it too soon, as Racko is in fact not dead yet again and is taking another pass at world conquest, this time by launching “boulder storms” from his hideout at the South Pole, and here I think that I have some constructive criticism for him: mad science or no, attempt to conquer the world or no… stop attacking New York City first. You’re sitting at the South Pole, man – chuck a few boulders at Australia to test out your equipment before you do the thing that you know will attract Jupiter’s attention because he live in New York.

    Jupiter sails through Racko’s defenses as easily as ever, despite the best efforts of some unaligned ice dragons, and the third time proves to be the charm as far as blowing him and his entire operations to smithereens with alien magic goes. Good by Racko;

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 709: RACKO

    (Prize Comics 002, 1940)

    Though he went unnamed in his first appearance, this tonsured fellow is Racko, alien magic man Jupiter’s most enduring foe at a whopping three encounters. Racko’s first outing involved a classic pyramid scheme structure as he sent mutated green humans with horn noses out into the New York streets to kidnap more humans to turn into more minions, and so on until he controlled the world. Ironically, this might be a slightly more ethical version of the typical pyramid scheme, as his minions were under no illusions that they might eventually become wealthy if they sold enough tights or what have you.

    A bunch of what turns out to be fairly dim-witted minions is just not enough to contend with a magic-using alien super-hero, even when bolstered by a paralysis ray cannon, and Racko is forced to restore his henchmen to human form before seemingly taking his own life via some handily exposed wires.

    Racko fans need not despair, as it turns out that he survived! His new plan: drain all of the reservoirs that supply NYC until the Governor of New York is forced to bow to his demands for some ray gun plans and the Governor’s daughter Joan.

    (just why the Governor has these plans is not explored in the text, so we must assume that they are associated with the office. A gubernatorial death ray, as it were)

    Perhaps in an overreaction to the poor showing that his monsterized henchmen put on in his last scheme, Racko uses the death ray on his own men after they secure it for him. They probably wouldn’t have offered much assistance when Jupiter and his pal Jim Johnson show up at the volcano base immediately afterward, but even a useless henchman can serve as a distraction. As it stands, Racko ends up falling to his death in the depth of a volcano that is subsequently blown up by Jupiter. Gone for good, I’d say.

    racko

    I have called it too soon, as Racko is in fact not dead yet again and is taking another pass at world conquest, this time by launching “boulder storms” from his hideout at the South Pole, and here I think that I have some constructive criticism for him: mad science or no, attempt to conquer the world or no… stop attacking New York City first. You’re sitting at the South Pole, man – chuck a few boulders at Australia to test out your equipment before you do the thing that you know will attract Jupiter’s attention because he live in New York.

    Jupiter sails through Racko’s defenses as easily as ever, despite the best efforts of some unaligned ice dragons, and the third time proves to be the charm as far as blowing him and his entire operations to smithereens with alien magic goes. Good by Racko;

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 708: SOPHUS, THE MAD PHILOSOPHER

    (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

    Once again an adventure begins that most classic sci-fi way: Buzz Crandall and his gal pal Sandra are noodling around in space when they run smack into something, in this case a crystal sphere that houses the secret headquarters of Sophus, the Mad Philosopher.

    I couldn’t tell you what school of philosophy Sophus subscribes to, but it’s one with an intellectual framework that encompasses a) turning other humanoids into mist and keeping them in bottles and b) freaking people out of their gourds by flinging them through a time portal into a crazy abstract weirdscape. Since Sophus is mad, perhaps he’s just taking a philosophy dedicated to helping other improve themselves way too far? Or maybe he took a Philosophy 101 class in university and decided that that was all he needed to be insufferable about his evil interests forever, who knows.

    As Sandra is flung into the timestream and Buzz attempts to rescue her, we get a passable rendition of 1960s Dr Strange-style psychedelia, only in the 1940s. It’s pretty neat, though it does make me pine for what will eventually be.

    Sophus is eventually undone not by the heroes of our story but by his own jerk nature, as his villainous cackling over Buzz and Sandra’s doom is delicious-sounding enough to draw the attention of the Elipticoon, a “giant time entity” that was about to devour Sandra but instead opts for a delicious and attention-grabbing philosopher. All the jarred people are set free, the end.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 697: THE CREATURE

    (Planet Comics 002, 1940)

    Having defeated the evil Sarko, Flint Baker and his crew are ready to head home to accept their accolades as the as-fas-as-anyone-knows first humans to land on Mars, when word comes from Princess Viga that the city of Ru is facing yet another deadly threat. This time it’s a giant four-armed primate that attacks three times per year and hauls Martians away to an uncertain and terrifying fate. Will Flint Baker help them? Of course he will!

    It’s a daunting beast to be sure, and it compounds the danger by immediately grabbing Princess Vigo and Baker Expedition stowaway-turned-crewmember Mimi, but Flint proves the old adage true once more: no matter how big you are or how many arms you have, you’re not walking away from a rocket ship to the mouth.

    I suppose that the old saying was only partially accurate in this case, actually, because the monster does walk away from the scene, if only to die elsewhere. Baker and his crew must pursue on “rocket-propelled degravitation pods” (i.e., pogo sticks).

    Arriving at the monster’s location, Baker and his men find that it is indeed dead, but also that it was not some wild creature with a periodic appetite for Martians but the creation of a little green guy with a big head. The Creature! Which, yes, is almost certainly not what they call themself but “the creature” is basically the only thing that is used to identify them in the caption boxes so I’m going with it.

    Not only does the Creature reveal that they were the creator of the monster, but that the beast was in fact made out of the kidnapped Martians! And they’re making another one! Just how many Martians were being kidnapped, and for how long?

    (this is honestly a pretty great slow burn horror concept that was certainly out of the realm of 1940 comic book storytelling: people start disappearing, nobody knows how or where, and then after a couple of years someone sees a creature grabbing someone. And then every time it comes back, it’s a bit bigger or has another limb, etc. Ideally the reveal comes while the beast is still alive, via DNA sequencing or something like that)

    Honestly, the Creature is an amazing villain. A bombastic weirdo living in a cave and making a monster out of people? Terrific. But also, they are super strong and invulnerable to ray gun blasts that destroy everything around them. Who is this little creep and why are they living in a cave making monsters?

    Sadly, though the Creature might have been immune to ray gun technology they were still susceptible to a good old fashioned sock on the jaw. Flint and his compatriots leave the Creature behind to be blown up with the rest of the laboratory in the obligatory final explosion – a sad end for a terrific antagonist.