The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: mad science

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 074: DR TOGG

    (Adventure Comics 057, 1940)

    Yet another Hourman science-villain. Dr Togg was really into hybridizing dogs and buzzards in various fun ways. Such a cool guy was he, in fact, that he was brought back as an ancillary character in the 90s Hourman series, himself mutated into a partial dog/buzzard in a retconned final encounter with Hourman before he was sent to prison.

    Thinking about him (and fellow Hourman foe Iker in about 50 entries or so), has made me realize just how much I love the concept of the reformed mad scientist with their struggles to comprehend scientific ethics and their weird little mutations and leftover minions. A few recent Marvel series have featured the concept but I would still consider it to be underutilized.

    There’s our guy.


  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 073: DR SLIGHT

    (Adventure Comics 056, 1940_

    Dr Slight is similar to Dr Snegg, in that he is a scientist-villain with a method for bringing inanimate statues to life for crime purposes who is stopped by Hourman. But Dr Slight brings *plaster* statues to life, not wax ones.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 073: DR SLIGHT

    (Adventure Comics 056, 1940_

    Dr Slight is similar to Dr Snegg, in that he is a scientist-villain with a method for bringing inanimate statues to life for crime purposes who is stopped by Hourman. But Dr Slight brings *plaster* statues to life, not wax ones.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 071: DR SNEGG

    (Adventure Comics 051-052, 1940)

    Snegg’s your classic villain who can’t handle the thought of revising a plan. In his first appearance he animates a trio of crime boss statues from a wax museum to serve him as henchmen and then, having been foiled once by Hourman, he tosses the whole idea of animated wax out the window to indulge in hypnotism-based crime. If he hadn’t died in a car accident he might be thinking up new implausible schemes to this day.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 062: QUETZAL

    (Action Comics 023, 1940)

    Quetzal’s actual motivations are unexplored in his encounter with the Three Aces, but his methods – living in a lost Aztec city and using a fleet of remote controlled planes piloted by zombies to destroy anyone who approaches – are fairly indicative of a villainous turn of mind. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 062: QUETZAL

    (Action Comics 023, 1940)

    Quetzal’s actual motivations are unexplored in his encounter with the Three Aces, but his methods – living in a lost Aztec city and using a fleet of remote controlled planes piloted by zombies to destroy anyone who approaches – are fairly indicative of a villainous turn of mind. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 045: DOCTOR DEATH

    (Whiz Comics 002, 1940)

    Kind of a generic evil scientist type – he invents a ray that can restore the dead to life but must kill folk in order to test it – but his name is James Kirk, so that’s fun!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 037: THE GORILLA KING

    (Action v1 019, 1939)

    Classic mad scientist stuff here: work out a revolutionary technique to transplant human brains into gorillas and then aim no higher than sending your gorilla-men out on horseback to plunder Mexico. Blows himself up, as per the above image.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 034: THE ICE MENACE

    (Action v1 015, 1939)

    Just a regular sort of science villain with a regular sort of plan: create a heat ray cannon and use it to ransom the world by melting the ice caps. Derailed and frozen solid by Zatara after a mere few flooded cities. Actually, that would be a neat way for him to come back: thawed out by global warming.

    Occasionally a clear super-villain is unnamed in the course of a story and I have to go by something they are referred to in captions. The Ice Menace always feels like one of those to me but I think they actually call him that during the story? Wild.