The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: extortionist

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 588: THE MASK

    (Exciting Comics 004, 1940) 

    Famed Broadway star Sandra Cummings is dead, either by her own hand or anothers’, and she has for some never explained reason left behind a note detailing the extent of political corruption in NYC and more importantly naming the names of those involved. This note is immediately stolen and soon afterward someone pretending to be the Mask starts extorting and murdering those named in the note.

    I’ve said it before: impersonating a super-hero is completely understandable move. It’s easy to disguise yourself as someone in a mask and your average comic book cop is so dumb and gullible that they would arrest the Pope if they found a dead body with a note reading  “I did it – the Pope” next to a red shoe. You get to trade on your target’s reputation and maybe have them arrested or killed – win/win!

    Of course, there are many downsides to this plan, and the Mask impostor fails to think of all of them. For a start, any masked vigilante worth their salt will never be caught by the cops. As has been established, they are very dumb! Also – and I cannot stress this enough – if you are going to frame and ultimately attempt to kill a super-hero it is a very good idea not to choose one who kills people. Because they will probably kill you.

    The fake Mask turns out to be Dr Lawrence Reid, a guy who just kind of shows up an makes a lot of noise about things. If he has any deeper motivations (other than to get real paid) he does not bother to reveal them before the real Mask guns him down like a trademark infringing dog.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 581: HENRY SHORT

    (Cyclone Comics 005, 1940)

    Henry Short is a pretty middling super-villain (it’s been a particularly dry stretch of comics, what can I say) but he certainly has the confidence for the major leagues. He’s a guy who lives in a castle so nice that it is pointed out by tour guides but who pays a hundred bucks a year in taxes and when local treasury agents come around to inquire about this he openly threatens to put them in the hospital. This is a bad idea, by the way! Governments may be famously okay with rich people avoiding taxes through means like legal loopholes but straight-up refusing to pay is a surefire way to bring the hammer down on yourself.

    And that’s without adding in the fact that Short’s business model is extorting rich people by threatening to turn them insane with a special chair. You especially have to pay your taxes if you’re a criminal, man! That’s how they got Al Capone!

    All in all, Henry Short is lucky that all he got was a butler to the head. Getting caught by a super-hero has to be better for your prison reputation than being pulled in by the IRS, right?

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 549: THE GREEN LIZARD

    (Smash Comics 004, 1939)

    The Green Lizard is a Floridian crook who specializes in extorting wealthy men and then kidnapping them when they fail to pay. This is the sort of thing I’ve spoken of before and will again: it absolutely makes sense to adopt a colourful identity like this if you’re a criminal in a super-hero universe, even in the not-exactly-a-rich-and-interconnected-tapestry Quality universe of 1939, with stories of the Clock or Bozo the Iron Man trickling out of New York. Heck, maybe it makes more sense in such a case: the costumed crook is a thing of the crime-ridden metropoli and suddenly it’s here, in our swamp-adjacent gated community! I’m surprised that those millionaires didn’t pay up immediately.

    The Green Lizard of course doesn’t reckon with the fact that the more millionaires he targets, the more likely a super-hero is to show up. And indeed John Blaine, his latest target, is pals with Kent “the Invisible Hood” Thurston!

    Please note also that the Green Lizard signs his note with a little lizard drawing.

    It’s been a while so I don’t recall if this is a recurring theme in Invisible Hood stories but the Green Lizard’s henchmen experience some real cosmic horror at the idea of an invisible man that is easy to mock but on reflection quite relatable. I would probably freak out too!

    I appreciate the simplicity of the Green Lizard’s costume but must say that his mask while fine aesthetically looks absolutely miserable to wear. Like, it’s either got to be held down so firmly that it’s crushing his nose or so loosely that it flaps around every time he speaks. 

    The Invisible Hood disposes of the Green Lizard with little trouble despite the horrible mud floors in his swamp lair showing off the Hood’s location via his footprints. The millionaires are saved! The henchmen all get blowed up with the HQ!

    But who was the Green Lizard? Would you be surprised to learn that it was John Blaine’s green-suited butler from before? Neither was I! Though looking again it does appear to be two different green suits and I would call that a… questionable affectation for an incognito super-villain with the word “Green” in his name to have.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 540: THE WILL-O-WISP

    (Silver Streak Comics 001, 1939)

    As we open, simply everyone’s worried about the Will-o-Wisp, a mysterious crook who shows up at crime scenes and steals what other crooks were about to make off with. The police chief looks bad because he can’t catch the Will-o-Wisp! The gangs are mad because they keep getting robbed by the Will-o-Wisp!

    The Will-o-Wisp’s big mistake comes when he butts in on the mugging of Neal Carruthers III, aka Mister Midnite, which of course arouses his interest. I guess you could argue that that wasn’t precisely a mistake because the Will-o-Wisp didn’t know that he was making it, but what about the fact that his next move was to extort the police chief for $50 000? Even without knowing that the chief and Neal Carruthers were friends that’s just plain playing with fire.

    Mister Midnite of course crashes the cash handoff and manages to figure out the Will-o-Wisp’s secret: that he is not in fact a small ball of light capable of speech but a very gutsy ventriloquist who just saunters up and takes the loot while his victims are distracted by a light on a fishing line or some other apparatus. It’s a bold, bold plan, with one huge point of failure: the first time someone looks away from the light and says “who’s that guy?” you’re screwed.

    Speaking of “who’s that guy?”, one thing that never gets resolved is who exactly that guy is. I assume that he’s meant to be an unknown outsider but thanks to the ambiguity of the simple art combined with the spot colouring everyone looks very similar to one another. I honestly can’t say if one of the cops or crooks introduced in other scenes are supposed to also be the Will-o-Wisp. 

    All we can do is wait for someone to do a gritty reboot of Mister Midnite and give us a satisfying Will-o-Wisp origin (dark sorcerer who gained the ability to gorily eject a glowing orb from his nasal cavity in exchange for the souls of the innocent, I assume).

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 540: THE WILL-O-WISP

    (Silver Streak Comics 001, 1939)

    As we open, simply everyone’s worried about the Will-o-Wisp, a mysterious crook who shows up at crime scenes and steals what other crooks were about to make off with. The police chief looks bad because he can’t catch the Will-o-Wisp! The gangs are mad because they keep getting robbed by the Will-o-Wisp!

    The Will-o-Wisp’s big mistake comes when he butts in on the mugging of Neal Carruthers III, aka Mister Midnite, which of course arouses his interest. I guess you could argue that that wasn’t precisely a mistake because the Will-o-Wisp didn’t know that he was making it, but what about the fact that his next move was to extort the police chief for $50 000? Even without knowing that the chief and Neal Carruthers were friends that’s just plain playing with fire.

    Mister Midnite of course crashes the cash handoff and manages to figure out the Will-o-Wisp’s secret: that he is not in fact a small ball of light capable of speech but a very gutsy ventriloquist who just saunters up and takes the loot while his victims are distracted by a light on a fishing line or some other apparatus. It’s a bold, bold plan, with one huge point of failure: the first time someone looks away from the light and says “who’s that guy?” you’re screwed.

    Speaking of “who’s that guy?”, one thing that never gets resolved is who exactly that guy is. I assume that he’s meant to be an unknown outsider but thanks to the ambiguity of the simple art combined with the spot colouring everyone looks very similar to one another. I honestly can’t say if one of the cops or crooks introduced in other scenes are supposed to also be the Will-o-Wisp. 

    All we can do is wait for someone to do a gritty reboot of Mister Midnite and give us a satisfying Will-o-Wisp origin (dark sorcerer who gained the ability to gorily eject a glowing orb from his nasal cavity in exchange for the souls of the innocent, I assume).

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 501: THE DEAD HEAD GANG

    (Blue Bolt v1 002, 1940)

    Just a simple costumed extortion gang, but I really dig their skull masks if not their habit of killing the extortees regardless of whether they pay up or not. Too bad for them that Sergeant Spook was on the case.

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 008

    Mad or criminal, it’s the science that matters.

    This fellow is known only as “the hypnotist” and has an unspecified plan to do… something that involves taking control of flights of Army bombers and having them blow up targets of his choosing. If the details seem thin on the ground it’s because this fellow speaks precisely three words (see above) before being captured by Jeff Cardiff, Spy-Chief and so the only knowledge we have about his plans is that which can be extrapolated from his actions.

    Bonus details: 1. he hypnotizes people with his large purple eyes 2. his plan requires a video hookup to the planes he is controlling, which I personally did not know was standard or even possible in 1940. (Big Shot Comics 008, 1940)

    De Carva here developed an earthquake causing ray and almost managed to conquer the US with it but made the classic mistake of trusting in his deathtraps to finish off Skyman without bothering to confirm if he was, in fact, dead. This is known as hubris, kids. (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

    Professor Scorp here is a mad Egyptologist! That’s right, folks, we’ve got a mad social science case on our hands! Scorp suffered some sort of breakdown and his family made the unfortunate and retrograde decision to confine him on their island estate rather than, say, seek treatment for him. Eventually, two unscrupulous servants helped him escape as part of a plan to steal and resurrect the mummy of evil pharaoh Tut-Akum-Aut so as to learn the location of his legendary lost treasure. The reanimated mummy above is sadly merely an illusion conjured by Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians. But on a happy note, Professtor Scorp is taken somewhere for proper treatment at the end of the story! (Big Shot Comics 015, 1941)

    UPDATE: Astonishingly, Professor Scorp returns in The Face 001!

    This is Humpy Hudson, who has a moderately foolproof scheme (develop a substance that explodes the air around it but is itself unharmed and make it an innocuous shape, thus giving yourself a hard-to-spot, untraceable bomb, then bomb utilities until you can extort money out of them) hampered by some poor planning (he only has one reusable bomb and he made it in the shape of an onyx statuette). Humpy spends most of the issue trying to get his bomb back after it gets picked up by a youngster and sold at a pawnshop, then gets captured by Skyman. (Big Shot Comics 019, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 499: NELS LAMBERT

    (Big Shot Comics 017, 1941) 

    Like a lot of Skyman’s enemies Nels Lambert is a disaster causing guy. Specifically, he has a rig called an Electrical Wave Generator, with which he can create waves – presumably of all sizes but as he is a criminal scientist he’s mostly focused on the largest and most destructive ones.

    A note on naming: the Electrical Wave Generator is an okay name at best but he does refer to his base here as Nels Lambert’s Floating Island and I personally choose to believe that that is it’s official name because it’s extremely whimsical..

    Like our old friend the Ice Menace, Nels Lambert’s plan is to weaponize the ocean and demand ransom from nations bordering the Atlantic in return for not being flooded. And he almost gets away with it, thanks to the fact that the Electrical Wave Generator is a multifunctional doomsday device: not only can it be used to create waves using electricity but that same electricity can be discharged into the atmosphere around Nels Lambert’s Floating Island™ in order to for example very nearly electrocute Skyman and his pal Chubby as they fly in to investigate the source of this wave nuisance.

    And speaking of Skyman’s pal! Chubby Weeks is an old college friend of Allan “Skyman” Turner who ends up going along on this adventure through medium-level plot contrivance. The real interesting thing about Chubby is that he’s a radio news reporter and that according the the callsign in the background of this picture he works at Station WBSC, which is the same station that Tony “the Face” Trent owns and/or works at. This is my first time reading any comics from the Columbia Comic Corporation so I have no idea if there’s any further crossover action in the future but this evidence of a very mildly shared universe is very mildly exciting!

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 007

    The mad scientists are usually up to something criminal, but the criminal scientists are often completely rational.

    Like a fair few of the scientists I speak of here, Dr Hayles here talks a big game but gets caught in the planning stages before he has the chance to prove to the world that he was right all along. In Hayles’ case it was kidnapping a bunch of boys that got him in trouble and operating on young boys’ brains in order to make them geniuses that he never got to prove before he was corralled by Marvelo, Monarch of Magicians. (Big Shot Comics 002, 1940)

    This here Count Alexis fellow is an agent of an unspecified foreign power who employs his extremely cool fleet of giant flying magnifying glasses in an attempt to destroy Boston. This, in turn, will cow the States into serving said unnamed country. It’s a bit of a flimsy plan, especially once you see Skyman beat the tar out of the mere two men operating one of the lenses and using that lens to melt the other four three (almost forgot that he captures two of them, as well as Count Alexis himself) 

    Count Alexis also lives in Vermont and is 100% the only villain on this blog as it currently stands to do so. Congratulations, Vermont! You made it! (Big Shot Comics 007, 1940)

    This unnamed scientist developed a steerable electrically-charged tornado called a “Force-Top” and attempted to extort the US into buying it but got pinched by Jeff Cardiff, Spy-Chief basically as soon as he put his plan into motion. (Big Shot Comics 007, 1940)

    As far as ways to extort the US (in this case into acclaiming Our Villain here as dictator), freezing entire cities solid isn’t a bad way to go, and Norgo goes for some big targets after his initial test freeze of a Florida beach: Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, St Louis and Washington DC. He might have gotten in with a chance if it hadn’t been for Skyman completely owning his plan and unfreezing all the cities in about half an hour – though the fact that he does so by exploding balls of “atomic power” over each city is at least a bit concerning. (Big Shot Comics 008, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 461: THE HOOD

    (Mystic Comics v1 003, 1940)

    The Hood is a dude in a sheet ghost costume who is seemingly the head of an extortion gang targeting bankers and ruthlessly killing any who defy him. And perhaps you’ve noted that “seemingly” and are wondering what it could mean. Well,

    This ruthless banker-murderer… is actually a banker! He’s Willard Thomas and his extortion scheme was a front for a murder scheme that would have left him, the last banker standing, holding the keys to some sort of joint banker bank account. This is an okay plan! I’m not sure what the dismount was going to be because Dynamic Man beat him up before he managed to kill all other local bankers but the Hood definitely put more thought into things than a lot of the jamokes one here.