The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Bucky

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 307: RA THE AVENGER

    (Captain America Comics 008, 1941) 

    Ra the Avenger is actually Henry Sanders, an explorer who discovered and eventually sold the fabulous Egyptian Ruby of the Nile, then dressed up in faux Ancient Egyptian gear to murder all who stood in his way on a quest to steal it back again.

    That is, unfortunately, about all we can say about this guy because he’s one of those fellas who gets punched out and hauled off to jail without really spelling out the Why of their turn to costumed villainy.  An educated guesser might suppose that he sold the gem unwillingly due to some critical need and was determined to get it back. Or maybe the gem holds some sort of  curse that drives him to recover and return it? That’s fun, let’s go with that! It even clears up some of the fuzziness about the distinction between Ra  the god and the pharaoh who was buried with the gem: they must be the same, a magician powerful enough to be conflated with a god and to impose his will on a tomb robber thousands of years in the future. What a cool story I’ve read into this (though a bit of a bleak future for Sanders, possessed and locked up in a US prison)!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 307: RA THE AVENGER

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 307: RA THE AVENGER

    (Captain America Comics 008, 1941) 

    Ra the Avenger is actually Henry Sanders, an explorer who discovered and eventually sold the fabulous Egyptian Ruby of the Nile, then dressed up in faux Ancient Egyptian gear to murder all who stood in his way on a quest to steal it back again.

    That is, unfortunately, about all we can say about this guy because he’s one of those fellas who gets punched out and hauled off to jail without really spelling out the Why of their turn to costumed villainy.  An educated guesser might suppose that he sold the gem unwillingly due to some critical need and was determined to get it back. Or maybe the gem holds some sort of  curse that drives him to recover and return it? That’s fun, let’s go with that! It even clears up some of the fuzziness about the distinction between Ra  the god and the pharaoh who was buried with the gem: they must be the same, a magician powerful enough to be conflated with a god and to impose his will on a tomb robber thousands of years in the future. What a cool story I’ve read into this (though a bit of a bleak future for Sanders, possessed and locked up in a US prison)!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 306: THE FIDDLER

    (Captain America Comics 007, 1941)

    The Fiddler, being a man who can play his violin at special pitches in order to hypnotize or kill, has the dubious honour of being our first super-powered Nazi villain. 

    The Fiddler is an overplanner, no bones about it. His mission in the US is to kill anti-Nazi politicians (specifically senators, or maybe he’s working up  to governors etc). Here’s his process for doing so:

    -become an acclaimed musician with regular radio gigs

    -establish an employment agency for butlers

    -have butlers placed in his victims’ homes

    -have the butlers install music-activated bombs in the victims’ radios while simultaneously fixing it so that the radio can only be tuned to the station that the Fiddler is going to be appearing on

    -hope that the victim will be listening to the radio at the right time

    -hypnotize the crowd at the performance for some reason, play the Melody of Death to trigger the bomb, et voila

    And it works three times! He bumps off two senators, and would have gotten a third if Captain America hadn’t figured out his plan via one of the one million suspicious things about it.

    It’s frankly a mercy that the Fiddler ultimately melts his own brain while trying to kill an earplug-equipped Bucky via sonic attack, because this is the kind of thing that embarrasses you for life.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 305: THE BLACK TOAD

    (Captain America Comics 007, 1941) 

    Here’s the problem with the Black Toad: he looks great. A really top-notch costume, like something Batman would have worn in a stage production in the 30s. No notes. And that’s the only interesting thing about him. He’s a baseball manager who wants to buy into the team and is killing players in order to drive the price down. HO HUM.

    (I guess he does use a bomb hidden inside a baseball at one point. That’s a bit interesting, I suppose)

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: RED SKULL 1941

    (Captain America Comics 007, 1941)

    What was the Red Skull up to in 1941?

    As mentioned in the Red Skull II entry, this here is the real deal bad guy we all know and love to hate, still running around being a total stinker to this day. In-comic there is of course no indication of this, as the decision to differentiate the two was made years later when someone figured that the top Nazi villain worked better as a German guy than an American fascist. Consequently this is a pretty scant Yearbook entry, as most of the Red Skulling for the year was done by another guy.

    Intended or not, this Red Skull has it a bit more together than his semi-predecessor: for one, he has a much creepier mask and has supplemented the red skull calling card with an audible element: Chopin’s Funeral March. AND! He engages with that finest of comic book traditions by wearing a rubberoid mask over his regular mask! Batman eat your heart out.

    As far as actual crimes go… he kills a couple of guys and briefly frames Captain America for kidnapping a General. Mediocre.

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5, just like the other guy. It ain’t gonna change until he melts his face off in… I want to say the early 80s?

    RED SKULL 1941

    BODY COUNT: 2

    END-OF-YEAR STATUS: Presumed dead

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: RED SKULL 1941

    (Captain America Comics 007, 1941)

    What was the Red Skull up to in 1941?

    As mentioned in the Red Skull II entry, this here is the real deal bad guy we all know and love to hate, still running around being a total stinker to this day. In-comic there is of course no indication of this, as the decision to differentiate the two was made years later when someone figured that the top Nazi villain worked better as a German guy than an American fascist. Consequently this is a pretty scant Yearbook entry, as most of the Red Skulling for the year was done by another guy.

    Intended or not, this Red Skull has it a bit more together than his semi-predecessor: for one, he has a much creepier mask and has supplemented the red skull calling card with an audible element: Chopin’s Funeral March. AND! He engages with that finest of comic book traditions by wearing a rubberoid mask over his regular mask! Batman eat your heart out.

    As far as actual crimes go… he kills a couple of guys and briefly frames Captain America for kidnapping a General. Mediocre.

    SKULL SCORE: 3/5, just like the other guy. It ain’t gonna change until he melts his face off in… I want to say the early 80s?

    RED SKULL 1941

    BODY COUNT: 2

    END-OF-YEAR STATUS: Presumed dead

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 303: THE HANGMAN

    (Captain America Comics 006, 1941) 

    There are three big reasons that I like the Hangman:

    1. It’s hard to beat a Golden or Silver Age story that revolves around a group of suspects who might be the villain. Just a series of fun character sketches followed by (in this case) the character’s grisly murder.

    2. The Hangman isn’t actually supposed to be a luchador but he sure does look like one, and that’s one of the top super-hero/ villain looks.

    3. The Hangman is in reality… Dr Nicolai Vardoff, the supposed victim! Always a fun twist. His motivation? People kept bothering him when he was trying to work, so he faked his death and killed all the botherers, plus his best pal Ludwig. What a wacky dude.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 303: THE HANGMAN

    (Captain America Comics 006, 1941) 

    There are three big reasons that I like the Hangman:

    1. It’s hard to beat a Golden or Silver Age story that revolves around a group of suspects who might be the villain. Just a series of fun character sketches followed by (in this case) the character’s grisly murder.

    2. The Hangman isn’t actually supposed to be a luchador but he sure does look like one, and that’s one of the top super-hero/ villain looks.

    3. The Hangman is in reality… Dr Nicolai Vardoff, the supposed victim! Always a fun twist. His motivation? People kept bothering him when he was trying to work, so he faked his death and killed all the botherers, plus his best pal Ludwig. What a wacky dude.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 302: THE FANG

    (Captain America Comics 006, 1941)

    Comics history seems to have taken the Fang as a Japanese agent but I’m pretty sure that as written he’s a Chinese American gang boss who’s working for the Japanese against the Chinese government. Either way, he’s your basic pulp holdover Asian gang boss with swarms of fanatical hatchet-man and a pronounced lack of humanity down to his namesake fangs. Part of me always wants to skip guys like this but they’re just as much a part of comic book history as the Big Wheel or the Hypno Hustler.

    EDIT: Just noticed that he wasn’t even actually technically hired by the Japanese! His employer was “an Asiatic aggressor nation” – Marvel seems to be a bit less inclined to name  and shame them than they were the Nazis.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 301: THE CAMERA FIEND

    (Captain America Comics 006, 1941) 

    The  Camera Fiend is your regular gimmicked-up gang boss who parlays the classic comic book camera gun into a modestly successful career in theft that sees him almost getting away with the British Crown Jewels before being beaten down by Cap and Bucky. He is of course playing off the idea of the rabid photography fanatic from the advent of cheap personal cameras.

    I was going to criticize him for having such a grotesque costume while attempting to do stealth assassinations with a poison dart-firing camera but now that I think of it I guess the point is that the Fiend is so wild in appearance that nobody would suspect  Bucky Barnes’ high school teacher Professor Hall of being the killer in question. I will however critique his choice to attempt to kill Captain America in front of about 20 witnesses as seen above. Still, this is exactly the sort of low-level crook I’m always in favour of being BRUNG BACK, even if it’s a legacy-of-a-legacy-of-a-legacy character: the Camera Fiend begat the Home Movie Murderer begat the Home Movie Murderer II (this time it’s on VHS) begat Selfie Stick or the Gram etc.