The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: kidnapper

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 689: THE MAN-MONSTER OF LONDON

    (Pep Comics 005, 1940) 

    The Man-Monster of London, aka Monk, doesn’t actually play that big a part in the plot of this Bentley of Scotland Yard story. I mean, he’s in a lot of it, but he doesn’t have a lot of volition of his own. In brief, the Rajah of Inrak (which is probably meant to be an Indian province or kingdom and not a whole country of its own) is in London to discuss some sort of treaty with the government of the UK and a fellow named Remek has been hired to prevent this meeting from taking place and the Man-Monster works for him. He’s very much the most spectacular part of the whole affair but he’s not really driving the action.

    The Man-Monster and Remek both end up being gunned down in self defense by Inspector Bentley and it’s honestly more sad than anything else – we never really get any idea of what Monk is exactly (some sort of mutant? a member of some isolated community of superhumans? just a big strong guy dyed green?), but whatever he is he clearly cares for Remek and doesn’t seem like he really chose to be a superhuman goon.

    ADDENDUM: If you bothered to read that text panel above you might have noticed that one of the potential suspects was the Prime Minister, as in the Prime Minister of England, who I assume was included purely because they were short on named characters for the suspect list this issue. This is him: not precisely Sir Neville Chamberlain (who would’ve just resigned as this issue was being put together) but close enough.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 678: AMNOZO

    (National Comics 003, 1940) 

    Cyclone is an extremely minor Quality Comics future spaceman hero of the year 3000 who, in National Comics 001, participates in a competition between the planets of the solar system to see which one gets to colonize the newly discovered planet Vito. He wins of course, and the remainder of his four appearances are spent dealing with various threats to the new colony, including at least one civilization native to the planet, because colonialism. Do they leave once they realize that the planet is not, in fact, free real estate? Reader, they do not.

    But enough interpreting space opera through a historical lens, check out Cyclone’s sky skis, possibly the greatest personal flight device in the history of sci fi: little planes that you strap to your feet! And as a bonus, what is possibly the most appetizing food pill I have ever seen.

    Cyclone’s explorations are interrupted when he and his paramour Joy Sue Mary stumble upon an ancient, Ancient Egyptian style tomb, remnant of yet another civilization endemic to this uninhabited, ready-to-colonize planet. Even more troubling: the tomb’s occupant is not a mummy but Amnozo, a living man! He’s been waiting for people to show up so that he could… rule them? It’s a bit unclear.

    What is clear is that Amnozo is pulling the classic Creep’s Gambit of attempting to kill off the male protagonist so that he can capture and “romance” (or in this case “marry”) the female protagonist – we’ve seen it all a thousand times before. This is however a very nice rendition of the crushy room style of deathtrap.

    Amnozo fold like a house of cards once Cyclone’s troops show up to see what happened to him, despite a last-ditch attempt to roast them all with sick blue flame. What an achievement: waiting 4000 years only to end up rotting in whatever repurposed woodshed Cyclone’s colonial government is using as a jail just because you couldn’t not be a horrible creep to the first woman you saw.

    Also: does Amnozo’s loincloth not have a back?

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 013

    Progress! Science! 

    It’s blood that this nameless inventor wants, blood to make his super fuel! Too bad for him that he chose to steal it from US Marine Strut Warren because he ends up extremely dead for his efforts (and the world remains dependant on fossil fuels. Thanks, Strut). (Fight Comics 003, 1940)

    Professor Pierre Villon, refugee from the Paris Medical Academy, has set himself up on a tropical island to further his scientific research into making human/animal hybrids. His method of acquiring test subjects by knocking aircraft out of the sky with an engine killing ray attracts the attention of Chip Collins of the Skull Squadron, and Villon ends up perishing at the hands, claws and teeth of his own creations. (Fight Comics 008, 1940)

    Professor Gustoff’s one interest is in administering his mutagenic fluid to people to turn them into “weird creatures”, aka bald guys with webbed hands and feet.He sets his sights too high when he tries to creaturize South Sea adventurer Shark Brodie and ends up beat up and presumably in some sort of colonial penal system. And the worst part? The poor weird creatures aren’t even fully amphibious – they all end up drowning. (Fight Comics 009, 1940)

    This is Dr Wratt, who lives on an isolated island populated by hypnotically controlled man-apes. He kidnaps Kaänga’s love interest Ann Mason for what I can only assume are weird creep reasons, based mostly on the fact that Wratt’s outfit consists of a short lab smock and nothing else. (Jungle Comics 002, 1940)

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 013

    Progress! Science! 

    It’s blood that this nameless inventor wants, blood to make his super fuel! Too bad for him that he chose to steal it from US Marine Strut Warren because he ends up extremely dead for his efforts (and the world remains dependant on fossil fuels. Thanks, Strut). (Fight Comics 003, 1940)

    Professor Pierre Villon, refugee from the Paris Medical Academy, has set himself up on a tropical island to further his scientific research into making human/animal hybrids. His method of acquiring test subjects by knocking aircraft out of the sky with an engine killing ray attracts the attention of Chip Collins of the Skull Squadron, and Villon ends up perishing at the hands, claws and teeth of his own creations. (Fight Comics 008, 1940)

    Professor Gustoff’s one interest is in administering his mutagenic fluid to people to turn them into “weird creatures”, aka bald guys with webbed hands and feet.He sets his sights too high when he tries to creaturize South Sea adventurer Shark Brodie and ends up beat up and presumably in some sort of colonial penal system. And the worst part? The poor weird creatures aren’t even fully amphibious – they all end up drowning. (Fight Comics 009, 1940)

    This is Dr Wratt, who lives on an isolated island populated by hypnotically controlled man-apes. He kidnaps Kaänga’s love interest Ann Mason for what I can only assume are weird creep reasons, based mostly on the fact that Wratt’s outfit consists of a short lab smock and nothing else. (Jungle Comics 002, 1940)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 642: QUEEN OF THE WEED PEOPLE

    (Fight Comics 002, 1940)

    After spending so long with Sub Saunders in the far-off year 10 000 it’s a bit strange to detail an undersea menace that he isn’t battling but here we are and our focus is present-day adventurer Kinks Mason, who sets out with nothing but a helmet that extracts oxygen from seawater to solve the mystery of just where all these missing ships have been getting to and ends up discovering an underwater civilization of seaweed people.

    (I really like the Weed People, as they are referred to in the text a couple of times – their krinkly kelp frond aesthetic is very pleasing to me. It’s quite different from the look of Kozar’s Sea-Weed Men but I enjoy them in a similar fashion. Just something about humanoids made of seaweed, I guess)

    Weed Person society is dependent on a giant whirlpool-powered chlorophyll manufacturing plant. Just where this infrastructure came from and how the Weed People existed without it is not elaborated upon – did their primitive ancestors subsist on naturally occurring chlorophyll or spend their days basking in the sun photosynthesizing and then completely abandon that lifestyle once some unnamed Weed Person genius created the machine? Plausibly!

    Chlorophyll isn’t just the Weed Person staff of life, however. It also turns humans into Weed Creatures, which, though they look and are named similar to the Weed People are in fact distinct and who serve as slaves of the Weed People in their bid to take over the world.

    The Weed People and their Queen have made the crucial mistake of not being genre savvy enough to know that any lone adventurer, particularly one with an action hero-y name like Kinks Mason, should be killed immediately and they end up dead for their trouble. Specifically, Kinks goes ahead and blows up the chlorophyll machine, dooming all Weed People society to extinction. Hopefully there’s some hipster Weed Person subculture on the fringes of society still harvesting chlorophyll in the ancient ways because it tastes better, if only for the sake of Kinks Mason’s conscience.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636: THE SERPENT LADY

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636: THE SERPENT LADY

    (Fantastic Comics 012, 1940)

    We open on Mephisto, the Dreaded Poison Serpent, attacking a small boat and making off with its inhabitants. For a split second I am excited – maybe this is our long-sought criminal animal! – but then I remember the lessons I learned from Cephalopoda the Octopus and rein myself in.

    And it’s a good thing I did, for Mephisto is a mere tool of the mysterious Serpent Lady, who lives in a golden city in an undersea cave and rules over a population of bald creeps who need blood to live. Maybe? It’s possible that they just like blood. Either way, this is why she has been using her cool snake to kidnap surface dwellers: their delicious blood.

    Sub Saunders will not stand for blood theft in his god-given ocean. He slays Mephisto and a fair few bald-headed creeps but leaves the Serpent Lady alive and at liberty. Will she be returning? I read ahead a bit and yes she will!

    UPDATE 1941

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636: THE SERPENT LADY

    (Fantastic Comics 012, 1940)

    We open on Mephisto, the Dreaded Poison Serpent, attacking a small boat and making off with its inhabitants. For a split second I am excited – maybe this is our long-sought criminal animal! – but then I remember the lessons I learned from Cephalopoda the Octopus and rein myself in.

    And it’s a good thing I did, for Mephisto is a mere tool of the mysterious Serpent Lady, who lives in a golden city in an undersea cave and rules over a population of bald creeps who need blood to live. Maybe? It’s possible that they just like blood. Either way, this is why she has been using her cool snake to kidnap surface dwellers: their delicious blood.

    Sub Saunders will not stand for blood theft in his god-given ocean. He slays Mephisto and a fair few bald-headed creeps but leaves the Serpent Lady alive and at liberty. Will she be returning? I read ahead a bit and yes she will!

    UPDATE 1941

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 622: PROFESSOR SIMM

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 622: PROFESSOR SIMM

    (Fantastic Comics 009, 1940)

    We open on a very exciting scene! Professor Simm has unleashed giant monsters on an unnamed US city! Chaos reigns!

    I unironically love these monsters. They have that half-baked quality that you get in generic kids toys – the kind of thing you got as a cheap way for your parents to occupy you on a trip and because they have no built-in lore you end up inventing a whole backstory for them. That picture of the humanoid reptile standing next to the giant anthropoid would be on the packaging.

    Having front-loaded a lot of positivity (one last dollop: look at the cavemen riding away on the creatures! It’s very cute!) I must now reveal that this is a pretty bad comic book adventure. I don’t know what was going on at Fox Features in mid-to-late 1940 but they were wildly swapping writer/artists in and out of serials – this very issue features both a Stardust the Super Wizard and a Space Smith story drawn by someone other than Fletcher Hanks!

    While this is a minor problem in terms of narrative consistency – this is as far as I know the only time that Samson it depicted as being three times taller than an average human, for example – it also feels like the story was put together in haste or as the third or fourth thing on someone’s mind. Nothing quite hangs together – Professor Simm starts out demanding control over the US government and later is purely interested in money, for example.

    Once Samson makes his way to Simm’s island castle the story becomes a series of loosely connected vignettes: Samson finds a cage full of cavemen and gets inside, only to immediately leave again. Samson finds a room full of prisoners and skeletons and frees the prisoners. Samson confronts Simm, who escapes. Samson frees more prisoners. Samson kills Simm. It could all be assembled into a coherent plot but very much is not.

    That said, it certainly is a comic full of incident, such as this scene in which Samson sets off a volcano to destroy all the monsters (and hopefully not the prisoners. Hopefully they escaped off-panel) and flies away on a giant bird.It just doesn’t all hold together as a narrative. Things can only get more coherent as we make our way through the Golden Age, right? (SPOILER: not necessarily)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 622: PROFESSOR SIMM

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 622: PROFESSOR SIMM

    (Fantastic Comics 009, 1940)

    We open on a very exciting scene! Professor Simm has unleashed giant monsters on an unnamed US city! Chaos reigns!

    I unironically love these monsters. They have that half-baked quality that you get in generic kids toys – the kind of thing you got as a cheap way for your parents to occupy you on a trip and because they have no built-in lore you end up inventing a whole backstory for them. That picture of the humanoid reptile standing next to the giant anthropoid would be on the packaging.

    Having front-loaded a lot of positivity (one last dollop: look at the cavemen riding away on the creatures! It’s very cute!) I must now reveal that this is a pretty bad comic book adventure. I don’t know what was going on at Fox Features in mid-to-late 1940 but they were wildly swapping writer/artists in and out of serials – this very issue features both a Stardust the Super Wizard and a Space Smith story drawn by someone other than Fletcher Hanks!

    While this is a minor problem in terms of narrative consistency – this is as far as I know the only time that Samson it depicted as being three times taller than an average human, for example – it also feels like the story was put together in haste or as the third or fourth thing on someone’s mind. Nothing quite hangs together – Professor Simm starts out demanding control over the US government and later is purely interested in money, for example.

    Once Samson makes his way to Simm’s island castle the story becomes a series of loosely connected vignettes: Samson finds a cage full of cavemen and gets inside, only to immediately leave again. Samson finds a room full of prisoners and skeletons and frees the prisoners. Samson confronts Simm, who escapes. Samson frees more prisoners. Samson kills Simm. It could all be assembled into a coherent plot but very much is not.

    That said, it certainly is a comic full of incident, such as this scene in which Samson sets off a volcano to destroy all the monsters (and hopefully not the prisoners. Hopefully they escaped off-panel) and flies away on a giant bird.It just doesn’t all hold together as a narrative. Things can only get more coherent as we make our way through the Golden Age, right? (SPOILER: not necessarily)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 612: QUEEN IZZUKI

    (Fantastic Comics 006, 1940)

    The eminent scientist Dr Chandler is being held in Amazoland, home of the Amazons! The extremely diplomatic Captain “Ugh!” Kidd sets out to rescue him! 

    This is another one I might have skipped over if not for a couple of remarkable things, the first being that the poorly-named Amazon homeland seems to be just a country, somewhere in Asia if all the references to the Amazon’s eyes being almond-shaped (that’s not how Captain Kidd puts it, of course) are anything to go by. Are they just another lost jungle civilization and I’m reading too much into things or does Amazoland have a seat at the UN in a decade or so?

    The second thing is that this may be the least a character has sexualized a society of scantily-clad women in all of fiction. I’d blame it on the 40s obsession with male vs female roles but Captain Kidd doesn’t really say anything about that so I assume he’s just too racist to be attracted to Asian women.

    Queen Izzuki turns out to be an older woman who is obsessed with regaining her lost beauty and so has captured Dr Chandler to perform plastic surgery on her. Captain Kidd turning up is a bonus: free husband!

    Captain Kidd was already against this whole situation but the prospect of having to marry an old woman (an old Asian woman!) really galvanizes him. He does let Dr Chandler get shot with an arrow (fired by Izzuki, who’s not some layabout queen who doesn’t know how to shoot an arrow at someone) but he’s mostly okay afterward. They escape and Amazoland has to consider more conventional ways of attracting a plastic surgeon, like paying for their education in return for a certain number of years of service.