The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: revenge killer

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 980: THE WERE-WOLF

    (Four Favorites 001, 1941)

    Lash Lightning is one of those characters who is so very powerful that he outclasses all regular human opposition, barring some extraordinary circumstance. That’s why a movie-style, immune-to-all-harm werewolf is a perfect foil for him!

    The story of the Were-Wolf begins c.1921 (or possibly 1911 – accounts vary!), when Sumter Military Academy student Adolph Krimetz, sick of being bullied and nicknamed “Wolf” because of his unusual appearance, attacks a fellow student and accidentally kills him. Fearing official reprisals, Krimetz flees into the wilderness, where he remains for the next twenty (or thirty!) years. 

    Eventually, Krimetz decides to get revenge on the men who bullied him at school, as he blames them for his exile from society. He is emboldened in his quest by the fact that at some point in the intervening years he discovered that his childhood nickname was ironically close to the truth, because he is in fact an actual werewolf!

    Krimetz’s particular style of lycanthropy is worth noting here: he transforms into something approaching a fully canine form, but only in his upper body, meaning that he technically remains humanoid. It’s a wild look, particularly when paired with his homemade fur kilt and footwraps. As the Were-Wolf, Krimetz is super strong, able to travel long distances in a series of super-jumps and is completely immune to all harm – presumably excepting harm caused by silver, but this is never really brought up.

    Starting with his old classmates Generals Andrews and Johnson (and Johnson’s daughter Joan, filling the role of damsel in distress), Krimetz proceeds to kidnap at least sixteen people. Like fellow revenge-seeker the Master, he seems to be compelled to assemble all of his potential victims before killing any of them, and like the Master this ultimately backfires on him. Krimetz, at least, has a motive beyond revenge for doing so, as he plans on torturing military secrets out of his enemies so that he can sell them to the highest bidder.

    Before doing any of that, however, Krimetz sets out to destroy Sumter Military Academy, the scene of his childhood humiliations. Since he has captured Lash Lightning and is thus leaving him alone with all of his prisoners, this is effectively a recipe for their escape. Having freed everyone, Lash rushes off to prevent the bombing.

    While Lash might be incapable of harming the Were-Wolf, it turns out that a big old lightning bolt can compel him to turn back into a human, and a human is very vulnerable to, for instance, being punched headlong onto a barrel of TNT and exploding.

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: either 0/16 or 0/216+ if we’re including all of the military school kids he also failed to murder.

    BUT WAIT:

    Even though the Were-Wolf is clearly exploded at the end of his first appearance, he does not in fact die. He returns in Four Favorites 002, still obsessed with revenge but directed against the US military in general, rather than the specific people and institutions who harmed him in his youth. To that end, he derails a troop train that is travelling across the Midwest, and goes on to attempt similar acts against an army convoy and some troop-transporting aircraft

    A lot of the dramatic focus of this issue is taken up by the plight of Old Mike Jasper, the railway switchman who Krimetz frames for the derailment and who is almost convicted for the crime a mere one day later despite the fact that a) the case against him is extremely circumstantial and b) much of it is based around a general skepticism of his claim that a werewolf did it, never mind that a werewolf just kidnapped more than a dozen high-level army officers and is currently out there sabotaging military transports. Old Mike has a terrible lawyer, is what I’m implying.

    Krimetz is jailed for the mass murdering, but he will return for a further two appearances in 1942! 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 962: THE MASTER

    (Exciting Comics 015, 1941)

    The
    Master is a mysterious new crooks who has been going around town kidnapping wealthy men,
    and the Black Terror and Tim have been running around after him and
    trying to figure out just what the heck is going on. The Master is also a classic Bad Boss in the “ruthlessly kill your minions” mould.

    As it turns out, the Master has broadly the same origin story as early Batman villain the Ugliest Man in the World,
    only instead of a medical student who was injected with a random
    cocktail of drugs and turned ugly in a frat hazing gone wrong, he is
    instead a chemistry student who was exploded by a random mixture of chemicals in some frat bullying gone
    wrong. Like his counterpart, the Master (aka Alfred Foster, aka Phillip
    van Allen) dropped out of sight, acquired a rubberoid mask and
    established a new identity so that he could enact his revenge on those
    he blamed for his disfigurement.

    Unlike the Ugliest Man in
    the World, the Master’s theming is not strong. He himself is vaguely
    Egyptian themed, while his henchmen are just a bunch of Malaysian guys who he does not treat very well.

    The
    Master’s plan also revolves around gathering up his tormentors so that
    he can kill them all at once, meaning that his revenge goes almost entirely unfulfilled when he is accidentally
    killed by one of his own men. All in all a very poor foray into super-villainy.

    Revenge Killer Score: 0/12

    Categorized in: Accessories (Rubberoid Mask), Generica (Masters), Origin (Extensively Scarred Face)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 952: WOLF CARSON

    (Daredevil Comics 006, 1941)

    Wolf Carson, gang boss, is in the hospital after being gunned down by his own traitorous associates. Faced with a choice between 1) dying of his wounds or 2) recovering so that the authorities can scoop him up and take him to jail, Carson takes the ever-popular option 3) take the nearby unethical doctor up on his offer to help cheat death via experimental science, in this case a total brain transplant!

    True to his word, the never-named doctor digs up Carson’s corpse that night and extracts its brain, then in a feat of pure super science (particularly given the state the brain must been in after sitting in a corpse for 12+ hrs) transplants it into…

    … A WOLF BODY! Now, just why the doctor chose to do this is never actually stated but I have a couple of theories that boil down to either him doing so as a way to control Carson with the promise of a human body later etc or doing so because he was a terrible guy with a bad sense of humour. Either way, he pays for his choice of donor body with his life. In retrospect, I reckon that his mistake was in leaving Carson unrestrained and then pissing him off severely.

    With nothing else to live for, Carson turns to revenge as his motivation and systematically hunts down the members of the gang that betrayed him. Each murder is accompanied by a trademark “death howl,” which I am counting as a calling card.

    Major complication: Carson has been found, mistaken for a regular dog and taken in by Bart “Daredevil” Hill’s fiance Tonia Saunders, which means that a jealous wolf is now after both Bart and the Daredevil and also Tonia once she realizes just where her dog has been sneaking off to at night. 

    Wolf or not, Carson is no match for the Daredevil and is soon captured. In a rare addendum, we get to see the villain’s trial (and please note the use of the term “brain wolf” to describe him in that newspaper headline – I dearly wanted to use that as his villain name but it’s clearly being used as a description of what he is rather than a moniker). Bart Hill actually manages to put two and two together and determine that the wolf is Carson, upon which the judge sets what I personally would consider a troubling precedent for a super-hero universe by ordering that the brain wolf be summarily sent to the pound and put down. I mean, I’m not a lawyer but that seems bad – some super-intelligent ape c.1976 is going to have to go to the Supreme Court to argue that he shouldn’t be summarily destroyed over a parking ticket.

    Revenge Killer Score: 4/7 (counting Bart and Daredevil as two separate targets)

    Categorized in: Animals (Wolves), Murder (Revenge Killers), Origin (Human Brain in Animal Body) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 946: THE GHOUL

    (Silver Streak Comics 017, 1941)

    Here’s the thing about the Ghoul, aka “the Most Dangerous Madman of All Time”: he’s a stock character, the basic 1940s idea of the homicidal madman. He does have an obsession with collecting dead bodies as part of his attempts to restore the dead to life – hence the name – but he’s otherwise very regular.

    There are, however, several interesting things to note in the Ghoul’s appearance:

    First is the fact that the Daredevil’s initial encounter with the Ghoul is said to have occurred “a few years ago,” which is of course very interesting considering the fact that the Daredevil had at this point been operating for almost exactly one year. The reason for this discrepancy is twofold: 1. the history of a comics character is by no means tied to the dates that their adventures are published and 2. nobody involved in the production of this comic expected a pencil-necked geek like me to be counting up dates on his fingers eighty-odd years later. Fun stuff!

    Secondly we get to see Daredevil just haul off and institutionalize the guy. I don’t know if this was as easy in real life as in fiction, but it’s always weird and horrifying when it happens in a comic.

    Once the Ghoul escapes (because of course he escapes, what kind of story would it be otherwise?) Daredevil heads out to find him, but he in turn has come to Daredevil’s house to get the jump on him. Just how does he know where Daredevil lives (and by extension who he is)? This is not explored. In the absence of his enemy, the Ghoul instead grabs Daredevil’s fiance Tonia Saunders.

    Tonia is taken to the Kingdom of the Ghoul (an overgrown island with a cave on it) in the Haunted Lake (a regular lake) and menaced with an oversized axe, but the Daredevil is hot on their trail.

    The Ghoul, for all his reputation, is taken out just a quickly as he was the first time he and Daredevil clashed. Honestly, his entire career as a homicidal maniac has involved the killing of one (1) one man, a cemetery watchman who he beans with a shovel. I just don’t know if he deserves to be locked up in an asylum for the “Hopelessly Insane” rather than treated in a more conventional manner. Oh well: it’s back to the asylum once more.

    Revenge killer score: 0/2

    Categorized in: Accessories (Islands), Murder (Homicidal Maniac, Revenge Killer), Supranormal Beings (Ghouls) 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 919: THE WEREWOLF

    (Cat-Man Comics 005, 1941)

    There are three remarkable things about the story of the Werewolf. The first is that it finally establishes that the city that the Pied Piper operates out of has a name and that it is Central City – this both a nice thing to have cleared up and a fun coincidence, given that the other comic book Pied Piper, the Flash villain, also lives in a place with that name. 

    The second thing is just how clearly and concisely the Werewolf’s motivation is: he was bitten by a werewolf while in Tibet some ten years earlier and he blames his colleagues, Doctors Martin and Smith, for not treating him properly and thus not preventing his eventual transformation. Specifically, Arno becomes filled with murderous vengeance when he realizes that his gnarled werewolf hands are no longer capable of performing brain surgery.

    Thirdly is this story’s treatment of lycanthropy. Among the points of interest:

    – Arno is bitten c. 1931 but does not transform until ten years later. 

    – Just what the “werewolf” that bit him in Tibet is is unclear. It’s probably meant to be a man-beast of the type that Arno himself has turned into, but 1940s comics also commonly refer to vampire bats as vampires and this has made me gunshy. 

    – Speaking of man-beasts: like the other Werewolf we have encountered, Arno is much more man than wolf. I’m sure that over time we will be able to identify trends in the morphology of comic book lycanthropes.

    – Arno treats his condition as if it is permanent, but the action of the story takes place over the course of two days, meaning that the full moon (implied to be the trigger for the initial transformation) has not yet passed. Presumably Arno did not turn back during the day or he might have been a bit less murderous about the whole thing.

    – On that note, it’s a bit unclear how much of Arno’s homicidal inclination is revenge and how much is werewolf insanity. 

    Though the Pied Piper is unable to prevent the Werewolf from murdering Dr Martin, he is able to track him to the abandoned lighthouse that he has holed up in and learn Arno’s motivation. The Piper’s magical instrument proves not only able to subdue a crazed wolfman but also to exert enough sheer musical force to bring the building down on his head to end his reign of terror.

    In the end, the Pied Piper and Dr Smith decide that the Werewolf was not wholly to blame for his crimes and conceal Arno’s involvement in them, meaning that Dr Ralph Arno is just kind of Famously Missing.

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/2

    Categorized in: Accessories (Lighthouse), Day Jobs (Brain Surgeons), Supranormal Beings (Lycanthropes)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 918: THE BLACK PANTHER

    (Cat-Man Comics 004, 1941)

    The district attorney of Central City, the NYC clone that the Pied Piper inhabits, has been murdered by what the authorities can only conceive of as a beast! The city is in a real tizzy, especially once Police Commissioner Gurry receives a note informing him that he will be the next victim (and the cute little signature on this note is why I am calling this villain the Black Panther when it is not used elsewhere in the story – if we can’t go by what he calls himself then what’s the point?).

    True to his word, the Black Panther shows up at the Commissioner’s office at 10:30, and sics his small-b, small-p black panther on him (I know it looks white in the above panel but trust me). It is only the timely intervention of the Pied Piper that saves the day.

    Though the initial attempt failed, the Black Panther is nothing if not persistent and tries again once the commissioner gets home – I guess the police assumed that the scheduled 10:30 murder was some sort of hard and fast rule that the villain was going to stick to and so they all knocked off for the day once it didn’t happen. It’s all groovy though, because the Pied Piper is still on the case and his magic flute has a “panther-killing” setting. And his fist has a “villain-punching” setting that comes in handy when the Black Panther makes a third attempt on the Commissioner’s life sans pet.

    Once unmasked, the Black Panther turns out to be newspaper editor Purt Mason, and Purt Mason is revealed in turn to be gangster Razor Harris, who spent some time in South Africa while establishing his new identity (and acquiring a panther pal) and came back for revenge on the men who put him away. The Black Panther was a revenge killer the whole time!

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/2

    Categorized in: Animals (Panthers), Colours (Black), Murder (Revenge Killers)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 909: THE SPIDER

    (Whiz Comics 022, 1941)

    In what turns out to be Dan Dare’s final recorded case, he is asked to protect a man named Dr Phoebus Weber from being murdered by a mysterious figure known only as the Spider.

    Upon entering Weber’s home, Dan and Carol are almost immediately attacked by the Spider, who I have to give partial credit to for the costume. Sure it appears to have a more beetle-like body plan and the head of a mosquito, but what’s more important is that it has the full eight limbs, including four useless ones hanging off the torso that surely must constantly be in the way. Accuracy be damned, I love a commitment to the bit.

    The Spider also has a third central eye that is supposedly able to emit a hypnotic light, but if it does there is no actual evidence of it in the text. Perhaps Dan Dare is merely a paragon of mental fortitude.

    The Spider’s attempt to kill Dan fails thanks to an over-reliance on a hypnotic eye/ stabbing proboscis combo that he never really manages to pull off and I can only imagine was further hindered by the extra arms. He is unmasked to reveal the in-retrospect-supiciously-named Dr Weber, but that’s not all, because…

    Weber is in turn unmasked to reveal that he is in fact Dan’s old enemy Hypno Harry! This has all been an attempt to kill Dan in revenge for his foiling Harry’s old racket of hypnotizing bank clerks with his gimmicked glass eye, and just imagine the impact that this story might have had if we had ever heard about any of this before the Spider reared his improbable head!

    Still, a costumed crook is a pretty good note for Dan and Carol to go out on after 20-odd issues of solving one mystery after another. Let’s hope that they were finally able to get that vacation. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 890: THE BLACK CLOWN

    (Wow Comics 003, 1940)

    The circus is in town! And in what must be a complete coincidence, a circus-themed villain murders a prominent banker using a python! And did I mention that the circus has a big box full of pythons as one of its attractions? 

    As someone who sincerely enjoys clown- and circus-themed villains despite having no particular affection for either in real life I have to say: do a bit better, the Black Clown. Like, try a bit harder to conceal just exactly who you are. Especially don’t leave a note on the body of the banker you just murdered that basically says “I did this because you didn’t give me, a clown-man, a business loan.” Plausible deniability, man.

    He does have a great Evil Clown costume, though.

    I’ll give the Black Clown this: at least he tries to rob the bank after revenge-killing the banker rather than merely exult in the downfall of his enemy. This robbery is also where we learn that the Black Clown has a whole circus of crime thing going on to match his theme, as he employs a sideshow thin man to slip through the bank’s bars and let the rest of the crew in.

    Though Mr Scarlet interrupts the robbery he is unable to prevent the Black Clown and his crew from escaping, as he is being crushed to death by a python at the time. Or is he? No, he is too strong.  

    The Black Clown next attempts to murder Petrie, the partner of the first victim, but at this point we are firmly in the part of the comic where the hero has the villain in his sights and none of his schemes shall profit. The Black Clown escapes with the help of some acrobats and Petrie lives on to deny loans another day.

    Probably the most interesting thing about this sequence is that the Black Clown gains entrance to Petrie’s apartment via a fellow named Tiny Tom who slips through the transom and opens the door. Given the name and the theme of the gang (and the initial shot of his legs as they slip out of sight) one would expect Tiny Tom to perhaps be little person of some kind, perhaps a sideshow performer, but he’s on-hand throughout the fight in Petrie’s apartment (that’s him in the blue suit) and he’s just about half a head shorter than everyone else. Is it just a particularly rough nickname or did the initial Tiny Tom concept get lost in the shuffle?

    Hearkening back to my initial critique of the Black Clown: it is in fact so obvious who this guy is that Mr Scarlet has to be interrupted twice in two different conversations over the course of three panels rather than learn it too early. And he doesn’t bother to ask Mr Petrie to shout it at him on the way out the door.

    After a final battle with a sideshow wild man and a chase through the trapezes the Black Clown is finally captured and OF COURSE it turns out to be Henry Parrish, the circus owner, who is OF COURSE mad about a rejected business loan. CHOOSE YOUR SUPER-VILLAIN THEME MORE WISELY is what I’m trying to get at.

    REVENGE KILLER SCORE: 1/2 

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 024

    None of these guys are ever going to be in a movie. 

    It’s been a while since we’ve seen any masked cowboys, so here’s a particularly well-dressed bunch about to have a scrap with the Rio Kid. He doesn’t get the upper hand in this particular encounter, but by gum he eventually brings rancher John Wendel and his whole gang of rustlers to justice. (Thrilling Comics 002, 1940)

    Likewise, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a masked Nazi spy, and even though we only get one panel of X-5 aka Captain Clarke here, he fits the bill as he arranges to frame Tom Niles, the Undersea Raider, for espionage. (Thrilling Comics 006, 1940) 

    This completely unnamed masked killer is actually Violet Parsons, who has an especially poor reaction to being cut out of her father’s will: she murders her brothers Frank and Henry and tries to pin the killings on her insane brother Robert. She is ultimately undone by the fact that a person, even one who has had a nervous breakdown, won’t automatically turn into a ravening beast man if you lock them in a room until they grow a long beard. The Woman in Red triumphs once more. (Thrilling Comics 008, 1940)

    Someone has been murdering everyone who stays in the De Luxe Suite of the Hotel Metropolis, and the Woman in Red is on the case. The murderer turns out to be Mr Bascom, the hotel manager who used to be the hotel’s owner, who couldn’t stand to see the hotel’s new owner make a success out of a business he failed at. He only shows up in this mask for a few panels, but I would like to point out it’s unusual length, required so as to cover up Bascom’s mustache. (Thrilling Comics 009, 1940)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 024

    None of these guys are ever going to be in a movie. 

    It’s been a while since we’ve seen any masked cowboys, so here’s a particularly well-dressed bunch about to have a scrap with the Rio Kid. He doesn’t get the upper hand in this particular encounter, but by gum he eventually brings rancher John Wendel and his whole gang of rustlers to justice. (Thrilling Comics 002, 1940)

    Likewise, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a masked Nazi spy, and even though we only get one panel of X-5 aka Captain Clarke here, he fits the bill as he arranges to frame Tom Niles, the Undersea Raider, for espionage. (Thrilling Comics 006, 1940) 

    This completely unnamed masked killer is actually Violet Parsons, who has an especially poor reaction to being cut out of her father’s will: she murders her brothers Frank and Henry and tries to pin the killings on her insane brother Robert. She is ultimately undone by the fact that a person, even one who has had a nervous breakdown, won’t automatically turn into a ravening beast man if you lock them in a room until they grow a long beard. The Woman in Red triumphs once more. (Thrilling Comics 008, 1940)

    Someone has been murdering everyone who stays in the De Luxe Suite of the Hotel Metropolis, and the Woman in Red is on the case. The murderer turns out to be Mr Bascom, the hotel manager who used to be the hotel’s owner, who couldn’t stand to see the hotel’s new owner make a success out of a business he failed at. He only shows up in this mask for a few panels, but I would like to point out it’s unusual length, required so as to cover up Bascom’s mustache. (Thrilling Comics 009, 1940)