The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: Spectre.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 112: THE CRIME LORD/ THE BRAIN

    (More Fun Comics 062, 1940) 

    An early iteration of the classic tale of a brain that is freed of its cranium and becomes both powerful and EVIL, originally just a man named Dexter with a skeletal system and all the organs, he then became a mysterious shadowy figure named the Crime Lord as he directed his minions toward an eventual takeover of the US.

    Upon being freed from his bell jar, the Crime Lord became the rapidly-expanding Brain, who similarly grew his ambitions: no longer interested in conquest on a national level, he was now going to expand to fill the entire universe. And he might have gotten away with it if the Spectre hadn’t shown up to shrivel him away to nothingness.

    Bonus: the Spectre eating a bullet to save FDR.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 111: THE SPECTRE

    (More Fun 061,1940)

    Impersonating and framing a super-hero is not an uncommon thing to do, but Gustav Gilroy took the added step of adopting his target’s identity as his own in his campaign of turning his enemies to gold via chemical-laced free gum samples.

    Gilroy also faced the Spectre in the first year of his career and so didn’t really comprehend just how bad his choice of scapegoat was – the only surprising thing about his end is that he was ultimately turned to gold by his own hand rather than that of the earth-bound ghost himself.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 109: XNON

    (More Fun Comics 060, 1940)

    Xnon is a guy I like. He lives an an extradimensional orb/city and seems to spend his time traveling from world to world looting and conquering, if his behavior on Earth is taken as an example. Then again, he seems to have recruited all of his henchmen from the Cliffland, New Jersey underworld so maybe this was his first outing as a transdimensional overlord.

    What can be said for certain is that Xnon (no idea if it’s pronounced “Znon” or “X-non”, though I prefer the latter) uses his advanced technology to perform a series of daring thefts including an entire train, then briefly mind controls the Spectre into doing his bidding. He almost gets away with it, but the Spectre manages to call for help from what would later be semi-explicitly defined as the Christian God. Xnon is swiftly stuck in a meteor and blasted into interdimensional space.

    I love Xnon. He looks great, has a great orb, is an arrogant jerk which I love in a villain… he has it all. Plus the manner of his defeat makes him someone who could conceivably be BRUNG BACK without any need for a new origin or anything. Just say that throughout all of the retcons and crises and every other dumb thing that DC has done in the last ~30 years, Xnon has been floating around in his meteor and then BAM it lands back in Cliffland (or wherever the Spectre hangs out nowadays) for some reason, and he’s ready to scrap with a Spectre who has absolutely no idea who he is.

    Also, this is what happens when you try to make the Spectre do a crime: pride flag explosion.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 102: ZOR

    (More Fun Comics 055, 1940)

    Zor is from pretty early in the Spectre’s run, back when his concept was “resurrected dead guy” rather than “literal embodiment of the Wrath of God”. More specifically but also vaguely, he was an “earth-bound ghost” which was never really defined but was a pretty powerful thing to be.

    Zor was also an earth-bound ghost, only he was older and thus more powerful than the Spectre, and also evil:

    Zor makes a couple of Golden Age appearances to vex the Spectre before being set adrift in inter-cosmic space. Many years later, he was brought back in Seven Soldiers by Grant Morrison, now serving as an evil equivalent of Zatara (and given the first name Zachary) and foe to Zatanna. Given the cosmic nature of the story, this works for me: Zor is whatever he needs to be to oppose his foe of the moment. Honestly, I can think of no better person to bring back a character like Zor. Not many creators would read a story in which a villain shoots bullets out of his eyes:


    And make it canon:

    10/10, top marks. I know Zor is technically Solomon Grundy now but bring him back again anyway.