The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: capitalism

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 255: BALDY

    (Green Lantern v1 002, 1941)

    What can I say about Baldy? To start: he’s not really a bald guy, but a guy in a bald cap. That’s about as clever as he gets, if I’m honest.

    Okay, that might be a bit mean, but Baldy tries my patience. After seeing so many good villain ideas wasted on six-page nothing-stories over and over, it’s kind of galling for Baldy here to get a whole book-length tale of his own. 

    Baldy is the crooked vice-president of a mortgage company who uses various strongarm tactics to enrich the company and himself. That’s it, barring a couple of colourful Italian stereotypes and a subplot about depressed lawyers. There’s lots of gunplay and Doiby Dickles bopping guys on the head but ultimately it all comes down to mortgages.

    I do appreciate the self-seriousness of a guy with such a goofy nom de crime but it doesn’t make up for anything, Baldy.

  • MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 001

    Like costumed villains, there are a lot of scientists out there doing crimes involving superscience but just missing the levels of interest, ambition or scale to graduate to true super-villain status. Sometimes this is because of poor planning or lack of vision and others just have the misfortune to run into a protagonist while still in the initial stages of their venture. And don’t they deserve a forum just as much as the generic costumed villains we all love?

    Julius Korn: 

    Our first science fiend is Julius Korn, who takes over a lighthouse with his crew of misfits in order to use his ray machine to sink passing ships. It’s unclear just why he does this – is it a weapons test, a piracy scheme, fifth column activity or plain sadism? – but he is thwarted by sea rover Dusty Dane and his pal Big Mike Cardigan and ends his days like so many other comic book scientists: exploding along with his invention. (Feature Comics 048, 1941)

    the Professor: 

    The Professor here operated a scheme whereby he used a magnetic engine killing ray to bring down mail planes in Arizona’s Painted Desert. As befits a scientist operating in cowboy territory, he was willing to get his hands a bit dirtier than your typical effete science-man, but even that wasn’t enough to save him from the Fargo Kid. (Feature Comics 051, 1941)

    Unnamed Scientist: 

    This unnamed fellow went to the trouble of developing anti-Flash technology – specifically, glasses with rotating lenses that allow him to see fast-moving objects – to protect his kidnap gang rather than, say, moving to another city (or marketing his glasses somewhere, natch) (Flash Comics v1 001, 1940)

    (Trophy Room bonus: the Flash keeps the glasses)

    Dr Jennings: 

    This here’s Dr Jennings, who works in a research lab with Jay “the Flash” Garrick and kidnaps a lot of people to live out his dream of establishing a colony on Mars but then is betrayed by his venture capitalist partner Enzil who just wants to establish himself as a Martian tyrant in a story that feels oddly prescient somehow? Anyhow the Flash is more focused on rehabilitation than your average Golden Age hero and so Jennings is allowed to go back to his old life after Enzil is vaporized by spider-aliens. (Flash Comics v1 024, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 253: THE WHITE DRAGON

    (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Not much to say about the White Dragon: he’s a guy with a bunch of costumed henchmen who captures Chinese folk in NYC and uses them as slave labour in his motor factory until the Whip settles his hash.

    He is of course Walter Morgan, a guy who brags to Rod “the Whip” Gaynor about how well he’s doing in the motor business on the first page of the story. About the only interesting thing to be found here is a one-panel whip duel between Our Hero and the White Dragon, They can’t all be great, folks!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 253: THE WHITE DRAGON

    (Flash Comics v1 023, 1941)

    Not much to say about the White Dragon: he’s a guy with a bunch of costumed henchmen who captures Chinese folk in NYC and uses them as slave labour in his motor factory until the Whip settles his hash.

    He is of course Walter Morgan, a guy who brags to Rod “the Whip” Gaynor about how well he’s doing in the motor business on the first page of the story. About the only interesting thing to be found here is a one-panel whip duel between Our Hero and the White Dragon, They can’t all be great, folks!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 185: THE SAPPHIRE KING

    (Crack Comics 005, 1940) 

    What makes them a super-villain? As his name suggests, the Sapphire king is motivated by his desire for and love of sapphires – he seems to love them for themselves and also for the wealth and by extension power they grant him. And he gets sapphires by using giant eagles to kidnap ships’ crews and take them to his island in the Indian Ocean, there to labour in his underwater sapphire mines (?) until giant octopus or some other death claims them. So: ruthless pursuit of an obsession using extreme methods over practical ones (kidnapping an endless stream of sailors vs draining the sapphire pool): that’s a super-villain.

    But even an eagle-rich island sapphire colony is not immune to interference from meddling super-heroes: the Black Condor shows up and slays both the birds and the Sapphire King himself, sending the former mine slaves on their way with some compensatory gemstones.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 183: X-1

    (Crack Comics 003, 1940)

    What makes them a super-villain? While X-1 is concerned with that most banal of crimes, insurance fraud, he does it at scale, employing a fleet of pirates in souped-up submarines to steal his own goods and sink his own ships for the sweet cash payout.

    What is interesting about them? Well first off, his real name is Wilhelm Wotan, a true banger of a moniker the likes of which we have seldom seen so far. A real villain’s name that is frankly wasted on this capitalist pigdog.

    The real draw, though, is those submarine pirates! Check out those dreamy mantled masks, that skull-and-crossboned conning tower! It’s hard to go wrong with submarine pirates but by Jove I’ve seldom seen any done more right.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 183: X-1

    (Crack Comics 003, 1940)

    What makes them a super-villain? While X-1 is concerned with that most banal of crimes, insurance fraud, he does it at scale, employing a fleet of pirates in souped-up submarines to steal his own goods and sink his own ships for the sweet cash payout.

    What is interesting about them? Well first off, his real name is Wilhelm Wotan, a true banger of a moniker the likes of which we have seldom seen so far. A real villain’s name that is frankly wasted on this capitalist pigdog.

    The real draw, though, is those submarine pirates! Check out those dreamy mantled masks, that skull-and-crossboned conning tower! It’s hard to go wrong with submarine pirates but by Jove I’ve seldom seen any done more right.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 164: THE MASKED MAN

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 164: THE MASKED MAN

    (Batman Comics 008, 1941)

    I got pretty excited when reading this story, as it concerns murders among the cast and crew of a play called the Superstition Murders and there’s a lot of kerfuffle about bad luck and jealousy and drunk has-been actors and I was hopeful that it might boil down to my favourite motive for supercrime: mad art. Just as mad as mad science but it really makes you think, you know?

    Sadly, the real motive for the crimes is simply base capitalism: if playwright Johnny Glim (good name) can tank the production, rights to the script revert to him and he can sell it to Hollywood for beaucoup bucks. But while you know I am all in favour of creator-owned properties I cannot stress enough that multiple homicide is not a good way to go about securing them and his capture by the Batman is a righteous one.

    Number of Episodes of the “Super-Villains of Hollywood” podcast: Part of a poorly-received later season attempt to profile villains who almost got to Hollywood.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 149: KING COBRA

    (All American 029, 1941)

    A simple first costumed foe for Dr Mid-Nite: a mine owner founds his own secret society in order to control public opinion about such things as unionization and also to have a ready-made lynch mob if needed. Really appreciate how on-theme the Cobra Kingdom – wearing a version of King Cobra’s own costume, natch – were at all times, down to referring to their enemies as “mongoose.” It wasn’t a big shock that they almost killed King Cobra himself when it was revealed to them that they had been duped into doing his bidding.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 147: THE LEADER

    (All American Comics 025, 1941)

    A masked man running a gang of saboteurs to ruin production of war goods as a US steel plant in the name of a vague Cause – at this time most likely fascism – is pretty run-of-the-mill for 1941, but it turns out that the Leader’s real scheme is to drive down the steel mill’s stock price so that he can gain a controlling interest and make big bucks! He’s just duping the fascists-or-maybe-anarchists-or-communists into doing his bidding! The real villain was capitalism all along!

    Sadly for the Leader, his tale of villainy ends like so many that take place in steel mills: with him plummeting into an open vat of molten metal.