The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: con artist

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 997: THE ZOMBIE WITCH

    (Jungle Comics 024, 1941)

    The Zombie Witch (aka the Queen of the Zombies, aka Celie) is, as the name suggests, a witch with a penchant for raising the dead – often while they are still actively being mourned. She demonstrates a few other magic powers (e.g., scrying in a bowl of water, crocodile charming) but the zombie thing is her bread and butter.

    So what, specifically, does she want a bunch of reanimated corpses for? Well! I won’t say that it’s for a good reason but it certainly an innovative one: Celie has pulled a con on some unscrupulous fellows and convinced them that a worthless mountain is full of gold, and is now going to sell them zombie labour to work the mines. It’s not a bad way to use up surplus zombies, if you ignore the horror.

    Tabu of course objects to the fraud just as hard as he does to the necromancy, and wastes no time in ratting the Zombie Witch out to her clients. They in turn waste no time in murdering her, but not before she orders her zombies to “kill the white men,” thus in turn sealing their dooms. Only Tabu makes it out alive.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Henchmen (Zombies)), Careers in Magic (Witches), Fraud (Con Artistry)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 997: THE ZOMBIE WITCH

    (Jungle Comics 024, 1941)

    The Zombie Witch (aka the Queen of the Zombies, aka Celie) is, as the name suggests, a witch with a penchant for raising the dead – often while they are still actively being mourned. She demonstrates a few other magic powers (e.g., scrying in a bowl of water, crocodile charming) but the zombie thing is her bread and butter.

    So what, specifically, does she want a bunch of reanimated corpses for? Well! I won’t say that it’s for a good reason but it certainly an innovative one: Celie has pulled a con on some unscrupulous fellows and convinced them that a worthless mountain is full of gold, and is now going to sell them zombie labour to work the mines. It’s not a bad way to use up surplus zombies, if you ignore the horror.

    Tabu of course objects to the fraud just as hard as he does to the necromancy, and wastes no time in ratting the Zombie Witch out to her clients. They in turn waste no time in murdering her, but not before she orders her zombies to “kill the white men,” thus in turn sealing their dooms. Only Tabu makes it out alive.

    Categorized in: Accessories (Henchmen (Zombies)), Careers in Magic (Witches), Fraud (Con Artistry)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 978: THE BLACK LEGION

    (The Flame 007, 1941)

    The Black Legion is a mysterious cult who recruit members by sending them a sternly-worded letter through the mail. Presumably they have some way of researching their potential inductees to screen for susceptibility to peer pressure and so forth, because the initiation process involves carving a large letter D into your own chest while swearing fealty to the cult’s leader, the skull-masked Master of Death.

    The Black Legion takes its vows seriously, as member Graves finds when he tries to leave and is brutally murdered. Even Linda Dale, the niece of Black Legion co-leader Emma Dale, is almost killed when she asks a few too many questions about the secret ceremonies taking place in her basement on a regular basis. Lucky for her, then, that she has just become a member of the Flame’s supporting cast, as has Pug, the newest prospective member of the cult.

    So just what is the deal with the Black Legion? What ethos they espouse or dark deity they serve? What, in short, is the point of all this? As the Flame learns after busting the place up, it’s all a huge scam. Emma Dale and the Master of Death have been recruiting gullible fools to the organization and then pocketing the mandatory membership fees, and making even more money off of sales of the mandatory green velour robes. It’s a shocking indictment of the state of comic book cults.

    Categorized in: Colours (Black), Fraud (Con Artists), Misc (Cults)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 970: THE QUEEN OF EVIL

    (Fantastic Comics 022, 1941)

    Nagana, high priest of Isis in Thebes, achieves great power and the secret of immortality through her position and is seemingly consumed with megalomania. Importantly, these magical secrets do not appear to be tied to her faith in Isis so much as accessed as a result of it, as she retains them even after she rejects Isis and declares herself to be her enemy. She sets out to use this power to become the ruler of Thebes and sets her eyes on a hot new priest named Kalkor as her chosen consort.

    Trouble is, Kalkor rejects her due to her casual Isis-disrespect (and possibly also a vow of chastity? It can be hard to pick out specifically why a super-manly comic book character is going “ew, girls”) and Nagana attempts to have him killed for it. Kalkor survives due to his aforementioned manliness and confronts her, at which point she goes on a tirade so blasphemous that Isis drops the entire temple on them, killing hundreds spelling the end of Thebes as a major religious centre (in what is probably a big coincidence, the real-life Egyptian city of Thebes went also into decline about three thousand years ago, but due to an administrative scandal rather than divine wrath).

    Though Nagana is immortal, Isis curses her and transforms her to stone, until she is unearthed in the present day and exposed to moonlight. So restored, she murders the man who found her and vows to take over the world.

    Though Isis is much reduced in the modern world, she is able to resurrect Kalkor and give him the same powers as Nagana as a foil to her evil schemes (luckily for humanity, Kalkor hold Nagana responible for the destruction of Thebes rather than Isis’ fairly broadly-applied wrath).

    For all her big talk of taking over the world, Nagana’s only evil scheme of 1941 consists of her attempting to con an old man out of his fortune using a fortune telling con that is enhanced by a little real magic. She is also foiled by Kalkor with almost ridiculous ease. But fear not! Nagana and Kalkor will return in 1942 for more thrilling conflict!

    Categorized in: Day Jobs (Priests), Origins (Resurrected (Petrified Humans)), Royalty (Queens)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 970: THE QUEEN OF EVIL

    (Fantastic Comics 022, 1941)

    Nagana, high priest of Isis in Thebes, achieves great power and the secret of immortality through her position and is seemingly consumed with megalomania. Importantly, these magical secrets do not appear to be tied to her faith in Isis so much as accessed as a result of it, as she retains them even after she rejects Isis and declares herself to be her enemy. She sets out to use this power to become the ruler of Thebes and sets her eyes on a hot new priest named Kalkor as her chosen consort.

    Trouble is, Kalkor rejects her due to her casual Isis-disrespect (and possibly also a vow of chastity? It can be hard to pick out specifically why a super-manly comic book character is going “ew, girls”) and Nagana attempts to have him killed for it. Kalkor survives due to his aforementioned manliness and confronts her, at which point she goes on a tirade so blasphemous that Isis drops the entire temple on them, killing hundreds spelling the end of Thebes as a major religious centre (in what is probably a big coincidence, the real-life Egyptian city of Thebes went also into decline about three thousand years ago, but due to an administrative scandal rather than divine wrath).

    Though Nagana is immortal, Isis curses her and transforms her to stone, until she is unearthed in the present day and exposed to moonlight. So restored, she murders the man who found her and vows to take over the world.

    Though Isis is much reduced in the modern world, she is able to resurrect Kalkor and give him the same powers as Nagana as a foil to her evil schemes (luckily for humanity, Kalkor hold Nagana responible for the destruction of Thebes rather than Isis’ fairly broadly-applied wrath).

    For all her big talk of taking over the world, Nagana’s only evil scheme of 1941 consists of her attempting to con an old man out of his fortune using a fortune telling con that is enhanced by a little real magic. She is also foiled by Kalkor with almost ridiculous ease. But fear not! Nagana and Kalkor will return in 1942 for more thrilling conflict!

    Categorized in: Day Jobs (Priests), Origins (Resurrected (Petrified Humans)), Royalty (Queens)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 595: THE VOICE

    (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

    Captain Kidd and his pal Freddy land on the… Southeast Asian? island of Morgia, known to be rich in gold but critically not to ever export that gold. As the heroes of the piece, Kidd and Freddy are of course there to just look around and seeing the sights, not to scoop up a bunch of gold on the cheap. Certainly not.

    Instead of free gold tourist hotspots they find dozens of local people dead of that one torture where a bamboo plant grows through you. The one living guy they find takes them to an elaborate temple with a flooded tunnel entrance.

    Inside, the duo find a cloaked man referred to only as the Voice, who appears to be running a combination cult and scam where he gets gold in exchange for whiskey. He’s also responsible for the bamboo torture outside if his hilarious non-apology is anything to go on, though why he’s having people killed is never elaborated on. 

    The Voice’s entire scheme relies on the flooded entrance to keep firearms from entering the temple, a measure that Captain Kidd has defeated by putting his pistol in Freddy’s hat. Suddenly, all bets are off!

    The Voice makes his escape while Captain Kidd is dealing with his huge goon Twist but unfortunately for him this is a case of Chekhov’s Flooded Tunnel and he drowns during his escape attempt.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 407: DR CLEVER

    (More Fun Comics 074, 1941)

    I have taken an immediate liking to Dr Clever. I mean, just look at the guy: the classic tuxedo-and-cape combo, the rictus grin, the bald pate with two little hair-horns, the tiny skull-and-crossbones pin… he’s really a triumph of design when you think about it. Lucky for us he’s a recurring foe of Johnny Quick so we’ll be seeing him again.

    Somewhat strangely for a man with such an overall villainous look, Dr Clever’s major line is in con artistry: he manages to pull off three schemes in short order in this issue and the only impediment to their success is the involvement of Johnny Quick. Maybe people just love a smiling man. In order then:

    1. Under a fairly flimsy pretense he gives away free food that contains a chemical that turns the eater blue, then sells an antidote for big bucks. This one might be a warm-up as he only seems to get about ten people.

    2. He advertises his new invention: a machine for extracting gold from seawater. Dr Clever sells the gold from this machine for 50 cents on the dollar, but really it’s just a way to launder stolen gold.

    3. He creates a service whereby he will register your patent for you but really he just keeps them for himself.

    It’s all almost wholesome, crime-wise. Don’t worry though: Dr Clever is actually an evil wretch of the highest order as evidenced by the above panel in which he murders two henchmen for essentially no reason.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 204: THE MAN WITH THE TERRIBLE MACHINE

    (Crack Comics 017, 1941)

    The Man With the Terrible Machine (aka the Man with the Terrific Name) shows up one day in the far-off world of 2441 AD and lets humanity know that he will destroy the planet using his terrible machine in 24 hours, for no particular reason. Understandably, worldwide panic ensues.

    When scientist Dr Dram shows up and says that he can stop the terrible machine if only he can get enough gold, he gets full cooperation! And it works! Because Dr Dram and the Man With the Terrible Machine were one and the same! It was all a big con!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 060: THE MASK

    (Action Comics 022, 1940)

    The Mask is your garden-variety master of disguise, con artist subtype: he assumes the identities of others in order to acquire monies from their banks and businesses. He is distinguished from the rest of his ilk in two ways: firstly in that he is our second villain to employ the aid of the Tigress and secondly in that he actually has his face surgically altered to make his impersonations.

    His downfall comes when he assumes the identity of Zatara in order to claim some reward money that the magician had turned down, leading to this:

    It’s sometimes unclear whether Zatara ever reverses this kind of transformation, so I just go by what’s said and done on-panel. If he turns a crook to stone and says he’s going to come back for them later then he does. Otherwise, there’s a petrified wrongdoer in a field somewhere to this day. All this is to say: Zatara never gives any indication that he’s going to change the Mask back, so I imagine that he served his sentence for fraud and had to reintegrate to society looking like that.