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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 863: KARNO THE CHESS MAN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 863: KARNO THE CHESS MAN

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(Wonderworld Comics 009, 1940) Detective Dr Fung’s pal Dan Barrister racks up one of the swifter “this information is impossible/ the impossible thing is right behind me” turnarounds in comics history when he and Dr Fung are kidnapped by a Moth Man about 1.5 seconds after he expresses disbelief in the existence of Moth Men who kidnap people. It turns out that the Moth Men in question work for a super-villainous type named Karno the Chess Man (sometimes Chessman) who…

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MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 063

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 063

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Pilots! Vexatious pilots! Will they give me no peace?   the Skull Squad:  Yet another gang of pilots with some pretty lacklustre skull theming to go with their name. The Skull Squad is an international affair, with American Jimmy Jones, Englishman Kent Douglas and Scotsman Jock “Sandy” MacGregor all flying a bomber for the RAF and predictably getting into wild and wooly scrapes. (Wings Comics 001, 1940) SKULL SCORE:  0.5/5  the Parachute Patrol: The Parachute Patrol are Tommy, Curly and Blimpo…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044 UPDATE: THE MASK (REVISITED)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 044 UPDATE: THE MASK (REVISITED)

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(Whiz Comics 002-011, 1940)  I first wrote about the Mask back in the early days when I was trying to keep things short – a laudible goal and one I have not always stuck to, but there’s such a thing as too short, especially when talking about Spy Smasher’s only real enemy for about a year and a half. In the spirit of correcting that, here are some of the more interesting moments from the Mask’s 1940 appearances. To start, I had…

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GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 028

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 028

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Scoundrels! Mid-tier scoundrels!  Simon Rudd loves games and gambling and taking chances, and somehow that has led him to a South Pacific island where he wears a full tuxedo and bosses around a local tribe all day. When ocean adventurer Lance O’Casey and his companions wash up on his shores, Rudd engages in a little Most Dangerous Game action with them, presumably out of sheer boredom. This being a Lance O’Casey story, his ultimate fate is to be socked in…

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GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 027

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 027

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Rascals the lot of ’em.  L-17 is a spy from an extremely unspecified foreign power who vexes pilot Wings Bordon throughout his three appearances. He is remarkable both for his longevity – three whole appearances for a simple letters-and-numbers spy is astonishing – and for the fact that he managed to get a promotion between his first appearance and his last, from field agent reporting to a shadowy Chief to being the shadowy figure whom other report to. It’s possible…

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MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 061

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 061

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Superfolk galore!  the Buzzard:  In an unnamed New-York-alike city, the gadgeteering mayor equips a young man with a suite of devices to help him engage in a vigilante crusade against crime. Chief among these gadgets is a gas that makes whomever it touches resemble a balding, big-nosed man in thick glasses and a tailcoat – the perfect disguise! Armed with this gas, plus some clawed gloves and a heat ray, the Buzzard begins tearing his way through the city’s underworld. …

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SUPER-VILLAIN FILE 001: DR SIVANA

SUPER-VILLAIN FILE 001: DR SIVANA

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(Whiz Comics 002, 1940)  Hearken back to yesterday’s Captain Marvel entry and you will see a tale of woe in which I lament my own poor planning with regard to how I dealt with non-obscure super-heroes. Well, I didn’t do much better with name-brand super-villains, I’ll tell you what. The Super-Villain Yearbook was an okay idea, but I didn’t really have a good implementation. I was going to be cluttering up my indices with links! Instead, we’re going to have…

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SUPER-HERO FILE 001: CAPTAIN MARVEL

SUPER-HERO FILE 001: CAPTAIN MARVEL

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(Whiz Comics 002, 1940)  When I fist made this blog it was mostly as a way to keep up a twitter thread that I was really enjoying but which was not enough to keep me on a rapidly-curdling social media platform. This is why all of the early entries are so short: because they’re just beefed-up tweets. This is also why I focused so heavily on obscure super-villains at first and only expanded my purview to include obscure super-heroes and more prominent…

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REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 018

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 018

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World leaders and others.  Adolf Hitler:  I’m pretty sure that the “Navy Jones” strip is set in an undefined near-future time, which makes the Dictator of Europe here a future analog of Adolf Hitler rather than a stand-in for him. I’m almost certain that that’s the case. Anyway, he tries to invade the US with a fleet of amphibious tanks and gets his ass handed to him by Navy Jones and his fish men. (Weird Comics 008, 1940) Chiang Kai-shek and Soong…

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GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 026

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 026

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A wretched and motley crew for ye this day.  Mikal, leader of the undersea pirates, is an evocative figure who exists only to pad out the Typhon story that he appears in by a couple of pages. In an attempt to aid his ally, the king of the Sea Demons, he gets off one good hydro-jet blast at Typhon’s submarine before he and his entire undersea fortress are annihilated by the sub’s hydro-ray. (Weird Comics 005, 1940) Friends, I am…

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