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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 794: THE GHOST OF ROCKY STONE

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 794: THE GHOST OF ROCKY STONE

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(Target Comics v1 005, 1940) If there’s one type of character that the people at Novelty Press liked, it was a young man getting an American-style military education, and Lucky Byrd was one of those very men. A flying cadet at Randolph Field, Texas, Byrd managed to ferret out a variety of espionage and criminal plots as a sideline to his studies, the first of which involved fellow cadet Rocky Stone, a bully turned murderer turned reluctant saboteur who ended…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 793: BIG SHOT

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 793: BIG SHOT

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(Target Comics v1 002, 1940) Big Shot, a New York gang boss with a European spy named Drusella as his companion (a slight speculation as some imprecise speech balloon tails make it hard to be entirely sure just who is talking about what, but the details seem to fit), is after the technological advances that the Skipper has made in Boystate, with an eye toward using them to take over the world. His initial plan – drive up to the…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 792: THE OCTOPUS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 792: THE OCTOPUS

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(Target Comics v1 003, 1940) I’m going to start out by saying that I have no idea why this story is called “Return of the Octopus!” as this is as far as I can tell both the first and last appearance of the character. Both the title and the Octopus’ costume seem to be dramatic flourishes that don’t really play out in the text of the story. I do really like the Octopus’ costume, though. It’s got a lot of…

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MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 049

MINOR SUPER-HERO ROUND-UP 049

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Pretty diverse bunch this time. the Lone Rider:  Another masked cowboy hero dispensing justice from the barrel of the gun in the Old Modern West to throw in the pile. The Lone Rider does have the distinction of having been created by Jack Kirby for a very short-lived comic strip and recycled by Eastern Color for comic book content.  Having read through a decent chunk of the Lone Rider’s appearances, I’m pretty sure that Texas never actually put in an…

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GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 021

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 021

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Another truckload of half-baked mooks for your viewing pleasure. The otherwise-normal gangsters who have gotten ahold of a piece of superscience and are using it for crime are an important part of the super-hero comic ecosystem. Here is a wonderful example of such in the form of a gang who have access to disintegrator ray pistols and are using them like regular guns during a bank robbery. Fantastic stuff. The Invisible Avenger hits them with a train. (Superworld Comics 002,…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 789: THE GRAND DICTATOR

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 789: THE GRAND DICTATOR

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(Sure-Fire Comics 003a, 1940) The Grand Dictator, aka Miko, is on a mission to conquer the US, and he’s doing it from a cool flying fortress. Miko and his men are probably intended to be at least Nazi-adjacent, but they don’t really come off that way, at least as compared with their contemporaries. I mean, sure, they’ve got the uniforms and the attitude, but where are the dimwitted goons named Hans and Franz shouting “Jah, jah!” as they scuttle off…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 788: THE CRIMSON CIRCLE

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 788: THE CRIMSON CIRCLE

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(Sure-Fire Comics 003b, 1940) The Crimson Circle are a masked gang with a more grandiose than normal name (and led by the Crimson Mask, as can just barely be made out under that rip in the third panel above, a rare instance of the named villain being less prominent than his named henchmen in a story), who have the fortune to rob the same loan company as the Raven, leading to them capturing, unmasking and forcing him to work for…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 787: THE TERROR TRUST

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 787: THE TERROR TRUST

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(Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940) The Terror Trust is a group with a very simple money-making scheme: demand money from millionaires and then throw acid in the faces of the one who refuse to pay up. X, the Phantom Fed infiltrates this group by breaking captured member Horton out of prison and then impersonating him.   X’s scheme falls apart when the Trust’s members realize that Horton was simply not clever enough to effect his own escape, leading him to capture…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 786: THE TIGER MAN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 786: THE TIGER MAN

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(Sure-Fire Comics 002, 1940) The Tiger Man (also referred to as the much snappier Tiger Mask in one panel but I reckon that was just some sort of lettering error or other style of brain glitch) is a fellow in an extremely cool cowl mask who is trying to corner the pearl market in the South Seas using some very crooked tactics, such as sticking pearl bed owner Rita van Dyke on a raft and abandoning her at sea. Only…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 785: THE PHOENIX

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 785: THE PHOENIX

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(Sure-Fire Comics 001, 1940) Flash Lightning’s first stop after getting juiced up with brand-new electric powers is New York City, super-hero capital of the world, and it’s a good career move for him because he immediately gets mixed up in some super shenanigans. An explorer named Parker has gone missing in Central America and the agents of someone named the Phoenix are doing their damnedest to prevent his daughter Mary from looking for him. Lightning and Mary dodge fiery deathtraps,…

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