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MINOR SUPER-HERO 362: THE SON OF COUNT DRACULA

MINOR SUPER-HERO 362: THE SON OF COUNT DRACULA

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(Master Comics 020, 1941) The Son of Count Dracula: 100/100 for theming and commitment to the bit, 0/100 for practical planning.  So: a team of private detectives named Splithair and Undermeyer are hired to investigate a series of disappearances associated with Vampire Castle, located in the castle-rich hills of New York State. Splithair is quickly captured by the Son of Count Dracula (tSoCD) and Undermeyer is only saved by the timely intervention of a nosy Bulletman. TSoCD retreats from the…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 361: THE THROTTLER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 361: THE THROTTLER

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(Master Comics 019, 1941) Imagine my excitement when I saw that Zoro the Mystery Man was facing a guy called the Throttler so soon after his bout with the Choker: a theme! A villain theme! Huzzah! And imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the Throttler moniker was a fiction developed by two butlers to cover for their fairly inept kidnapping scheme. There wasn’t even any throttling! Still, I do have to tip my hat to them on one front:…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 358: THE BLACK HOOD

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 358: THE BLACK HOOD

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(Master Comics 018, 1941)  Okay, I am a big fan of the Black Hood. Let’s count down the reasons: One: very exciting to see the classic super-suit being worn in the early days of suits and robes. This look won’t take long to become ubiquitous once it catches on but it’s still pretty rare in 1941. Two: not only is he a fashion pioneer but he is a thought leader in the field of henchman couture. Dressing your guys in…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 355: MR MURDER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 355: MR MURDER

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(Master Comics 015, 1941)  Mr Murder is your “pay or die” style of extortionist and a) has a pretty great name and b) is presumably in an early stage of his career as there is a lot more “die” going on than “pay”. Mr Murder also has a great understated costume: tunic, hat, cape, scarf, gloves. Just a bit off of what you might see someone actually wearing – nice and menacing in a Shadow sort of way. And of…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 354: THE MASKED MAN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 354: THE MASKED MAN

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(Master Comics 015, 1941) This really illustrates how the life of a mysterious adventurer is different from that of the rest of us: while driving through Florida, Zoro the Mystery Man stops at a random mansion, is rebuffed when he seeks admittance, and decides to snoop around. While you or I might discover, say, a private birthday party or merely a normal family who don’t particularly want to entertain every stranger who knocks on their door, Zoro instead finds a…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 352: THE CRYSTAL

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 352: THE CRYSTAL

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(Whiz Comics 015/ Master Comics 014, 1941) Basics first: the Crystal is nothing particularly special. He’s a businessman or something named Mr James who has a wealthy ward named Ronnie Keller and covets the money that he is charged with administering. It’s a pretty common turn of events in comics and Mr James is part of the significant minority of greedy guardians who decide to skip the simple embezzlement and advance straight to costumed thuggery. He’s got goons and everything!…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 351: THE CHOKER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 351: THE CHOKER

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(Master Comics 013, 1941)  The long and the short of it is that the Choker is an old-fashioned escaped homicidal maniac of the sort who indiscriminately kills everyone who crosses his path – more akin to a rampaging monster than a villain, plot-wise. He gets into a couple of scrapes with Zoro the Mystery Man (who, by the way, proves susceptible to the worst little old lady disguise in comics history) before meeting a rare Death by Cheetah. Also: a…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 350: THE TERROR

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 350: THE TERROR

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(Master Comics 012, 1941) At first I was fairly unimpressed with the Terror – I regarded him as yet another low-ambition super-crook, a guy with the wherewithal to invent a hypnotic ray belt and mount the output in the villain-standard rubberoid mask but with no greater ambition than to murder his uncle and half sister to get his mitts on the family fortune. But… is there another, non-crime way to get rich off of a hypnotic ray projector? I imagine…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 349: THE GHOST KILLERS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 349: THE GHOST KILLERS

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(Master Comics 012, 1941) Maybe someday I’ll wish that I had started out putting all of the various gangs of masked Western outlaws in group posts like the generic villains or mad scientists. But maybe not, because the major difference between those three groups is that the other two are par for the course in a super-hero comic while masked outlaws are frequently the only interesting thing about a Western comic. Anyway: the Ghost Killers (unofficial name – they are…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 348: THE SEVEN MASTERS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 348: THE SEVEN MASTERS

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(Master Comics 012, 1941) The Seven Masters are just your regular drug smuggling/ opium dealing gang operating out of San Francisco’s Chinatown. They don’t get up to anything too spectacular – El Carim gets in on the action because the head of the gang is using his criminal might to try to get a woman to marry him instead of her boyfriend – and they trade on some pulp-era Yellow Peril tropes, but despite all of that I must admit…

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