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MINOR SUPER-HERO 039: THE DEVIL’S DAGGER

MINOR SUPER-HERO 039: THE DEVIL’S DAGGER

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(Master Comics 001-020, 1940-1941) Devil’s Dagger! I love this guy. He has a lot of familiar things going on: a wealthy young man named Ken Wyman who works as a reporter in order to get the latest crime news and heads out at night in his souped-up car (the excellently named Speed Ghost) to kick butt accompanied by Pat Gleason, ex boxer and member of the surprisingly large Chauffeur/ Sidekick club. There are two really interesting things about the Devil’s…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 336: ADAM ADDAMS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 336: ADAM ADDAMS

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(All-Flash 003, 1941) Like the Threat before him, Adam Addams is a revenge guy. Unlike the Threat, Addams is… I won’t say more petty, but perhaps less focused – they include the woman who didn’t marry him, the man she married instead, the man who refused to give him a medical license because he talked about glands too much, and anyone who contributed to one of his prior revenge schemes going wrong. If he has a particular focus, it’s Dr…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 335: THE THREAT

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 335: THE THREAT

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(All-Flash 002, 1941)  The Threat is an example of a type of morality tale that was very popular in 40s and 50s comic books but never really went out of style: a tale of promise squandered in service to a life of crime. In this case, the subject is a crook named Tough Joe Connor, who swears revenge on Jim Kelley, the prosecutor who sent him to jail for ten years.  My summarizing powers are not up to this task,…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 334: THE MONOCLE

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 334: THE MONOCLE

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(All-Flash Quarterly 001, 1941)  I love a foppish gang boss, and the Monocle might just be the most foppish I’ve seen in some time. He’s got all the accessories: the monocle, natch, but also the eccentric mustache, cigarette holder, neat suit with nosegay and tiepin and pocket square and to top it off one of the more eccentric comic book hobbies I have ever encountered: a twee little garden where he displays his stolen gems in artificial flowers. Pretty great…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 333: THE FIVE FINGERS OF THE HAND

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 333: THE FIVE FINGERS OF THE HAND

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(Leading Comics 001, 1941) As promised: the Five Fingers of the Hand! Though the Seven Soldiers would go on the fight more than a few teams of super-henchmen, the Fingers are distinguished by being (mostly) pre-established characters. Fun! Big Caesar: Big Caesar is whatever. A regular-style gang boss with a good name, elevated by being included in the gang. He appears just this once, in a scheme that involves cutting the power to Broadway and then doing a crimewave in…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 332: THE HAND

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 332: THE HAND

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(Leading Comics 001, 1941) The Hand holds the distinction of being both the first foe of the Seven Soldiers of Victory (all 9 or 10 of them) and the person who organized them as a team in the first place, and all as a way to get attention, essentially. As first presented, he is a master criminal so successful that he is unknown to the world at large who has just received word that he is dying with no hope…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 331: THE LEGION OF DESPAIR

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 331: THE LEGION OF DESPAIR

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(Human Torch v1 006, 1941) A fairly simple one today: am man named Haskell advertises for people with no hope in life, then selects the most desperate of them into a gang. Since they were all prepared to die already, the members of the Legion of Despair are prone to, say, blowing themselves up with grenades in order to see that their compatriots get away with whatever loot they’re scampering off with. Aside from this radical investment in the goals…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 329: THE MAD VIOLINIST

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 329: THE MAD VIOLINIST

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(Human Torch v1 005a, 1941) The Mad Violinist! Not especially mad, aside from being a fascist fanatic. More of a fiddler than a violinist, too – perhaps Nazi Super-Agent HR got mixed up when assigning codenames and swapped his with the Fiddler and vice versa. Name mixup or no, the Mad Violinist makes quite a splash when he attacks a military parade in NYC and kills potentially hundreds of soldiers and onlookers – it’s always a real pain to estimate…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 328: THE NAZOMBIES

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 328: THE NAZOMBIES

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(Human Torch v1 005a, 1941) This is kind of a weird one in a few ways, the first being that the foundation of the plot is that a) Namor the Sub-Mariner and the Angel both own Caribbean islands and b) that they are good enough friends for Namor to pay the Angel a visit. During this visit one of Namor’s servants bursts in and promptly drops dead in an effort to deliver a note cryptically warning of a zombie takeover….

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