(Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940) The Zombie Master has layers. Top level is deeds: he is a scientist who kidnaps people on the fringes of society and uses a combination of hypnosis and radiation to turn them into bright green mind controlled thralls – fairly standard stuff for a mad scientist. Next though, is his origin: he felt rejected by society because of his great height – something like 20 feet tall, according to some sources – and so moved…
(Tough Kid Squad 001, 1942) A fairly undistinguished costumed gang boss, the Red Terror has three things going for him: 1. he gets around in a very cool rocket-powered dirigible 2. he is the only super-villain to face Golden Age underachiever the Human Top 3. he really goes above and beyond in his attempt to rid himself of the Top, hitting him with, in quick succession: mountain lions, flame throwers, an avalanche and a bursting dam. That’s the kind of…
(Tough Kid Squad 001, 1942) Dr Klutch is your basic criminal scientist. His major distinction is that he got beat up by the Tough Kid Squad in their only recorded outing, but there are a couple of other points worthy of discussion here. The first is that we have a clear timeline for this guy. Many, many super-villains are clearly operating at a level that would require years of work to establish or have a lengthy if nebulous criminal record,…
(Tough Kid Squad 001, 1942) I occasionally opine about the relative obscurity of one super-hero or another and it’s tricky to judge such a thing objectively, especially when it’s about a suite of characters who are all 100% unknown to the world at large. Despite this I am confident in my assertion that the Tough Kid Squad are the most obscure Marvel characters ever to receive their own title, even if it did only last one issue. The Tough Kid…
(Red Raven 001, 1940) The Human Top is a guy who gets spinning powers after a science accident. The only really noteworthy things about him are that cool collar on his costume and the fact that he’s one of the very few Golden Age Marvel characters to have never had any sort of modern appearance. Spinning powers aren’t cool, I suppose. It’s kind of a shame that this is the first of only two appearance of the Human Top and…
(Red Raven Comics 001, 1940) The Gold Leeches are not terrifically interesting villains, but there are precisely two interesting things about them and that’s enough for me. Uninteresting preamble: Zeelmo, the Gold Leech (unofficial name) is a gold-obsessed gang boss with a few super-scientific gadgets (the Gazegrapho Machine for remote viewing and the Trembling Death gas which kills via accelerated aging) and a birds-and-skeletons decorating motif that I wish had come up more often. Zeelmo attempts to recruit B-tier Golden…
(Captain America Comics 009, 1941) Like the Black Witch before him, the White Death is inspired to murder by a kooky clause in a recently-deceased’s will, and it’s one I forgot to mention then: if any of the heirs dies before the money is divvied up then their portion is divided among the rest. This clause! More fictional bloodshed has resulted from it than can be counted. This time, the culprit is one of the heirs rather than the lawyer,…
They’re back! They’re insufficiently interesting! They’re costumed! For the fifth time! This fella is just a regular degular Nazi spy, but I like his confidence, even if Super Spy G-5 does wrangle him almost instantly. (Hit Comics 015, 1941) These fellas are a rare example of subway pirates, who derail and loot in the New York underground. My delight in this is dampened somewhat by their habit of carrying off ladies for unspoken but surely unpleasant reasons – happily the Human…
(Captain America Comics 008, 1941) So: the Black Witch is a witch’s ghost that supposedly haunts Hagmoor Castle, one of the many castles that dot the landscape around Camp Lehigh (and don’t imagine that it’s the same on from the Hunchback of Hollywood case, because that was called Ebony Castle). Hagmoor Castle, coincidentally, is the subject of an eccentric will that sees one Karin Lee having to spend three nights there alone in order to inherit her uncle Jonathan’s estate. Perhaps…
(Captain America Comics 007, 1941) The Fiddler, being a man who can play his violin at special pitches in order to hypnotize or kill, has the dubious honour of being our first super-powered Nazi villain. The Fiddler is an overplanner, no bones about it. His mission in the US is to kill anti-Nazi politicians (specifically senators, or maybe he’s working up to governors etc). Here’s his process for doing so: -become an acclaimed musician with regular radio gigs -establish an…