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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 281: THE WEIRD GHOST OF AMBER SWAMPS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 281: THE WEIRD GHOST OF AMBER SWAMPS

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 021, 1941) I got lazy here and clipped the setup, sorry. In brief, the story takes place at Chellcroft, the swampland mansion of wealthy Georgian C.J. Miller (just one letter off from being quite funny), formerly a centre of art and society but now fallen into disrepair. To make things worse, the Weird Ghost of Amber Swamps has started haunting the property and killing people, including Norton, the poor butler pictured fleeing the house in the…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 279: THE CAT’S PAW

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 279: THE CAT’S PAW

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 018-020, 1941) The Cat’s Paw gets a pretty classic intro: Dr Lin, the Angel’s old mentor and friend who was introduced in the previous issue, is ruthlessly murdered via high-speed application of poisoned dart. The Angel give chase, but fails to make the bust. The next day we see some of the Cat’s Paw’s scheme begin to emerge. She’s killing industrialists for some reason. But why? Here’s our first look at the villain in question, because…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 278: THE VAMPIRE KILLER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 278: THE VAMPIRE KILLER

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 020, 1941) We open on a fear-gripped Star City (not the one you’re thinking of), in which ten people have been killed and drained of their blood. VAMPIRE! KILLER! An eleventh soon joins their ranks, and we get a look at the Vampire Killer in his cool as hell Shadow cosplay. VAMPIRE! KILLER! INTO! FASHION! But it seems all is not as we thought! Extradimensional smoke-man the Vision, exercising the oft-overlooked super-hero skill of Research, discovers…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 277: THE MASKED CHIEF

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 277: THE MASKED CHIEF

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 020, 1941) This here is the Masked Chief, at least according to the caption boxes (welcome to the unofficial name club, fella), a fairly standard masked gang boss enhanced by several factors of variable wildness. First and least: he is yet another in the long line of Human Torch foes who choose to use arson as their  modus operandi. Sure he’s not specifically challenging the Torch, but he must know that he’s employed by the city, right? The…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 276: THE INVISIBLE SLAYER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 276: THE INVISIBLE SLAYER

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 019, 1941) There’s a bit in the introductions to the Top 10 anthologies in which Neopolis mayor John Q. Public lays out the exponential propagation of super-heroes, -villains, -pets, -monsters and so forth that takes place in a comic universe that I think of often as I read through these old adventures. Heroes inspire sidekicks and imitators; their enemies build robots and create doppelgangers to counter them, etc, until you have superhumans everywhere.  There’s one thing that isn’t…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 275: THE HAG

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 275: THE HAG

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(Marvel  Mystery Comics v1 019, 1941) I don’t have to go into how wild it is that this woman is called a Hag, right? The wild misogyny of it all? Great, thanks. Aside from her name, the Hag is a gang boss, and one who dreams big. Her plan involves causing a citywide power outage in NYC so that her men could  tamper with the Stock Exchange and then clean up the next day while everyone panics about a nonexistent…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 274: THE BRAIN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 274: THE BRAIN

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 018, 1941) The Brain is your classic nerd gang boss, of the common subvariety that are almost clever enough to succeed but get in their own way. His core plan this ish is solid as far as supercrime goes: rob an Army payroll and frame the Human Torch for it via the use of what is essentially one of those suits that stuntmen wear in order to set themselves on fire (which as an aside kind…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 272: KARL SCHWAB

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 272: KARL SCHWAB

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 016, 1941) Karl Schwab is part of a long tradition of villains who spend years and years meticulously preparing for their big moment, only for it to come crashing down the second that a super-hero, adventurer or plucky kid with a pet monkey gets involved. Usually this involves lurking in an old castle or cemetery lair while tinkering or planning or brewing or growing homunculi but Karl actually managed to get caught already, somewhere around 1931,…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 269: THE BRAIN OF PROFESSOR DONAIRE

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 269: THE BRAIN OF PROFESSOR DONAIRE

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(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 015, 1941)  I must admit that I was predisposed to give Professor Donaire the benefit of the doubt, given that where I’m from a donair is a delicious late night drunken street food. But he didn’t need it! Even with a non-snack-based name, Prof. Donaire would be a terrific villain. Having said that: Prof. Donaire is a real dummy. He suffers from exactly the same failure of imagination as our old pal Python: that nobody would…

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NOTES – MAY 2023

NOTES – MAY 2023

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Folk: Luther Robinson and Lynne Harris! These folks are hard to categorize! They’re not villains, despite being antagonists to Namor the Sub-Mariner, because Namor is very much a villain at least half of the time. They’re not heroes, despite eventually allying with Namor to fight Nazis, because they definitely attempt to commit at least one genocide against the people of Atlantis.  They’re adventurers, they’ve both been surgically modified by Atlantean scientists to be amphibious, and Lynne is one of a…

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