(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 012) The Shark is a submarine pirate, a thing that is fairly common in comic books and as far as I can tell has never actually happened in real life. He’s a bit more ambitious than most such guys, and at the beginning of this particular story is trying parlay a successful streak of piracy into a general toll on shipping. He’s also a pretty snappy dresser. The US, of course, does not take an extortion…
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 010, 1940) If there’s one thing you can say about just about any given super-hero universe it’s that any given cave, canyon or unguarded parking lot will have its own little group of creeps who lurk in it and are just spoiling for a chance to get up to mischief. Our inaugural creeps are the Ghouls! Hailing from volcanic caverns beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ghouls just love to gather up hot ladies for volcanic sacrifice….
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 009, 1940) This one, while not being particularly spectacular as a whole does contain a lot of fun elements. Let’s count them off! We open on our hero one a one-issue trip to Europe (1) where he pooh-poohs the local superstitions (2) about a castle full of vampires who steal young women (3). The Angel – for it is he who pooh-poohs – quickly gets mixed up in an attempted vampiric abduction and, surprise surprise, the…
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 006, 1940) The Voice! Mysterious drug kingpin of San Francisco! Nobody has seen his face, not even his henchmen! The Voice! Using loudspeakers and radios, he coordinates his operations from a hidden place of safety! The Voice! Is a street-level supercrook who has the misfortune to be operating in a story about Electro, Marvel of the Age! All his precautions are as nothing against the giant remote-controlled robot! Adding insult to injury, he isn’t even the…
(Marvel Mystery Comics 004-019, 1940-1941) Hey look, it’s Electro, Marvel of the Age! I love that guy! Or rather I love Electro’s creator/ mental pilot, Professor Philo Zog (later amended to Zogolowski because heaven forfend that someone have a weird name). It’s not often that a weird nerd with a scraggly beard gets to be the hero. I also love Zog’s plan: hire a bunch of husky young men to act as his agents in various parts of the US,…
(Marvel Mystery Comics 004, 1940) Probably the least of the Superstrong Giant Henchman types we’ve seen so far, Butch is very briefly the scourge of an unnamed city under the command of gang boss Brink, until he gets dropped off a building by the Angel. Nothing specifically bad about this guy – there’s just not much that’s specifically interesting about him. It might be fun to see him get brought back as an example of an early mutant but that’s…
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 004, 1940) Dr Manyac here is a perfectly fine criminal scientist with a very good name. It’s just too bad for him that he is in the very common position of being completely overshadowed by his henchmen: THE GREEN FLAME! Very very cool looking guys who are also some of our first simple examples of evil opposites, as their green flame burns cold to contend with our pal the red-hot Human Torch. Using the threat of…
(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 003, 1940) The Sacred one is a pretty bog-standard cult leader in a way that was cliched even in 1940: he’s got a bunch of people in a castle in the New York countryside somewhere and they kidnap beautiful white women to sacrifice to their Fire God until the Angel shows up to murderize them. The only really interesting things about him are the questions that the loose plotting leaves you with: he has hypnotic powers…
(Marvel Mystery Comics 003, 1940) These Martian invaders who showed up for one Human Torch story in 1940 are definitely my favourite comic book aliens in a while, if only because of this extremely cool car stunt.
(Marvel Comics v1 001, 1939) The Six Big Men ain’t much, just a bunch of guys who teamed up to do the maximum amount of Crime possible in an unidentified American city. But I am including them in this list, for two reasons: 1. they’re the first even marginal minor super-villains in Marvel Comics (I of course know about Timely Comics, pedants, but I round up) history, and 2. the Six Big Men are actually Seven Big Men and One Big…