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MINOR SUPER-HEROES 007-014: AMAZING-MAN COMICS ROUNDUP 1939

MINOR SUPER-HEROES 007-014: AMAZING-MAN COMICS ROUNDUP 1939

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(Amazing-Man Comics 005-026, 1939-1942) All the ephemeral Golden Age heroes who stalked the pages of Amazing-Man Comics: The Iron Skull! I love him. His origin and so forth is doled out after a few issues so initially you don’t know that he is a cyborg war casualty in the far future world of 1970. The most important things are there from the start, though: his huge anime eyes and the fact that every bullet or attack made against him unerringly…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 090: THE SPIDER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 090: THE SPIDER

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(Detective Comics 036, 1940) The Spider, a notorious jewel thief, is in reality nightclub owner Durand. But Durand is in reality (shocked gasp) suburbanite Roberta Roberts! While the original thought process behind the character was likely no more complex than “I bet it would be fun to draw a lady in a bra and false mustache,” a few different narrative jump to the modern mind, the first being that Durand/ the Spider is the true identity of a trans man,…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 088: THE BLACK-ROBED MAN

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 088: THE BLACK-ROBED MAN

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(Blue Beetle Comics 004, 1940) It’s fairly unsupported right now as the only other example of a crossdressing villain so far is the Coin, but trust me when I say that an older woman adopting a younger male identity for crime is a comparative rarity as compared to the opposite. I may find myself compelled to note all of the times that non-super gangster types do it, just to lend weight to my claims. Anyway, the Black-Robed Man. Runs a…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 086: THE MASTERMIND OF CRIME

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 086: THE MASTERMIND OF CRIME

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(Blue Beetle Comics 003, 1940) A lot of these early Blue Beetle villains are real basic so I’m not even going to bother with the questions. Mastermind of Crime: very good hood, attempts to take over NYC York City, turns out to actually be the civic reformer who has been raising a stink over all this organized crime all over the place.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 083: THE UGLIEST MAN IN THE WORLD

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 083: THE UGLIEST MAN IN THE WORLD

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(Batman Comics 003, 1940)  The Ugliest Man in the World, AKA Larry Larrimore, was originally Carlson, a college student who was accidentally injected with a weird fluid during a frat hazing gone wrong. His face mutated and deformed, he lost his friends, fiancĂ© and frat and vowed revenge. Years later, having developed a version of the uglification drug which also rendered its victims’ minds pliant he embarked on a campaign of revenge against both those who had deformed and rejected…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 082: THE PUPPET MASTER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 082: THE PUPPET MASTER

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(Batman Comics 003, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? The Puppet Master controls the minds of men via drug-assisted mental compulsion. He even mind-grabs Batman for a while – surely a villainous feat. What makes them interesting? Aside from the brief end-run on Batman’s mind, the most interesting thing about this guy is I think he’s supposed to be a Cossack? His goons are certainly Cossacks. Have we lost a whole set of cultural signifiers about Cossacks or is this…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 081: THE WOLF

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 081: THE WOLF

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(Batman Comics 002, 1940) Batman’s first Jekyll/ Hyde style villain is Adam Lamb, a meek museum curator who gets bonked on the head while reading a murder mystery and thereafter heads out at night to cause mayhem as crimelord the Wolf. Batman eventually figures out that his crimes are following the sequence of those in the book and the Wolf’s career ends with a second, fatal head bonking.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 080: THE EMPEROR OF AMERICA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 080: THE EMPEROR OF AMERICA

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(All American Comics 021, 1940) An old man who lives in a cave outside of Calvin City, the Emperor of America takes a bunch of Al “the Atom” Pratt’s classmates prisoner as potential mind-controlled minions. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that he already has a cadre of identical huge men in his employ he might be more believable as a delusional hermit than a credible threat – and since he never actually gets to demonstrate his mind control…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 079: THE WASP

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 079: THE WASP

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(All American Comics 016, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? He’s a master spy called the Wasp who engages in submarine espionage while wearing a tuxedo – basically a checklist of qualifying traits. Unfortunately, that’s also the answer to the second question – he’s only interesting because of his checklist, just a fleeting antagonist for a throwaway story.

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 077: THE MASTER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 077: THE MASTER

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(All American Comics 010, 1940) The Master, in one of those escapades that causes a lot of trouble for folks who feel compelled to work out what’s in continuity and what isn’t, briefly took over NYC using an electricity projector, killed hundreds if not thousands of people, and mobilized a full fascist organization before being stopped by G-2 operatives Red, White and Blue and Doris West. Which, to be fair, is the answer. You have to explain whether or not…

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