The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: assassin

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 951: THE DEADLY DOZEN

    (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

    We open on a demonstration by one Dr Roe of his invention the Death Detector, which he purports is able to determine if someone is incapable of murder (yellow light displayed), potentially capable of murder (red light) or has in fact murdered someone (blue light). 

    While the implications and legalities of this device are legion (e.g., how does it determine this, does it distinguish between killing in self defense and manslaughter and premeditated murder, would widespread adoption of this technology create a semi-criminal class of Red Light People who are discriminated against despite having done nothing wrong, etc, etc), the really important thing about this demonstaration is that Bart “Daredevil” Hill taunts mobster “Nat” Nattony into going up on stage, whereupon he murders Dr Roe. Would the machine give Bart a blue light for being directly if inadvertently responsible for Roe’s death, I wonder.

    Daredevil makes off with the device in order to keep it safe, but the upside of whole sordid affair was that it provided a means of proving the machine’s efficacy, as before taking off he had used it to search the crowd for Nattony and instead turned up a different wanted murderer. Now the FBI wants the Death Detector and the Daredevil aims to get it to them.

    Nattony’s boss Curly is understandably concerned about this development and calls the nation’s gang bosses together in Atlantic City for a Crime Convention to discuss the matter. After a lot of goofy business with gangsters picking each others’ pockets and so forth, the assembled ranks of crimedom take a vote and determine that the best way to deal with the Daredevil is to pick out twelve of gangland’s most proficient killers and send them after him. Thus: the Deadly Dozen!

    The members of the Deadly Dozen are: the Crusher, Egg Head, Snake Eyes, Skully, Benito, the Butcher, the Giant Killer, the Owl, Satan, the Sniffer, the Turk and Lady Killer, and though I love the idea of this group on many levels (gather together a bunch of vicious assassins! With diverse and distinct idiosyncrasies and fun names! Yes please!) there is one notable flaw with the concept of the Deadly Dozen, and that is that every single one of its appearances takes place in an anthology comic in which there is simply not enough room to spotlight every member of a twelve-strong team. 

    This might be the only story in which each member of the Dozen gets even a token shoutout, rather than mooching around in the background while a couple of highlighted characters get on with the action. As such, we’ll take a quick look at them in the order that they appear in-story:

    the Sniffer:

    The Sniffer stands out from the moment that he appears in that initial group shot, and it’s no surprise that he is the breakout star of the bunch, with his own ongoing feature starting in Daredevil Comics 008. A rough, crude, hairy, flat-headed brute who wears rough clothes and rope belt while everyone else is in a suit or tuxedo, the Sniffer is a real rough-and-tumble rowdy boy. As his name suggests, he also has a superhuman sense of smell, capable of locating, for example, the Daredevil in a warehouse full of criminals.

    Lady Killer: 

    Lady Killer doesn’t even get a line before he is beaten up and hung from the telephone pole he was lurking behind for the Daredevil. Hopefully his name derives from the fact that he is a handsome man and not from the fact that he tends to kill ladies, like his recent fellow Lev Gleason character, but it is possible that we will never know.

    the Crusher and Egg Head: 

    The Crusher and Egg Head fall prey to the ol’ duck-out-of-the-way-when-they’re-about-to-shoot-you-from-two-sides-so-that-they-shoot-one-another trick, but don’t worry, they survive. I’m no gun expert but I’ll bet that they specifically tell you not to shoot at something that’s in front of someone you don’t want to shoot for exactly this reason.

    Both Egg Head and Crusher are mainstays of the Deadly Dozen, with speaking lines in just about every story I scanned through just now. With Egg Head this is likely because of his visually distinct bald dome, while Crusher has the distinction of becoming known as Sniffer’s best friend over time. He even appears in the very last Sniffer story in the far-distant future of 1956!

    Snake Eyes, the Owl and the Turk:

    Snake Eyes, the Owl and the Turk make a decent attempt at ambushing the Daredevil while pretending to be FBI agents, only to be beaten up in pretty short order. I haven’t read through every Deadly Dozen appearance, but I reckon that this poor showing is also their career highlight, which is a real shame in the cases of the very visually-interesting Owl and Snake Eyes.

    Skully and the Butcher: 

    Skully and the Butcher get tricked into shooting and knifing one another, respectively, with embarrassing ease by the Daredevil. Once again they are retroactively fine due to the demands of future stories, though this does call their competence as killers into question somewhat.

    Though the Butcher seems to be just another face-in-the-crowd member of the Dozen, Skully gets a fair number of speaking roles going forward.

    (Skull Score: 1 – just an emaciated face on ol’ Skully I’m afraid)

    the Sniffer (again), Satan, Giant Killer, Benito: 

    Here we have a very contrasting group, with Sniffer and Satan (de facto leader, visually interesting, always in a speaking role) alongside Benito (most boring member, couldn’t even muster up a nickname, I’d be surprised if he ever gets another line of dialogue) and Giant Killer (solid middle of the roader, not just bald but short, probably gets a line now and then). All four of them get tossed off the train, and that’s it for the Deadly Dozen.

    Like I said, I love the Deadly Dozen conceptually and I love the Sniffer specifically, and it’s nice to have those feeling about characters who will be returning, for once. I don’t think that the problem of one dozen being too damn many members to showcase in a single comic, but who knows? Maybe I’m wrong and some hidden Golden Age gem awaits me still.

    As for the Death Detector, not only does it get safely delivered to the FBI so that they can start planning out the dystopian society they’re going to form around it (Gattaca meets Minority Report, I reckon), but the Daredevil is able to lead them back to Atlantic City to round up the whole Crime Convention for use as test subjects. 

    (almost forgot to include this terrific pic of Daredevil vs the Sniffer from the cover)

    Categorized in: Alphanumeric (Twelve), Language (Superlatives – Deadly), Team Index

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 038

    Criminals!

    Unnamed Gambler: 

    Not much is revealed about this fellow, but what we do know for sure is that he has access to a super strength drink and that he has been using it to clean up on gambling by slipping it to boxers and race horses with long odds. He also relies on the potion to help him escape from the cops, which backfires on him because Presto Martin, having taken the place of one of the boxers, is also hopped up on super juice and engages him in thrilling aerial combat.

    This super strength potion is the sort of thing I accuse crooks of employing shrtsightedly for quick crime profit rather than marketing legitimately for unimaginable wealth but I might give this fellow a pass due to his clear gambling problem. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

    the White Dragon Flower:

    She might just be a generic femme fatale spy chief who shows up for three panels before her whole operation gets busted up by aviator Cloud Curtis but I’ll be danged if a) that isn’t a great look and b) “White Dragon Flower” isn’t a terrific name, even if it was clearly thrown together to sound as mysterious and Asian as possible. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

    Categorized in: Animals & Plants (Plants)

    the Murder Syndicate, Inc: 

    As thier name suggests, the Murder Syndicate, Inc are hitmen for hire, distinguished mainly by the fact that the Daredevil has to round them up twice thanks to a mid-trial escape engineered by their boss, the mysterious Man in Black.

    And just who is the Man in Black? Why, it’s Judge Harkins, the man presiding over the trial in question! Is this surprising? Only if this is your first-ever experience reading a piece of fiction. (Silver Streak Comics 012, 1941)

    Categorized in: Murder (Assassins), Professions (Corporations) 

    Armando Siam:

    Armando Siam and his henchman Alfonze are a couple of generically foreign crooks who roll into Castleton in their absurdly long car one day and just kind of stumble into gaining control over Dickie Dean’s army of deep sea salvage robots, which they of course immediately set to looting the place.

    The duo eventually get word of the treasure that Dickie had been intending to use the robots for in the first place and hijack a salvage vessel in a very visually entertaining manner. Alas, it is at this point that the Boy Inventor himself catches up with them and the due end up as octopus fodder during their escape attempt. (Silver Streak Comics 014, 1941)

  • GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 035

    GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 035

    Not every villain is super and they must learn to accept that.

    Miguel Greeze: 

    He may just be a regular style crooked gambler looking to murder Golden Arrow in order to win a bet, but Miguel Greeze here is decked out in too good a costume to just ignore. Plus it’s impressive that he can make his legs go like that. (Whiz Comics 023, 1941)

    Konrad Schtienker: 

    Fascist assassin Konrad Schtienker is all-in on a tobacco product theme: he uses a tobacco shop as his HQ, kills government agents via packets of the ominously-named Blood-Tipped brand cigarettes (not that the cigarettes do the killing – they just serve as a way to release a mosquito containing a serum that compels fatal bouts of sleepwalking into the targets’ rooms) and even employs single-shot cigar guns to get out of jams. Too bad for him that Spy Smasher doesn’t smoke. (Whiz Comics 023, 1941)

    Black Rufus: 

    There are three things to note about this fellow:

    1. His name is Black Rufus. It’s much more charming than menacing.

    2. I like his look. The hunched posture combined with the mantle/poncho/thing give him a real vulture-like air.

    3. He is the only villain faced by one-hit wonder the Rainbow, which I always find endearing. Did he ever get out of jail and take his revenge? We shall never know. (The Arrow 003, 1941)

    the Leader: 

    It’s time for yet another Nazi spymaster named the Leader! This Leader is a fellow named Phil Rogers, and he’s after a new super-bomb developed by one Professor Andrews for the US military, while wearing what I would describe as a charmingly homemade-looking hood if it didn’t have a swastika on the forehead. He fails of course, because he is entirely unprepared to deal with a completely invisible Solar, Master of Magic. (Captain Aero Comics 001, 1941)

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 893: THE HUMMER

    (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

    The Hummer, “the deadliest killer on Earth” has just gotten out of jail and is out for revenge on those responsible for sending him away in the first place, starting with Taylor, the prosecutor.

    Like so many of his peers in the murder community, the Hummer has an affectation: he hums while he kills, and also while preparing to kill and after he kills. He hums all the time. It’s a bit of a liability, to be honest, as anyone who knows about him is able to keep an ear out for trouble. He’s also a classic super-villain Bad Boss who kills his henchmen when they fail him.

    Where many revenge killers are obsessive enough to stick to their predetermined list come hell or high water, the Hummer is of a more adaptive breed and dynamically expands it as he goes along, which is why Mr Scarlet and Pinky are marked for death. While this is evidence of a more flexible view of the world, I can’t help but assume that it will lead to a never-ending vengeance quest as everyone who impedes the Hummer in any way is themselves marked for death.

    One of the original targets on the list is Brian “Mr Scarlet” Butler’s secretary Miss Wade, who was working for previous victim Taylor at the time that the Hummer was put away, This is an astonishingly petty grudge to hold, and also provides Mr Scarlet and Pinky with just that much more motivation to take the Hummer down. 

    Revenge Killer Score: 1/10+

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 893: THE HUMMER

    (Wow Comics 004, 1941)

    The Hummer, “the deadliest killer on Earth” has just gotten out of jail and is out for revenge on those responsible for sending him away in the first place, starting with Taylor, the prosecutor.

    Like so many of his peers in the murder community, the Hummer has an affectation: he hums while he kills, and also while preparing to kill and after he kills. He hums all the time. It’s a bit of a liability, to be honest, as anyone who knows about him is able to keep an ear out for trouble. He’s also a classic super-villain Bad Boss who kills his henchmen when they fail him.

    Where many revenge killers are obsessive enough to stick to their predetermined list come hell or high water, the Hummer is of a more adaptive breed and dynamically expands it as he goes along, which is why Mr Scarlet and Pinky are marked for death. While this is evidence of a more flexible view of the world, I can’t help but assume that it will lead to a never-ending vengeance quest as everyone who impedes the Hummer in any way is themselves marked for death.

    One of the original targets on the list is Brian “Mr Scarlet” Butler’s secretary Miss Wade, who was working for previous victim Taylor at the time that the Hummer was put away, This is an astonishingly petty grudge to hold, and also provides Mr Scarlet and Pinky with just that much more motivation to take the Hummer down. 

    Revenge Killer Score: 1/10+

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 840: THE CRAWLER

    (Top-Notch Comics 010, 1940) 

    The antagonist of the Bob Phantom story in Top-Notch Comics 010 is Joe Chizzler, who uses his low-rent marriage agency to set scumbags up with wives then murder the wives for insurance payouts. It’s a mean, low-rent, misogynistic little scheme, and the only saving grace of/reason I’m talking about it is the fact that the actual murdering is done by this character, the Crawler.

    Is the Crawler a superhuman? Just a very talented human fly? We cannot know! He crawls up walls and he pulls people out of windows and that’s it.

    Walt “Bob Phantom” Whitney figures it all out, of course, and since the police in his version of NYC are some of the most incompetent in comics it is up to him to solve the problem with his patented combination of gossip column rabble-rousing and teleportation-heavy vigilantism. The former earns him a visit from the Crawler…

     … and the latter helps him deliver a taste of the Crawler’s own methods to him. 

    Our subject is dead on page four of a six page story, but for the completionists: Joe Chizzler takes the Crawler’s death as a sign that someone is on to him and he should blow town. He bumps off his gang in order to avoid paying them their shares of the loot and then Bob Phantom shows up and throws Chizzler out of a window in the second bit of bit of poetic justice of the story. 

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 748: THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME

    (Smash Comics 012, 1940)

    The Hunchback of Notre Dame is just that, a modern version of the fictional character, and seemingly just as damaged by society as his predecessor. He is manipulated into working as an assassin for Madame Doom, who is in Paris (presumably on behalf of the Nazis) to disrupt peace talks helmed by US Ambassador Blank but is being effectively countered by the Black X and so must operate through a deniable dupe asset.

    Just what the deal is with the Hunchback is down to three distinct possibilities, all fairly equally outlandish, but all are predicated on the fact that Notre Dame has a hunchbacked bellringer in 1940, like it’s a prerequisite for the job. The possibilities:

    1. That the people of Paris are correct in their belief that this Hunchback of Notre Dame is a direct descendant of Quasimodo, the original, which would imply not only that Quasimodo had a child at some point but that his physical condition was one which was passed down through a line of bellringers for almost 500 years.

    2. Similar to Possibility 1. Quasimodo has a child, but in this case, the Hunchback of Notre Dame Gene is recessive and his descendants are not generationally indentured cathedral slaves. This latest member of the family would thus be reviving an old tradition by being a delusional misfit urban legend.

    3. The citizens of Paris are credulous fools and all hunchbacked bellringers are not, in fact, related. In this scenario we must assume that it’s the job that is so terrible that it drives these poor men mad.

    Regardless of his actual origin, the Hunchback meets his end after attacking Black X in a jealous rage over Madame Doom’s affections. Riddled with bullets, he falls to his death. Black X is still horny for Madame Doom at this point, so she is allowed to leave.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 721: THE GENIUS

    (Science Comics 003, 1940)

    Dynamo has been stirring up trouble in the Unspecified City underworld. He’s captured Rats Rako and a significant portion of his gang and now Rats’ lieutenant Gun Ramey must figure out just how to deal with a superhuman do-gooder. It’s lucky for him that Unspecified City has a resident criminal scientist, the Genius (ignore the fact that they’re calling him Electro, this is from his first adventure before he changes it).

    I’ll be honest, my first instinct was to chuck the Genius into the next Mad and Criminal Scientist Round-Up, but between the name and the fact that he looks like someone did one of those awful clickbait art exercises where they do a “realistic” version of a cartoon character, in this case Professor Farnsworth from Futurama, and then ran that picture through a filter to make it look like an illustration. He is very distinct looking is what I am saying. And look at the size of that melon!

    The Genius lives up to his reputation, and one week later he is able to depower Dynamo and drop him in a pit with almost laughable ease. And then Gun Ramey make one of the classic inexplicable blunders and decides to save some money by stiffing the Genius on the bill, and as usually happens when someone in fiction cheats the person who specializes in deathtraps and murder, Gun finds himself in a deathtrap, about to be murdered.

    Luckily for Gun, the Dynamo and basically everyone in Unspecified City other than the Genius, the particular deathtrap that the two find themselves in is not a bespoke one that was made specifically in order to dispose of an electricity-powered superhuman but an old workaday deathtrap that the Genius has been using for years, to the extent that Gun knows all about it (and yet still got lippy with the Genius about his fee – probably the reason Gun is still a gang lieutenant rather than a gang boss). And a key thing about this deathtrap is that it not only features a spiked ceiling that lowers and crushes the occupants but also an exposed wire, so that the Genius’ victims must grapple with the choice of whether to wait for the spikes or end it all with the wire. Dynamo/Electro obviously chooses the latter and, revitalized, zaps the Genius into submission.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 676: THE DEATH

    (Miracle Comics 003, 1940)

    A scientist/spy who is sabotaging diplomatic talks between the UK and South America by killing diplomats with fog-activated poisoned wallpaper, the Death, aka Jaeger, meets his end at the hands of Secret Agent K-7 and his assistant Yvonne. He’s just the latest in a long line of villains with extremely metal names and not much else going on, except of course for the poisoned wallpaper.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 676: THE DEATH

    (Miracle Comics 003, 1940)

    A scientist/spy who is sabotaging diplomatic talks between the UK and South America by killing diplomats with fog-activated poisoned wallpaper, the Death, aka Jaeger, meets his end at the hands of Secret Agent K-7 and his assistant Yvonne. He’s just the latest in a long line of villains with extremely metal names and not much else going on, except of course for the poisoned wallpaper.