The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: super-villain

  • SUPER-VILLAIN YEARBOOK: CATWOMAN 1940

    I have decided that I’m neglecting non-minor super-villains! Thus: super-villain yearbooks! We’re hopping back in time slightly to round up the ones who appeared in comics I have already read as I revisit them, so here comes a big blob of Batman villains!

    So, what was Catwoman up to in 1940?

    1. Batman Comics v1 001, ‘Untitled’ **first appearance**

    In Catwoman’s first appearance, she’s a mysterious figure known as the Cat about whom little enough is known that Robin’s chief suspects are a couple of chunky dudes in their 50s.

    Key to Batman’s relationship with Catwoman, however, is that he is very horny for her. Thus, my theory is that he horny-sensed that seeming frail old lady Miss Peggs is actually a hot dame with nice gams, no matter what he tries to tell Robin later about “clues” and “evidence.”

    The reveal of the Cat’s true identity is of course the source for a couple of the classic out-of-context comics panels.

    Finally, this is the first of many times that Batman will just let Catwoman go because, as mentioned, he’s horny for her. 

    2. Batman Comics v1 002, ‘Untitled’

    Most of this is a Joker story, but there are a few points of interest for the Cat.

    The little old lady disguise is back in play!

    As befits the subject of Batman’s affections, she shows moments of virtue even as she plunders the castle of a dead man.

    At the very last second, as she plunges to her potential doom, a “-Woman” is added to her name, basically for all time.

    3. Batman Comics v1 003, ‘The Batman vs the Cat-Woman!’

    The most important part of this adventure comes early:

    The cat head Catwoman costume! Not well-loved but it has a place in my heart. Catwoman has at least as many lackluster costumes as great ones, so one that goes all-out like this definitely ranks in the top 50% over mediocrities like the 60s green outfit or the black one-piece swimsuit with buccaneer boots.

    The story is less about Batman vs Catwoman than it is about crappy business partners. Specifically, two of the three men involved in a diamond business team up and hire the Catwoman to steal their goods and then one of them betrays the other one. Things look bad for Catwoman until Batman and Robin show up.

    Batman again lets her get away because he like-likes her, but this time:

    The feeling is mutual! Fireworks go off! The nations rejoice! The nascent spirits of fanfic grow stronger! WHAT A 1940 CATWOMAN HAS HAD!

    Body Count: 0 (assuming that the security guard that gets taken out in her first appearance was just knocked out, which I am because even Golden Age Batman didn’t get horny enough to excuse murder)

    End-of-year Status: At Large

  • SUPER-VILLAIN DEFINITION: THE ADDENDUM

    I’ve been thinking about super-villains and their degrees of notoriety and significance lately, because I’m almost always doing that. As a result: this addendum to my greatest work, the Super-Villain Definition entry on this very blog.

    Essentially, the only thing that separates a minor super-villain from a super-villain is continued relevance. Signal Man and Boss Zucco and Darkseid are all equivalent in their super-villain status on this front despite being entirely different otherwise (indeed, the only reason Boss Zucco is counted as a super-villain in my estimation is that he will continue to occasionally reappear as long as Dick Grayson is a comics character): they are antagonists to super-heroes.

    So: the gradations of super-villain are as follows

    ALSO-RANS

    These are the not-quite-super-but-more-than-regular guys. Sad sacks, the lot.

    -the generic costumed villain: fellas who throw on a hood or a mask to protect their identity but don’t have a special name or any real style. 

    -the generic mad scientist: they have super-science but fail to make an impression

    -style but no substance: a while back I ran across an utterly unremarkable crook who called himself the Crime Broker. Occasionally a name almost pulls someone through, and that is the most tragic of the also-rans.

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAINS

    -one and done: most minor super-villains are of this ilk: they show up, are killed or captured and never return.

    -the recurring foe: we haven’t actually run into a lot of these yet but they are what it says on the tin: a villain who makes occasional appearances as part of an ongoing rogues gallery but ultimately falls out of history – Zatara’s foe the Tigress is one such.

    -the reason for being: we’ve seen a few of these, such as the Mask or Fang Gow – villains who are the focus of a hero’s career, reappearing story after story.

    SUPER-VILLAINS

    -the rogues gallery: over time in something like the Marvel or DC Universes, a certain number of one and done characters – your Signal Mans or Calendar Mans – are brought back, recurring foes like Dr Sivana or Lex Luthor keep on recurring and such ‘reason for being’ villains who don’t end up decisively defeated lose some of their significance. This is your population of super-villains.

    To what end did I feel the need to write this up? See tomorrow’s post, in which we start talking about non-minor super-villains more!

  • SUPER-VILLAIN DEFINITION: THE ADDENDUM

    I’ve been thinking about super-villains and their degrees of notoriety and significance lately, because I’m almost always doing that. As a result: this addendum to my greatest work, the Super-Villain Definition entry on this very blog.

    Essentially, the only thing that separates a minor super-villain from a super-villain is continued relevance. Signal Man and Boss Zucco and Darkseid are all equivalent in their super-villain status on this front despite being entirely different otherwise (indeed, the only reason Boss Zucco is counted as a super-villain in my estimation is that he will continue to occasionally reappear as long as Dick Grayson is a comics character): they are antagonists to super-heroes.

    So: the gradations of super-villain are as follows

    ALSO-RANS

    These are the not-quite-super-but-more-than-regular guys. Sad sacks, the lot.

    -the generic costumed villain: fellas who throw on a hood or a mask to protect their identity but don’t have a special name or any real style. 

    -the generic mad scientist: they have super-science but fail to make an impression

    -style but no substance: a while back I ran across an utterly unremarkable crook who called himself the Crime Broker. Occasionally a name almost pulls someone through, and that is the most tragic of the also-rans.

    MINOR SUPER-VILLAINS

    -one and done: most minor super-villains are of this ilk: they show up, are killed or captured and never return.

    -the recurring foe: we haven’t actually run into a lot of these yet but they are what it says on the tin: a villain who makes occasional appearances as part of an ongoing rogues gallery but ultimately falls out of history – Zatara’s foe the Tigress is one such.

    -the reason for being: we’ve seen a few of these, such as the Mask or Fang Gow – villains who are the focus of a hero’s career, reappearing story after story.

    SUPER-VILLAINS

    -the rogues gallery: over time in something like the Marvel or DC Universes, a certain number of one and done characters – your Signal Mans or Calendar Mans – are brought back, recurring foes like Dr Sivana or Lex Luthor keep on recurring and such ‘reason for being’ villains who don’t end up decisively defeated lose some of their significance. This is your population of super-villains.

    To what end did I feel the need to write this up? See tomorrow’s post, in which we start talking about non-minor super-villains more!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 160: THE FOUR CARDS

    (Batman Comics 005, 1941)

    A while ago I decided that groups were going to go into my lists (and charts and graphs) of super-villains. After all, if I was willing to accord one fellow who went around as the Masked Bandit, why should I spurn four guys who do exactly the same, only pluralized? Accordingly, masked gangs get as much credit as masked crooks, if they fulfil enough other criteria. The Four Cards, however, introduce a new wrinkle.

    Simply put: if any other four people with card-based nicknames had formed a card-themed gang I’d count them as minor super-villains, but one of them is the Joker. So the group is minor and three quarters of its members are – is that enough? Evidently!

    Aside from my categorization panic, the Four Cards are a bit basic: they operate a semi-legal gambling ship in international waters off Gotham and a disguised Joker, seductive Black Queen and socially adroit Jack of Diamonds line up wealthy targets for the King of Clubs to beat up and rob.

    Inevitably, Batman and Robin step in. The Black Queen falls in love with Batman and she and the Jack of Diamonds bump one another off over him. Meanwhile, the Joker has pulled his inevitable double cross and left (having set the ship on fire as he went), leaving poor Clubbsy as the only one left to be hauled away to jail.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAINS

    I like taking note of minor and obscure characters from days of yore, and none other is so beloved of my heart as the minor super-villain. Even though lot of them are real duds, as a class of characters they pack such a lot of potential. Just as very little separates an Ultra-Humanite (middlingly significant super-villain) from a Luthor (one of the top super-villains of all time), just as little separates them from Zolar, a bald super-scientist who fought Superman one time in 1940.

    But if we’re going to talk about minor super-villains then we must determine what exactly defines a villain as super (at least to me). The simplest route to this is to put on a costume, adopt an alias, and commit a crime. Particularly if the costume, crime or both are themed according to the name. Call yourself the Viper and dress in a snakeskin jacket and papier mache snake head while robbing a reptile house and you, my friend, are a super-villain.

    Not every super-villain fits those criteria, however – heck, Luthor basically never has and he was my major example earlier – so I had to come up with some criteria. Generally, a villain who fulfils two or more of the following is elevated to the ranks of the minor super-villain:

    -costume (even a simple domino mask can make the difference)

    -foe (fight a super-hero and the super can rub off on you)

    -methods (superpowers or superscience make super-villains)

    -name (probably the least important without any of the others – comics are littered with gangsters named the Little Gardenia or the Bone Butcher who amount to exactly nothing)

    -scale (rob a convenience store: nothing. Rob every convenience store in the city: that’s supercrime!)

    -theme (theme your weapons, your crimes, your henchmens’ names. Delicious stuff)

    -style (absolutely the most important. A character who fails to thrive doesn’t make the list: Tex Thomson once fought a guy who lived in an isolated castle and had rebuilt himself as a shapechanging plastic cyborg and he is not represented here because I yawned my way through the issue)

    That’s it and I’m sure that I’ll be very inconsistent as I go along.