The Curse of Skeleton Munroe

Category: secret society

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 394: BANDAR

    (More Fun Comics 070, 1941)

    I got some gripes about Bandar and they’re not really Bandar’s fault. But let’s start with who Bandar is: the source of a mysterious spectral figure that keeps bamboozling the Spectre and killing former members of the Crimson Circle Mystic Society.

    Jim Corrigan goes deep cover and joins the Society in order to get to the bottom of what the heck is going on and discovers that they’re just a bunch of dupes that society leader Bandar hypnotizes and makes steal for him. The former members are being killed – by Bandar’s astral form, it turns out – not to preserve some sort of mystic secret, etc., but to keep them from possibly remembering their actions and blabbing to the fuzz.

    The Spectre eventually solves the problem in his own inimitable way: by destroying Bandar’s human form so that his astral self is doomed to wander forever. Efficient!

    Now for the gripes: 

    1. While I appreciate the consistency of the “ghosts are chalk-white figures in a purple/grey hooded robe” design, it does get pretty samey after a while and there have been quite a lot of ghosts in 1941’s Spectre adventures.

    2. When I started reading this story I got pretty excited about the Crimson Circle Mystic Society (or the much cooler Order of the Crimson Circle, according to their signage) being the villain and Bandar is a bit of a step down from that.

    I acknowledge that those are unfair and subjective reasons to dislike a character so here are a couple of subjective things I liked about this tale to balance the scales:

    1. Bandar is an example of a trope that I don’t really know the name for – monster of the week? Basically, an antagonist who is able to enact a complete runaround on the very capable protagonist because they don’t know what the Deal is and thus can’t effectively counter the Deal. In this case, the Spectre can’t stop or catch Bandar until he figures out that he’s not actually a ghost but an astral projection. It’s just a fun way to make what would on paper be a mismatched foe work.

    2. This story marks at least the third time that Jim Corrigan is murdered while on a case, a fun recurring bit.

    So: Bandar!

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 235: THE ORDER OF ASSASSINS

    (Flash Comics v1 005, 1940)

    It’s another version of the old Order of Assassins, this time as a revival founded by a supposed descendant of Hassan-i Sabbah, the original Assassin of yore, though since he died in 1124 AD there’s a decent chance that anybody is his descendant. 

    Legitimacy aside, this buncha yahoos operates out of a city-fortress called Alamut (but somewhere in the vicinity of Egypt rather than Iran) and is engaged in a somewhat nebulous plot to conquer the world by assassinating various leaders, including that of the very delicious-sounding nation of Frappe. Hawkman foils this scheme with a few well-placed sling bullets, but even though their leaders are killed, the bulk of the organization survives, possibly as part of the next iteration of the Order, whenever that crops up.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 235: THE ORDER OF ASSASSINS

    (Flash Comics v1 005, 1940)

    It’s another version of the old Order of Assassins, this time as a revival founded by a supposed descendant of Hassan-i Sabbah, the original Assassin of yore, though since he died in 1124 AD there’s a decent chance that anybody is his descendant. 

    Legitimacy aside, this buncha yahoos operates out of a city-fortress called Alamut (but somewhere in the vicinity of Egypt rather than Iran) and is engaged in a somewhat nebulous plot to conquer the world by assassinating various leaders, including that of the very delicious-sounding nation of Frappe. Hawkman foils this scheme with a few well-placed sling bullets, but even though their leaders are killed, the bulk of the organization survives, possibly as part of the next iteration of the Order, whenever that crops up.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 149: KING COBRA

    (All American 029, 1941)

    A simple first costumed foe for Dr Mid-Nite: a mine owner founds his own secret society in order to control public opinion about such things as unionization and also to have a ready-made lynch mob if needed. Really appreciate how on-theme the Cobra Kingdom – wearing a version of King Cobra’s own costume, natch – were at all times, down to referring to their enemies as “mongoose.” It wasn’t a big shock that they almost killed King Cobra himself when it was revealed to them that they had been duped into doing his bidding.

  • MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 106: THE SOCIETY OF ASSASSINS

    (More Fun Comics 053-057, 1940)

    Comic books love the Order of Assassins – it’s a ready-made group tough enough to tackle most heroes, plus they’re all foreign and such. They crop up all over the place – it’s like that thing where so many remnants of Atlantis exist that it’s hard to imagine that anyone died, but instead when the power of the Assassins was shattered each individual member went off and founded their own new Order.

    This bunch of Assassins operated out of Algiers (but also Bombay, because as noted previously the creative team behind Captain Desmo had a fairly shaky grasp on the geographical distinction between India and North Africa) and caused a lot of trouble for Captain Desmo and his pal Gabby until, in a moment of poor judgement, they captured them and took them to their HQ.

    If I was the Grand Assassin of Algiers I simply would not rig my mountain fastness with explosives and leave the trigger in an easily accessible location.