(Blue Beetle Comics 002, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? In thinking about this question I realized just how close comic book-style organized crime comes to supercrime to begin with and that Boss X represents the bare minimum of extra oomph required to make the leap to the super-villain designation: the name and the fact that he works out of a secret underground lair on an island.
(Batman Comics 004, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? I’ve already stated multiple times that pirates get a free pass. Old-timey cosplay pirates get double marks. What is interesting about them? Blackbeard is actually a frustrated former actor turned gang boss, and if you don’t think that I don’t want more of that in comics you don’t know me very well. Bring back Blackbeard and make him a method actor.
(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…
(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…
(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.
(All-Star 006, 1941)
(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…
(All American Comics 001-071 plus appearances in All-Star, World’s Finest, New York World’s Fair Comics and Comics Cavalcade, 1939-1946) They keep coming up, so I might as well spare a word for Red, White and Blue. The concept is simple: three childhood friends, each of whom went into a different branch of the armed forces (and each of whom has a convenient nickname) work for G-2/ US military intelligence to root out enemy plots, most often in partnership with G-2…
(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.
(All American Comics 011 & 013, 1940) What makes them a super-villain? He’s a guy who kind of looks like Satan (named I.M. Glib, natch) who uses such as invisibility fields and food spoiling chemicals to ransom cities and US Senators. A slam dunk, definitional villain. What about them is interesting? He’s a Golden Age scientific villain who made two appearances and used the same technology in both of them. This is almost unprecedented, I assure you – ordinarily someone…