Browsed by
Month: July 2023

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 002

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 002

Back again with another collection of science-villains who didn’t quite make the grade! Fritz Cardif here has a gunpowder-exploding ray and a lot of big plans. He probably would have made the main list except that I personally find his antics very dull, with the exception of the lil’ stinker moment pictured above. (Hit Comics 006, 1940) Dr Marko figured on using kidnapped scientists as research slaves in his Grand Canyon hideout, but he too was corralled by Neon the…

Read More Read More

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 002

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 002

Back again with another collection of science-villains who didn’t quite make the grade! Fritz Cardif here has a gunpowder-exploding ray and a lot of big plans. He probably would have made the main list except that I personally find his antics very dull, with the exception of the lil’ stinker moment pictured above. (Hit Comics 006, 1940) Dr Marko figured on using kidnapped scientists as research slaves in his Grand Canyon hideout, but he too was corralled by Neon the…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 319: DR NARR

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 319: DR NARR

(Daring Mystery Comics 005, 1940) Poor Dr Narr. all he wanted was to make good robots, but all he could make were terrible robots (in comics terms. Even today, bipedal, semi-autonomous robots capable of running and throwing nets etc are wildly advanced. Be less hard on yourself, Narr). Too bad for Narr that he chose the villain’s path: rather than reevaluating his metrics for success in a robot he kidnaps Marvex the 5th dimensional super-robot in hopes of discerning his…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 318: DORK

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 318: DORK

(Daring Mystery Comics 005, 1940) There’s a great temptation when dealing with an evil scientist named Dork to focus on easy, puerile humour rather than appreciating the other things that make him a good super-villain. I had a whole bit about how his big plan was to flood the city with white goo (hur hur) and kidnap women to experiment on their bodies but it wasn’t sustainable. Ironically, I would have had to jump through more hoops to obliquely reference…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 317: MR MURO

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 317: MR MURO

(Daring Mystery Comics 001, 004, 1940)   The most interesting thing about Mr Muro is that he represents an intermediate stage in the development of the comic book Yellow Peril villain, away from the gaudy Fu Manchu style of the pulps and the comics of the 30s. There are a few of these more workaday Asian Threat villains kicking around in 1940/ 41 but they eventually lose out to the super-agents of the Japanese Empire as the preeminent example of…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 316: THE VAMPIRE

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 316: THE VAMPIRE

(Daring Mystery Comics 002, 1940)  The Vampire has the distinction of appearing in the only Golden Age featuring Mister E, possibly the biggest nonentity in the collection of heroes brought back in The Twelve. He’s whatever: he has a drug that makes your heart explode and his major plot involves trying to get control of an oil company (and marry a woman against her will after killing her father, in case you though he might be a bit sympathetic). He…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-HERO 037: THE PHANTOM BULLET

MINOR SUPER-HERO 037: THE PHANTOM BULLET

(Daring Mystery Comics 002, 1940) There’s a lot of people on the internet who like to opine on the morality of bat-themed rich-guy vigilantism, but I gotta tell you that it could have been a whole lot worse. Case in point, the Phantom Bullet, a rich guy who gets ahold of an untraceable ice pellet gun and immediately thinks “what this city needs is a whole lot more extra-judicial killings.” But instead of becoming an unstoppable media juggernaut, the Phantom…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 315: THE ZOMBIE MASTER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 315: THE ZOMBIE MASTER

(Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940) The Zombie Master has layers. Top level is deeds: he is a scientist who kidnaps people on the fringes of society and uses a combination of hypnosis and radiation to turn them into bright green mind controlled thralls – fairly standard stuff for a mad scientist. Next though, is his origin: he felt rejected by society because of his great height – something like 20 feet tall, according to some sources – and so moved…

Read More Read More

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 315: THE ZOMBIE MASTER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 315: THE ZOMBIE MASTER

(Daring Mystery Comics 001, 1940) The Zombie Master has layers. Top level is deeds: he is a scientist who kidnaps people on the fringes of society and uses a combination of hypnosis and radiation to turn them into bright green mind controlled thralls – fairly standard stuff for a mad scientist. Next though, is his origin: he felt rejected by society because of his great height – something like 20 feet tall, according to some sources – and so moved…

Read More Read More