{"id":166,"date":"2024-08-17T11:55:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-17T14:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=166"},"modified":"2026-09-27T15:28:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T18:28:59","slug":"minor-super-villain-589-the-tankonaut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=166","title":{"rendered":"MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 589: THE TANKONAUT"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Exciting Comics 005, 1940)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Stretching the definition of “super-villain” to the very limits here: the Tankonaut is a superweapon developed by US arms manufacturer M.V. Gage under contract to a man who is very clearly meant to be Hitler but is referred to only as the Dictator. Whether this would have qualified as treason in mid-to-late 1940 is beyond me but the next part, where the Tankonaut is tested on US targets (including Washington DC!) extremely is.<\/p>\n

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Not only does the Tankonaut have an excellent name (100% the only reason it made the grade as an entry here, even under my already very loose policies about super-vehicles) but it has a neat gimmick: it isn’t a tank at all! Rather, it is a big beefy truck that carries around its own armour plating and weaponry for rapid deployment\/ quick and sneaky escape! It’s a neat variation on the old “drive the crime vehicle into the back of a truck” scheme for the truck to actually be<\/i> the crime vehicle.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for M.V. Gage and the Tankonaut, John Thesson, the Son of the Gods, is on the case. He discovers the Tankonaut’s secret identity of A Truck by the simple expedient of flipping it over with a long pole. As usual, once the super vehicle has been disabled the non-super humans are quickly rounded up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Exciting Comics 005, 1940) Stretching the definition of “super-villain” to the very limits here: the Tankonaut is a superweapon developed by US arms manufacturer M.V. Gage under contract to a man who is very clearly meant to be Hitler but is referred to only as the Dictator. Whether this would have qualified as treason in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,61,23,140,232,234,167,235,233,7,231],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5","category-capitalism","category-minor-super-villain","category-nazi-collaborator","category-son-of-the-gods","category-standard-better-nedor","category-super-vehicle","category-super-villain-definition","category-tankonaut","category-the","category-traitor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}