{"id":2360,"date":"2024-06-25T08:53:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-25T11:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=2360"},"modified":"2026-09-27T17:02:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T20:02:38","slug":"minor-super-villain-552-baron-von-kampf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=2360","title":{"rendered":"MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 552: BARON VON KAMPF"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Speed Comics 001, 1939) <\/p>\n

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Baron von Kampf! Major recurring Shock Gibson villain and aspiring world conqueror. He’s exactly the sort of evil, sneering gloating villain that I love to see vex the heroes of yesteryear, and due to the fact that his appearances are concentrated in the early days of the super-hero medium that’s about all the characterization he gets. He wants to rule the world and he’s a dick about it.<\/p>\n

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But who needs characterization when you’ve 1. got the appearance of a weird little goblin man and 2. employ the services of what are possibly the greatest henchmen of the Golden Age: the Zombies!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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“This Better Not Awaken Anything In Me”<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

According to Baron von Kampf, the Zombies are radio-controlled creatures made out of animal parts. Just why they’re called zombies is a mystery – the idea of the zombie as a resurrected corpse or corpselike drugged (or mystically enthralled) person was very much in the cultural ether in 1939, so who the heck knows?<\/p>\n

Naming conventions aside the Zombies look terrific, particularly in a huge group – they’re like something that Steve Ditko might draw swarming out of a portal to beat up Dr Strange.<\/p>\n

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Baron von Kampf’s second appearance in Speed Comics<\/i> 002 sadly does not involve the Zombies but does <\/i>feature that old favourite gizmo, the engine killing ray, which von Kampf is employing to bring down airplanes in order to conquer the South American nation of El Matador. <\/p>\n

The real interesting thing about the Baron in this issue is that he still has on what I previously assumed to be some sort of surgical cap but might just be the top of his head? Like it’s a metal plate or something? Like all aspects of the Baron’s appearance it goes unmentioned in the text so we can only speculate on why exactly he is Like That.<\/p>\n

Baron von Kampf shows up maybe half a dozen times total but the real attraction is the Zombies, who get a bit weirder as time goes on. We”l be seeing them again, I assure you.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Baron von Kampf 1940<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Speed Comics 001, 1939)  Baron von Kampf! Major recurring Shock Gibson villain and aspiring world conqueror. He’s exactly the sort of evil, sneering gloating villain that I love to see vex the heroes of yesteryear, and due to the fact that his appearances are concentrated in the early days of the super-hero medium that’s about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,1511,70,480,36,239,23,91,28,101,236,7,874,107,633],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-69","category-baron-von-kampf","category-creep","category-engine-killing-ray","category-good-henchmen","category-harvey-comics","category-minor-super-villain","category-monsters","category-multiple-appearances","category-scientist","category-shock-gibson","category-the","category-volcano-lair","category-world-domination","category-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360","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=2360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2363,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions\/2363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}