{"id":3982,"date":"2026-11-01T08:46:26","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T12:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=3982"},"modified":"2026-11-01T08:46:26","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T12:46:26","slug":"mad-and-criminal-scientist-round-up-029","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=3982","title":{"rendered":"MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 029"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Once again we must line up four scientists, point to them and solemnly intone, “You have wasted your education.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unnamed Scientist<\/b>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the many lessons that those who live in a comic book universe should take to heart is to try to avoid angering any scientists you might come into contact with, and particularly<\/em> not to go out of your way to antagonize them. Richard Manners never learned this lesson and ended up transformed into a small bronze statuette for his sins. Luckily for Doctor Occult and his pal Captain Ellsworth, however, Occult’s magic symbol is capable of reflecting “transmutation rays” and the never-named scientist gets a taste of his own medicine. Forever. (More Fun Comics 025, 1937)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unnamed Occultist<\/b>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As I have previously established, low-level and one-trick magic users are getting shelved with the scientists until such a time as there are enough of them to justify having a category of their own. A time that I suspect will never come, by the way, because even nameless one-issue cannon fodder like this guy are almost interesting enough to merit a full Minor Super-Villain entry. Magic guys are fun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This particular<\/em> magic guy lures Doctor Occult to his workshop under the pretense that he has accidentally stranded his assistant in “the Ether-World” while conducting occult experiments. Once our hero has made his own way across the barrier between worlds, the man gloatingly reveals that there was never an assistant and that the whole point of the enterprise was to kill Doctor Occult for his role in capturing the occultist’s murderous brother years earlier. It’s a pretty good trap, and I really appreciate the Big Taunting Head approach to smugly announcing your victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The occultist’s downfall comes when he realizes that the knife that Doctor Occult armed himself with before making the pan-dimensional journey has a hollow handle with valuable formulae concealed within, and rather than cut his losses he attempts to push his luck and try to retrieve them. To his credit, he almost manages it: he successfully paralyzes Occult and gets ahold of the knife, only to be sneak-attacked by a very gross-looking Ether-World Beast<\/strong> and killed. Let this be a super-villain lesson: never open up the trap once it has been sprung. (More Fun Comics 026, 1937)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herr Doctor<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This crypto-fascist scientist has been using the ever-popular mad science innovation of the engine-killing ray to bring down Naval aircraft coming out of Panama so that he can steal US intelligence documents from them. He is tracked down in his lighthouse lair and apprehended by Lt Bob Neal and the crew of Submarine 662. (More Fun Comics 054, 1940)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Droon<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n

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While flying over the Mediterranean, Captain Desmo and his pal Gabby is targeted by yet another engine-killing ray, this one under the control of a scientist\/ arms dealer named Droon. Since their plane was targeted as a test, Droon doesn’t really have any plans for Desmo and Gabby and so he simply slings them in a dungeon after they reject his offer of employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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These are adventure comic heroes we’re talking about here, so it’s not long before they have busted out and blown the entire island to high heaven. It’s the sort of thing you need to plan for if you’re going to live on top of an enormous ammo dump and yet nobody actually does. (More Fun Comics 058, 1940)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again we must line up four scientists, point to them and solemnly intone, “You have wasted your education.” Unnamed Scientist: One of the many lessons that those who live in a comic book universe should take to heart is to try to avoid angering any scientists you might come into contact with, and particularly not to go out of your way to antagonize them. Richard Manners never learned this lesson and ended up transformed into a small bronze statuette…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,2566],"tags":[2608,2504,2963,2535,2539,2609,2964,2855,2559,2707,2572,2808],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-3982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dc-comics","category-mad-and-criminal-scientist-round-up","tag-2608","tag-2504","tag-captain-desmo","tag-crypto-fascist","tag-dead","tag-doctor-occult","tag-engine-killing-ray","tag-lt-bob-neal","tag-mad-science","tag-magic","tag-monsters","tag-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982","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=3982"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19570,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3982\/revisions\/19570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3982"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_folder&post=3982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}