{"id":448,"date":"2026-03-06T09:37:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T13:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=448"},"modified":"2026-09-27T15:38:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T18:38:46","slug":"minor-super-villain-933-the-ripper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=448","title":{"rendered":"MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 933: THE RIPPER"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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For the third issue in a row, a souped up super-plane takes to the skies of probably-California to menace law-abiding aviators. The Ripper, like the Heater before it, is a vehicle with a singular name being run by a group, which is a mildly interesting taxonomic trend that unfortunately does not continue to occur.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Where the Wingers and the Heater were armed with sci-fi ray cannons, the Ripper relies on a comparatively low-tech blade that is used to slice up aircraft and parachutes alike. Ironically, this is a far less<\/i> believable means of attacking a plane on the wing than a thermodynamic ray of some sort. Just what kind of flying does the Ripper’s pilot have to be doing to slice off a wing with a comparatively short, fixed blade, anyway? Just how sharp can that thing be considering that it looks perfectly cylindrical? There are some wavy lines around the blade in precisely one panel – perhaps it’s meant to be a vibro-blade of some kind.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Like the Heater before them, the crew of the Ripper are prepared for Cloud Curtis and his crew to interfere in their plans. In addition to the standard-issue bulletproofing, their plane is equipped with a magnetic generator to lock the Golden Bullet’s grapplers in place on their hull and knockout gas dispensers on the plane’s exterior act as a counter to Curtis’ favoured tactic of clambering onto an enemy aircraft’s exterior. Cloud and his assistants are taken into custody but not, crucially, immediately murdered.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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In contrast<\/i> to the Heater, the Ripper has an actual defined goal: shut down US aviation in order to weaken the country for vague foreign agent reasons. And it’s astonishingly effective!<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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Having not been murdered, Cloud and pals soon escape and take to the skies, where the Ripper crew learn the same posthumous lesson as the Heater gang before them: if you render yourself impossible to capture then you are much more likely to be killed outright. One shattered propeller later, the skies are safe for trainee pilots once more.<\/p>\n

Categorized in: Accessories (Aircraft)<\/a>, Activities (Ripping)<\/a>, Espionage (Saboteurs)<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Silver Streak Comics 011, 1941) For the third issue in a row, a souped up super-plane takes to the skies of probably-California to menace law-abiding aviators. The Ripper, like the Heater before it, is a vehicle with a singular name being run by a group, which is a mildly interesting taxonomic trend that unfortunately does […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,78,165,156,44,13,139,23,590,345,167,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-14","category-aviator","category-cloud-curtis","category-crypto-fascist","category-dead","category-group","category-lev-gleason","category-minor-super-villain","category-ripper","category-saboteur","category-super-vehicle","category-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448","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=448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":449,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448\/revisions\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}