{"id":4810,"date":"2022-08-22T15:38:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T18:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=4810"},"modified":"2026-09-27T19:20:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T22:20:05","slug":"minor-super-villain-119-the-tenament-firebug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=4810","title":{"rendered":"MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 119: THE TENAMENT FIREBUG"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Nickel Comics 003, 1940)<\/p>\n

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Spoilers for the end of this writeup: the Tenement Firebug is that most common of comic book villains, the property owner who burns down their own buildings for the insurance money and\/or redevelopment. Ordinarily such a foe would be a regular guy with some hirelings and maybe a mask, but since he was set up as a foil to magic guy Warlock the Wizard the Tenament Firebug has been beefed up slightly.<\/p>\n

First off is his pet lizard, which is a salamander. But! Not a real-world amphibian salamander, nor a modern fantasy style fire elemental – this one is the Medieval bestiary denizen that is immune to fire! A very exciting appearance of a discarded beast!<\/p>\n

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Secondly, the Firebug is both able to do comic book super-hypnotism and is adept enough at disguise that he manages to frame Warlock for the arsons. Again but!<\/p>\n

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He was wearing a rubberoid mask the whole time! Which means that he applied the Warlock disguise over<\/i> his mask<\/i>. Which is frankly much <\/i>more responsible for my interest in and love of him as a villain than any old arson. Commitment to the bit is what I’d call it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Nickel Comics 003, 1940) Spoilers for the end of this writeup: the Tenement Firebug is that most common of comic book villains, the property owner who burns down their own buildings for the insurance money and\/or redevelopment. Ordinarily such a foe would be a regular guy with some hirelings and maybe a mask, but since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,622,61,175,1156,131,111,23,1732,439,2333,7,63,1974],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5","category-arsonist","category-capitalism","category-fawcett-comics","category-insurance-fraud","category-magic","category-mind-control","category-minor-super-villain","category-nickel-comics","category-rubberoid-mask","category-tenament-firebug","category-the","category-unofficial-name","category-warlock-the-wizard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810","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=4810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4811,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4810\/revisions\/4811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}