{"id":759,"date":"2024-08-23T08:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2026-09-27T15:51:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T18:51:01","slug":"minor-super-villain-594-rip-the-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 594: RIP-THE-BLOOD"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)<\/p>\n

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As weird as Fletcher Hanks stories are, sometimes the hardest thing to parse are the seem-like-they-should-mean-something names. Take Rip-the-Blood here: is this just a weird way to present a fellow named Rip with the nickname of “the Blood” or does his name mean something more? Is he so tough he’ll “rip the blood” out of you? I never know with this guy.<\/p>\n

Whatever his name means, Rip-the-Blood is a bad dude: through his influence over US politics and control of the munitions industry he plans to push the world into total war and become the most powerful man alive. <\/p>\n

EDIT Jan 2026: I just learned about New York underworld figure Harry Horowitz, aka “Gyp the Blood” and can only assume that Rip here is named in reference to him.<\/p>\n

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The inciting incident that will start the big war is the kidnapping of FDR by a foreign-looking plane. This is not a bad plan! I have no notes on the big “plunge the world into war” scheme! <\/p>\n

EXCEPT. Rip-the-Blood knows<\/i> about Stardust the Super Wizard. He knows<\/i> what Stardust did to the Spy Army (not covered here but they got messed up) and that he will probably be targeted as well – it should be no surprise to him when FDR is rescued from his kidnappers almost immediately. It shouldn’t<\/i>, but it really seems to mess up Rip’s whole day\/world domination scheme.<\/p>\n

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Rip’s big anti-Stardust plan is to use a wind generator to blow him into something called a “glue pit” which I put in quotes only because I don’t know what it actually is – it gets name-checked several times during the course of the story but never actually comes into play. Given Golden Age naming conventions I’m not willing to just assume that it’s a literal pit full of literal glue – it could be anything from that to a cave with a giant slug in it.<\/p>\n

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Rip-the-Blood’s associates get off surprisingly lightly for Stardust foes, being sent to some sort of private prison near Polaris, but the man himself is tossed from a cliff to his death. I personally would have involved the much-discussed Glue Pit, but who am I to judge a weird enormous spaceman?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Fantastic Comics 002, 1940) As weird as Fletcher Hanks stories are, sometimes the hardest thing to parse are the seem-like-they-should-mean-something names. Take Rip-the-Blood here: is this just a weird way to present a fellow named Rip with the nickname of “the Blood” or does his name mean something more? Is he so tough he’ll “rip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,61,44,3,23,872,499,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5","category-capitalism","category-dead","category-fox-features","category-minor-super-villain","category-rip-the-blood","category-stardust-the-super-wizard","category-world-domination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","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=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theskeletoncurse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}