(More Fun Comics 067, 1941) It’s an old, dumb trope: diamond thief Gordon Slade escapes into the jungle with his loot and then takes over a tribe as it’s spiritual leader – sometimes it’s a god but in this case it’s as a medicine man. Between the name and the outfit the Great Medicine Bird, like a lot of his shitty compatriots, technically qualifies for the status of minor super-villain. But since I don’t especially like them, they’re going into…
(More Fun Comics 067, 1941) Deeja Kathoon is an occultist and necromancer who has the ability to summon and bind ghosts to his service and uses this power to unleash a ghostly crimewave on Cliffland, NJ. He has what turns out to be an Indian surname but there’s no indication in-story that he’s supposed to be Indian and so I must assume that it’s a coincidence and that my first guess was correct and his name was chosen by picking…
(More Fun Comics 066, 1941) The Voodoo King is nothing special: a colonial administrator in the the Kangean Islands of Indonesia (meaning that he is probably our first Dutch super-villain), he uses his weird getup and knowledge of chemistry to scare off iron miners so that he can steal the diamonds that are also abundant in the mine. Too bad for him that the mine owner is friends with pilot/ adventurer Captain Desmo and so he gets his clock cleaned….
More goon/ more fascist The Band AKA the Anti-American Band AKA the Un-American Band are yet another take on the German-American Bund distinguished by the fact that they were infiltrated by Bruce Blackburn – Counterspy so a) they were one of the few gangs of fascist goons to last more than one adventure and b) they were the villains that Blackburn created his shortlived alter-ego the Destroying Demon to fight (Feature Comics 038-041, 1940-1941) The Advance Front! Fascist agitators who…
(More Fun Comics 066, 1941) Out of nowhere one day, giant monsters attack Cliffland, New Jersey! After driving them off a couple of times, the Spectre manages to follow them back to their base of operations, a weird painting of unknown provenance hanging in a Cliffland museum. There he finds that the monsters reside in a metal city ruled over by a man referred to only as the Man. The Man is clearly modeled after the fascist dictators of the…
More goons. Fascist goons? Yes. The Anti-American Party operated in the South American country of Santa Palos, home of the Red Gaucho, and got up to a lot of malarky at a fancy dress ball. Crucially, they disguised one of their agents as the Red Gaucho, leading to a lot of mixups between the agent, the Gaucho and a clueless dope who also came dressed as the hero (Nickel Comics 006, 1940) The Black Guard, agents of the Germany-analog country…
(More Fun Comics 065, 1941) Okay, so the guy on the throne is Nyarl-Amen, AKA the Ancient One AKA the Lost Wisdom AKA the Wonder Wisdom. Fifty thousand years ago he ruled the world from beneath the waves as head of the Nyarl-Amen Dynasty. Nyarl-Amen has lived in the City of Nyarl-Amen for one hundred thousand years… His arsenal includes the Magic Eyes of Nyarl-Amen… And together with his minions the Fish Men of Nyarl-Amen he seeks to reconquer the…
More fascist chodes for your edification: The American Freedom Club AKA the Movement AKA the New Order were propagandists looking to corrupt the youth of the nation, starting with the Boyville Orphanage and ending with a beating from the Boyville Brigadiers (Feature Comics 047, 1941) The Anti-American Bund, a standard outsized play on the weenies that were the German-American Bund (remember them as the ones who ran away before Jack Kirby could ride the elevator down to beat them up)….
(More Fun Comics 065, 1941) It’s another version of a revival of the Assassins! These Assassins are very into the accuracy of it all and have their own Alamut HQ and their own top guy named Hassan (presumably followed by Ibn Sabbah but it’s never said in full). Commitment to the bit is not quite enough to save them once second-rate Lawrence of Arabia Lance Larkin gets on the case, however. This group were based out of Iran, unlike the…
(More Fun Comics 065, 1941) A fairly simple one, this. The Blue Flame is an eerie cloaked figure sheathed in, yes, blue flame, that embarks on a crime spree in Cliffland, New Jersey. His crimes are not quite but almost exclusively aimed at the attendees of shows by stage magician Dr Mephisto and there is even some indication that the Blue Flame is attempting to frame Mephisto. Unfortunately for the Blue Flame, Cliffland is home to the Spectre, and he…