MINOR SUPER-HERO 042: THE BLUE TRACER

MINOR SUPER-HERO 042: THE BLUE TRACER

(Military Comics 001-016, 1941-1942) The Blue Tracer is your standard guy-with-a-super-vehicle hero: “Wild Bill” Dunn, an American engineer serving with the British in Ethiopia, finds himself the only survivor of an ambush by a race of would-be world-conquering superhumans called the M’bujies. He and Anzac Boomerang Jones team up to build the multienvironment supercraft the Blue Tracer and foil the M’bujie plans (by killing them all). There seems to be a consensus online that the vehicle is the Blue Tracer…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 364: THE BLACK DRAGON SOCIETY

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 364: THE BLACK DRAGON SOCIETY

(Master Comics 021, 1941) The Black Dragon Society is nothing new: a bog standard Yellow Peril spy and sabotage ring that has a couple of weeks of success before being trounced by Minute-Man. The one interesting thing about them is that they were based on an actual Japanese secret society that was still extant at the time the comic was published. Despite the fact that the story is just as disseminating as pre-Pearl Harbor comics usually are about the exact…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 363: MR H

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 363: MR H

(Master Comics 001 (behind the scenes) or Master Comics 007 (first mentioned) or Master Comics 008 (first appearance on-panel)-Master Comics 020, 1940-1941)   Mr H, the mastermind behind all crime in the city of Carterville and its unnamed state, gets up to all kinds of schemes through his proxies. For example: -running an illegal casino in a hard-to-catch gambling blimp -robbing a munitions plant in order to outfit a small army of gangsters and enact a criminal takeover of Carterville…

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MINOR SUPER-HERO 362: THE SON OF COUNT DRACULA

MINOR SUPER-HERO 362: THE SON OF COUNT DRACULA

(Master Comics 020, 1941) The Son of Count Dracula: 100/100 for theming and commitment to the bit, 0/100 for practical planning.  So: a team of private detectives named Splithair and Undermeyer are hired to investigate a series of disappearances associated with Vampire Castle, located in the castle-rich hills of New York State. Splithair is quickly captured by the Son of Count Dracula (tSoCD) and Undermeyer is only saved by the timely intervention of a nosy Bulletman. TSoCD retreats from the…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 361: THE THROTTLER

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 361: THE THROTTLER

(Master Comics 019, 1941) Imagine my excitement when I saw that Zoro the Mystery Man was facing a guy called the Throttler so soon after his bout with the Choker: a theme! A villain theme! Huzzah! And imagine my disappointment when I discovered that the Throttler moniker was a fiction developed by two butlers to cover for their fairly inept kidnapping scheme. There wasn’t even any throttling! Still, I do have to tip my hat to them on one front:…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 360: MISTER MASK

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 360: MISTER MASK

(Master Comics 019, 1941) If you’re ever at a party and a guy shows up with a mysterious bequest for the host and then is murdered by an unseen party before he can hand over what turns out to be a huge diamond then take it from me: you are in a comic book. If there’s a guy named “Rajah Kohur” there to declare the diamond to be cursed, well that’s just what we call further evidence. Now you’re going…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 359: THE UNHOLY THREE

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 359: THE UNHOLY THREE

(Master Comics 017-019, 1941) The Unholy Three! A little guy (Nosey), a huge guy (Brutus) and a gorilla (Herbert)! Oh and of course we must not forget the fourth member of the Unholy Three, their boss “Doctor” J. Twiddley Fairchild (quotation marks his). Details in the actual story are sketchy but it seems as if Fairchild was jailed for larceny, escaped, assembled the other three as his minions and set out to get revenge on those who were responsible for…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 358: THE BLACK HOOD

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 358: THE BLACK HOOD

(Master Comics 018, 1941)  Okay, I am a big fan of the Black Hood. Let’s count down the reasons: One: very exciting to see the classic super-suit being worn in the early days of suits and robes. This look won’t take long to become ubiquitous once it catches on but it’s still pretty rare in 1941. Two: not only is he a fashion pioneer but he is a thought leader in the field of henchman couture. Dressing your guys in…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 357: MUMBO JUMBO

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 357: MUMBO JUMBO

(Master Comics 016, 1941)  I always have an instinct to skip the really racist ones, but I think it’s better to acknowledge them? There’s lots of messed up shit in old (and new) comics, folks.  Anyway, Mumbo Jumbo is a guy named Graynor who poses as a voodoo god/ priest in classic (often quite racist) comics style and uses the believers at his command in order to… get revenge on his old boss. It’s a shocking lack of ambition on…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 356: OLBAID THE GREAT

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 356: OLBAID THE GREAT

(Master Comics 016, 1941) I almost missed the fact that this guy is an evil equivalent of El Carim! I somehow read that opening blurb and thought that his name was Diablo but it’s not, it’s Olbaid – he has a backward name like El Carim! What’s more, Olbaid has roughly equivalent magical powers to El Carim, and uses magical items to supplement them just like him. In Olbaid’s case, this involves the Snake Pool, a magical pool of water…

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