(New Adventure 027, 1938) Just a kidnapper, but there’s something about a man who wears a snake, and he’s yet another Siegel and Shuster villain from a pre-Superman series – in this case, Federal Men, about Steve Carson of the FBI.
(Detective Comics 009, 1937) A very marginal entry on the list, but he really makes the concept of “guy who can climb” work as a masterful crime skill. Plus he’s an early Slam Bradley foe, so more charming Siegel and Shuster fun as Slam demonstrates his early tendency to be amazing at all tasks by following him up the side of a building for a trademark fight.
(More Fun 020, 1937) Another common sub-type of masked criminal, the guy who runs his own pirate fleet. Other than being the first example of this on the list, a real snoozer. Taken out by Sandra of the Secret Service.
(More Fun 018, 1937) Used a drug to simulate death in others, then revived them post-funeral and made them do his bidding by claiming that without continual treatments they would die again. Unfortunately for him, he tried the same trick on Dr Occult and was unmasked as a fraud, leading to his swift murder at the hands of his former minions. SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? My initial thought was that he would only be useful as a legacy name, but…
(More Fun 014, 1936) Another Dr Occult foe (and thus another early Siegel and Shuster creation), Koth is a fairly generic magic guy, for all that his origin involved being a magic alien who swore to destroy humanity when his companions were slain by cavemen. Unlike the preceding minor villains, Koth has gone on to appear in more modern comics, though whether any of them were set in the modern day as opposed to being period pieces is something I’m…
(More Fun 012, 1936) A member of the surprisingly robust fraternity of guys who get a head injury and then become criminal masterminds. Distinguished mainly by appearing in Radio Squad, a pre-Superman Siegel and Shuster joint featuring police offers with RADIOS in their CARS, which is honestly more revolutionary than it might sound to us in this far future year. SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? Honestly just putting this here to note that I won’t be adding this to every…
(More Fun 010, 1936) Another Dr Occult foe, Methuselah was basically a serial killer who believed that he could absorb the time he was stealing by killing people and so targeted folks with long-lived ancestors. Dr Occult set a trap and captured Methuselah, which leads to: SHOULD THEY BE BROUGHT BACK? Absolutely! The assumption in the comic is that Methuselah is wrong, but what if he wasn’t? Just a dude locked up in Arkham or wherever for 90 years, all records…
(New Fun 006, 1935) The *second* DC super-villain, the Vampire Master was upset that a lady rejected him so responded reasonably by holding the city to ransom via hordes of machine-created Universal movie monsters, possibly the first example in comics of someone creating something of unbelievable power and using it for petty nonsense instead of becoming the richest person in creation. Theoretically, the Vampire Master was beaten by Dr Occult, but *really* he was shanked by one of his own…
(New Fun 001, 1935) Unfortunately, the first DC super-villain is Fang Gow, a pulp-style Yellow Peril sort who vexes adventurer Barry O’Neill , his pal Inspector LeGrande and the nation of France. Fang Gow persists until 1941, and inevitably participates in some entertaining stories, including a half year or so in which he is near death and the story relocates to Tunisia where he kidnaps a famous doctor to treat him, but ultimately he’s just a warmed-over version of all…
I like taking note of minor and obscure characters from days of yore, and none other is so beloved of my heart as the minor super-villain. Even though lot of them are real duds, as a class of characters they pack such a lot of potential. Just as very little separates an Ultra-Humanite (middlingly significant super-villain) from a Luthor (one of the top super-villains of all time), just as little separates them from Zolar, a bald super-scientist who fought Superman…