MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 626: THE SUPER FIEND

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 626: THE SUPER FIEND

(Fantastic Comics 010, 1940) The Super Fiend (aka the Super Fiend of the Lost Planet) is, if not the archetypal Fletcher Hanks villain then certainly representative of one of the major Hanks villain types, the civilization hater. He’s got no stated motivation but the Super Fiend hates civilization so much that he’s out to destroy it on a planetary scale, starting with Mars and moving on to Earth as an encore. The Super Fiend’s Thermal Ray Spore does the job…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 625: BOLOCH

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 625: BOLOCH

(Fantastic Comics 009, 1940) Sub Saunders is just cruising around in the ocean when his submarine is swept into an underground cave, the home of the fantastic Cave Things! I was very excited when this comic started but sadly this is the most we see of Cave Things slithering and creeping around like this. They still have a lot going for them as far as humanoid creeps go but it’s real sad that we don’t get to see more creeping…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 624: MOLOKA

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 624: MOLOKA

(Fantastic Comics 009, 1940) Moloka is our second Stardust the Super Wizard foe from a story not penned by Fletcher Hanks and I’d say that our unknown scribe gets things mostly right: there’s certainly enough wanton destruction for this to be a Hanks comic. Moloka is a humanoid alien who has developed world-wrecking super weapons and as the comic opens is using them to blast away at various inhabited planets. Where exactly this is happening is a little unclear. If…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 623: THE CYCLOP

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 623: THE CYCLOP

(Fantastic Comics 009, 1940) Captain Kidd is once again back in Africa, this time in search of a lost explorer named Perez, and has once again bribed a local into taking him somewhere dangerous only to get that local killed (this happens about a third of the time with Kidd – not quite often enough to make a very depressing supercut). Kidd and his unfortunate hireling Wango track Perez to the Lost Valley, where they discover and are captured by…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 622: PROFESSOR SIMM

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 622: PROFESSOR SIMM

(Fantastic Comics 009, 1940) We open on a very exciting scene! Professor Simm has unleashed giant monsters on an unnamed US city! Chaos reigns! I unironically love these monsters. They have that half-baked quality that you get in generic kids toys – the kind of thing you got as a cheap way for your parents to occupy you on a trip and because they have no built-in lore you end up inventing a whole backstory for them. That picture of…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 621: THE EMERALD MEN OF ASPERUS

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 621: THE EMERALD MEN OF ASPERUS

(Fantastic Comics 008, 1940) The Emerald Men of Asperus live on an asteroid (named Asperus, natch), and I’m pretty sure that their plan is to move the Earth to the Asteroid Belt so that they can easily enslave as many Earthlings as they want, but it’s a bit hard to grok because the way the Emerald Men talk makes it plausible that they don’t know how the Solar System works. Like, it’s possible that they don’t know that Earth and…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 620: PRINCE FERNANDO DIABLO

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 620: PRINCE FERNANDO DIABLO

(Fantastic Comics 008, 1940) Prince Fernando Diablo, scion of an unnamed European royal family (though given his name, style of dress and headquarters in the Pyrenees I think it’s safe to say that he’s heavily implied to be Spanish), has a plan: take advantage of the wars raging in 1940 to violently reinstate monarchy across the continent! Specifically, he and his scientists have developed a horrible plague that they plan on releasing throughout Europe to reduce the population to manageable…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 619: GYP CLIPP

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 619: GYP CLIPP

(Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)  Mr Clipp here is our first villain with “Gyp” or “Gypsy” as a part of their name, and there are going to be a lot of them. On the one hand you have to cut the old-time creators a bit of slack, as the World Romani Congress didn’t officially vote to reject the term and all of its derivatives until 1971, but on the other hand they knew. “Gyp” is in the Top 50 in my spreadsheet…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 618: THE GREAT WHITE CHIEF

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 618: THE GREAT WHITE CHIEF

(Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)  The Great White Chief is a chubby scientist who wears stirrup pants with no shoes or socks and lives in a dormant volcano (that he makes look non-dormant using special effects) where he makes animal-headed monstrosities like Cinu the Unicorn Man here. This is all very good classic villain stuff. The name is pretty annoying. It implies a lot about his relationship with the native peoples of wherever his volcano is located (probably Africa as he…

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MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 617: MOROSIO

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 617: MOROSIO

(Fantastic Comics 007, 1940) Like so many Space Smith adventures do, this one begins with Space and his ladyfriend Dianna being waylaid as they make their way around the Solar System. In this case a mysterious gas disables their spaceship and causes them to land on the moon Ganymede. From whence did this gas come? Why, it was the sinister laboratory of Morosio, not just a mad and/or criminal scientist but a mad and/or criminal scientist who has already been…

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