Kali:1940, Amazing Man Comics #16 (Centuar). This old bearded man had been jailed in Cairo thanks to the actions of Prince Zardi. He and his gang had a formula that when applied to a living being turned them into statues. They kidnapped Janni Bayless, a girl that helps Zardi at times in order to trap him. And, they were aware of the items that gave Zardi much of his power. However, through his cunning and magic he managed to capture them and restore all their victims.
Kamroff: 1937. Funny Pages v2#2/13 (Comics Magazine Co/ Centaur/Chesler). This Russian chartered Dave Dean's schooner to make a trip across the Berring sea. Turns out, he has pals there that had escaped from a Siberian prison along with the prison director's beautiful daughter Natalie and stolen jewels and wants passage back to Alaska. After close calls, Shorty and Dave manage to turn the tables on the cut-throat crew and capturing them, last seen waiting for the hangman. Among his group is Ivan the Mighty, dressed as a Cossack but colored yellow, maybe partially Mongolian? Kamroff himself is bald with a van dyke and a monocle.
Marty Kantz: 1941, Cat-man #1 (Holyoke). Dennis Durrant writes us: Marty Kantz is a vicious gangster, who, with his aid Piler, has planned the robbery of a fur factory and the shooting of the watchman. His other aide - the boss of a small gang that was wiped out by the police previously - doesn't want to be involved in a murder rap and notifies the local authorities anonymously. Marty takes him along to the fur factory where the men are surrounded by police officers and escape in a hail of bullets. "The Boss" is shot in the arm and also manages to escape without the police realizing that he was the informant. He collapses outside a small abandoned church and staggers inside after being awakened by the rays of the morning sun. Once in the church, he bandages his wound with strips from his old shirt and puts on an old priest's suit that is hanging from a post. It is then that the man is ambushed by Marty and Piler and captures them both after a long struggle, leaving them outside the door of the police station with a note reading "WITH COMPLIMENTS [FROM] THE DEACON."
Kardo: 1940, Masked Marvel #2 (Centaur). Kardo is a respected scientist, but like Doctor Frankenstein, he's obsessed with recreating life. In Kardo's case, he knows he's creating monsters, promises he'll stop, but he apparently cannot resist from the challenge. Luckily, his friend Dr.Melvyn Hunt and Hunt's girlfriend Rosalind Rogers are visiting when the latest creation bursts free and threatens everyone's life. Kardo keeps his lab in his lonely estate where apparently it's just him and his butler Wilkins living. NOTE: Unlike other monster makers of the comics, Kardo is not an evil man that sets out to create the monsters for vile purposes. He is not given a reason for creating monsters other than it obviously being an obsession. It is interesting that this comic would have both a vampire and a Frankenstein's monster story.
Kaos: 1939, Fantastic Comics #12 (Fox). Fiendish criminal scientist on the highly civilized planet of Venus. He grows a flock of giant vultures to the size of a city bus and sends them to invade Earth (he controls them via a hypnotic ray). However, his actions have been observed by the space wizard Stardust (who is apparently about 8-9 feet tall himself) and they battle on Earth. Kaos is transformed into a worm to feed to the vultures, and a beautiful woman that he had kidnapped to be his queen accompanies Stardust back to his home.
Karrion: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #13 (Centuar). The old hag Karrion rules great vultures in the Land Beneath the Sea and is more than a little bit nuts. When Chuck Hardy kills one of her pets, she attempts to use his crossbow against him. However, the bow has a legend attached to it. One, it always hits its mark, and two, it can only be used for just purposes. If used for evil, the culprit will die a sudden death. It holds true as the arrow bounces off a rock and strikes Karrion in the throat, killing her.
Karlak: 1944, Mystery Comics #1 (Better). Earthling Karlak is a renegade scientist in the 30th Century who has thrown in with tentacled Venusians in order to rule the city of Futuria. He's dethroned and generally opposed by 20th Century flying ace Dick Devens.
Karno the Chessmaster: 1940, Wonderworld Comics #9 (Fox). Karno is an insane chessmaster, shrinking down people to be his chess pieces. He uses inventions to give his henchmen the power of flight (in red hooded costumes and green wings, the press dub them collectively as the Moth). After kidnapping heiress Irene Jonson, they abduct Dr. Fung and his assistant Dan Barrister. They rescue the girl and get away, but without capturing Karno, who returned to bedevil them.
Karno: 1941, Fantastic Comics #17 (Fox). Undersea pirate that shows a bit more style than Sub Saunders' usual foes in that he sports a mask and a roguish mustache. He and his crew kidnap Sub because Sub is the best sub-mariner in the business.
Simba Karno: 1941, Blue Bolt Comics #13 (Vol 2, #1). Raised by evil scientist to be a "wonder boy" by Dr. Karno, his life parallels that of Dick Cole. Both were born October, 1924. Both raised by scientific regimens leaving the two with identical abilities. Furthermore, it's revealed that both scientists received this brainstorm via a "double thought wave" though where the wave originated remains unknown. Simba is a hulking man instead of the dashing American pie good looks of Dick Cole. Interesting over the course of the stories and their clashes, Simba slowly reforms, becoming a truly good guy, rejecting Dr. Karno's attempts to bring him back to a life of crime, and becoming Dick Cole's partner in many adventures.
Swamp-Rat Keefe: 1946, Clue Comics 11 (Hillman) When "Swamp-Rat" Keefe escapes from prison and flees into his native Florida swamps, the authorities call in Micro-Face to pit his skills agains this swamp version of Tarzan. Keefe is an expert at archery and laying snares and takes out two cops and the lead dog before Micro-Face pursues him alone through the treacherous swamp lands. Ultimately, Keefe takes some poison rather than being captured and sent back to prison. An oddity of a story, as it takes Micro-Face out of his urban element and portrays him as a known friend of the police.
Keero: 1940, Weird Comics #5 (Fox). On the Ice Planet ruled by Empress Ilera, Keero and his robot army seek to seize the throne. The robot invasion with huge cannon-like Electro Guns are all remote controlled by Keero safe in the hills. He successfully takes Ilera's palace but he doesn't count on the intervention of famed space-hero Blast Bennett. Blast destroys the robot controls and Keero is taken prisoner.
Caleb Ketchum: America's Best 26 (Better) An old teacher of Bob Benton's (aka the Black Terror) who developed a chemical that makes termites grow big as well as exterminating spray powerful enough to even stun a human being.
Kalla Khan: 1940, Reg'lar Fellers #1 (Eastern Color Printing). A modern day leader of a Thuggee cult of worshipers of Kali. He has a secret underground lair in the Temple of Kali where he has been amassing a secret arsenal of weapons. He has two problems. One is the heroic writer Chickering Mann who is living in India. Another is the beautiful but evil Indira, Queen of the Dacoits.
Kharma: 1948, Startling Comics #49 (Standard): 3,000 years ago, Kharma was a scientist who escaped the sinking of Atlantis and made a secure place to experiment underground, with a transparent plastic allowing the sun to filter through. He figured out a way to survive through the ages, by making himself half plant, drawing sustenance from the earth itself. However, he's rooted to the spot. Recently, he figured a way to create plant-men who could move around like other men. Even the plants and trees of his kingdom obey him. His plans for conquest are stopped when Tygra sets fire to his land.
Kilgor: 1940, Fantastic Comics #4 (Fox). Kilgor is your typical mad scientist, built a giant robot army with funding by Rigo, a foreign dictator. He then uses the robots to kill Rigo and his men and sets himself up as dictator. His robots are destroyed by Samson and he is killed by one of them himself when he rebuilds it but doesn't issue a command quick enough.
The Killer/Dart Killer: 1941, The Flame #8 (Fox). This trollish man is killing soldiers at a US Army Camp by accurately thrown poisonous darts. The Killer is working on behalf of a Nazi bund, but they are captured by the Yank and the Rebel and the Killer is unmasked as Gale, the canteen girl that the two had been fighting over. Turns out the commanding officer had given a nearby abandoned house to the duo to live in, a house that she had been using as headquarters and meeting place and so had to try to kill the two men.
Killraye: 1940, Speed Comics #7 (Harvey). Killraye was the ruler of Jupiter until earthman Mars Mason opposed his plans and he was forced to flee to his cousins, the Needle Men of the comets. However, his plans are stopped again by Mars Mason and the intervention of the Saturn Men, the long-time foes of the Needle Men. Killraye has rayguns and other devices that a good sci-fi villain needs. He's very much an alien being, his humanoid body being covered with jagged edges like he's made of holly leaves. He has horns, pointed jagged ears, a long nose, large mouth full of pointed teeth, and large round eyes. His returning for a second bout with Mars Mason is what earns him a spot here.
King Loti and the Spiritmen: 1940, Silver Streak Comics #3 (Lev Gleason). On a far planet Lance Hale and Professor Grey discover King Loti and the Spiritmen. They are described as having no souls nor bodies and are less evolved than humans. However, we see them having human like bodies with the faces of beasts, mostly lions. They are ruled by the human looking King Loti who claims to have a device that gives them human bodies and will enslave the Earth. As King Loti's real appearance is that of a vulture-headed man, it's unsure if the device is what gives the supposedly bodiless spiritmen the beast-men bodies or if it's what makes Loti look human and will do so for the rest. Loti also has the ability to be invisible although the treatment that gives Lance Hale his superior strength also allows him to see Loti during those times. One of the spiritmen's weaknesses seems to be that by someone enacting a strong force of will through the medium of silver, their bodies can be willed out of existence. It's not easily done as it took both Myra and Professor Grey to do so against one small group of them as Hale battled them.
King of the Living Dead: FORMALLY Un-Named - Eerie Man. 1951, Eerie #1 (Avon). The King sends his undead servants to collect more victims, some they kill, some he kills with a chemical in his subterranean laboratory. He then throws the bodies into "an underground pit filled with sulfurous smoke and a strange flickering blue flame" that changes the bodies into pale, withered but powerful walking corpses that he controls. When he kidnaps a ballerina, her fiance Walter Austen follows and confronts him underground. The King reveals himself to be an ancient man, condemned because he practiced black magic and buried alive in these caverns, but the fumes from the pit with the blue flames kept him alive for eons. An earthquake freed him, he made use of a mortal victim's body to observe modern man and began to build his army. In fleeing the King and his hordes, Walter manages to trigger a cave-in near the surface that brings the ceiling and floods of water and filth, destroying the undead and their master.
King of Manhattan: Sparkle Comics. This madman who lived in the sewers with access to dutch settler's gold was in the habit of kidnapping and torturing beautiful women. Was opposed by the Spark Man.
King of the Nomads: 1941, Dynamic Comics #2 (Chesler). A masked man comes upon a band of gypsies in America and reveals a birthmark/tatoo on the back of his shoulder of a skull, signifying he's their king. As such, he orders the kidnapping of a rich man's son and through the tribe's witch, they are able to not only disguise the boy, but put him in a hypnotic state with a potion. The kidnapping spree is stopped by Dynamic Man who unveils the King as a fake, in reality Brower, a newspaper publisher.
King of the World that Time Forgot: 1947, The Fighting Yank #22 (Standard). In the South American jungles is a lost land with prehistoric creatures and a Roman-esque city at the foot of a volcano. Advised by his iron masked advisor, he captures airplanes via strong magnetism from the volcano that they worship. The Fighting Yank and Joan are captured when investigating missing the missing planes of an airline started by old friend Ed Howard. The Fighting Yank unmasks the minister as Silas Jackson, Howard's business partner and who had hoped to be able to buy the airline outright for a song. Volcanic eruption buries the city under lava, Jackson falls to his death trying to escape over a crumbling bridge. The erupting volcano messes up the magnetism and the Fighting Yank, Joan and the missing pilots are able to fly out before the city is completely destroyed.
King of the Zebragoats: ~1906, Madge, the Magician's Daughter (comic strip). Zebra goats are smallish centaur like beings only with black stripes on both their equine and human bodies. The king wears a crown and desires the Queen of the Ladybirds to be his bride, so he cuts all the flowers to prevent her return. Luckily Madge's father, the real magician is able to make the flowers grow to which form the Queen returns to. A charming strip found here.
King Questionmark: 1941, Daredevil Comics #6 (Lev Gleason). Mop-headed hunchbacked foe of 13 & Jinx. Helped out by the lunatic Goebells. Both villains were seemingly destroyed by a bomb that Questionmark threw at 13 and Jinx. Created by Bernard Klein.
King Walro: Champ Comics #14 (Harvey). King Walro has taken over the rule of Polaris from Prince Eon. Despite being underwater beings, they also have mole ships and he allies himself with Mhera, who has usurped the rule of Almoza from her sister Neptina. Opposed by Neptina and Lt. Brad Fletcher and allies.
Professor Klar: 1941, Thrilling #14 (Standard). Klar is a brilliant research scientist who has developed a drug that turns men into his slaves. He uses them on FBI and Intelligence operatives, forcing them to give up their secrets and betray their country. Also among his experiments are ways of turning men into the living dead, voodoo-like zombies and ghouls. Pedro was one such man, with inhuman strength and endurance and would have killed G-man Nickie Norton if not for the intervention of his aide Lefty and a gorilla, one of Klar's test animals that Lefty had befriended. Thus, Klar and his gang are brought to justice by Norton, Betty Blane, and Lefty.
Klug: Thrilling Comics (Standard) Nazi scientist who creates a machine that makes things light absorbant, an almost invisible shadow. He works with Dr. Sanaki who created a dio-radiumet that makes a person glow with a blinding light as well as sap their will power. The two decide to steal some planes, make them near invisible and bomb the White House. However, Sanaki is captured, but Klug falls out of an airplane while fighting Doc Strange and is presumed dead. Other than the related inventions, the two villains aren¹t all that memorable. NOTE: while the story art depicted people and objects as being solid black when rendered a shadow, the story itself implied them being invisible.
Klutcher: Thrilling Comics (Better). This mad-scientist villain and his gang steal Dr. Stanton's fast growing yeast in order to make large Yeast monsters for acts of sabotage. The Ghost and his assistant Betty capture the gang and Betty discovers that the monsters can be destroyed by simple sugar, which reacts with the chemistry to make alcohol.
"Dan" Knight: 1948, All Top Comics #16 (Fox). Anthony Durrant writes us: Daniel Knight is a successful newspaper reporter who gets a letter allegedly written by Rulah, the Jungle Goddess, and heads for Africa. There, alone without a guide, he runs into a group of pygmy slavers who almost take him prisoner, but are stopped by Rulah herself. Taken to Rulah's village, Dan eats and sleeps in luxury, and in the morning, several of the village girls are taken by the slavers. Rulah follows them to a nearby city, where she frees the girls from an auction and sends them back to the village. After searching the city, she heads into the last street and manages to kill a warthog that has been released in order to kill her. A pygmy leads her to a room where she finds Dan dying of a gunshot wound; he tries to tell her the name of the killer, but he dies before he can do so. Hurrying back to the village, Rulah looks down from a tree and sees "Dan" leading the pygmies in a raid on the village, secure in the belief that Rulah is dead. When she swings down from the tree, "Dan" vows to kill her the same way he killed his twin brother - the real Daniel Knight. The brother is hit by poison darts fired from the pygmys' blowguns and dies while being chased by the Jungle Goddess; his real name is never given in the story
Knights of the Blue Flame: 1942, Blue Bolt vol 2, #11 (Novelty Press, Inc).Hooded and robed in blue, this racketeering group operated under the guise of a vigilante organization. When they try to kill and frame Blake, the Secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, they are put on ice by Sub-Zero and Freezum. Turns out the group was led by the Police Chief.
Dr. Koch: Champ Comics (Harvey). The villainous Dr. Koch has a secret lab and gang in Mexico. Through Sue Katsu, he arranges to receive a forumula for a tonic developed by Dr. Martin that gives physical perfection. However, the formula is taken from him by the Champ, a recipient of the tonic, his pal Henry and the duplicitous Sue acting under-cover.
Herr Kommandant: ~1940, Popular Comics (Dell). On a hidden base in the Carribean, this short stocky Kommandant commands several submarines that terrorize the area. His base and operations are compromised by the Voice.
Kong: 1941, Fantastic Comics #15 (Fox). In the future, Kong is an under-sea pirate with a fortress and army under the sea who demands a billion dollars or he'll bomb New America and wage war upon her. He's captured by Sub Saunders
Koth: 1936, Comics Magazine #1 (Centaur). Evil sorcerer against Dr. Mystic. NOTE: Dr. Mystic was a Centaur version of Siegel & Shuster's Dr. Occult for National. Only the name changed for this one installment of the serial. Koth's fuller history would be revealed in the pages of "More Fun Comics" and can be found on the "DC Villains" page.
Krag: 1942, Startling Comics #16 (Standard): Krag is an incredibly strong brute who is one of Dr. Vetter's henchmen. Unlike the others, he is able to go toe-to-toe with the Fighting Yank and not above strangling his foes. He escapes and is directed by the dying Dr. Vetter to seek out and serve Marvelli.
Herr Kraus: 1942, Prize Comics #24 (Prize). The year is 1925 and Herr Kraus and a band of men are early and loyal supporters of Adolph Hitler. The timing is not good and Kraus takes to a life of piracy, but that doesn't go well either. After a battle with the American coastguard, he and a couple of his men hide-out in a nearby home, that of a young married couple with twins just months old, the Walters family. In a shootout, Kraus is able to escape at least, but not before Mrs. Kraus is gunned down trying to protect her twins. With her dying breath, she admonishes her husband to raise them as good Americans. Which he does. Years pass, Hitler is in power and Kraus is a favored lieutenant in the Gestapo. Hitler sends him back to America as head of the sabotage ring. He has the misfortune to be recognized by Mr.Walters at a dedication ceremony where Walters worked as chief engineer. Which brought Kraus & his gang into conflict with Yank and Doodle, secretly the twins, now 17. While this is before Walters assumed the identity as the second Black Owl, it means that Kraus is the indirect cause and motivation of this crime-fighting family. So, this otherwise regular German agent is deemed worthy enough to be in these pages.
Sylvanus Kroch: 1941, Thrilling Comics #12 (Better). For sheer audacity, this man makes it to the list. Anthony Durrant writes: Sylvanus Kroch was a fanatical millionaire who bought up all the fishing boats near an island in Russian territory. He and his men then attacked the island and massacred the Russian troops stationed there. Once they had massacred the troops, Kroch and his men seized their aircraft and used them to capture the barracks at Nome, Alaska in a bid to seize control of the United States of America. Unfortunately for them, the Lone Eagle was flying a new fighter/bomber called the Super-Rocket, and he attacked Kroch's men as soon as they were airborne. Eventually, he strafed the captured barracks, killing Kroch and his men. ...and when he was fatally injured in the Lone Eagle's attack, his last words were spoken to the Lone Eagle. They were: "I aimed . . . for more power . . . than any man should have . . .and failed..."
Kroff: 1942, Prize Comics #18/v2n6 (Prize). Kroff is a German agent with a rubbery mask to disguise his features. He arranges an attack on Walt Walters by a young tough named Harry White to steal some government papers. While this is the pre-Black Owl Walters, his sons take on the case as Yank and Doodle. He headquarters his gang at an abandoned brewery. Kroff is captured and unmasked as the police chief. He had tortured Harry, burning a scar into his right cheek in order to subjugate the lad and force him to do his bidding. Recognizing that Harry's life of crime was a combination of wishing to care of his mother and coercion, Walters arranges for the boy to be released in his custody and gives him a job as a messenger boy.
Kroll Mul: 1948, Black Terror 22, (Better). Tyrant of the year 9767 who keeps the populace under control through large television screens whose images keep them docile (technological bread and circuses foreshadowing modern concerns of the roles that television and video games have now on people as well as virtual reality). His rule is overthrown when the Black Terror, Tim and Doctor Fission come from the past through an atomic powered time machine the latter built. The artist of this story was Shelly Moldoff who did Hawkman for several years at DC.
K'Tonga: Jungle Comics (Fiction). Anthony Durrant writes: K'Tonga was a half-caste witch whose arm was severely burned in a fire that was apparently set by a plantation owner named Bob Sharpe. She went to the crippled dwarven healer Harana, who told her that he could not restore the use of her crippled arm. Instead, she had him graft the arm of his sacred ape onto her own body and set out to get revenge on Bob Sharpe. She killed Bob, and kidnapped his wife Beth when she came to his aid, then tried to make her sign over the plantation to him. Instead, she and her men were trapped in the temple and killed by Camilla, the Queen of the Lost City, who jumped on the back of K'Tonga's elephant and forced it to ram the temple. Only then was Harana's healing power restored. NOTE: This is one villain I wished I could see a pic of.
The Kumas: 1940, Keen Detective Funnies #18 (Centaur). Researching animals in an effort to grasp some mysterious killings at a resort that points to a large animal attack, detective Dudley Dance comes across reference to the Kumas. Kumas are a race of mute men living in remote wilderness areas of India. For thousands of years, to survive against tigers and such, nature has imbued them with a biochemical transformation that corresponds with reaching adulthood, that when excited they become beast men. John,is one of the Kumas. Brought to America as a child by the father of the current manager of the Colony. John is the handyman at the Colony and communicates via sign language. John has recently reached adulthood and his beast instincts drive him to kill while his human ones make him calculating enough to cover his crimes. Fearing discovery, he tries to shoot the detective Dance, but Dance was suspicious and had removed the shells from the rifle previously. He then attacks Dance with fang and claw and it takes the full six shots at close range from Dance's revolver to bring him down. Even when not fully a beast-man, he was depicted as appearing to have fangs. His eyes were described as glowing like fire in the dark, hence the name of the story "The Eyes of the Kumas".
Dr. Kuroto: 1946, Exciting Comics #46 (Standard). Japanese scientist who with his gang resent the defeat of their country. He comes up with a way to strike back, two chemicals of his own making: one, injected into Egyptian mummies, they become a legion of undead under his control and two, a formula that can utterly destroy them so they cannot be used against him. The Scarab stops him and his undead army with the second chemical as they shrug off his mightiest blows.
Kursk: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #18 (Centaur). Kursk works for a foreign government and had approached Dr. Hypno to develop a super-explosive. After Hypno had turned him down, he and his masked gang of fifth columnists laid a trap for him. Through his power of transferring his mind to animals, Hypno was able to communicate to Wun and the authorities caught Kursk and his gang. Kursk was a white bearded man with large brimmed hat and cloak.