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.
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.
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.
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..
Kilgor: 1940, Fantastic Comics #4 (Fox). Mad Anthony Durrant writes us: Kilgor is a crazed inventor who builds a robot that he presents to Rigo, the dictator of an unnamed nation. After Rigo has built a whole army of these robots, he orders Kilgor to be slain by his own inventions, but Kilgor outwits him by using a secret microphone to order the robots to kill Rigo and his men. Once Rigo is dead, Kilgor sends his army of robot on a maniacal rampage until they are stopped by the Mighty Samson, who demolishes the robots and then has the original robot turn on Kilgor and slay him.
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 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 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.
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.
Koth: (Centaur). Evil sorcerer against Dr. Mystic. NOTE: Dr. Mystic was a Centaur version of Siegel & Shuster's Dr. Occult for National. Only the names changed.
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.
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..."
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.
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.
Lady Serpent: (Better). This murderous female fought Black Terror. She had hypnotic powers and loved gems.
Lailani: Wonderworld Comics (Fox). Vampire Queen of the Valley of the Moon. The magician/mystic Yarko and an expedition are on a search in the frozen northwest of the Yunnan Province looking for the Hoshai, a flower with human blood and found in the Valley of the Moon. They find not only the flower but a kingdom of vampire women. Lailani has vast hypnotic powers but not as strong as Yarko's.
Lana the Lion Girl: 1941, Amazing Man Comics #19 (Centaur). Beautiful Asian Lana is hired by mob leader Scarskull to kill the DA Sam Williams whose investigations are putting the pressure on the mob. To this end she and her lion Leo are a girl lion tamer act for a stage/vaudeville show starring the local celebrities such as the state governor, mayor, senator and the DA. And, also starring Dr. Hypno. Suspicious of her behavior, Hypno mentally takes over Leo and cowers Lana when she tries to use him as a weapon. Scarskull later falls to his death while fleeing capture. NOTE: Other sources give her a last name. This is a correction of that data.
Lapadra: Anthony Durrant provides: Lepadra was a jungle ruler who could transform herself into a leopard and also transfer the brain of a leopard into a human or vice versa. She succeeded in transplanting the brain of Tanee, the mate of Jo-Jo the Jungle King, into the body of a leopard. Jo-Jo forced her to reverse the fiendish operation, after which she died at the hands of her own victims
Laughing Head: Prize Comics (Feature Publications). A crook with a big grin and a "ho ho ho" commits daring crimes and leads his gangs against the Black Owl (I) on several occassions. However, each time the Black Owl has the last laugh.
Leatherman: 1949, Rulah #22 (Fox). In the late 1800's, Charles is a very dangerous man, one of the deadliest duelers of the era as well as being a bit of a cad. When a young girl named Ellen catches his eye and he comes on to her, he ends up being challenged to a duel with her current boyfriend. Killing him, he pursues Ellen and eventually marries her as well as going to work for her father's leather business. One evening he discovers her in the arms of another paramour, He kills her lover but cannot bring himself to kill her. So, he spreads word of her infidelity, ruining her reputation and then leaves the country, settling eventually in Africa.
Flash forward half a century, and legend has grown of an eccentric old man calling himself the Leatherman who shows up in the villages the same time each year. Rulah sets out to meet him and ends up saving him from a charging Rhino, earning his friendship. He gives her a leather heart, bearing a cameo with a pic of Ellen. Soon, two bodies of females show up from the local tribes, suffocated in a leather sack. Pursuing his trail, Rulah meets up with Ellen, now an elderly woman living in the area having been run out of England due to scandal. Seems Leatherman had seen her and gone completely around the bend and was setting out to kill her after all these years (story is a little unsure if the earlier murders were done before he saw her and just hated all women other than Rulah or not). He does sneak in and attack her, she dies though again it's unclear whether she has a heart attack or is truly strangled to death. Fleeing Rulah, he only gets a few steps when bitten by a snake and quickly dies.
Leopard: 1941, Shadow Comics v1#11 (Street & Smith). Strange killings plague the city, throats torn out as if attacked by a great beast. As the first death is a watchman at the zoo, the main suspect is the black leopard Riba though she is still in her cage. It seems almost a certainty when later a guard says he shot a black leopard figure attacking someone and Riba is found dead in her pen. However, the Lamont Cranston, aka the Shadow suspects otherwise, showing that Riba was killed by a knife wound. He tracks his suspect to a cult of Leopard worshipers. While most of the worshipers dress in the spotted skins of the leopards and conduct symbolic sacrifices, one insane fanatic dresses in the black skins and is a cold-hearted killer: Mr. Harper, one of the keepers at the zoo. The Shadow is forced to kill Harper when he goes into a murderous rage.
Leopard Queen: Exciting Comics (Better). White queen of the Majaja tribe, she wears a leopard skin, steals and kills for the sake of doing so and has the reputation for being able to change into a leopard to kill. She is defeated by Judy of the Jungle, killed by falling on her own claws. Judy also reveals that the woman only appeared to change into a leopard, she'd change places with a leopard she had trained to kill for her. Whatever it was that drove her to insanity, was lost when she died.
Lilith: (Better). "Regent of Darkness--Princess of the planet Pluter--Supreme ruler of the universal Realm" With the aide of her allies Dr. Voodoo and the Immortal Emperor, this femme fatale has her sights on ruling the entire solar system yet is stymied by Wonderman II.
Lion Heart: (Fiction).Anthony Durrant writes: Lion Heart was a bearded man with a bald head who stumbled on the body of a lion that had been killed by Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Seizing the opportunity, Lion Heart skinned and tanned the hide of the lion and made it into a robe that he himself wore. He then went to a nearby village and proclaimed himself the new chief. When the old chieftain tried to kill a lion with his bare hands as Lion Heart claimed he had done, he was himself killed by the lion. Lion Heart expelled the Chief's Daughter from the village and she immediately went to see Sheena, who was captured when she and her mate Bob went to Lion Heart's village. Lion Heart then called a meeting of all the chiefs in the area, so they could see Sheena and Bob being sacrificed to the lions in the village square. In the end, Sheena and Bob escaped and the lions fell victim to Sheena's dagger. Lion Heart was killed when the other chiefs forced him to fight a wild lion who had been drawn to the village by the scent; he proved to be, in actuality, a craven coward.
The Lip: 1945, Golden Lad (Spark). Wearing a bushy wig and eyebrows, and make-up to protrude his lower lip, the Lip sells beef on the black market. Swiftarrow exposed him.
"Spot" Lipton: 1941, Thrilling Comics #21 (Better). A crook and a killer, he escaped from a squad car and hid out at a circus, killing the animal trainer as well as a clown whose costume he put on in order to escape. He was captured by the Woman in Red.
Little Fuhrer: 1944, America's Best Comics 12 (Better). A diminutive German about the size of a young teenager, the little Fuhrer grafted the brain cells of a German strongman named Hans into his own making him a genius and making Hans obey his every command. They were stopped by the American Eagle.
Llaslo: 1940, Amazing Man Comics 15 (Centaur). This turbaned leader is approached by a scientist friend who has hit upon a plan to capture the Iron Skull and use his blood to create an invincible army of living robots. First phase goes off perfectly, they draw and capture the Skull via a powerful magnet that reaches across countries and then inject a formula that spreads the iron effect through his whole body. However, this makes the Iron Skull even more invincible and he quickly mops the floor with them, wreck the magnet and heads back to the ole USA.
Lodar: Anthony Durrant writes: Lodar was a bandit who rose up in protest against the peace treaty between the Atlanteans and the Miro Men, two undersea races. He abducted Queen Maureen Marine in order to kill her and bring war to both the Miro Men and Atlantis; unfortunately for him, he was killed by Romko, one of his own men, who had once been an Atlantean. Mortally wounded, Romko himself died shortly afterward.
Loki: (Fox) Anthony Durrant gives us: Loki was an African native who was capturing women of the tribe ruled by Rulah, the Jungle Goddess, and forcing them to dig for gold at a site where he had found a large amount of gold. Later, he split the gold with Rulah herself, intending to locate Rulah's stash and replace her own share wiith fool's gold, to besmirch her reputation. He was killed by Rulah, who got to keep the gold for herself!
Lonna: 1940, Crash Comics #1 (Holyoke). Lonna is a princess/queen of the mystic land of Shangra located somewhere in the vicinity of Tibet. Her 200 year old great, great, great grandfather is the ruler. When reporters Jack Flynn and Joan Joyce crash, Lonna seeks to make Jack her husband and the new king as the old man wishes to retire. The two royals are willing to go to any lengths to make this happen, the one hitch being Jack and Joan love each other.
Lost Pharaoh: 1948, Dagar, Desert Hawk #15 or 16 (Fox). The issue uncertainty arises from the GCD lists it as #15, but Anthony Durrant who wrote me about the character says #16. Anyway, with the history that Durrant provides: The Lost Pharaoh was an Egyptian monarch who had been banished, along with his queen, Akhet, into the Sahara desert. Their tomb was located at a mountain and was guarded by the Egyptian gods. An enterprising criminal disguised himself as the Lost Pharaoh and made his curse come true for the local Bedouin by kidnapping their women. Capturing Ayesha, the ladylove of Dagar the Desert Hawk, he hypnotized her into believing she was the long-dead Akhet and made her appear to come alive in front of the Bedouin. Once hypnotized, she followed the man's commands until Dagar knocked him out, breaking the hypnotic trance. He then left the man who had impersonated the Pharaoh to the Bedouins' mercy.
Lucifer: ~ 1943, Doc Savage (Street & Smith). Roy and Jane Drake are in possession of a treasure map belonging to their ancestor Sir Francis Drake. However, Roy is kidnapped with the map by the mysterious being known as Lucifer. Jane recruits the help of Doc Savage, Monk, and Ham to rescue her brother and find the treasure at Skull Island off of Hawaii. Despite Lucifer throwing obstacles in their way the whole adventure, with the aid of his sacred hood, Doc and his men ultimately foil him and reveal the devilish villain to be Roger Hale, Roy and Jane's guardian.
Mr. Lunar: 1945, Blue Beetle 40, (Fox). After serving his time in prison, Mr. Lunar decides to get revenge on the DA and witness that put him there. To distract the police from his target, he created masks that drive their wearers into murderous deeds. Once the masks are taken off, they dissolve into a bitter gas leaving their wearers with no memories of their deeds.
Lutz: 1941, Startling Comics 12, (Better). A sabotage ace working for the Dictator of Fascovia (read Germany), he developed a super-magnet that pulled meteors out of the sky to bomb different US plants. He was captured by Mystico.
The Lynx: February 1943, Clue Comics #2 (Hillman). Ronald Byrd writes: The heavyset, cat-faced Lynx is a black marketeer who smuggles bars of "defense steel" hidden inside children's dolls; "Of course the country needs the metal," he chortles, "but we need the dough!" The Lynx and his gang are defeated by the speedster Zippo.
Maata, the Leopard Girl: 1946, Sparkling Stars (Holyoke). Maata is the beautiful ruler of a jungle kingdom as well as having pet leopards. She desires Fangs, the wolf boy, as a mate but he only has eyes for another. Meanwhile, Rajo, leader of a crew of cut-throat pirates, wants her for a mate.
The Mad Gobi Giant: Fantastic Comics #6 (Fox). Seeking to destroy civilization he injects a powerful chemical into the Earth's core causing violent volcanic eruptions. He is captured by the super-wizard Stardust and delivered to the Inter-Planetary Police.
The Mad Botanist: 1941, Thirlling Comics #23 (Better). Foe of The American Crusader
The Mad Ghost: Anthony Durrant writes: This monstrous villain murdered the detective who had arrested him after a jewel heist, then kept the jewels for himself, in a hotel room. He was stopped by Nightbird, who found the stolen jewels hidden in the hotel's bridal suite and was able to take a photograph showing that the Mad Ghosts' adversary, Count Strogo, was the leader of a gang of hoodlums who were also after the stolen jewels.
The Mad Madespos: 1941 Crackajack Funnies 38, (K.K. Publications). Ma Madespo and her four sons are a killer gang that special investigator Nick Terry (the Owl) and the Chief put away. They escaped with the help of a trained gorilla that wears a jacket and bow-tie.
The Madman: 1943, Jungle Comics #41 (Fiction). Crazy-legs Anthony Durrant writes us: A man dressed as a native with a horned headdress forced two boys trying to win a place in the tribe to dive into a river and bring him diamonds. Pursued by Tabu, the jungle wizard, the man tried to cut the strings of a bridge Tabu was crossing during the pursuit, but failed and was caught by the jungle wizard. He was unmasked by Tabu as a white man with gaunt features and red hair and a moustache, who had been driven insane by searching for diamonds. The man was allowed to leave with the diamonds by Tabu, but the jungle wizard confiscated his weapons; soon afterward, the man was killed by a boa constrictor.
Mad Mong: 1940, Double Comics #1 (Gilbert). Sorta cross between Fu Manchu and Ming the Merciless, this Mongolian villain was opposed by a stereotypical adventurer called "White Flash." This villain and hero more than likely were nowhere inside the comic as it was a series of bound remaindered comics. The covers often featured different all-new heroes, but you couldn't be sure of what was on the inside, except for it wouldn't be the guys on the cover.
Mad Monster: 1944, Captain Aero #15/v3#13 (Holyoke). Joan Wayne and her friend Ella take in a show of Count Zova and his educated, talking ape. What is revealed is a Nazi propaganda and sabotage plot as Zova and his talking ape are with the Nazis to the point the ape is wearing black boots, red arm band and an officer's hat. Unfortunately for them, Joan is really Miss Victory. Zova is quickly captured, but the strong and agile ape is a bit harder. Still, he apparently falls to his death after a fight on the rooftops. Zova is revealed to be the agent Kurt von Manvitz and the ape merely his assistant in a gorilla suit.
Mad scientist (Un-named): foe of Don Winslow and inventor of the "paralysis ray...the weirdest weapon in the world."
Mad Scientist II (Un-named): 1941, Liberty Scouts #2 (Centaur). In the woods of Utah, a bald bearded scientist is causing forest fires and using them to cover his huge assistant Gaston and his hypnotized niece Nancy kidnapping subjects for a mad experiment, instantly heating a body to transform it into being "solid gas". His experiment succeeds too well with a fireman by the name of Jim who uses his new powers against the scientist. The scientist perishes when his lab explodes. In addition to his mad experiment, the scientist has the knowhow to make a large rubber fire proof suit, a miniaturized flame gun, a special suit that helps the subject control his new state as well as hypnosis. Not bad for a mere 7 pages and not even getting a name.
Madame Claw: Air Fighters Comics (Hillman). Beautiful Japanese woman with a hook for a left hand. She captures a huge Japanese freedom fighter Mia-kah and turns his brain to mush, making him her slave. She takes poison when captured by the Black Angel.
Madame Mystery: 1941, Prize Comics #9. Beautiful brunette gang leader. She was billed as the world¹s most dangerous woman and "her gang has looted and killed for jewels from here to Hong Kong." Least that¹s how reporter Barney Dunn feels and he hatches a plan to stop her and get a scoop to boot: he publishes a story that the Black Owl has vowed to catch her thus drawing the Black Owl and female sleuth Terry Dane into the case.
Madame Olga: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #14 (Centaur). This saboteur was a member of the Anarchy Circle which, in turn, worked for the Great Question. She escaped capture by Amazing Man at least once. An odd feature about her is that she appears to be Zona Hendersen's identical twin. There is no indication that she was surgically altered to look like Zona. Which raises the question if the Great Question had a hand in Hendersen's meeting with Amazing Man.
Madame Wu-Wu: 1947, Airboy vol 4 #11 (Hillman). Lady Asian Pirate, she runs a resort where those with too much money and time come to "go out of the world" and live high. And, they do with gambling, drinking and other high living until in a few months they have aged themselves prematurely for years. To supplement the resort, Wu Wu's pirates also loot ships from all nations. Her plans hit a snag when Link Thorne, the Flying Fool investigates a college buddy's death of premature old age. Last we know, he's loading a plane full of bombs to send a certain pirate ship "out of this world."
Madam Zubar: 1946, Exciting Comics #48 (Better). Madame Zubar was a phony clairvoyant who could supposedly call up the spirits of the dead, assisted by Janet, her supposed niece, who did the ghost voices through a special horn. She was apprehended by Kid Terror working alone for the first and only time, and admitted that she had kidnapped Janet from an orphanage as a baby. The story was called "The Kid Plays A Lone Hand." Madame Zubar and her aid have the distinction of being the villains in the last Golden Age Black Terror story.
Magic Mandarin: 1940, Whirlwind Comics (Holyoke): From the Far-East comes the Chinese man named Lee Ching but who also goes by the name of the Magic Mandarin. Through the aid of some Manchu allies and the power of the Stone of the Dragon he dreams of conquest but is opposed by correspondent Smash Dawson. The stone has magnetic properties but also possibly some real magic as Ching and his allies change from business suits to robes and the Mandarin himself manages to somehow evade sure capture.
Mr. Magna: 1947, Black Cat Comics #7 (Harvey). This portly gentleman is an auto manufacturer of the Magnacar. But, instead of being a great and safe car, his plant uses inferior and cheap materials. While people die driving and having accidents in his cars, he amasses a small fortune and is ready to leave the country. However, the Vagabond Prince and his court, the teen Chief Justice and the Jester have been investigating the accidents and are ready to bring him to justice. He jumps in a car and flees, but he has jumped in not his own car but a magnacar and he promptly has a fatal accident.
Major Zero: 1944, Captain Aero #15/v3#13 (Holyoke). Captain Aero and his squad are so successful in helping the Chinese to fight off the Japanese that it's wrecking the Japanese morale. They hatch a plot, to outfit a Lt. Yahuchi in a bulletproof outfit and special armored plane and promote him with a new name like those in American comicbooks: Major Zero, the super flyer.
The Mallet: 1942, Daredevil Comics #11 (Lev Gleason). The Mallet is a Japanese spy. Along with his right hand man Tiang, they are passing themselves off as Chinese and head the Chinese forces along the Burma Road linking China with Burma. When Pat Patriot and her female army arrive to train the Chinese soldiers, the Mallet incites them to slay the women and isn't above torturing them himself. Pat exposes them as Japanese and their forces are easily routed by the combined might of Pat's army and the Chinese soldiers. The Mallet's final fate is unknown. He wore a dark blue cap and red sea-captain's jacket and slightly bearded. His nautical look was completed by having a just a wooden club where his right hand should be, hence his name. Created by Lin Streeter.
The Man on Crutches: 1947, Prize Comics #67 (Prize). Erik Manfredi is a jewel thief who was promised a great sum of money for a ruby owned by the oil heiress Miss Rita Henway. Unable to get Rita to give the jewel up, he devises a clever dart gun concealed into a crutch with which he kills her and then hides the gem inside the other crutch. He's brought to justice by Yank & Doodle with the help of the previously retired Black Owl.
Manta: 1944, Bouncer Comics 12 (Fox): Sexy white brunette who is in command of some dark Burmese jungle natives. She managed to capture Rocket Kelly¹s gunner and sidekick Wacky and is torturning him for vital information concerning American forces when Rocket Kelly comes to the rescue of him and other American airmen, capturing Manta in the process. More info on this mystery woman was promised in upcoming Bouncer 13.
Anthony Durrant tells us a little more: Manta, the woman you mentioned in the entry under her name, is in reality Susan Andrews, the daughter of a doctor working at a hospital in China. After her usefulness as Manta has ended, she returns to work at her father's hospital, where she again encounters "Machine-Gun" Kelley, whom she had first met in her guise as Manta. He and his friend "Wires" Welken saved her, but as they escaped from China, the rocket controls of Kelley's plane are hit by Japanese bullets, and they end up unconscious and on a journey to the planet Sakura.
Colonel Mara, the man who lost his face: 1944, Captain Aero #15/v3#13 (Holyoke). Before the War, Professor Yuki Mara taught chemistry and physics at the University of Sidham in Montana though he hated his time here. While teaching a class, Lucy Feller has an accident while mixing some acids when the flame of the burner flares up against her arm, causing her to spill the acid on Mara's face. Horribly disfigured, he returns to his home country where he makes a mask of a rubber plastic compound and he nurses his hatred. War comes and he is now a colonel serving in the islands off of Java, poisoning the water supplies. As luck would have it, Lucy Feller is on the island as a nurse to Captain Peter Hall, who is secretly the Red Cross. Mara thinks he has a chance at revenge, a chance to ruin her face but that cruelty compounded by the deaths of poisoned natives gives the hero the incentive he needs to overpower them and call for a bombing of the compound. Don't know if Mara survived or not.
Marius: 1940, Weird Comics #5 (Fox). Evil Roman sorceror of 2200 years ago (circa 1940) who's gang was being beset by the Roman Caius Martius. When his men capture Martius, Marius uses occult powers that put Caius to sleep until the 20th century where he becomes the Dart.
Marko, Hack: Jumbo Comics (Fiction). Anthony Durrant writes: Hack Marko was a ruthless killer bent on revenge; he killed the district attorney who presented the prosecution's case and the judge who presided at his trial after his release from prison. Hack was apprehended by Inspector Dayton, a police officer who impersonated the judge and was able to capture and arrest Dayton for the murders when he went to the "judge's" hospital room to finish the job. Marko is very unusual among the revenge killers that proliferated in the comics at that time because he was an innocent man who had been wrongfully convicted and sent to jail.
Mars: Planet Comics (Fiction). The Roman god ram amok through the universe in this series. Eventually he was stopped by Mysta. The following month, the series was devoted to and named after Mysta. The Roman God also figured into the stories of Man of War by Centaur where he opposed his "creation" that he had mistakenly placed on the side of a nation craving peace (America) instead of war (Germany).
Martians: 1944, Mystery Comics #2 (Standard). Tall gray beings with four arms, they are accidentally brought to Earth by Dr. Voodoo while he's fighting Wonderman.
Marto: 1940, Blue Bolt Comics. Highly evolved human, most head, employed by the Green Sorceress. Envies the developed physique of Blue Bolt.
The Mask: 1940, The Flame #2 (Fox). Mysterious masked man, leader of the rebel forces in Mauchako, and also supplies guns to General Boros. Joining the rebel forces is Rick Anthony, author and soldier of fortune, and also a childhood friend of dashing spy K-5 (you can tell he's dashing because he has a cravat, a pencil thin mustache and Asian man-servant called Tong). However, K-5 has been charged with finding out the identity of the gun-runners and putting a stop to it by the government, placing him and Rick on opposite sides. After much ado, it becomes a battle in the air as the Mask forces Rick to pursue K-5. When Rick refuses to shoot down a friend, the Mask executes him, but must then jump to his own freedom or risk crashing in the plane. He gets riddled by bullets from K-5's aircraft and is revealed to be one Senator Stanley.
The Mask II: Shadow Comics #9 (Street & Smith). In the small mountain town of Marshall, Mr. Winston brings in the Hooded Wasp to investigate a haunted mansion. By the time they arrive, they find the spectral ghosts, Mr. Winston¹s body, Dundril the dwarf, and his new master, the Mask. By adventure¹s end, it¹s revealed to be a scam by Winston to scare people away so he can get the golden hoard under their homes as well as a plot to rid the world of the Hooded Wasp and Jim Martin.
The Mask III: 1949, Exciting Comics (Better). Old West villain dressed all in black. He is actually an Easterner called Dude Johnson who uses brass knuckles in a fight. He was unmasked by the hero Billy West and shot in the back by his own men.
Masked Bandits: 1944, Yellowjacket Comics #4 (Frank Communale Publishing Co.). At various swank parties, three masked men burst in and rob the guests of their jewels. One of the hosts, Mr. De Quincey raises an uproar with the police and the D.A. Ralph Nelson who is secretly the Black Spider. Yet, when he is captured by the gang it's up to his secretary/girlfriend Peggy Dodge to become the Black Spider to save him! The leader of the gang is revealed to be De Quincey's son Frank.
Masked Man: 1943, All-New Short Story Comics #1 (Harvey). Big Mike Scorey is the Masked Man whose crimes are brought to light by the two-fisted reporter Steve Case.
Masked Marauders: 1940, Exciting Comics #44 (Better).Masked Arab bandits who kidnap the cat of Peter Ward, the Scarab. The cat Akh-Tu-Men is the reincarnation of an Egyptian priest who tended the pyramid of the pharoah An-Meses II and the villains will hope that the cat will reveal the location of the secret panel that will lead to the treasure room. Their leader is the non-masked Aton.
Masked Terror: 1940, Rocket Comics #3 (Hillman). Old West villain that fought the Phantom Ranger. Revealed to be man named Anson and apparently killed
Mastermind: 1941, Lightning Comics vol. 2, #1 (Ace). An evil scientist, he had created machines that could temporarily give him lightning powers by harnessing lightning from storms. He took over a lady scientist's castle due to its proximity to constant storms and built his machines. He then rescued the Mummy with the goal of gaining the secrets of the radium coating the Mummy used on his bandages to make himself invulnerable. However, during a falling out, he slayed the Mummy before getting his secrets. Still he used his super-brain to blackmail/sell his services to the US. In addition to his vast intellect and glowing eyes, he could teleport at will. Whether this was a natural talent or artificial was unrevealed. His plans were stopped by "Lash" Lightning.
Mastermind II: Target Comics (Novelty) In La Paza Texas, a masked criminal and his highly organized gang embark on a murderous crime wave of terror, kicked off by killing the mayor and then freeing ruthless criminals from the state penitentiary. Unfortunately for him, Niles Reed, Tom Brown and Dave Foster are vacationing locally and the case attracts their attention for they are the Target and the Targeteers. By the end of the case, the Mastermind stands revealed as Mr. Smythe, president of the Anti-Crime League who had been giving the DA a hard time.
Maurice: 1945, Green Hornet #26 (Harvey). Not the gangster of love, he’s a homicidal maniac. He’s teamed up with Nada, a gorgeous red-head and they’re crooks after a prized diamon. However, Maurice just cannot stop killing people in a variety of different ways: poison, gun-shot to the head, blow-dart. Heck, he even poisoned a victim’s goldfish. But the murders attract attention before they can get the diamond and it passes into the custody of lawyer John Doyle (secretly the Zebra). They try to trick him into giving away the location of the diamond but arouse his suspicions and he tracks them. When he is shot by Nada, Maurice goes nuts and chokes her to death for robbing him of his enjoyment. When the Zebra finally comes to and catches up to Maurice, he’s about to torture the lawyer John Doyle’s secretary and the enraged hero throws him through a window to his death. Very few killers are quite as gleeful about their murders as this one.
Dr. Maxwell: X-Venture 2. We¹ll let Columnist Fran Chapman tell the story: "Dr. Maxwell joined the remainder of the Hitler-Tojo gang, who continued to aim to rule the world thru atomic devices! Maxwell claimed to have discovered a thought-being that could be placed in a human brain and so control that person! Maxwell wanted to experiment on his assistant! Edwards refused. The doctor then wanted to inject the thought being into his own daughter! But Edwards and attorney Martin had him committed to an asylum! Maxwell swore revenge! He promised to get me took because in my column, I exposed his tie with the rule-or-ruin gang!" If nothing else, we¹ve learned that Miss Chapman is a bit excitable or paid by the exclamation mark. Mr. Mars, the Atom Wizard, reveals that it was reported that Maxwell died in the asylum, but a giant robot had killed both Edwards and Martin and left a threatening note for them. Their investigation uncovers that the Marcia Maxwell has control of the thought beings and the giant robots and is out to avenge the death of her father. The giant robots are controlled by human brains that had been injected with thought beings. However, the Atom Wizard discovers that a strong electric current can kill the thought beings and manages to take the robots and Marcia down before she can transplant Fran¹s brain into a robotic body.
McCann, Hugh: 1941, Cat-man Comics #3 (Holyoke). This gangster practically runs the city where Steve Prentice works as a lawyer. In fact he has Judge Hayworth in his pocket and the city "has been a relief stop for every thug and racketeer in the country!" Afraid that Prentice might discover the truth, he's framed for bribery and killing his own secretary. What McCann doesn't count on is Steve's resourcefulness. Instead of being captured and convicted, he takes on the identity of the Pied Piper to capture McCann and Hayworth.
McMann: 1940, Amazing Man #5 (Centaur). This scientist was a true genius. Using human-sized robots that could shoot out gas and electric bolts, he robbed a bank as a trial run as well as kidnapped the bank president who denied him a loan. His real plan that he enacted was having his gang drop man-sized mech spiders in the sewer across the city and then had them go on an unstoppable rampage in order to hold the city for ransom. He was captured by the Iron Skull who had infiltrated his gang.
Mechomen: 1943, America's Best Comics #4 (Standard). In a secret headquarters of a Gestapo Sabotage Unit, Nazi scientist Vurmann has two incredible inventions. The first is the Psychoscope, a device that displays images from a strapped in man’s thoughts. The second is the Colchicine Beam which can transform the victim into a horrific version of those visions. Using the devices on captured soldiers, he’s able to turn them into murderous Mechomen, half men and half airplanes, tanks or even anti-aircraft guns. Doc Strange defeats the Mechomen and destroys Vurmann and his gang by blowing up their base, a huge blimp disguised as a cloud.
Medusa-Man: 1946, Planet Comics #35 (Fiction House). The Medusa-man of Mars is featured on the cover, having captured Mysta but about to experience a beatdown by her robot. The story does not actually appear in the book despite the cover-blurb. A shame.
Mendezzi: Thrilling Comics (Better). A second rate stage magician who sells his soul to Satan for real occult ability. He teams up with 5th Columnists in efforts to overthrow America but is stopped by the forces of white magic under the command of the Ghost.
Mephisto: 1939, Fantastic Comics #12 (Fox) A great poisonous sea serpent, he'd approach boats and let out his venom into the waters, and sailors would be overcome by the fumes. Undersea adventurer, Sub Saunders had spent years trying to track this monster down before coming across signs of it and tracking it to its lair where he discovers a great under-sea civilization.
Mephistopheles: An underling of Satan, seeking to gain more souls for his area of Hell and for his boss, Satan, he recruits the help of Benedict Arnold and Dianatha, a huge black bat that is able to make her be seen as a beautiful brunette. As his plans begin to unravel due to the intervention of the Green Lama and his girl Jean Parker, Mephistopeles calls forth other traitors "Dr. Bancroft who betrayed Benjamin Franklin, Simon Girty the renegade, Arron Burr, the Traitor. Captain Teach Lias Bluebeard (sic)." Outnumbered, the Lama calls forth champions of his own (who does he think he is, Kid Eternity? Major Liberty? Captain Fearless?). "Om-Ma-Ni Pad-me Hum! Here, the fighters for democracy and justice! Mad Anthony Wayne, Lighthorse Harry Lee, and Stephen Decatur, valiant American Heroes." The patriots win out, and the Green Lama sends Mephistopheles packing.
Merciless the Sorceress: All Your Comics #1 (Fox). "Pages of history recount the tale of a woman whose fantastic beauty is matched only by her evil genius! She twists the minds and warps the souls of men who worship at her feet and finally turns them into beasts! Such was Merciless the Sorceress, ruler of the mysterious land of Volcano People at the top of the world." She is opposed by the famous explorer Captain Bob Darlington, his assistant "the Professor," and his pilot "Happy" Jack Smiles, although they win mostly by luck. She can change men into animals, is bulletproof, can disintegrate guns with a gesture, and can fly, among other abilities.
Mighty Mite: 1941, Target Comics 12 (Funnies Incorporated). Operating out of Chicago and the brains of a criminal syndicate, he flies to New York personally to handle the Target and Targeteers when they prove to much for his subordinate Hammerfist. However, even this dimunitive Napolean of crime reports to a higher up, a mysterious foreign agent.
Mikal: 1940, Weird Comics #5? (Fox). Ruler of Undersea pirates and ally of the Sea Demons. His kingdom commands powerful water pressure cannons. Defeated by the air breather Typhon and his submarine.
Professor Mikla: Jet Comics (Magazine Enterprises). In the Pennsylvania hills, Professor Mikla, a scientist with a devilish face, has created a machine that he calls a Multipliciter and the hero Jet Powers would come to know as a "Devil Machine." Mikla has successfully used the machine to make perfect duplicates of zoo animals and is ready to try it own humans. He gets his chance when he falls into the machine during a brief struggle with the hero. The machine works imperfectly on humans, all the dulicates come out inches high. Maddened, the Miklas destroy the machine and themselves.
"Crazy Joe" Miller: 1947, Prize Comics 64 (Feature Publications). An escaped convict whose chief claim to fame is he shot Black Owl II, leading to the Black Owl's retirement.
Misery: Airboy Comics (Hillman). Robed in green and a skull-face and in control of The Airtomb, a huge plane covered with white mold that serves as a graveyard for aviators.
Miss Shady: 1945, Hi-Lite Comics #1 (E.R. Ross). Miss Shady is a blonde adventuress as well as a clever and amoral thief.
Mist Men: Doc Savage Comics (Street & Smith). Bizarre creatures came out of the mists haunting the mining town of Elvino. The Hooded Wasp and his protege Jim Martin prove the creatures to be only costumed men working for an evil Nazi agent.
Mr. Atlantis: Wings Comics (Fiction). Asian (presumably Korean or Chinese) agent mastermind that fought Captain Wings during the Cold War. Helped out by the beautiful and mysterious Dame Areia.
Mr. Axis: Captain Aero Comics (Holyoke). Bald Nazi agent that bedeviled Miss Victory.
Mr. Lucifer: 1944, Bouncer Comics. Ok. The Bouncer is a pretty silly hero even by 1940's standards. So, it stands to reason he'd get a villain just as bit as silly if not more so. Mr. Lucifer is a fat clown in a pseudo-devil costume complete with tail who thinks he is the devil. In fact he's constantly referred to as "Mr. Lucifer, the clown who calls himself Satan" or something equally tongue tying.
Mister Que: See the Great Question
Mitzah the Mystic: Champ Comics (Harvey). Mitzah is a native Moroccan mystic popular with the other native Nationals. Enough that the Nazi Colonel Ludwig Von Vonson offers him dictatorship of Morocco in exchange for his magic aid. However, Dr. Miracle investigates the recent activity in Morocco and pitches his white magic against Mitzah’s black magic. It is discovered that Mitzah’s magic comes from an amulet much like Miracle’s own locket and the two if possessed by the same person renders them magic-less. Ultimately Dr. Miracle prevails, turning both Mitzah and the colonel into swine. NOTE: This story actually reflects a real world event. In 1856, stage magician Robert-Houdin was invited to Algiers by the French Government. The French feared that the popularity and superstitious awe of native Algerian magicians who would eat glass and heal wounds would inspire the natives to rise up against the French soldiers. Robert-Houdin was to discredit them through his own magic tricks (notably through using an electro-magnet to make a small box too heavy for a strong man to lift).
Mobo: (Fiction). Anthony Durrant writes; Mobo was the son of Chief Abu (?), who had been sent to the West to be educated. He came back dressed in a brown hunting costume, on a stretcher borne by native bearers. He had returned to take his position among his tribespeople, but his Western education had made him greedy. He tried to exploit his tribespeople for money, and even assaulted his father - who was now no more than a savage to him - but was stopped by Sheena, and forced to face his father's wrath. Strangely enough, Mobo was depicted by the artist as a white hunter, not one of the native tribes people, who are black-skinned.
Modern Achilles: 1954, Frankenstein Comics 29 (Prize). Ok, this one is a bit different in that he didn't face any superheroes or sleuths or spies, it's a Twilight Zone-ish story of a crook that gains invulnerability. However, it's wonderfully drawn by Mort Meskin and a decent story to boot. And, it's my site so I can pretty much stretch the rules if I wanna. :p
For 10 years, petty thief Jim Lees shares a prison cell with an elder scientist named Strong. Eventually the old man dies, but not before he revealed the secrets of an untested formula that would make one invincible for a limited time. Upon getting out of prison, he creates the solution, coats his body with it and embarks on a crime spree of stealing and murder. The cops get more desperate and when he is leaving one bank, a group of police meet him with a barrage of machine-gun fire. Lees is driven back, brought down by a ricochet into the one area he didn't cover, his ears.
Mojo: 1944, Fighting Yank Comics #9 (Better). The Japanese come up with a way to shrink soldiers temporarily to the size of insects and use this to send over squads of soldiers and saboteurs. The leader of this force is Mojo. Mojo is particularly beast-like in his features complete with egg shaped head and fangs. He wears a green shorts and t-shirt with a red sun burst on the front. However, he and the invading force are stopped by the Fighting Yank.
Molo: 1941, Silver Streak #8 (Lev Gleason). Anthony Durrant writes: Molo was a man who was murdering people who had become successful in their chosen fields. He targeted a playwright named Mr. White, but the detective Presto Martin apprehended him and put him in prison - only to learn of Mr. White's murder the next day. His suspicions aroused, Martin disguised himself as Molo's twin brother and learned of a plot to kill a wealthy entertainer. Presto Martin was able to get to the entertainer's mansion and apprehend the other Molo, and in doing so, rescue the entertainer. Molo and his brother had gone insane with jealousy after the failure of their brother act some time earlier.
Mongolian Prince (un-named): 1940, The Flame #2 (Fox). I'll be the first to admit, yellow peril menaces are practically a dime a dozen during this time, that like the numerous gangsters and Nazi spies, they become a little tiresome and I decided to not include them all. But, this chap has earned the right to be here for sheer audacity in his plans. Namely, he orchestrates an invasion of the U.S. by somehow burrowing through the earth and then sending almost invincible tanks through the tunnel coming up in the Florida everglades. With the help of some large alligators, his forces are decimated by the mystery man known as the Flame. The Flame then confronts the man himself. The prince apparently falls to his death fleeing from the hero across the tiled palace rooftops.
Monster: 1940, Fight Comics #5 (Fiction). Rip Regan, the Power-man and his friend Punchy investigate reports of a monster terrorizing a small town. The investigation leads to the reclusive preofessor Mori. When they find the monster in the cellar, a violent gorilla, Regan easily takes it out. He realizes the scientist was as surprised as they were and that the real culprit is the handyman he had hired recently. The man was running a dope smuggling operation and using the gorilla that he'd brought back from Africa to scare away the townspeople but which was getting un-manageable.
The Monster in the Pool: 1940, Phantom Lady 16 (Fox). Phantom Lady¹s fame as a detective has grown to the point that someone advertises for help in the newspaper. When as Sandra she and her boyfriend Don Borden drive out so she can snoop unofficially, they find that two girls have died in the area of Highmoor Estate. Faking an accident, she and Don meet Mr. Dorcas Phyfe (who placed the ad), his sister Calla and their dwarfish butler who invite them to stay until their car is fixed. After Don is attacked while swimming in the pool, Sandra investigates that night as Phantom Lady and finds a drain that leads to a pipe large enough for someone to swim in and out undetected. By the exit is a costume of a monster. It¹s not much later she spies Dorcas Phyfe diving into the pool to investigate only he is attacked by the monster. But, before he dies he utters, "Phantom Lady. . . you came. . . good. . . save my sister. . . not her fault. . . Lycan. . . " When she hears howling in the woods, she rushes to find a girls camp terrorized by a werewolf but manages to chase it off.
Later Calla finds the butler burning the monster costume and he confesses to killing her brother though it was out of love for her. Enraged Calla attacks him and chokes him to death before Phantom Lady can intervene. Turns out the little fella somehow knew that Calla was a werewolf (a fact she didn¹t know herself) and had been disguising himself as a monster in order to divert suspicion and protect her.
Monsters from Mercury: 1942, Speed Comics #17 (Harvey). Over the radio comes news of a spaceship crash bringing "Monsters from Mercury". These monsters appear to be intelligent giant lizards and they prey on the wealthy, robbing and pillaging. Shock Gibson (revealed to be Daniel Gibson, heir to the Gibson fortune) stops them revealing the monsters to be robots manned by small men under the command of the dwarfish John Thumb who apparently dies in a plane crash. What's not made clear in the story, are the small men Asian (judging by size and yellowish skin) or are they truly from "Mercury" who had come under the influence of John Thumb? After all the way the story opens, we see the rocket crash and hear the radio broadcast but aren't shown if and how those were faked.
Monster of Madness: 1941, Fight Comics #12 (Fiction). In the jungles of South America, an elder scientist has developed a formula that will turn a young boy into a huge and strong giant. And, he plains to teach him to likewise be the wisest. However, while waiting for the formula to take effect, the old man is walking through the jungles and is killed by a snake. The boy grows quickly to be several stories tall. Investigating reports, Rip Regan, aka the Power-man, comes across him but a previous pilot's shooting at him has turned the giant into a being of rage. He chases the Power-man to the Panama Canal and he seems to be able withstand the armed forces there. Power-man delivers a 1000 lb shell with the force of a bullet into the giant's chest that knocks him flat (though whether it has killed him or just knocked him out is un-revealed).
Mother Hubba: 1947, Airboy vol 4 #9 (Hillman). This kindly proper little old lady runs a resort for tired businessmen and she hires Link Thorne aka the Flying Fool to shuttle them. What he doesn't know right off is substitute gangsters on the run for "tired businessmen" and that all the pilots she's hired in the past have a habit of disappearing after a few weeks, and you have a better handle on what kind of deal she's offering.
The Mummy: 1941? Lightning Comics (Ace). Professor Vatz created a radium solution that when coated on his gauze costume it made him bulletproof and invulnerable to other weapons as well. This did not keep him from being defeated by "Lash" Lightning though. Ultimately, he was rescued from prison by the Mastermind who was after his secret. However, they had a falling out and he was quickly slain. The Mummy's costume was of gauze, head to foot. However, his wavy hair stuck out on the sides lending the threatening villain a ridiculous look.
Mummy: Miss Masque foe, reprinted in Golden Age Greats #6 (Better). Diana Adams' aunt has two combs reputed to have belonged to Cleopatra. When she takes one to a museum to go on display, she and the comb are kidnapped by a mummy leading Diana Adams to investigate as Miss Masque. The mummy is revealed to be the curator and part of a cult dedicated to retrieving the artifacts so Cleopatra can rest in peace.
The Mummy Master: 1941, Silver Streak Comics #15 (Lev Gleason). Foe of Captain Battle. Created by Otto Binder & Jack Binder.
Murder Company: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #17 (Centaur). Nine criminals banded together under the name of the Murder Company to kill men for their insurance money. They used a set of exotic and almost undetectable poisons to kill their victims. All nine were captured by Mighty Man.
Mustard Gang: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #15 (Centaur). Working for the Great Question until their capture by Amazing Man, these criminals used protective suits and gas guns to commit crimes.
Mystery Man: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #9 (Centaur). Out west, college students are being kidnapped and never seen again while hitch hiking. Turns out, that the "Mystery Man" (only name given) has been picking them up and using them to test out a new insane weapon to take out snipers and machine gunners in order to sell to foreign powers. Basically, he's been breeding Timber Wolves with police dogs and making them vicious killers that hate a certain scent. He allows the students to escape, to even get to a machine gun nest, but with the scent on them, not a one has been able to fire off a shot before the devil dogs get them. His plot is foiled by the intervention of Mighty Man. The Mystery Man and the foreign agents having unknowingly stepped in the fluid with the scent are torn to shreds by the dogs. In order to capture the students and control the dogs, he made use of a huge manacled assistant, but even that man was dwarfed by Mighty Man and is felled by one punch.
Neptina: Champion Comics #2 (Harvey). Neptina is the queen of the fish-men, an underwater race which is inimical to surface life. She is opposed by Lieutenant Brad Fletcher, "the Navy's best undersea expert."
Neptune and the Mermen: 1940, Weird Comics #2 (Fox). Neptune is the king of the mermen, men described as having red seaweed beards and red-scaled fish tails (the pics have them having red saucer-like eyes but their demonic faces and beards are yellow, caucasian skinned torsos and red fish tails instead of legs). Despite being mer-men and living on the bottom of the ocean, they don't live in the water. Instead they live behind an invisible wall barrier under intense heat and can breathe fire themselves but have guns that can encase their foes in blocks of ice. They seemingly drown when Typhon blasts a hole in their invisible wall with his ray-gun.
Noman: Noman and the Little Men were foes of Mister Midnite.
Octopus: Wonderworld Comics #30 (Fox). A true misfit with 3 arms and an apish fanged face, this man devoted himself to becoming the number one gang-leader. A mirrored invention that would fire an aimed electrically charged blast when it caught a ray of light allowed him to weak havoc against his rivals. The beam almost spelled an end to the hero called the Flame, causing him to reveal his identity and source of powers to his girlfriend Linda so that she might carry on as Flame Girl. However, the Flame does not die and the two heroes battle the Octopus and his gang. The Octopus is set aflame during the battle and he flees into the garage which then blows to kingdom come.
Octopus II: Target Comics. Bald master criminal that was decked out in a mask and a shirt (robe?) with an octopus on the cover. Fought the T-Men (agents of the Treasury Dept).
Hans Odin: X-Venture.Commander of a Prisoner of War Camp and when Germany loses the war, he flees to Africa to evade not only justice but the wrath of Jack Tamor whose brother died in his camp. Though he manages to become a councilor in the native tribe Bar-Ongi, Tambor manages to catch up to him, and after a brief enslavement, free the white slaves and exact his justice. Tamor, disgusted with civilization, opts to stay in the jungles. Beautiful blonde Ayilia, leader of the slaves goes with him. NOTE: As fairly common with strips of this type though this is the African Congo, the native tribe looks more South American and of course a pretty white woman is also on hand. Ayiila says the slaves are her people but where they come from and their own future is uncertain.
Og, King of the Ape-Men: (Fox). In the Malay jungle, Dr. Fung and Dan Barrister are searching for the daughter of the Earl of Winlliston lost years before and hear of the rumors of a white woman living with Ape-men.
The One: 1940, Exciting Comics #1 (Better). In Midtown, two gangs of racketeers are working the town over to the point that Mayor Kurt Piersole enlists the aid of freelance gangbuster Gunner Thompson and points him in the direction of the DA as possibly being the "One", leader of one or both groups. Gunner uncovers the fact that it's none other than Mayor Piersole himself.
Orchid: The beautiful sister and aide of the Dragon. Foe of Samson.
Orchid Princess: 1944, Mystery Comics #2 (Better). She opposed attempts by the jungle boy Zudo, Dr. Turner, and Dr. Howard in finding the rare Black Orchid.
Ornitz: A spy for a gang of saboteurs eavesdrops on Doctor Clark when he and Dick Martin (aka Pyroman) discover some ancient bacteria that live in iron ore, converting the metal into sustenance. However, the spy thinks it's the secret of Pyroman's abilities and gangmember Ornitz is injected with the stuff. Instead, his body becomes like steel itself making him an equal to Pyroman. Not only that, he somehow reasons that injecting samples from his own blood will make others like him only under his control and he does so by holding false inoculations for a troop of soldiers.. He dies while fighting Pyroman, he falls on a sharp rusted piece of metal, rust being the one thing that kills the bacteria (luckily, instantly). The death of the leader also cancels out the powers and hypnotic hold over the others.
Owens, William: 1941, Thrilling #14 (Standard). In 1914, scientist William Owens discovered Wonderol, a powerful tonic. Unfortunately, his financiers stole the rights to it from him and he swore revenge. Flash forward a couple of decades and some change, and he starts making good on that threat, killing off the company founders one by one. Owens somehow got a ruthless gang working for him and he possessed some new discoveries including a powerful gas, a huge glass encased gas bomb, and even a paralyzing bullet, from which even a scratch can lay the mighty low. His defeat comes when Doc Strange and Virginia investigate the series of murders. He is killed when he is thrown into his gas bomb, breaking the glass shell.
Owl-Eyes: Crackajack Funnies (K.K. Publications). A smuggler with his own submarine (albeit a little rundown) and crew that faced off against Don Winslow. The bald-headed fiend was so nick-named due to his wide-awake bulging eyes.
Panther: (Fiction). From Mssr. Durrant: Panther was a man who was blinded in a mine explosion and went to see a native healer who grafted the eyes of his pet leopard into the man's empty sockets. Panther took the brother of the mine owner's widow prisoner and tried to force her to sign over the mine to him by torturing the young man, but Sheena challenged him to a blindfolded duel with staffs and managed to defeat the madman.
The Panther Lord: (Fiction). Anthony Durrant writes: The Panther Lord was the head of an African tribe who controlled many slaves. He tried to kill Ka'anga, the Lord of the Jungle, and take his mate Anne as his wife, but the Jungle Lord captured him instead. It was then revealed that he had come to the jungle a year earlier with two friends, Lance and "Specs." He had killed "Specs" and put the man's skull on a pole as a warning, causing Lance to swear revenge against him. Lance abandoned this idea after the Panther Lord was captured.
Paris: 1944, Clue Comics #9 (Hillman). A tall, almost effeminate man in tails and tophat, Paris is part of Melton's gang. What makes Paris special is that he's not human but a mechanical man who does everything in silent clock-work precision. When the Boy King separates Paris from the gang, Paris goes on a rampage at a circus, eventually killing his master Melton. With a little help from his twin brother Muggsy, Muggsy's fiance Anastasia, and the robotic Giant, Paris is captured and deactivated.
Mr. Peccary: (Holyoke). An obese Cat-man villain visibly patterned after Sydney Greenstreet. He had worked out a deal with some Japanese spies but Cat-man and Kitten got wise and captured him.
Pecos Pete: Fighting Yank #19. Six-gun villain in the style of the Old West cowboys. However, as he was rounded up by the Fighting Yank, it's safe to assume he's a modern day throwback. The villain is on the cover by Schomburg and as his covers rarely had anything to do with the insides other than the heroes to be found in the book, it's a safe bet, this is as far as he got.
Dr. Phineas Peble: Jan. 1942, Thrilling Comics 24 (Better). Psychic investigator and fraudulent spiritualist. He used trickery during seances to milk his wealthy clients. Exposed and stopped by the Woman in Red.
The Phantom Fisherman: 1940, Super Spy Comics #1 (Centaur). 57-8R is down at the water front investigating a leak of how the enemy seems to know ship movements, that every time one goes out, a submarine attacks it about a hundred miles out. He hears a story about a Phantom Fisherman, he is spotted fishing off Rock Point, but never seems to catch fish nor comes in to the docks at night. A loose lipped filing clerk is sweet on a local waitress and talking to her about the ships comings and goings. The old deaf cashier is actually an enemy agent, lip reading everything said and then by using the weathervane on top, he sends coded messages. The Phantom Fisherman is actually enemy agents watching for the weathervane to pass along to enemy intelligence.
The Phantom of Notre Dame: 1942, Daredevil Comics #11 (Lev Gleason). Rene Venge was a fighter, a stunt man and lastly an extremely vain and jealous star actor about to marry the gorgeous Brenda Bronson who attracted men like flies. On the day of the wedding, he's trying on his hunchback "make-up", a grotesque mask and extremely heavy hunchback costume. An outfit that he's warned to wear for only half an hour or it will break his vertebrae and leave him a cripple (this isn't literally true as we find out). Insulting his make-up man Tony who also has the hots for Brenda by asking him to be the best-man, Tony leaves the dressing room with Rene still in costume and then someone locks him in. Unable to remove the costume by himself, it does irrevocable damage to Rene, leaving him hunched over and suffering and in full costume vows revenge when he sees Brenda marrying Tony out of spite. He kills Tony but the hero Daredevil saves Brenda, at least for a little while. She is killed shortly after, electrocuted when trying to leave her room as a wire was wrapped around the door knob. He then vows to kill everyone else associated with the picture one by one until the person who locked him steps forward. The camera man is killed by a concealed knife in his chair, the director by knocking out his barber and giving him a close shave, and almost hangs Daredevil as well. Daredevil finally captures him and tricks Rene's understudy into admitting that he was the one who locked the actor in his dressing room
Phantom Pirate: 1944, Heroic Comics 25 (Easter Color Printing). The Phantom Pirate controls an invisible sub and uses it to prey on shipping. What the pirates didn't count on was that Rainbow Boy can see in the invisible range of the light spectrum. The pirates were stopped by Rainbow Boy and Hydroman. We never actually see or learn the identity of the Phantom Pirate.
The Phoenix: 1940, Sure Fire Comics #1 (Ace). The Phoenix wants to rule the world and to do that he makes artificial jewels inside a volcano in Central America which his gang sells in New York. To this end, he has captured a Mr. Parker and group on a secret expedition that are familiar with the region and natives. He's also managed to get a local tribe, the Tzutuhiles aka the Jewel Men to work for him, taking expeditions and other tribes as slaves. The Jewel Men wear Crocodile heads as headwear. The Phoenix apparently dies when a bolt from the neophyte hero Lash Lightning disables his plane and causes it to crash into the volcano.
Pirate Prince Blaga Daur: 1940, Planet Comics #5 (Fiction). This villain did his best Ming the Merciless routine but consistently stopped by Gale Allen of the Girls' Parol/Women's Space Patrol (and her boyfriend Jack North in tow). He finally gave up trying to be a universe conqueror and get some personal revenge on Gale Allen, but seemingly fell to his death in issue 11. Professor Morta: Captain Flight Comics (Holyoke). He seeks a formula for eternal beauty. Thus, he has been responsible for the disappearance of the gorgeous women in the Twilight Land on the planet Mercury. When their Queen disappears while crossing the Dark Frontier on her way to a conference with the Lobstermen on the hot side of the planet and Earthman Captain Rock Raymond, Rock investigates with two of the Lobstermen. The hero manages to rescue the queen and escape but Morta and his servants, the cat men who can see in the dark stay free. Morta has the appearance of a Middle Eastern, hawk-like nose, brown skin, but as this tale takes place on Mercury, cannot be really sure where he and his cat men are truly from
The Porcupine: February 1943, Clue Comics #2 (Hillman). Ronald Byrd says: Dressed in a quilled suit, the Porcupine is a jewel thief who skewers his enemies with his quills, either by throwing them or in a "quilled hug." His schemes are punctured by Twilight.
Portable Man: 1941, Stars and Stripes #2 (Centaur): Also called the Headless man, Von Lougg is a small man with a large head and is behind a gang of saboteurs. He leaves to continue on his own, by simply showing them that he can remove his head and yet still talk. Furthermore, he isn't harmed in the least by bullets. Later, he launches a new attack on New York with submersible planes. While the Shark deals with them, Neptune has found Von Lougg in an undersea castle where the genius shows his ability. The Shark follows the planes back to the castle, licks Von Lougg's private army and floods the base. But, Von Lougg seems proof to drowning as well. And he claims that no prison will hold him since he can separate his body parts. The Shark captures him anyways and King Neptune sews him back together so he can be imprisoned, although he manages to sew an arm and a leg in the wrong places. While the Shark feels like he can come up with an explanation as to how the man separates his body parts, he's at a loss to explain why Von Lougg feels no pain nor able to die. However, he does manage to escape and vows revenge on the Shark and Father Neptune in the pages of Amazing Man Comics.
Prince Ghut: Planet Comics #36 (Fiction House) Anthony Durrant provides: The villainous Voltaman leader into whose body the brain of a prisoner named Bruce was transplanted; he appears in the LOST WORLD ENTRY.
Princess Hsu-San: Anthony Durrant writes: Princess Hsu-San was the leader of the spy ring opposed by Agent X-71. She planned to conquer the world using a weapon to gain control of people's minds using the power of sonics. She was badly injured in a plane crash while being chased by X-71 and succumbed to her injuries later on the operating table, leaving her spy ring leaderless.
Princess Ipiram: (Fiction House) Anthony Durrant provides: Princess Ipiram was a high-caste Arabian woman who came to Africa to capture animals after her face was scarred by a tiger, which left her unable to marry as her family wished. Her hunting activities were disrupted by Wambi the Jungle Boy, who released her captive animals and saved her life when his elephant knocked her into the river. Having realized that looks don't matter and good deeds do, Princess Ipiram left the jungle, never to return.
Procustous: Exciting Comics #2 (Better). A rich man living near the Minoan ruins in Crete, he for unclear reasons tries to prevent Professor Craig and Dr. John Thesson from excavating the ancient site by sicing a gang and later his brutish servant Cercion on them. It could be he suspected and wanted to prevent Thesson from claiming his heritage the ring of Poseidon that would mark him as the reincarnation of the Greek hero Theseus, just as Procustous was the reincarnation of the villainous Procrustes (who stretched hapless travellers on the rack before Theseus had slain him) and his servant the reincarnation of Cercyeon.
The Professor: 1940, Silver Streak #2 (Lev Gleason). "A super criminal" who steals some chemicals and is opposed by the Wasp.
The Professor II: Planet Comics (Fiction): Anthony Durrant writes: The "Professor" was a scientist whom the Space Ranger Gale Allen found stranded on Jupiter when she went there to take a political prisoner to Earth. The three of them ended up stranded on a distant planet, where the Professor found the conditions to be like those on Venus, his homeworld. He tried to kill Gale Allen using a giant crab and then the monster bats that were found on the planet, but the prisoner and Gale saved each other's lives from those monsters, and after the Professor was strangled by the local vegetation, the prisoner assumed the Professor's identity.
Professor III: 1941, Fight Comics #11 (Fiction). Spencer Steel and his pal reporter Joe Doaks are on the trail of the ABC Gang when Steel spots criminal Eggy Hatch. Unfortunately the two are captured by Hatch and taken to his boss, an un-named Professor. The Professor is able to quickly hypnotize Doaks and then does the same to Steel. However, Steel only pretends to go under and tricks them into attempting to rob a bank that he had already set up to be guarded in case the ABC Gang struck. The Professor is your typical old man with white hair and van-dyke goatee and white doctors/scientists' garb.
Professor Froott: February 1943, Clue Comics #2, (Hillman). According to Ronald Byrd: In Sunnytown, Professor Froott warns that gravity is "disappearing"; his claim appears to be supported when some people are seen apparently holding onto the ground to keep from floating into space, while others apparently double up as though being pulled to the ground (which would be an example of gravity increasing rather than disappearing, but never mind). However, the true explanation for these instances is hired hand-walking acrobats and food poisoning, respectively, part of Froott's somewhat unique plan to encourage people to leave Sunnytown, enabling him to buy up everyone's property cheap, and charge them ten times as much to buy it back when gravity returns to "normal." Froott's scheme is exposed by Nightmare and Sleepy.
Professor X: 1940, Blue Bolt #5 (Novelty). He bedeviled Sub-Zero over the course of two issues before apparently meeting his maker.
Psyk: 1939, Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 #7 (Centaur). Homer Carlin on his deathbed gives his neice Diana and her boyfriend Jack Strand a pin with a gem that contains a ray. They are to guard it from a villain called Psyk, but at the same time it will protect them from him. With the gem Psyk can ruin the world. When Psyk gets Diana in his thrall and brings her to his "Realm of the Subconscious" Jack uses the gem to track her and also travel from this world to that one to rescue her and to stop Psyk. In the "Realm of the Subconscious" Psyk has vast mental powers and he rules over all the denizons. They are all bald, a possible side effect of long term residing in the realm and may also be linked to Psyk's mental prowess as he comments to Diana that when she loses her hair, she'd be a real asset to the realm. Psyk eventually is able to launch an attack on the real world with his armies and machines that weaken mental resistance and allows him to force his will on the populace. Strand and Diana confront Psyk in his castle, trapping him in his own rays so that he cannot use his mental powers against them. Strand is able to overpower him and turn off his machines. With them gone, the Realm of Subconscious fades away, apparently taking Psyk with it, leaving all the events like a memory of a dream in all those involved.
Punch & Judy: Boy Comics #19 (Lev Gleason). A crime duo; foe of Daredevil and Crimebuster. Created by Charles Biro.
Puzzler: 1949, America¹s Best Comics #30 (Better). A young man is down on his luck though he¹s always been good at solving puzzles. In fact he happens to be walking by a bank when he hears that the vault has been closed by accident and it contains papers that are needed for a multi-million dollar deal. He reckons a safe is just another puzzle and soon he has it open for them. But, they offer him no reward and in fact are all to happy to have him leave due to his rather sorry appearance. He decides, then and there to no longer live the life of the straight and narrow and puts on a green and yellow checker-board costume and commits outrageous crimes. He even sends out riddles to the Black Terror challenging him to solve the crimes and catch him. Which after a few close calls, the Terrors do. The Puzzler also seems to have penchant for bad puns.
Queen Darma: 1946, Jumbo Comics #93 (Fiction). In a lost world in Africa, Queen Darma rules over the Dawn Race. She and her race are brown skinned hominids, with hair about their bodies and long tails. When Sheena, her boyfriend Bob and a professor with his expedition accidentally find Darma's land she captures them and prepares to sacrifice them to the stone idol of their god Da-Kaahn. She fights Sheena in single combat and apparently falls to her death in her pit of giant "craw-crabs".
Queen of Hearts: August 1941, Victory Comics (Hillman). Recurring villainess opposed by Spade of the Secret Service.
Queen of the Majaja: 1949, Exciting Comics #67 (Standard), reprinted in 1993, Jungle Girls 15 (AC). Anthony Durrant writes: The Queen of the Majaja tribe pretended to be a wereleopard to instill fear into her subjects. Clad in an outfit made from a leopard skin, she stole diamonds that had been found by an explorer and tried to take his son Billy captive. However Judy of the Jungle intervened and the Queen of the Majaja fell victim to the poisoned claws of her leopard-skin glove.
Queen of Simba Land: 1949, Rulah #22 (Fox). In the jungles, Rora is a beautiful red-headed queen of a kingdom of natives along with dangerous lions that she keeps controlled by whip. She desires to conquer all of the jungles and first targets the jungle prince Zago's village by using the Trojan horse trick (only this time with a giant gold lion). Ultimately, the lions go berserk, toppling the vast structure, killing many of their former captors presumably including Rora, the cruelest of them.
Queen Tua: 1941, Shadow Comics v1#11 (Street & Smith). Queen Tua rules the underground civilization Charon which dreams of conquering the surface world. Her plans are complicated by her attraction for the surface hero Iron Munro who stands in her way.
The Quisling Queen of Tambu: Speed Comics 38 (Harvey): On the South Pacific isle of Tambu, they sexy Queen Lagoona has thrown in with the Japs. However, Bob Gibson, aka Shock Gibson happens to be on the island with his army patrol and manages to capture the Island and its quisling queen.
Quorak: 1940, Planet Comics #1 (Fiction House). Quorak, the Space Pirate, is a would-be ruler of the universe. Like many space aliens of the time, he has the large bulbous head and spindly body and limbs. With his great inventions, he threatens to destroy all civilizations starting with the greatest of the planets, Pluto (Seriously? The greatest of planets? Take that 20th Century scientists!) Quorak's plans are halted by the Inter-Planetary Police.
The Pantherman: 1941, Crackajack Funnies #31 (Dell). This "emperor of crime" was a tough boss, tangling with the Owl over several issues. His headout below the streets of the city provides him with deep sewer pits and tunnels with which to dispose of enemies, both living and dead. The Owl finds in the Pantherman's "bone pile" many skeletal remains, one of a policeman that had gone missing 4 years earlier, giving an idea how long this crime-lord had been in operation. During the course of this adventure, his confidante Belle Wayne dons an Owl costume consisting of all blue halter top, shorts, boots, cape and Owl mask, becoming Owl Girl (Crackajack Funnies #32). The Pantherman wore a light tan cougar/panther mask and a suit. Judging from how homely a face he had, it was a definite improvement.
Radion: 1940, Green Mask Comics 3 (Fox). Foe of the Green Mask and Domino.
Rajo: 1946, Sparkling Stars (Holyoke). Large barrel chested pirate, bald but with a beard and an eye-patch. He and his men came to the jungles and conquered one kingdom and set their eyes on a neighboring one ruled by the cruel Maata, the leopard girl whom Rajo wants as his mate. Opposing their plans of conquest and raiding are Fangs, the wolf boy and his pack of loyal wolves.
Ramun: aka The Evil One. Ramun is a Far-Eastern magician and foe of Marvelo. He has a small trained ape named Edpo whose talents include throwing knives.
Rand, Barton: 1943, Heroic Comics 19 (Eastern Color Printing). The head of an Axis sabotage ring in Louisiana that blew up American ships in the Gulf of Mexico. He posed as a genial sportsman in order to know which ships to target. He was captured by Man O'Metal.
Trigger Ratsel: 1942, Green Hornet Comics #7 (Harvey). A gangster whose gang is leaning on food and milk truck drivers for protection money. He has the honor of being the first man to be brought to justice by the modern Robin Hood and his men.
Comrade Ratski: Speed Comics 10 (Harvey). In a hollowed out mountain peak lair in the Rocky Mountains, Comrade Ratski holds 3 scientists prisoner and forces them to create devices for his use. They create an earthquake machine and a formula to enlarge insects to the size of an ox. He is stopped and the scientists are rescued by Shock Gibson. However, Ratski does escape, I don't know if he returned to bedevil Shock Gibson.
Racker: Exciting Comics15. (Standard) This fiendish man used to be a scientist before turning his mind to evil. He kidnaps scientists and through various torture and death devices, forces them to sign over ownership to their inventions before they will conveniently disappear. He and his gang are captured by the Black Terror and Tim.
Rasnel: 1942, Planet Comics #16 (Fiction). In the year 2541, Rasnel is the lord of the planetoid Zaten who dreams of conquest, torture and beautiful women. Even with the aid of his bullet-hooded flying men, he finds Earth a tough nut to crack as it's under the protection of the immensely powerful Red Comet.
Rassimoff: Popular Comics (Dell). Rassimoff is a spy for the country Urasia which is waging war on the neighboring peaceful country of Novoslavia. Dr. Hormone's plucky grand-daughter slipped him a potion containing donkey hormones which has given him donkey ears as well as massive strength of the beast of burden, after which he's called Assinoff.
Rats: 1948, Airboy Comics (Hillman). Rats with human level intelligence attempt to take over the world and even enlisting the aid of bats as their air force (think of Hitchcock's The Birds only turn them into rats and grant the viewer insight to their conversations and plans). They are opposed and thwarted by Airboy in both of their attempts.
Ratzo: February 1943, Clue Comics #2 (Hillman). Ronald Byrd contributes: The rodent-faced Ratzo leads a gang of criminals who use purple fumes to paralyze their victims. He and his gang are brought to justice by Stupid Manny.
Red Gang: 1942, Amazing-Man Comics #26 (Centaur). A gang of crooks that came up with some goggles that allow them to see into the King of Darkness' blackout rays. He still managed to take out the gang.
Red Raider: 1940, Keen Detective Comics #21 (Centaur). A submarine captain of an un-named country goes nuts and through his mania is able to hypnotically control his crew. He starts attacking all ships, even those of his own country. Eventually, he paints his sub, calling it the Red Raider and takes down his country's flag and replaces it with the black and white skull and crossbones of pirates. The captain dresses in red sea captain's garb. Captured by the Masked Marvel.
Relley: 1945, America's Best Comics 116 (Standard). A known and oft convicted fifth columnist and black marketeer. He took to wearing a hood and robe to hide his identity from the men who worked for him. He was stopped by the Black Terror.
Rikor: 1941, Stars and Stripes #4 (Centaur). Anthony Durrant writes: Rikor was a member of a group of German spies who killed the Union leaders of an unnamed American city and took their places, forcing the union members to sabotage their workplaces by threatening to harm their wives and children Three concentration camp escapees named Pepper, Van and Whitey - Pepper and Van were framed on false charges, and Whitey killed a German soldier who was beating a little crippled girl - have formed a team called the Stars and Stripes, swearing an oath in their own blood that they will protect America and clean out all the enemy spies, and the three of them put a stop to Rikor's evil plot. This task is made especially difficult because Rikor and his gang control the Union's enforcers and the Stars and Stripes have to fight them off in order to capture the spies.
The Ripper: (Harry "A" Chesler) The Ripper is a "swamp rat" and along with his loyal gang, does jobs of sabotage and such for Hitler in exchange of being made leader when he invades America. He and his gang are undone by the brave boy hero, Johnny Rebel and old family servant, Rufus.
The Riverdale Killer: 1941, Thrilling Comics #8 (Better). A hooded killer stalks the halls of a Riverdale Mansion, killing first Frank Parsons. Peggy Allen (aka the Woman in Red) is sent to investigate and prevent more killings. Henry and Violet Parsons, along with their butler are supposedly the only ones there, but Peggy realizes the family has a secret. When Henry is also killed, she discovers that the family keeps an insane brother locked away. The Woman in Red exposes the killer as none other than Violet, who had hoped to frame her brother for the killings, his insanity nothing more than a frame-up itself after he had suffered a nervous breakdown years ago. Violet had hoped to inherit the family fortunes once her brothers were out of the way.
Robbing Hood: 1944, Prize Comics #39 (Prize): Anthony Durrant provides: Robbing Hood lived out the Robin Hood legend in reverse, stealing from the "decadent" poor to give to the "unfortunate" rich people. He was apprehended by Airmale and Stampy after getting himself caught inside a chimney on his way to play Santa Claus for another rich person! Robbing Hood was an expert archer.
Robot: 1939, Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 #11 (Centaur). Don't know if he appeared in the story, but he was getting the worse of it on the cover by the Fantom of the Fair.
Rocko: Planet Comics #5 (Fiction House). Foe of Space Admiral Curry.
Rodent: Boy Comics 15 (Lev Gleason). A muscular foe of the boy hero Crimebuster.
Rogats, Erick: 1941, Stars & Stripes #3 (Centaur). A foreign agent and scientist, Rogats operates out of an abandoned castle with his servant Argo, whose malformed, scarred and tusked face is kept obscured by a hooded robe. Rogats is after Professor Taft's petrifying formula and sends Argo to kidnap the professor and bring back the formula. However, Argo is followed by the hero the Black Panther. Argo is accidentally injected with the formula and possibly dies. Rogats flees from the Black Panther by attempting to scale the castle tower, but he slips and falls into a black quick-sand mire at the base of the castle and presumably dies. The castle is some set-up, it's by a cliff in the woods near an unnamed town. It has a secret entrance via a tunnel at the base of the cliff for vehicles. Inside Rogats has equipped a large laboratory with every known scientific device known.
Rook: 1941, Mystery Men Comics (Fox). This bug-eyed villain had a flashlight-like weapon that cast a hypnotic ray. He seemed to be in the employ of a Sonya Voska. While he was opposed by the mystery man Lynx, he apparently also had earned the enmity of a gangster called Baldy Burke.
Roscoe, Violet: Jumbo Comics (Fiction). Anthony Durrant writes: Violet Roscoe was a vicious gangster and murderess who left the scent of her violet perfume on her victims' bodies. After she was hanged on testimony provided by Agent ZX-5, she appeared to come back from the dead when she killed the judge who had presided over her trial, and later a prison guard who had seen the murderer tear Violet Roscoe's dress in the prison morgue was murdered as well. Making it look like the judge had survived the murder attempt, ZX-5 hid out in the bed in the hospital room where the judge was allegedly recovering from his wound. The murderer made her attack, and ZX-5 grabbed her by the arm. Breaking free, she rushed up to the roof with ZX-5 right behind her. When she tried to attack him with a shovel, she slipped off the roof and fell to her death many stories below. When unmasked, the dead woman proved to be the prison matron, who had lost to the judge in an election years ago and hated him with a passion. She had killed the guard when he had seen her tear a piece out of Violet's dress in the morgue.
Roulf: 1940, Fanastic Comics 12 (Fox). Editor of the Daily Standard. Also a masked leader of a group of Nazi spies and saboteurs. Defeated by Samson and David.
Vance Roy: Amazing Mystery Funnies (Centaur). In the Year "X" (circa 2500 AD), he bedevils King Kurt and the heroes Skyrocket Steel, Invex, and Sari Marston.
Rubberman: 1943, Air Fighters #6 (Hillman). Herr Riktor is head of a rubber factory in Nazi Germany. When British bombers destroy his plant, he falls into a vat of hot liquid rubber which burns away his skin and somehow, through hate and force of will, he doesn't die but the rubber bonds to his body, allowing him to stretch and bounce and even deflect bullets. While fighting the Iron Ace, he is hit so hard he ricochets off the walls and into a boiling hot vat that seems to dissolve and kill him. NOTE: One of the more interesting and unique supervillains I've come across.
The Ruler of the Underseas: 1940, Weird Comics #1 (Fox). An evil underwater villain, he rules from his underwater castle various giant sea serpents, serpent-men and even enchants a beautiful surface woman to do his bidding alongside his monsters. He was stopped by Typhon. NOTE: For reasons that aren't clear, the woman would show up with the undersea blonde amazons in issue #5 and Typhon aims to escort her to the surface where she belongs. Makes me wonder if one of the villains of issue 5, Mikal, the leader of the undersea pirates and self professed ruler of the deep is supposed to be the Ruler of the Underseas in issue 1.
Sabina the Sorceress: 1950, Ranger Comics #56 (Fiction). A sorceress of minor magical ability has been making a living off the medium racket. At some point in the past she had made a deal with prospector Leo Southward to swindle his partner Hobart Margin out of his share in a mine, only Southward mysteriously disappears. Thinking he's dead, Sabina holds onto a map that leads to hidden pilfered wealth. Years later Leo returns during a "seance" that Sabina is holding with Margin, and he kills Margin while Sabina watches on. However, the police blame Sabina for the murder and she fears Leo will come after her for the map. She enlists the aid of Dr. Drew, hoping to get Leo imprisoned and leaving her free to get the wealth unhindered. Dr. Drew insists that for once she wasn't really faking but really raised a ghost who'd come after her. He defeats the ghost, but also takes the map so Sabina doesn't profit from her crimes though neither does she go to jail.
Santa Clause: 1945, Star Studded Comics #1 (Superior Publications). Ok. I have to confess I am sorely disappointed that I am putting ole Saint Nick on this list. Oh the shame. Actually, it's just a man dressed up as Santa Clause who enlists other "Santas" to break into homes and steal loot. To this end, he provides them with pipes that will blow bubbles that will knock out anyone present. However, the concoction is geared to kill not render unconscious thus binding the crooks to him for they are all killers now. He and the gang is stopped by the neophyte hero Captain Combat. The evil Clause dies when a table hits him causing him to inhale on his pipe and swallow the deadly poison.
Satan's Shoes: 1940, Thrilling Comics #1 (Better). Zatu, chief of the pygmies learns the secret of Satan's Shoes, thigh high iron spiked boots. Kidnapping a young girl, marrying her and then killing her, he completes a ritual that enables the shoes to give him great powers. He is able to leap as far as a day's trek in one bound, crush the bones of a full-grown lion and swing a crocodile over his head. The death of the girl has Rulah vowing "If I live, I'm going to kill you like the jackal you are! And my apologies to the jackals!" The battle is swift and brutal, she's almost defeated by his lightning quick leaps, until at the last moment she spins with a spear-head upright and he stabs himself on it. With his death, the boots quickly lose their power and she throws them into the water, hopefully never to be used again.
Satana: 1947, Moon Girl #1 (EC). Satana is a "Queen of the Underworld". Despite a few tricks and her devilish green hood and costume, Satana displays no real powers but usually has a gang of henchmen who will do her bidding (though she's not above using a gun or a knife when the need arises). She is frequently captured by Moon Girl. A page of her and Moon Girl.
Satanas: 1944, Red Band #1. Satanas belongs to a race of near immortals on the "dread planet Pluto". While the race has no virtues to speak of, they even find Satanas to be cruel and unpleasant. With no known method to kill members of the race and his scientific knowledge makes it impossible to imprison him, so instead they put him on a rocket with no controls and launch him into space. After nine hundred years he gains control of the ship but is unable to find his way home, instead finding Earth. He uses his genius to master the languages of the world in no time and embarks on plans of conquest. Despite the covers intimating a conflict with the Bogey Man, it doesn't appear to be the case.
Satani: (Better). A recurring foe of Doc Strange. He controlled a monster in one story.
Scarlet Skull: 1941, Silver Streak Comics #13 (Lev Gleason). Villainess foe of Daredevil. Created by Don Rico.
Scarskull: 1941, Amazing Man Comics #19 (Centaur).Scarskull is a gang leader. However, he's on the ropes as the young DA Sam Williams is gathering evidence and building a case to put him and his mob out of business and in jail. To the point that at a benefit stage show where local celebrities (Governor Graft, Senator Filchit and the mayor Hon. M. I. Blue in addition to the DA and Dr. Hypno), he plots to put the DA out of business. Scarskull has hired a lion tamer act Lana and Leo (the lion) to do the deed and is disguised himself as her mid-eastern assistant. It's unclear which came first, female assassin for hire or lion act. Regardless, suspicious, Dr. Hypno takes over Leo and is able to turn the tables on her when she tries to use the lion to kill Williams. Scarskull tries to shoot the DA but without his turban, Leo/Hypno recognizes him and chases him. Scarskull flees up a rope but is shaken loose by Leo/Hypno and he falls to his death. In addition to being criminal scum, Scarskull is a racist, repeatedly calling Lana "slant eyes"..
Heinrich Schmidt: March 1944, Clue Comics #7 (Hillman). As told by Ronald Byrd: Nazi agent Schmidt disguises himself as assistant zookeeper Smith as part of his experiments in developing a fluid that draws jungle beasts to attack humans, a tactic he hopes to use against "American jungle fighters". Twilight dodges tiger attacks and has Schmidt arrested.
Schnubel: Nov. 1942, America's Best Comics 3 (Better). A nazi scientist working in America.No hair which accentuates his high forehead, the skin on his face drawn tightly back, sunken eyes, a nose little more than slits, and protruding upper teeth give this short slouching man a cadaverous look about his head. He comes up with a machine that transposes the conditions on Mars to Earth and is used as a weapon against America (thin atmospheres choking people, lower gravity causing earthquakes and so on). However when the ray is coupled with Pyroman's electro-magnetic energy, the ray turns several of his henchmen to "Martians." It is assumed all die when Pyroman sends their globular lab over a cliff and it smashes against the rocks.
Professor Schooner: 1943, Clue Comics 4 (Hillman). In his castle laboratory, this mad scientist concocts a formula that when injected will revert a being to it's stone-age characteristics. When he turns a mouse into the size of a bull, he tussles with the hero known as Zippo and accidentally injects himself. He grows to over seven feet tall, and fantastically strong. He is seemingly destroyed when Zippo has his castle blown up with TNT.
Scimitar: (Fox). A middle-eastern man in robes and a hat with his namesake on it. By use of hypnotic fumes, he commands the Sons of Liberty, a group of young Americans willing to kill for him as well as making women slaves. However he's done in by his own vanity when he coerces a painter named Rembrandt Speedball to paint his portrait through a sword of Damocles trick. However, when Speedball tries to escape and they struggle, the sword imbeds Scimitar in the chest. Despite such a wound and loss of blood Scimitar does not die and lives to fight and be defeated by Samson.
The Scorpion (I): Don Winslow's bald, cigar-smoking nemesis, the head of the secret organization, Scorpia, which aimed to take over the world.
The Scorpion (II): 1941 Fantastic Comics #21 (Fox). International criminal. He killed Jim O'Donnell's stepfather leading the Irishman to pursue him to America as the Banshee.
Sea Demons: 1940, Weird Comics #5? (Fox). Enemies of Mermea, the home of the sea Amazons and friends of the hero Typhon and his super submarine.
Seaclops: 1940, Weird Comics #5? (Fox). A large one-eyed tentacled denizen of the deep and controlled by the Sea Demons. It was slain by Typhon.
Secret Agent 36: German pilot that opposed Captain Combat.
The Serpent: 1941, Silver Streak Comics #14 (Lev Gleason). Villainess; foe of Daredevil. Created by Don Rico.
Sewer Rat: 1941, Amazing Man Comics #23 (Centaur). From the sewers, this masked gang leader directed his gang to steal all sorts of military supplies from a new plane to machine guns. He was brought down by the Marksman and revealed as Major Strobo who hoped to make a fortune by selling them to foreign powers.
Shaitan: Anthony Durrant writes: This high priest and his wife sought to gain control of the jungle through the use of the giant idol of the Blind God, crouched on a huge wagon with six arms protruding from its body. Controlled by Shaitan's wife, this monster tried to kill Tanee, the mate of Jo-Jo the Kongo King, but he upturned the idol, shattering it and revealing Shaitan's wife inside it. She and Shaitan were executed by their own people.
Shinto Samurai: 1944, Four Favorites 16 (Ace). Shinto¹s tale is a strange one. Centuries ago, he was a samurai. And one so mighty, that the legend says he was immortal. Yet, he did die and scientists kept his brain alive for hundreds of years, hoping to place him in a body powerful enough to serve him. Captain Nippo hit upon a plan or rather borrowed a plan from Doctor Frankenstein and they built one from the honored dead, an arm here, a leg there. Once brought back to life, the towering Shinto is brought up to date on Captain Nippo¹s version of history and is sent off to fight Captain Courageous. However, when Captain Courageous defeats him and is willing to hold him for trial he realizes Nippo's version of events and Americans is one sided. Courageous is willing to let him redeem himself and the two go after Captain Nippo who is trying to convince some American born Japanese soldiers to turn against America. Nippo manages to stab Shinto in the chest with his sword, the only weapon that can supposedly kill the immortal.
Baron Von Siedorff: 1941, Victory Comics #1 (Hillman). Messerschmitt pilot, he and his squadron attack and down the unarmed plane that "Bomber" Burns and Dave Matten were delivering. His firing on them while parachuting to safety, killing Matten, provokes Burns into vowing revenge and becoming the Firebrand. However, a reunion between the two pilots doesn't seemed to have happened.
The Silver Cult: Silver Streak #5 (Lev Gleason). In a hidden temple, a secret cult white hooded and robed worships and plots mayhem and destruction of America and the stealing of silver until the country no longer uses Silver, the sacred metal of the gods, for barter and standard of money. Silver Streak investigates and tracks the destruction the cult. He also discovers that their supply of silver bricks are just painted over standard bricks, that the leader of the cult had been duping the fanatics. He was Gregory Randil of the Randil Silver Company, and using the silver to build up his own business.
Silver Spear: Jungle Prince #3. The Silver Spear is just that, a spear made out of silver. It's used to threaten or attempt to kill Bosto, a merchant on the outskirts of the Congo. The jungle prince Zago investigates, finding at the heart of the matter a silver mine, a beautiful woman called Lola and a devious and cunning mind of a 20 year old man who appears to be only about 8 or 10 years old.
Singing Skull: 1943 ,Bill Barnes#10 (Street & Smith). Death's head villain who opposed boy detective Danny Hawk. Don't know anything about him beyond this one page.
Sir Satan: 1942, Silver Streak Comics #18 (Lev Gleason). Leads devil worshippers; foe of Captain Battle. Created by Otto Binder & Jack Binder.
Skies Terror: 1939, Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 #2 (Centaur). Cover blurb reads: "Death from the Skies Terror in THE DESERT MYSTERY ABOARD THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS" The menace looks cool on the cover as he menaces Skyrocket Steele and girlfriend.
Professor Skinn: Silver Streak Comics #7 (Lev Gleason). Foe of Dickie Dean, Boy Inventor. Created by Jack Cole
Skull: 1939, Amazing Man Comics #5 (Centaur). A cybernetic criminal who fought the Iron Skull.
Skull (II): 1940, Fight Comics #3 (Fight). First foe of the hero Rip Reagan, the Power man.
The Skull (III): 1943, Doc Savage (Street & Smith).This skull-faced villain fought the hooded and super-heroic Doc Savage over several issues.
The Skull Men: 1941, Silver Streak Comics #14 (Lev Gleason). Herry Skull and his Skullmen are foes of Captain Battle. Created by Otto Binder & Jack Binder.
Mr. Morpheus Slumber: Triple Threat Comics. After his death, his mind still plotted evil and he returned as a ghost with a ghost gang visiting the mortal realm in their dreams where he could terrorize those he disliked in life. Because he and his minions are ghosts they are able to battle the ghostly Duke of Darkness on an almost equal footing. However, the Duke proves that good is always stronger than evil.
The Smiler: 1941, Fight Comics #16 (Fiction). First foe of Captain Fight.
The Smyth Brothers: Green Hornet 33 (Harvey). Lem and Luke Smyth are your stereo-typical back woods hillbillies: tall and lean with long bushy black beards, red noses, dressed in tattered clothes and overalls and carrying the ubiquitous rifle. While normally, they'd probably be afearing "revenoors" this time out they run across cadets Gary Blakely (Spirit of '76) and pal Tubby Reynolds who were forced to land their plane nearby in a storm. Even more unfortunate is that the Smyth brothers are currently working for a Mr. Bohden guarding the kidnapped Martin baby. So, it's up to the costumed adventurer Spirit of '76 to save the day. A fun breezy tale even with its stereotypes done by the excellent Bob Powell.
Sons of the Atom: 1939, Amazing Mystery Funnies #15 (Centaur). This secret organization worships Satan Rex and are based in the City of Mists in Tibet. All bear a tattoo on their foreheads.
Solaris: (Better). Faced Wonderman (II).
Sons of Liberty: A hypnotized cult headed by Scimitar to carry out acts of destruction and terrorism. They will turn against their own families and even commit suicide for their group. They were stopped by Samson and David.
Sons of Pharaoh: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #15 (Centaur). The Sons are a cult of Egyptians that hate white explorers because they desecrate the old royal tombs and commit murder and blow up targets such as the Explorers' Club in London. They are stopped by Prince Zardi. Zardi reveals that their recent action and targets are directed by crazed explorer Jeffry Agnew who had known them in Egypt years ago. He had gone crazy and embittered when beaten to the tomb of King Tut years earlier.
Sorceress of Zoom: 1940, Weird Comics #1 (Fox). The Sorceress of Zoom is the ruler of a magical cloud city that she can make appear and disappear. Her subjects are magic creatures that she's created through her magic and she sets out to conquer the Earth. She's opposed by two normal humans, Janice and boyfriend Tom. By issue 3, the Sorceress seems to have seen the errors of her ways and becomes a heroine. Her reformation is short-lived as by issue 4, she's back to her old tricks.
Space Emperor of Jupiter: 1940, Exciting Comics #1 (Better). An Earth colony on Jupiter is in danger. A man calling himself the Space Emperor has the Magic Belt of the Ancients, a super-race that lived on Jupiter years ago. With it, the native Jovians worship him and the belt gives him powers such as turning intangible. Plus, he has also discovered how to turn the earthmen into evolutionary bestial throwbacks, binding some earthling followers as well. Major Mars destroys the caves and defeats the Space Emperor, revealing him to be Mr. Kells, Vice-governor of the colony.
Space Hunter (un-named): 1940, Mystery Men Comics #12 (Fox). On a "horror planet" this un-named giant of a man exists. He dislikes earthlings and hunters especially. So, when people land on his planet he turns the tables on them, transforming them into various animals and hunting them, mounting their transformed heads on the walls. When husband and wife Jan and Yna land on the planet due to some rocket trouble, he changes them into a crow and dove. As a crow, Jan managed to stowaway on a rocket and make his way to Rex Dexter of Mars and his girlfriend Cynde. They confront the hunter who transforms himself into a giant gorilla. Rex bluffs him into thinking that he cannot change into anything larger than a worm which the villain then does only to find himself eaten by the crow Jan. Once dead the spell breaks transforming Jan and Yna back to human (the heads on the wall also change to mummified heads).
Baldy Spade: 1940. Super Spy Comics #1 (Centaur). This mob boss was after an incredible invention that Red Morgan's father created and was willing to have his men kill for it. The invention turned out to be a special metallic suit along with a charging box, that when charged, the wearer of the suit becomes invisible. The secret of the suit is destroyed while Red tries to recover it. When his father dies, he puts on the suit and sets out for revenge against Spade. The suit creates an aura of dancing sparkling lights when making Morgan visible, earning him the name of the Sparkler, and when he appears out of the ether in front of Spade demanding vengeance, Spade jumps out the window in a blind panic and plummets to his death.
The Spectre: Crackajack Funnies 38 (37?)(K.K. Publications). A villain captured by the Owl. Don't know if he actually appeared in a comic or just in the newspaper headline in Crackajack Funnies 38. As most of the strips in Crackerjack are serial in nature, both are a distinct possibility.
The Spider: aka the "sinister fakir" and enemy of Don Winslow.
The Spider II: Fight Comics (Fiction). A bald criminal mastermind who carries two canes, that are cleverly concealed long barrelled handguns (one of which is a gas gun). He's knocked overboard by Shark Brodie and apparently drowns.
Spider Cult: 1941, Fight Comics #39 (Fiction). On the cover is advertised the Seniorita Rio story, "Slave Brand of the Spider Cult" where we see her and a two-fisted type fighting off some native types with spider brands on their chests and backs. However, this isn't the story inside. Now there is a villain called the Spider fighting Shark Brodie inside and he does have a gang of natives, but nothing about brands or such.
Spindler Sisters: (Ace) Anthony Durrant gives us: Matilda and Effie Spindler, the Spindler Sisters, allowed three very beautiful Waves to spend weekends at their country estate, where they would entertain them. Later in the evening, though, the three waves would be taken prisoner and three spies, dressed in the Waves' uniforms, would go to Washington in their place. This went on for some time until their henchmen kidnapped Lightning Girl, who sent Lash Lightning after them. He was able to unmask the Spindler Sisters as two unnamed male Nazi agents and put them securely under arrest, along with the latest consignment of phony Waves.
Steel Nazi: America's Best #4 (Better). Fought Pyroman.
Steel Shark: 1940, Rocket Comics #1 (Hillman). The year is 1960, and the Steel Shark commands a state of the art submarine that has flux ray guns that will stop a ship cold and ultimately sink it. He carries a gun that has the symbol of his submarine on the butt of the handle and he's strong enough to club a man hard enough to leave a depression with the image. In the first story, he's bald and green skinned, but displayed with a more normal appearance later. He's opposed by Lt. Dick Jones.
Stinger: 1941, Catman v1#8/#3 (Holyoke). The Stinger was a masked super-criminal, always managing to commit crimes where the police weren't. To aid in his crimewave, he and his men believed to have knocked off the Rag-man as well as kidnapping the police commissioner. Rag-man was injured but not out and soon he rounded up the villains and unmasked the Stinger as police lieutenant Burns, one of the detectives in charge of the task of bringing the crooks in.
Stogie, Cheroot and Upsweep: 1944, All Top 1 (Fox) A family of crime, Stogie is the father; Cheroot, the son with leading man good looks, and Upsweep, the sexy daughter able to sweep any man off his feet. They and a gang of toughs use the goodwill of Captain V to rip off charity monies in Hollywood which of course brings the hero himself to the land where reality and dreams mix. He even almost falls for Upsweep's charms thanks to knockout vapors concealed in her hair. A good plot, but Captain V didn't follow their script and they all found themselves going to jail but vowing to return.
The Stone Man: 1940, Weird Comics #1 (Fox). This brown gnarled and robed figure is the self-styled ruler of the Lost Canyon, his subjects the vultures (large enough to carry off a full-grown woman) and coyotes. His plans to make a pretty lost woman his queen is foiled by Birdman though he seems to escape harm or judgment himself.
Stopwach: 1943 Prize Comics 34/v3 #10 (Feature Publications). Yes, that's the correct spelling. Trained by the same men who taught the Green Lama, Stopwach can bend almost any man to his hypnotic power. He fears the Lama whose ability dwarfs his own and so goes about wearing shades.
The Striker: 1942, Boy Comics #5 (Lev Gleason). Foe of Bombshell. Created by Norman Maurer.
Subterranean Men: 1940, Fantastic Comics 12 (Fox). An underground race with an appearance similar to devils (horns, pointed ears, red skin) who plot to take over the surface world. Plans discovered and de-railed by the efforts of explorer-adventurer Captain Kidd.
Subterron: 1944, America's Best Comics 12 (Better). A large boring machine used by the Nazis to wage war on American soil. It was ultimately stopped by Pyroman.
Slick Summers: 1946, Golden Lad #5 (Spark). Silky Smooth Durrant writes: Slick Summers was a crook who was apprehended by the crimefighting team of the Shaman and Fire for attempting to rob a publisher. After his release from prison, Summers and his assistant Strangler Jones set up a school for detectives. Once the victims had completed the courses, they would be brought to a bank and told to rob it as their final exam. One student, a man named Harold Hummer, released the Shaman and Fire from a bank vault and the two of them were able to apprehend Summers and Jones.
Super-Brain: evil genius Nazi scientist that frequently opposed the Rangers of Freedom.
Superbrain: 1945, Planet Comics 36 (Fiction). Fresh from defeating and preventing the mad god Mars from his bid to conquer the universe, Mysta runs up against the Brain or the Superbrain as he calls himself. He's a diminutive wizened supergenius with an abnormally small body with an equally abnormally large head complete with an abnormally large percentage of it being forehead. To get around he must use a small flying capsule that he sits in. He has equipped his zombies with both gas and fungus guns that not only entraps opponents but over time will disintergrate them from the inside out, leaving the shell of the body but just gas inside. He also has scientifically created zombies, men brainless beyond basic instincts and obeying the commands of their master and a beautiful helper in the raven haired Bela. He is seemingly destroyed when he and his ship fall victim to the green fungus from his devices
Super Phony: 1944, Red Band Comics (Enwil/Rural). On the lost planet of Brutus, everyone is Super: Super Cop, Super Judge, etc. All because they all can fly, are super strong and invulnerable. Super Phony is their big crook and when he develops the power of super hypnotism he seems unstoppable. But, he's captured by Hugh Mann, a puny Earthling even by our standards who uses his wits and reflects the hypnotic powers back onto the villain with a mirror. For succeeding at this impossible task, Mann is named Impossible Man.
Swami: 1945, Four Favorites #17 (Ace). The Swami becomes a friend with Captain Nippon while the two are in prison. Nippon slips him a message and arranges an escape attempt. Captain Courageous manages to foil Captain Nippon’s escape but the Swami is able to slip out and embarks on a scheme that Nippon had planned. It was a bold attempt to ingratiate himself with the wealthy Judson family who recently had a son gone MIA and kidnap their daughter in ransom for some manufacturing plans. Captain Courageous manages to put a stop to the scheme and return the Swami to jail. By all appearances, the Swami is a fake fortune teller and mystic with no real powers of his own. NOTE: Captain Courageous seems to possess a mystical sense in that he can hear any brave man or woman lifting up a plea for courage.
Swastie: 1943, Target Comics vol 4, #3 (Novelty). "The most treacherous gremlin of them all… a Nazi at heart, he works against the Allies and does a great dal of damage to Allied planes." While on a patrol mission as a pilot, Niles "The Target" Reed encounters Blue Nose of the good United States gremlins who aid the Allies against the Swasties, nasty hirsute brown gremlins with swastikas on their chests and biceps.
Dr. Tana: 1942, Prize Comics 24. (Feature Publications) Dr. Hideyo Tana is your typical Asian menace, billed as the genius and mastermind behind Japanese spying and who had a hand in the planning of the attack on Pearl Harbor. He is opposed by the Green Lama and dies when he accidentally injects himself with poison meant for the hero.
Doctor Thorne: 1941, Fantastic Comics #14 (Fox). This robed villain was part mad scientist and part sorcerer. He raises the dead bodies through backwards speaking magic ala Zatara who fly off as spirits into the 4th Dimension. After the mystery of the empty graves gets attention over the news, he plays the part of as a concerned citizen and pays the famous scientist and adventurer Flip Falcon a visit, prompting Flip to use his dimension machine to go to the 4th Dimension once more in pursuit of the spirits. The trap is set and sprung as Flip is overpowered by the spirits and brought to Thorne's "Castle of Misery" where he uses Flip's body to transmit electricy to give to his spirit army. Thinking that killed Flip, Thorne sends his supercharged ghost army to Earth to wreak havoc, their electric touch being instant death. However, Flip is immune to electricity and escapes. In his tussle with Thorne, a powerful blow sends the villain crashing into the dynamos and is electrocuted. Flip then uses the machines to render them dead once more.
Targala: Exciting Comics. (Standard) The last disciple of Esh-Kar, the ape god of evil and foe of jungle princess Kara who rules the immortal warriors of Arohiti. In issue #15, he calls forth the massive statue of Esh-Kar and when that is blown to bits, each part becomes a smaller man-sized ape, invulnerable to spears as hardened stone. Eventually, they are defeated and Targala himself is slain by the supreme priest of the Arohiti. UPDATE(01-10-08). He's the ruler of a race of Eagle Men, men with fully functioning wings on their back and who worship Esh-Kar, the ape god. Targala himself has/had wings (they may have been burned off), and Targala at one point manages to call forth the power of their god that makes his body as hard as the statue itself.
Terrible Midge: 1943, Prize Comics #43 (Prize). Foe of the the Black Owl.
Terror Castle: Mystery Men Comics 12 (Fox). At Terror Castle, an unnamed mad doctor operates on dead bodies that he has a gang dig up from cemeteries. Unfortunately, he attracts the attention of the Moth who after throwing him from a tower, blows up the castle.
Thade: 1944, Shadow Comics v3n11 (Street & Smith). Called "The Death Master" and "Crime's Colossus" he was a balding, black magic foe of the Shadow.
The Thinker: 1941, Popular Comics #60 (Dell). Don't know much about this fellow, only seen one part of a serial story and his actions are hardly that of a villain. He's able to project his thoughts, voices and powers over great distance and calls Dr. Hormone to come to him. While Hormone follows the call, he's ambushed by the Klan who try throwing him into a deep pit, but the fall becomes just a few feet as the Thinker telepathically fills it instantly. And then he makes it a pit once more as the villains try to cross after Hormone and Jane. When the Naziians try to strafe the pair, the Thinker remotely gives Hormone his power, making him bulletproof and able to literally blow the plane from the skies. To get to the Thinker, Hormone and Jane parachute into a mysterious gorge and start to fall through time. And that's where that particular issue ends.
The Three Outlaws: February, 1949, Western Adventures (A.A. Wynn): Blackie Evans and his two friends embark on a crime spree in Red Dog, disappearing after each crime, unable to be found by neither Sheriff Sal nor the posse made up of the men of Red Dog who feel the job of sheriff isn't one for women. Yet it's Sal's friendship with the Brennans, an older couple that lead Sal to capture the gang. When they don't show up in town when they said they would, she suspects something is up and visiting she notices evidence that more than just two people are living there and sure enough, the gang was forcing the couple to let them hide out there.
Ticonda: 1939, Amazing Mystery Funnies #12, v2 #8 (Centaur). An enormous arctic ape, he was on display at the World's Fair. When he saw the Fantom, he broke free and fought him. Fantom eventually knocked Ticonda out and returned him to his captivity. A comment is made that Ticonda and the Fantom fought 10,000 years before which opens all sorts of cans of worms.
Topaz: 1944, Yellowjacket Comics #4 (Frank Communale Publishing Co.). This clever crook is a master planner and apparently decent at judo. After spending some time in jail, he decides to open up a school of crime.Unfortunately for him, he sets up shop in the rooms next to those of the hero Yellowjacket. NOTE: This story is interesting as the basic concept and the whole introduction are lifted from a 1943 Hangman. See the entry on Markov on the MLJ Villains page
The Torch: 1944, Exciting Comics 36 (Better). A research scientist for the Timberly Mine Company, Dr. Rydenham uncovered a fabulous Indian ruby. He sent it back via an accomplice to bury it in the empty lot next door to his house. Unfortunately, when he got back to the states, he discovered his accomplice had died in an accident and a hospital going up where the empty lot used to be. He creates a torch that can throw a flame fifty feet and in a yellow welder's outfit decorated with red flames, he reigns terror on those working on the site through sabotage and outright attacks. He's stopped by the Black Terror and Tim.
The Torch Men: 1944? Tops Comics. Ramsey and his lieutenant Carson head up a ring of men dress in gray protective gear complete with face masks and flame thrower torches attached to the tops of the hoods, all in an effort to force Doctor Mityken to give up his flame thrower patents and inventions. However, the Black Orchid witnesses their first attack against Dr. Mityken where an underling burns the doctor’s face and pits her paralyzing black vapors against their flames to bring them to justice.
The Tormenter: 1947, America's Best #21 (Better). The Tormenter: The town of Granger is where Bruce Carter I was born and his descendent Bruce Carter III aka the Fighting Yank makes a yearly visit on the anniversary of his ancestor’s birth. However, on one such trip, he finds the town being terrorized by a series of murders by a masked man called the Tormenter whose arrivals and departures are accompanied by a whistling sound. He finally stood revealed as banker Frank Meadows who was trying to cover and make up money that he had embezzled. The whistle was just that, a whistle that could be blown or even thrown to attract attention elsewhere.
Professor Henry Trepper: 1940, Amazing Mystery Funnies #19 (Centaur). A carnival huckster with a strong ability of hypnotism. He used his talents to gleam blackmail information and his hypnotized subjects would then carry out the blackmail and then turn over the money to Trepper, thus the trail could rarely be traced back to him.
Trepper's wife divorced him and then blackmailed him unless she continued to receive a cut. Trepper used his carnival freak Agar, the "man without a brain," to kill his wife and her associates. His killing spree was almost completed when Fantom caught him.
The Trigger: (Centaur Comics) When her real estate agent boyfriend Larry receives a death threat, Lucille Martin investigates why someone called the Trigger doesn't want him managing old Mrs. Harnett's estate. As the Blue Lady she discovers hooded men and a mining operation for radium ore underneath the estate. She takes care of the hoods, but the Trigger, a former professor of mining (?), escapes.
Tusk: 1940, Amazing Mystery Funnies #17 (Centaur). An ugly man with large tusk-like teeth on his lower jaw, runs a small gang. With a fast acting knock-out gas of his own invention, Tusk and his gang commit a number of robberies before being stopped by the Masked Marvel.
The Tuxedo: 1943, Exciting Comics #31 (Standard). Anthony Durrant writes: The tuxedo was a spy whose men ran a fictitious lighting company, under which guise they would install special light bulbs made of a photographic material in which the nation's secret plans would be "photographed" as they were drawn up. He and his men would then replace the special light bulbs with more regular light bulbs. He was tracked down and killed by the American Eagle and Eaglet just after he had delivered the plans of a new bombsight to the captain of a Nazi submarine! UPDATE (01-10-08): Since the police weren't sure what the raids were about, the Tuxedo's gang were called the Enigma Raiders. The Tuxedo's final fate is a bit obscure. It's presumed he died when the submarine he was meeting up with fired on the ship with him and his gang in an attempt to get rid of the American Eagle and Eaglet. The two heroes survived however and destroyed the submarine.
Tyrant King: 1946, America¹s Best Comics 18 (Standard). Rex Topsed (read his last name backwards) was an assistant to Dr. Chilton and helped him develop the Electrosorber, a machine that can draw and redirect electrical energy from whole towns. Rex develops insulated rubber-asbestos costumes and electrical "voltoguns" for his gang. With such devices, he wreaked havoc until stopped by Pyroman.
Tyrannus: 1941, Fight Comics #15 (Fiction). Head of a 5th Columnist Army, he achieves an invasion of America, killing senators, capturing the President, etc. However, this is the time that Super-American comes from the future and puts a stop to his invasion plans.
Underground Race (Un-named): 1939, Fantastic Comics #12 (Fox) A red skinned race with demonic horns lives beneath the surface. Under command of their king, garbed in kingly raimants out of medieval Europe, they plan on conquest of the surface world by creating volcanoes to destroy various cities. They are stopped and apparently destroyed by the adventurer Captain Kidd.
Undersea Queen (un-named): 1940, Fight Comics #2 (Fiction) When Kinks Mason volunteers for the Navy to investigate the disappearance of several ships as well as a Navy sub, his own boat is pulled under by giant seaweed. With a diving helmet he finds the sub but minus people or bodies and he's soon captured by what appears to be half men and half seaweed beings. They take them to their beautiful queen who reveals her plot for conquering the upper world. They need chlorophyl to survive and they have a huge plant (as in a power plant, not vegetation) that converts rays of the sun which they use not only for their own survival but to vitalize the huge clinging seaweed as well as turning the captured air-breathers into humanoid sea-weed slaves. Mason manages to escape and uses the submarine single-handedly to launch an attack, destroying the chlorophyl plant and apparently dooming the seaweed people as well as rescuing the captured humans.
The Undertaker: Fall 1944, Clue Comics #8. (Hillman). Ronald Byrd provides: Operating out of tunnels beneath a cemetery, the cadaverous Undertaker helps embezzlers fake their own deaths, then kills them for real and collects their ill-gotten gains. Nightmare and Sleepy expose his operation and turn him over to the police.
The Unholy One: 1940, Miracle Comics #1 (Hillman). From his lair he sends his flying Snow Men to steal a stratosphere plane. Meanwhile, his gang headed by the ruthless Hawk Armand and Vera Tigress kidnap the test pilot's children in efforts to ransom for the plans. But, the master inventor of the plane among other things is the Sky Wizard who rescues the children and sets out to rescue their father. The Unholy One has his lair in the Himilayas and is a corpulant Asian villain. In the first issue, the Snow Men (also spelled "snowmen"), are only seen on a small screen but appear to look a bit like humans in scalloped edged flying suits that give them an hour-glass shape when flying. In issue 3, they are human sized gargoyle like beings with brown skin, devilish heads with small devil horns and large gray batwings that enable them to fly. The Unholy One apparently dies when he tries to stab Sky Wizard in the back but instead plumets off the hero's flying island. Most of the Snowmen likewise perish in an all-out attack against the flying island and its defenses, though Sky Wizard spares one that had saved his life earlier. This epic ran over 3 of the title's 4 issues.
Unnamed: Amazing Man 21 (Centaur). A robed man steals a special acid gun that reduces men to mindless ghouls which he can control. He begins a life of piracy recruiting the crews for his gang of ghouls. The Shark tracks him to his underwater and kills him, and the gang as a result.
The Unseen: America's Best Comics 20 (Better). A recurring foe (at least twice) of Pyroman's. His ultimate goal is to find something he calls his "phagoment," a master element that will allow him his vengeance on the world by destroying all matter. The Unseen is a large hulking and possibly hunchbacked man with straight shoulder length hair that covers his face, the only feature of his head we ever see are his ears.
The Vacuum: 1952, Boy Comics (Lev Gleason). A thief with an atomic powered air pump that is kept in the sleeve of his coat. He can use it suck and expel air with incredible strength (enough to slow his fall from a tall building). Although, the pump makes a powerful weapon, the Vacuum is not a killer. Crimebuster stops him.
Valkyrie I: (Hillman). The Valkyrie and her girl squadron were trained and taught to be good little Nazis by Herr Oberst, a Nazi colonel. When she captured Airboy, three of her squadron hid him in old hangar but were found out by Oberst who ordered them whipped and Airboy killed. The Valkyrie rebelled, killed Oberst and then used Airboy's own plane, Birdie, to rescume him and her three girls.
Valkyrie II: Anthony Durrant writes: A mysterious pilot is shooting down Allied aircraft all over Germany, whose face is concealed throughout most of the story. When shot down by Airman and unmasked, this pilot is revealed to be a blonde-haired woman, the Valkyrie, who shoots herself rather than be captured by him.
The Vampire: December, 1941, Dynamic Comics 2 (Harry "A" Chesler). In a seemingly deserted house on the everglades, lurks a red robed vampire and his servant, a giant luring and killing the unwary. Unfortunately for them, the Green Knight discovers the house, them, and a kid sidekick in Lance.
The Vampires: Yankee Comics: 3 or 4 (Chesler) Young Paul Witherbee's mother is sufferening from a strange ailment and he calls on the aide of the Echo's assistant Dr. Doom. At the house, Doom clashes wills with another physician, Dr. Anton who doesn't want Doom to interfere with his treatments. When the Echo comes to investigate he finds Anton giving doses of blood to a gang of vampires and jumps to the conclusion that Anton is behind it all. Turns out the opposite was true. Aware that the gang of vampires were trying to convert Mrs. Witherbee, he was trying to keep them at bay by placating them with blood until he could save her through his own treatments. Unfortunately, the transformation was too close to completion and the Echo and Dr. Anton barely save Witherbee's daughter Jane from falling prey to her vampiric mother. However, just as the vampire formula starts to take completely over, Mrs. Witherbee suffers a heart failure and the gang of vampires perish with her. Yes, a very convoluted story with a few gaps and leaps of logic. Also, the Echo who I had previously seen as just being a detective with incredible ventriloquist abilities here has a radioactive ring that fires blasts of light able to hold the vampires off and a belt buckle that can render him invisible.
The Veiled Lady: 1942, Boy Comics #?(Lev Gleason). She was a foe of Young Robin Hood. Created by Norman Maurer.
Professor Venom: 1942, Daredevil Comics #9 (Lev Gleason). Short, pudgy, monocled Nazi agent. Presumably, the monocle covers up the fact that his eye is actually in a staff he carries that gives him hypnotic powers. He was stopped by 13 and Jinx.
Vishnu: 1946, Speed Comics 41 (Harvey). In India, it appears that a huge idol of Vishnu has come to life and is on a rampage, telling Indians that war is sin and if they must pay for waging war on behalf of the Allies. Shock Gibson manages to uncover the fact it's a machine housing many Japanese soldiers. He manages to melt down the idol (killing the soldiers inside, natch).
The Voice: 1945, Black Terror #11 (Better). In Nevada, two men die after seeing a mysterious skull and crossbones in the sky. When Fred Swanson sees the same thing, he mails an old classmate of his, Bob Benton who is secretly the Black Terror. Black Terror uncovers a nefarious plot against America by a robed mystery villain called the Voice. The Voice is a master of gases, who made gases his hobby after suffering from gas attacks in the last war. He has a gang and advance auto-gyro type airplanes with the skull and crossbones painted on their undersides. He also has the symbol on the front of his hood and apparently wears armor beneath his robes, making him able to stand up against the mighty punches of the Black Terror.
The Voice II: 1948, The Black Terror #24 (Standard). The Voice is a fairly standard criminal, no costume or such. Five years earlier he was a suitor for a lovely redhead's hand but loses to a man named Bart. Jealous, he arranges for Bart's murder, but that she overhears the gang referring to their boss, the Voice and she vows to devote her life to hunting the mysterious criminal mastermind down. He's a canny criminal, he and his gang manage to stay a step ahead of her as well the Black Terror and Tim. He's also a bit of an inventor, he creates a bazooka type gun that fires strong plastic bubbles in which he can trap the heroes. Stray bullets are able to burst the bubbles, and he's captured along with his gang. He's lucky in that Red Ann is unable to kill him on the spot though it seems he's destined for the chair.
Von Gratzoff: Monocled German spy who attempted to sabotage the Panama Canal. The Cloak thwarted his plans and apparently killed him.
Fritz von Heim: 1940, Amazing Mystery Funnies #17 or v3 #1 (Centaur). Dacia Zaroff approached this German munitions maker with a proposal to get the US into the war against Germany, thereby increasing his sales. He agreed and even lent his WWI u-boat to her. It was sunk by Frogga and Barry Finn. Although Zaroff escaped and thus von Heim possibly did too, he has yet to be heard from.
Fritz von Holz: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #11 (Centaur). A monocled Nazi spy who encountered the Shark several times while in the US.
Von Kraut: 1944, Startling Comics #26 (Better). Steady-Hands Anthony Durrant delivers: Commander Von Kraut was a German agent who killed and impersonated a Major Bradley of British Intelligence and his assistant. After having been temporarily fooled into believing Von Kraut was Major Bradley, the espionage ace Don Davis shouted "Actung!" while Von Kraut was receiving important information that was meat for the Major. Thus exposed, Von Krout and his aides were apprehended by Don and his men. NOTE: The GCD lists him as "von Krug"
Captain Gottfried von Slagian: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #13 (Centaur). An SS officer, he was sent to the US to retrieve a Nazi infiltrator with a vital secret for Germany. He was captured by the Shark. He later escaped and again encountered the Shark. This time he severely wounded the hero and escaped.
Kurt Von Stangle: 1940, Rocket Comics #1. Head of an international spy ring and is trying to steal Professor Sterling's inventions, specifically the secrets behind how to explode the atom that Sterling has incorporated into his interplanetary rocket ship design. But he's stymied by Rocket Riley, assistant to the professor and fiancé of Griselda, the professor's daughter. In one attempt, he and his chief henchman, the hulking brute Sam Vacco (misspelled on GCD as Yacco), they all end up accidentally rocketing through space. During an emergency landing on what must be Mars, Vacco is captured and probably killed by the natives, the Octopus Men
Colonel von Stutz: Fighter Comics. Anthony Durrant writes: Von Stutz is the killer of Bill, the American fiance of the Spanish actress Carmen Avila. After his death, she fakes her own death and becomes known as Senorita Rio, the beautiful Spanish agent. He intends to mislead the allies as to the location of the next Nazi attack with forged papers that are stolen by Senorita Rio, who has assumed the identity of the Countess, Colonel von Stutz's aide. Eventually, the countess and von Stutz meet their ends at Senorita Rio's hands. NOTE: Another source says that Senorita Rio's real name is Rita Farrar whose fiance died during Pearl Harbor.
Saber Von Tigron: 1945, Miss Cairo Jones #1 (Croydon): Anthony Durrant writes: Modelled on Orson Welles, this unscrupulous Nazi married an American girl named Cairo Jones in order to get himself a passport to America when Germany fell. Saber was a talented banker who financed Hitler's Third Reich with his own wealth. Sought as a war criminal, he persuaded Cairo that he was secretly working against the Nazis and fled to America separately from her after the war. Cairo believed what her husband had told her - that he was working for the German people and not the Nazis - until she met him at an apartment and his Mexican girlfriend Mercedes hit her over the head with a candlestick, then went to Brazil with Saber to reclaim the fortune he had hidden there. Pursued by Cairo to the cave where he had hidden his fortune, Saber von Tigron hanged himself to avoid capture. This character has a real-life parallel in Gert Frobe, the actor who is most famous for playing the title character in the 007 movie Goldfinger. Frobe, apparently, was forced to join the National Socialist party, but instead of persecuting the Jews, he used his position to help them escape from Germany. Because Frobe had been a member of the National Socialist party, his film Goldfinger was banned from Israel for many years. Only when it was revealed that he had been using his position to help the Jews was the film allowed to be shown in Israel.
Professor Helmut Voodoo: 1943, Prize Comics #43 (Prize). Foe of the Green Lama.
Voodoo Man: 1940, Weird Comics #1 (Fox). Boanga, an evil Haitian houngan resents and opposes Bob Warren, a square-jawed young doctor, who goes to Haiti to set up his medical practice and to investigate voodoo.
The Vulture: 1942, Lightning Comics #5? (Ace), A purple fog drifts over the ocean, only sailors discover it's not a fog at all, but something solid enough to sink their ships when they try to sail through it. Lash Lightning investigates and finds a city in the clouds, the Black City of the Sky ruled by the winged Vulture, clad in purple so as to be near invisible against his fog. Investigating, he discovers Linda Larkin and her father Sam Larkin, the inventor of the fog, floating city, and the flame ray gun, all stolen by his brother who's now the Vulture. Feeling rather bloodthirsty, Lash Lightning not only defeats the Vulture and engulfs the city in flames, but with an extremely powerful bolt of lightning, sends the whole thing in a crumpled molten mass to the bottom of the sea with the criminals on board.
Vulture's Claw: Cat-Man #14 & 15 (Holyoke). Baron Von Tug is the greatest of the Nazi aces. When his plane is shot down, his face is heavily scarred and his right hand is amputated by the docs. They replace it with a vulture's claw with talons like steel. He puts on a costume and strikes at America as the Vulture's Claw. He's fought by the Hood. In his confrontation in issue #15, he goes through a window ten stories up and is presumed dead.
Vurmann: America's Best #4 (Better). Nazi who was able to turn men into machines of war. Stopped by Doc Strange.
Dr. Henry Walton:1945, Headliner Comics (Prize). A mad scientist and would be world conqueror created a large cannon that harnessed and fired great electrical forces equal to the strongest lightning bolts. He ran afoul the fledgling hero Atomic Man whose vast powers enabled him to survive a blast from the lightning cannon. The crazed scientist was unimpressed and declared, "…I don't wear any fancy costume.. but I have the power to destroy you and the world.. and I'm going to start with you!" A great boast, but Atomic Man's powers proved more formidable than he expected and his gun was destroyed. Captured and taken to the police, he was last seen babbling almost incoherently about the hero and his powers.
The Wasp: 1941, Big Three #5 (Fox). The Wasp is a bald midget killer who is a foe of Samson, and teams up with Samson's other chief foe, the Dragon.
The Wasp II: Captain Aero (Holyoke). An insect themed masked and robed villain and Nazi agent. In addition to trained and sometimes poisoned wasps, his boat has a wasp emblem and he wears a large ring that leaves a wasp mark (it might be poisoned as well and treated somehow to leave a mark or brand, but then again the Phantom always seemed to hit his foes hard enough to leave a permanent mark). His gang is captured by Flag-man and Rusty in the one adventure I've read but the Wasp escapes.
Carl Weltner: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #17 (Centaur). He headed the American Crime ring.
Werewolf: 1945, Star Studded #1 (Cambridge House). This particular one was wreaking the countryside of a village possibly somewhere in the state of New York. One night he sees a man walking through a graveyard with a woman and realizes the woman is a ghost. He grapples with Ghost Woman, while the man flees. Ghost Woman realizes that silver can kill a werewolf and tries to give the man, John, clues by exerting her will and moving a blunderbuss and silver fork. The werewolf leads an attack with other werewolves. When he's shot and killed the others flee and John vows to make hunting them down his life mission.
Werewolf Master: This fanged man lured children with candy (drugs?) into his power and turned them into wolves, and the more prey they brought him, the closer they became to being true werewolves like himself. Lady Satan tracked him down and dealt with him and cured the children.
The Whip: 1944, Spitfire Comics #132 (Elliott). The Whip is a Nazi agent. He's captured by Spitfire Sanders. Or is he? For in 1954, Phantom Lady #5 (Ajax Farrell), he's working for Comrade X, the head of the commies and is captured by Phantom Lady. Of course the reality is the latter story is just redrawn and re-scripted from the earlier one.
Whistler: 1940, Prize Comics #7? (Centaur). Robed foe of the Black Owl (I) and at least faced him twice. The first time he fell into a deep well, horribly disfiguring his face. The second, in a bid to obtain King Arthur's sword, he and the sword are seen disappearing beneath the ocean's waves.
White Face: Mystery Men #1 (Fox). Common thug disguised by a white handkerchief type mask over the lower half of his face. He is out to get the riches of a bank vault and kidnaps the bank president and daughter to get the combination. He¹s caught by the Blue Beetle and revealed to be John Brandes, the banker's secretary. Has the honor of being the villain of the Blue Beetle's first published case though not the origin story.
White Goddess: 1940, Amazing-Man Comics #18 (Centaur). After her parents deaths, this white woman was raised by an African tribe. She was tricked into leading the tribe in an attack against the Iron Skull who was in Africa on the trail of a criminal. Defeated by the Iron Skull and convinced of his good intentions, the White Goddess helped him bringing the criminals to justice.
Witch: 1941, Amazing Man Comics #19 (Centaur). The Witch uses a "hex potion" that she must take periodically that gives her apparent magical powers: able to change her face into that of a number of beautiful young women as well as a hag, pass through walls, turn invisible (although they may all just be variations of illusion abilities). Mighty Man opposed her. But, she is unaware that Mighty Man can also alter his appearance in addition to his strength and size-changing and thus does not realize how he is seemingly able to bring down her criminal organization from the inside. She apparently dies by drowning when a dam bursts and water engulfs her home and gold mine where she was hiding out (Stars and Stripes #3). Some sources list her real name as Hester Corning but her real name is unrevealed in the GA stories.
Witch of the Volcano: 1939, Fantastic Comics #12 (Fox). Kataka is the Witch of the Volcano, a hideous old hag living in a volcano and able to brew destructive potions. The Golden Knight and Alice are sent to her by the evil wily King Raton who is Kataka's son and likewise apparently lives underground. When the witch shows herself to be as evil as her son, the Golden Knight throws her into the lava. Presumably, he takes the potion to his friend and the king's enemy, the Queen of Blackamoor.
The Wizard: 1942, Boy Comics #13 (Lev Gleason). Dr. Izan; foe of Daredevil & the Little Wise Guys. Created by Charles Biro
Wolf Carson: 1941 Daredevil Comics #6 (Lev Gleason). A wolf with a human brain, he was a foe of Daredevil. Created by Charles Biro
Wrench: 1942, Crime Does Not Pay Comics #22 (Lev Gleason). Tall, muscular Nazi agent who in the last war hugged an incendiary bomb saving a munitions area but leaving his face and arms scarred. He now wears sleeves of nails on his arms which he uses to kill men in deadly bear hugs. However, when he is confronted by the legendary War Eagle, he chooses the better part of valor but doesn¹t get too far.
Wu Fang (II?): Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 #10 (Centaur). Although of Japanese descent, Fang is largely a Chinese warlord operating in China and involved in all sorts of criminal trades. After the start of WWII, when he was able to openly accept Japanese support, he acknowledged his Japanese heritage. He was frequently at odds with mercenary pilot Steve King.
X2: 1944, Super-Mystery Comics vol. 4 #1 (Ace). Japanese spy/scientist who kept lepers in a lab in caves beneath the subway system of NYC. He used the lepers' blood to infect blood and plasma shipped to soldiers in the Pacific. His actions drew the attention of Dr. Nemesis and was killed when he touched the third rail in the subway.
The Yellow Hood: 1945, Major Victory (H. Clay Glover Company). Yellow hood, gray robe, this portly villain went about killing great American leaders, coverting their heads to shrunken skulls which he delivered on to whatever appointments they had with a note: Don't wait for me any longer, here I am. The nation weakening, the great spirit Father Patriot sends his champion Major Victory to get to the bottom of it. He does, revealing the Yellow Hood as Professor Curran, a man trusted to draw up invasion plans of Japan and who had faked his own beheading in front of the hero earlier. Rather than standing trial for treason, the Hood jumped off a cliff, smashing his body on the rocks below. All things considered, could've been worse. He could have been called the Yellow Spot.
Yellow Spot:1941, Dynamic Comics #1 (Chesler). Dr. Moore created an artificial man to combat the evil witchcraft of The Yellow Spot (yes, "The Yellow Spot"). The Spot, who could travel as a bat, was killing off or entrancing the minds of American scientists. He went to the home of Dr. Moore, who was creating an artificial man, and tried to stop him by stabbing him. While being stabbed, Moore somehow managed to throw the switch giving life to his Dynamic Man. Dynamic Man was able to stop the fiendish plan of the Yellow Spot and release the trapped minds of other scientists. Grabbing the bat form of the Yellow Spot, Dynamic Man proclaimed, "The Yellow Spot is rubbed from the world." The Yellow Spot wore a blue robe with a skull on the front. He was bald with just a curl of dark hair on the top of his head and was reputed as being the last of the witches of old.
Z-3: 1941, Amazing Man Comics #24 (Centaur). Agent of a foreign dictatorship (read Nazis) stationed in the US. He is sent by the leader to steal the supposed death-ray created by Bruce King (in actuality it's his Black Zero transmitter, a dark light of intense cold). When his three men fail and are killed, Z-3 assassinates them.
Zahinda the Legless: 1947, Jungle Comics #87 (Fiction). According to Durrant: Zahinda the Legless was a big brutal man who had no legs and so rode on the back of a zebra. He tried to kill Ka'a'nga in order to usurp the rule of the jungle for himself, but only succeeded in blinding him. Then he raided the very trading post where Ka'a'nga was being treated for his injuries and abducted Ann, his mate. Despite his injuries, Ka'a'nga rose from his sickbed and tracked Ann and Zahinda down, then rescued Ann from the mine where Zahinda kept slaves working day and night to mine valuable ore. Zahinda died when his zebra was gored by the ox that had been pulling the carriage that had brought Ka'a'nga to the mine. Once Zahinda was on the ground, the ox gored him too.
Doctor Zandricks: 1943, Shadow Comics v2n11 (Street & Smith). Zandricks and his animal men were defeated by the Hooded Wasp.
Zarita: 1941, Fight Comics #12 (Fiction). On a jungle coastline, Zarita heads up the Black Sword Cult operating out of an estate built during Spanish dominion. They brand their victims with a black sword and then are killed by her pet, a deadly swordfish. When jungle fighter Oran defeats her men and kills her pet, she chooses suicide over capture.
Dr. Ignatio Zaroff: 1939, Amazing Mystery Funnies #8 (Centaur). A spymaster at the beginning of WWII and father of Dacia Zaroff. He ran a small efficient espionage ring that ran afoul of Barry Finn.
Honest John Zazabo: 1943, Jungle Comics #41 (Fiction). Anthony Durrant writes: Honest John Zazabo was a trader who was about to retire; a tribe nearby held a farewell ceremony for him in which John passed out gifts to the men; his real plan was to drug the punch he was giving to the male villagers and abscond with their diamonds. Camilla, the jungle queen, tried to stop him, but was caught by honest John and tied up near a huge anthill. Released by her friend Mala, Camilla rallied the women and they drove Honest John and his men into a nearby swamp, then dropped the jewels and the men into the murky water to get rid of them for
Baron Zborov: 1941, Wings Comics #11 (Fiction). While flying important military papers to Cyprus, a storm forces Suicide Smith to crash in Transylvania. When he comes to, he finds himself a prisoner of Baron Zborov's in a medieval castle. The baron's hulking assistant Otto confides to him that the baron and the beautiful Hinda are vampires. However, Hinda reveals herself as a British agent and that Zborov is high with der Fueher. Smith escapes, shooting the baron in a dogfight and takes Hinda to the French Resistance in Paris, where he promptly runs into a little trouble with the Gestapo. It should be noted that Hinda didn't dispute the claims of vampirism and Zborov lived to fight the very next issue.
Zog, Prince of Mars: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #15 (Centaur). Zog and his men are teleported to earth by some strange race of men on a mysterious island. Zog promptly kills the scientist responsible with a strange beam and starts to bring more of his race to Earth. Only, the Shark (who, with his pop, had been captured earlier by the island's strange inhabitants) managed to outfight him and wreck the teleportation machine. Their vulnerability to water was discovered when he threw water on them to revive them.
Dr. Zorn: 1940, Thrilling Comics #5 (Better). The Three Comrades (Lucky, Cal, and Books) are on vacation in Puerto Rico visiting Tom Carroll, an old friend of Cal's and Tom¹s sister Caroline (Caroline Carroll?). However, there¹s a mysterious man on the island, the bespectacled and bewhiskered Dr. Zorn. Turns out Tom owes him a lot of money and he plans on taking over the coffee plantation where he also has his secret lab with a voice activated robot. Then from there, he's set to take over the world. However the three young men manage to destroy the robot and Dr. Zorn is electrocuted when he tries to self destruct his lab.
Zuko, the Bird King: 1941, Jungle Comics v2 #22 (Fiction). In the tall trees of the swamp is the lair and domain of the native Zuko. Under Zuko's command are large vulture-like birds and he makes use of wings attached to his arms to glide through the air. He teams up with Sawabi, the witch doctor of the Tree Kingdom in an effort to get to a stash of diamonds. He's stopped by Ka'anga.
Zwei, August: Scoop Comics (Chessler).A criminal on death row, Zwei has the strength and stamina of two men. He escapes and re-unites with his gang in order to go after space hero Dan Hastings whom he wants to not just kill but to torture to death. Even a bullet to the back (from his old girl-friend) doesn't put him out of commission. Hastings finally defeats him by gassing him.
Zzed: Airboy (Hillman). An old madman who seems to always be on hand during disasters. He seeks to destroy the world for that is when he believes he will die. He's frequently stopped by Airboy. In addition to his seeming immortality, he is shown to have hypnotic abilities.