Memorable villains?

[Kevin Yong]

Hi all. I've been slowly noticing that in many of the Golden Age superhero stories I've been reading, there's been a distinct lack of super villains.

There's obvious exceptions, of course. Captain Marvel had a colorful rogues gallery, and a few other series had recurring villains like "The Claw" or "Iron Jaw"... but overall, most of the other Golden Age heroes I've read seem to spend most of their time fighting generic gangsters, mad scientists, or Nazi spies.

I'm sure I'm just overlooking them. So, fellow Golden Age fans, please point a newbie like me in the right direction: who are your favorite Golden Age villains? What are the most memorable hero/villain stories you've enjoyed?

[Yoc]

Well, The Claw for Lev Gleason is easily the most memorable in my mind.
Capt. Nazi is another.  The Hangman had some vivid villains as well.  Capt. America had his Red Skull.  Superman/Luthor, Batman had the best rogues gallery.

[Roygbiv666]

No, I don't think you're overlooking them, they aren't there. Superheroes did mainly fight gangstas, Nazis, etc. I don't think costumed super-villains really became common until the 1960s

I'm sure I'm just overlooking them.

[narfstar]

Strangely enough the non-super Don Winslow went up against The Snake twice. I think the most frequent villain was Magno's Clown. Don't forget Iron Maiden began as a villainess. Red Band Comics had Satanas.

[Yoc]

Clowns creep me out.  A perfect villain.

[Roygbiv666]

Hey, here's a Golden Age Super-Villain team!

http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Battalion

cool

[Yoc]

Cool, hadn't read that yet.  Thanks Roy.

[darkmark (RIP)]

A lot of it depends on when you're reading and which company.  DC heroes usually had bunches of "name" villains, but they're not represented here so we can't show them.  But here are some others:

FAWCETT:  Monster Society of Evil, the Sivana Family; various individual villains such as the Black Rat, the Weeper, Dr. Macabre, the Hen, the Owl, America-Smasher, Illyria, etc.

QUALITY:  Tons of costumed Blackhawk villains, most prominently Killer Shark; the Octopus; the Squid; Jasper Crow (not costumed, but the Black Condor's constant nemesis); the Minstrel; Thrilla; Jets...too many to name.

LEV GLEASON:   Not only Iron Jaw and the Claw, but He-She, the Vacuum, and several others.

ACE:  The aforementioned Clown plus several one-shotters.  (The Clown and the Minstrel both appear to be knockoffs of the Joker.)

TIMELY:  Red Skull, Python, Vulture, Byrrah, Asbestos Lady, Black Talon, Black Toad, Dr. Crime, Cat-Woman, etc., etc.

MLJ:  The Skull, the Hun, a number of others.

That's just off the top of my head.  If I wanted to do research, I could name a LOT more.

[Kevin Yong]

A lot of it depends on when you're reading and which company... 

True, I knew Marvel and DC obviously had a lot of Golden Age villains, and I was familiar with the Marvel Family villains from Fawcett. It was all the 1940s era villains from the other Golden Age publishers on the site I wasn't familiar with. So thanks for the list, it makes a good starting point -- I'll have to start looking them up now!

As for memorable but obscure characters: someday, somehow, I want to bring back the supervillain "Brick Bat".   

[bminor]

Brick Bat sounds like a real nasty guy...

b

[Kevin Yong]

Following up on the discussion above, I've been reading through the expanded list of villains indexed over at the Public Domain Superhero Wiki. I'm finding a lot of interesting characters, but noticed something odd about the WW2-era villains: there's plenty of spies, saboteurs, enemy agents, and even supervillains from the Japanese and Nazi sides. But what about Italy as an Axis power? Were there any Italian Fascist enemy agents in the comics? Or did Mussolini just always end up overshadowed by Hitler?

[narfstar]

I think it may have to do with identifiable. The very recognizable swastika or the exaggerated oriental features made them easy. What would have been easily identifiable as Italian?

[Kevin Yong]

I think it may have to do with identifiable. The very recognizable swastika or the exaggerated oriental features made them easy. What would have been easily identifiable as Italian?

Oh, very good point! Quick visual shorthand is important when so many of these superhero short stories were 8 pages or less.

I suppose that if the WW2-era Japanese villain caricatures are any indication, an Italian enemy agent with equivalent stereotyping would have to be something along the lines of Chico Marx. (Which doesn't really make for a threatening supervillain.) 

[John C]

It's also possible that writers didn't consider the Italians particularly...worthwhile.  They surrendered in 1943, for example, and declared war on Japan.  They mostly stayed in Africa and Albania, where we (and most of the Allies) weren't engaged.  Their industrial capacity also wasn't nearly up to par.

(One theory is even that the war might've ended two or three months earlier for every month earlier Italy had gotten involved by taxing Germany's resources more heavily, though that obviously can't be proven.  But you've undoubtedly heard the joke, "For sale, WWII Italian rifle, never used, only dropped once."  There's more than a small grain of truth to that, it turns out.)

Also, like with Spain, fascists in charge were generally considered to be a better situation than socialists.  So it's possible that there was a lot of support for them exclusive of the Axis more generally.

I also agree that a pizza-spinning, mustachioed spy or a saboteur giving rides to couples in his gondola wouldn't exactly inspire terror in the kiddies, but there are some pretty serious political reasons that might've been in play, too.  The Germans and Japanese were genuinely terrifying, as powers that arose from essentially primitives to hungry world powers (twice, in Germany's case).  Italy...not so much.

[Roygbiv666]

That, or the black shirts of the Italian Fascist movement.

The Nazis were really into the iconography. They even hired Hugo Boss to design their uniforms. So, they had a lot of symbols/looks to latch onto.

I think it may have to do with identifiable. The very recognizable swastika or the exaggerated oriental features made them easy. What would have been easily identifiable as Italian?

Oh, very good point! Quick visual shorthand is important when so many of these superhero short stories were 8 pages or less.

I suppose that if the WW2-era Japanese villain caricatures are any indication, an Italian enemy agent with equivalent stereotyping would have to be something along the lines of Chico Marx. (Which doesn't really make for a threatening supervillain.)