Puppet Master
Real name: Phillip Masters
Place of birth: Dragorin, Transia
Powers: Uses radioactive clay to bring his puppets to life; they then proceed to wreak havoc.
First appeared: 1962 in Fantastic FourNo. 8
Bio: Battling the Human Torch, Invisible Girl, Mr. Fantastic and the Thing to gain control of the world is no easy task, but this villain was nothing but persistent — even once creating a puppet of himself that fell from a window to its death. Just another example of an otherwise good puppeteer corrupted by too much power, like John Cusack in Being John Malkovich, when Puppet Master got his hands on radioactive clay, he just couldn’t help using them to make his artfully crafted puppets do his evil will.
Next: Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck
Aliases: Master of Quak Fu, the Feathered Fury
Place of birth: New Stork City, Duckworld
Powers: None, unless a wry sense of humor and a foul mouth count
First appeared: 1973 in Adventure into FearNo. 19
Bio: Following a cosmic power play gone wrong, the misanthropic mallard finds himself on planet Earth surrounded by a bunch of “hairless apes” who happen to speak Duckworld’s official language, English. After making a failed bid for the White House (a distrusting public accused him of being a short guy in a costume), he battles his arch nemesis, Dr. Bong, and Dr. Bong’s posse of evildoers, the Band of the Bland, before killing a vampire cow. None of these perils were quite so life-threatening as his career-killing turn opposite Lea Thompson in George Lucas’ notoriously bad 1986 film, Howard the Duck, which includes such cringe-inducing lines as “No duck is an island” and “No more Mr. Nice Duck.”
Next: Swarm
