Humpty Dumpty
Owing to the amount of research involved in Your Humble Editor’s other blog –
The Chronological Superman, documenting the first twelve years of the Man of Steel across his assorted media – AND last year’s not-unrelated
Villains of Steel project, I’ve developed a fascination with the question of who were the first super-villains faced by the individual members of the Superman Family.
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| His greatest nightmare. |
Superman’s fairly straight-forward, his first super-foe is the Ultra-Humanite … unless you have increasingly specific definitions of what constitutes a super-villain versus an evil scientist, in which case it could be anyone from Luthor to little known baddies like The Ghost, Metalo or The Night Owl. Supergirl’s first dedicated super-foe is either one of two Kandorian bottle villains, Lesla Lar or the masked Black Flame, again depending on your definition.
For Superboy – the original Superboy who debuted in 1945, anyway – it’s clear-cut, his first super-villain was Humpty Dumpty, The Hobby Robber!
Created by Bill Finger – and if we know this for no other reason, we know it because Finger loved the “Hobby Robber” concept and used it for maybe half a dozen different villains across a few different comics – Humpty Dumpty is a laughably obese obsessive-compulsive, driven to amass immense collections for his own, selfish admiration. Yep, he’s the Fandom Elemental, a creature of pure avarice who robs others of delight so as to pad his own mancave to the gills with useless shit.
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| Well, it's good to keep active. |
Decked out in comics’ least ominous ensemble – a frill-collared pair of footie pajamas with patches representing assorted hobbies sewn willy-nilly onto it, topped with a beanie cap – the eternally grinning Humpty Dumpty rides into thievery on his rocket-powered “hobby horse”, which is a flawless three-pointer of a double-meaning, give it up for Finger.
The concept of Hobby Robbing (which never doesn’t sound a little dirty, though lord knows why) is a wonderland for Finger, who – of course – invented most of Batman’s classically thematic foes and made a career out of tea-themed criminals robbing tea museums and Frisbee-themed villains robbing the Frisbee Suger Cube company payroll and all that good stuff. Because Humpty Dumpty’s obsession is hobbies – which are often about thematic collecting in the first place – he gets to change his theme five or six times per appearance; now he’s using stamp-themed gimmicks to rob a stamp show, now he’s using exploding pennies to rob a coin show, and so on. He’s the Soup Plantation buffet of themed villains.
Surprisingly, Humpty Dumpty made a multitude of appearances during a brief period, earning him a spot as one of Superboy’s most persistent recurring foes - considering how few he had, this puts Humpty behind The Kryptonite Kid and damn near nobody else.
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Also making him an effective villain is the fact that
he is Buffalo-fuckin'-Bill batshit insane is what. |
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