It's time to set aside your own dreams of petty revenge and file your own half-though out plans of world domination for another day, for this week we'll be taking a tour through Superman's rogue gallery focusing on those villains who dared to dream the impossible dream...taking on Superman!
That's right, today is the first day of
C-List Villains Week here at
Superman 101. Now the sad thing is, I have enough material to make a C-List Villains Month, so to start it out will be five of my favorite also-rans. Feel free to pipe in as the week goes by if you have a particular favorite c-lister you'd like to see covered and we'll revisit this theme again in the future.
For now, however, let's see who the first chump up on the chopping block is.
The Master Jailer
Everyone has that one character that they like for no apparent good reason, and our boy Carl Draper is mine. He doesn't have any particular strong storyline to add to his pedigree, and he was only briefly touched upon in recent days, but to hell with it-- I think he's cool.
Carl was a fellow student of Clark's at Smallville High, who was a member of the geology club who was rescued by Superboy after their spelunking field trip went awry. The sad thing about it, was that Carl was on the verge of rescuing them himself. Realizing that his one chance for high school glory was snatched from him by Superboy, he held a grudge well into his adult life.
Channeling that anger with his love of traps and locks, he became a master architect who specialized in building prisons. When the name of his super-prison was changed from Draper's Island to Superman's Island...that was the last straw. It was only a matter of time now before he would become the Master Jailer and lock up Superman so that he could show the world once and for all what a great man he was!
His gimmick was pretty cool. He could steal the powers of whoever he had locked up in his prison, storing and releasing them from his old-timey jailer's keyring. For his debut story that was Metallo, Parasite, and the Atomic Skull (one of whom we'll be seeing later this week). He managed to get the drop on Superman enough so that his first appearance spans two issues, which I guess is impressive enough.
Unfortunately, he's only had a handful of appearance both pre and post crisis, so a c-lister he shall remain.
Script by Martin Pasko
Pencils by Curt Swan
Inks by Frank Chiaramonte
Colors by Adrienne Roy
Letters by Ben Oda
Superman #331
Lockup at 20,000 Feet!
January 1979
Copyright (c) DC Comics
