LORD OF DEATH

Real Name: Unreveald

Identity/Class: Human technology user (World War II)

Occupation: Saboteur, terrorist

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Adolf Hitler, Hollow Men

Enemies: Bucky (James Buchanan Barnes), Captain America (Steve Rogers)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: "You blood-mad lunatic!" (as called by Captain America)

Base of Operations: His laboratory, somewhere in New York's Bowery

First Appearance: All-Winners Comics#1/3 (Summer 1941)

Powers/Abilities: The Lord of Death developed a process to transform humans into zombies. The zombies apparently lost their vitality and truly died after 24 hours of activity.

Height: 5'11"
Weight: 230 lbs.
Eyes: Black
Hair: White

History: (All-Winners Comics#1/3) - One night, the Lord of Death led one of his zombies through the Bowery and ordered it to strangle a cop. The cop's bullets proved ineffective against the living-dead man as it made short work of its victim.

  Afterwards, the fiend and his zombie slave returned to his secret lab, where he made a transatlantic phone call to Hitler (with whom he was on a first name basis) and told the Nazi leader that he had successfully created zombies. The Lord of Death offered his services to Hitler at a million dollars a job, and Hitler hired him to sabotage American ships carrying lease-lend materials for "der British schwein".

  The following night, at the stroke of midnight, the Lord of Death sent a small army of zombie saboteurs to the dockyards, where Pvt. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes happened to be doing guard duty. The other guards joined Steve and Bucky in defense of the ships, but only found that their bullets were useless against the walking corpses. As the zombies set one ship afire, Steve and Bucky changed into their costumes and managed to fight the undead creatures off. They pushed the zombies into the water, where the creatures sank because they were unable to swim. The Lord of Death watched these events from afar with binoculars, unperturbed by the failure of his zombie raiders, for he knew he could replace them with hundreds more.

  The next evening, the Lord of Death sent a horde of zombies to attack an army convoy of trucks carrying lease-lend munitions for England. As the convoy crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the zombies went on a rampage, wrecking trucks, derailing subway trains, and strangling pedestrians on the bridge footwalk. Captain America and Bucky managed to fight the walking dead off, using grenades from one of the overturned convoy trucks to destroy the creatures.

  Having a hunch that whoever created the zombies would be looking for new recruits, Cap had an idea -- he and Bucky would dress in the oldest clothes they had, and then wait at a Bowery flophouse. Cap's hunch proved to be correct when the Lord of Death visited the flophouse in search of new men. After offering the men there a good meal and plenty to drink for practically no work, the Lord of Death was approached by two shabby figures (Cap & Bucky) who agreed to go with him.

  The disguised Cap and Bucky followed the hooded villain back to his headquarters. As a zombie held the heroes at gunpoint, the Lord of Death demonstrated his zombie-transformation process, then ran a large knife through the newly-created zombie to show it could not die. The villain promised that he would be rebuilding his zombie forces for a terrible assault on the country, starting with these two bums.

  Having heard enough, the two "bums" leapt into action, removing their tattered clothing to reveal themselves to be Captain America and Bucky. Cap threw a couple of punches, and his third blow sent the Lord of Death crashing into nearby machinery, which toppled on the villain (Cap: "Let the cops pry him loose!").

Comments: Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

And moments later in Nazi Germany, der Führer -- unaware of what had just transpired -- made a transatlantic phone call to the Lord of Death to ask, "How are tings going?"
  Cap answered the phone, telling him, "Why everything's fine now, Adolph!" Handing the phone to Bucky, Cap asked, "Wanna say goodbye to Adolf, Bucky?" The enthusiastic sidekick responded, "You bet, Cap!" and proceeded to give Hitler the "Bronx cheer" (Hitler's reaction: "Gott in himmel!!").

Although the title of this story was "The Case of the Hollow Men," the zombies were never actually referred to as such in the story itself.

Both the Lord of Death and Doctor Bruno Varoz use similar methods to create their Zombies( Di-Namo Fluid for one and Artificial Blood for the other).
--Gammatotem

Profile by John Kaminski

CLARIFICATIONS:
The Lord of Death has no known connection to:

• "Zombie Master", Fiery Mask foe @ Daring Mystery Comics#1
• any other characters with similar names

Hollow Men

Former transients from New York's Bowery, they had been transformed into walking corpses by the Lord of Death to commit acts of sabotage. They could endure attacks with conventional weapons (bullets, blades, etc.) without ill effect. They retained the power of speech and some level of human intelligence, enabling them to drive automobiles and fire guns.

The process for creating the zombies was accomplished by draining the blood from a victim, then replacing the blood with "Di-Namo Fluid" -- this liquid would reanimate the body and give it super-vitality for 24 hours, during which the zombie was impervious to physical injury.

(Avengers 1959#2 (fb) - BTS) - Sydenham came in possession of the Hollow Men around 1959.

(Avengers 1959#2) - Sydenham used the Hollow Men in a trap for Nick Fury and Blonde Phantom. They found the base through General Skul's files, stolen by Blonde Phantom, but got out alive before explosives in the base detonated. Some Hollow Men were destroyed.

(Avengers 1959#4) - A Hollow Man was sent to assassinate General Hill in his Falls Church, Virginia home, but Gorilla-Man (Hale) saved him, shooting the Hollow Man through the head.

(Avengers 1959#5) - Sydenham had several Hollow Men stationed in his Washington DC base. They were destroyed in combat with the Avengers (Blonde Phantom, Dominic Fortune, Nick Fury, Kraven, Powell McTeague, Namora, Sabretooth).

--All-Winners Comics#1/3 (Avengers 1959#2, 4-5

Lord of Death's laboratory

A maze of tubes and machinery, it was his secret headquarters where he conducted his fiendish experiments.

--All-Winners Comics#1/3

images:
Marvel Zombies: The Book of Angels, Demons & Various Monstrosities: Lord of Death profile (main)
All-Winners Comics#1, p6, pan6 (head shot)