Manic Monday--The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance, Or, Nazi Ringmaster!!

Every time I think I know a lot about comics, I find out that I don't know a damned thing about comics.

The other day comicsfan wrote about Captain America #112 (1969) in his super blog The Peerless Power of Comics.

The issue was a flashback issue, as Captain America was dead (SPOILER ALERT: he wasn't dead), and Tony Stark was reminiscing about Cap's life. Included, of course, were flashbacks to the Star-Spangled Avenger's WWII days, and I was stunned to see this guy:

Whhhhaaaaattttt?? 

(Very sadly, the Swastika did not spin to hypnotize victims)


Before Ringmaster and The Circus Of Crime, there was Nazi Ringmaster and The Circus Of Espionage?!?

How could I possibly not have known this before?!? Is this some fever dream??

Nope, it's as real as this:

Holy crap.

That is one ugly buncha circus folk!

And as the title tells us, Nazi Ringmaster has the gimmick of using a "Wheel Of Death" to decide who to kill next:

Now, Nazi Ringmaster dreams BIG!

Good luck with that, sir!!

Nazi Ringmaster loved to use circus-themed stunts to kill his victims, like "accidentally" letting tigers loose...

And well he may not have had Princess Python available, snakes were still on the agenda:

But just like modern-day Ringmaster...

...Nazi Ringmaster is a real loser when it comes to actually fighting heroes!

Many, many decades later, they decided that this guy was Fritz Tiboldt, the father of the modern Ringmaster, Maynard Tiboldt. Glorious!!

Now, do you see why I have to keep reading comic books?!?! There's always some bit of knowledge that I don't possess yet, always some character I'm not aware of yet...

From Captain America Comics #5 (1941)