Walrus Men: 1939, Mystery Men Comics #5 (Fox). The Walrus Men are stone age savages at the South Pole with long tusk like teeth lead by their chieftan Numa. The cave to their tribe and a huge reptilian monster they give human sacrifices is sealed by the magician Zanzibar.
Walrus Men II: 1940,
Fight Comics #6 (Fiction). Somewhere in the frozen mountains in northern Tibet, a lone figure stumbles across the cabin of the elderly adventurer and scientist Professor Larson and speaks of the Walrus Men, an ancient and savage mythical race. They stand near 7 ft tall and have large tusks. Larson radios for flier Chip Collins and the two strive to rescue a captured explorer and fellow scientist only to have him die in their arms. They barely escape with their lives.
Dr. Henry Walton:1945, Headliner Comics (Prize). A mad scientist and would be world conqueror created a large cannon that harnessed and fired great electrical forces equal to the strongest lightning bolts. He ran afoul the fledgling hero Atomic Man whose vast powers enabled him to survive a blast from the lightning cannon. The crazed scientist was unimpressed and declared, "…I don't wear any fancy costume.. but I have the power to destroy you and the world.. and I'm going to start with you!" A great boast, but Atomic Man's powers proved more formidable than he expected and his gun was destroyed. Captured and taken to the police, he was last seen babbling almost incoherently about the hero and his powers.
The Wanderer: 1937, Detective Picture Stories #5 (Centaur). A master villain that for 4 years committed daring crimes and being pursued by "Old Jacques" who helped first the French Surete, Scotland Yard and lately the Metropolitan police in America. This tendency to move from place to place and being unpredictable in his methods earns him his name. He's a crack shot, good at disguises and seems to work alone. He's confident enough of his crimes, he's taken to goading Jacques by telling him what he plans to do next, daring him to stop him. Sadly, this is the only appearance of the villain and the elder sleuth.
War Master/Warmaster: 1941, War Comics #3 (Dell). Ivan Barbanoff (Babanoff in earlier issues) was part of a syndicate to set the nations of the world at each others' throats and then they'd swoop in and conquer. However, their plans and much of their weapons and fleet are destroyed by the Peace Raider. In steps the secret head of the syndicate, the War Master. While middle-aged in appearance, he's at least a head taller than everyone else and physically imposing. NOTE: He appears in the last panel of the story in issue #3, issue #4 is his first full appearance.
The Wasp: 1941, Big Three #5 (Fox). The Wasp is a bald midget killer who is a foe of Samson, and teams up with Samson's other chief foe, the Dragon.
The Wasp II: Captain Aero (Holyoke). An insect themed masked and robed villain and Nazi agent. In addition to trained and sometimes poisoned wasps, his boat has a wasp emblem and he wears a large ring that leaves a wasp mark (it might be poisoned as well and treated somehow to leave a mark or brand, but then again the Phantom always seemed to hit his foes hard enough to leave a permanent mark). His gang is captured by Flag-man and Rusty in the one adventure I've read but the Wasp escapes.
The Watchmaker of Doom: under "Marcus"
The Weasel: 1944, Blue Beetle #34 (Fox). With the war going badly and the Fascist leaders seeing ultimate defeat, one is already organizing for the next one, the German master strategist known as the Weasel. With an organization that is in America and South America trying to get money for their cause, the Weasel is unseen by most of his men. A scientist in his employ comes up with a formula that turns men into physical supermen but lacking any will of their own other than to obey their leader. However, his betrayal and murder of the scientist sets the Blue Beetle on his trail and leads to his eventual capture.
The Weather Kings: 1940, Mystery Men Comics #10 (Fox). A group of scientists have build machines to control the weather and aim to use them to rule the country. They and their machines are blown up by the Moth.
Professor Weathersby: 1946, Fighting Yank #16 (Standard). Professor Weathersby is growing Oriental Poppies, the source of opium. Only not for drugs but for the effect it will have on the queen bee jelly of his bees. Using a serum derived from it, he is able to give a gang superior strength. However, the plans are put to a halt before they really begun by the Fighting Yank. Plus, the serum's effects can be countered by some proteins, specifically those delivered by a bee sting, so his men are rendered normal and ineffective by his own bees!
The Web: 1941, Big Three #4 (Fox). Criminal mastermind with male pattern baldness and possibly above average strength judging the size of a piece of rock he picks up. He has a special type of radial ray that causes physical damage, carries a cat-of-nine-tails whip and likes to use bombs. Knocking the city's power supply out, he and his gang plan to loot the city. They are stopped by the Blue Beetle. In trying to blow up the Blue Beetle, the Web falls on his own bomb, killing him.
Carl Weltner: 1940, Amazing Man Comics #17 (Centaur). He headed the American Crime ring.
The Were-wolf: 1941, Four Favorites #1 (Ace). Twenty-thirty years earlier, Adolph "Wol"f Krimetz was teased by his classmates at a military academy for his wolfish features. Hitting one of his tormentors, Krimetz accidentally kills him and he flees into the woods to avoid imprisonment. There he grows into a huge man with longish hair. He also discovers he's a true werewolf, able to transform from the waist up at will. He vows revenge on his former classmates and starts kidnapping them, all military men now. This draws the attention of Lash Lightning who deduces and defeats him.
Later, when killings seem to be attributed to the Were-wolf, "Lash" Lightning goes to prison where the villain is supposed to be incarcerated. He discovers that Krimetz has apparently hanged himself while his cellmate Mike Lewser escaped, using strength and agility that the Werewolf possessed. Researching, Lightning discovers that Lewser was known as "Putty-face" Lewser, having the ability to mold his face into the likeness of anyone he chose. While this might explain the resemblance, it doesn't explain the other powers and the fact that he is searching out doctors for a cure and killing them when they fail him. Lightning deduces that it's Lewser disguised as Krimetz hanging in the cell and the real Werewolf is on the prowl. As he falls into a factory chimney stack, Lightning hopes that the fire will kill him by burning the demon out of him.
Before prison, as a human he had long dark hair, a prominent nose and wore his skirt and boots made of fur skins. While in prison, it was apparently shaved. After his escape, he is bald, has brutish, slightly wolfish features including pronounced eyebrows and fangs and wears a suit, fedora and cape. As the Were-wolf, he's strong enough to bend metal and stand up to Lightning's lightning bolts as well as gunfire. Capable of savage attacks, he doesn't seem to lose his sense of identity or cognizant ability while a were-wolf.
Werewolf: 1941, Cat-man Comics #4 (Holyoke). Ten years ago in Tibet, Dr. Ralph Arno was bitten by a werewolf, and his close friends Dr. Martin and Dr. Smith were unable to treat him. However, nothing happened until one night a decade later, he transformed under the full moon (looking a bit more like Mr. Hyde than a werewolf, but why quibble). Filled with murderous rage, and apparently stuck as the werewolf, he lets the world think Dr. Arno has vanished while he plans his revenge against his friends that failed him. He succeeds in killing Martin, but the Pied Piper tracks him back to his lair in a deserted lighthouse. The Piper's pipes only incapacitate the supernatural creature down but they also bring the lighthouse crumbling down. The Pied Piper dives into the ocean to safety, but the werewolf is assumed dead. The Pied Piper and Dr. Smith decide that the world never need know that Dr. Arno was the werewolf, to spare his good name before the curse overtook him.
Werewolf II: 1943, Cat-man Comics #20 (Holyoke). In Pineville, Rag-man and Tiny investigate the disappearance of a couple of missing girls which seem to be linked to some sightings of a werewolf and a hermit on the edge of town. They soon find that the werewolf story is true, that in his human guise as Cowan he was bribing the hermit to supply him with prey. He's killed when thrown on pitchforks in a supply store. This werewolf has human like body but the head of a wolf. Otherwise, not too superhuman.
Werewolf III: 1943,Super-Mystery Comics v3n3 (Ace). Somewhere on the Coast, Paul Revere, Jr and his pals Pat and Betsy are manning an obsservation tower when they see a robed werewolf carrying a dead man. Turns out there have been mysterious sheep killings, credited to the mysterious werewolf though one local by the name of Sharpe assures them that it's just a killings of a dog. Junior and his pals investigate on their own and find the werewolf (though Betsy wonders why the werewolf would carry a gun). Eventually, he's captured and unmasked as Sharpe who was really an enemy agent who was running a refueling and stocking base for U-Boats who was using the guise of the werewolf/wild dog to cover for the food supplies that stole.
Werewolf IV: 1945, Star Studded #1 (Cambridge House). This particular one was wreaking the countryside of a village possibly somewhere in the state of New York. One night he sees a man walking through a graveyard with a woman and realizes the woman is a ghost. He grapples with Ghost Woman, while the man flees. Ghost Woman realizes that silver can kill a werewolf and tries to give the man, John, clues by exerting her will and moving a blunderbuss and silver fork. The werewolf leads an attack with other werewolves. When he's shot and killed the others flee and John vows to make hunting them down his life mission.
Werewolf Master: This fanged man lured children with candy (drugs?) into his power and turned them into wolves, and the more prey they brought him, the closer they became to being true werewolves like himself. Lady Satan tracked him down and dealt with him and cured the children.
The Whip: 1944, Spitfire Comics #132 (Elliott). The Whip is a Nazi agent. He's captured by Spitfire Sanders. Or is he? For in 1954, Phantom Lady #5 (Ajax Farrell), he's working for Comrade X, the head of the commies and is captured by Phantom Lady. Of course the reality is the latter story is just redrawn and re-scripted from the earlier one.
Whistler: 1940, Prize Comics #7? (Centaur). Robed foe of the Black Owl (I) and at least faced him twice. The first time he fell into a deep well, horribly disfiguring his face. The second, in a bid to obtain King Arthur's sword, he and the sword are seen disappearing beneath the ocean's waves.
White Dragon Flower: 1940, Silver Streak Comics #7 (Lev Gleason). An exotic Eurasian agent, White Dragon Flower is working with airline owner "Fat Sam" Jackel to replace several pilots of a General Staff flight with those of her spies in order to kidnap the officials. She doesn't do much in this story, but she remains free though her plans are ruined and Jackel is captured by Cloud Curtis.
White Face: Mystery Men #1 (Fox). Common thug disguised by a white handkerchief type mask over the lower half of his face. He is out to get the riches of a bank vault and kidnaps the bank president and daughter to get the combination. He's caught by the Blue Beetle and revealed to be John Brandes, the banker's secretary. Has the honor of being the villain of the Blue Beetle's first published case though not the origin story.
White Goddess: 1940, Amazing-Man Comics #18 (Centaur). After her parents deaths, this white woman was raised by an African tribe. She was tricked into leading the tribe in an attack against the Iron Skull who was in Africa on the trail of a criminal. Defeated by the Iron Skull and convinced of his good intentions, the White Goddess helped him bringing the criminals to justice.
The White Killer: 1942, Wonderworld Comics #33 (Fox). A man in white tights and cape with a white globe of a head commits wholesale murders at defense factory plants across the country. U.S. Jones and Grumbler investigate with the help of FBI agent Nannette Devlin. Jones sees a link between the chronology of the killings and the schedule of the Blue Socks baseball team. U. S. Jones unmasks the White Killer as Fredericks, the manager of the team. NOTE: The costume is similar to that of the pulps' Moon Man albeit all white so the globular mask is probably argus (one-way) glass. On the cover, the villain is referred to as the White Terror.
White Mask: 1945, Punch Comics #14 (Chesler)?. White Mask robbed a bank in Texas but the Law thinks that rancher Jim Collins did it, forcing him to flee and become the Gay Desperado (don't know what he has to be gay about as he's a pretty serious fellow). Collins tracks him to Mexico in order to clear his name. White Mask wears green cowboy garb, a Spanish styled hat and red scarf and a white mask covering the top half of his face as well as a distinctive handle-bar mustache. He is apparently killed in the resulting explosion and cave-in of the mine when his henchman tries to blow up the Gay Desperado, making it all the more difficult for Collins to clear his name. Considering the presence of things like automobiles, the stories are set in the modern day West though everyone dresses and acts like it's the Old West.
White Terror: See "White Killer".
Whitey: 1942, V... Comics #1 (Fox). While this is his first published appearance, Black Fury and Chuck have encountered him before. He would appear to be your average gangster and drug dealer but he has a knack for disguise, preferring that of an old man with beard and glasses and he somehow survives shooting himself in the head and falling into the waters and coming back.
Whizzo: 1941, Prize Comics #12 (Prize). Whizzo is a stage performer known as the man of a thousand masks, able to instantly disguise himself as any famous person. He and Voodini are hired to perform for some soldiers when Voodini's tocsin ring warns him to watch out for Whizzo. Because, Whizzo is also X-9, a foreign agent who is leading a gang to vandalize and wreck equipment and demoralize the troops. He's caught by Voodini.
The Willow-The-Wisp: 1939/40? Silver Streak Comics (Lev Gleason). Mr. Durrant provides: The Willow-The-Wisp was a ball of light that floated in front of its victims and demanded their money. It committed several robberies and these prompted Arthur Bennett, aka the crimefighter Mister Midnite, to investigate the crimes. He realized that the ball of light was a flourescent sphere that distracted the victims' attention, and that the actual source of the voice was a gunman standing behind them - a simple but ingenious "trick of ventriloquism." The police brought the man to justice, but Midnite escaped.
Witch: 1941, Amazing Man Comics #19 (Centaur). The Witch uses a "hex potion" that she must take periodically that gives her apparent magical powers: able to change her face into that of a number of beautiful young women as well as a hag, pass through walls, turn invisible (although they may all just be variations of illusion abilities). Mighty Man opposed her. But, she is unaware that Mighty Man can also alter his appearance in addition to his strength and size-changing and thus does not realize how he is seemingly able to bring down her criminal organization from the inside. She apparently dies by drowning when a dam bursts and water engulfs her home and gold mine where she was hiding out (Stars and Stripes #3). Some sources list her real name as Hester Corning but her real name is unrevealed in the GA stories.
Witch of Spittin' Devil: 1945, Four Favorites #18 (Ace). When a construction crew moves a stone covering a small cave, heiress Marcia goes nuts, claiming they released an ancestor of hers, a deathless witch. She calls off her engagement and soon strange goings on are spotted Isobel "Lightning Girl" Blake is assigned to cover the story. She and Lash are run off the road when a woman in dark robes rolls a huge stone down towards their car. They decide to investigate in their heroic identities. Meanwhile, Marcia's fiance heads into the night to find her, looking at the old mill that she sometimes goes to. He finds the witch instead and is murdered. Lightning Girl later figures out the identity of the witch, Marcia herself by seeing mud on her shoes. When Lightning Girl destroys the mill wheel, Marcia jumps to her presumed doom. Marcia had gone insane with the story of her incestor and believed herself to be a witch too. And, judging from the size of the boulder she rolled down the hill, she just might have been...
Witch of the Volcano: 1939, Fantastic Comics #12 (Fox). Kataka is the Witch of the Volcano, a hideous old hag living in a volcano and able to brew destructive potions. The Golden Knight and Alice are sent to her by the evil wily King Raton who is Kataka's son and likewise apparently lives underground. When the witch shows herself to be as evil as her son, the Golden Knight throws her into the lava. Presumably, he takes the potion to his friend and the king's enemy, the Queen of Blackamoor.
Professor Witz: 1941, Crackajack Funnies #41 (K. K. Publications, Inc/Dell). Professor Witz runs a wax museum with highly realistic figures. He is hired by jewel thiev Dapper Daisy Dan to make a replica of him which is taken to the West Coast and driven around to be spotted. Thinking Dan is out of town, the police will relax their vigilance. This works to a degree. Special investigator Nick Terry thinks that Dan will at least have his gang strike at the party, that it's too big a lure to pass up. Terry stands guard as the Owl and has his partner Owl Girl watching the waterfront in their special speedboat, the Owlcraft. As the Owl he spots Dan and his man and overhears a reference to Professor Witz. However, he is also spotted and the two get away. Tracking the name to the wax museum, he and Owl Girl capture the crooks for the police. Note: Of special interest, when visiting the museum as Nick Terry and Belle Wayne, they see a statue of the Owl. Witz tells them that the public has a special interest of such "avengers" and that there is also a statue of Phantasmo, thus putting the company's two costumed heroes in the same universe.
The Wizard: 1942, Boy Comics #13 (Lev Gleason). Dr. Izan; foe of Daredevil & the Little Wise Guys. Created by Charles Biro
Wolf Carson: 1941 Daredevil Comics #6 (Lev Gleason). A wolf with a human brain, he was a foe of Daredevil. Created by Charles Biro.
Dr. Wolfe: 1942, Thrilling Comics #2 (Standard). Dr. Wolfe is a scientist in a remote mountain laboratory and is secretly working for the Nazis. He uncovers the secret to an eagle's strength and ferocity. Through an accident, it gives his timid assistant Tom Standish super powers and when Standish discovers Wolfe's loyalties, he becomes the American Eagle to stop him.
The Wrecker: 1940, Science Comics #8 (Fox). The Wrecker and his gang are destroying trains and railroads as well as kidnapping to force wealthy railroad men to pay him. He and his men are apparently electrocuted while fighting the hero Dynamo. He was a generic looking bald guy in a suit despite the colorful name.
Wrench: 1942, Crime Does Not Pay Comics #22 (Lev Gleason). Tall, muscular Nazi agent who in the last war hugged an incendiary bomb saving a munitions area but leaving his face and arms scarred. He now wears sleeves of nails on his arms which he uses to kill men in deadly bear hugs. However, when he is confronted by the legendary War Eagle, he chooses the better part of valor but doesn¹t get too far.
Wu Fang (II?): Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 #10 (Centaur). Although of Japanese descent, Fang is largely a Chinese warlord operating in China and involved in all sorts of criminal trades. After the start of WWII, when he was able to openly accept Japanese support, he acknowledged his Japanese heritage. He was frequently at odds with mercenary pilot Steve King.