Talk:Masked villain

This article was nominated for deletion on 13 April 2021. The result of the discussion was keep.

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The article is currently tagged as both unreferenced and possibly original material. The first if true but it is not original.

I created the initial article but it was in the early days of my Wikipedian career so I did not reference it properly. However, I'm afraid that I have since lost track of what the source actually was. I'm sure it was a book but I don't know which one. It was probably on the topic of

, which are both interests of mine that use this concept frequently. I do not have access to all of my books at the moment but I will update the references as soon as I rediscover the source. AdamBMorgan 14:55, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A note in case anyone was inclined to expand this article: There is a lot of potential both in the sources already present in the article and further ones, which were discussed at the deletion discussion. Daranios (talk) 13:15, 23 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And another one (wow, how could we miss that - that could have decided the deletion discussion real fast):

• Serials-ly Speaking, starting at p. 128.

The sources of my added notes are the original films themselves, not books, which often get things wrong or omit silent serial content. There were more villains in the silent serials with names like "Satan" "The Terror" or even "Harelip" but I only included references to characters who I could verify wore masks. Sometimes no stills exist which show mystery villains of serials which are now lost so it is impossible to confirm what some of them looked like.

In some movie serials of the 20s in particular, a villain will wear a false beard, wig, or otherwise change his face to conceal his true identity which is revealed at the end of the story when his disguise is removed. I didn't include any characters fitting that description here.

The Blake of Scotland Yard version with the Scorpion in it was the 1937 version and the Iron Claw whose face was concealed was the one in the sound serial 1940s version.

The Hooded Claw in PENELOPE PITSTOP did not wear a mask and his identity wasn't a mystery so he doesn't really belong in this list. He was just Penelope's wicked uncle who wanted to kill her to get her inheritance. His name is based on those of the Hooded Terror and the Iron Claw, both early silent serial villains. Oddly, he doesn't wear a hood or have a claw instead of a hand either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ClarkSavageJr (talk • contribs) 13:03, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]