Five Fiends Week: Manipulative Masterminds

Danny "the Dummy" Matthews had a good gig going. Pretending to be a ventriloquist Matt's puppet, he had a seemingly winning act. However, after each performance, due to his size and appearance people kept mistaking him as a caricature rather than an actual human being. Motivated towards a criminal career due to this, the Dummy battled Batman and Robin of Earth-One. Failing versus them in his one attempt, he retired.

The original Dummy was a recurring foe of the Vigilante and his sidekick Stuff, who retired from crime before Danny borrowed his identity. Years later, this Dummy murdered Stuff which led Vigilante and Stuff's son Stuff Jr. to avenge his death, finally bringing the Dummy to justice once more.

That Dummy’s counterpart from another Earth was a recurring foe of Law's Legionnaires. As a member of the Hand's Five Fingers, this Earth-Two Dummy was a frequent foe of his world’s Vigilante and Stuff. After his second appearance, a wooden Dummy also named Cholly McCasey was animated and brought to life by the Spectre (in More Fun Comics #92). This now sentient synthetic Dummy became corrupted by the human original Dimmy, while retained a small portion of Spectre’s power

The human Dummy along with his full-sized henchman and the McCasey-Dummy became the ventriloquist act known as Skipper, Flipper and Dipper. The trio started a crime wave at high society events until Flipper aka the original Dummy was revealed by Vigilante as the true culprit. However, McCasey-Dummy was captured in place of the human version. This Dummy was soon after recruited by Mister Mind into his Monster Society of Evil, battling Superman and members of the All-Star Squadron.

Several months later, the McCasey-Dummy exiled Vigilante and his fellow Seven Soldiers of Victory into par eras using a time machine. During the course of this adventure, the immortal Vandal as Gaius Julius Caesar in ancient Rome encountered a time-lost Vigilante of Law's Legionnaires, as well as Rocky, a henchman of the Dummy. Then, centuries later as Count Lucovico, Savage met another of Law's Legionnaire in the Shining Knight, who sought the aid of Leonardo Da Vinci due to his invention of a time machine identical to that later used by the Dummy. Returning to the  20th century, the Legionnaires captured McCholy-Dummy and his henchmes.

Decades after the Dummy’s heyday in the 1940s, yet another Dummy would appear named Vargo. This version like his counterpart Danny the Dummy was a one-hit-wonder, before the Spectre tracked him down and avenged Vargo’s murdered victims by bringing this Dummy to justice.