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, he focused his attention on the Vigilante and his sidekick Stuff. Years later, Danny killed Stuff leading to Vigilante and Stuff's younger brother who avenged the lad's death and brought Danny the Dummy to justice once more.

Another Dummy on another world was the arch-enemy of the Law's Legionnaire known as the Vigilante and one of the Hand's Five Fingers. This Earth-Two version was more formidable than was Danny, having actually exiled Vigilante and his fellow Seven Soldiers of Victory back in time, although they escaped and cornered the mini-mastermind. Dummy later set up stooges to mimic him with a larger version being the ventriloquist while with a smaller mechanized version of himself.

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 his nemesis as the true culprit. Nevertheless, the non-human Dipper (created as a puppet pawn by the Spectre on More Fun Comics #92) at times subbed for his master, such as a member of the Monster Society of Evil where he was revealed as made of wood not flesh and blood like his creator.  This standin for the human version of the Dummy was recruited into the Monster Society of Evil, battling Superman and members of the All-Star Squadron.

Back in the parallel of Earth-One where Danny the Dummy resided, another mischevious imp was spawned  when Mister Mxyzptlk was artificially duplicated by Bizarro into the backwards yet benevolent Mister Kltpzyxm, who like Dipper the Dummy had unique inexplicable abilities. Both would cause their respective Supermen some grief.

Vandal had 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. It was that machine which the Dummy used in the 20th century to send all of the Legionnaires and his henchmen back to earlier eras.

Stealing this time machine and using it to pilfer from the Dummy in the 20th century, Savage would later utilize both technologies in Camelot and Colu-Two versus the Justice Society. It seems that, Danny and his mechanical "puppeteer" Matt were the inverse doppelgängers of the Dummy duplicates of Skipper and Flipper aka the human Dummy.