Erick Rogats was an evil foreign agent who had kidnapped Professor Taft. Taft had developed a formula that could pertify any living object and then unpetrify them with an antidote. Rogats sent his hooded minion, Argo, to kidnap the professor from his home and bring him to a secret lab hidden behind a wall of rock. However, Black Panther followed them and then rescued the professor and stopped Rogats before the villain could steal the formula. Erik Rogats tried to escape from the Panther by scaling a cliff but he falls into a raging whirlpool.