ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 045

No matter how many comic book aliens we catalogue, there are always more to see!

Fish-Men:

While fish men are nothing new, these particular ones have a couple of points of distinction: firstly they just look kind of nice, a bit more gracile and svelte than your usual humanoid fish. Secondly, they are in fact Moon Fish-Men, as they serve demi-god(?) and would-be King of the Moon Bakalma. This also makes them Moon Fish-Men from the 12th Century, as Bakalma is an enemy of former Crusader the Golden Knight. Finally, this means that many if not all of them were blown up by a volcano. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Martian Imp Men:

The Martian Imp Men are the servants of Martian villain Skomah the 7th, aka the Brain. They are unfailingly loyal and probably also mind-controlled, so we don't get much of an idea of their culture is like, but their strong resemblance to something like a cross between a Gremlin and a D&D goblin is certainly giving me ideas. (Fantastic Comics 001, 1939)

Martian Ogres:

The Martian Ogres are a also pledged to the service of the Brain. They are larger, seemingly more intelligent and a bit less spiky than their presumably-distant cousins the Imp Men, and as such are sent off in a space fleet to destroy the Earth with Anti-Earth Demolishing Rays.

Despite their best efforts - and whether it is due to mental conditioning or sheer love of the game they tray very hard - the Ogres are unable to overcome the full might of the Earth space fleet. (Fantastic Comics 002, 1940)

Martians:

In 1939, inventor Montague Dexter and his wife pilot an experimental rocket to Mars as a part of the New York World's Fair. Stranded there by damage to their vehicle, they live there among the Martian people until 2000 CE, when their son Rex flies the newly-repaired rocket back to his ancestral planet. Though Rex sets out with the promise to return some day, this is to my knowledge the only appearance of the Martians in question. I really like them! I think that the artist was going for an amphibian look over all, but the slight bovine cast to the face is quite pleasant. Plus it's nice to see some benevolent Martians now and then. (Mystery Men Comics 001, 1939)

NOTES - JUNE 2026

Comics Crossovers:

In one of Golden Age comics' rare but casual crossovers, Judy Jackson, rival of reporter-hero Scoop Mason, is attending the same Governor's ball in the Bahamas as Newsreel cameraman Speed Martin. (The Funnies 051, 1941)

Then in the very next issue, Scoop Mason himself shows up to take in a football game! (The Funnies 052, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 968: THE BLACK RIDER

(Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

The Black Rider is a ruthless bandit chief who has not only terrorized the countryside but has had the audacity to kidnap Bill Carrol, Captain Kidd's best friend, an unforgivable sin.

While the Black Rider & Co. might look like they are straight out of a comic set in the American West, Captain Kidd's 1941 adventures have taken place exclusively in Africa, and given the mention of a city called Tanga above, I think that we can pretty confidently place this comic somewhere in present-day Tanzania, in the part that was then Tanganyika (yes, okay, there's also a couple of Tangas in Burkina Faso. I just don't think that they're the right ones, okay?).

Though the Black Rider manages to overpower Captain Kidd and stick him in a booby-trapped airplane during their first encounter this is absolutely not enough to dissuade even novice two-fisted adventurer, let alone a grizzled veteran like Kidd. Kidd's return gambit is to storm the Black Rider's HQ and machine gun the entire gang.

The entire gang bar the Black Rider, that is, because it's time for the dramatic revelation that the Black Rider is... A LADY???!!! Specifically, she is the daughter of the original Black Rider, out for revenge since he was killed by vigilantes but now on her way to a British colonial jail and/or execution. Please note that the Black Rider pulls the old "roughly the same size as an adventure hero until unmasked" trick, going from a burly six foot to a slender 5'6" in about one panel.

Categorized in: Colours (Black), Generica (Riders), Origin (Cross-Dressing Characters, Legacy Characters)

DIVINE ROUND-UP 030

In today's exploration of the divine, we delve into the extended lore of Sir Richard of Warwick, aka the Golden Knight, starting with his three magical brothers in-law.

Mokon, King of the Moon:

Mokon, King of the Moon, appears at Sir Richard's window one night to claim the hand of his sister Marion in marriage, and though we the reader are hearing about this deal (and indeed about this or any of the Golden Knight's sisters) for the first time, Sir Richard is well aware of whatever deal his father made to ally his kingdom with the Moon itself.

Mokon gives Richard a silver rod as proof of his identity, and also possibly as some sort of dowry? This rod will come in quite useful later on, as it is magic and has the ill-defined ability to freeze things. 

It seems that this is a true arranged marriage, as we get to see the first meeting between Marion and King Mokon just before he flies her away to the Moon. At this point we must ask: just what's the deal with this guy? Is he a god? "King of the Moon" is certainly a deific title, and he has cool magical powers. Later issues will show that he actually lives on the Moon. There's going to be a lot of back and forth about just what these guys are as we go forward in this entry but the format dictates that I state up front that I'm going with Some Sort of Godly Entity.

God Style: Real Entity (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

Sukon, King of the Sun: 

Sukon, King of the Sun, shows up later in the same day to marry Richard's second (heretofore unseen) sister, Elaine. Sukon is like a less cool version of his big brother Mokon - he even has a slightly less cool token, the golden rod, which paralyzes people. 

God Style: Real Entity (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

Winkon, King of the Winds: 

After Sukon leaves, Lucifer himself (see the next Demonic Round-Up for him) wants to get in on the extended family action and shows up to marry Richard's third sister, Jane. Richard has two problems with this: 1. Jane is too young and 2. it's the freaking devil, man. Lucifer then makes off with Richard's lover Alice instead. Shortly thereafter we learn a third reason: that Jane is already promised to Winkon, King of the Winds, youngest and weeniest brother of Mokon and Sukon. He doesn't even have a token!

Though Winkon doesn't actually lift a hand to help out, he does tell Sir Richard how to get to Hell to rescue Alice. He also exits on a really unfortunately creepy line - just look at Alice's face!

God Style: Real Entity (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

Further Adventures of the Golden Knight and his Magical Brothers In-Law:

As is always the case when a wild new bit of lore is dropped into a comic I was initially afraid that we would see no more of the Golden Knight's new extended family, but I need not have worried:

Sir Richard and Alice take advantage of their new connections to visit Mokon and Marion on the Moon in the following issue. This does nothing to clear up the questions about the three brothers' divine status, but does allow us to see a cool moon-bird.

Bakalma:

We are also introduced to Mokon's rival for the throne of the Moon, Bakalma, who kidnaps Marion and Alice and holds them in his underwater palace - is Bakalma the god of the moon's oceans? If so, he must have a pretty good chance of being the only on in fiction.

In order to aid Richard in his pursuit of their loves, Mokon calls upon Xakolma, the Moon God, (God Style: Invoked (Real?)) to grant Richard the power to travel and breathe under water. Just what is the relationship between the humanoid entities like Mokon and Bakalma and the unseen Xakolma? We will receive no further clarification on that, so I'm going to consider them to be part of a godly continuum like the Greek pantheon, with Xakolma being further up the chain of divinity in a Uranus -> Cronus -> Zeus -> Herakles kind of situation.

Bakalma has a very cool palace shaped like a melting monster head, but seemingly no idea what he's doing. When Richard bursts in on him he's trying to wrest Mokon's secrets out of Marion, who has been on the Moon for like a month or two, tops.

Bakalma perishes when the nearby volcano Venturious unexpectedly erupts. Is Venturious part of the extended Lunar pantheon as well or was this just a fun coincidence? (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Richard and Alice are on their way to visit Sukon and Elaine on the sun when they have the above exchange that doesn't serve to resolve the issue of whether the brothers are gods or not (Sukon's high technology allowing Elaine, a mortal woman, to live on the Sun, yes. Anything about Sukon being a mortal man, no). Sadly the rest of the issue is concerned with an unexpected detour to the planet Zutarn and nothing further is learned, and this is the final Golden Knight story so there will be no future revelations. We do however learn that the Sun is actually cold, and any heat that it emits is due to ultra-violet ultra-resonic rays being converted when they reach the atmosphere. You dolt. (Fantastic Comics 020, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 967: THE FANG

(Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

The Fang is a recurring villain in the mould of his Fox Features contemporaries the Rook and the Beast: you can knock him down and seemingly kill him as much as you want but he's just going to keep on coming back to do more crimes.

When he first appears, the Fang's major goal is to acquire the Burma Emerald from its caretaker Princess Kava, in order to decipher the secret of invisibility that has been carved into its surface. His initial attempt to snatch the emerald leads him to murder Police Sergeant Marley of the Princess' protection detail, which directly inspires Marley's son Chuck to become a costumed crimefighter under the tutelage of the Black Fury.

Perhaps because Black Fury scribe realized that a series of comics about a man trying and failing to achieve invisibility would be less interesting than one about an invisible crook, the Fang breaks prison in his second appearance and gets ahold of the emerald almost immediately. So what does he use his newfound powers of invisibility for?

- bank robbery (Fantastic Comics 018)

- framing a man for murder in order to buy his house that has an ideal smuggling setup in the form of a secret tunnel to the coast (Fantastic Comics 019)

- sabotaging arms shipments to Allied Europe on behalf of the Axis (Fantastic Comics 020)

I judge these... okay criminal uses of invisibility. Nothing spectacular.

Though I set up the comparison between the Fang and the Rook/the Beast myself, I must now point out the way in which he differs from them: he doesn't seemingly die at the end of every appearance. Instead, he alternates seeming to die being caught: he's caught in Fantastic 017, crashes into an oil tank in 018, caught again in 019, and does a header into a well full of slime in Fantastic Comics 020. 

If there's one thing that invisibility powers are extremely good at it's in helping to fake one's own death, though how they help to get out of an ooze pit is beyond me.

Sadly and annoyingly, the final page or two of the Fang's last appearance is not currently available. He is in the process of planting a bomb at the end of the portion that we do have, which makes it highly likely that he went on to be blown up, and that death finally claimed him. Alternately, perhaps he was arrested again and just treated with the appropriate amount of care by the authorities. It is my hope that we will someday learn the truth.

Categorized in: Body (Nonhuman Parts - Fangs), Narrative Footballs (Origin Story Guys), Powers (Invisibility)

MEDIA IN COMICS 005

This is the stuff that my counterpart in a comic book universe is writing his little blogs about.

Movies:

Not only does this theatre feature an appearance by Lady Luck (an impostor, alas), but it has screenings of Boris Scarloff in Mummy Blood and Myrna Powell and William Loy in Thinner than the Thin Man! (Lady Luck, the Spirit Section 1940)

The villainous Comrade Ratski might have founded Ratski Productions and filmed his opus The Great War as a cover for his espionage activities, but was it a real movie? Was he filming all of his crimes and if so who has the footage? (Speed Comics 009, 1940) 

Ted Parrish, aka the Man With 1000 Faces stars in Thundering Hoofs, which might appear to be a generic Western to you and I but which nets him the 1941 Oscar for Best Actor - sorry, Jimmy Stewart. (Speed Comics 010, 1940)

This is another Ted Parrish feature(, and though the title is partially obscured by that rude talking kid I am familiar enough with 1940s parody title conventions to confidently state that it is Went with the Gale. (Speed Comics 008, 1940)

Newspaper Columns:

"John Perry In the News," with its sassy little "Perry Says...." opening is said to be and written like a gossip column but like Bob Phantom before him John "the Black Fury" Perry seems to mostly write about crime. Also please note that both of these clippings have "Daily Standard" down the side even though Perry is consistently said to work for the Daily Clarion. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Martin Mitchell is another of these gossip columnist/ hard-core investigative journalist types, only he isn't a super-hero and so when he starts writing about ongoing criminal activity in "Martin Mitchell About Town" he just gets murdered. (Rocket Comics 003, 1940)

We don't get anything more about "The Tattler" than its title, and even that is concealed beneath part of the Press Guardian's name. Maybe Ted McCoy needs to dig up some hotter gossip. (Pep Comics 001, 1940)

Radio: 

Martin Mitchell (America's most popular columnist!) also has a radio show, and since we never learn its name I'm going to assume that it is also named Martin Mitchell About Town. (Rocket Comics 003, 1940)

We don't learn too much about The Brady's Better Bacon Program due to its star Biff Crossley being mixed up in a string of high-profile murders, but it certainly is well-attended. And it has a full orchestra!(Pep Comics 008, 1940)

Theatre: 

Tobacco Turnpike is one of those murder mystery plays that are so beloved of comic and television writers because of dramatic potential inherent in someone being murdered on-stage at the same time as they are supposed to be pretending to be murdered, as happens several times in this story before the Shield gets involved and reveals that the director is responsible and is trying to tank the play because he has sold half stakes in the play to at least four men and doesn't want to pay out or go to jail.

Tobacco Turnpike is such a specific name that I was sure that it was a reference to something. I almost gave up the quest for knowledge after my third unsuccessful search for a production of Cigarette Junction, before finally narrowing it down to a play called Tobacco Road. (Shield-Wizard Comics 002, 1940)