MONSTER, CRITTER AND CREATURE ROUND-UP 005

You won't catch me not having a whole lot of monsters to show you.

the Elipticoon:

True to his name, the wicked Sophus, the Mad Philosopher engages in a slightly more abstract version of villainy in which he traps people in a pan-dimensional maze and delights in their despair (okay, this is pretty standard villainy, I'll admit it. I just like the name). A major feature of this maze is the Hall of the Elipticoon, which houses its namesake, a "giant time entity." Despite the lofty setting and terminology, the Elipticoon seems to be just a big lizard/insect thing that operates purely on predatory instinct, as seen above when it gobbles up Sophus after he attracts its attention with a bit too much evil laughter. (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

Finned Python:

The finned python is just one of the weird creatures encountered by Chuck Hardy and his pals in the underground lands beneath the Marquesas Islands. Just what the fins are for is left as an exercise for the reader. (Amazing-Man Comics 012, 1940)

Firebat:

We have already seen the Golden Knight defeat a dragon in the last Monster, Critter and Creature Round-Up, and here we can see that that was not his first rodeo. On the very first step of his journey to the Crusades, Sir Richard wanders off into a cave and is confronted with a creature that the comic calls a firebat but is clearly some sort of dragonoid. Modern dragon pedants would probably call it a wyvern, but who needs to be so prescriptive? (Fantastic Comics 001, 1939)

Fire Dragon:

Sir Richard faces another dragon somewhere in Europe after the evil Hag of Blackamoor kidnaps his lover Alice and compels him to seek out the mystical Golden Stallion of Ice Mountain. This fire dragon stands even less of a chance than the firebat did, as the Golden Knight is now loaded down with magical items, including a magic cloak that protects him from fire.

Sir Richard completes the voyage to Ice Mountain, completely destroys a giant, and takes possession of the Golden Stallion.

As we all know, the fabulous Golden Stallion is in fact the magically transformed true Queen of Blackamoor Forest, who breaks her own curse by trampling the Hag. What a story to tell your royal court on a cold evening! (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)

Vulkite:

While tracking a diamond thief in the badlands of Mercury, Nick Nelson and Kodi of the Space Patrol are confronted with a vicious vulkite - note the weird skin-flap wings. You don't see those a lot nowadays. Weird wings or no, the vulkite is no match for Space Patrol Atom-Needle Guns.

This dryak that the space pirate unleash to protect their booty is a different story, and Nick Nelson almost succumbs to its caterpillar/lizard ferocity before Kodi takes it out with their spaceship's Flame-Blast Cannon. I really like this critter's weird front-facing fangs. Are they for digging? For poking prey? Perhaps they are used in courtship displays or to regulate temperature. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 003, 1940)

War Eagles and Oryx-Beasts:

Both the Lion- and Dragon-Men of planet Ligra make use of trained war-eagles as battle steeds, but only the former employ oryx-beasts. I don't know if I've encountered the concept of a war-ungulate before!

Jago, king of the Dragon-Men, also has this very spherical alien octopus that he attempts to feed the queen of the Lion-Men to before Electro takes a hand. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 009, 1940)

SUPER-HERO 006 UPDATE: THE ANGEL 1940

The Angel is a wandering vigilante, which in turn is a type of super-hero that generates very little new information for these update posts, given that they typically have very little in the way of a supporting cast or everyday life. Even so, we have a couple of Angel developments for 1940.

First off, the Angel's secret identity is revealed to be Tom Hallaway - though the accepted spelling is now Halloway - as a consequence of not wearing a dang mask ever. Is this why the Angel travels so much? (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

During an adventure under the earth, the Angel encounters an Ancient Greek woman who has been underground for four thousand years and who gifts him the Cape of Mercury, an artifact that allows him to fly. He doesn't actually use it very often despite how cool and handy it is. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 011, 1940)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 056

Aliens are just like us if you think about it, man.

Atlanteans:

First things first: these are not actually Atlanteans, at least not yet. As far as I can tell, the word "Atlantis" is not employed in any Namor appearance from 1939-1941, and his people are collectively referred to as "Sub-Mariners" just like their prince. We are left with one of our signature Vexing Conundrums: just when do the Sub-Mariners become Atlanteans? Will we find out before we learn the location of Camp Lehigh or before someone says "Keystone City" in print? Only time will tell. 

Given that they are only later assigned the status of being descended from the humans of old Atlantis (and then unassigned from it if I understand correctly - my interest in Namor has never been great enough that I internalized a lot of his lore), it makes sense that they are much less humanoid than a lot of their peers. They range from being full-on fish-men like Emperor Thakorr to being essentially human-looking but for their huge eyes. And not just human looking, as Namor's own parentage attests: they can also successfully interbreed with humanity! And it's a close enough hybridization that he's not completely infertile, though the fact that he has only one conventionally-conceived child is a bit telling.

One of the hallmarks of Marvel's Atlanteans going forward is of course the fact that they all have blue or green skin, which is fun because it appears to have originally been a stylistic choice on the part of Bill Everett to indicate that they were underwater. Frankly I think that it was a good development: I have no desire to see Emperor Thakoor rendered in shades of pale pink. (Marvel Comics 001 1939)

Balticans:

Represented here by the villainous Rathia, the Balticans are an Atlantean subgroup that live in the Baltic Sea (natch). They might be a different colour than regular Atlanteans, but given the quality of the available scan and the unreliable nature of modern recolouring it is very hard to say for sure. (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

Cygnusians:

The Cygnusians and their enemies the Draconians are initially set up to star in a little allegorical story about institutionalized racism and the arbitrary nature of warfare, but things get derailed pretty quickly due to the fact that both Queen Luxor of Cygnus and Queen Feros of Draco are women and cheap misogyny laffs are easy. Rock Braddon of the Space Legion ends the war by arranging a queen-on-queen catfight. (Crack Comics 011, 1941) 

Martians:

After dealing with all the crazy bullshit that lurks beneath the Earth's surface in 50032 CE and doing a bit of civilization-rebuilding, Blaze Barton and his romantic/ adventure partner Teddy set out to establish relations with the people of Mars. As they arrive they (and possibly also the Martians) learn that there is a second, bearded population of Martians who live in vast caverns under the planet's surface and eschew modern technology other than rocket planes and planet-wide smoke screens. These Dark Martians capture Blaze and Teddy in order to hold them for a ransom of lamp oil from an Earth that is probably not equipped to deliver it, given the recent global disasters it has suffered, not to mention the 47 thousand-odd years since the collapse of the whaling industry.

The main problem with being a low-tech antagonist in a science fiction world is that you are only effective as long as you can keep your opponent off-balance, as the Lord of Martianland learns when he gives Blaze a moment to breathe and finds his men completely outclassed by Blaze's ray gun and working knowledge of electricity. The king himself is finished off with a low-tech right hook, and his people opt to learn about new and exciting sources of light. (Hit Comics 005, 1940)

SUPER-HERO 007 UPDATE: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER 1940

He's back and newly benevolent after a five-minute speech from Betty Dean, so what does he do now?

Marvel Mystery Comics v1 005 sees Namor beg off of his eternal war on the surface (and the attitude that Emperor Thakorr gives off really implies that this was less of an Atlantean thing than a side project or Namor and his mother's). He then heads off the New York City to offer his services to humanit, and is immediately swarmed and taken into custody by some remarkably well-coordinated first responders.

Despite this harsh welcome, Namor keeps his cool remarkably well considering his prior track record. He cools his heels in jail for a few days and then gets special permission to go on a field trip to help out at a subway disaster, AND then goes on to capture the bank robbers who were responsible for the problem in the first place. I honestly wouldn't have minded if this tactical jail-based era had continued for a while.

Sadly, it was not to be, as in Marvel Mystery Comics v1 006 we learn that the State of New York has not forgotten about all of those very recent and public murders that Namor committed, and that he is going on trial. Despite Betty Dean's assurances that he will be exonerated - despite, again, the fact that he murdered several police officers in front of other police officers - he is in fact found guilty and scheduled for execution.

Now, far be it from me to suggest that the powerful should not be held to account for their crimes just as much as, if not more than, the weak, but from a purely practical standpoint this is a very bad decision on the part of New York. We'll cover the particulars in the next Namor as Villain update, but simply put they vastly overestimate their ability to actually kill the guy and so open themselves up to a lot more death and property damage. It's yet another reason to opposed the death penalty I suppose: that it might just make them mad.

Namor cools off and decides that Nazis are ultimately more worth fighting than the City of New York by Marvel Mystery Comics v1 013. He and Dorma set out to do so while clad in these stylish new battle uniforms which are armoured (questionably useful considering Namor's demonstrable toughness) and incorporate gas masks (extremely useful given how vulnerable the Sub-Mariner has proven to be to gas attacks).

Finally, Dorma casually drops the fact that she, like Namor, is now fully amphibious thanks to a surgical treatment that it's kind of weird that more Atlanteans don't get

MEDIA IN COMICS 015

Comics love to have media in them, and I love telling you about those media.

Music:

Though the radio debut Roger Midas and His Melodeers is a hopeful sign for the relationship between former absentee workaholic father and snob Harvey Midas and his progeny, one can't help but be a little cynical about the sudden success of a rich man's passion project. (Detective Comics v1 047, 1941)

When I detailed the musical output of the Murder Maestro in the last Media Round-Up I somehow missed that a) "I'm Getting Up in the World" was in fact written not by the Maestro but by Johnny Quick as part of a plan to trap the villain and b) it was performed by a radio ensemble called the Bandoliers. (More Fun Comics 072, 1941)

Newspaper Columns:

Golden Age Marvel Comics detective Ferret writes a column called "Crime Doesn't Pay" for the Tribune. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 004 1940)

Radio:

If Lester Pry's radio gossip column is called anything other than "Lester Pry" then we get no indication of it in this Slam Bradley story. (Detective Comics v1 051, 1941)

"The Scarlet Terror" is our first radio show featuring a pulp-style action hero, the eponymous "red-cloaked man from the planet Jupiter!" Sounds like a hoot. (Hit Comics 010, 1941)

"The Happy Hour" features live music to delight all (but bemuse the Shining Knight). Just why the singer is dressed in a "hack comedian" outfit is unexplained but probably would have made sense to someone from the 1940s. Featuring the real-life novelty hit "the Hut-Sut Song." (Adventure Comics 069, 1941)

I assume that "Uncle Dan's Kiddie Hour" is more than just a venue for sending messages to specific children over the airwaves, but that's the part of the broadcast that we get to see as it is used by Spy Smasher as a semi-secure channel to convey information to Eve and Admiral Corby. (Whiz Comics 024, 1941)

Alan "Green Lantern" Scott moves from radio engineer to radio presenter after his boss notices his pleasant voice and sticks him on "Man on the Street" duty. (Green Lantern v1 002, 1941)

Further Apex Broadcasting System programming includes "What's Your Trouble?" which involves a jury of smug-looking experts giving advice to those with problems (explained in All-American Comics 030 and then actually seen in action in Green Lantern v1 002, 1941)

Apex also broadcasts "You the Public," a forum for community members to tell their own stories, though only those stories that involve absolutely no controversy, as illustrated here by the unnamed Apex head choosing to let a huge slave ring go uncommented-upon rather than invite a bit of legal trouble. (All-American Comics 024, 1941)

"You the Public" returns in All-American Comics 033 as the venue for a discussion of an ongoing conflict between unionizing cab drivers and the mob.