ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 042

I hope you like aliens, because I just can't stop finding new ones. 

Kobolians:

The Kobolians are from the underwater city of Kobol in the year 10 000 CE, and while we don't learn too much about how their society functions we can intuit a certain amount of civic pride, given that their leader is named Lobok - did he rise to power on the strength of that name? Did he adopt it? Is the city named after him? Whichever it is, Lobok commands enough loyalty that the Kobolians go along with him when he decides to acquire a human wife via extortion. And not just any human either, but the daughter of Biran, leader of the Army of New America!

Though the Kobolians live in an underwater city, it is not flooded, indicating that they are amphibious rather than fully water-breathing. They might even be that most rare of things: the underwater species that is fully air-breathing!

Anyway, Sub Saunders blows the place up after rescuing Ms Nirab. (Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

Magyans:

Space adventurer Iron Munro (born on Jupiter in the 22nd Century and thus very physically mighty. If his name seems familiar it's because it was swiped by Roy Thomas and used as the name of the post-Crisis Superman replacement) and his companions, after being blasted into a "new universe" (contextually, a new solar system) by a rogue asteroid, find themselves in the middle of a conflict between two groups called the Magyans and the Tefflans. 

As explained by the Magyan leader, the roots of this conflict stem from a war between their ancestors and the underground-dwelling Tefflans on another planet, tens of thousands of years earlier, a conflict that resulted in the destruction of their mutual home continent as the remnants of both populations fled into outer space. Iron Munro takes an immediate wild swing and identifies this continent as Mu (why no Atlantis? Is Iron Munro a hipster?). 

If the Magyans are the lost inhabitants of Mu, then what does that make the Tefflans? Why, they are weird evil goat-men, and thus the basis for all of humanity's legends about demons and devils!

Munro and his pals side with the humans, of course, and over the next six issues there is an escalating back-and-forth war between the Magyans and the more technologically-advanced Tefflans that culminates in a devastating final attack in which the Magyans launch their twin moons Ma-Ran and Ma-Kanee at the Tefflan planet of Teff-El. It's a horrifying way to end a war! (Shadow Comics v1 002, 1940)

Man-Apes:

These Man-Apes serve megacreep Dr Wratt as muscle. They hold the particular distinction of being the least apelike ape-men that I have ever seen. (Jungle Comics 002, 1940)

GENERIC COSTUMED VILLAIN ROUND-UP 042

Celebrated by none... until now. And then only mildly.

Slavin:

This masked man is the leader of a gang who have been systematically robbing warehouses and then burning them down. The culprit turns out to be Slavin, the general manager of the warehousing company, and not the red herring suspect Slivers, owner of the company (who is ugly, and therefore more likely to be evil than the handsome Slavin). PI Dan Williams is too enlightened to judge others based on their appearances though, and busts the right man.  (Exciting Comics 014, 1941)

the Black Baron:

After wandering around Europe and North Africa and only really hitting up the Crusades long enough to kill Saladin, Sir Richard of Warwick, aka the Golden Knight, returns home to find that his younger brother Roland is missing and a very rude man called the Black Baron is squatting on his lands.

The Black Baron seemed like he might get a numbered entry by name alone but alas, he's a true scrub. The Golden Knight and his friends murder all of his men with what I would call embarrassing ease and the Baron passes up an opportunity to get away with his life for another shot at the gold he is convinced that Roland is hiding from him. The Golden Knight then enacts a little Crusader-style justice on him. To death. (Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

Unnamed Fascists:

What do you do when you're notorious comic book oddball Fletcher Hanks and you need to draw a selection of Axis leaders but the US comics industry isn't yet 100% on board with just explicitly depicting Hitler as an evil villain and so you need to have a bit of plausible deniability? Masked Axis leaders, obviously! (Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

Kong:

This fellow, name of Kong, has a super-sub and is looking to use it to extort some quick cash from the future state of New America. A classic plan!

Kong's cachet is spoiled somewhat by the fact that the heroic Sub Saunders just walks in through the front door of his underwater base and lays him out with a single punch. As a villain it is very hard to come back from something like this. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 041

Once again I am inviting you to look at some aliens.

Martian Sky-Demons:

We only really ever see the space fleet belonging to these Martians, who have thrown in with the Axis forces to lend their "long-range, disintegrating super-bombs" to the invasion of North America. What they look like is left as just as much a mystery as what they are getting out this alliance with the Nazis.

The Sky-Demons end up wasting their payload of super-bombs on a replica Earth that Stardust makes out of smoke, shadows and the bodies of a few hundred unlucky fifth columnists, upon which they abandon the plan and return to Mars. Perhaps those were all the bombs they had, or perhaps they wisely realized that they were flirting with disaster - Stardust is after all not known for his restraint in the face of aggression. (Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

Living Diamonds:

The Living Diamonds are a really terrific species who live on Mystery Isle, on the same planet as the crew of Air Sub DX. I love that they're literally just big diamonds, that they have little hat-shaped flying platforms to get around on, and that they can spit molten glass at their enemies. And I especially love this guy's extremely weary facial expression which might just be how he looks and might be because crooks have been trying to turn his people into regular, non-living diamonds. 

Also please note the second-last panel above, which is the earliest instance of someone calling a giant humanoid vehicle a "mech" that I have ever seen. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 008, 1939)

Lunerzons:

In the future occupied by space adventurer Spurt Hammond (variously placed anywhere from 2520 to 40 000 CE), the polar regions of the Moon are occupied by a group called the Lunerzons, who are as their name suggests Amazons who live on the Moon. The spelling being Lunerzon and not Lunarzon is, of course, maddening.

The Lunerzons have ambitions of conquest, and to that end have begun raiding passing transport rockets. One of these rockets is piloted by Spurt Hammond, Planet Flyer, who puts up enough of a fuss in defense of his cargo that he ends up as a captive back on the Moon.

Perhaps because they admire his tenacity, the Lunerzons treat Spurt more as a guest than a prisoner and so give him the official tour, including visits to the explosives factory where all of their men are employed in gruelling slave labour, and the pens where the Lunarzons breed the delightfully-named goblin-like Mooniacs for sport.

Your average Golden or Silver Age comic featuring this setup would end with Spurt freeing all of the enslaved men and leading them in a revolution against their female oppressors in a not-so-subtle bit of social commentary. Instead, he drops a Mooniac that has been loaded down with explosives onto the factory roof, and while I enjoy a twist it's a pretty rough way to treat an enslaved underclass.

Lest you think that the "Spurt Hammond" scribes were above jokes at the expense of women, Our Hero escapes the Moon while the Lunerzon leaders are having a catfight over him. (Planet Comics 001, 1940)

Spiderpeople:

The Spiderpeople inhabit an unnamed moon orbiting an unnamed planet in an undisclosed star system, and only become relevant to our interests when some Earth colonists blunder their way into the planet-wide Spiderperson webs and get themselves captured. This attracts the attention of the mighty Red Comet, who is more kindly disposed to Earth people than any aliens, no matter how trespassed-upon.

Probably the most interesting thing about the Spiderpeople is the arrangement of their limbs: rather than being kind of spider centaurs like so many of their peers, they have four spider legs emerging from their rib cage area and then a tiny little lower body with two more. While it's not the most physically imposing design, it is neat. 

Like I said, the Red Comet is not interested in exploring cultural relativity: the Spiderpeople attempt to sacrifice some Earthlings to their gods and so they get squarshed. Not all of them, but he certainly puts a dent in their population. That'll show 'em for looking kind of gross. (Planet Comics 001, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 966: ARPOR, HIGH PRIEST OF EVIL

(Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

I've mentioned this in the past but it bears repeating: some Golden Age comics read like a fever dream, in which barely connected events just kind of float by as you read. This story is one of those, but also has a sort of exquisite corpse quality in that the connections between events almost make sense but when you step back and look at the whole it is astonishing. To whit:

- Samson and David are just hanging around in whatever US city they call home when they notice a weird truck in the street outside. When they go out to investigate the truck it turns out to be full of poison gas.

- After disposing of the truck (the purpose of which is never revealed), the duo follow some nearby thugs to a warehouse full of counterfeiting equipment. Samson tosses the whole building into the river and then fishes out the one surviving thug.

- The thug reforms out of gratitude and tells Samson that the mastermind behind the warehouse is Arpor, High Priest of Evil.

- Samson and David make their way to Arpor's stronghold in the nearby mountains, dodging various traps and ambushes along the way. Eventually, Samson pretends to be knocked out by a fall so that he can be captured. He is taken back to Arpor's temple lair to be sacrificed to a moderately off-model Kali. As an aside, Arpor's cultist minions appear to be called Fiends, which is fun.

- Not even a whole cult is enough to take on Samson and Arpor is eventually rounded up (after a few more hijinks) and taken away to jail.

So what is Arpor up to here? Is the counterfeiting setup funding the cult or meant to destabilize society in some way that ties in with the usual comic book shorthand of Kali = Thuggees = wanton murder? Is this where the poison gas comes in? We will never know!

Shout out to this sweet cone-shaped lightning rifle that Arpor uses to blast Samson into submission. Love an energy weapon that dares to not just look like a fancy tommy gun.

Categorized in: Abstract Concepts (Evil), Misc (Cult Leaders), Profession (Priests)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 040

Weird humanoids as far as the eye can see!

Demon People: 

The Demon People are seemingly native to the dimension that Breeze Barton travels to in his first adventure and are in conflict with Miracle City and its population of immortals. Even though their major goal is to get through the dimensional aperture and invade Earth, I would have a lot more sympathy toward them (eternal neighbours really must be the greatest test a people could have, after all) if they weren't also huge slavers. I do really like the one big wing/fin that they have on their back, even if I can't figure out what it could be for. (Daring Mystery Comics 003, 1940)

Jupiterians:

The Jupiterians, or more specifically the South Jupiterians, are a peaceful, swamp-dwelling people who want to live somewhere other than a swamp and have thus decided to enter into a colonial relationship with Earth. And it works! Against all historical precedent, the South Jupiterians are soon the proud owners of a new city called New Washington! No strings attached!

The real threat to South Jupiterian sovereignty comes in the form of a diplomatic envoy of lop-eared North Jupiterians under the command of Princess Eelo (whose own long ears are presumably concealed under that kicky headscarf). They represent the bad kind of colonialism, in contrast to the warm fuzzy colonialism of Earth under Captain Nelson Cole, and it takes a plague scare and the complete destruction of New Washington to shift them. Back to work, South Jupiterians! (Planet Comics 009, 1940)

Link People:

Comics and other genre fiction are of course chock full of speculative missing links, but the key thing about the missing link concept is that it represents the bridge between ape and human. The idea that the missing link is instead some sort of humanoid reptile that just kind of ignores the existence of mammalian evolution and instead posits (I think) a chain of reptile -> reptile-man -> ape -> human is very weird!

This being a comic book, such a wild speculation by a collection of white-haired scientists is of course 100% accurate, down to the location and architectural style of the Link Person community. Among other things, this means that the Descent of Man image is going to have to be heavily revised, and also that diver Kinks Mason is immediately sent in to bother this untouched society.

Fearing that a mere photograph will not be believed, the scientists opt to kidnap one of the Link People, thus completing their introduction to humanity via a whirlwind of violence, death and loss (okay, they do try to sacrifice some of the scientists to their gods, but I think that they might have been justified). (Fight Comics 005, 1940)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 024

Let's spare a thought for all the mad lab assistants who do so much for so little credit. 

Rokula:

Rokula's plan is simple: kidnap inventors and then use his mind control machine to force them to work for him. Hey, it's a classic for a reason, but it's also a plan with a high chance of attracting super-heroic attention such as that of Zongar the Miracle Man.  

Rokula might be a fan of the classics but like so many of his peers he is no as into workplace safety, and he meets his end when Zongar sends him careening into his own equipment with a forceful punch. (Silver Streak Comics 007, 1941)

Quislor:

Quislor is a fellow who has developed technology that turns aircraft into remote-controlled drones, and is using it to send bombers out to destroy airfields across the US, thus reducing its ability to field an air force. Though he never quite gets around to saying just why he's doing this it is presumably in service to some sort of fascist plot.

Like all air-based crooks within Cloud Curtis' flight range, Quislor soon learns that the only reward for messing with the sanctity of the wild blue yonder is a sock to the jaw and a trip to the hoosegow. (Silver Streak Comics 014, 1941)

Professor Giess:

Professor Giess, a crypto-fascist scientist with some very interesting eyebrows, has developed a fuel additive called Thanotane (great name) that causes vehicles using it to give off deadly fumes in their exhaust. His plan to distribute this fuel throughout the US to spread terror is stymied somewhat when the test shipment is hijacked by gangsters, but the plan is still on track until John Thesson, aka the Son of the Gods, gets involved and beats everyone up. This must be especially galling for Giess, who noted that Thesson was going to pose a challenge but put off dealing with him for too long. Live and learn, I guess, until you're shot as an enemy agent. (Exciting Comics 007, 1941)

Doctor Mord:

Dr Mord is, like, the Platonic ideal of the comic book mad scientist. He lives in a castle that he explicitly just kind of found in the South African jungle and is attempting to scientifically extract the human soul and place it into a big jar of acid by electrocuting people's brains. He claims that this will make him a god among men, but fails to lay out how, exactly.

The old storytelling rule of Chekhov's Unsealed Vat of Acid comes into play here and Doctor Mord ends up doused in the stuff before being chucked out a window by Captain Kidd. (Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)