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)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 965: DR THORNE

(Fantastic Comics 014, 1941)

We open on a mysterious figure using backwards-talk magic to raise hundreds of spirits from their graves and shunt them into the Fourth Dimension. To what end? We shall learn that soon!

Flip Falcon, expert in all things fourth dimensional. is contacted by Dr Thorne of the Institute of Science asking for help with this problem. You might have noticed that Dr Thorne is also the name of Minor Super Villain 965, and that is because they are the same guy. This is a trap, and Flip should be able to see that because while the border between the Third Dimension and the Fourth has proven to be quite permeable over the course of his comic adventures the idea that the missing bodies have travelled interdimensionally should not occur to any but the perpetrator. 

Please also note that despite Dr Thorne's minions being consistently described as ghost of spirits, their bodies are also dug up as part of his little necromantic ritual. Perhaps Thorne did so so that there would be evidence to point at in order to draw Flip in?

Flip investigates and finds that the ghosts are indeed hanging around in the Fourth Dimension. He also finds (and is taken prisoner by) Dr Thorne, who knows that anyone hoping to engage in Fourth Dimensional villainy needs to take care of Flip Falcon first.

Flip is transported to Thorne's lab in his Castle of Misery (great name) where his dimensional energy-charged body is used as a battery to fill up the ghosts with extra ghost-energy that kills humans on contact. We can only speculate as to why Thorne is mass-murdering humans in this manner - perhaps its no more complicated than the classic necromancer's desire to create more ghostly minions.

For all that he has been a capable villain so far, Dr Thorne is in no way OSHA compliant, and he is electrocuted seemingly the instant a light tap from Flip causes him to sprawl over his instrument panel. Flip risks his life by touching the machinery long enough to turn it off, causing the ghosts on Earth to fall down "dead," and all that's left is the cleanup. That is, if these spirits were in fact housed in all of those missing bodies and those bodies are now littering the city streets. If they were indeed purely spiritual entities we might have a situation in which there are just incorporeal bodies everywhere and nothing can be done about it. Horrifying claim to fame for this poor city!

MEDIA IN COMICS 004

It's an all-movies episode of Media in Comics!

Movies:

London Strikes Back - Hard! is the film follow-up to London Can Take It, with both featuring an actor playing costumed vigilante London and the narration of Marc Holmes, London's secret identity. As a bonus, please note the wild nasal apparatus that Imperial Studios required to put a toothbrush mustache on the actor playing Hitler. (Daredevil Comics 005, 1941)

We don't too much of the action of Wild Mesa as it is filmed on the ranch of cowboy hero Bull's-Eye Bill, as the issues in question are much more concerned with the interpersonal conflict between Bill and film star Tex O'Conner. Seems to be a regular-ass Western. (Target Comics v1 009, 1940)

And now for some more Fantastic Feature Films content, as discussed in the last Media in Comics round-up: 

Musical genius Gorevski, driven mad by a progressive paralysis in his right arm and the perceived infidelity of his wife, turns his strange musical abilities to crime in The Music Monster. (Target Comics v1 004, 1941)

Big city gangsters steal a rain-making machine and get mixed up in backwoods hijinks in the execrable hillbilly comedy Ezekiel's Ark. (Target Comics v1 005, 1941) 

The Blue Zombie, a film about mad science being turned against warmongers, turned up in a minor super-hero round-up a while back. (Target Comics v1 006, 1941)

The House of Horror is kind of a horror movie and kind of a crime movie, about a young couple who stumble into a gang hideout while visiting a relative and get fake haunted. (Target Comics v1 007, 1941)

In Wedding Present, a gangster tries to go straight for love, only to be dragged back in and ultimately meet his end thanks to his own twisted mind. (Target Comics v1 008, 1941)

Boomerang is the tale of a heroic reporter fighting to clear his lover's father from a political frameup (the boomerang in question being the fact that the source of the smear campaign has his own career ruined). (Target Comics v1 009, 1941)

Sword of Destiny is a very weird horror movie in which an American couple buy a house that once belonged to Mexican war hero General Santa Guerrero, only to find that instead of dying twenty years earlier as everyone had believed he had instead been trapped in the building's basement, eating rats and house painters. The titular sword of destiny is Guerrero's own that had been left hanging over the fireplace and is ultimately used to slay him. (Target Comics v1 010, 1941)

Oddly featured just two issues after the last one, this Boomerang is a story about a man trying to commit the perfect murder and then himself dying when rigor mortis causes his victim to posthumously shoot him back. (Target Comics v1 011, 1941)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 964: THE SHARK

(The Face 001, 1941)

"Sparky Watts" was a long-running comic feature in Big Shot Comics and other Columbia publications about the eponymous Sparky Watts, a down-on-his-luck young man whose life turns around when scientist Doc Static gives him super powers using his cosmic ray machine. Having started out as a comic strip, Watts' adventures tend to hew closer to the comic adventurous rather than the super-heroic. Still, every once in a while he encounters a minor super-villain such as the Shark.

The Shark is a crypto-fascist in the truest sense: he clearly started out as a Nazi and his men bear some of the visual tropes of Nazi spies, but between the bizarre formality of his speech (which mimics the mock-Japanese speech patterns of 1940s comics while also being distinct from them) and the names of his underlings (Flitoog, Saber, Egnog, Kabitz) which approach mock-German without really getting there, it all ends up being the mere suggestion of a smear of an Axis pastiche.

The really important thing about the Shark is that he's a shark weirdo. He looks like a shark, he loves sharks, he has shark-themed decor and he bites people's throats out with his "shark-like teeth" or at least threatens to. It's always a joy to see a true oddball find his groove, even if it's as an evil fascist. But preferably not as an evil fascist.

The Shark and his men have heard of Sparky's remarkable strength and have set out to acquire it for themselves, and since Sparky isn't really in this issue (he's off playing baseball tow towns over) they don't have much trouble roughing up his friends to get what they want.

Doc Static, of course, neglects to tell them that absorbing an insufficient charge of cosmic rays means that the power is temporary, and that once the rays leave the human body it shrivels up and shrinks until it is smaller than a grain of sand. The fascists all turn on one another once they achieve any sort of power which occupies them until they shrivel, and then an over-zealous minion (who was not invited along to get super powers) seals the deal by crushing all of the "bugs." The world is safe!