ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 043

We've met a few of them in the past, but here's another dose of the inhabitants of the Fourth Dimension, as explored by Flip Falcon.

Zezo:

Zezo works for the Fourth Dimensional villain Lucifer as a guardian. We don't learn too much about this fellow - is he a one-off or representative of a whole species, for example - but I like his moxie and his big teeth. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Koggo:

Koggo is an even more mysterious fellow than Zezo, given that he is more obviously the product of a civilization of some sort: he has clothing and weapons and hypodermics full of Agony Serum, and also a conceptual framework that allows him to believe that human pilots are somehow trying to invade the Fourth Dimension. This leads him to kill and kidnap several of them until he is stopped when he is exploded by Flip Falcon. (Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

Fourth Dimensional Dragons: 

Fourth Dimensional dragons have a body plan that is a variation of the modern fantasy concept of the wyvern, with wings and front limbs appended to a long serpentine body. It's unclear just how intelligent they are: Robbo here acts like an animal, but he also has a name. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Serpo (Poison Dragon of the Elements) also has a name, but given his seeming status as more of a natural disaster than an inhabitant of the Fourth Dimension, that might just be equivalent to when we name hurricanes. Intriguingly, Serpo is able to cross the dimensional boundaries under his own power.

Serpo comes to the attention of Flip Falcon after he abducts a woman from Earth and learns too late that he is susceptible to being exploded. (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

Demi-Things:

Any time you talk about Flip Falcon and the Fourth Dimension, you're going to get Demi-Things coming up. The first time this occurs is when Gogo, Master of the Demi-Things attempts to abduct the same woman who had already been snatched by Serpo. And just like Serpo, Gogo is unprepared for the explosive power of Flip's dimensional energy. (Fantastic Comics 016, 1941) 

The death of Gogo opens the way for Kandor to become Lord of the Demi-Things, and while we have no indication of whether he is a more benevolent ruler than his predecessor, he certainly is aware of the fact that he rules at Flip Falcon's whim. Or perhaps they really are friends, who knows. (Fantastic Comics 018, 1941)

Finally, we have Zorka, the Giant Demi-Thing. Zorka guards a region of the Fourth Dimension containing the element "acco-nito." Why? This is not explained - perhaps it's just a classic case of treasure-hoarding. In any case, Flip needs so acco-nito to save a woman's life, so Zorka gets exploded.(Fantastic Comics 019, 1941)

Octopus Men:

Strictly speaking, the Octopus Men are not Fourth Dimensional beings, instead, they are the inhabitants of the wandering planet Octo, which up and wanders straight through the dimensional barrier one day and allows the Octopus Men to start beating ten kinds of hell out of the Demi-Things.

Despite this, the Octopus Men prove just as vulnerable to being exploded as all of Flip's other enemies, which he discovers after intervening to prevent the conquered Demi-Things from being impressed into a life of space piracy by the Octopus Men's boss, a human man named Otho. Just how he came to be on an extrasolar planet in the first place, let alone in charge of the place, is left unexplored, but since Flip drags him back to Earth to stand trial we must assume that that's where he started out. I have no idea what Flip thinks that the charges might be, by the way. (Fantastic Comics 017, 1941)

Unnamed Species: 

This unnamed fellow is remarkable mostly for being the antagonist of Flip Falcon's final adventure. He seems to live on a planetoid by himself, has captured space explorer Irwin Burns and demands help in his plan to go to Earth and kidnap a woman (he needs a "queen" and can't be bothered to date).

As befits the final Flip Falcon villain, this fellow gets exploded. It's a real shame that this is our last look at the Fourth Dimension as the cosmology was getting very weird: it's another dimension but also Hell and/or Purgatory and it connects to all space and time and as a result of this you can just kind of pass from our dimension to it by travelling far enough out into space? I mean, talk about a rich setting for cosmic horror. (Fantastic Comics 021, 1941) 

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 636 UPDATE: THE SERPENT LADY

(Fantastic Comics 016, 1941)

We all remember the Serpent Lady, who lived in an underwater city with a bunch of weird ghouls and used her pet sea serpent to kidnap people for her minions to eat. And we all remember how Sub Saunders showed up and killed her serpent but let her go free for some reason (the reason is because she is a sexy lady who walks around in a gold bikini top). Well, the Serpent Lady hasn't just laid down and given up, no sir. She is back.

So, just how does the Serpent Lady follow up her old operation that revolved around Mephisto the sea serpent, why with the hot new Diablo, a two-headed sea serpent. Surely the only problem with the old plan was that it involved an insufficient number of serpent heads!

Unfortunately for the Serpent Lady, not only does Diablo prove even less effective against Sub Saunders than Mephisto was (Mephisto took a whole four panels to die while Diablo goes down after three), but following his death her lieutenant Luco turns on her and attempts to take over the whole undersea snake thing by killing both her and Saunders.

Though Luca believes himself to be ready for the big leagues this is absolutely not the case, as Sub turns the tables on him and slays him with his own deathtrap with absurd ease. He then spurns the Serpent Lady's overtures of love and toddles off for the surface. BUT he also refrains from blowing her up, so there's still a chance for these crazy kids.

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)