(Fantastic Comics 005, 1940)
I guess I have some initial sympathy for Eelo the Fish Man. It can't be easy being a whatever-he-is in regular human society, let alone a resort island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. He might even be a sympathetic villain if literally his first act wasn't to kidnap three women as breeding stock for his proposed new amphibian master race.
Eelo's plans also confound me: are they long or short term? He gasses on about creating a perfect amphibian race but that's gotta take at least twenty years (setting aside unpleasant speculations about how one would scale up production in such an endeavour) but meanwhile he's sinking entire resort islands for his own use. Is he merely counting on surface world society to not look for their island?
A lot of my confusion about Eelo's plans stems from the fact that the story never really goes into what exactly he represents. Is he a member of an underwater civilization and his henchmen (somewhat boringly called "the Amphibians" throughout) the same? Then why does he need to kidnap all those wives? Is he a human mutant? Then what are the Amphibians - costumed goons? Mutated goons? If they all stem from the same mutation source then why not just get a bunch of guys and run them through it?
Regardless of his plans, origin or disposition, Eelo the Fish Man ends up just like so many Samson foes do: dead via the force of a big punch.
No comments:
Post a Comment