(Fantastic Comics 006, 1940)
Once again the nations of he world of the year 10 000 CE are faced with an oceanic menace. Twenty ships have been sunk - seems like a case for Sub Saunders! Could we be faced with yet another jerk ruler from the population of undersea humans? It seems likely! (aside: gotta give a shoutout to Thog here: having a name like that in a comic from 1940 is absolutely an early indicator that you are a villain yet he has rejected nominative determinism to instead serve the public goo. Good on ya, Thog)
But no! After five issues and four separate evil underwater rulers we have a c-c-c-combo breaker in the form of Kozar, a scientist with a weirdly concave face. I mean, sure, he is an antisocial guy who does rule an area under the ocean, but he's originally from the surface! It's totally different!
Kozar has some terrific henchmen at his disposal - forget your Frogmen and Mermen: the Sea-Weed Men are the new greatest underwater goons of the year 10 000. I especially like that their flowing fronds accidentally evoke the 1970s stock character of the Fringed Clothing Hippy.
Kozar's motivation for sinking airships and killing hundreds of people is an unspecified rejection by society. The two most common reasons for this type of rejection are for having really wild out-there scientific theories or for being a creep/looking like a creep and if it's not stated outright then you can usually tell which it is. It's not crystal clear with Kozar but... I reckon he was a real creep and a half.
Kozar actually manages to defeat Sub Saunders pretty decisively by catching him in a mechanical clamp! He actually might have won, except for the fact that his undersea base has one small design flaw: if someone's not constantly monitoring the air pressure etc it will flood and implode. To me personally that seems like an important thing to have multiple automatic failsafes and backups on but what do I know, I'm not a mad genius. Maybe the real thing that Kozar was rejected by society for was his rejection of OSHA guidelines.
Though the story ends on a bit of a melancholy note we must take heart that the Sea-Weed Men are okay. Maybe without the stress of being under the thumb of a homicidal madman they can build a free and just society on the ocean floor.
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