Wednesday, December 25, 2024

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 689: THE MAN-MONSTER OF LONDON

(Pep Comics 005, 1940) 

The Man-Monster of London, aka Monk, doesn't actually play that big a part in the plot of this Bentley of Scotland Yard story. I mean, he's in a lot of it, but he doesn't have a lot of volition of his own. In brief, the Rajah of Inrak (which is probably meant to be an Indian province or kingdom and not a whole country of its own) is in London to discuss some sort of treaty with the government of the UK and a fellow named Remek has been hired to prevent this meeting from taking place and the Man-Monster works for him. He's very much the most spectacular part of the whole affair but he's not really driving the action.


The Man-Monster and Remek both end up being gunned down in self defense by Inspector Bentley and it's honestly more sad than anything else - we never really get any idea of what Monk is exactly (some sort of mutant? a member of some isolated community of superhumans? just a big strong guy dyed green?), but whatever he is he clearly cares for Remek and doesn't seem like he really chose to be a superhuman goon.

ADDENDUM: If you bothered to read that text panel above you might have noticed that one of the potential suspects was the Prime Minister, as in the Prime Minister of England, who I assume was included purely because they were short on named characters for the suspect list this issue. This is him: not precisely Sir Neville Chamberlain (who would've just resigned as this issue was being put together) but close enough.

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