DIVINE ROUND-UP 009

I came across Jumbo Comics 031 while filling in gods from my backlog in another Divine Round-Up entry and realized that the array of entities represented in the Stuart Taylor story in that issue should be presented as a block.

Mercury: 

This story begins as most Stuart Taylor stories do, with reckless use of time travel technology. Specifically, Taylor's love interest Laura Hayward has travelled back to Ancient Greece to buy a new hat, because as we know: women be hat shopping. It's practically all they think about!

Laura's Twentieth Century charms are apparently too much for the local deities to bear, because before Stuart can collect her and be condescending about headwear she is kidnapped by Mercury and spirited away to Olympus, which among other things places the gods of this issue in the hybrid Greco-Roman Pantheon.

the Oracle of Delphi: 

Stuart and Dr Hayward's next move is to consult with the Oracle of Delphi to get a line on how exactly they might follow Mercury and recover Laura from him, and I must say that I really enjoy this weird wisp-of-air version of the Oracle, despite it being tremendously off-model. 

Medusa: 

The Oracle directs Our Heroes to seek information from Medusa, who turns out to be depicted in typical style, though somewhat more enormous than is generally the case. I do appreciate that this issue answers the age old question: "is Medusa vulnerable to ray gun blasts?" 

the Evils Contained in Pandora's Box: 

The final stop on Stuart and Hayward's quest is to retrieve a laurel wreath from inside of Pandora's Box, which is just sitting in a field in the middle of nowhere. The comic kind of glosses over the fact that Stuart Taylor is responsible for unleashing the Evils of Mankind, but I am fully prepared to do so, as it might just be his worst snafu in a career full of the reckless and unthinking use of time travel. 

The specific evils released from this version of Pandora's Box are: 

Disease - a classic for a reason. The generic ghost look suggests that the artist did not want to draw a lot of pustules.

Greed - an evil little pig man. 

Hunger - another one right out of the classic Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse set. Much more gruesome than Disease, when the opposite is usually the case.

Intolerance - I was going to call this guy an unusual inclusion, but on reflection I'll bet that most Pandora's Box lineups include Hate, which isn't far off. Definitely looks intolerant.

and bringing up the rear... 

War, aka Mars: 

What is unusual inclusion is not War, who I reckon is there pretty often, but specifically Mars, God of War. Is the implication that this fairly major god was powerless until released by human hands? Is the War who is usually depicted in PB lineups some sort of aspect of war or a specific type of warfare? No clue. What is certain is that Stuart Taylor knocks this War's block off.

And speaking of block-knocking, that's what also happens to Mercury once Taylor, Laurel wreath firmly on brow, makes his way to Olympus to finally rescue Laura. The story ends on a fairly limp callback joke about women and their genetic predilection for hat-shopping, one which I rolled my eyes at even before I realized that Laura wearing the divine laurel wreath as a regular hat at the end would be a much better bit. (Jumbo Comics 031, 1941)