ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 044

Aliens! Mostly Martians!

Treemen:

Richard of Warwick, aka the Golden Knight, having gone to the Crusades, won the Crusades and returned home from the Crusades, now enters a fourth period of adventuring that is all about family. First, he rescues his little brother from the evil Black Baron, he now sets out to explore his father's gold mines including the boarded-up one where his mother disappeared twenty years earlier.

Inside, in addition to a variety of hostile reptile life, Richard encounters a some mostly-nude fellows called Treemen, who look like humans with very prominent upper canine teeth. I was pretty puzzled about their name until I looked a bit harder and saw that they also have awful-looking long curly fingernails. Is this where they get their name? From the fact that they look like they have roots? Horrible.

Though Richard does do well initially, ultimately falls to the Treemen and is captured. It's just lucky for him that the mighty Queen Martha of the Treemen turns out to be his mom. (Fantastic Comics 015, 1941)

Mar-Men:

The Mar-Men, under the leadership of the vile Craga, have been capturing human space crews to use as slave labour on their warships, a scheme that is ultimately foiled by the heroic Perisphere Payne. Being nothing more than green-skinned humans, the Mar-Men are generally unremarkable as aliens, though they are the only example that I am aware of of a Mars-derived species name that completely omits the "s" sound. (Science Comics 003, 1940)

Martians: 

As in every Space Rovers adventure, Ted Hunt and Jane Martin are just toddling around space one day when they notice a bunch of Martian soldiers seemingly lowering a woman to her doom in the Lost Valley of Mars. Upon rescuing her, they learn that she is the exiled Queen Mara of Thurn, whose kingdom has been usurped by her uncle/former regent Xark. The Space Rovers vow to help restore her to the throne, and as is so often the case are lucky to have picked a reliable narrator to back.

The Martians (or more specifically the Thurnians, I suppose), have one of those weird mixes of technologies that you get in sci-fi adventure comics: they have charming little flying machines armed with projectile weaponry, but their soldiers are all armed with swords. None of this is a match for the Space Rovers' tommy guns and rocket ships.

Mara is restores to her throne with a little help from Ted's jet pack and some phosphorescent paint, and Thurn is once more subject to the whims of the correct absolute monarch. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940) 

Martian Anthropoids:

These fellows are the major threat to Queen Mara in the Lost Valley, and while they're basically just Martian cavemen I do appreciate that they look like Simpsons characters. (Exciting Comics 004, 1940)