MONSTER, CRITTER AND CREATURE ROUND-UP 005

You won't catch me not having a whole lot of monsters to show you.

the Elipticoon:

True to his name, the wicked Sophus, the Mad Philosopher engages in a slightly more abstract version of villainy in which he traps people in a pan-dimensional maze and delights in their despair (okay, this is pretty standard villainy, I'll admit it. I just like the name). A major feature of this maze is the Hall of the Elipticoon, which houses its namesake, a "giant time entity." Despite the lofty setting and terminology, the Elipticoon seems to be just a big lizard/insect thing that operates purely on predatory instinct, as seen above when it gobbles up Sophus after he attracts its attention with a bit too much evil laughter. (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

Finned Python:

The finned python is just one of the weird creatures encountered by Chuck Hardy and his pals in the underground lands beneath the Marquesas Islands. Just what the fins are for is left as an exercise for the reader. (Amazing-Man Comics 012, 1940)

Firebat:

We have already seen the Golden Knight defeat a dragon in the last Monster, Critter and Creature Round-Up, and here we can see that that was not his first rodeo. On the very first step of his journey to the Crusades, Sir Richard wanders off into a cave and is confronted with a creature that the comic calls a firebat but is clearly some sort of dragonoid. Modern dragon pedants would probably call it a wyvern, but who needs to be so prescriptive? (Fantastic Comics 001, 1939)

Fire Dragon:

Sir Richard faces another dragon somewhere in Europe after the evil Hag of Blackamoor kidnaps his lover Alice and compels him to seek out the mystical Golden Stallion of Ice Mountain. This fire dragon stands even less of a chance than the firebat did, as the Golden Knight is now loaded down with magical items, including a magic cloak that protects him from fire.

Sir Richard completes the voyage to Ice Mountain, completely destroys a giant, and takes possession of the Golden Stallion.

As we all know, the fabulous Golden Stallion is in fact the magically transformed true Queen of Blackamoor Forest, who breaks her own curse by trampling the Hag. What a story to tell your royal court on a cold evening! (Fantastic Comics 007, 1940)

Vulkite:

While tracking a diamond thief in the badlands of Mercury, Nick Nelson and Kodi of the Space Patrol are confronted with a vicious vulkite - note the weird skin-flap wings. You don't see those a lot nowadays. Weird wings or no, the vulkite is no match for Space Patrol Atom-Needle Guns.

This dryak that the space pirate unleash to protect their booty is a different story, and Nick Nelson almost succumbs to its caterpillar/lizard ferocity before Kodi takes it out with their spaceship's Flame-Blast Cannon. I really like this critter's weird front-facing fangs. Are they for digging? For poking prey? Perhaps they are used in courtship displays or to regulate temperature. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 003, 1940)

War Eagles and Oryx-Beasts:

Both the Lion- and Dragon-Men of planet Ligra make use of trained war-eagles as battle steeds, but only the former employ oryx-beasts. I don't know if I've encountered the concept of a war-ungulate before!

Jago, king of the Dragon-Men, also has this very spherical alien octopus that he attempts to feed the queen of the Lion-Men to before Electro takes a hand. (Marvel Mystery Comics v1 009, 1940)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 056

Aliens are just like us if you think about it, man.

Atlanteans:

First things first: these are not actually Atlanteans, at least not yet. As far as I can tell, the word "Atlantis" is not employed in any Namor appearance from 1939-1941, and his people are collectively referred to as "Sub-Mariners" just like their prince. We are left with one of our signature Vexing Conundrums: just when do the Sub-Mariners become Atlanteans? Will we find out before we learn the location of Camp Lehigh or before someone says "Keystone City" in print? Only time will tell. 

Given that they are only later assigned the status of being descended from the humans of old Atlantis (and then unassigned from it if I understand correctly - my interest in Namor has never been great enough that I internalized a lot of his lore), it makes sense that they are much less humanoid than a lot of their peers. They range from being full-on fish-men like Emperor Thakorr to being essentially human-looking but for their huge eyes. And not just human looking, as Namor's own parentage attests: they can also successfully interbreed with humanity! And it's a close enough hybridization that he's not completely infertile, though the fact that he has only one conventionally-conceived child is a bit telling.

One of the hallmarks of Marvel's Atlanteans going forward is of course the fact that they all have blue or green skin, which is fun because it appears to have originally been a stylistic choice on the part of Bill Everett to indicate that they were underwater. Frankly I think that it was a good development: I have no desire to see Emperor Thakoor rendered in shades of pale pink. (Marvel Comics 001 1939)

Balticans:

Represented here by the villainous Rathia, the Balticans are an Atlantean subgroup that live in the Baltic Sea (natch). They might be a different colour than regular Atlanteans, but given the quality of the available scan and the unreliable nature of modern recolouring it is very hard to say for sure. (Human Torch v1 005b, 1941)

Cygnusians:

The Cygnusians and their enemies the Draconians are initially set up to star in a little allegorical story about institutionalized racism and the arbitrary nature of warfare, but things get derailed pretty quickly due to the fact that both Queen Luxor of Cygnus and Queen Feros of Draco are women and cheap misogyny laffs are easy. Rock Braddon of the Space Legion ends the war by arranging a queen-on-queen catfight. (Crack Comics 011, 1941) 

Martians:

After dealing with all the crazy bullshit that lurks beneath the Earth's surface in 50032 CE and doing a bit of civilization-rebuilding, Blaze Barton and his romantic/ adventure partner Teddy set out to establish relations with the people of Mars. As they arrive they (and possibly also the Martians) learn that there is a second, bearded population of Martians who live in vast caverns under the planet's surface and eschew modern technology other than rocket planes and planet-wide smoke screens. These Dark Martians capture Blaze and Teddy in order to hold them for a ransom of lamp oil from an Earth that is probably not equipped to deliver it, given the recent global disasters it has suffered, not to mention the 47 thousand-odd years since the collapse of the whaling industry.

The main problem with being a low-tech antagonist in a science fiction world is that you are only effective as long as you can keep your opponent off-balance, as the Lord of Martianland learns when he gives Blaze a moment to breathe and finds his men completely outclassed by Blaze's ray gun and working knowledge of electricity. The king himself is finished off with a low-tech right hook, and his people opt to learn about new and exciting sources of light. (Hit Comics 005, 1940)

SUPER-VILLAIN FILE 003: NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER

(Marvel Comics 001, 1939*)

No character in comics history swings more wildly and frequently between super-villain and super-hero than Namor the Sub-Mariner, Prince of Atlantis, and since as established in the case of Spy Smasher and Smasher Spy we treat the villainous and heroic actions of the same individual as different subjects we must start with Namor the villain (Namor the hero here).

Namor's origin is a relatively simple one, and to my knowledge one that has remained fairly unchanged to this day: in 1920 a scientific expedition to the Antarctic inadvertently blows up large portions of the sunken city of Atlantis while doing some sort of hydrological survey. The Atlanteans send their most human-looking citizen (and please note the all the weird racial stuff here, just like the recent Molemen entry. Why do these sea-swelling blue people care about how white the surface peoples' skin is? Because they aren't really being written as underwater near-humans but as any non-white group would be), who just so happens to be the Princess Fen, Beautiful Goddess of Seals.

While posing as a mysterious amnesiac to pass on information about the humans to her people, Fen also falls in love with, marries and conceives a child with the expedition's Commander Leonard McKenzie This extreme communion between disparate groups does not sway her from her purpose, however, and the only reason the human expedition survives is that they accidentally finish blowing up Atlantis before the counterattack can commence.

Cut to the present day (1939) and dutiful son Namor (with his occasional sidekick and eventual unrequited love interest Dorma in tow) sets out to enact vengeance on humanity white people for their crimes against Atlantis. Namor's first outing is an absolute bloodbath that sees him wiping out an entire small Naval outpost.

The continuation of this story in Marvel Mystery Comics v1 002 sees the Sub-Mariner make his way to NYC, where he starts to show his more mellow side. Sure he spends much of his time in the city murdering police officers, but he also meets a very flammable woman and saves her life with the seldom-seen ability to barf water out of his pores.

It's safe to say that Namor the Sub-Mariner is defined by a few different drives and that those drives are the reason for his frequent shifts in alignment on the super-hero/super-villain spectrum. The first of these is his dedication to duty - the campaign against the surface world is much more his mother's idea than it is Namor's, but as a dutiful boy he obeys her wishes. The second of these drives is stubbornness - once Namor sets his mind to something he pursues it for longer and with more effort than one might expect, even if it is a bad idea. Next is his temper, which flares up hot and pairs disastrously with his stubbornness to inspire long hot grudges.

The final important drive that Namor is ruled by can be seen above and it is his horniness. Every so often he becomes taken with a woman and it causes him to act like a complete maniac, as here when he attempts to kidnap the severely injured and very much air-breathing Miss Drayson and drag her into the ocean depths.

That's pretty much it for Namor's first foray into villainy: for a variety of reasons he barges into the US and then smashes people and things for a while. Tune in later this week to see him try out benevolence for a while. 

*yes, okay, Motion Picture Funnies 001 is his real first appearance, but it's the same story in an unpublished comic that had it been published wouldn't have been by Marvel/Timely, so I would consider that more of a trivia fact than a fact fact.

SUPER-HERO FILE 006: THE ANGEL

(Marvel Comics 001, 1939)

A two-fisted vigilante in the Batman mode, the Angel was a big enough name in Marvel's Golden Age comics that it would be kind of surprising that he has never really been revived post-Silver Age if not for the fact that his name was, and that the subsequent and ongoing popularity of the X-Men means that there was always a full "Angel" slot on the Marvel roster. On top of this (and probably because of this) the Angel was eventually revealed to be the mastermind behind the Scourge of the Underworld program, lending a villainous tarnish to his name that certainly contributed to his lack of a modern legacy.

The Angel never really gets an origin in the Golden Age, and thanks to the fact that he was never brought back in any meaningful way, this persists until the Marvel 70th Anniversary books in 2009, when he is revealed to have grown up in a prison or something. It's not better than just mysteriously having no origin at all, so I never internalized it.

One thing that the Angel does have, however, is a calling card. Two of them, in fact, as he both signs his notes to police and criminals with a little drawing of an angel and also projects long-lasting shadow images of an angel onto nearby surfaces, this latter also being his only real super-power.

SUPER-HERO FILE 005: THE HUMAN TORCH

(Marvel Comics 001, 1939)

The Human Torch! The first major (and first overall) Marvel super-hero, despite the fact that my disorganized ass is writing about him third!

The Human Torch is a synthetic man, aka an android (aka a synthezoid, which as far as I can tell means "cooler android" and won't come into use until the 60s anyway) and created by Professor "Not Yet Phineas" Horton. Later stories will add all kinds of influences on and collaborators with Horton (including our recent subject Doctor Nemesis), but in the beginning it was just him, toiling away over his blonde creation.

The Human Torch's origin is shaped by three major factors: first, that Horton's process was flawed in some strange way and as a result his android bursts into flame when exposed to oxygen. Secondly, there is the fact that Horton, despite the obvious scientific acumen and indeed genius on display in his creation, is seemingly devoid of any scientific curiosity outside of this. When confronted with the problem of a flaming android, Horton just throws his hands in the air and gives up without making any kind of real effort to mitigate the problem.

Finally, the Torch is hampered by the fact that humanity at large, including Horton, is motivated by fame and fortune. Everyone who meets him wants to exploit him in some way, unless they are afraid of him - this is presumably why Horton's first act upon creating him is to call in reporters rather than work on getting him to stop exploding.

Though Horton can't bring himself to work on a solution for the Torch's problem, he balks at destroying his creation and so opts to seal him inside of an airless steel cylinder and then bury that cylinder in cement.

Somehow, however, and perhaps relating to the fact that it was dropped into semi-solid cement from a decent height rather than laid down carefully and then covered up, the cylinder develops a crack through which enough air seeps in to set the Torch alight and cause him to burst his prison asunder. Everyone's worst fears seem to be confirmed, as the newly self-aware android charges through the city streets, setting men, hats and telephone poles alight. A curious thing happens, however, and perhaps this reflects yet another failing on the part of Horton: the Human Torch realizes that he is hurting people and doesn't want to. You should have talked to your artificial son, Professor, and then you might not have felt it necessary to seal him in concrete.

In attempting to control his own flame (see? once again the child outstrips the parent), the Torch dunks himself in a swimming pool that turns out to belong to a criminal named Sardo who immediately sees the profit potential in a flaming man. Side note: Sardo also has a swimming pool that doubles as a vacuum chamber. Is there any use for such a thing beyond "elaborate deathtrap?"

Sardo's reaction to the Torch falls under theme #3 of this origin: Human Greed. He uses his weird pool to transfer the android to a sealed container and then uses him to burn down a warehouse as part of a protection racket scheme. Just like Horton, however, Sardo fails to reckon with the fact that the Torch might have opinions of his own about such things, and meets his end in their subsequent confrontation. 

The Human Torch eventually figures out how to control his own flame thanks to Sardo's stockpile of liquid nitrogen tanks - the nitrogen snuff the flame only temporarily but having done so a couple of times the Torch gets the hang of how to do so at will. We almost get a heartwarming father/son reunion as Horton argues for the Torch to be released into his custody, but then he goes and ruins it all by immediately starting to scheme about how much money he is going to make off of his creation's back. This is the final straw as far as the Human Torch is concerned and he leaves via the most direct route: straight up.

(Per Marvel Mystery Comics v1 002 this sets Horton's house on fire and leads to his death, and the Torch isn't sad about it)

UPDATES

Update 1940