MONSTER, CRITTER AND CREATURE ROUND-UP 002

It's time for more monsters! And also critters and creatures!

Prehistoric Gorilla:

This carnivorous cave-dwelling ape lives in a hidden valley in Africa and has a pretty sweet deal going with the local pterodactyls, whereby they bring him things to eat and he seemingly doesn't have to do anything. This arrangement does eventually backfire after the pterodactyls grab Kaänga's mate Ann and the justifiably miffed jungle lord follows them and slays the gorilla. (Jungle Comics 017, 1941)

A few bonus dinosaurs from the hidden valley: some generic carnosaurs, the aforementioned pterodactyls, and a mean aquatic sauropod.

Creatures of Argus:

When the wicked Sklar, tyrant of the planet Argus, attempts to invade the Earth of the far-off Year 1982, he sends these fairly cool flame-spewing robots to do his dirty work for him. While I always appreciate a good killer robot, these ones are especially satisfying because they conform to the proportions of the people of Argus and it's always nice to see non-humans adhering to their own aesthetics rather than defaulting to ours. 

Though the robots are smashed up by champion of the people Power Nelson in short order the risk of invasion remains, so he and his love interest/companion Zora head to Argus to settle things once and for all. During their time there, they are forced to take a detour that leads them through the through the Cave of Terror, a monster-haunted locale containing such beasts as...

... the beefy, fire-breathing Dreaded Cave Monster! (smashed against a wall)

The cephalopoid Creatures of the Quicksand! (deprived of their meal but otherwise unharmed)

The extremely compelling giant rodentoid Saber Tooth Crawler! (punched out) (Prize Comics 006, 1940)

Morg:

Adventurer Planet Payson encounters this morg while investigating malfeasance on Mars, and manages to escape its clutches by merely making it sleepy rather than killing it. A true win for xeno-conservation! (Planet Comics 006, 1940)

Pteridons:

Analogous to our own woolly mammoths, these pteridons were once native to Pluto but now lie frozen beneath a layer of ice. Though a gang of crooks attempt to exploit these curiously adorable beasts by thawing them out and deploying them as rampaging engines of destruction, they are stopped by Buzz Crandall before things get too out of hand. (Planet Comics 006, 1940)

Aqua-Scorpio:

Despite the fact that people in the 40s thought that octopuses were inherently gross, menacing and deadly,  sometimes the comic book people felt the need to up the ante a bit and so we get things like the aqua-scorpio her, as encountered by oceanic adventurer Captain Gallant. I really like this guy's head, especially the combination of the compound eyes and chinless beak, but the hooked tentacles might be overkill. (Super-Mystery Comics v1 005, 1940)

Arena Monsters:

The wicked 'bdula Khan pits these three beasts against the Golden Knight seemingly purely for the love of being evil. Only one of them, the bat wing monster, gets anything approaching a name, but that doesn't prevent it from being slain as easily as its companions generic dragon and land kelpie. (Fantastic Comics 006 1940)

Bat-Serpent:

The Rocket is confronted with and slays this bat-serpent while he is the captive of a group of Ape-Men, and it's a good thing that he does so because it moves him out of the category of "prisoner" and into that of "potential leader." I do feel a little bad for the bat-serpent here, though. Sure, the caption box says that it is a "blood seeking enemy of all animal and human life" but that face says "adorable puppy-cow" and that holds a lot of weight with me.

As part of his ascent to chiefdom, the Rocket must venture into the Cave of Horrors and face the various horrors therein. He only gets to one of them before being interrupted, but it's a good one, the fire-breathing, flashlight-headed rayoceros, which look like the kind of creature you'd find in an early Sixties comic set on Krypton. (Pep Comics 005, 1940)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 034

We got your aliens right here.

Martians: 

While I think that we might have a couple of Fletcher Hanks aliens in our future, the number is definitely going down at a fairly rapid clip, so let's enjoy these here Martians while we have them. Like so many aliens, these guys are looking to conquer the Earth, and like so many Fletcher Hanks antagonists they have come up with a completely bonkers and over-the-top method of doing so: by stupefying the entire population with gas and then loading them all into individual rocket pods that are then shot into space to drift forever. This is a Whirlwind Carter adventure and thus set in an undefined future date, which means that the Earth's population is effectively a big question mark, but the Martians have to be firing off billions of these things, right?

Perhaps this is why these fellows look so satisfied as they look out over a conquered New York, because they have just put in a very hard day's work to get it.

Like I said: this is a Whirlwind Carter story, and the key thing about Whirlwind Carter is that he lives on Venus and is thus not present for the Martian gas attack. Carter rounds up the stranded Earthians and employs them as the crew of a space fleet to take back the planet using a combination of gas and hand-to-hand street combat.

It makes only a brief appearance in the issue, but perhaps the most intriguing thing that we see in this issue is the Martian vapor arm that is deployed to kidnap Carter's partner Brenda. Is it a creature? A technology? Something that Martians can just do? Throw these questions on the big Never To Be Answered pile. (Daring Mystery Comics 004, 1940)

Hawk-Men:

The people of Earth in the year 3090 CE are being troubled by a series of bright flashes in the clouds, and when troubleshooter Planet Payson flies up to investigate the cause he discovers a hitherto-unknown society of winged people called the Hawk-Men living in a floating city. The flashes turn out to be ray gun blasts, resulting from a war that the Hawk-Men are engaged in with a second, unnamed group of cloud-dwellers. It's not entirely clear whether the Hawk-Men are a separate species, an offshoot of humanity or simply a group of humans who have bioengineered themselves some wings and taken to the skies, but what is clear is that they were pretty directly inspired by Vultan and the other Hawkmen of Flash Gordon fame. Just look at this Brian Blessed-ass Hawk Commander, for gosh sakes.

Payson and his companions take it upon themselves to stop the war by invading the cloud city of the other side (unnamed, but led by a jerk named Buzzlark). They aren't particularly successful, but while Buzzlark is gloating over them after sticking them in some clear tubes, the Hawk Commander is able to sneak in and assassinate him. War over on account of coup t'etat!

Another technology shout-out: this zippy little one-man tank that Buzzlarks men patrol his city in. (Planet Comics 002, 1940)

Hawkmen:

Speaking of things that are pretty clearly inspired by Flash Gordon, I now realize that that is exactly what the Rocket's adventures in and around the Diamond Empire are, and what would a Flash Gordon pastiche be without some Hawkmen? These particular Hawkmen are introduced in the person of Prince Falkar, who meets the Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds during a pitched battle with some Lizard-Men and becomes their staunch ally thereafter. After a brief interlude with some Ape-Men, he brings the duo back home to the Hawk Kingdom with him.

Rocket and the Queen's visit to the Hawk Kingdom causes some Big Problems: Falkor's fiance Princess Abbie becomes in turn jealous of the Queen and then attracted to Rocket, and the latter's rejection of her in favour of the former inspires her to assassinate the King and take the throne for herself. Falkor is forced to flee his home for the Diamond Empire, and as of the end of the series is still waiting for a little help in reclaiming his rightful throne. (Pep Comics 004, 1940)

Headless Men:

When scientists discover a weird new asteroid, space adventurer Buzz Crandall and his aide Sandra Curan are sent out to investigate. They discover a species of humanoids held in servitude by a bunch of big pitcher plants (who are not really ever given a name other than Plants, so that's what we'll go with).

The Headless Men have been systematically bred by the Plants into small, low-intellect, easy-to-control  creatures by the Plants, but the downside to this is that they are now too feeble to fix a problem that has developed in the solar concentrators that the Plants derive sustenance from. Buzz fixes this problem under threat and is immediately betrayed, and he and Sandra are eaten by the Plant king.

The Headless Men are not, it turns out, completely without volition, and rise up in defense of Buzz and Sandra. Under Buzz' direction the solar concentrators are repurposed into heat weapons that fry the Plant population instead of feeding them. (Planet Comics 005, 1940)

MAD AND CRIMINAL SCIENTIST ROUND-UP 015

They can't help themselves and/or they're choosing to be horrible.

Dr Zynnon has been asked along to help Dr Curan, his daughter Sandra and protagonist Buzz Crandall in their mission to prevent the Moon from exploding, presumably dooming us all. This turns out to be a Bad Choice, because unbeknownst to all, Dr Zynnon harbours a deep misanthropy and would love nothing more than for the world to be doomed.

Despite the fact that I love not being scoured from the face of the planet by hurtling lunar debris I must give Zynnon credit for one of the most adorable doomsday devices ever conceived of: tiny moon lizard carrying vials of acid powerful enough to bring down the roof of the lunar cavern the bulk of the adventure takes place in. Powerful enough, that is, if they were delivered to the correct location. Which they weren't, presumably because Zynnon didn't bother to train or condition them in any way and just let loose as many lizards as he could smuggle onto the moon bathysphere under his coat. In the end, the only casualty of Zynnon's plot was Zynnon himself. (Planet Comics 004, 1940)

Tobor the Evil is a Plutonian scientist who has been using an army of child-sized robots to steal Martian gold, with the end goal of conquering Mars and making it a Plutonian territory. With the help of Captain Nelson Cole of the Solar Force, he learns two important lessons about fielding robot armies: 1) don't leave robot shells that can be repurposed into armour by your foes just lying around, and 2) if your robots have an "indiscriminate murder" setting, make sure to build in a failsafe that excludes yourself from the list of viable targets. (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

Von Dorf, a mad physiologist and asylum escapee, was so singularly obsessed with the hybridization of humans and panthers that he kidnapped a nurse and turned her into Marga the Panther Woman. It's likely that he would have his own numbered entry on the Minor Super-Villain list if literally the only other things he ever did weren't a) get his ass kicked and b) blow himself up. Truly being part of an origin story is the most hazardous job in comics. (Science Comics 001, 1940)

Dr Passendorf here managed to perfect the quite respectable criminal science inventions of a mind control device and a paralysis ray and then had to lower himself to using both in the employ of a shifty Wall Street jerk named Augustus Elba who needed to cover up some light embezzlement. Just as well that he ends up riddled with shrapnel after the Eagle blows up his machine - the roasting at the next Criminal Science Convention would have been severe. (Science Comics 005, 1940)

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 708: SOPHUS, THE MAD PHILOSOPHER

(Planet Comics 008, 1940)

Once again an adventure begins that most classic sci-fi way: Buzz Crandall and his gal pal Sandra are noodling around in space when they run smack into something, in this case a crystal sphere that houses the secret headquarters of Sophus, the Mad Philosopher.

I couldn't tell you what school of philosophy Sophus subscribes to, but it's one with an intellectual framework that encompasses a) turning other humanoids into mist and keeping them in bottles and b) freaking people out of their gourds by flinging them through a time portal into a crazy abstract weirdscape. Since Sophus is mad, perhaps he's just taking a philosophy dedicated to helping other improve themselves way too far? Or maybe he took a Philosophy 101 class in university and decided that that was all he needed to be insufferable about his evil interests forever, who knows.

As Sandra is flung into the timestream and Buzz attempts to rescue her, we get a passable rendition of 1960s Dr Strange-style psychedelia, only in the 1940s. It's pretty neat, though it does make me pine for what will eventually be.

Sophus is eventually undone not by the heroes of our story but by his own jerk nature, as his villainous cackling over Buzz and Sandra's doom is delicious-sounding enough to draw the attention of the Elipticoon, a "giant time entity" that was about to devour Sandra but instead opts for a delicious and attention-grabbing philosopher. All the jarred people are set free, the end.