ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 012

You won't believe these guys. 

the Mermen: 

Some undersea jerks who capture explorer Typhon and his crew. Their leader is a real creep named Neptune who has a nigh-fetishistic plan to freeze the crew - and particularly sole female crewmember Cecelia - into blocks of ice and then breathe fire on them. Luckily for all who might venture beneath the waves, he drowns (?) during Typhon's escape. (Weird Comics 002, 1940)

the Beaked Men:

The Beaked Men of Mercury's mountains operate as an extortion racket on the solar trade routes, raiding and capturing ships from their mobile "space island" ships. Such a threat to the interplanetary commerce of the year 25 000 will not stand, and Spurt Hammond, Planet Flyer successfully manages to explode the whole operation thanks to a handy prisoner revolt. (Planet Comics 004, 1940)

the Big-Eared Tribe of Saturn: 

I'm not sure if the implication is that all of the people of Saturn are big-eared or if it's just a subgroup, but the fact that they seem to be generally feared and that the leader (and father) of this particular bunch of Big-Eared men, Varg Emmos, is a respected scientist who is presumably using his futuristic heardpiece to disguise his own big-eared status points toward the former. 

Varg and his boys have a plot to take over Earth using an ultrasonic ray that affects only humans but are foiled when Rex Dexter in turn discovers a musical note that kills them and that is seemingly featured heavily in symphonic music. Sucks to be a Big-Eared music lover I guess. (Mystery Men Comics 020, 1941)

the Coal People:

The Coal People (also referred to as the Blackmen) reside in an underground kingdom below Colorado and are descended from ancient people who got themselves trapped there and were forced to subsist of coal to survive. Rather than dying of starvation and/or stomach cancer, they instead became humanoid creatures composed of living coal. The problem comes when mining activities bring the Coal People into contact with contemporary surface humans - fairly harmless when they decide to worship the above old man as a kind of captive god, but increasingly menacing after the discovery of a miner's corpse reveals to them that there are more interesting things to eat than coal.

Luckily for the surface world (or for Coloradans, at least) the next person to enter the mines and get captured is the super-strong giant Mighty Man, who discovers the in-retrospect-fairly-obvious secret of the Coal People: that they fear fire. He and the erstwhile god escape and seal the mine behind them. Colorado is saved! (Amazing-Man Comics 011, 1940)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 011

What ho! Aliens!

Martians: 

These Martians attack Earth for reasons that will remain unclear forever, because the story they appear in never actually gets an ending. In fact, they never even show their faces, instead attacking from their very cool-looking ships and sending their very cool-looking robots to act as ground troops. The initial invasion is driven off by superhuman scientist Greg Gilday and his associate Joan and then the Martians just never bother to return for another shot. (War Comics 002, 1940)

Barrangees: 

After their initial encounter with the giant insect life of Planet Barrang, Captain Tornado and his companions end up falling in with the Barrangees, a humanoid species who were forced underground when the insects began to increase in size and intelligence, and despite the common cause that they had made with the purple ant faction, the trio are far more comfortable around an non-insectoid race.

(wildly, this extends to not even questioning the Barrangee caste system in which servants are surgically rendered mute as a symbol of their subservience and children are raised in total darkness to give them enhanced night vision)

The Earth-people quickly resolve to help the Barrangees return to surface life using their knowledge of firearms and insecticides. Their main obstacle to this, other than the insects themselves, is the Barrangee High Priest, leader of a religion that worships the Sacred Centipede and by extension all of Barrang's insect life. Captain Tornado eventually resolves this by shooting both the High Priest and the Sacred Centipede dead. (Popular Comics 048, 1940) 

the Batmen:

The Rocket and the Queen of Diamonds seem to run into another hostile humanoid species every time they leave the walls of the hidden Diamond Empire, and the Batmen are yet another of these, which they end up in the clutches of after crashing the Rocket's ship into an underground cavern. The king of the Batmen is of course a creep who lusts after the Queen and attempts to dispose of the Rocket via gladiatorial combat vs a giant turtle, but once the Rocket learns that the Batmen are mortally afraid of fire it's all over. Quite literally, because he accidentally burns down their city. (Pep Comics 003, 1940)

the Batmen of Kordano: 

It's been a while since I read "Air-Sub DX" and the world-building was never its main focus, so forgive me if I'm wrong, but as I recall it was set in an undefined future on a planet that I have written down as "Tago-Lor" but could have just as easily been a far-future Earth. The crew of the titular Air-Sub contend with the machinations of various bald guys, including Klawger here, who has assumed the identity of the administrator of some sort of mining colony. 

All this is to say that I have no idea what the deal is with the Batmen of Kordano, aka the Living Dead Men, aside from the facts that a. they look cool, b. they have two great names, and c. they ride around in squat cylindrical vehicles called "mobile pillboxes," which is fun. Aside from that, no idea. Why so aggro? Where or who or what is Kordano? No idea. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v2 005, 1939)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 010

Oh those rascally aliens.

the Grey Hordes from the Center of the Earth: 

The Grey Hordes from the Center of the Earth, aka the Grey Men, have been bombing London for unclear reasons using hard-to-see transparent planes. War correspondent Danny Dash and his associate Shamrock "Mac" McGlynn (!) stumble upon a group of them in the English countryside after their car is wrecked by a mysterious bomb-throwing glowing limousine, but since the "Danny Dash" feature never concluded we never really learn the answers to the reasons behind any of this, including why they are making war on the British or why they have corkscrews on top of their hats. (War Comics 001, 1940)

the Jovian Mountain People:

The Jovian Mountain People live a simple life that revolves around the harvesting and processing of native jurta berries into a potent drug. They call in the heroic Space Patrol after a rash of murder and robberies (sixty!) point to an organized jurta drug ring in the area.

Basil Wolverton's knack for alien design was remarkable not just for its inventiveness but for the fact that he could make such sympathetic alien characters who weren't just humans with blue skin, and the Jovian Mountain Folk might just be the greatest example of this, with their little round bodies and concerned expressions. The above image of the jurta harvester carefully processing his crop is one of my favourite in all of comics, and it's a shame that the poor guy is about to be tossed off of a mountain by one of...

the Balloon Men: 

The Balloon Men showcase another of Wolverton's strengths: creating aliens that are simultaneously goofy yet believably threatening. A big orb-shaped dude with little fluttering wings is undeniably a silly-looking fellow, but just scroll back up to that image of the attack on the jurta-man and picture one of these guys silently descending on you with murderous intent. Eerie. Plus I really appreciate the clear distinction between the inflated and deflated states of the Balloon Men, 

The Balloon Men are not, however, the ultimate architects of the jurta thefts. No, it turns out that they are working for...

the Haggur: 

The Haggur are identified as a "cruel and crafty tribe of South Jupiter" and if this is an accurate description then this otherwise-unnamed Haggur is an exemplar of his kind. He and his imported Balloon Men intend on plundering the entire season's jurta drug harvest no matter how many Mountain People they have to kill to do so. It's only being totally exploded by the Space Patrol that stops this dastardly plan. 

Design-wise, the Haggur is a pretty standard big alien bruiser, though I do really like the huge bands of muscle attached to the jaw and of course welcome the single central Basil Wolverton nostril whenever it makes an appearance.

The comic ends with a little gag about how unattractive the Jovian Mountain Ladies are, in case you were worrying that it had no flaws. I personally think that they're cute. (Amazing Mystery Funnies v3 005, 1940)

ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 009

When deep-sea diving off of the Marquesas Islands, explorers/lovers Chuck Hardy and Jerry Peterson are caught in a volcanic upheaval and sucked through a rift in the ocean floor. They find themselves in one of the many underground lands that dot any comic book version of the Earth - this one being lit and heated by an enormous volcano called Roara.

Chuck and Jerry's time in the underground land (never actually named as a whole, so I have been calling it Aquatania even though properly that refers to the one named kingdom in the underground area) is made easier by the fact that something in the atmosphere has given them both enormous strength. Which is good, because Aquatania is a rough-and-tumble place full of reptilian monsters and hostile humanoids. And speaking of those:

the Frog-Men:

Though the first Frog-Man that Cuck and Jerry meet, Mogba here, is a friendly guy, the Frog-Men as a whole are pretty aggro. They fill the role of the general antagonist for a couple of the other intelligent species in Aquatania and thus spend a lot of time getting beat up (and worse) by Chuck Hardy.

Please note also the long lobster antennae sprouting from between Mogba's eyebrows. These are features shared by several of Aquatania's different humanoid species and frankly I love this kind of thing. Suggesting a common ancestry between your multiple intelligent species that all live within walking distance of one another? Yes please. (Amazing-Man Comics 005, 1939)

The Frog-Men return to vex Chuck and Jerry in Amazing-Man Comics 011, and in issue 012, Chuck meets the Frog-Man leader, the two-headed Toga (who I can only assume is not green because the colourist forgot about the 'frog' part), in battle and kills him by heaving him off of a cliff. Hopefully the absence of Toga's influence will usher in a new era of peace for the Frog-Men. 

Aquatanians: 

The Aquatanians are the default white-guy species that you get in a lot of these many-lands-full-of-many-peoples adventures, thought the fact that they too have little lobster antennae suggests that they're descended from the same kind of ocean bugs as the Frog-Men, which is fun.

The Aquatanians have a sort of generically advanced and peaceful society mixed with a certain amount of medieval ignorance - they have high-speed air vehicles, for example, but no means of making fire other than sending Chuck to that big volcano I mentioned earlier to get some. They're also the ones who take the time to teach Cuck and Jerry the local language so that they don't have to spend most of their adventures doing charades. (Amazing-Man Comics 006, 1939)

the Quadropel Men: 

The Quadropel Men are our first Aquatanian race not to have antennae, suggesting that they may have evolved from an entirely different kind of ocean bug. They live in a hole in the ground (making them an under-underground race, yes) and do human intelligent being sacrifice to their deity, the Sacred Steam God. (Amazing-Man Comics 009, 1940)

the Swamp-Men:

Chuck and Jerry encounter the Swamp-Men after an unexpected flood washes them, along with their Aquatanian companion Oxan and Aquatanian antagonist Princess Irina out to sea on a raft improvised from a palace door. As can be seen above, the best thing about the Swamp-Men is the fact that they have domesticated these amazing giant turtles and insist on standing like they're zooming around on them even though the turtles are consistently described as being very slow. It's great!

Otherwise, the Swamp-Men are kind of jerks. They capture Chuck, Jerry and Irina (Oxan sneaks away in order to effect a dramatic turtleback rescue later) and intend to use them as food for their mounts - I mean, say what you will about human sacrifice, but at least the Quadropel Men had a reason for being murderous assholes. Princess Irina successfully ransoms herself with some spare gold, but even then her two escorts decide to rob and murder her rather than take her all the way home. Definitely the worst bunch in the entire underground world, even with the turtles taken into account. (Amazing-Man Comics 010, 1940)

the Lobstermen:

The final species encountered by Chuck, Jerry and Oxan before their series is phased out are the Lobstermen (aka the Pigmy Lobstermen) a bunch of friendly little pink guys ruled by Queen Irena. The Lobstermen are another antennaed species, and their lobster claw hands might just be a hint as to the ancestry of the various related races.

If Queen Irena's skin tone is anything to go by, the Lobstermen also seem to be another one of those races with the kind of sexual dimorphism whereby the males are all wizened little weirdos of some description and the females are essentially conventionally attractive human women, right down to not having lobster claws. It amazing how often that happens! (Amazing-Man Comics 011, 1940)

DIVINE ROUND-UP 010

Pad out your pantheon with some of these:

Death:

This version of Death may lack the social graces necessary to welcome Kardak the Mystic and his pal Lorna rather than attempt to murder them for entering his domain, but he does have a very good version of the classic "robed skeleton" look. And his house is charmingly coffin-themed, to boot! 

God Style: Anthropomorphic Personification (Top-Notch Comics 008, 1940)

Ramu, God of Fire: 

Ramu, God of Fire is another one of your deities created so that a group of "primitive savages" will have a reason to menace some "noble explorers" with the threat of being human sacrificed. Ramu at least is kind of fun because while he might have started out looking like the figure depicted on those red sacrificial poles, by the end of the comic this image has been supplanted by that of the miniature rocket ship that Minimidget and Ritty accidentally pilot into the middle of the ceremony.

God Style: Idol  (Amazing-Man Comics 010, 1940)

the Sacred Steam God:

The Sacred Steam God is worshipped by the Quadropel Men, who themselves are notable for living beneath the land of Aquatania, which itself lies below the Marquesas Islands. Worship of the Sacred Steam God of course involves human sacrifice, but erstwhile victim Terry is saved when Chuck Hardy topples the inexplicably-full-of-scalding-water idol onto the crows of spectators. 

God Style: Idol (Amazing-Man Comics 009, 1940)

Sakka: 

Sakka is, yes, another figure to whom some Noble White Explorers are almost sacrificed while making their way through the jungles of Matto Grosso in Brazil. Here's the difference, though: Sakka isn't just some idol, he's an ancestor spirit, and his name and his ancient sword are all that the big-eyed Earth-Men need to keep their faith strong and bloodthirsty, at least until adventurer Rocky Ryan picks up the sword and is acclaimed the second coming of Sakka, that is. 

God Style: Invoked (Big-Shot Comics 014, 1941)