CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE LIVING PLANET MONSTERS

(Fight Comics 010, 1940)

I wanted to do a fun title goof where "World" was crossed out in favour of "Space" but it seems that I don't have that ability. But yes, it's true! These Creeps of the World are not in fact on the world! Any world! They are in fact one of my favourite sci-fi tropes: living beings so large that they are mistaken for planets!

These particular creeps show up in the solar system early in the 21st Century and after an expedition to explore them goes missing they are visited by Saber, the Spy Fighter, who at this point is pivoting a bit from exclusively fighting spies to general super-hero pursuits. He also gets a massive power boost in this issue, gaining the ability to fly through space unprotected and under his own power as well as to grow to planetary sizes in his own right.

This sequence, in which Saber discovers that the missing expedition is building a colony inside of the monster using its own bones as building materials, is 100% the reason for this post. What an image! Even before the horde of Martian warriors came charging up the rib cage this was one of the weirdest sci-fi locales I had ever seen.

A good thing like an endless bone-filled plain inside of a moon-sized monster man can't last, however. After getting the expedition back to thir spacecraft (and tossing the Martians into interplanetary space), Saber beats up all three of the Living Planet Monsters and then throws the three of them so hard that they disintegrate.

CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE TERMITE MEN

(Fight Comics 008, 1940)

No origin or motivation for the Termite Men is provided. They just burrow up through the basement of Rip Regan, Power-Man and declare their intent to destroy San Francisco via chewing. Probably San Francisco - that's where Power-Man started out but the slow process of comic book urban alchemy might have already transferred him to New York.

Anyway, he ends up gassing them all to death.

CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE WALRUS MEN

(Fight Comics 006, 1940) 

In terms of comic book creeps, a race of seven-foot tall barbarians with walrus tusks (and mustaches!) waylaying travellers in the mountains of Tibet are hardly remarkable, and yet I quite like them. I am charmed by their simplicity.

Plus, they move things around the mountains on what can only be described as a giant toboggan, a very silly thing to do!

CREEPS OF THE WORLD: HUMANS OF THE YEAR 1001939

(Fantastic Comics 004, 1940)

Scientist Flip (formerly Flick) Falcon, along with gal pal Adele, usually find themselves contending with problems on the planet Mars thanks to Flip's discovery of interplanetary teleportation based on transit through the Fourth Dimension. In this particular adventure, Flip and Adele flee Mars through a similar device created by Mars' three-armed alien overlords and find themselves not back on the bucolic Earth of 1940 but...

THE FUTURISTIC HELLSCAPE OF 1 001 939 CE! And not only do they find themselves captured by the humans of that far-flung era but those same humans turn out to be a bunch of smug jerks!

These future-jerks follow the familiar sci-fi trope of the species that is all mind, no body BUT instead of taking the more familiar form of a big head with a shrivelled little body, these fellows are regular-sized if emaciated human heads atop bodies that are just skeletons with a bit of skin to hold them together! It's an amazing design choice!

Flip and Adele get away by the simple expedient of removing one of these withered husks from his life support system and blackmailing him into sending them home. It's truly one of the more remarkable sequences in comics history.

CREEPS OF THE WORLD: KIKOOS

(Wonderworld Comics 007, 1939)

Like the Walking Mountains before after them, the Kickoos are part of a population of superhumans living in an obscure part of the world (Asia, it's always Asia) seemingly with no actual will of their own, brought back to the US by a criminal in order to facilitate their crimes.

Specifically, the Kikoos are from the Gobi Desert and their superhuman nature is explained as, essentially, them being all dried out. They're all hundreds of years old and so desiccated and leathery that even small arms fire has no effect on them. Sadly for them they are extremely flammable, particularly as their heroic foil is the Flame.

Mostly I bring them up to showcase the above cover, which made a very big impression on me when I saw it the 300 or so times I read Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Superheroes as a kid.

CREEPS OF THE WORLD: THE WALKING MOUNTAINS

(Captain America Comics 002, 1941)

The Himalayas of any comic book universe are simply chockablock with hidden communities of mystics, monsters, creeps, enlightened souls and weirdos. One such group are the so-called Walking Mountains (AKA the somewhat less PC Oriental Giants). The Mountains are enormous, invulnerable to all harm, possibly immortal and dumb as bricks, which leads to them becoming the muscle for Benson, an unscrupulous banker with poor long-term planning abilities.

Luckily for Captain America and Bucky, they also have a vulnerability to loud sounds - though presumably louder than gunshots, as people are constantly shooting them at close range with no ill effects - and all five are killed by the end of the story.

CREEPS OF THE WORLD: LIMBOS

(Marvel Mystery Comics 019, 1941)

I think this giant man has the Limbos MO covered: cause earthquakes via lava manipulation, then attack.

The real great thing about the Limbos, however, is the lower body. Give me this style of lizard-man any day. The poisoned bit is icing on the cake, really.

CREEPS OF THE WORLD: GHOULS

(Marvel Mystery Comics v1 010, 1940)

If there's one thing you can say about just about any given super-hero universe it's that any given cave, canyon or unguarded parking lot will have its own little group of creeps who lurk in it and are just spoiling for a chance to get up to mischief.

Our inaugural creeps are the Ghouls!

Hailing from volcanic caverns beneath the Blue Ridge Mountains, Ghouls just love to gather up hot ladies for volcanic sacrifice. They love big fur underwear and big rag shoes and hate when a super-hero like the Angel shows up to foil their religious observances. Good job, Ghouls! 

There are also what seem to be giant ghouls in the same cave system. Not nearly as interesting, but still creeps.