ALIENS AND SO FORTH ROUND-UP 051

A disappointingly humanoid bunch of aliens today.

Gigantians:

The Gigantians of Gigantia are the kind of advanced society who like nothing more than to gas on about how primitive and backward Earth is to space travellers like Rocket Rooney and his pal, but are still content to have a hereditary monarchy. True to their name, they are super huge in their natural state but have the good graces to shrink themselves down whenever their Earth visitors show up. (Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

Inhabitants of Starergo:

Though the Gigantians are a benevolent and technically advanced super species who live in a perfect society, they are frequently beset by various enemies who want nothing more than to utterly destroy them and who give them the opportunity to demonstrate their benevolent and advanced weapons systems - one might almost believe that they enjoy the opportunity to blast some of the nonenlightened now and again. 

These include the inhabitants of Starergo, who attack them on the same day every year and have done so for the past one thousand years, and even though the attack always ends in a Starergoan defeat, this does not deter them. We never actually see one of the inhabitants of Starergo, but the fact that their planet's name is "ogre rats" backward possibly indicates something of their character. (Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace Comics 003, 1941)

Merzoatics:

The Merzoatics are another in the seemingly endless list of species who want the Gigantians dead, and since their attack is entirely ground-based (they have tanks and artillery in addition to the swords and pikes pictured here) we must assume that they are also native to Gigantia. This does not, alas, help them avoid the rays to the Gigantians' paralysis ray cannon. (Bill Barnes, America's Air Ace Comics 004, 1941)

Martians:

These Martians are from the year 3090 CE or thereabout, which means that it is reasonably probable that they are descended from Earth colonists rather than being native to Mars. Whatever their origins, they have let a bald jerk named Pytho rise to power and convince them to enact aggression on the peoples of Mercury, a situation which continues until Pytho is undone by the efforts of the heroic Planet Payson. (Planet Comics 006, 1941)

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)

REAL PERSON ROUND-UP 009

Some day these won't inevitably start with Hitler. Some day.

Adolf Hitler:

Rix, a human living on Venus in the peaceful year 3090 CE, learns about dictators thanks to the time capsule from the 1939 New York World's Fair and immediately sets out to make himself into the Hitler of the future. Beat down by interplanetary troubleshooter Planet Payson. (Planet Comics 008, 1940)

Aviator Ted O'Neil is brought down in the warlike nation of Gestapia (one of the more on-the-nose Nazi Germany stand-ins I have encountered), ruled over by dictator "Schnitzler." (Prize Comics 004, 1940)

Al Capone:

It's just a shorthand reference for "bigtime gangster" but Scarface Marone here is absolutely an Al Capone pastiche for the one and a half panels he appears in before jumping out a window to avoid capture. (Rocket Comics 002, 1940)

Anna Roosevelt:

She's referred to only as "the President's daughter" throughout this adventure which sees her being kidnapped and almost killed by Gerlandian spies before being rescued by Electro here, but it's 1940 and the US has had precisely one President's Daughter for nearly eight years at this point and it's Anna Roosevelt. (Science Comics 001, 1940)

Captain Nemo:

It shouldn't have surprised me when Navy Jones, established in the previous issue to be descended from the legendary Davy Jones, encounters not-just-fictional-but-fictional-from-about-seventy-years-earlier figure Captain Nemo while noodling around under the sea with his paramour Princess Coral, but I'm afraid that it did. And not only do they team up to battle octopus men and recover an ancient Roman map to Atlantis together but Nemo basically joins the "Navy Jones" cast going forward! (Science Comics 005, 1940)

FDR:

Minor Appearances:

Science Comics 003, 1940

Genghis Khan:

Obvious allusion to Genghis Khan in Khangiz, the warlike master of Mars in the year 40 000 CE. (Planet Comics 002, 1940)

J Edgar Hoover:

You have a comic book character who works for the FBI and eventually an unnamed J Edgar Hoover is going to show up and congratulate them for doing their job, as happens to FBI agent Buck Brady here. (Prize Comics 005, 1940)

J Edgar Hoover is not only Joe "the Shield" Higgins' boss at the FBI but he was the best friend of Tom Higgins, Joe's father. (Shield-Wizard Comics 001, 1940)

Minor appearances:

Science Comics 003, 1940

Oak Island:

Even though Fu Chang operates out of San Francisco and thus Money Pit Island is located somewhere in the Pacific, its name alone twigs it as at least inspired by the legend of Oak Island, which (I checked) was indeed going strong as of 1940 (Pep Comics 009, 1940)